The Wrongologist

What’s Wrong Today:

White House Press Secretary
Jay Carney responded at Monday’s
White House press briefing about how we should react to the Qur’an
burning blowback with extended comments about how our goal in Afghanistan was
to defeat al Qaeda.

So, What’s Wrong?

Carney’s view of our strategy
would come as big news to our soldiers, who think they are fighting the
Taliban. BTW, THERE ARE NO AL QAEDA FIGHTERS IN AFGHANISTAN. None to speak of,
anyway.

But the Taliban are
apparently not the enemy. Carney said nothing about fighting them. Here are
some Carney excerpts:

“What the President
did when he reviewed U.S. policy in Afghanistan was insist that we focus our
attention on what our absolute goals in the country should be, and prioritize
them.  And he made clear that the number-one priority, the reason why U.S.
troops are in Afghanistan in the first place, is to disrupt, dismantle and
ultimately defeat al Qaeda.

We can’t forget
what the mission is, though, and the fact that the need to disrupt, dismantle
and defeat al Qaeda remains.

We will be unrelenting
in our pursuit of al Qaeda and unrelenting in our efforts to remove leaders of
al Qaeda from the battlefield.”

Displaying a remarkable
inability to process the meaning of current events in Afghanistan, White House
spokesman Jay Carney ventured dangerously close to “Baghdad
Bob” territory by declaring that there is no reason to change the strategy
or timetable for withdrawal in Afghanistan.  

Then ABC’s Jake Tapper
asked some good questions:

Q   
When I interviewed then-CIA director Leon Panetta a couple years ago, he said
there were fewer than 100 CIA — I mean, I’m sorry — he said there were fewer
than 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.  How many do we think are
there now?  About the same amount?

MR. CARNEY:  I
don’t have a specific number for you.

Q   
When is the last time U.S. troops in Afghanistan killed anybody associated with
al Qaeda?

MR. CARNEY: 
Well, I would refer you to ISAF and the Defense Department for that.  I
don’t have that information.

Here’s
More of What’s Wrong:
According to Carney, we are actually fighting someone to defeat someone else.
And the goal isn’t even to defeat the people we are fighting. And the people we
really want to defeat aren’t even fighting. Sort of through the looking glass,
isn’t it?

This has to be demoralizing
for U.S. troops who are being shot at by the people who the White House thinks are
not our enemies. The White House seems
to think:

Maybe we
can shoot at the Taliban, and if we miss, we’ll hit an al Qaeda operative
hiding in Pakistan.

The White House used to talk
about “breaking the Taliban’s momentum,” but now we’re not trying to do break anyone’s
momentum. If things weren’t so serious in Afghanistan, these statements by our
government’s spokesman would be merely comic.

But given the costs that we
are sustaining, these public statements and policies that underlie them are morally
repugnant.

We won in Iraq, but now
it’s fallen apart and will end up in a civil war. Afghanistan will be the same.
We engage in two wars where we never lose a battle, but we lose the wars.

The Administration knows better,
but we the people never learn.

Misstating our goal in
Afghanistan is reprehensible and WRONG!