by Mark Silva
What would the Republicans do?
One viewed as a potential prospect for his party's presidential nomination has gone to Afghanistan a couple of times. Another is headed there soon. A number of Republicans whom the party is eyeing - governors, or former governors all, in this group this morning - say they support a good general's call for additional troops there.
They all say President Barack Obama should heed the general's advice, with a certain Alaskan ("surge, baby, surge") voicing worry about Obama getting "cold feet.''
Public sentiment about all this is: 48 percent say they favor Obama deciding to send more troops to Afghanistan, the Gallup Poll reports today, and 45 percent oppose him doing that. The White House already has signaled this week that it may not be an either-or question of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan or deploying more - it could be harnessing the forces already there - 65,000 troops - to purse a new, more effective strategy.
"I'm no expert,'' Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, son of a former president and younger brother of another, said today of the war in Afghanistan. But it appears to him that Obama should heed the advice of the commanding general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, seeking a significant boost in U.S. military forces there.
Bush said so on CNN, which aired some time with a Republican making his way through Washington today for a two-day conference on education reform. The two-term governor made education reform the centerpiece of his administration and since retiring from a term-limited office in January 2007 has returned to private business - and lately has returned to a national circuit cultivating new ideas for the party out of power. He has met with Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, and today he will kick off a "National Education Reform Summit.''
Bush, seven years younger than the recently retired president - he's 56 now -- is only one of the brand-name fixtures of his party circulating along the sidelines of a national debate on the wars, health care, the economy, education and much more - and only one of the names which most readily come to mind as the GOP looks with a recruiting eye toward the future in Washington, be it 2012 or 2016.
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and running mate for Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the presidential race last year, has taken a decidedly remote seat on the sidelines - offering her views from the perch of a personal Facebook account which has attracted more than 900,000 followers and venturing out recently with a speech to investors in Hong Kong. On Nov. 17, her memoirs - Going Rogue, an American Story - will come out in 1.5 million copies.
This is what Palin has to say about Afghanistan:
"We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself. And we must do what it takes to prevail,'' Palin wrote this week in her Facebook notes. "The stakes are very high...
"Our allies and our adversaries are watching to see if we have the staying power to protect our interests in Afghanistan. I recently joined a group of Americans in urging President Obama to devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan and pledged to support him if he made the right decision. Now is not the time for cold feet, second thoughts, or indecision -- it is the time to act as commander-in-chief and approve the troops so clearly needed in Afghanistan.''
Tim Pawlenty, the soon-retiring Republican governor of Minnesota who has opened a Political Action Committee to support his travels and speaking as he considers a possible campaign for the party's presidential nomination in 2012, is reaching out from St. Paul: He will be the featured guest of his party's "Leadership for Iowa'' event on Nov. 7 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. (Can you say, straw poll?)
He has had this to say about Afghanistan:
"I just returned from my second trip to Afghanistan a couple months ago,'' Pawlenty said last week, toward the end of an interview on the radio show hosted by Fred Thompson, the former Republican senator from Tennessee who made a brief run for the party's presidential nomination last year. "I believe that the commanders on the ground are saying that we have to have more troops. I think, in order to protect the troops that are there and to complete the mission, we should honor that request and implement that request. I don't know if President Obama is going to do that... I think he should.''
So is he running for president?
"I'm finishing my term,'' Pawlenty told Thompson, who noted that the party is looking for leadership. "As to what I do down the road, I don't know Fred, I haven't decided one way or the other.''
Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who waged a big, partly self-financed campaign for the GOP's nomination in 2008 and is clearly positioning himself for another go, said in a recent interview with a newspaper columnist that he is "a little surprised that, having made Afghanistan the center of his anti-terrorist strategy, (Obama) says he doesn't have a strategy at this stage for what to do in Afghanistan.''
"As Romney sees it, Obama has a choice,'' the Washington Examiner's Byron York recently reported. "He can go along with Gen. Stanley McChrystal's expected request for more troops, or he can betray his own campaign promise of a firm U.S. stand in Afghanistan.
"I think his only choice, and the correct choice, is the former," Romney says. "I'm going to Afghanistan and Iraq in a couple of months. I'll get an assessment of what's happening there and what the prospects are. But I certainly would support our troops with the additional troops which are being called for by Gen. McChrystal, and provide the equipment and the manpower and the budgetary support which our troops deserve."
Comments
It's 3 am and the phone is ringing, ringing, ringing...... and crazy Joe is just one mis-step away from being in charge.
Let's just hope our president doesn't come up "lame" on the court. Drop the basketball Mr. President and pick up that dam phone.
Posted by: springfield | October 8, 2009 10:52 AM
Here we go again, with these arm-chaired, multi-deferred warriors. You want war, get over there and fight it !! It is as simple as that !! President Obama is our Commander-in-Chief, and Senator McCain came in second, in that contest, so let's let our President, President Obama, decide, without the war-, or fear-mongering from the Neocons of the Republican-Libertarian Party !! It's al Quada that we want to capture, not the Afghan people, or nation !! Let us not do unto Afghanistan, what we perpetrated against, the brutalized people of Iraq !! Say no, to the Military-Industrial Complex, as President Eisenhower warned us !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | October 8, 2009 10:57 AM
We know what the Republicans would do about Afghanistan: Nothing. Status Quo. Ignore it. Starve it of resources. There's no mystery in this. That's exactly what the Republicans did while the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated for 5 years. They don't care what happens there. They don't care about the troops there. They don't care about victory there. They proved that conclusively by their mismangement of the war from 2003 until 2008. They didn't care then, and they don't care now. This is nothing but partisan politics for them.
Posted by: 2003-2008 | October 8, 2009 10:59 AM
DRAFT. REPUBLICANS!!!!
Posted by: Show Democrats your bravery | October 8, 2009 11:45 AM
None of these "critics" tell us how we are going to pay for this? Strange.
Posted by: janet | October 8, 2009 11:46 AM
2003-2008, sorry to inform you but last year President Bush began sending in MORE troops to Afghanistan. And the Republicans did not ignore the Afghanistan war for five years. Nice try rewriting history though.
Dumb Dumb Janet, please tell us how we're going to pay for it if we allow the Taliban and Al Qaeda to re-take Afghanistan. How do we pay for another massive terrorist attack (9/11 cost us the U.S. economy ONE TRILLION DOLLARS). Also, Dumb Dumb Janet, what happens to the Afghanis who have helped us if we leave? What happens to the women and children who were brutalized by the Taliban?
And One-Note Don Fitzgerald, since before the election, Obama was telling everyone he was committed to Afghanistan, that is was the war of necessity, that we must win there, that we cannot give up there. Hmmm, what happened?
What would Republicans do? Listen to the generals. Listen to the generals who when in charge of Iraq won that war for us.
Posted by: John D | October 8, 2009 2:08 PM
This is a remarkably fair and non-partisan article about the differing views on Afghanistan. I note that Swamp is moving away from its extreme leftist points of view to now becoming -- as it should -- middle of the road. If the Sun Times had learned that lesson years ago, it would not be in bankruptcy.
Posted by: Erickson | October 8, 2009 2:41 PM
Here we go again, with these arm-chaired, multi-deferred warriors. You want war, get over there and fight it !! It is as simple as that !! President Obama is our Commander-in-Chief, and Senator McCain came in second, in that contest, so let's let our President, President Obama, decide, without the war-, or fear-mongering from the Neocons of the Republican-Libertarian Party !! It's al Quada that we want to capture, not the Afghan people, or nation !! Let us not do unto Afghanistan, what we perpetrated against, the brutalized people of Iraq !! Say no, to the Military-Industrial Complex, as President Eisenhower warned us !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, IL | October 8, 2009 10:57 AM
Hey Don, you voted for this guy so what's your problem? Warmonger! Don't confuse patriotism with ignorance, love of country with mindless hope & change rhetoric, repeated stupidity with actual accomplishments.
What's the death count in Obama's wars today Don? when will you figure out he just isn't listening to you, he got your vote and probably your cash to fool the voters into electing him. You've been had fella, you better get to understanding that fact!
BRING TRANSPARENCY TO THE WHITE HOUSE AND CONGRESS NOW! TRUTHFUL AND WHOLE!
I'm sure they aren't listening to me either Don.
Posted by: springfield | October 8, 2009 4:17 PM
We know what the Republicans would do about Afghanistan: Nothing. Status Quo. Ignore it. Starve it of resources. There's no mystery in this. That's exactly what the Republicans did while the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated for 5 years. They don't care what happens there. They don't care about the troops there. They don't care about victory there. They proved that conclusively by their mismangement of the war from 2003 until 2008. They didn't care then, and they don't care now. This is nothing but partisan politics for them.
Posted by: 2003-2008 | October 8, 2009 10:59 AM
Please show me the change? Partisan politics is running the White House at this minute there sonny jim. If it weren't for daily polls taken to give the president an inkling of what he might or might not do to retain his position, the mess would look exactly the same and does look exactly the same as it did from 2003-2008.
But then, the Democrats were in charge of Congress for a few of those years, uh huh they were. What did they do again? send more troops? budget more money? end the darn stupid thing? naw! they sat on their little hands and cried, still crying today.
Posted by: springfield | October 8, 2009 4:23 PM
Also, Dumb Dumb Janet, what happens to the Afghanis who have helped us if we leave? What happens to the women and children who were brutalized by the Taliban?
Posted by: John D | October 8, 2009 2:08 PM
;
This will blow your mind Little Johnny D. I don't give 2 rat turds what happens. We should not be using our military unless there is a direct threat to our national security. Women in other countries can be whipped and burned and stoned to the Taliban's content. If its not a direct threat to me, I don't want our military intervening.
Posted by: janet | October 8, 2009 5:02 PM
springfield-
Congress doesn't have the ability to order troops to Afghanistan. The President alone has that power. Congress can declare war, and fund wars, but the President is Commander in Chief. The Congress approved every dime that Bush requested for Afghanistan. The President , however , is the one who determines troop levels. Didn't you know that?
Bush did not order adequate numbers of troops to Afghanistan. After 2003 it was not his priority. It was not a Republican priority. During the campaign McCain argued against making Afghanistan a priority. He attacked Obama for suggesting that we increase our efforts there, and go after Al Qaeda harder.
As I said, The Republicans didn't care about Afghanistan before, and they don't now. Victory there is simply not important to them in any way.
Posted by: 2003-2008 | October 8, 2009 5:08 PM
Listen to the generals who when in charge of Iraq won that war for us.
Posted by: John D | October 8, 2009 2:08 PM
Oh really? Whos re-writing history now Johnny. So we won th ewar in Iraq?? Tell me, when exactly did that happen? I'm waiting.
Posted by: Scot S. Blakeley | October 8, 2009 6:23 PM
What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander then ???
I am painfully aware of whose duties are whose and which bumble head(s) can call the dumb shots on war, money, troops and the like.
I just thought it funny to seee the likes of yourself clamoring about Afghanistan and using the same tirades against Bush as defenses for Obama. That is the Hypocritical lesson for today and tomorrow and the day after that.
According to campaign speeches and promises made though, the priority is changing or do you not recognize that fact? No amount of spin can take that away. Don can attest to that!
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springfield-
Congress doesn't have the ability to order troops to Afghanistan. The President alone has that power. Congress can declare war, and fund wars, but the President is Commander in Chief. The Congress approved every dime that Bush requested for Afghanistan. The President , however , is the one who determines troop levels. Didn't you know that?
Bush did not order adequate numbers of troops to Afghanistan. After 2003 it was not his priority. It was not a Republican priority. During the campaign McCain argued against making Afghanistan a priority. He attacked Obama for suggesting that we increase our efforts there, and go after Al Qaeda harder.
As I said, The Republicans didn't care about Afghanistan before, and they don't now. Victory there is simply not important to them in any way.
Posted by: 2003-2008 | October 8, 2009 5:08 PM
Posted by: springfield | October 9, 2009 11:02 AM
Don from IL, last time I checked we haven't reinstituted the draft. If you want to support the troops, then support their mission. Don't bring them home as failures. If we were wanting to fight the Afghan people we could just bomb the country with no regard to where we dropped the bombs. We ARE going after al Quada! Obama needs to listen to his commanders that are actually in the middle of everything! But of course, he wants the United States to fail as a nation, so we'll see what happens.
Huckabee 2012!!
Posted by: Lucas | October 10, 2009 10:07 AM