Pat Buchanan: This campaign to censure and remove Steele is designed to censor debate and stifle dissent on Obama’s war policy, as long as Obama’s war policy closely tracks the agenda of the War Party.
The moon must be blue as I find myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan twice within the same week. I’ll spare the reader what I think of Buchanan as I’ve stated in previous posts my issues with him. I do find myself in agreement with Buchanan on a few issues and find that he occasionally provides food for thought.
I really thought Steele’s latest gaffe was much ado about nothing and certainly nothing for him to resign over. A number of people across the political spectrum have been doing and saying a number of stupid things, so in this regard Steele isn’t so “special”. Given this, and the relative unimportance of his statement, I really hadn’t given the situation much additional thought as the brouhaha about this was like “background noise” to me; I was aware of it, but because of its seemingly lack of importance, I ignored it.
Buchanan makes a point in the article below. In the main,republicans have been very supportive of Obama’s Afghan war even as disquiet reigns among liberals. Folks can call Obama a Nazi, a socialist and a commie, but as soon as Steele says the Afghan conflict is Obama’s war, there are folks coming out of the woodwork calling for his head. What gives here? I think Buchanan is spot on as he calls out the neocons below.
The Real Sin of Michael Steele
“This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
Strictly speaking, Republican Party Chair Michael Steele was way off base when he made this remark at a closed-door meeting of party contributors in Connecticut.
For the war began in 2001 under George W. Bush and was backed by almost all Americans, who collectively cheered the downfall of the Taliban and the rout of al-Qaida from its sanctuary in Afghanistan.
Yet, Steele was not entirely wrong.
Today, a majority of Americans do not believe the nine-year war in Afghanistan is any longer worth the rising cost in blood and money. And by declaring it a “war of necessity” and tripling U.S. forces there, this president has made it “Obama’s war” every bit as much as LBJ in 1964 and 1965 made Vietnam “Johnson’s War.”
While Steele has spent every waking hour since his words hit the airwaves explaining, and declaring his commitment to victory, of far more interest is the alacrity with which neoconservatives piled on the chairman, demanding his resignation, while senators castigated him for remarks unacceptable for a Republican Party leader.
William Kristol’s demand for Steele’s resignation was echoed by Charles Krauthammer and Liz Cheney, daughter of the vice president. From Afghanistan, Steele was attacked by Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who suggested he think again about his capacity to lead the Republican National Committee.
Behind the swiftness and severity of the attacks on one of their own by Republican pundits and politicians are motives more serious and sinister than exasperation at another gaffe by Michael Steele.
The War Party is conducting this pre-emptive strike on Steele to send a message to dissenters. In Krauthammer’s phrase, it is now a “capital offense” for a Republican leader not to support the Obama troop surge and the Obama-Petraeus policy.
Yet, a majority of Americans oppose the Afghan war. And the point made by Steele about the futility of fighting in Afghanistan has been made by columnists George Will and Tony Blankley, ex-Rep. Joe Scarborough, Ron Paul, and antiwar conservatives and moderates.
When exactly did supporting Obama’s war policy become a litmus test for loyal Republicans?
What the War Party is up to here is a naked attempt to impose its orthodoxy, about the threat of “Islamofascism” and the Long War, on the entire GOP, 28 months before a presidential election.
Republicans of all persuasions should recoil at such arrogance.
For whence does it come, if not the same hawks and neocons who beat the drums for a unnecessary war on Iraq that cost 4,000 U.S. dead, 35,000 wounded and $700 billion, while making widows and orphans of half a million Iraqis?
And what was that all about? Invading and occupying a country that never attacked us — to strip it of weapons it did not have.
Certainly, as the last nominee of the Republican Party, McCain can claim to be titular leader, as could George W. Bush, or Dick Cheney, Mitch McConnell or John Boehner.
But, if memory serves, the Bush-McCain party was repudiated in landslides in 2006 and 2008, giving Democrats the presidency, the House and a veto-proof Senate. And high among the reasons the country turned on the GOP is that, like Harry Truman and LBJ, the Bush-McCain GOP marched us into wars they could not win and could not end.
This campaign to censure and remove Steele is designed to censor debate and stifle dissent on Obama’s war policy, as long as Obama’s war policy closely tracks the agenda of the War Party.
Should Obama declare that he intends to stand by his deadline and begin pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by July 2011, those Republicans today accusing Steele of not supporting the troops and undercutting the president in wartime would themselves begin undercutting the president.
In November, the Republican Party will make gains. But the party will be deluding itself if it assumes this means America wants a return to the interventionist policies that brought us the Iraq and Afghan wars. The country will simply be saying: We reject Obama’s liberalism as emphatically as we rejected Bush neoconservatism.
Most Americans today approve of the agreed-upon end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq by August and removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2011, just as they support an American withdrawal from Afghanistan, starting a year from now.
But to contend that those who want the withdrawals to begin sooner, or those who want them to begin later, are unpatriotic and do not support the troops is itself unpatriotic.
The time for Republicans to decide on what the foreign policy of the party and a new administration should be is in the primaries of 2012. Until then, let every voice be heard, including that of Michael Steele.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan.html?columnsName=pbu
The African-American Clarion Call 
Steele was merely following the Republican strategy, their playbook, that has–since Obama became president–brought Republicans big dividends: blame Obama for any failing that might be attributed to George Bush.
Steele’s statement about the war in Afghanistan was more of the same:
“This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
There would be no reason for Steele to consult with other party leaders, as long as his statements adhered to those tactics already accepted by the party, and met with their approval.
Further, some in the party disapproved of Steele’s statement because any success that Obama might enjoy in Afghanistan would go to him, and not to George Bush equally, if it suddenly becomes Obama’s war.
And, too, if it’s Obama’s war only, and not one “the United State has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in,” then Obama can abandon the war at his discretion, without giving due consideration to what the people may want.
We were told by Bush that he wanted to fight the enemy over there, so we wouldn’t have to fight them here. In keeping with that flawed logic, Bush went to Iraq to fight the terrorists there, and their supporters, so he wouldn’t have to fight them were they were, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Further, some in the party disapproved of Steele’s statement because any success that Obama might enjoy in Afghanistan would go to him, and not to George Bush equally, if it suddenly becomes Obama’s war.
There’s little doubt that there are a number of factions in the republican party, some are certainly thinking as you’ve described above, Others are thinking as Buchanan suggests and still others are in another direction. All of them have coalesed around the “Big Lie” that a moderate democratic president is a radical departure from the mainstream and that he’s a Nazi, socialist, a commie or anything else they can pin on him. This I find more disturbing than anything else as once we go down this route, there’s little to be gained from political discourse, Moreover, it’s my opinion that those leveling these accusations are the ones who are really outside the mainstream, but they’d like to “relocate” the stream so as to make it appear that they’re not.
It’s telling that the reasonable voices in the republican party have all been silenced and they’ve allowed the entertainers and those on the extreme right to characterize the party. They’re attempting to make their numbers appear to be larger than they are and have the marketing ability to create enough noise to make it appear that the vast majority of the public is with them. That’s inaccurate and I believe that ultimately will be borne out at some point.
I find it also telling that outside of this dressing down of Steele, the republicans have had nothing to say in opposition to Obama’s Afghan strategy outside of Cheney initially criticizing Obama for “dithering”. These guys are most happy with war and that does lend some credence to Buchanan’s view IMHO.
Afghanistan is yet another lose/lose situation inherited from Bush/Cheney. If Obama were to bail out he’d be vulnerable to the whole “soft on terrorism because he’s secretly a Muslim” canard that wingnuts love to bandy about to their base and edgy suburbanites. If he stays he siphons off even more money that the treasury doesn’t have. Notice how I didn’t mention the continued waste of life on both sides of the conflict, because apparently that’s not even a factor to be addressed in any debate held in the MSM or in the halls of Congress.
The Neo-cons will never die or admit defeat, no matter how many lives or trillions of dollars they cost us. They are a special breed of beast in that a vast majority of the electorate would like to see in jail, yet they remain untouchable.
There are several factions of the republican party who are outside of the mainstream and the neocons are perhaps the worst of these elements. The “soft of terrorism” canard you point out is the very reason why there won’t be a draw down come July 2011. Quickly ending wars doesn’t quite fit the business model of the neocons or that of the military industrial complex, so this thing has to drag out another 10 years so they can continue to get paid.
Let’s just face it, when you have an economy for some based on war, peace is a non starter as it’s a threat to the “business model”.
Lot of smarts in that poigtns!