The Netherlands is pulling out of Afghanistan. Dutch Prime Minister Jan Balkenende recently threw in the towel when the debate against the opposing Labour Party over whether to leave Dutch troops in Afghanistan or to bring them home came to an impasse. Today, The Los Angeles Times’ take on this decision to retreat is largely aimed at how this will affect President Obama’s standing in the World.
The Times’ editorial is another example of the left-leaning American Media Corps providing sympathy, armor and cover for Obama, directing attention away from the larger issue at hand: What is there to gain for The United States by staying in Afghanistan? Given that U.S. Forces have now been engaged there in combat operations for nearly nine years, it is a question that deserves some vigorous debate. But the L. A. Times is more focused on sympathizing with Obama’s prestige problem than on the larger strategic one.
Read the Times Editorial here:
“The Netherlands has become the first NATO ally to announce that it is quitting the fight in Afghanistan, following the collapse of the center-right government over its involvement in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban. The decision by the Dutch to pull their nearly 2,000 troops does not bode well for President Obama, who has been struggling since autumn to get Europe to increase its troop commitments. On the contrary, the administration should worry that the Dutch move will prompt other governments to reconsider their support for an unpopular war.
Europe has been grappling with Islamic extremism, including the 2004 killing in Holland of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a Dutch Moroccan radical, and attacks in Britain and Spain organized in South Asia…”
A Muslim killed van Gogh in an undisguised act of jihad. And don’t forget outspoken Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who remains under twenty-four hour a day police protection, due to threats on his life by Muslim factions. It is interesting that the words “Islamic extremism” now appear in a Times editorial. Front Page Magazine Editor Jamie Glazov recently weighed in on Janet Napolitano’s recent brilliant discovery of the issue.
The President’s name appears five times in this editorial, each in the context of how difficult is Obama’s situation. It’s time for the American Press Corps to stop sympathizing with him and running all of this misdirecting interference. Let’s begin rationally, factually and objectively debating how we are going to defend ourselves against jihad and Sharia (Muslim law) - without leaving our troops isolated in places like Stone Age Muslim Afghanistan, locked into a Third World guerrilla war with no end in sight.