Carl Levin has been on the floor of the Senate this afternoon, reiterating his case against sending the additional combat troops to Afghanistan that General McChrystal says are needed to execute a properly-resourced counterinsurgency strategy. Instead, Levin argues, the U.S. should focus narrowly on building up the Afghan National Security Forces. Bolstering his case, Levin has repeatedly cited a letter he sent to the president earlier this year urging an immediate expansion of the Afghan army and police — which Levin proudly boasts was signed by a bipartisan majority of members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There’s one major problem with Levin’s position, however, which no one yet seems to have realized. Namely, he and his staff apparently forgot to reread the first paragraph of that famous letter to the President he keeps waving around — a copy of which THE WEEKLY STANDARD has got hold of. It reads:
Whoops. Perhaps Carl Levin is taking a page from the John Kerry school of foreign policy: he was for “a well-resourced comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy,” before he was against it. In any case, we look forward to hearing the Chairman’s explanation for the discrepancy.
