Afghanistan: Presidential Double Standards and Military Power
On October 23, 1983, when Shia militants in Lebanon killed 241 American military personnel outside the Beirut airport with a suicide truck bomb, President Ronald Reagan vowed to continue the troops' mission in Lebanon. Reagan had repeatedly claimed that Lyndon Johnson forced American soldiers to fight in Vietnam "with one hand tied behind their backs" and vowed he'd never do such a thing. But about four months after what was the highest single-day casualty toll for the U.S. military since the Vietnam War, President Reagan quietly removed from Lebanon the remaining 1,300 or so American soldiers. Given Reagan's hawkish credentials he didn't have to worry about being portrayed as "soft" on America's enemies abroad. The moral of the story is that if any president is going to "cut and run" from an American military engagement he or she better be a Republican.
This narrative runs deep in American political discourse. Joe McCarthy accused FDR of selling out to Joseph Stalin at Yalta and blasted Harry Truman and the "Democrat State Department" for "losing" China to Mao's communists. Truman showed his resolve by initiating loyalty oaths and intervening militarily in Korea. John Kennedy had to prove his "toughness" toward Fidel Castro's Cuba and even escalated his anti-communist rhetoric beyond Richard Nixon's during the 1960 campaign. Like Truman, Kennedy showed his mettle by green-lighting the Bay of Pigs invasion, which turned out to be a disaster. Both Kennedy and LBJ escalated American military involvement in Vietnam reacting, in part, to the never-ending Republican criticism that accused them both of "losing" Vietnam just as Truman had "lost" China (especially Johnson).
In contrast, the mainstream press gave President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney a free ride in Iraq even though their military adventure has proven to be one of the worst foreign policy fiascoes in American history. General David Petraeus, Bush's commander in the field and currently CENTCOM commander, gave Bush a lot of political cover among elite opinion makers as well as the public in the heat of the acrimonious presidential campaign of 2004.
At a time when the Swift Boaters were maligning the military service of Democratic candidate John Kerry, and slammed anyone hinting that America should do anything in Iraq other than "stay the course," General Petraeus wrote a politically-tinged op-ed for the Washington Post championing the wisdom of Bush's Iraq policies. Not only was Petraeus sucking up to his boss but he seemed to skew his military advice so that it boosted Bush's credibility on a war that he had lied the nation into fighting in the first place. Hence, as with every other government agency, from the Justice Department to the General Services Administration, the Bush Administration seemed to have made great headway in politicizing even the U.S. military. It's doubtful General Petraeus will be so generous sharing his tactical acumen with the public in a way that politically benefits President Barack Obama.
John F. Kennedy's 1000-day presidency depended in large part on his ability to stand up to the "brass hats" (as he called them) who constantly called for military action in Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere. During the Cuban Missile Crisis Kennedy held firm against their hawkish advice to defuse the nuclear standoff that if mishandled could have annihilated millions of people. President Obama will soon learn that the "brass hats," especially the holdovers from the Bush Administration, might be operating under similar biases. The sooner he shows them who the Commander-in-Chief really is, the better.
Unelected military and civilian defense officials had free range in the Bush Administration. Today, from C-SPAN to CNN, we see the usual stable of hawks giving their armchair military advice to Obama urging him to up the ante in Afghanistan, send in more troops, spill more American blood, and throw away more American treasure. If public opinion polls are any indicator the American people changed the channel on the Afghan war some time after the word "Tora Bora" entered the political lexicon. The pursuit of an ill-defined "victory" dependent on a greater U.S. military commitment and on the actions and popularity of the corrupt Hamid Karzai "government" has lost all credibility with the American public.
The time will come sooner or later when President Obama will have to stand up to the military and face the inevitably shrill attacks from the armchair commanders and "conservative" bloviators who populate the mainstream media. I watched Kimberly Kagan the other night on C-SPAN, the president of the Institute for the Study of War, and wife of the Bush military adviser Fred Kagan, prattle on about how Obama must escalate the American military presence in Afghanistan or face "failure" and "defeat." Her advice was just so drearily repetitive: "We must stay in Iraq or Afghanistan (or fill-in-the-blank) because the generals say so and because our national security depends on taking the fight to Al Qaeda and if we leave we'll face uncertainty and . . ." (Zzzzzzzz.)
Obama must ignore the likes of the disastrously wrong crowd who inundate the media with their "realistic" and "sober" assessments of what needs to be done in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is not even a "failed state" because to qualify as a "failed state" a nation must at least first be a "state." We should declare "victory" and get the hell out of there. I'm sorry but the country is a basket case.
Obama cannot listen to the crackpot realists like Kim and Fred Kagan, Mike O'Hanlon, or any of the other "experts" who loved the war in Iraq and now want President Obama to pour more U.S. soldiers into Afghanistan. Kabul, a city of about 4 million people, doesn't even have a functioning sewage system. Why don't we start there, create an enclave and make life a little better for those people before we do anything else? There are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than in Afghanistan and the "borders" between those two countries don't mean anything. Al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Somalia and Europe. In Pakistan we don't even know which side the ISI is on. All of these unfortunate facts raise the question: Exactly what "nation" is the United States "building" in Afghanistan?
The fact that Afghanistan seems to be reaching the tipping point after these long eight years gives Obama an opportunity to establish what could be a nascent "Obama doctrine" that emphasizes multilateralism and engagement over the failed Bush policies of unilateralism and saber rattling.
Obama recognizes what Bush and John Bolton and Kim Kagan and the rest of the neo-cons could not get through their thick skulls: Whether we are talking about Afghanistan and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, or the Iranian nuclear issue, all conflicts are regional conflicts. Multilateralism works; unilateralism doesn't.
The one silver lining of the terribly misguided Bush foreign policy might be that it showed the world that the United States couldn't go it alone. Any U.S. president can land on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and prance around proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," but the United State can't turn the clock back to a "golden age" (that never really existed) where it can dictate terms to the rest of the world. Truman didn't "lose" China because it was not ours to lose. Johnson didn't "lose" Vietnam for the same reason, and Jimmy Carter couldn't have prevented the Iranian revolution even if he launched a hundred "Operation Eagle Claws." Military threats without dialogue and engagement only strengthen the hardliners.
The major problems facing the planet of nuclear proliferation, terrorism, climate change, and financial meltdown require collective action. President Obama showed last week with his historic performances at the United Nations and at the G-20 summit that he understands the nature of the new world order and knows how to cut through the white noise of the armchair generals and so-called experts. Through engaged and thoughtful multilateralism a new era in American relations with the world is possible. Making a clean break with the "conventional" wisdom about how to deal with Afghanistan would be a great starting point.
Follow Joseph A. Palermo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/N/A
John Brown: Strategic Communications: The Debate Continues
General McChrystal's assessment of the war in Afghanistan reflects the continuing debate within the U.S. government on the role of strategic communications in going forward.
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You do not seem to understand American politics at all
It makes no difference what the democrat's actual policy is. The talking points against them stay the same
I'll give you a good example. Diane Finestein. She votes with the republicans on all the major issues. She voted for the Iraq war, for wiretapping, the patriot act, sanctions on Iran, cut acorn's funding ect ect.
But if she goes on Shawn Hannty's show, she will be represented as "Far left Diane Finestein"
There is no distinction made between her and somebody who voted against all those things by the right.
I think his shows in the healthcare debate. No matter how much the democrats wuss out and "compromise" and no matter what their actual plan is, the republicans argue against socialized medicine. It really makes no difference what they have actually proposed, they are going to talk about socialized medicine
So, that being the case, I've never understood why the democrats always cave. They never get anything out of it.
I definitely agree with you on this. The Republican party seems to have a philosophy that says "Compromise is for losers". It doesn't matter whether or not that compromise might actually be the right solution. With that mentality you can understand their current leadership.
"The moral of the story is that if any president is going to "cut and run" from an American military engagement he or she better be a Republican
Mr. Palermo, I understand your logic but I put it to you that this is a very immoral and cynical position. Essentially what you are saying is that regardless of the morality and logic of a war, a democratic president must always "act tough" in order to appease the right. Think that through, you are saying that american soldiers and foreign civilians must keep on dying pointless deaths because of american politics. While concessins and compromise are necessary in politics this seems too much to me. Also, it seems to be a remnant of a failed philosophy practiced by Clinton and Carter as well as candidates Gore and Keary. Their approach was always to be "republican lite". Obama has proven its possible to actually take on the hawks and to beat them at their own game. They are the ones after all who gave us 9/11 and the Iraq war disaster. A true leader won't compromise with the lives of US and foreign citizens, I hope Obama can be a true leader and get us out of Afghanistan ASAP.
Repubs gave us 9/11???
I would never say the Republicans "gave" us 9/11. But I do believe that President Bush was let off the hook for ignoring those briefings while he was on one of his vacations.
Bush was in office for 8 months, 9/11 happened on his watch. Richard Clark and others in the Bush administration were doing everything possible to warn Condaleeza Rice and the president about the threat of Al Queda and of a pending terrorist attack on US soil. Rice told Clark told Clark she didn't care about Al Queda. Rice ignored a memo titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US".
Bush told one intelligence officer who came to his ranch about a month before the attack and warned of a pending Al Queda attack "All right. You've covered your ass now"
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This plus countless examples of incompetence by FBI managers who ignored reports of suspicious middle east men taking flying lessons but only interested in how to take off, CIA operatives who failed to notify the FBI when known terrorists entered the country, I could go on. I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist but when I read of all the amazing incompetence of the president and his administration I do understand why some people believe in a conspiracy. Its hard to believe anyone could actually be this incompetent.
Red dog, I agree with you totally about the need to get out -- it's not my "opinion" it's the history -- read Dallek's book on LBJ and see how obsessed he was about "losing" Vietnam and the Republicans gaining on him like they did when they accused Truman of "losing" China -- what I mean is that Obama will be accused of "losing" Afghanistan by the Republicans if he pulls out which he should do but probably will not.
My apologies, I think we agree then. If you are saying he will get blamed but he should pull out anyway, I agree. Since you mentioned LBJ I just want to say that I take LBJ as an example of why Obama should do the right thing. As you say LBJ was so concerned about losing Vietnam he escalated there and ultimately decided not to run because of that war and the democrats lost to Nixon because Humphrey also took the unprincipled stand of sticking with the war because he was afraid to be called "weak". Of course I can't prove this but if RFK had lived I believe he would have taken the principled stand of getting out of Vietnan and hence won. BTW, speaking of RFK I knew your name was familiar, your book on RFK In His Own Right was one of the best political books I've ever read, it was a real page turner, I zipped through it in one siting and then went back to read it again.
Something to consider though is that, while it's true that JFK did talk tough to the Soviets over the missiles in Cuba, that crisis was ultimately resolved through diplomacy not warfare. We traded our missils in Turkey for the missiles in Cuba.
The Republican party needs to be shrunk to the size that they can be drowned in a bath tub. Their belligerent wrong-headedness and demagoguery have led us to a precipice from which they want us to leap. It's an old story, the thrall of imperialism, the grandiosity of being the world's remaining super-power. They would have us bankrupt ourselves (except for the rich folks) with their adventuristic fantasies. Our defense (sic.) budget is greater than all other nations combined. To what end?
Pax Americana is an illusion. We haven't been the unambiguous good guys since WWII. Our arrogance has precluded learning from our mistakes. In fact, a uniquely American character flaw is how much we love our bad ideas. The Vietnam War couldn't last long enough--ten years after LBJ realized it was unwinnable. Gulf War I made some sense. It was brief. We made a profit off the deal. Thereafter we retrogressed back to our imperial delusions, schlepping around Iraq and Afghanistan for far too many years at the cost of precious lives and irreplaceable resources. What awaits us is Nemesis, what Chalmers Johnson calls the sorrows of empire: a bankrupt, authoritarian state defending its "credibility" at the cost of self-destruction.
Screw the republican hawks.
Leave Afghanistan now and let the people there decide if they want to fight the good fight with the Taliban. This was a failed War even before it started. This is and was started as a war for profit for big Oil, Halliburton, Banking cartels, and the Military Industrial Complex.
Stop the bullshit about Democracy because that is a crock of $hit as well, just another republican propaganda speech to invade other countries and extract their Natural resources.
For the $$3 Trillion spent on Iraq and Afghanistan nobody in the USA is any safer, and actually we are now close to bankruptcy as a country.
These two wars are for MONEY only and you lost your son, daughter, Mother, or Father to make G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and the republicans, not to mention the back stabbing brown nose Democrats, regimes $100's of millions, perhaps $Billions for their personal bank accounts.
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I recommend that next time we elect a professional wrestler to the Presidency.
Then the hawks can have all the tough talk and macho chest-thumping they so desperately crave but nobody actually gets hurt.
Good one!
Clinton pulled the US out of Somalia and got away with it.
Duh, Somalia , like Afghanistan with its corrupt government and rigged election, was another UN/NATO action. Black Hawk Down happened because the US did not have Amour (tanks) in Somalia. The US pleaded with other NATO countries that had Armour in Somalia to rush tanks to rescue. But as usual , when dealing with NATO and UN , red tape held up any tank deployment until it was a rather useless venture. So all Clinton "got away with" was pulling US troops out of an unsatisfactory , exposed position in UN/NATO Clusterflock. The same thing is going on in Afghanistan, Germans call in US air strikes on civilians and apparently all the other NATO troops there are in an ancillary or support "position" barring them from conflict.
The commitment to Somalia was tiny compared to Afghanistan -- I guess more like Lebanon in 1983 -- good point -- although he never had support going into Somalia in the first place -- a good movie came out of it though.
Charles Krauthammer slammed Clinton for his "retreat" from Somalia, so I don't think he got a free ride.
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great article . . totally agree . . . we have to declare victory and get out of Afghanistan and Iraq . . .
Clinton made a similar decision in Somalia, and also got away with it. Your thesis is appealing, but there is equal evidence both for and against it.
Clinton didn't send the troops in to Somalia. Bush Sr sent them in with no apparent plan on what they would once they were there. Again, that's the double standard. You're blaming Clinton for Bush's failings. Reagan sent those Marines in to Lebanon then tied their hands with some very stringent rules of engagement. Then there was no real response to the 10/23/83 bombing. Reagan did win his "War" in Granada, by sending essentially, the entire 2nd Marine Division against a couple hundred Cuban construction workers. Yet Reagan is considered strong on National Defense while no one ever credits Clinton for Bosnia.
Why didn't Krauthammer praise Clinton for "retreating" from Somalia if Clinton got a free ride??
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I think the Pres should bring home the troops from Afganistan. These same right wingers that are yelling for more troops are the same ones that took their eye off Afganistan for Iraq which had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11.
"President Obama showed last week with his historic performances at the United Nations and at the G-20 summit that he understands the nature of the new world order..."
New world order = Chavez, Obama, Ahmadinejad. That's quite the coalition.
And it wasn't really a historic performance at the U.N., just a Carter re-run.
Really? What reminded you of Carter? Be specific, you have me curious. And I didn't see this coalition you speak of. But I was in Marines under Reagan and Bush Sr, and I experienced the effects of Gramm- Rudmann like everyone else in the military back then. I was in boot camp when Reagan pulled the Marines from Lebanon. I think that's the point this writer is trying to make.
multilateralism works, unilateralism doesn't -- Obama has far more cards to play now that he's reset US relations with the important powers -- unless one believes it was "smart" to be pouring French wine into the gutter because the French had the temerity to question Bush's infinite wisdom about invading Iraq.
Well, our Republican Congress demonstrated their leadership and resolve by renaming French Fries as Freedom Fries. That was the least damaging thing the Republicans did in the time they controlled our government.
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