The Vietnamization of Afghanistan

For some damn reason Jane Fonda, the traitorous swine, was all up in my gmail account, yapping about how great Code Pink was an anti-war organization:

Dear LT,
As an actor, I know the power of the screen. As an activist, I also know the power of taking a message off the screen and onto the streets. That's why I love CODEPINK--it not only utilizes the best of the visual media with its vibrant pink presence; the women of CODEPINK are also out in the world...

Apparently old hippies never die, they just get senile and spread their messages through the internet rather than half-baked drum sessions. But unlike Vietnam, the beginning of operations in Afghanistan were hardly controversial in 2001. The Taliban, a despicable regime, was harboring terrorists that perpetrated one of the greatest atrocities in American history. The authorization for the use of military force did not take long to pass in DC. But as Iraq winds down, and people look for ways to divert money from defense for the sake of keeping people on the public dole, expect opposition to Afghanistan to begin ramping up.

In some cases, leaders of large progressive policy groups don't even bother trying to rationalize why the war must have an end...not even a catchy tune that you can slap on a protest sign. They just say we need to give money to irresponsible citizens who splurged on McMansions. From Huffington Post:

With housing prices continuing to plummet, not helping them means the financial system is being buttressed on top of a time bomb...But perhaps we'd be wiser to leave bin Laden in his cave, abandon the entire wrong-headed misnomer of a "war on terror," and give up attempting to build a new democracy in a country on the other side of the world. Make aggressive global policing, intelligence sharing, and a crackdown on financial flows the core of our reaction to bin Laden, and focus our resources and attention on the crisis here at home, which remains truly terrifying to anyone who looks at it closely.

The mission in Afghanistan does not provide a direct paycheck into people's pocket, so as the public gets more desperate to go back to their excessive living of SUVs, reality TV, and subprime mortgages, they are going to be easily swayed by politicians making promises. Maybe the next administration will do the right thing and look for new tactics and diplomacy to put the mission back on track, but the American people are going to be bitching every step of the way during these hard times. The college protesters, progressive bloggers, and other layabouts who speak the loudest for the anti-war movement will be making a lot more sense to more and more Americans.