More Liberal Outrages Regarding Afghanistan by Gregory Hilton

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld responded angrily today to President Obama’s statement on troop levels in Afghanistan. The President claimed the Bush Administration turned down the Pentagon’s requests for more troops.
“Such a bald misstatement” by the President “deserves a response. I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006. The President’s assertion does a disservice to the truth.” Last night Obama claimed “Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive.”
Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, supported the President’s claim. He says the Obama surge is necessary because Bush did not devote enough troops to Afghanistan. Kerry must have forgotten his presidential campaign. During 2002 and 2003 the Senator was saying we had too many troops in Afghanistan.
Kerry also released a 43 page report yesterday blasting the Bush Administration for allowing Osama bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora in 2001. This is yet another liberal outrage.
Back then John Kerry, The New York Times and The New Yorker all said we were committing too many troops to Afghanistan. On CNN with Larry King on Dec. 15, 2001, a viewer called in to say the U.S. should “smoke [bin Laden] out” of the Tora Bora caves. Mr. Kerry responded: “For the moment what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will. I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way.”
The Wall Street Journal says “The Rumsfeld-General Tommy Franks troop strategy may have missed bin Laden, but it reflected domestic political doubts about an extended Afghan campaign. . . Adapting his legendary 2004 campaign locution, Mr. Kerry is now in favor of more troops after he was against them, but in any case not for very long.”
Another major argument liberals are using to oppose the Obama troop surge involves increased costs. We went through this in Iraq. Even if the 34,000 troops remain in America, they still have to be paid, fed, housed and trained. These are fixed costs regardless of whether they are deployed.