About a week ago, Michael Steele said (or wrote) this:
“Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” And, “if [Obama] is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?” – http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/letter-michael-steele
Various conservatives, including William Kristol (the chief editor of the Weekly Standard), have requested or demanded that Steele resign.
Why?
Michael Steele said the truth: only a fool would involve his country in a long ground war on Afghan soil. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan, not even Genghis Khan, who never managed to truly subjugate the Afghan populace – he only managed to kill some Afghans.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.
Steele referred to historical facts. By contrast, those conservatives who have demanded that he resign base their demands – and their claim that the Afghan war can be won – on the fantasy that it can be won because America is different.
The Afghan war is an unwinnable, pointless, prohibitively costly, unnecessary war of nation-building. The sooner American troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan, the better for America. And what’s better for America is my #1 criterion.
Défense et Géopolitique 