The Washington Post States the Obvious

The New York Times will definitely endorse Barack Obama for president (if they haven't already), but I'm beginning to think that the Washington Post will endorse John McCain. In its editorial today, the Post makes some points that I have been emphasizing for a long time now. These are points that I have never seen raised in the mainstream media, even though they are glaringly obvious and not debatable (and even though they bear directly on Obama's claim that the war in Iraq is a distraction and has never been the central front in the war on terror, whereas Afghanistan supposedly has been). In truth, anyone with an ounce of curiosity and a milligram of investigative ability could quickly determine for themselves that al Qaeda abandoned Afghanistan long ago to fight America in Iraq (blame Bush for that, if you must). For background on that, read this post. Moreover, I have repeatedly pointed out that Obama and many others on the left obscure this reality by constantly referring to the fact that al Qaeda's leaders are free to plan terror attacks from the hideouts along Afghanistan/Pakistan border. This makes it sound as if sending more troops to that region might stand a chance of putting a stop to such activity (i.e., it makes it sound as if our troops would be heading out to the central front in the war on terror). What renders this way of thinking invalid is the fact that high-level al Qaeda commanders are believed to be across the border -- inside Pakistan -- which means that no amount of additional troops sent to Afghanistan will help to nab them (unless, of course, they invade Pakistan, which is not going to happen). References to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border seem designed to obscure this critical detail. That is, such references seem to be a gimmick designed to capitalize on the fact that most Americans are not paying attention to the details. It might be politically wise to do that, but it does not seem completely honest to me.

If you read my blog, these arguments are old hat, but I don't believe you have ever seen them made in the mainstream media. Not ever.

In a more recent post two days ago, I further argued that while the world was gushing about Msaliki's apparent endorsement of Obama's plan to withdraw our troops in 16 months, the fact is that Maliki endorsed McCain's view, not Obama's. What amazes me is that all of these points just showed up in today's editorial in the Washington Post:

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.
...
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."
...
He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

Obama claims that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is and always has been the central front in the war on terror, yet "...there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan." You don't say! Moreover, Obama himself credits the unexpected Sunni awakening in Iraq with helping to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq, which, in turn, helped to bring violence way down to the low levels we see today. Obama has never shown the slightest hint that he understands who the suicide bombers of Iraq are, but he at least seems to acknowledge that defeating al Qaeda has been a large part of the reason for our success there. In this way, his views are similar to the views of many on the left who simultaneously hold these two incompatible positions:

1. al Qaeda was a minor force in the violence that gripped Iraq in 2006 and 2007 (the violence mainly being attributable to a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis, who have long hated each other)

2. the dramatic reduction in violence that began in September of 2007 is due mainly to the Sunni rebellion against al Qaeda, not to the troop surge itself

In any case, from where I sit, Obama's positions on Iraq and Afghanistan (and on the war on terror in general) are not coherent. The fact that al Qaeda is in Iraq and not in Afghanistan is perhaps the key to understanding the problem with his attempt to think through this issue. Once people understand that al Qaeda is not in Afghanistan, they might begin to awaken to the idea that Afghanistan has not been the central front in our war with al Qaeda.

I congratulate the editors of the Washington Post for their insight, but why has it taken this long for someone in the mainstream media to take note of this obvious point?

UPDATE: Americans are not that well informed about the war on terror, I am sorry to say, and polling results like these help to explain why Obama is pushing the false narrative that the editors of the Washington Post finally exposed:

The survey taken Tuesday night finds 43% agree with Obama that Afghanistan is the central front in the war on terror. One-third of voters (33%) disagree. Again, nearly half (48%) believe that Afghanistan is a greater threat to the security of the United States than Iraq, while 28% rate Iraq as the bigger concern.

Americans think that the Taliban is a bigger threat than al Qaeda? No, of course they don't. These poll results merely show that most Americans do not appreciate the fact that al Qaeda has been a major force in Iraq over the last 5 years, during which time they have done next to nothing in Afghanistan. Americans have this wrong because virtually all mainstream media reporters have it wrong. One can only hope that today's editoial in the Post is the beginning of a shift in reporting on this issue.