We Need to Stop Pretending That Obama Hasn't Been Consistent on Afghanistan

[A big welcome to our pal Badtux' readers - F.]

The Rude Pundit

Let's not kid ourselves here:

"This is a war that we have to win. I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan...We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region." - Then-candidate Barack Obama in his last big speech about Afghanistan, July 15, 2008.

Several more quotes like that.

How many more quotes do you need on this? 'Cause there's probably a couple of hundred or so more, every single one of them with Barack Obama calling for an escalation in the number of troops in Afghanistan. Hell, it was an easy applause line.

His acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination? "When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11."

Then he'd better invade fucking North Africa 'cuz that's where al Qaeda is these days. What the fuck is there for us in Afghanistan except goats and the men who love them?

So let's be grown-ups here as we get ready for President Obama to make his new, big Afghanistan speech and say that the man didn't lie to us. He told us for the last two years that he was gonna send more troops. In fact, about the only thing he's guilty for during this long period of contemplation and meetings is getting our hopes up that he might be changing his mind. Out here in Left Blogsylvania, we desperately read things like his delay in announcing a strategy and his trip to Dover Air Base as the signs of transformation. Nope. Turns out that he was just figuring out how much to up the number from two brigades.

Americans are also finally getting to the point of accepting that Afghanistan is not the "good war" we had hoped it was. It's just, now that there's at least some movement on Iraq withdrawal, we're paying attention, and, oh, wow, hell, there's actually people dying and we're not really sure why. For so very long, many on the left were willing to use Afghanistan as a way of demonstrating how tough they could be while condemning Iraq.

Guilty, I guess. I supported the war in Afghanistan. Times change.

But this isn't about Obama or even the Afghanistan war. It's about us. As we see Obama capitulate, hedge, or hesitate on all the liberal things he promised, it's just goddamned depressing to see him so readily follow through on the hawkish promises. And it also forces us to realize that all that protesting of the Iraq war was far, far too narrow in scope.

That's what we get for letting profit-driven warmongers hijack our country and now we have to live with it.

Tonight: Live whiskey-blogging the speech.

For some reason, Rude-o's 'live whiskey-bloggings' get a little looser as they go on...