Watcher's Council Results: Obama's Afghanistan Is Going To Be A Disaster But No One Knows It. Or Anything Else.
Last week's votes are in and the top Council picks are The Afghanistan Blues from JoshuaPundit and Oh, the musical memories... from The Colossus of Rhodey.
The new president-elect and his foreign policy team like the idea of what they call a more regional strategy in Afghanistan,including talks with Iran and pushing negotiations between the Afghan government and what Obama's national security advisers call the "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban. Additionally, the new Commander-in Chief wants a 16 month deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq, a transfer of three combat brigades to Afghanistan, and a new focus on our supposed real enemies, bin-Laden and al-Qaeda. Team Obama is also emphasizing how popular the new president-elect is in Europe, and expects that to translate into increased troops commitments from our balky NATO allies. This is troubling on several accounts... I hate to say it, but right now it looks like amateur hour at the White House.
You should click through to read his extensive explanation for why those strategies won't work. Then come back here for a video explaining the cost of trying to cozy up to Iran while we degrade relations with Pakistan.
Via Gateway Pundit:
The non-Council picks were How the Academic Left Elected Obama from Paul Kengor over at American Thinker and what we seem to be calling Obama and the Chicago Way from the Chicago Trib. The Kengor piece links the American educational system to the increasingly significant wave of low information voters:
While these categories are not monolithic, and overlap, they capture the current generation of college students, who clearly went bonkers for Barack Obama. Why? What are they learning -- and not learning? These youth live and learn on college campuses where "diversity" and "tolerance" and "multiculturalism" -- bogus buzzwords that apply only to ethnic, gender, and sexual diversity, not genuine diversity of ideas -- reign supreme. Racial diversity is at the crux of this academic trinity, the source and summit of the faith. It is the molten, golden calf, where much of the intelligentsia and their disciples gather to worship. Political correctness has supplanted traditional religion.
I tend to think that this puts too much emphasis on deliberate indoctrination and specific ideology. It's hard to credit a deliberate plot to mislead American students when it's obvious that most educators don't have any knowledge of geopolitics to pass on if they wanted to. But that their ignorance is manifested and justified through cheap and empty feel-good sloganeering is undeniable.
References:
* Education Blues [Watcher Of Weasels]
* The Afghanistan Blues [JoshuaPundit]
* Oh, the musical memories ... [Colossus of Rhodey]
* Walid Phares: "How can we ally ourselves with Iran in Afghanistan and tell them we don't want them to have the nuclear bomb at the same time?" (Video) [Gateway Pundit]
* How the Academic Left Elected Obama [Paul Kengor / American Thinker]
* Emanuel pick shows change is state of mind [Chicago Tribune]
* Social Science, Basic Reasoning: Anti-Palin McCain Staffers And Journalists Are Sexist Morons (Plus: Bloggers Launch Operation Leper To Make Them Famous) [MR]
* US officials flunk test of American history, economics, civics [AFP]
Previously:
* Watcher's Council Results: So, About This Democracy Thing
* Watcher's Council Nominations: Tension In The American Street, Seething Resentment In The Arab Street
* MR Joins The Watcher's Council
