Seriously, who would have thought that the NY Times Editorial Board would come out and slam Mr. Trump?
Mr. Trump on Afghanistan: More of the Same; No End in Sight
If there is a compelling case to be made for deepening the United States military involvement in Afghanistan, where the 16-year-old war has already lasted longer than any other in American history, President Trump did not make it in his speech Monday night.
Killing Islamic terrorists seems a pretty good reason.
Rather than the comprehensive strategy that is called for, his plan amounted to a jumble of ideas that lacked detail and coherence and were often contradictory. Having spent years criticizing America’s involvement in Afghanistan, he now appears inclined toward an open-ended commitment, but with no real ways to measure success and no hint of a timetable for withdrawal.
These are ideas that came from the military leadership, who want to simply kill jihadis.
New troops will be required, he suggested, but he did not say how many (there are 8,400 there now). Nor did he explain, much less guarantee, how a few thousand more troops could succeed when the more than 100,000 troops deployed during the Obama administration did not.
Wait, time out. Is the NYTEB saying that Obama’s plans were utter failures? The Times was thrilled by Obama’s surges. Remember this?
President Obama: "By the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over."
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 13, 2013
How’d that work out? Well, there was the Times article about Obama reversing himself. And then keeping more troops there than planned. But, regardless of how well or not well Obama’s strategy worked over 8 years of being president, Trump’s there now, so everything will be blamed on Trump. Blaming predecessors only applies when the chief executive is a Democrat.
With this speech, Mr. Trump has taken ownership of the war, which until now he has essentially fobbed off on the Pentagon….
Trump was left with a mess, started, yes, under President Bush, then through President Obama (which is not fully fair to assign blame, because the nation is a mess and will probably always be a mess, as long as there are any Muslim extremists, and there are Muslim extremists in Pakistan), but, hey, he now owns it or something.
…Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, told two months ago by Mr. Trump that he could deploy another roughly 4,000 troops to Afghanistan, sensibly declined to do that, at least until the president announced his strategy. Now Mr. Trump has set forth a plan, although it’s hard to dignify as strategy an address in which he said, “We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities.†He seems not to understand that presidents owe it to voters to be transparent.
And the Times seems not to understand that you don’t give intelligence to the enemy. They weren’t particularly bothered by Obama not announcing the troops blowing stuff up in Libya, nor in the hellholes of Africa and the Middle East taking out Islamic jihadis (give Obama props for allowing units to do this).
Obviously, the NYTEB keeps whining and whining, because they’re too invested in TDS to give Trump props for anything. If he came out today and announced that he was going to reinstated DACA and expand it, or that he’d bring in 500,000 refugees, or push a plan for amnesty for all illegals, the left, including the NYTEB, would find ways to complain. That’s TDS.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
A sedated trump read a telepromptered speech, and by all accounts did an adequate job. He proposed an extension of President Obama’s low level of activity in Afghanistan, as his military handlers obviously recognize there are no good options.
trump says his goal is to kill terrorists. Yeah, right.