Do you remember when Presidential candidate could run on a platform to END a US war and win the election? It's happened thrice in my lifetime.
Eisenhower vowed to end the fighting in Korea. And he did it! Pretty damn promptly too once he assumed office.
Nixon claimed to have a secret plan to end the American invasion and occupation of Vietnam with honor, no less! And the plan was so secret, he never shared it during the election campaign, nor after taking office. However, a mere four years and 20,000 dead American soldiers later. (Of course, some Vietnamese died in the interim also, but, as any student of American history is well aware, their dead don't count; only ours do.)
A pattern emerges. A republican Presidential candidate can run on a platform of ending an unpopular war and win the election.
Well, there was another time when a Presidential candidate ran on a platform of ending a war and won the election. That would be in 2008, when Hope, and Change, and Yes We Can, ran - and promised ... to end the War in Iraq because, we we needed to take the fight to Al Queda (perhaps the Taliban to) in the Af-Pak "theater." Besides, when you are fighting a "War on Terrorism", moving the fight from one country to another is NOT the ending of the war upon "those who would wish us harm", but merely a continuation of more of the same.
So, I take it back. It has not happened thrice, only twice.
I guess the only hope of ever ending the war on terrorism is to elect a Republican President. But, we must make sure that it is a Republican President who promises to end the war on terrorism (and having a secret plan up his sleeve, ala Nixon, will really NOT be good enough).
The Democrats ought to be terrified of a Republican Presidential Candidate who would promise to stop fighting the war on terror. (And just use the policing forces of the world to bring terrorists to justice.)
I'd vote for that candidate. Well, I'd really want such a candidate to have the credentials of an Eisenhower. To wit, have been a real former army general who actually WON a war against a real enemy.
Here is what winning a war looks like: take Japan and Germany as models. In winning the war against Japan and Germany note the following:
(1) U.S. forces continue to occupy those countries to this very day, 65 years after the BIG one ended.
(2) U.S. oversaw the writing of the respective constitutions.
(3) The populations of the defeated countries accept U.S. occupations without waging insurgency upon the U.S. armed forces.
I'd vote for such a candidate in a heart beat.
The list of such candidates is quite short. David Petreaus is not upon it.
