Jed Babbin: Debating Groucho's War
[Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies.]
So Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, "I went on a safari to Afghanistan, and one night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know." Then Bill Kristol said Steele should be fired for cruelty to elephants and Ann Coulter said no, Kristol should be fired because Steele had shot a liberal elephant in Obama's pajamas.
Well, it didn't go quite that way but it may as well have. The level of debate on the war in Afghanistan -- even among Republicans -- has risen to heights previously reached only by the Marx Brothers.
Republicans can no longer afford a frivolous debate on the war. They have allowed George Bush's nation-building strategy to morph into Obama's without attempting to undertake the most urgent task in war: if what you are doing isn't working, you have to start at the beginning and examine whether you're fighting the war the right way, or even fighting the right war.
Let us admit that what we are doing in Afghanistan -- or anywhere else -- isn't working. Defending Obama's approach to the war simply because it's a continuation of Bush's leaves Republicans -- and all Americans -- in the attitude of Britain's pre-war government. As Churchill described it in 1936, it was "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."
War, as Sun Tzu wrote about 2300 years ago, is of the most vital importance to the State, the province of life and death, the road to survival or ruin. In short, a war is to be defined as a matter of national survival to which the state must devote all its intelligence, will, and resources to winning. This we have not done. So let us begin by evaluating the war in Afghanistan in those terms.
Is the war in Afghanistan a matter of national survival? If so, how must it be fought?
If we withdraw from Afghanistan, what will the consequences be for America?..
Read entire article at American Spectator
So Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, "I went on a safari to Afghanistan, and one night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know." Then Bill Kristol said Steele should be fired for cruelty to elephants and Ann Coulter said no, Kristol should be fired because Steele had shot a liberal elephant in Obama's pajamas.
Well, it didn't go quite that way but it may as well have. The level of debate on the war in Afghanistan -- even among Republicans -- has risen to heights previously reached only by the Marx Brothers.
Republicans can no longer afford a frivolous debate on the war. They have allowed George Bush's nation-building strategy to morph into Obama's without attempting to undertake the most urgent task in war: if what you are doing isn't working, you have to start at the beginning and examine whether you're fighting the war the right way, or even fighting the right war.
Let us admit that what we are doing in Afghanistan -- or anywhere else -- isn't working. Defending Obama's approach to the war simply because it's a continuation of Bush's leaves Republicans -- and all Americans -- in the attitude of Britain's pre-war government. As Churchill described it in 1936, it was "decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."
War, as Sun Tzu wrote about 2300 years ago, is of the most vital importance to the State, the province of life and death, the road to survival or ruin. In short, a war is to be defined as a matter of national survival to which the state must devote all its intelligence, will, and resources to winning. This we have not done. So let us begin by evaluating the war in Afghanistan in those terms.
Is the war in Afghanistan a matter of national survival? If so, how must it be fought?
If we withdraw from Afghanistan, what will the consequences be for America?..