The Loyal Opposition
October 29th 2009 21:06
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has apparently given up hunting because friends are too easy to hit, instead has been pointing his sights at President Obama, accusing him of “dithering” in his decision to give General McChrystal the 40,000 additional troops he thinks he needs to fight a guerilla war against the Taliban guerillas.
Chaney, who usurped the presidency from George Bush during the September 11, 2001 crisis while Bush was cruising the friendly skies aboard Air Force One, and who was ousted from the presidency by a Bush coup in late 2007, apparently felt the need to give Mr. Obama a little friendly advice: “Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.” Naturally, the White House accepted the advice graciously.
When told that Mr. Cheney said, “Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” and “The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger,” Vice President Joe Biden, who is thrilled to be residing in Number One Observatory Circle, said, “Who cares?,” indicating that they welcome the criticism and advice from Mr. Cheney.
It must be very upsetting for Mr. Cheney go from being the temporary POTUS to being less popular than Sarah Palin. Who knows more about our current foreign policy than Mr. Cheney (Sarah thinks she does; she can see Russia from Wasilla, can’t she?)? Wasn’t he in on the Iraq war from the very beginning (he started it)? So, you would think that nobody would know more about how to end it (considering all of the mistakes the Cheney/Bush team made in starting it in the first place and then conducting it). Wasn’t he in on the Afghan war from the beginning (there wouldn’t have been an Afghan war if Bush, advised by Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rice, had allowed the Taliban to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third party)? Who would know more about strategy on how to end it than Dick Cheney? Look at all of the thought that went into the decision making and planning before we invaded Iraq and hired the warlords to topple the Taliban; that worked out well, didn’t it?
The more that the Dick Cheney’s of the world criticize the decision making process of the President, the more he can be certain that he is following the right course of action. The loyal opposition on the radical left wants the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan immediately; they say that we are interfering in a civil war, which is how we usually run our foreign policy. The loyal opposition on the reactionary right wants the U.S. to give McChrystal everything he wants and more; isn’t he the commander over there, and doesn’t he know what he needs to win (we’ve had many commanders over there with many strategies designed to win, and the Taliban are gaining in strength every day). Departing State Department officials declare that the war can’t be won, that we aren’t even fighting an organized Taliban fighting force but hundreds of local village fighting forces who hate the fact that their individual valleys have foreign troops in them. When and if we leave, they will turn their attention to fighting the residents of the next valley should they attempt to take a shortcut through their valley to get to the local market.
Instead of criticizing, Mr. Cheney should be advising Mr. Obama to shore up Pakistan and help them push the Taliban and their Pashtun supporters back into Afghanistan. Let Karzai negotiate with the moderate Taliban as he says he’d like to, if he knows where to find them (his brother might, but then he would have to quit his job as a CIA stooge, drug dealer, and pay master to the Taliban). Karzai and the Taliban can decide the fate of Afghanistan in an Afghani manner, which means that the Taliban will overrun the rest of the country that they don’t already control and cut off Karzai’s head.
It’s got to be quite disturbing to Cheney that Bush has been silent, letting Cheney do all of the talking, after Bush kicked him out of the Oval Office. Bush, by his silence, is appearing to be statesman like, while Cheney is coming off as shrill. Keep at it Dick; this country needs a loyal opposition to make sure the President carefully considers all options before he makes his decisions. We wouldn’t want him making the same mistakes you did, would we?
Chaney, who usurped the presidency from George Bush during the September 11, 2001 crisis while Bush was cruising the friendly skies aboard Air Force One, and who was ousted from the presidency by a Bush coup in late 2007, apparently felt the need to give Mr. Obama a little friendly advice: “Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.” Naturally, the White House accepted the advice graciously.
When told that Mr. Cheney said, “Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission,” and “The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger,” Vice President Joe Biden, who is thrilled to be residing in Number One Observatory Circle, said, “Who cares?,” indicating that they welcome the criticism and advice from Mr. Cheney.
It must be very upsetting for Mr. Cheney go from being the temporary POTUS to being less popular than Sarah Palin. Who knows more about our current foreign policy than Mr. Cheney (Sarah thinks she does; she can see Russia from Wasilla, can’t she?)? Wasn’t he in on the Iraq war from the very beginning (he started it)? So, you would think that nobody would know more about how to end it (considering all of the mistakes the Cheney/Bush team made in starting it in the first place and then conducting it). Wasn’t he in on the Afghan war from the beginning (there wouldn’t have been an Afghan war if Bush, advised by Cheney/Wolfowitz/Rice, had allowed the Taliban to turn Osama bin Laden over to a third party)? Who would know more about strategy on how to end it than Dick Cheney? Look at all of the thought that went into the decision making and planning before we invaded Iraq and hired the warlords to topple the Taliban; that worked out well, didn’t it?
The more that the Dick Cheney’s of the world criticize the decision making process of the President, the more he can be certain that he is following the right course of action. The loyal opposition on the radical left wants the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan immediately; they say that we are interfering in a civil war, which is how we usually run our foreign policy. The loyal opposition on the reactionary right wants the U.S. to give McChrystal everything he wants and more; isn’t he the commander over there, and doesn’t he know what he needs to win (we’ve had many commanders over there with many strategies designed to win, and the Taliban are gaining in strength every day). Departing State Department officials declare that the war can’t be won, that we aren’t even fighting an organized Taliban fighting force but hundreds of local village fighting forces who hate the fact that their individual valleys have foreign troops in them. When and if we leave, they will turn their attention to fighting the residents of the next valley should they attempt to take a shortcut through their valley to get to the local market.
Instead of criticizing, Mr. Cheney should be advising Mr. Obama to shore up Pakistan and help them push the Taliban and their Pashtun supporters back into Afghanistan. Let Karzai negotiate with the moderate Taliban as he says he’d like to, if he knows where to find them (his brother might, but then he would have to quit his job as a CIA stooge, drug dealer, and pay master to the Taliban). Karzai and the Taliban can decide the fate of Afghanistan in an Afghani manner, which means that the Taliban will overrun the rest of the country that they don’t already control and cut off Karzai’s head.
It’s got to be quite disturbing to Cheney that Bush has been silent, letting Cheney do all of the talking, after Bush kicked him out of the Oval Office. Bush, by his silence, is appearing to be statesman like, while Cheney is coming off as shrill. Keep at it Dick; this country needs a loyal opposition to make sure the President carefully considers all options before he makes his decisions. We wouldn’t want him making the same mistakes you did, would we?
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