Apparently, it takes six months to decide to half-ass McChrystal’s plan and cut 6,000 troops?
Obama admires Abraham Lincoln and his decision to can various generals–including McClellan–for not being aggressive enough to win the Civil War. But Obama, unlike Lincoln, is unpatriotic and a pacifist, dithers about whether victory is worth it, and changes his mind on core objectives–in effect, giving his generals a moving target.
Plus Obama’s adding language to the plan about “off ramps” and what not. So basically we’ll add 35,000 troops, a bit less than double what we have. They’ll accomplish a little more, but nothing game changing. Then we’ll find a reason to leave next June and will do so. A few hundred more young Americans will die than would have otherwise, and this outcome all so Obama doesn’t look too weak in calling it quits sooner on this misguided nation-building effort. This is hardly Lincolnesque . . . more like Hamlet!
I think a deliberate withdrawal or even a limited war is not dishonorable, incidentally. There are times to have flexible definitions of victory. Think of something like the Korean War which ended in an armistice or the conventional victory of expelling Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991. But if you think it’s truly a “war of necessity,” and you think the way to win is to build a functioning Afghan state (as Obama said in March), do it right or change that strategy. Obama is keeping the strategy but under-resourcing it. Further, with his “exit ramp” talk, Obama is basically admitting he’s looking for reason to call it quits. It’s a far cry from the Gettysburg Address. It’s more like a blueprint for our enemies and less committed allies to engineer an American exit.
I actually think Joe Biden’s proposal for a scaled down war using counter-terror operatives is the most sensible and conforms our operation to what the U.S. national interest is in the neighborhood.
Let me speak plainly. I don’t think these illiterate savages deserve democracy or any U.S. efforts to help them. I don’t think it’s in our interest, and the trade off is woefully imbalanced. Afghans and Pakistanis and everyone else in the world just need to learn that if they help our enemies they’ll be punished en masse. For some reason, though, I don’t think Obama can make that kind of warning convincingly. Sadly, neither could the liberal Republican, George W. Bush.
This popular view of collective responsibility was what was most appealing about the Bush doctrine, i.e., you’re with us or you’re against us. But in eight years it’s morphed into “help our enemies and we’ll spend many years and many billions of dollars and many young American lives to drag you into the 21st Century.”
Where’s General Pershing when you need him?!?
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I agree with your criticisms of Obama and of the prospects of democracy in Afghanistan. I am, however, not really convinced that the so-called Biden plan would have any real purpose to it. The difficulty with counter-terrorism operations is that they rely on human intelligence, and I don’t think holing ourselves up in big bases is likely to generate much intel. Counter-terrorism operations also rely on credibility and fear of retaliation, neither of which are enhanced by withdrawing. What success we have had in Pakistan is probably partly a result of intel we get in Afghanistan, and largely a result of our access to Pakistani human intelligence, which is likely to shrink if they see us giving up on Afghanistan.
The only point I could see in us staying in Afghanistan while not engaging in a counterinsurgency campaign would be to keep a conventional threat in the region that would encourage local authorities to crack down on terrorists themselves, which in the end is the only real way to deal with the threat. But as you say, Obama doesn’t really inspire fear, so I am not sure keeping conventional forces on the ground would serve much point either. So to me, it seems that our choices are either a full up counter-insurgency effort, or a relatively rapid withdrawal.
Plain speak, part two.
Get out. Now.
We went for OBL and AQ. They now sleep with the fishes. Ok, some pretenders languish in UK internet cafes. Everybody wears a “Che” t-shirt sometime.
Obama can’t be trusted with our troops. To him they are pawns for his legacy. Meanwhile, the cycle of death repeats. Billions in CIA covert funds get laudered into somebody’s pocket, more heroin arrives for little Johnny and the brothers to end up in the slammer, and weapons get bought on the black market to use against, well, big Johnny and the brothers.
Soldiers take orders as do the coffin makers.
And round and round we go. Better throw one in for the deep thinkin’ academics:
-We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time-
TS Eliot, Little Gidding
Obama shouldn’t be trusted with our nation, much less its warriors.
You can’t make Afghanistan into a democracy or a country with a central government of any type. It’s not gonna happen. Best to accept that and move on.
Biden’s plan, the secret ninja plan, was on the right path, but secret ninja’s need forward operating bases, now you are back to the same bs. Ninja’s need support, support needs a place to sleep, you need conventional forces to protect the places the support needs to sleep, you need air power to protect the conventional forces…there’s no way out of it.
Stay or go. Simple. Yes, you can define your goals for victory. A lot of conservatives believe victory means being the last man standing…and yes, in 3rd Generation Warfare it does. Victory here? Impossible. You can’t achieve it. Well…not in that sense.
We can have a different kinda victory, but we lack the will as a nation to accept the fact that Islam is the enemy. To accept the fact that this is a 1500 year war. And accept the fact that the only way to achieve true victory is to remove Islam as a threat.
cl
Why has there been so little coverage of this?:
http://www.loudobbs.com/petitions/viewpetition?petitionID=-707412079780467944
The MSM-and the neocons-are only interested in Dobbs when he’s “bashing” illegal immigrants.