Some thoughts on Afghanistan and...overseas contingency operations.

In: Overseas contingency operations

Out: War on Terror

Back in again: War on Terror

Check out White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs here using the phrase that (formerly) dare not speak its own name in his briefing yesterday with respect to troop buildup in Afghanistan.

Of course, he can’t let it go without more pathetic blame Bush rhetoric. And the irony of recycling this term from a supposedly reviled administration in order to garner support for a “surge”, if you will, in Afghanistan is not lost on us.

So, with the left becoming increasingly agitated with the President for not living up to enough of his campaign promises and conservatives already opposed to most, if not all of his domestic policies, maybe Obama really is the moderate governing from the center that he imaged for himself during the campaign.

We kid but in all seriousness, the President is in a tough bind regarding Afghanistan and as our commander-in-chief he needs our support.

Recall how Afghanistan was the "good" war as it was more directly tied to Osama bin Laden and destroying the international terror network and how our intervention in Iraq, however, represented Bush “taking his eye off the ball”?

Well, polls now show a drastic drop in support for the war in Afghanistan particularly among Democrats. In fact, 70% of Democrats now say Afghanistan was not worth it so it looks like us little ol’ “neo-cons” over here just might be the President’s best friends.

And this goes beyond the whether or not we think Afghanistan is still winnable or whether or not the benefits outweigh the negatives but rather represents something more fundamental. We can quibble with the numbers and how they are employed but our top commander over there, General Stanley McChrystal has asked for more troops and a changing of strategy and it appears that the President will go along with that recommendation. Case closed. It’s done. We went in there to win; killing as many of the bad guys as possible and disrupting the terror network there as much as possible, so let’s do it.

Before we go, check this out:

A good case officer with Middle Eastern languages and a penchant for understanding Islamic radicalism would now have to be insane to accept an assignment that detailed him to interrogate Islamic terrorist suspects. No self-respecting case officer wants to be constantly surveilled by his boss. That's not the way the intelligence business works, which is, when it works, an idiosyncratic, intimate affair. We should be horrified by the idea that holy warriors will now be questioned by operatives who tolerate all the cover-your-tush paperwork, who don't mind being videoed when they go to work, who want to be second-guessed by their CIA bosses, let alone by FBI agents, and intelligence-committee Congressional staffers, and now White House officials.

What was it again that Gibbs was yapping about understaffing and undermanning?

Yes, there are a few things the President can be doing to help his cause and since the “war on terror” is back, he can start by stopping this ridiculous politically-motivated investigation of the C.I.A.

You have our unqualified support with respect to Afghanistan, sir, but you can definitely make life easier for yourself by ordering Holder to stand down.