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Christine O’Donnell and the “Emboldening” Terrorists Rationale

By Michael Crowley | @CrowleyTIME | October 14, 2010 | +

Christine O’Donnell cites a rationale for staying in Afghanistan which appears to be influencing both the policy and politics around the debate over that war. As O’Donnell put it in last night’s debate:

A random withdrawal, that [Democratic nominee Chris Coons] has said he supports, will simply embolden the terrorists to come after us even more, saying, ‘I’ve chased away the superpower.’

When it comes to foreign policy, O’Donnell obviously does not speak with the authority of a Council on Foreign Relations scholar. But I assume she’s channeling a talking point that came from within the GOP foreign policy establishment. (Update: Yep.) It’s one we’ll probably be hearing more of from the right as we approach July 2011, Obama’s target date to begin a troop withdrawal (of unspecified size and speed).

I recently talked to someone involved with Afghanistan policy who agrees that “emboldening” carries real currency among senior policymakers. And while he didn’t dismiss its logic out of hand, he raised an important counterpoint: Does it not also embolden terrorists when the U.S. military is bogged down in a Muslim country where we (unintentionally) kill civilians, raid homes, and detain often-innocent people under military conditions? And in a place where terrorists who may stand no chance of entering Europe or America can kill U.S. soldiers or at least martyr themselves trying? This is a complex question that requires more than one blog item to unpack. But it’s worth remembering that the status quo in Afghanistan is problematic for reasons that go beyond blood and treasure.

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  • http://www.ghostnote.com Juan Valdez

    This war was lost 12/01 in Tora Bora. It was a rockpile full of crazies before we went there, it’s one now, and it will be one after we leave, doesn’t matter if it’s next week or 100 years from now. Time to pack up the unarmored Humvee and come home.

  • allthingsinaname

    Let us call it what it is, Cheap, uninformed, political BS

  • charlieromeobravo

    So which do we think is more “emboldening”: staying and letting them kick our asses around for sport and useful P.R. or leaving and giving them theoretical bragging rights?
    .
    All things being equal, leaving seems like the better of the two options if only because it would save lives and money.
    .
    It just makes my head swim that the Bush administration’s incompetence has left us in this position after *NINE* years. I agreed with Obama that this was the correct war of the two to be involved with but Bush’s kick the can played right into Obama’s underestimation of the situation.

  • destor23

    I suspect this is still another example of us falling into the traps set by our enemies. Didn’t the idea that we embolden terrorists by withdrawing from combat zones actually begin with bin Laden? I believe he said that he was personally emboldened by our withdrawal from Somalia in the 90s.

    Thing is, I’m not keen on taking bin Laden at his word. There’s a pretty good consensus that bin Laden wanted the U.S. to bog itself down in a war in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East. If the extremists want us there and want to fight us there then trying to convince us that they’ll chase us home if we leave is, well… kind of their strategy, isn’t it? So why are we doing what they want us to do?

  • shepherdwong

    “This is a complex question that requires more than one blog item to unpack.”
    .
    No it isn’t, you just unpacked it. One is little more than a PR question (“what will they say about us when we’re gone”) the other is a matter of morality, life and death.

  • Paul-no not that one

    If anyone would care to tell me what exactly “embolden” means in this context I would be grateful.

  • m0mentom0ri

    “A poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University has Coons up 17 points on O’Donnell ”
    .
    I’ve got a better chance of winning than Christine O’Donnell does. I know she’s a barrel of chuckles for the media, but a little more time spent on candidates that actually have a chance to win would be nice. Rather than, say, rubber-necking a train wreck candidate.

  • michaelfury
  • Alex Vallas

    Afthanistan is not a country in the traditional sense. It is an area ruled by tribal leaders, war and drug lords. There is no true central government. The illiteracy rate is exceedingly high. To change the mentality of its populace would require years if not generations. The original intent of the war in Afghanistan was to root out or kill al-Queda who were using it as a home base. They have since dispersed to Pakistan, Yemen, Ethiopia and numerous other countries including cells in Europe and the US.
    In my opinion, we should get out now. Why wait? Let Karzai deal with the Taliban — as ruthless as they are they are not our problem.

  • michaelfury

    Does refusing to face this evidence not “embolden the terrorists to come after us even more”, Ms. O’Donnell?

    http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/silence-gives-consent/

  • grape_crush

    Here’s the transcript to the debate. Excerpt:

    COONS: I never take lightly the enormous sacrifices that our servicemen and women have made now, and that we ask them to continue making. I don’t know how long is too long, but 10 years strikes me as awfully long. And I question whether your standard, whether your principles, give us any hope of winding up this war on any reasonable timeline, because, frankly, the government of Hamid Karzai has proven itself to be largely corrupt, and to be frankly ineffective at establishing control over the whole country.

    We are doing our best. We have dedicated trillions, hundreds of billions of dollars to this conflict, and I’m frankly deeply concerned that it’s a conflict without a reasonable end in sight.

    There are times in history the best way to honor the sacrifice of servicemen and women is to come up with a plan to responsibly wind down a conflict.

    O’DONNELL: And that plan should be based on those benchmarks, the benchmarks that means that we have had success.

    Again, you’re saying hollow rhetoric, when you – you say that your top priority is the concern for the safety of us on the homeland if you seriously support this random time withdrawal. Because, again, all we’re going to do is embolden the terrorists to think that they have more power than they do.[...]

    …when we were fighting the Soviets over there in Afghanistan in the ’80s and ’90s, we did not finish the job. So now we have a responsibility to finish the job. And if you’re going to make these politically correct statements that it’s costing us too much money, you are threatening the security of our homeland.

    [O'Donnell's] channeling a talking point that came from within the GOP foreign policy establishment. It’s one we’ll probably be hearing more of from the right…

    Candidates’ understanding of history aside, Which of those two perspectives hold more weight with you?

    I ask, because those are the real differences in approach to our presence in Afghanistan, not some misdirection as to what ‘emboldens the terrorists’ more.

  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    It’s amazing how much actual life and death decisions are based on what can only be described as playground taunting.
    .
    You aren’t gonna stay and fight? What are you? Chicken?

    If we humans were actually rational, such considerations would be irrelevant.

    .

  • nflfoghorn

    “…in a place where terrorists who may stand no chance of entering Europe or America can kill U.S. soldiers or at least martyr themselves trying?”
    .
    Wha’ happened to “we have to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here?”

  • herby002

    “we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”

    You forgot: that was George Bush in reference to the Real Enemy, Saddam in Iraq. So it was necessary to take troops and resources from the al Qaida/Taliban “conflict” in Afghanistan to remove the Real Threat to the US.

    Obviously, since we hoisted the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner behind “Captain America” on the aircraft carrier, we are safe – right?

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