Mirror on the Wall, Show Me Where Those Bombs Will Fall

I'm so proud of the congressman in my native district in Missouri. Rep. Ike Skelton has teamed up with fellow hawkish Democrat Joe "Elmer Fudd" Lieberman (By the way, that Elmer Fudd nickname is fucking nice compared to what liberals should call him.) to write an impressive, if not predictable, drumbeat column calling for WAR! WAR! WAR! in today's Washington Post. The pair argue that Obama should give McChrystal whatever he wants so we can "win" and control extremism. The new Republicans:

Don't Settle for a Stalemate

Other critics justify opposition to a properly resourced counterinsurgency by pointing to other problems and priorities in the region that also require attention. But exactly how would sending fewer forces to Afghanistan put us in a stronger position to persuade the Afghan government to crack down on corruption and reform? Or persuade reconcilable elements of the Taliban to abandon insurgency and come over to our side? Or get nuclear-armed Pakistan to tackle the extremist threat on its own territory?

Failure to provide Gen. McChrystal with the military resources he needs to reverse the insurgency's momentum would make all these challenges harder to manage by reinforcing doubts throughout the region about our commitment to this fight and our capacity to prevail in it. But if we can roll back the Taliban and establish basic security in key population centers, as a properly resourced counterinsurgency will allow us to do, it will put us in a position of far greater strength and credibility from which to convince Afghans and others throughout the region that it is in their interest and worth the risk to work with us.

[...[

Here at home, we must stabilize public support by convincing an increasingly skeptical American people that the Afghan war is in fact winnable. This will happen when Americans begin to see the kind of visible gains that only a properly resourced counterinsurgency campaign can achieve through the use of additional troops to establish security and additional civilian resources to aid governmental reform and economic growth. On the other hand, if we send too few troops to regain the initiative from the insurgency and too few civilian resources to help cement those hard-won gains, public support will likely collapse.

There should be no confusion about what is at stake in this fight. The last time they were in power, the Taliban not only brutally suppressed the human rights of their own people, they also welcomed Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network into Afghanistan, refusing to give them up even after Sept. 11, 2001. Allowing the Taliban to return to power would represent a major victory for extremist forces throughout the world, tilt the balance of power in South Asia in their favor and further endanger America's homeland security from terrorists trained there.

The president was right to call the war in Afghanistan "a war of necessity." Now it is time to treat it as such and commit the decisive force that will allow Gen. McChrystal to break the Taliban's momentum as quickly as possible.

(Emphasis mine)

To sum up: Cracking down militarily is the only way victory, whatever that is or whatever we say it is, can be attained. The Afghan people should help us, not help themselves. The American public should be convinced that we can win, as if winning is the end all be all, and this war is worth American and Afghan lives. "Beating" the Taliban and extremism is the way we can stay safe; a re-examination, or reflection, of our foreign policy is not needed.

I know Skelton gets by being a Democrat only because he's ready to play the military card pretty quickly. He has a major base, Ft. Leonard Wood, plus Whiteman Air Force Base in his district. The district is ripe for a warmongering conservative Republican to set up shop for decades, just as Skelton has.

Different party, same lines.