Excellent diary. And I’m glad to see these views on the front page.

I read Newt’s comments about Afghanistan this morning and thought the same — let’s not go down the same road with Syria. There is no good side in Syria to fight on. So let them fight it out themselves. And then there is the question of vital U.S. interest, of which I can identify none.

I am happy backing Newt with his wise words today.

Especially if he does as you suggest and adds that we should stay out of the other ME countries as well.

5X5!!!

treasure we have already lost in the miserable hell hole that is Afghanistan, and the fact that since we cannot destroy the terrorists on their turf, it would appear that we are going to have to do it on our own.
We should have learned the lessons of the 80′s when the Russians went home in defeat. These people LIKE who they are and what they are. The ones who do not, leave for a better life elsewhere. We need to stop worrying so much about how politically correct we appear to the rest of the world by apologizing for real and imagined sins the lunatic Islamists blame us for. The only thing people like this understand and respect is blunt force. They are not a religion of peace. They are a violent and disturbed group and they need to be left to duke it out among themselves. And yes this includes ALL of the crazies in the other Muslim countries as well.
Of course, the first thing we have to do is get rid of the sham that sits in the Oval Office and then stop giving money to these fools.

Coming from an OIF and OEF vet, I very much agree.

We, the American people, are sorry…

We’re sorry we spent our money (and risked the lives of some special ops troops, I assume) to enable you to kick out the savage Soviet army that was committing mass murder on your people.

We’re sorry we spent our money and our brave troops risked — and in many cases gave their lives or limbs — to liberate you from the brutal, backward, tyrannical Taliban.

We’re sorry we did our best to give your girls and women a chance to live lives as human beings rather than as abused slaves.

We’re sorry that our troops, as they have sought to prevent the Taliban tyranny and al Qaeda plague from returning, have also sought to avoid harming your civilians even though that put our troops at greater risk — no doubt costing lives of our troops in some cases.

And most of all, we’re sorry that, for all the above atrocious transgressions, we have not bound the hands and feet of our troops and laid their heads upon chopping blocks for you to administer justice in all your great wisdom and morality.

Please accept our apologies, and we hope the door hits you on our way out.

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Syria is vitally important. It is a major threat to Israel, if not the threat. It is the reason Lebanon has been, well, Lebanon. It is an arm of Iran. It borders turkey and Iraq. The list goes on and on.

We cannot simply leave Syria to become whatever Russia, China and Iran want it to become. Libya was just oil. Syria is the middle east.

I expect better here. Ron Paul-esq “leave them to sort it out, if we get involved it’ll just be our fault” stuff is ignorant and dangerous imho

We do not even know who they are. Look at Egypt and Libya, that’s what happens when support is given to an unknown opposition. I do not think wanting to stay out of it is “Ron Paul esq”. There is no point in arming people who may use the same guns we gave them against us.

and national security and the WOT in general has taken a back seat during the Presidential campaign, with the exception of policy toward Iran (where the candidates on the Republican side were all more or less on the same page, with the RPaul exception) and perhaps trade policy vis a vis China.

Republican candidates like Romney or Santorum or Bachmann when she was a candidate ran along traditional lines: They were hardliners who would smite our enemies, Obama was an appeaser, a weak, Carteresque loser, etc.

They were, in short, running on the supposed republican advantage in foreign policy/national security. That advantage has actually disappeared over the past decade, but you would never guess that from the bellicose chest-thumping of most of the Republican candidates.

Let’s review actual history: Bush invaded afghanistan after 9/11 once the culpability of BinLaden and his support from the Taliban was established. In terms of world opinion, there is no real argument that the overthrow of the Taliban was justified. Subsequently BiLaden escaped (to be sheltered by our “friends” in Pakistan as we found out).

Importantly — and correctly — Bush declined to establish a large force in Afghanistan or engage in nation-building. He did not introduce a large ground force to occupy Afghanistan. Rather, he turned to Iraq — our one sure enemy in the region and a place where, post 9/11, the presence of a hostile regime could not be tolerated .

Up to this point there was more or less unanimity. The successful overthrow of Saddm Hussein and the occupation that followed, however, were not unanimously suppoted.

Democraps began developing their own narrative: Bush had abandoned afghanistan to invade Iraq. Afghanistan was the correct was, Iraq was the wrong war. This meme, augmented by their media flacks, brought them success in 2006, and as a result, all their candidates from President echoed it in 2008. Iraq = wrong. Afghanistan = right. No one more vociferous on this than Barack Obama, the eventual winner.

Obama had run on taking troops out of Iraq an putting troops in Afghanistan. As a consequence, he agreed to build up our forces there — something Bush and our General there, McKiernan, had resisted. Quite correctly, in my opinion.

The whole focus on Aghanistan, which Obama pursued in his first term, was in my view a terrible mistake. The focus on Iraq was correct. Bush was right, Obama was wrong. Nation building in Iraq gave us limited, but valuable success in terms of stability (what would have happened to Iraq had Saddam still been in power when the Arab spring occurred?) and we have been able to withdraw according to our own timeline.

In afghanistan — which we were told was the right, the good war — we see that our presence has not created even the limited kind of stability we see in Iraq. Rather, there is a level of treachery and savagery in our supposed allies that is unfathomable. The aftermath of the Koran burnings has shown what we are dealing with here. These people are unredeemable. Nor are they, in any realistic sense, important or worth our investment in time, treasure or blood.

It’s time for Republicans to call for an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan. Newt is right, as is Rush Limbaugh, who also called for an end to our involvement. It should be part of our party’s appeal to voters this fall that we will end our involvement in Afghanistan on day one. This will require candidates like Romney and Santorum to stop the chest-pounding and focus on our interest.