Double Reverse Wack-A-Mole
It’s the latest in Democratic strategic thinking. Sen. Russ Feingold in the Wall Street Journal. Bear with me, because this is really complicated, and also doesn’t make any sense. But I think this is how it works.
Remember when the Dems said the Iraq war was bad, we needed to get out, because all we were doing was making al Qaeda stronger? That didn’t entirely turn out to be true, but they wanted us to stop wacking the mole in Iraq and go wack it in Afghanistan, where the mole had been keeping its head down.
OK, we wacked the daylights out of the al Qaeda mole in Iraq instead, which the locals really appreciated, because they had had it with the AQ mole at that point. Then, because the mole was popping up again in Afghanistan, we ramped up mole-wacking operations over there … with new, improved rubber mallet wielding tachniques, thanks to our mole-wacking experience in Iraq. At the same time, we applied increasing pressure on the Paks to wack the mole on their side of the arcade.
Feingold explains that wacking the mole in Afghanistan will just make it pop up even more in the Paks’ tippy nuclear-armed wack-a-mole machine. This is actually convenient in terms of long-term Democratic strategy, to set aside the wack-a-mole analogy for a minute and speak plainly, because if you don’t have troops on the ground in a place, Pakistan for example, then you don’t have to withdraw them. It makes abandonment a lot easier. Or to return to the wack-a-mole analogy, you may be supplying the quarters, but if you aren’t wielding the rubber mallet, the mole-wackage isn’t your problem.
Feingold doesn’t get into the fact that the Paks, both people and leadership, have had it with al Qaeda and the Taliban and have had increasing success in wacking that mole recently, with some help from our unmanned aerial mole-wacking vehicles. Combined with our Afghan mole-wacking operations, some people might look at that as a good squeeze play. Kind of a doubles wack-a-mole game. No matter where that mole pops up, he’s getting wacked.
But Feingold, thinking outside the arcade, seems to be advocating a reverse wack-a-mole strategy … stop wacking, and they’ll stop popping up. At least, that’s what I’m getting from this. Where it falls apart is that Feingold thinks we should keep encouraging the Paks to wack the mole on their side, which sounds like it would just make the mole pop up in Afghanistan again. Taking his reverse wack-a-mole theory to its logical conclusion, everyone should stop mole-wacking ops. In a double reverse wack-a-mole game, theoretically, the mole should stop popping up altogther.
Meanwhile, Feingold seems to be of the opinion that the Afghan government will do fine without our troop presence, as long as we throw a lot of money at it, and it promises not to be corrupt. I dunno, that sounds like what happens just before the moles start popping up really fast all over the place.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Pakistan, pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:35 am on Sunday, August 30, 2009
3 Responses to “Double Reverse Wack-A-Mole”
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August 30th, 2009 at 10:50 am
[...] Jules Crittenden discusses double reverse wack-a-mole. Wait, what? [...]
August 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Do they have the Feingold games blanked in the home market? Do they know what his game plan is?
August 30th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Wow! I actually followed that! And you’re right, it doesn’t make any sense.
He’s as wrong as “War never solved anything.”