I picked up my ten year old from shooting hoops at the rec center during President Obama’s speech on his “new” Afghanistan policy this evening. He gets in the car as Obama’s wrapping up his remarks. We drive the handful of blocks to the house, and as we’re getting out, my son (a big Obama fan) volunteers the following unsolicited opinion of what he just heard: “when Obama gets up and speaks about something, he always says the same stuff and acts like its the new thing.”
Indeed.
Listening to the President tonight was difficult. It’s hard not to look at the situation in Afghanistan as driving at top speed into a brick wall, simply because the people currently driving can’t see any alternatives. Listening to Obama, one gets the feeling on the one hand that he sincerely believes he is doing the right thing.
Then on the other hand, its even more frustrating to hear him make his point with what has become a typical rhetorical gimmick for him – mischaracterizing the views of those with whom he disagrees in order to sound more reasonable in comparison. Obama rejected any and all parallels being drawn between the wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam by alluding to points of distinction between the two conflicts that have nothing to do with the genuine points of comparison made by opponents of the war:
Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan
These points are hardly the points of comparison made by critics. It was akin to being told that any comparisons of the indistinguishable symptoms of viral pneumonia and bacterial pneumonia are invalid and irrelevant simply because one is viral and one is bacterial. Nitpicking at best, intentional obfuscation at worst. Annoying in either case.
On the other side, he placed himself in opposition to those on the right who reject any sort of firm date for a US withdrawal – except of course that the July 2011 timeframe to begin bringing troops home was anything but firm. In speaking to the media during the lead-up to the speech, Obama’s aides went to lengths to explain to reporters that this “deadline” was subject to change, and didn’t even indicate what – exactly – was supposed to start happening in July of ’11. We’ve been given a date that seems both arbitrary and meaningless.
Having said all this, to those that simply call Obama a “neo-con,” it seems clear that the vision and goals of the Obama administration in this arena are in fact distinct from Bush’s, at least in concept. In practice, however, we’re still heading towards the brick wall of a re-energized Taliban, fully united with partners across the Pakistani border, with a corrupt and illegitimate Afghani leader as our co-pilot.
What makes it all the more discouraging is that there are scattered reports of some improvements on the ground (at least in some provinces) in recent months, but a further escalation stands to undo much of that progress.
I think the reaction from Rep. Welch is worth posting:
“Tonight, President Obama presented the right analysis of the situation in Afghanistan but reached the wrong conclusion.
“The President understands that we must vigorously protect Americans against another attack by al-Qaida. He recognizes the need for a regional, diplomatic effort that takes into consideration the strategic importance of Pakistan. And he understands that President Karzai’s failure to root out systemic corruption poses a grave challenge to the legitimacy of the Afghan government.
“Nevertheless, increasing our military footprint in Afghanistan will not achieve the goals the President outlined. Our goal, and our obligation, is to protect the American people from another al-Qaida attack. Al-Qaida is a dispersed group pursuing a radical and violent agenda. It is not a nation state. Our strategy should focus on containing and degrading al-Qaida worldwide, not expanding our military footprint in Afghanistan, a country rife with corruption and a history of tribal loyalties rather than stable government institutions.
“The President’s policy is not financially sustainable. The cost of supporting one soldier for one year is $1 million – or $30 billion per year for the 30,000 new troops recommended tonight by the President. Our nation is crippled by record deficits and skyrocketing unemployment. We need to spend our scarce resources rebuilding America, not nation-building abroad.”
I don’t have the time to put into a serious analysis, but I encourage folks to check out this solid piece from Meteor Blades at Daily Kos:
After 60 days of comprehensive reviews and leaks about differences over those reviews within the administration, no surprises have emerged in the new strategy for the “good war” in Afghanistan that President Obama announced today. Not even the slightest hint about when the U.S. troop commitment might end. And not a word about the 550 or more prisoners in the infamous Bagram prison, many of them previously tortured and still held without recourse to legal or humanitarian intervention.
Good night.
but one that we knew was coming, sooner or later, ever since the campaign trail. I was one of those who worked hard to elect Obama, knowing full-well that he was anything but left of center; and that he was committed to a war in Afghanistan. I supported him because he was the statesman we so desperately needed; and I have no second thoughts on that subject. However, I have never agreed with the objective in Afghanistan. Instead of mounting a criminal investigation and efficient manhunt for Bin Laden and his intimates, Bush chose to escalate the long-term risk by declaring a horrendous crime to be an “act of war”. This, of course, made absolutely no sense since the identified perpetrators were Saudi-based; but it allowed free reign to the delusional ambitions of his advisors.
Now it’s too late to close Pandora’s box, I suppose; but the longer we perpetuate this huge error in judgment, the more permanent the damage our interests. I am disappointed that Obama doesn’t see this, but I am not surprised.
I knew that this was coming. I knew that Obama was going to go the way that proved himself against the right wing charges of being “weak,” or whatever. We’ll be in Afghanistan as long as we were in Vietnam, if not longer. The results will be the same. Some years down the road we’ll have another black wall for Afghanistan and Iraq.
While watching the speech last night, I saw a somber, reflective and conflicted man charged with an impossible task. President Obama inherited two wars in which there were no clearly defined objectives and no way in which to safely extricate our troops and weaponry from them. Last night I heard him articulate a new objective from this point forward for Afghanistan and a strategy (timeline) for the drawdown of troops. This is exactly the promise that I heard candidate Obama campaign on when he justified his opposition against the war with Iraq.
I’ve seen a couple of these posted about the blogosphere the past few days, but if you were at the pulpit last night, what would your plan for Afghanistan be? Realistically, in what ways would your plan significantly differ from the strategy being undertaken? How would you create a withdrawl from the region which provides for the safety and stability of the troops being left behind?
Its hard to have any perspective on Afghanistan when our baseline is so skewed.
Fact is the US acts as though it has an inherent right to invade any country it wants to on whatever pretext it chooses to use.
If any other country acted in this fashion they would be branded by the US as aggressors, invaders or worse.
Now, we do have a right to self-defense and to attack those that would attack us. So taking out the terrorist training camps has a certain amount of justification.
The people we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are posing no threat to us and we have no right to be fighting them.
If the US adopted the kind of policies that we would like to see others use, perhaps we would be less of a target for the terrorist groups.
We need to pull out of A&I ASAP and we should only get involved in wars as an equal partner with the international community when action needs to be taken.
PJ
So foolish. From such a smart guy.