Here’s sentence that I don’t usually type: Bill Kristol has a point. In a post the other day called What War? he noted:
Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party’s nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan.
Really, that is pretty remarkable. Granted, most Americans have tuned out the war (and, to point the finger at myself, this omission did not occur to me in my initial reaction to the speech). Still, given the significance of the policy, both looking back and going forward, it really is something that deserved attention from a man who wants to be the CINC.
Of course, Romney’s opening act mentioned it. In his address to the empty chair, Clint Eastwood noted:
I know you were against the war in Iraq, and that’s okay. But you thought the war in Afghanistan was OK. You know, I mean — you thought that was something worth doing. We didn’t check with the Russians to see how did it — they did there for 10 years.
But we did it, and it is something to be thought about, and I think that, when we get to maybe — I think you’ve mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. You gave that target date, and I think Mr. Romney asked the only sensible question, you know, he says, “Why are you giving the date out now? Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?”
Of course: Romney supported said war as well, and last time I checked was not calling for an immediate withdrawal.
