McCain, Graham urge Romney to call for Afghan War to go on indefinitely

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

Republican defense hawks are urging Mitt Romney to separate himself from President Obama on Afghanistan and back an extended presence for U.S. troops in the country.

The advice comes as the White House hits the halfway point in its timeline to withdraw all U.S. troops and after Romney faced criticism for not mentioning the Afghan conflict in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination.

Interestingly, the total number of "defense hawks" cited in this article are two: John McCain and his sidekick Lindsey Graham.

So, really, what? It's these two plus the always-warmongering neocons who want the war to go on... and on... and on?

As Steve Hynd writes at The Agonist:

Madness. If there's one foreign policy move guaranteed to lose an incumbent this election, it would be exactly this. Over 75% of Americans think the US should get out of the Afghan quagmire sooner rather than later.

However, I don't think even Romney's that self-destructive...

I don't either.

Campaigning for America's longest war to continue without an end in sight and without any clear purpose (what exactly does "getting it right" mean, Sen. Graham?) would be disastrous, both because the war itself is deeply unpopular and because his only shot at winning the election is to keep blaming the president for the bad economy (and otherwise lying about the president's views and distorting his words at every possible turn) and hoping swing-state independents and undecideds lap up his bullshit, and while his campaign has certainly seen its share of self-destructive moves, there's no way he'll run with a hawk-fueled call for yet more war in Afghanistan, and threfore yet more bloodshed, which of course would mean putting America's troops in harm's way indefinitely for really no point whatsoever.

Then again, would it surprise you if Romney really were that self-destructive?