John Podhoretz , Editor of Commentary;Noah Rothman Associate Editor of Commentary; Afghanistan from the Washington Post

The monthly magazine of opinion.DECEMBER 10, 2019 

Schiff’s Big Lie

by John Podhoretz , Editor of Commentary;

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Rep. Adam Schiff explained the rationale for the House’s impending impeachment charges thus: Not to act now would be to let Donald Trump “cheat in one more election.”

Excuse me? Didn’t Robert Mueller spend two years conducting an exhaustive investigation into the charge that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and found no evidence of it? Yes, he did. Yes, that was his finding. The investigation “did not establish” any 2016 conspiracy between Trump and Russia. Trump did not “cheat.”

The only unresolved questions in the Mueller report involve the degree to which Trump might have obstructed justice by interfering with the Mueller investigation. Mueller dodged coming to a conclusion on this matter by saying he relied on precedent in thinking he could not indict a sitting president.

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Well, Adam Schiff just justified impeachment on the basis of a false charge he has every reason to know is false. I await the media outrage.

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 Confidential documents reveal U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan from the Washington Post

Date: December 10, 2019 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

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The End of the Interventionist Conceit

by Noah Rothman   Associate Editor of Commentary

The Washington Post’s blockbuster investigation revealing nearly two decades of government documents pertaining to the war in Afghanistan is nothing short of devastating. It’s a strike against public trust in governing institutions, which are already suffering from a critical confidence deficit. It’s a blow to the vital American project overseas that began in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and remains a mission of paramount importance. And it’s an assault on the psychological conceit shared by interventionists and foreign policy extroverts, which had once absolved them of responsibility for America’s failures abroad.

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The investigation portrayed the Bush administration as disengaged from the conflict and deceptive when the facts on the ground failed to align with its objectives.

 IT EXPOSED HOW OUTRIGHT MENDACIOUS THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE BECAME WHEN THE REALITIES OF THE WAR FAILED TO MEET ITS EXPECTATIONS.

 What’s most troubling about the failure of the American mission in Afghanistan is that it is not attributable to a lack of political will to stay the course.

….. Nor was this Iraq, where a troop surge in concert with the renewed commitment from the nation’s Sunni tribes to combat the insurgency had all but pacified the country by the time Obama failed to pursue a status of forces agreement and withdrew all U.S. troops. 

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The Post’s all but explicit intention with the release of these documents is to influence the course of negotiations between the Trump administration and the Taliban, presumably with an eye toward hastening America’s withdrawal from the country.

 The ethics associated with strengthening the hand of an American enemy abroad while weakening the president’s to achieve a preferred political outcome do not seem to have weighed heavily on the paper’s editors.

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