We can never win a war in Afghanistan. Not in the sense of V-E Day or JAPAN SURRENDERS!

Can you imagine a headline: RADICAL ISLAMICISTS SURRENDER?

No way!

Instead, they just produce more suicide fighters and dispatch them off to kill “infidels.”

So, we cannot—and will not—win in the traditional sense.

But we can accomplish our original reason for invading Afghanistan back on October 8th, 2001: prevent another 9/11 attack.

This should be our sole goal from now on. To prevent another 9/11 does not mean to re-build a nation that does not want us there, or to build a centralized government that they do not want. This whole COIN (counter-insurgency) style of fighting a war is a total sham. Not killing people while we throw billions of dollars at them is a fruitless endeavor.

Instead we need to do just enough to prevent Afghanistan from being used—again—as a training ground for future massive attacks on the US and our allies.

Disruption is a much easier goal than occupation and nation-building.

President Obama has made this war his war by doubling the troop contingent and massively spending to double the size of our three already-enormous bases there. Clearly there is a larger strategy at work: these three bases are meant to be permanent American hubs from which to project American military force throughout the region into Iran and Syria and anywhere else we so choose. The problem is that the American people have not been told of this plan—nor have they voted for it.

General Petreus’ ascension to be the Allied Commander in Afghanistan (actually a demotion of sorts for him which he accepted to save the mission) will only deepen American involvement in Afghanistan. Why? Because in one year—the summer of 2011–when Obama and Biden have said they want to start removing the recently surged US troops–if Petreus asks for more troops, which he did in Iraq and which the Pentagon has already indicated, then who will deny him? Who will dare oppose our only heroic general? Just look at the out-poring if support for his appointment on both sides of the aisle.

Conclusion: we are in an ill-chosen fight against an un-defined enemy (Taliban or Al-Qaeda, Afghans or Pakistanis?) with an un-focused Commander-in-Chief following an un-clear objective using a certain-to-fail strategy.

And that is a prescription for a disaster.

Even though he was a United States Congressman in the early 1980s, has written several books, and is a pundit for Newsmax.com, John LeBoutillier was nobody until he began appearing with Imus last year.

Despite being a Republican, LeBoutillier not completely off the rails. Today, he shared his not-so-insane views on how the President ought to spend his political capital. First up: get Osama Bin Laden.

"Eight years and one month after this bastard hit this country, he continues to taunt us with videotapes and audiotapes, and for some odd reason this country allows it," said LeBoutillier. "What happened to the America that used to say, 'You're going to hit us? We're going to come back and get you!'"

That policy is eerily similar to the one employed by Imus in the Morning. LeBoutillier insisted it would unify Americans.

"I don't want our soldiers over there building schools in Afghanistan, interdicting the drug trade, running the government," he said. "It's all corrupt there, it's not going to change."

Killing Bin Laden, he added, would avenge 9/11, and significantly weaken Al-Qaeda, both strategically and psychologically. But instead of focusing on that goal, Obama is wasting his time and his political capital trying to pass health care reform, which LeBoutillier said is inextricably linked to Afghanistan.

"If he decides to put 30,000 more soldiers in Afghanistan, it's going to tick off the Left," he said. "And he'll also tick them off by dumping the public option."

Imus observed that Obama is a better-looking, more charming version of Jimmy Carter, which LeBoutillier did not dispute. He admonished Obama for dwelling on issues like the dispute between a Cambridge police officer and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates back in July, and on trying to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.

"Fix the economy, get jobs—that's what people want," said LeBoutillier. "Instead all they hear is 'health care, health care, health care,' and the more they hear it, his ratings are going down, down, down."

A Harvard alumnus, LeBoutillier said it was the overarching liberalism and hypocrisy there that made him become a Conservative in the 1970s. As an example, he said his professors and fellow students would preach about the redistribution of wealth, and then hop in their Mercedes to drive into Boston for lunch.

Said Imus, "Works for me."

President Obama—and the entire country—are struggling over Afghanistan.

No one can decide exactly just what our mission is—or should be.

So here is what we—as a nation—should do:

The President calls into the Oval Office the Joint Chiefs, the Head of National Intelligence and the Director of Central Intelligence, the SecDef and Generals Petreus and McChrystal.

They all sit down and the President gives them their mission: “Gentlemen, here is what we are going to do: we are going to devote every dollar, every soldier, every intelligence asset, every drop of political capital—EVERYTHING—on getting and killing Osama Bin Laden. Period. Nothing else matters. If we have to go into Pakistan to get him, do it! We are in there secretly anyway.

“This was why we went to Afghanistan originally—and the American people want to know why—after eight years—we have failed to do what we said we would do.

“So, we are going to get him. This single action will decapitate Al Qaeda and render it a weakened, disorganized entity that will then no longer be a threat to us. There is no other leader who can rally that disparate group of killers. And we are not going to stand for a man who murdered almost 3000 people to taunt us in audio and video tapes—more than eight years after the 9/11 attacks.

“And then we are going to pack up and leave. We are not there to build schools or to stop their narcotics trade or to buck up an inherently corrupt society and a thoroughly crooked regime.

“We are not the world’s policeman. And we can’t afford to try to build another country when our own in in such disarray.

“If any of you cannot accept this new mission, then please say so now—and resign. We will find other officers who will embrace this policy.

“We seek justice for the murders of 9/11. And we will get it.

“And, if in two months we haven’t gotten Bin Laden, I may very well make changes in our senior military and intelligence leadership and keep making changes until this mass murderer is brought to justice.”

If the President said that—and meant it instead of paying lip service to this mission—then we would succeed. That is the mission Americans can unite behind.

————

At the same time the White House has declared war on Fox—with more passion than their commitment to get Bin Laden. This anti-Fox diatribe is a stupid political maneuver. Sure, the liberal “base” hates Fox, but Obama has those voters anyway.

Why not, if you are Obama and his surrogates, go on Fox as much as possible and try to woo and schmooze and seduce as much of that audience as possible?

Supposedly Obama believes he can win over anyone he talks to. That is why he wants to talk to Iran and Hugo Chavez and the North Koreans. But he won’t talk to the Americans who watch Fox?

Something is wrong here.

Obama has a thin skin, which is evidence that he was “given” the Presidency without really earning it. The same applied to G.W. Bush—who was a legacy all his life, cashing in on having the same name as his father.

Candidates who get high office the old fashioned way—they earn it—are not going to turn down air time and a chance to convince voters to vote for them!

Team Obama will rue the day they declared war on Fox.