Huey, Dewey and Louie Want More War

Sens. McCain, Graham and Lieberman have a collective op-ed piece in the WSJ (natch) this morning extolling the virtues of applying more expensive hardware to explosively rearrange chunks of rubble in Afghanistan.

Their doubts are natural and understandable, and we must respond to them directly and clearly. Our problems in Afghanistan are not because the Taliban are invincible or popular. They are neither. Rather, our problems result from what was, for years, a mismanaged and underresourced war.

Our mistakes are infuriating, but they are also reversible. We traveled to Afghanistan nine months ago and again last month. In the intervening time, a significant shift in our strategic leadership and focus has taken place there.

We have an exceptional new commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has begun a top-to-bottom overhaul of all aspects of our war policy and put forward a dramatically new civil-military strategy that clearly identifies failed policies and prioritizes the proven principles of counterinsurgency, including protecting civilians, creating legitimate and effective governance, and boosting economic development. With Gen. McChrystal, together with a new ambassador and a new deputy commander, we believe we now have the team on the ground that can win this war.

However, we need more than the right team and the right strategy. This team must also have the resources it needs to succeed—including a significant increase in U.S. forces.

The Surge is back, baby! We can't afford health care for Americans, but we have no choice but to pour billions more down the Afghanistan rathole. That's fiscal responsibility we can believe in!