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Contra Krauthammer

March 30th, 2007
By Marc Schulman

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In my previous post, after quoting from Charles Krauthammer’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post, I averred that he had presented “a soundly argued case,” unless you elected to dismiss Bin Laden’s and Zawahiri’s statements that Iraq, not Afghanistan, is the central front in the conflict between Al Qaeda and the West. I then rather pointedly asked for a reasoned refutation of Krauthammer’s argument.

Nykrindc has provided such a refutation. It begins with these words:

This is my response to blog friend, Marc Schulman’s post on Charles Krauthammer’s Op-ed in today’s Washington Post. Please read the Krauthammer piece and Marc’s post before delving into my response.

I will disagree with Krauthammer here. First, he says that the assumption that “the world’s one superpower, which spends more on defense every year than the rest of the world combined, does not have the capacity to fight an insurgency in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan.� This I believe has been borne by events. Our commanders have in fact said that our armed forces are stretched thin, and our forces are near their breaking point, particularly ground forces like the army, marines and National Guard. Krauthammer makes much on the fact that we spend so much more on defense than the rest of the world, which is true, however, much of that spending has traditionally gone to acquire high end platforms and technology which has ill-served us in fighting an insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have not spent that money on our troops, either in training (as good as it is) on language, cultural and counter-insurgency training, nor on their health care as recent events have borne out (the Walter Reed debacle).

The remainder of Nykrindc’s (lengthy) post can be found at his New Yorker in DC blog.



This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under War On Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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