December already.
It's a rainy day down here in Kentucky and somewhere in the cupboards a small devise is giving off a high pitched sound meant to drive the mice back into the cold and dreary woods from which they came. Any that did not earlier eat the poison bait, that is.
Keith has gone off to help paint a friend's house and consequently, our house is so silent I can hear the ticking of the clock. Outside, the rain has streaked the boards of the deck and brought out all the marvelous colors of honey, rust and sage green, all glossed over.
A few days ago I turned thirty two. Thirty two feels stabilized; caught completely in solid adulthood. I feel some sadness about that. Am I really this old? Now that I am this old, what should I be doing?
But these questions don't hold much weight, because I suspect I am doing exactly as I should and I don't feel that old. I am keeping house and writing. I am disgustingly domesticated, and missing only a child. Maybe Santa will bring me one...
Speaking of Santa, I should go down and root around in the basement for the Christmas decorations. Also, I should get dressed and go walk the dogs.
First, a few thoughts.
On Climategate: Ha! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. When I first wrote about the possibility of their being no global warming, I felt like a crazy person. Now I feel like a sane person freed from the crumbing edicts of a crazy person's environmental religion.
How about let's start over now, and do it with logic and cross checking and raw data and without political agendas and then see what we find?
On the Surge: If the point is to build trust, build up the Afghan forces and be able to leave so they can do the job, well, the three month lag in order to decide this brilliant strategy I'm sure is going to be incredibly helpful to that end, and more importantly, how is it going to be possible to do it in eighteen months? There was infrastructure and better ruins in Iraq upon which to build up a better government/army and that took years.
Now we think we're going to do it in eighteen months in a country far more devastated and corrupt and three months after we should have started, during which the Taliban have gained momentum?
I don't think so. I think thousands of young American fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, daughters, mothers are going to die under supported, in the pursuit of an impossible goal. How about let's just skip the battlefield entirely and just slaughter them on the alter of political posturing?
I suggest let's give Obama some tin soldiers that he can move around while looking solemn. He can make pretty speeches off the teleprompter about sacrifice while the knocked over toys return home to the darkness of the toy box. It will be a great photo op for him.
What should he have done, perhaps one asks. He should have done what his own general asked him for, at the time he asked for it. Obama is a community organizer; he doesn't know how to run an army. He should defer to those that know what the hell they are doing.
And if he wasn't going to do that, then he should have pulled those men out. He should have stood up, said we cannot win this war, thanked the men and women for their service to their country and then taken them home.
But no, he chooses some weak ass middle of the road crap. Angry much, Jenny? you might ask. Hell yeah, I am. That could be my husband trudging along out there, in the dust and the heat, taking shots and unable to shot back for fear of hitting a civilian, under manned and knowing that he cannot achieve his goal and therefor it is pointless for him to be there. Oh, and watching his buddies being taken out by roadside bombs, ambushes and sniper fire.
This guy says it better than I could:
"Our president is setting up our military to fail -- but he'll be able to claim that he gave the generals what they wanted. Failure will be their fault.
He's covering his strong-on-security flank, even as he plays to our white-flag wavers. His cynicism's worthy of a Saddam.
Obama's right about one thing, though: The Afghans "will ultimately be responsible for their own country." So why undercut them with an arbitrary timeline that doesn't begin to allow adequate time to expand and train sufficient Afghan forces? Does he really believe that young Afghans are going to line up to join the army and police knowing that we plan to abandon them in mid-2011?
Does the 2012 election ring a bell?
What messages did our president's bait-and-switch speech just send?
To our troops: Risk your lives for a mission I've written off.
To our allies: Race you to the exit ramp.
To the Taliban: Allah is merciful, your prayers will soon be answered.
To Afghan leaders: Get your stolen wealth out of the country.
To Pakistan: Renew your Taliban friendships now (and be nice to al Qaeda).
This isn't just stupid: It's immoral. No American president has ever espoused such a worthless, self-absorbed non-strategy for his own political gratification.
On the other hand, the stage lighting and the camera angles at West Point were terrific. Our president looked good. Jaw jutting high (in his "hope" pose), he decried political partisanship -- but spent more time blaming Bush and Iraq for our Afghan problems than he spent blaming the Taliban (check it with a stop-watch)."
-Ralph Peters, Setting up our Military to Fail
And on that note I'm going to go walk the dogs.
