The Last "Liberal" Defender of the "Good War" Bails Out

Yes, Mr. President: If you've lost Howard Dean, you've lost the country.

Firedoglake:

Back in 2004, when Howard Dean was running for President on an antiwar platform, while he railed against the war in Iraq he didn’t have a whole lot to say about the one in Afghanistan. That was the “good war” at that time. As recently as September 2009, Dean was solidly behind Afghanistan and even President Obama’s escalation there:

I think this is different than Iraq. I think there are people who mean the United States harm over there… I was very pleased to say the — hear the president a few months ago say, “Look, we can’t win this war militarily.” He gets what we have to do here. And it is true that American public opinion is not supportive of the war effort anymore. I think this does have something to do with security to the United States. I do believe it has something to do with the role of women in these kinds of societies. I think we ought to be supportive of the role of women and their ability to get an education and things like that. I don’t think that’s the only reason we’re there. But I’m supportive of the president, and I’m going to continue to be supportive of the president on Afghanistan.

That has ended. In an interview with The Daily Beast, Dean says it’s time to get out:

In a weekend interview with The Daily Beast, Dean said he’s had a change of heart when it comes to the war he has often defended. “I actually supported the president when he sent extra troops to Afghanistan,” Dean said. “But I’ve come to believe that’s not a winnable war.”

Dean attributes his newly-held opposition to a crisis of faith in Afghan President Hamid Karzai—and in the war’s humanitarian value.

“I supported (ramping up troop presence) because I was concerned with what would happen to the women in the country” if the Taliban took control, Dean said. “But I recently read about Karzai saying some very sexist, terrible things, and it’s become obvious that there’s not a whole lot of difference between the two sides.”

He continued: “As much as I feel terrible about what’s happening to the women there, Karzai has shown he can’t be trusted any more than the Taliban to help them.”

The notion of occupying Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights was always spurious. Women’s rights are not traditionally respected in war zones. Not even the Obama Administration is making this argument anymore.

But I guess that was kind of the last justification Dean had for the policy, and with that done, he’s turned completely away. He added, “The Vietnam War showed us we shouldn’t prop up corrupt governments, and that’s what we’ve got in Afghanistan.”

There was always going to be a tipping point where the Administration would lose their own party on Afghanistan. This has been building for some time. Dean is a good model for this. He supported the President on Afghanistan for the first couple years. Heck, he still supports the President on Libya. But there’s a recognition from Dean that Afghanistan doesn’t help the United States reach any goals, whether on national security or humanitarian grounds.

Yes, there's going to be a big political price for saying fuckit, we're outta here. But that political price - not to mention the actual cash price of billions of dollars, the budgetary loss price and the human price of, you know, dead people - gets bigger every day we delay.