Crooks and Liars' Disgusting Moral Equivalence

William Jacobson wrote the post I thought of writing (that I should have written), and he does it better in any case, "Comparing Obama To Brezhnev."

It's a response to Crooks and Liars' disgusting moral equivalence on President Obama's Afghan surge, "And Thirty Years Ago This Month Somebody Else Had A Great Idea About Afghanistan":

Sometimes I just shake my head at this kind of relativism and America-hatred, but it's so routine on the radical left that conservatives have a duty to rebut each and every instance of it. This non-thinking nihilism sinks into young impressionable minds, and sometimes the damage can never really be undone.

But here's William's analysis:

The Crooks and Liars' blogger asserts that the Soviets thought the invasion was "what the Afghan people wanted." But in fact the Soviet invasion had nothing to do with any real concern for what the Afghan people wanted, just as the invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia were not out of concern for what those peoples wanted. A good discussion of the Soviet Afghan invasion is here.

There is no legitimate comparison between the Soviet attempt to prop up the Communist military government it had installed in Afghanistan, and the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks. By removing the repressive Taliban regime and its al-Qaeda elements, the U.S. responded to a direct attack and the likelihood of future attacks. A restoration of Taliban rule would be a direct threat to the U.S., not to mention a blow to the Afghan people.

There are legitimate criticisms of Obama's strategy and speech to be made. But snide comparisons of Obama's decision on troop levels to Brezhnev's decision to invade also are not legitimate.

But then again, perhaps that blogger would prefer an Afghanistan which served again as a base for worldwide terrorism and attacks on the U.S. at home and abroad. Although it would be harder to write snark about that.

Actually, yes, these bloggers would prefer a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, because for them, we're no better than the old Soviet Union, which was the "Evil Empire," in President Reagan's unequivocal, immemorial words.