Is Obama Losing Afghanistan?

It sure looks that way.

For starters, we might want to pay attention to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"I think it is serious and it is deteriorating, and I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated in their tactics..."

Mullen expresses concern about public support for the war effort, with good reason - polls do not show happy thoughts on the Afghanistan front.

Embedded reporter Michael Yon cautions that the British are losing ground, too.

Or how about the top Army commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who is clearly concerned about politics trumping strategic necessities:

President Obama’s commander in Afghanistan, Army General Stanley McChrystal, has filed a report assessing progress in Afghanistan that he described as “serious” but in which “success is achievable.”

Meanwhile, a McClatchy report says this is the 5th assessment Obama has ordered since he was inaugurated. It also notes McChrystal is expected to request that 21,000 to 45,000 more troops be sent to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials are said to be worried that President Obama won’t authorize those additional troops … in part, because of the polls:

“However, administration officials said that amid rising violence and casualties, polls that show a majority of Americans now think the war in Afghanistan isn’t worth fighting. With tough battles ahead on health care, the budget and other issues, Vice President Joe Biden and other officials are increasingly anxious about how the American public would respond to sending additional troops.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media, said Biden has argued that without sustained support from the American people, the U.S. can’t make the long-term commitment that would be needed to stabilize Afghanistan and dismantle al Qaida. Biden’s office declined to comment.

“I think they (the Obama administration) thought this would be more popular and easier,” a senior Pentagon official said. “We are not getting a Bush-like commitment to this war.”

Is politics playing a role? McChrystal’s current assessment was to have included troop recommendations but political concerns intervened:

“Monday’s assessment initially was to include troop recommendations, but political concerns prompted White House and Pentagon officials to agree that those recommendations would come later, advisers to McChrystal said. Although the White House took a hands-off approach toward Afghanistan earlier this summer, Pentagon officials said they’re now getting more questions about how many troops might be needed and for how long.”

One of the polls the Obama Administration may be worried about is this Washington Post/ABC News poll that shows 70% of Republicans support the war in Afghanistan while 70% of Democrats oppose it. However, as this 8/19/09 Hot Air post notes, Democrats opposed the war in July 2008, too.

The reason they're not getting a Bush-like commitment to the war is probably because of this (emphasis mine):

Conservatives have long accused liberals of lying on Iraq and Afghanistan. Liberals' claims to be all gung-ho to win in Afghanistan, we've maintained, were dishonest. They didn't want to win in Afghanistan any more than they wanted to win in Iraq.

Their position was contrived, we claimed, to give them political cover for advocating defeat in Iraq. They thought, correctly as it turns out, that they could blunt their calls for defeat in Iraq by claiming they only wanted to lose in Iraq because they were so determined to get their "eyes back on the ball" in the War That Must Be Won At All Costs, Afghanistan.

Were we right?

It appears so.

President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in the war-torn country isn't necessarily the United States' goal, he said Thursday in a TV interview.

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn't so clearly defined, he explained.

"We're not dealing with nation states at this point. We're concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda's allies," he said. "So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."

Obama made a lot of hay out of the resurgence of the Taliban. Now he says it's not so terribly important to keep the country out of the Taliban's control, merely that we make sure they can't attack us again.

Problem? They didn't attack us under President Bush after the invasion, either, so by Mr. Obama's newly-announced conditions of non-victory President Bush had succeeded in Afghanistan.

Odd that he didn't seem to give Bush credit for what he now says is the only relevant condition of non-victory in Afghanistan. Odd that he promised to win the war as a a candidate but as a president dismisses that scenario as unnecessary.

How can we possibly win this war if our goal is not to win this war??

Forget the outright hypocrisy for a moment: this is why Obama is a deadly danger to America. He doesn't have the courage, nor the commitment to fight a war, and he refuses to even invoke victory as the end goal! Remember, this was the war he campaigned on winning. He said repeatedly that Iraq was a distraction and that Afghanistan was the real key.

Now he can't even follow through on that.

Our enemies have got to be laughing their turbans off and rubbing their hands with glee. With this guy in office, they can attack with impunity, and without fear of any meaningful response.

The consequences of Obama's cowardice and hypocrisy will be paid in American lives.

There's my two cents.