Tuesday, December 20, 2011

We Have Always Been At War With East Asia

And the Taliban are not our enemy.
 
Look, I get it. Someone has to announce publicly a vote of confidence in the negotiations between NATO and the Taliban in order to facilitate an exit from Afghanistan, but clearly Biden is not the one to put the case before the American people, even this obliquely, that the Taliban are negotiating adversaries now.
 
I can understand that President Obama cannot make a comment here, for various reasons that are strategic, diplomatic, and domestically political (imagine the cries of "selling us out to Muslims!") And I can understand Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not being trotted out since she's oveerseeing the negotiations.
 
But maybe Leon Panetta? At the very least, could we find a better phrasing of this parsing?