Steele Town: Conservatives Defend Michael Steele

Dan Riehl has a round-up of conservatives who are defending Michael Steele from calls for his resignation over his claim that the Afghan War is a "war of Obama's choosing." For a while, Steele's only defender was Ron Paul, but in the last few days he's gotten support from real heavyweights: Rush, Ann, Mark Levin, and many bloggers

In the wake of some recent controversial comments, Rush Limbaugh and Ron Paul have already weighed in in defense of RNC Chair Michael Steele. Now, Ann Coulter half-snarks that Bill Kristol must resign, in response to Kristol calling for Steele's resignation over his recent remarks. My headline from July 2 said very much the exact same thing. And Coulter's logic is rather similar, as well.

Michael Steele was absolutely right. Afghanistan is Obama's war and, judging by other recent Democratic ventures in military affairs, isn't likely to turn out well.

It has been idiotically claimed that Steele's statement about Afghanistan being Obama's war is "inaccurate" – as if Steele is unaware Bush invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. (No one can forget that – even liberals pretended to support that war for three whole weeks.)

... In the entire seven-year course of the Afghanistan war under Bush, from October 2001 to January 2009, 625 American soldiers were killed. In 18 short months, Obama has nearly doubled that number to 1,124 Americans killed.

Republicans used to think seriously about deploying the military. President Eisenhower sent aid to South Vietnam, but said he could not "conceive of a greater tragedy" for America than getting heavily involved there.

Melissa Clouthier at Liberty Pundits, blogger and Twitter allstar and conservative minx Cubachi, as well as Steve Schippert of ThreatsWatch have all staked out a similar position.

(note that I had to use a rare double-block quote!)

The point I've heard both Rush and Levin make is: who cares about Michael Steele? What difference would it make for him to resign? Has he done anything to harm the country or its future? Absolutely not. Have the Democrats? For God's sake, YES! Where are the calls for them to resign? Rush put it best: if you want to do something, filibuster Kagen. But, going after Michael Steele won't do s***.

Now, this doesn't let Steele off the hook completely, but only because of the ham handed way he expressed himself. But, lurking in his "gaffe" was a good point: Obama has significantly ramped up the war in Afghanistan after it was quiescent for much of the Bush Administration. In that sense, it certainly was a war of Obama's choosing.

We could have just as easily maintained the status quo - a light footprint, chasing tribesmen and al-Quaeda hither and yon - into perpetuity. But, Democrats, from Obama on down, loved to bellow on the stump that Afghanistan was the Good War, which we "abandoned" (while leaving behind tens of thousands of troops?) to invade Iraq. So, in order to keep their "promise" to focus on the right fight, we are taking increasing casualties to refight a war we had already won. This time, however, there are overly legalistic rules of engagement, plus a deadline to withdraw, and the general in charge just resigned after he said some unflattering things about his civilian superiors in Tiger Beat, so... the fighting really isn't going as well as it was under Bush.

Democrats are not covering themselves in glory in this. They have chosen to ramp up a war because they don't want to be seen as the anti-war party - which most assuredly they are - and have done so in the manner most likely to result in a loss or at best a chaotic muddle. Rather than waging war to protect the strategic interests of the United States, they are doing so to protect the electoral prospects of Barack Obama. Surely there's a quick 'n dirty way to make that point in a political context without Bill Kristol penning overwrought "open letters" to anyone who dares to criticize the war effort.

Moreover, I think the electorate is ready to move on (so to speak) from the familiar dichotomy of Dems = anti-war; GOP = war. The Iraq War may have been a noble cause. It certainly was worth the effort to depose Saddam and install a more amenable political system. And, our troops performed magnificently at all stages of the war, even as the civilian and military leadership let them down at times. But, it went on too long, and at this point, anyone coming to the American public with a Big Plan to invade some Third World hellhole is going to have a lot of persuading to do. That doesn't necessarily mean that Americans are becoming (hissss) more isolationist, or want to withdraw from the world. But, it does mean that there is a sense out there that America has been too eager to run around acting as the world's policeman, often to the benefit of our "allies" in Europe and Asia who pay us back with street protests and windy UN speeches.

The fact is that the US and its military have done a lot in the last 10 years, and a large chunk of the electorate thinks that much of that effort was quixotic or misdirected. Michael Steele's clumsy statement was a reflection of that and - you know what? - he may be on to something.