Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Senator Graham's Verbal Incontinence

I don’t get to watch US television (probably keeps me from going over the top, actually) but the news wires carried the story that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., repeated on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday his hope that the United States can maintain at least two permanent air bases in Afghanistan.


This man – like so many of his Republican friends – enjoys war so long as someone else does the dying. The suggestion that the US should keep permanent military bases in a foreign country that no longer wants any foreigners present is about a dumb as it gets. The Pashtuns will keep attacking American bases. Karzai will continue to be mayor of Kabul, and then only barely, as he thumbs his nose at US demands to end corruption. The US will still have no coherent policy in Afghanistan because it forgot why it went there in the first place.

Graham and his perpetual war minions were wrong about Iraq. They are now wrong about Afghanistan and apparently don’t care about recent polls in the US which show massive opposition to continuing the war.

Maintaining a presence in Afghanistan until the military has achieved “victory” is simply stupid. The original objective was to assure that Islamic terrorists could no longer use the region called Afghanistan (it is not a country by any definition) as a base for training or launching attacks. Keeping boots on the ground that will be a continuous target will accomplish nothing.

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