Out of Afghanistan

Obama Lies to Navy Grads
May 22, 4:17 PM · Add a Comment
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"psst ...just kidding!"

Obama gave the commencement address to this year’s graduates at the Naval Academy today, and blatantly lied through his teeth:

"I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy, the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support that you need to get the job done," the president told more than 1,000 graduates during a sun-splashed ceremony at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

…Starting when? Next year? His second term? Because he certainly is sending them into harm’s way right now, without strategy or well-defined goals. This statement would make sense were he not the commander-in-chief of the military, currently overseeing (and primarily responsible for the execution of) multiple unjustified and unnecessary wars as we speak. The campaign is over, the honeymoon is over, and you are the commander of the military right now. It’s time to put up or shut up, Mr. President.

Iraq may very well be Bush’s re-enactment of Vietnam. Afghanistan is poised to be Obama’s re-enactment of Iraq. Here’s Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, via Bloomberg, on the Afghanistan situation:

U.S. goals in Afghanistan must be “modest, realistic,” and “above all, there must be an Afghan face on this war,” Gates said. “The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them. If they think we are there for our own purposes, then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan.”

Hubris, anyone? We’ve just got to convince the Afghanis that we’re here for them, not for our own interests. Well that might be a little hard to do, considering our recent behavior around the globe. You don’t watch a bull wreak destruction on your neighbor’s china shop, and then invite him in to repair your finery. And then there is that other telling phrase ‘we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan.’ That's right - our strategy has never, ever, in history, ever worked before. And Gates knows this:

Gates recalled that the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan in the 1980s even with 120,000 troops and a “ruthless” method of operating there. “It’s not for nothing that Afghanistan’s known as the ‘graveyard of empires,’” he said.

So we’ll be the exception – or perhaps we’re just hoping for change when we know there won’t be any.

The part that really tickles is this: If we are ‘there to help them’ and not there for our own purposes, then this must be an act of pure altruism, utter selflessness on our part to help those poor Afghanis. If that is the case, then how on earth can it qualify as ‘absolutely necessary’ for American security to get our sons and daughters killed killing Afghanis over there?

The only answer is out.