Steele Says We Shouldn't Be In Afghanistan; Calls It Obama's War Of Choice

Methinks every Republican in the country save the Paulites are saying "WHAT THE FUCK?!" Their own party's national chairman is explicitly opposing a war whose overwhelming base of support is his party, and moreover he claims Obama STARTED it.

Michael Steele really truly is a very stupid man. As in, far more stupid than the average voter. And the Rethugs were sooooooo desperate to get a black face up front and center that they made HIM their national committee leader!

Sooner or later conservatives are going to get tired of having the most intellectually deficient collection of party leaders in... the world? The english speaking world for sure right?

I mean, this is just dumb. Its embarrassing.

I believe it is officially the time to start tagging the GOP of being Anti-American and disrespectful of our young men and women by putting them in greater grave danger. Why does the GOP want to wave the white flag of surrender in giving the victory to the supporters of the terrorists who attacked us from Afghanistan.

If only a democrat could be as shameless and intellectually dishonest in their hyperbole as republicans are so comfortable with.

U.S. didn't want it . . . The Bush Administration lied us into it . . .

I'm from Maryland. Steele is not representative of the intelligence of my fellow Marylanders. Please do not hold his complete fucking idiocy against us. That is all.

Again, we have a Republican who seems to know the answers, but is not saying what to do. This is like McCain's "I know how to win wars" line during the election. He never really said how he would be awesome and win those wars. Genuis.

Somewhere a village is missing its idiot.

I see....and when Clinton/Obama was filling their collective anus with predator drones and cruise missiles, republicans rally around them......right?

I wonder if John McCain, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell -- hell any of the real leaders of the Republican party: Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and "The Dicks" (Cheney and Armey) -- would agree that President George W. Bush did NOT "actively prosecute" or even want the war in Afghanistan.

D'ya think we can get the DC press corps to ask them?

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Baby Trig (remember him?)will grow up to be this party's most intelligent leader!

This reminds me of The Princess Bride:

Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes

Having previously established that a truly stupid man can become President of the United States, the GOP has now proven that a truly stupid man can be Chairman of the Republican National Committee. They should run Steele for president. He's certainly qualified.

President Bush understood that Afghanistan is a few "cities" (a charitable description if ever there was one) and mostly desolate, ungovernable no-man's lands. For that reason his objectives after 9/11 were limited to removing the taliban from power, closing the al qaeda training camps and capturing or killing as many al qaeda as he could (which, bin laden and zawahiri aside, we largely did). Mr. Bush was able to quickly accomplish this with a relatively small contingent of US forces and a low casualty rate. And that is the way things stayed right through to the end of his second term.

By contrast, President Obama is committed to "winning" an unwinnable war. And, incredibly, he is trying to gain Afghani support while telling them that US troops will be pulling out next year.

A little common sense goes a long way here. Suppose you are an Afghani citizen: you can cast your lot with the USA's position, knowing that your protectors will be gone next year, or with the taliban, who will still be there and who "know where you live". Even if you despise the taliban from the bottom of your heart, what possible logic would put you on our side?

So my congratulations to former President Bush for seeing what was necessary in Afghanistan and successfully doing what had to be done. Who else ever had any success there?

And my congratulations to current President Obama for disengaging us from the successful Bush policy and going back to the USSR-inspired model which failed so completely. If you wanted our prospects to change, sir, then those congratulations are certainly in order. Because change they did.

"Mission Accomplished".

Well if the RNC is against it, I might actually see us out of Afghanistan on time.

Don't you guys know ANYTHING?
9-11 happened on Obama's watch. Because he's a Muslin Marxist.

Steele is correct to the extent that President Obama has now embraced the war-without-end, probably on the advice of his counselors who are beholden to the military/industrial cabal in DC. But, he is giving vent to an outright lie and jaw-dropping fiction when he implies that Obama started the conflict. The invasion of Afghanistan was an hysterical response to the 9/11 attacks by the gibbering, unprepared Bush administration that simply did not know what else to do but launch an ill-planned attack against the al Qaeda training camps, got entangled with the far less-than-sympathetic locals, and never quite figured out how to pack up and get out while they were distracted by their other war of choice in Iraq. The whole thing is a horror show. The sad thing is that the President has now claimed it for his own with the escalation.

Steele then went on to attack Obama for failing to pass the Public Option

Frankly, it dosn't matter if Steele, Palin, Boehner and all the rest are idiots. If, as Frank Rich said on Rachel Maddow's show the other night, that the jobs picture does not drastically improve, the elections in November will be a blood bath. People simply vote out the leadership when things are bad, regardless of how awful the next batch is going to be.

They've completely lost their minds.

Steele said:

"Well, if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed...."

He's right.

So supporting the troops means endorsing the war?

C'mon. During the 2008 campaign Obama said the fight was in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Therefore it IS his war of choice, and it's just as stupid as Bush's invasion of Iraq. Steele is clearly intellectually challenged and often trips over his own talking points. But he's got the futility of it right.

Look. Any assertion that this is somehow Obama's war is ludicrous and is calculated to irritate and confound. When the sun shines it is day--moon glow means night. You may not argue to the contrary.
Having said that however, this is precisely how the BIG LIE works and I'm stand amazed that it keeps on working. It is the business of the chairman of the GOP to do this. How long or how many times does this falsehood need to be asserted before all chimpanzees and the majority of concerned humans believe its true? From the looks of these responses, not very long.
We have been the firm grip of corporate fascism for decades--in a death grip for eight. They have quite literally stolen everything--this, while the 'argument' has now become whether this is Obama's war, his economy, his doing. It will take longer than 18 months to undo what has been done. The GOP doesn't get to make the arguments; in fact, the GOP behaves like a criminal enterprise and should be treated as such. Having said that, however, and even given the difficulty, I don't think that Obama is doing enough on any front.

The hillbilly base of the GOP base their self esteem on the perceived invincibility of the US. This is very bad.

Steele is right about one thing. We should get out. The notion we can make Afghanistan a different country and change it in a meaingful way is nonsense. Never gonna happen. Not too different from getting rid of corruption in Washington. Slim chance that'll happen either. That the two are related is obvious.

Steele should be gotten rid of but this just goes to show how the Media fail to report on basic issues. The fact that his comment is EVEN SLIGHTLY believable really grinds my gears. There are all kinds of people who will believe ANYTHING due to a lack of critical thinking.

Just today I got an email telling me Everytime You Forward an Email You Donate To Al Queda. Come on people! WE KNOW Afghans get their money from the drug trade and virtually nowhere else.

ARG!
This is a frustrating time to be alive!

1. Create an outrageous lie.
2. Repeat that lie as many times as possible to as many media outlets as you can.
3. Watch as morons begin to accept it.

...old GOP playbook stuff but I'm not surprised at all. Look at the revisionist history of Reagan.

I am sorry. This was Mr Bush's war: Afghanistan and Iraq. It was bush who called for the troops to go in; it was Bush who doctored the "evidence" to get approval to get into both areas. It is a crock that the Republicans, the hawks themselves, want to try to redirect this as an Obama fault. It may be President Obama's problem. But the fact is: It is a problem that he INHERITED like the economy. And the real test will be how he gets us out of this stupid war

I'm sorry, but is this for real? Can someone be that completely stupid?!

Bush started in Afghanistan and then abandoned it to divert resources to Iraq. It indeed was Obama who escalated the effort in Afghanistan. So Steele is incorrect in fact but right on in spirit. Obama owns this thing, pure and simple.

Don't forget: Obama campaigned on it. Between ending Iraq, closing Gitmo, ending torture, reinstituting habeas corpus, ending warrantless domestic spying, ending DADT, and escalating Afghanistan, it's the only promise among them he's fulfilled so far.

Steele is correct also in pointing out that no one has ever prevailed in a ground war there. Now you can call that whatever you like, but it's a fact of history nonetheless. Should that give troops serving there pause, well, what would you have us do, lie about it?

The simple fact that so many Republicans detest what Steele says makes it worthy of due consideration.

I don't agree with his objective for saying these things, but I do support drawing down the senseless expenditure of taxpayer money there and in Iraq, as we have many more pressing needs for our citizens here at home.

Support our troops: bring them home. Now. No more excuses.

The most disturbing feature of that entire video clip seems to have been missed by all the comments above:

Watch the female wearing a black skirt and black and white sweater seated in the right foreground of the shot. Watch her nod, or shake her head in appreciation of, and agreement with Steele's stupid lies. Watch some of the other people listening.

That is scary!

America had not "actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in" ...

There is some truth in this. Bush43 went in slow, they went in light, they failed, and they bailed - leaving the war to simmer on the back burner with no exit strategy. Afghanistan was just his introductory offer to prepare the way for the invasion of Iraq.

His war in Afghanistan was half-assed and insincere. He did manage to knock down the poppy crop for a little while, but by 2008 they were producing record crops.

If we leave now, and abandon all those who helped us and trusted us for their security, there will be no going back. When the Taliban return, when al-Qaeda returns, there will be no going back. Iran will not help us invade again, the Afghans will not welcome us or trust us again.

Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld made sure we are stuck in Afghanistan until we get it right.

we will never exit afghanistan or iraq under obama as that will open him up to being a coward / loser. these two wars will BANKRUPT the country before a leader of either party has the balls to face reality. and before we dare pull out they will destroy social security, medicare and any other social benefit program as a necessary sacrifice. FFS most of the goddam public still believe that Afghanistan is "winnable". History and reality tell a different story. OBAMA is a fraud, the Dems are frauds and the Republicans are just plain evil.