Is the Catholic Left Alright With Obama's Afghanistan Plan? (Updated)

Well this is good news!! If they have misgivings it is muted and at least they are not talking about the whole enterprise being some evil immoral thing.

Over at America magazine , the main intellectual outpost of the Catholic left that the papers love to quote and consult", Winters chimes in. . Michael Sean Winters seems to be giving a glowing endorsement. See The President's Speech at West Point.

The main Op-ed has some misgivings see Up or Out. But note the misgiving arequite different from the "bad war" they viewed Iraq as. There is very little moral talk and instead talk if the military with its numbers can handle it. Basically the whole article is just pretense for them advocating a draft!!

The final day after piece is some warning about Mission Creep. See Moving Goals. However it seems to be ok with it too. See this paragraph:
But there is nothing even remotely funny about the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan. The varieties of mission creep in each of these distinct instances present complex challenges for military planners. The landscape of each country is dotted with moral dilemmas. No course of U.S. action at the present crossroads can possibly preserve the full range of values and meet all the objectives worth achieving. An overly hasty retreat means turning our backs on struggling people and fragile systems of governance, but an indefinite occupation will be costly and probably unsustainable.

Sound like Republicans talking about the surge in Iraq!!!

Commonweal is perhaps a tad more Catholic lefty than America I suppose. They seems to have some misgivings but it is muted. See Afghanistan: Down the Yellow Brick Road? UPDATE. The questions seem to be focused if it willwork (which is of course part of the moral questions one must ask in Just War Theory). It comments on this article that is pretty much against because they view we can't win. See The War We Can’t Win . So it is the no camp.But how it is saying no and the reasons are of a much different tone than Iraq.

The Catholic Left Tabloid National Catholic Reporter barely has anything on its front page!! One has to really look to see this blog entry Reactions to the Obama Afghanistan Speech. Except it is not NCR reactions but just a roundup of reactions at the Huffington Post!!! This is the paper that was screaming about military involvement in Central AMerica and other places for DECADES!!!

The progressive Catholic Blog VOX NOVA (UPDATED SEE BELOW) has largely been quiet on this issue. Thought I do expect Michael Iafrate to chime in over their with a forceful NO TO ALL THIS POST. He is a pretty consistent Pacifist so that is not to unexpected. But besides that?

Catholics In Alliance for the Common Good which is basically a democrat Catholic front operation has nada.

Now in some ways this is not to be unexpected. In many ways the Obama policy toward Iraq in the end did not look like a whole bunch different than the McCain version in many ways. Yet where are the Iraq war protesters. They were largely AWOL from Notre Dame when he appeared.

Second there were huge misgivings about the Iraq war on the Catholic left. I thought their viewpoints on if this was a Just War was inadequate. In Bishops second statement on the war and how a Catholic should engage it was ignored because because it was inconvenient. So they kept on with a sort of novel weird importation of the legal doctrine of the" fruit of the poisonous tree" into Catholic Just war theory.

But the lack of major heartfelt opposition to this at this point is significant and must be noted. I referenced this post from the Weekly Standard last night. See Essential Platitudes
Essential Platitudes
Almost all presidential speeches are too long, and President Obama could have shaved 60 percent from his address tonight, since he had approximately 15 minutes of content stretched over 35 minutes of talking. The excess came in platitudes about the economy, his own irenic intentions, and much else. And no doubt many of us will point out how he dwelled too much on ending the war and not enough on winning it.

But his blah-blah platitudes were important strategically -- maybe essential, if his policy is to succeed. Obama’s critics to his right should remember the president’s critics to his left. The poor gentle souls must be gobsmacked. Obama is the first Democratic president in forty years to call for a significant deployment of American troops in the national security interest of his country.

This is very big news. His predecessor, President Clinton, could give a stirring address dispatching bombers over Bosnia and be confident of the support of his fellow Democrats, because the show of power was purely humanitarian and had nothing to do with keeping us safe from our enemies. With great courage, Obama is trying something that hasn’t been tried within the living memory of most of the members of his party. He may even recall the era when liberal Democratic presidents -- Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson -- could lead a fight because it was in the interest of the country to fight.

This is a historical moment, and one we should be grateful for. It’s worth an extra twenty minutes of presidential gassing off. It’s even worth a lot of guff about beginning to pull the troops out by a date certain, no matter what. (I’ll believe it when I see it.) If this is what he needs to mollify his political supporters, let him talk and talk and talk.

This I think is significant for the Catholic left too. In fact is very breathtaking in its own right when you look at their overall viewpoint since the days of Vietnam. Obama has now raised the number of troops in Afghanistan to about a 100,000. For all that barely a peep!!

Maybe it is a cold political choice Yeah Yeah we are not thrilled but we can't jeopardize our Universal Free Health Care plan. We must have priorities!! Or it might be the world has indeed changed. Once we get President Bush off the stage that so many on the left had a phobia about then we see yes a important fundamental shift in attitudes that have occurred over the last decade.

Update-
I went over to the very left leaning On Faith section of the Washington Post/ Newsweek. Hardly nothing!!! In fact nothing from the Catholic voices at all. All we got is some general ambivalent post on it that is still largely positive. (JUST IGNORE THE FACT THAT BUSH LARGELY USED THE SAME LANGUAGE IN MANY WAYS AND WAS NOT INTERESTED IN A WAR ON ISLAM. Besides that largly positive)

Update II- VOX NOVA does now have a post up by one of it's contributors. He is not thrilled. See For the Record: Obama’s War or Obama’s Re-Election?. I will later tonight interact with the comments there. For some reason I am not quite as cynical about Obama's motives here or thinks this is just about being reelected.