Gingrich to Afghanistan: “live your own miserable life…”
I don’t even want to speculate how many million Americans are in complete agreement with this:
Washington Post blog: At a business luncheon in Nashville today, former House speaker Newt Gingrich said it was impossible to “fix Afghanistan” and that the United States should tell Afghans that “you’re going to have to figure out how to live your own miserable life… Because you clearly don’t want to learn from me how to be unmiserable.” Gingrich suggested the U.S. pull out our troops a few days ago, after two American soldiers were killed by a man in an Afghan army uniform.
Is it possible that a Koran burning incident can form a “tipping point” that dramatically changes the strategic situation? The West still plans in terms of years – but there are one-off incidents that could cause a sudden strategic landslip – assassination of Karzai? A downed ISAF/civilian aircraft carrying many people? A major ANSF/ISAF shoot out? A civilian “collateral damage” incident?
Just to address the gut response of many American voters: to see our president apologizing to the Afghan President Karzai for the burning of the Koran (Quran) books while (to the American mind) maddened Afghans use this as an excuse to kill Americans and destroy their property, approximates an abomination. I’ve been in the USA for almost two months now (will return to Sweden in a week). President Obama’s apology, linked with the growing perception that he is a weak leader, further linked with his almost full-time campaigning for the presidential election in November this year, may well result in Mr. Obama’s taking certain actions designed to make him look tough and decisive and which may well be inimical to the people of Afghanistan. Look for the “October (or earlier) surprise” that campaigning presidents have engineered since the advent of mass communications.