I still haven’t had a chance to read Time, but the story is really the photo on the cover.   I’m guessing that this photo alone will buy Obama an additional two years to find victory (or at least the appearance of victory) in Afghanistan.

Why is that important?  And why would Time Magazine want to help prolong our presence there?

Rightly or wrongly, the war in Afghanistan is perceived as Obama’s war.  Iraq was Bush’s war, but success or failure in Afghanistan will belong to Obama.  Ever since the invasion of Iraq, the Dems maintained the mantra, “We should never have ever gone there; we should have focused on Afghanistan instead.”  It was their way of trying to appear to be anti-war (in Iraq) and pro-security (in Afghanistan) at the same time.

Now that they control the government, the Dems are trying to navigate between (a) the American public who heard them say for so many years that we should be in Afghanistan, and (b) their own base, the fringe left, who expected Obama to bring all the troops home on January 21, 2009, no matter what.  For whatever reason, they’ve decided to stay.  For now.  And now that they’re in, Obama really needs a victory (or at least something that they can claim is a victory).

However, to achieve victory, Obama needs time to prosecute the war before political forces pushing for withdrawal become irresistable.  That’s where Time Magazine comes in.  They are heavily invested in their guy Obama, and they will do anything they can to make him appear to be successful.  The photo is a powerful argument to do what’s necessary to make sure young women like Aisha don’t have to live in a country governed by barbarians.  It’s an argument to give President Obama more time.

It is facinating to see how the press selects the photos it will use based on the public policy objectives it wants to support.  The press hated LBJ and Nixon, so they published photos of war violence that diminished public support for US involvement in Vietnam.  They hated Bush, so they published photos of war violence that suppressed public support for the war in Iraq.  But now they love Obama, so they publish a photo that will actually increase public support for Obama’s war.

Of course, it is a powerful photo.  It certainly refocused in my own mind what’s at stake in Afghanistan.  For myself, I hope we do everything possible to bring peace and justice to this corner of the world.  Not only for Aisha’s sake, but for many more just like her.  Taliban barbarians are a cancer that needs to be eradicated.  I say publish the photo.

What do you say?

Tags: radical Islam, Sharia Law, terrorism

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Pro Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.