Mike Payne

September 07, 2009

Now that National Review has joined George Will in reevaluating Afghanistan, the cheerleading needed to prevent a sensible exit from that conflict falls to the Left. Will they take up the pom-poms? Not to worry. Just as the neocon rationales for the Iraq adventure morphed; from “weapons of mass destruction” to “Well, Saddam was a butcher” to “Saddam threatened the global oil supply” to ?BUT WE CAN’T JUST LEAVE!,” we will undoubtedly see the Left’s justifications for remaining in Afghanistan evolve. I envision the trajectory going something like this: “We inherited this from Bush” to “We’re this close to establishing a progressive democracy” to “If we leave now, other Third Worlders will think we don’t care about them!” to “We have to make up for the contraction in consumer spending with military spending…oh, and yeah, women’s rights!”