Steele Clarifies Afghanistan Remarks
Amid a new firestorm over comments suggesting the war in Afghanistan is ill-advised, RNC chair Michael Steele is doing damage control and adding his support for Gen. David Petraeus.
In a statement released this afternoon through the RNC, Steele reiterated his own support for the war effort, and Petraeus, who was confirmed this week as the top US commander in the theater.
"There is no question that America must win the war on terror," Steele said. "During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear his belief that we should not fight in Iraq, but instead concentrate on Afghanistan. Now, as President, he has indeed shifted his focus to this region. That means this is his strategy. And, for the sake of the security of the free world, our country must give our troops the support necessary to win this war."
Steele spokesman Doug Heye responded to a video in which Steele made his controversial comments by questioning Obama's strategy in Afghanistan.
"The responsibility for building and maintaining [a] strategy falls squarely on the shoulders of the President. Like so many Americans, Chairman Steele wants to hear an explanation from President Obama on what his strategy is for winning the war in Afghanistan," Heye said.
Heye called Petraeus's confirmation hearings, held this week, a "missed opportunity" to flesh out Obama's strategy. And Steele himself, at a fundraiser on Thursday, said winning wars in Afghanistan has proven difficult in history. On Friday afternoon, Steele reiterated his support for the general and aimed to clarify his historical point.
"As we have learned throughout history, winning a war in Afghanistan is a difficult task. We must also remember that after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, it is also a necessary one," Steele said. "That is why I supported the decision to increase our troop force and, like the entire United States Senate, I support General Petraeus' confirmation. The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan."
GOPers overwhelmingly favor the war in Afghanistan, and Petraeus's nomination. Steele's comments prompted Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol to call for the RNC chairman's resignation.
Steele was RIGHT the first time.
It is quite discouraging to me that he reversed himself--i.e. (Huffington Post online)
"Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele expressed an unusual interpretation of the relationship between Barack Obama and the war in Afghanistan at a Connecticut fundraiser Thursday.
"This was a war of Obama's choosing," Michael Steele said at the event. "This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."
Steele also accused Obama of "demonizing Iraq while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan."
"Well, if he's 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, alright, because everyone who's tried over a thousand years of history has failed," Steele continued."
AND just when I was really ready to get behind the GOP (again) Steele becomes the "politican." What a shame!
I appreciate that for one brief moment I saw what I have noted from the beginning about Afghanistan. . . .
If Obama has the US over there to "win friends and influnce people" then just say so!!!! (this site)
"The responsibility for building and maintaining [a] strategy falls squarely on the shoulders of the President. Like so many Americans, Chairman Steele wants to hear an explanation from President Obama on what his strategy is for winning the war in Afghanistan," Heye said."
The Dale Carnegie strategy Obama has choosen is doomed--and yet another exercise in smoke and mirrors diplomacy gone very wrong. This is no "war" and Americans should not be dying there. For what? I am no bleeding heart. NO ONE can explain the mission there--whywhywhy?????
Thanks, Steele. (May I pretend you did not retract you original statement???? Please?)
I thought that his remarks were refreshingly candid and, at least the part about Afghanistan being the graveyard of empires, very lucid.
In Steele's defense, Obama HAS been escalating the war there, a move likely to consign him to the same dustbin of history as his predecessor.
He's certainly a loose cannon and kind of an ass but in this case he was telling it like it is (and virtually no one on either side of our one-sided political spectrum wants to hear that.)
Speak your mind Michael!
Thank you this was a ace read
I also, sort of, agreed with Steele in my July 9 blog "Michael Steele, George Will, and 'Time to Get Out of Afghanistan'" at http://westchesterview.tumblr.com/. Like the VietNam war, this one has the potential to shake up traditional alignments. There are Republicans who support the war because that is their long-standing habit; there are Dems who support it largely because Obama is a Democrat; some R's oppose it because they know something about history and can count the cost; some D's oppose it because they prefer peace and diplomacy and feel Obama and the Dem-controlled Congress have gone terribly astray. Whatever Steele's real beliefs and motives (and it really doesn't matter what they are, only what he said and then recanted), when a majority of Americans are against a war, it is very perilous for the party in power to keep plowing ahead as if no one noticed.