Maggie's Farm

One of my dearest, longest and most respected friends has stared more deeply and widely into the dark side of reality than anyone.  We just discussed my “Davy Crockett attitude” toward President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. My way of being is to find reasons to smile in the face of challenges.  I, also, believe this travesty further removes him from the ability of serious-minded people to support him.

My friend is qualified to be less sanguine: he served as a combat advisor in Vietnam, a MSM war correspondent in SE Asia, a refugee worker for the Cambodians who could escape massacre, became a Catholic priest, served at the Vatican, is currently a challenging professor of philosophy at a major college, and continues his priestly ministering.

Here’s what my friend has to say about what he titles “Taliban Peace Prize For Obama.”  (My friend chooses to withhold his name from this post, so as not to intrude politics into his classroom or ministry.)

Giving Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is an even more political act than giving it to Arafat. More shrewd as well.

 

The Nobel committee hopes to influence Obama's decisions on Afghanistan. Now that he is an internationally recognized man of peace, he is not going to order a surge in Afhanistan. McChrystal won't get the troops he says he needs.

 

The White House has been preparing this ground for weeks, suggesting that since Al Qaeda is now weak a Taliban return to power needn't worry us. We can live with that, they say off the record. The great military thinkers Joe Biden, John Kerry, Rahm Emanuel, and David Axelrod have developed a long-range John Murtha strategy that will operate along the lines of a video game: if you see movement on the screen, push a button.

 

And with the Taliban back in power, we won't have to worry about messy elections. But what about those who fought with us? What has the Taliban in store for them? If Afghanistan were not a land-locked country, we could expect thousands of boat people.

 

But not to worry. When asked about a possible bloodbath following a hasty withdrawal from Iraq, Obama said he didn't really have a problem with it and its possibility should not determine policy. He won't have a problem with it in Afghanistan either. After all, we've been told, Afghanistan, like Vietnam or Iraq before the surge, was always unwinnable. We'll accept a certain number of refugees to help ease the short-term sting of conscience over betraying an allly. But as with all vices, repetition makes the practice easier. This won't be the first time we've betrayed an ally.

 

It will destoy the military, of course, but by the time that becomes clear Obama will have passed from the scene.
Also read this on Obama's attitude toward bloodbath in Iraq, and this commentary on the political award to President Obama.