Weekly Standard: "Don’t Come Home, America"

[RonPaulFanInGA]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/don-t-come-home-america_575541.html


"America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.” This was the core sound bite in President Obama’s speech announcing the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and it was an extraordinary statement. Of course, such sentiments have been uttered many times over the years. George McGovern’s “Come Home America” campaign theme in 1972 comes to mind, and we’re sure Patrick Buchanan, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and George Will have said either exactly that or something similar at one time or another.

Not since the 1930s has an American president struck such an isolationist theme in a speech to the American people, however. By juxtaposing the winding down of the war in Afghanistan with the need to focus on domestic problems, Obama gave presidential sanction to the erroneous but nevertheless widespread belief that whatever the United States does abroad detracts from our ability to address our problems at home. We wonder if the speechwriters, policymakers, and of course the president himself fully understood the damaging effect such a statement can and probably will have on the entire scope of American foreign and defense policy.

We can imagine that line being thrown back in the administration’s face the next time it comes to Congress to defend the foreign aid and defense budgets, the intervention in Libya, or the forward deployment of U.S. forces in Asia and Europe. But maybe Obama’s increasingly evident concern about winning reelection trumped such issues. Maybe the cheap shot—with its clear implication that the efforts of our military in Afghanistan actually detract from the nation’s well-being—was too good to pass up.

And it is a cheap shot. Here’s the core point that Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, George Will, and now Barack Obama can’t quite seem to understand: Failure in Afghanistan will cost much, much more than the billions spent on this surge. What was the cost to the U.S. economy of the attacks on 9/11? What will be the cost if the terrorist groups now operating in Afghanistan—the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e Taiba, as well as al Qaeda—are able to reconstitute safe havens and the next president has to send troops back in to clear them out again? It is a peculiar kind of wisdom that can only see the problems and costs of today and cannot imagine the problems and costs of tomorrow.

[libertybrewcity]

weekly standard blows

[Sola_Fide]

They are losing the debate. They are on defense, you can tell.

[low preference guy]

They are losing the debate. They are on defense, you can tell.

and soon there won't be enough money to have that debate

[james1906]

and soon there won't be enough money to have that debate

They'll be the Monthly Standard, then the Quarterly Standard, then they'll fold

[JK/SEA]

Notice the key word in there....'IF'...

Time for Ron Pauls ...'what if' speech again.

Pathetic article.

[ValidusCustodiae]

I didn't know Tucker Carlson worked for Bill Kristol.

Amazing, amazing.

[LibertyEagle]

I didn't know Tucker Carlson worked for Bill Kristol.

Amazing, amazing.

Where are you getting that from?

[Brett85]

They'll be the Monthly Standard, then the Quarterly Standard, then they'll fold

I don't understand how they generate enough sales to keep going. Even most of the neo-conservatives are opposed to the intervention in Libya.

[purplechoe]

they should just come out of the closet and call it "The Weekly Neocon" or "Hawkish Progressives Weekly"...

[newyearsrevolution08]

Most papers are running in the red and have for some time HOWEVER it is a worthwhile investment when you can still control the sheep. They will self fund this until they find a way to have the government bail their industry out as well.

[Cowlesy]

Bob Kagan, arch-neoconservative.

I like Taki's take on neo-cons.


The reason I write this is because I just received a bill from the yard where I keep my boat. In the south of France. I wouldn’t wish it on the Kagans. Or perhaps I would.

Owning a boat, especially a sailing yacht, is like having a beautiful mistress with your wife’s approval. This is the good news. The bad is that a boat is even more expensive than a high class courtesan. Boats have always been considered feminine. Sailors refer to them as “she,” and for good reasons. They’re capricious, unpredictable, trouble, and offer momentary, exquisite pleasure which nevertheless make strong men regret the day they fell in love with them.

There is nothing to compare the rush—except for sex—when one’s surrounded by good friends and beautiful women, when the “old girl’ lifts her headsails, the bowsprit swings over, she leans to starboard, close to the wind, and ploughs steadily through the waves. She’s like a thoroughbred, kicking in with a lively tug. Playfully wavelets jump over her. It beats sitting in a neo-con foundation, eating lots of hamburgers, cashing in, and cheerleading for more young people to die.

[COpatriot]

You can tell they're getting desperate simply by the fact that they're now branding anyone and everyone who favors leaving Afghanistan an "isolationist". It's a nice little tactic (albeit a lie) that just might work for them.

[Brian4Liberty]

What was the cost to the U.S. economy of the attacks on 9/11?

The cost of the 9/11 attacks themselves was minimal relative to the entire economy. Sure, there were deaths, destroyed buildings, and lost aircraft. How many deaths (both US and innocent foreigners) have occurred since 9/11 due to the "war on terror"?

What really effected the economy? It was already on the verge of collapse due to the Federal Reserve and corrupt Wall St. banksters. The paranoid, lashing out, over-reaction to 9/11 is what finished off the economy. We can thank the idiots at the Weekly Standard for playing a big part in that. They take credit for destroying the Soviet Union by forcing them to over-spend, so they might as well take credit for doing the exact same thing to the United States.

[erowe1]

Don't worry, Weekly Standard, Obama didn't mean it.

[Zachary]

Isn't Repert Murdock still financing them? He also owns Fox and I think Tucker Carlson works for them. He is as friendly to Ron Paul as he dares to be.

[Anti Federalist]

Bob Kagan, arch-neoconservative.

I like Taki's take on neo-cons.


The reason I write this is because I just received a bill from the yard where I keep my boat. In the south of France. I wouldn’t wish it on the Kagans. Or perhaps I would.

Owning a boat, especially a sailing yacht, is like having a beautiful mistress with your wife’s approval. This is the good news. The bad is that a boat is even more expensive than a high class courtesan. Boats have always been considered feminine. Sailors refer to them as “she,” and for good reasons. They’re capricious, unpredictable, trouble, and offer momentary, exquisite pleasure which nevertheless make strong men regret the day they fell in love with them.

There is nothing to compare the rush—except for sex—when one’s surrounded by good friends and beautiful women, when the “old girl’ lifts her headsails, the bowsprit swings over, she leans to starboard, close to the wind, and ploughs steadily through the waves. She’s like a thoroughbred, kicking in with a lively tug. Playfully wavelets jump over her. It beats sitting in a neo-con foundation, eating lots of hamburgers, cashing in, and cheerleading for more young people to die.


Can't give that enough rep!

[nobody's_hero]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/don-t-come-home-america_575541.html

Judging by the title, I thought this was going to be a pro-Paul article. :(

I don't want America to come home. There's no love left for her in her own home.

[lester1/2jr]

"What was the cost to the U.S. economy of the attacks on 9/11?"

yeah exactly. whose point are you trying to make Weekly Standard? They want us out of their countries, not in them.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

What was the cost to the U.S. economy of the attacks on 9/11?


The cost of the 9/11 attacks themselves was minimal relative to the entire economy. Sure, there were deaths, destroyed buildings, and lost aircraft. How many deaths (both US and innocent foreigners) have occurred since 9/11 due to the "war on terror"?

What really effected the economy? It was already on the verge of collapse due to the Federal Reserve and corrupt Wall St. banksters. The paranoid, lashing out, over-reaction to 9/11 is what finished off the economy. We can thank the idiots at the Weekly Standard for playing a big part in that. They take credit for destroying the Soviet Union by forcing them to over-spend, so they might as well take credit for doing the exact same thing to the United States.


It also depends on who you are. If you're law enforcement/DHS/TSA/ETC, then business is booming.

[AGRP]

Originally Posted by The Weekly Standard
"America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.” This was the core sound bite in President Obama’s speech announcing the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, and it was an extraordinary statement. Of course, such sentiments have been uttered many times over the years. George McGovern’s “Come Home America” campaign theme in 1972 comes to mind, and we’re sure Patrick Buchanan, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and George Will have said either exactly that or something similar at one time or another.

Not since the 1930s has an American president struck such an isolationist theme in a speech to the American people, however. By juxtaposing the winding down of the war in Afghanistan with the need to focus on domestic problems, Obama gave presidential sanction to the erroneous but nevertheless widespread belief that whatever the United States does abroad detracts from our ability to address our problems at home. We wonder if the speechwriters, policymakers, and of course the president himself fully understood the damaging effect such a statement can and probably will have on the entire scope of American foreign and defense policy.

We can imagine that line being thrown back in the administration’s face the next time it comes to Congress to defend the foreign aid and defense budgets, the intervention in Libya, or the forward deployment of U.S. forces in Asia and Europe. But maybe Obama’s increasingly evident concern about winning reelection trumped such issues. Maybe the cheap shot—with its clear implication that the efforts of our military in Afghanistan actually detract from the nation’s well-being—was too good to pass up.

And it is a cheap shot. Here’s the core point that Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, George Will, and now Barack Obama can’t quite seem to understand: Failure in Afghanistan will cost much, much more than the billions spent on this surge. What was the cost to the U.S. economy of the attacks on 9/11? What will be the cost if the terrorist groups now operating in Afghanistan—the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e Taiba, as well as al Qaeda—are able to reconstitute safe havens and the next president has to send troops back in to clear them out again? It is a peculiar kind of wisdom that can only see the problems and costs of today and cannot imagine the problems and costs of tomorrow.

What the heck?

[lester1/2jr]

Mohammad Atta was in germany. These guys were all in the US to do the attacks. Should we attack Germany and the US?

They don't NEED a base of operations!! None of those guys in those videos running around with machine guns were of any use to anyone on 9/11. They were VERY useful in iraq and afghainstan I'm sure.


The neocon arguments make no sense. They know this full well too.

[TruckinMike]

The Weekly Standard presidential Litmus test:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/word-caution-rick-perry_575555.html


...Run Rick Run
---- the weekly Standard

If they're for 'em, I'm against 'em

TMike

[freshjiva]

Everyone one of these idiots, from Congress to the media to talk radio to newspapers, desperately need an education.

Isolationism is not noninterventionism.

I get so pissed off from this blatant ignorance of basic foreign policy differences. Is America really this stupid?

[Napoleon's Shadow]

Everyone one of these idiots, from Congress to the media to talk radio to newspapers, desperately need an education.

Isolationism is not noninterventionism.

I get so pissed off from this blatant ignorance of basic foreign policy differences. Is America really this stupid?With some it's ignorance, with others it's willful ignorance, and with the people at the top, it's absolute malicious subterfuge.

[Patrick Henry]

The new issue with Bachmann has her saying how we need to stay the course in Afghanistan.

[Coolidge/Dawes '24]

President Obama an "isolationist?" Psh... I wish. At least this neocon hack is right about one thing: this "America First," "Bring Our Troops Home" rhetoric is merely an attempt to gather enough votes to win the next election. Is it any coincidence that the "real" drawdowns don't start until two months before November 2012? Jesse Benton is right. This is pure politics.

And even after Obama pulls out 33,000 American soldiers from the region come next September, we'll still have more than twice as many troops stationed there as when the president first stepped into office. 100 terrorists. Over 50,000 American troops. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Sure, Obama "decried" nation-building in his most recent speech on the Afghani mission, arguing that our presence there should be based on vital national security interests, not utopian schemes to turn around backwards civilizations or grandiose nation-building programs. Looks like someone is stealing talking points from good 'ol Dr. No. The neocons didn't take very kindly to that.

But then the president prattled on for awhile about our duty to play some role in the "transitory" process, about how we need to "support" the emergence of a completely stable and secure government, about how it's our responsibility to keep military personnel occupied on the grounds until all "safe-havens" – areas from which Al-Qaeda operatives, Taliban members, and terrorist groups can plot attacks against American citizens – are targeted, destroyed, obliterated, and swept from face of the Earth. Doesn't that goal require some sort of, I don't know, indefinite military commitment? If these standards don't open a Pandora's box of vague and shaky justifications for perpetual warfare later on ("But we haven't gotten rid of all the 'safe-havens' yet!"), I don't know what will. Just a thought.

Pat Buchanan, as usual, is right on target (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44417) with this one: "[S]urely, if the United States cannot achieve victory over the Taliban with 100,000 troops, we are unlikely to achieve it with 70,000, or however many may remain after 2014."

When Kristol tipped his hat to "born-again neocon" Barack Obama, I thought maybe the imperialist, neo-Wilsonian power-brokers who grace the pages of The Weekly Standard and National Review had finally realized this guy was one of their own. And perhaps, in their heart of hearts, they still believe that to some extent. But this article seems to indicate that these folks are still willing to play the political shell-game: brand Obama an "isolationist" as soon as he says anything remotely hostile to the foreign policy status quo – even when his actions don't match his rhetoric and he actually wages more wars and bombs more people than his predecessor.

This president can be called many things, but he definitely isn't the pacifist, military budget-slashing, foreign policy turtledove that the hawkish wing of the GOP makes him to be. As I've said elsewhere (http://culturewarsredux.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/obamas-libyan-boondoggle/):


Despite posturing himself as the alleged “peace” candidate in the 2008 presidential elections, carrying with him an anti-war creed that represented, to many voters, nothing less than a searing denunciation of the Bush years, Obama is undoubtedly ten times the militant warmonger his predecessor was. Anticipating a foreign policy disposed toward peace, diplomacy, and friendship with other nations – as opposed to the previous administration’s policy of bombs, bribes, and perpetual warfare – the Nobel Prize Committee awarded President Obama the Peace Prize just a few months into his first term, before he made any major foreign policy decisions. Voters, too, believed Obama would be a breath of fresh air from the so-called “policies of the past”, and that we might finally have a leader who didn’t isolate us in the court of world opinion and cause America to be reviled around the globe the way Bush did.

Many voters are now regretting their selection. Obama repeated ad nauseam during the campaign that a vote for McCain was a vote for four more years of Bush. Clearly, though a vote for Obama was, indeed, a vote for four more years of Bush – and then some. During the past few years alone, Obama has committed over 50,000 troops to the Afghan mission, with nothing to show for it but 400 American soldiers and 2,000 Afghan civilians dead. Despite the president’s insistence that Afghanistan is a “Good War” that we needn’t hesitate to throw our support around, only 34 percent of Afghanis view our occupation of the country in a positive light. And only about one-hundred terrorists reside in Afghanistan. Yet the administration continues to maintain that an extensive military presence, not just a few privately hired mercenaries, is necessary.

The president applauded himself for “ending” the Iraq War a few months ago. That, Dennis Kucinich said, was analogous to Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” moment, weeks before the leader escalated military operations still further. Over 50,000 troops remain in the region despite Obama’s insistence that the war is over, many receiving combat pay, and with a few occasional deaths occurring every so often. The number of military contractors hired to “maintain stability” is growing, reaching a level well beyond 20,000.

Obama has bombed Pakistan, invaded Yemen, and called forth legions of unmanned drones, which have, in fact, killed more civilians than enemy targets thus far. His most recent endeavor is the Libyan War. And Obama’s bombings have been responsible for more casualties in the span of three years than Bush’s bombings were responsible for in eight. The committee who awarded our president with the Nobel Peace Prize, jumping to very early conclusions about what the president would accomplish in terms of peace, likely now finds themselves in deep lament – as so do the voters who were promised Heaven on Earth.

So much for “Hope” and “Change.”

[pacelli]

I'm really surprised that the weekly standard is no longer supporting the troops.

I thought they were pro-America?? Now they don't want the troops to come home to their families?

Do they really think that the troops will be getting better medical care in Afghanistan than the US??

[Brett85]

The new issue with Bachmann has her saying how we need to stay the course in Afghanistan.

That was extremely disappointing. In May she was basically saying that we should get out of Afghanistan, and now she's saying something completely different. I think she got some bad advice from her campaign advisers that her new position will somehow appeal to Republican primary voters. I don't know how she thinks she would ever appeal to independents and Democrats in a general election. Polls show that only about 20% of Americans think that we should "stay the course" and not withdraw any troops at all.

[Brian4Liberty]

It also depends on who you are. If you're law enforcement/DHS/TSA/ETC, then business is booming.

Without a doubt. Let's not forget Halliburton and the rest of the war and "nation building" profiteers, along with those who benefit from debt, like JP Sachs and friends.

[heavenlyboy34]

I'm really surprised that the weekly standard is no longer supporting the troops.

I thought they were pro-America?? Now they don't want the troops to come home to their families?

Do they really think that the troops will be getting better medical care in Afghanistan than the US??
To neocons, being "pro-America" means gleefully supporting violent aggression/oppression against foreigners and tyranny domestically. :( :mad:

[osan]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/don-t-come-home-america_575541.html

Reads like more fear mongering in order to sustain the war mongering.

How charming.

[Brett85]

Even Rubio of all people is starting to change his tune on Afghanistan somewhat.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20073542-503544.html


"After a decade of fighting, the American people are weary of war. Facing massive unemployment and a growing national debt, they are weary of the effort's cost. So am I. But the answer to a bad situation is not to make it worse. And I have always believed that a troop withdrawal plan based not on progress towards our ultimate goal, but rather on a desire to hit certain numbers, would be a tragic mistake," wrote Rubio, a Tea Party backed Republican from Florida.


"Yes, American troops need to leave Afghanistan, but they should do so pursuant to a plan that accomplishes our vital goal. I hope that in the days to come, the President will more clearly articulate how his troop withdrawal plan does that," he added.

[Brian4Liberty]

Even Rubio of all people is starting to change his tune on Afghanistan somewhat.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20073542-503544.html


"After a decade of fighting, the American people are weary of war. Facing massive unemployment and a growing national debt, they are weary of the effort's cost. So am I. But the answer to a bad situation is not to make it worse. And I have always believed that a troop withdrawal plan based not on progress towards our ultimate goal, but rather on a desire to hit certain numbers, would be a tragic mistake," wrote Rubio, a Tea Party backed Republican from Florida.

"Yes, American troops need to leave Afghanistan, but they should do so pursuant to a plan that accomplishes our vital goal. I hope that in the days to come, the President will more clearly articulate how his troop withdrawal plan does that," he added.

Re-bolded that for you. Typical neo-conservative talking points.