Decider on September 1, 2009 at 5:05 PM

And Reagan was dead wrong. There’s also a huge difference between pardoning a few million and pardoning upwards of 20 million. No way would Reagan have been in favor of the 2006 amnesty act, as George Will was, especially given the lesson he learned in 1986.

Reagan stupidly fell for the Democrats game that amnesty would lead to security. That proved to be utterly false. Instead of learning from this, Will wanted to do it all over again, on a grand scale. He wanted us to surrender to our mostly Hispanic law-breaking invaders. The man’s a liberal, just like McCain and just like Bush.

George Will is not a neoconservative, on that I will agree. But that doesn’t make him a conservative. Unless of course you think supporting amnesty for illegal aliens is a conservative position.

2Brave2Bscared on September 1, 2009 at 3:48 PM

Ronald Reagan was a Conservative. Ronald Reagan supported amnesty. There was this little thing called the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/110686b.htm

“Don’t go wobbly on me, George.”

George Will is one of those guys appointed by the Left as a Conservative.

Dr. ZhivBlago on September 1, 2009 at 4:15 PM

Yep. Along with Bush, Krauthammer, Barnes, Kristol, Frum, and a host of many other phonies.

Depends on how much terrorism you’re willing to tolerate, I suppose. They could do something on the scale of the 1996 Olympic bombing every week.

Chris_Balsz on September 1, 2009 at 3:27 PM

I’m not sure I follow your point.

Conservatism does not seek regime change. Conservatism does not seek preventive strikes. Conservatism views war as the very last resort.

Neo-Conservatism is the opposite of that. Most here are Neo-Conservatives not Conservatives. George Will is a Conservative not a Neo-Conservative.

Decider on September 1, 2009 at 3:14 PM

I would agree that most “mainstream” conservatives are indeed neoconservatives. Though I would challenge you a bit on your definition of such.

George Will is not a neoconservative, on that I will agree. But that doesn’t make him a conservative. Unless of course you think supporting amnesty for illegal aliens is a conservative position.

The United States at that time had only 120 million people and an economy of $2.026T (2008 dollars). We mobilized 3 million troops, 50% of our economy, and by 1945 were prepared to land several million troops in Japan, fight for another 3 more years, and suffer a projected 1,000,000 casualties subduing the Home Islands before atom bombing of Japanese cities broke their suicidal rage.

Today, 8 years after a few million terrorists and fellow travelers killed 3000 Americans on American soil, the smart argument is that a nation of 305 million and an economy of $13T cannot afford to put more than 125,000 troops into Central Asia against an enemy with no air force, no armor, no heavy artillery, because our military is already exhausted by a war that killed 6000 and wounded 40,000. We must search for ways to wait them out and fight only when we feel like it. Sitzkrieg shall preserve our national security.

What rot.

If we weren’t stupidly handing out visas to Muslims like they were candy, Afghanistan wouldn’t be nearly as big of an issue, at least as far as our own security is concerned. You’re too busy seeing third-rate symptoms when the actual disease remains an untreated, festering wound.

2Brave2Bscared on September 1, 2009 at 1:27 PM

Depends on how much terrorism you’re willing to tolerate, I suppose. They could do something on the scale of the 1996 Olympic bombing every week.

Afganistan has no infrastructure or industry. The only financially stable agricultural product is poppies.

At least the bomb craters catch water and the metal fragments can be sold for scrap.

George Will is NOT a conservative.

2Brave2Bscared on September 1, 2009 at 1:14 PM

Conservatism does not seek regime change. Conservatism does not seek preventive strikes. Conservatism views war as the very last resort.

Neo-Conservatism is the opposite of that. Most here are Neo-Conservatives not Conservatives. George Will is a Conservative not a Neo-Conservative.

We can’t supply a huge army in Afghanistan unless Russia allows much more transport from the north. We can however, slowly build an Afghan army and police force. Once they are reliable we can secure the currently porous border and encourage Pakistan to press the Taliban/Al Queda alliance up against it.

Will it work? Not soon and maybe never; but can anyone gaurantee that a Taliban/Al Queda controlled afghanistan won’t resume their attempts to get nuclear weapons to smuggle into the West? Would fighting our way in a 2nd time be as easy as the last time? The cold war took lots of investment and 40 years; but we succeeded. We can be a patient people if we all understand that we have to be.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that lead to Osama sitting up shop in Afghanistan in the first damn place. If the world in general had not just ignored Afghanistan after the Soviets left…the Taliban and AlQaida might not have gotten a foot hold in the first place.

Terrye on September 1, 2009 at 7:13 AM

If we weren’t stupidly handing out visas to Muslims like they were candy, Afghanistan wouldn’t be nearly as big of an issue, at least as far as our own security is concerned. You’re too busy seeing third-rate symptoms when the actual disease remains an untreated, festering wound.

George Will is a very rare breed; A intelligent Conservative pundit. He is absolutely right.

Maybe if he said it wearing lederhosen Conservatives would agree with him.

Decider on September 1, 2009 at 10:33 AM

George Will is NOT a conservative.

For those of you who say to let Afghanistan go (which means go to the Taliban), do you recall that bin Laden and al Qaeda plotted the 9/11 attacks in Afghanistan? So if we were to let Afghanistan go and history repeats itself, what will you say?

Phil Byler on September 1, 2009 at 6:56 AM

First of all, the Taliban is not the problem. Islam is the problem. And we’re doing nothing to protect ourselves from Islam by running around in Afghanistan while inviting the Muslim world to our shores via immigration.

The 9/11 hijackers all came here via legally issued visas. We let the enemy right in through our front door. And that is STILL happening today, even as we fool ourselves into thinking we’re accomplishing something in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our borders are still wide open, our immigration policies are still insane, and we STILL do not properly understand our enemy. Bush wanted to “fight them over there so that we don’t have to fight them here,” but we’re no more safe now than we were then.

These Bush-style democracy-building projects are a waste of time, treasure and more importantly, blood. And they aren’t keeping us a lick safer here at home, despite all of the Bush/mainstream conservative claims to the contrary.

Muslims will never be our friends. We cannot reform Islam. Nor can we destroy it. The only thing we in the West can realistically do is separate ourselves from it. The faster we realize this and begin to take steps toward accomplishing it, the better our chances. However, if we don’t wake up, we’ll find ourselves in the same situation as England.

England has troops in Afghanistan even to this day; like us, they’re doing their part in the fight against “terror.” And yet back at home they’re rapidly being taken over by sharia. Why? Mark Steyn will tell you it’s all about birth rates, but the truth is that shifting demographics wouldn’t be an issue if England hadn’t imported millions of Muslims to its shores in the first place! It’s madness. And despite all our posturing and chest beating, we’re headed down the same destructive path.

If you want to do something that would actually go a long way toward preventing history from repeating itself, then support an end to all Muslim immigration to this country. Support measures to deport all non-citizen Muslims from U.S. shores. Support policies that will make this country less and less Islamic. In short, learn from our true mistakes, and the mistakes of Europe, and put an end to the Islamization of America before it has a chance to become more of a problem than it already is.

Close enough.

hicsuget: “Mission creep since then has added 4) turn Afghanistan into a prospering modern state, 5) eliminate the opium trade to reduce availability here (if this is a valid military objective, why not invade Columbia?), and 6) hang around just in case bin Laden should turn back up.”

I think that eliminating the opium trade is a good idea, because it’s a piggy bank available to our worst enemies (which makes it different from Columbia), and destroying enemy assets is an excellent military objective.

hicsuget: “#3 was a bad idea. #4 would take decades, and we’re not employing the right strategies to make it possible. #5 is not an appropriate use for the American military. #6 is wishful thinking.”

Why is the destruction of Afghanistan’s potential as a drug source not an appropriate use of the American military? And who else is supposed to salt the earth?

hicsuget on September 1, 2009 at 12:13 PM

You make some valid points, but your broad assumptions undermine your intent.

sending Americans to die

Really?

(and his sneering at the British contribution, which involved six dead in one day earlier this summer, as “risible”)

Will did not “sneer” at the British contribution. What Will actually said was:

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning.

That doesn’t sound like sneering to me.

what about the morality of leaving civilians at the mercy of armed fascists?

What about the morality of sending Americans to die on behalf of these civilians, especially given that a significant number of the civilians in question support the goals of the fascists up until the very point at which the fascists employ their methods on them personally?

Anthony Cordesman, who’s always been a straight shooter in his assessments of Iraq, warns today in WaPo that unless we put some more boots on the ground to clear and hold territory, the country’s finished and we’ll face “an enduring regional mess and sanctuary for extremism” going forward. I’m curious to read Will’s theory for why that won’t happen if we don’t take his advice.

Will’s theory, likely, is that Afghanistan will be “an enduring regional mess and sanctuary for extremism” one way or another. Fighting a losing war, and refusing to fight a losing war, have the same outcome, but the costs differ significantly.

The goals of the original invasion were: 1) depose the Taliban, 2) drive al Qaeda out of the country, and 3) hand the Afghans a gift-wrapped liberal democratic regime (a republic, if you can keep it). Mission Accomplished.

Mission creep since then has added 4) turn Afghanistan into a prospering modern state, 5) eliminate the opium trade to reduce availability here (if this is a valid military objective, why not invade Columbia?), and 6) hang around just in case bin Laden should turn back up.

#3 was a bad idea. #4 would take decades, and we’re not employing the right strategies to make it possible. #5 is not an appropriate use for the American military. #6 is wishful thinking.

Afganistan is no longer worth the blood and treasure of our brave troops.

Phil Byler on September 1, 2009 at 6:56 AM

That we were deficient in salting the earth in our going.