Allen West Agrees With Obama?! Advocates Withdrawing From Afghanistan

By Lisa Rab Tue., May 3 2011 at 10:49 AM

Obama is on a roll; even West agrees.

Osama Bin Laden has been dead for less than 48 hours, and already the victory has gone to U.S. Rep. Allen West's head. As a retired Army lieutenant colonel who built much of his hard-right political career on his military record, he made a very odd, liberal-sounding suggestion in this week's email to supporters. He advocated withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

The day is soon coming, at least in my assessment and perspective, when we bid farewell to [President Hamid] Karzai and his culture of corruption. My focus would be solely on executing precision strike operations against Islamic terrorist groups wherever they seek to establish sanctuary, no more nation-building, occupation-style warfare.

Now, this wouldn't be so strange, except that President Obama has already announced
plans to start withdrawing troops from the decade-long Afghan war this July. Which means West agrees with his archenemy. Is that even allowed in the Tea Party universe?

As for the "precision strike operations" against terrorists, that's a lovely idea, clearly inspired by the successful Navy SEAL operation against Bin Laden. But it took American intelligence operatives ten years to locate Bin Laden's compound. That's not exactly an easily replicable strategy.

But once again, it's something Obama officials are already advocating. According to the New York Times:

The administration, officials said, was already moving away from this counterinsurgency strategy, toward one with more limited objectives for Afghanistan... Drone strikes and nighttime raids, of the kind that killed Bin Laden, would figure even more prominently in such a strategy, officials said.

Amazing! Twice in one week, West is forced to agree with the president. Hope this doesn't cause West -- or his followers -- to spontaneously combust.

Tags:

Afghanistan, Allen West, Osama bin Laden dead, war on terror

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HankS_FtLauderdale

Ms. Rab: In January 2010 Allen West participated in a panel discussion on national security with UN Ambassador John Bolton sponsored by the prestigious Hudson Institute. See http://tinyurl.com/ydt8qop (click on national security panel). If you don't have the patience, try a shorter clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v....Congressman Allen West has more knowledge of the threats we face than .......(I'll spare the lecture -- you get the idea).Educate yourself. Check out the videos. We are all Americans. GO WEST!

KennyPowersSays

John ( Mr. Plato's Retreat ) Bolton and Allen West on the same dais is more than enough to erase any level of credibility to that symposium. Not much diversity expected from the neocon Hudson Institute.

HankS_FtLauderdale

Kenny -- Get past the usual one-liners/labels and spend 1 hour 47 minutes listening. Remarkable content.

Michele

My dear, Congressman West is never "forced" into agreeing with someone. He is however, a principled leader who speaks his mind and does not simply toe the line. He knows a heckuva lot about the lethal capabilities of our armed forces and has never advocated "nation building" as a military strategic goal. What's strange to me, is Obama actually agrees with WEST, not the other way around.

Stephen

Who writes this jibberish? What's amazing is the two actions taken by Bush were vindicated this week. Gitmo and Rendition. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured by Bush's CIA in 2003 in Pakistan. He was given a brief rendition vacation in Eastern Europe with all the bells and whistles, including waterboarding. We was eventually detained permanently at GITMO. During his interrogations, he gave up the name of Osama's courrier. The CIA eventually found and tracked the courrier to Osama's compound in Pakistan.

Bush gets enormous credit here, Obama just lucky as this intelligence fell into his lap.

Judge Sirica

Bush certainly gets credit for setting in motion the intelligence operations that eventually bore fruit. Obama deserves credit for making the gutsy call to authorize the strike based on nothing but circumstantial intelligence, no matter how good. It's gutsy simply because you are attacking a target in a foreign sovereign nation without its permission, and if it had gone wrong, or bin Laden not been there, just imagine the fallout. some were advocating caution, Obama made the call. They both deserve credit.

SMDrPepper

Bush jr deserves no credit at all. He had EIGHT YEARS to do this but instead went after Saddam for no good reason.President Obama, who had remained very humble about the whole thing, did it in two. The info only came in as recently as August and he acted with it. I am proud of his decision and the SEAL team that followed his orders to do it.Really, right wingers, you have lost this one. And now, the stated goal of Bush has FINALLY been accomplished (an not when he decided to do a dog and pony show on that carrier), President Obama can finally pull our troops out of the hell hole they are in. I just hope he does not do the same mistake Reagan did and let the Taliban come in again.

Lynn Anderson

Well, Obama has to do something right now desn't he? How can there be so much sarcasm in one on-line newspaper? Are you really the same person with multiple ID's?