President Obama did not enlighten me about his Afghanistan-Pakistan plan last night. Nor from the expressions on their faces were the captive audience of the West Point cadets given much guidance beyond the inevitable conclusion that many of them will eventually be landing at Bagram Air Base. These fine-looking young men and women did not have my advantages in trying to puzzle out the Obamic message. They had not read the embargoed speech fifteen minutes before Mr. Obama delivered it; they did not have the White House Press Office fact sheet emailed at the close of remarks, presumably to forestall tedious questions from the slow-witted among us press; they had not heard Senior Administration Officials wax prolix on the president's plan in a press conference call several hours before Mr. Obama spoke.
So I have the press crib sheets. But I also still have the questions. Maybe the questions are tedious. Maybe I am slow-witted. But I am less sure of the American plan -- our plan -- for AfPak than I was a week ago.
Let me get this straight. The timeline. We are going to put 30,000 more Americans into Afghanistan by July, 2010. Since it takes about three months to settle a brigade there -- well, anybody can do the math. And this new enlarged force will be in place for one year, when in summer, 2011 we will begin to draw it down. And yet Mr. Obama says, "We will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance. We will support Afghan Ministries, Governors and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people." So my tedious question: how can we assess and identify those leaders in such a small amount of time, much less begin to support them?
Tiny related question about the combat of corruption. Isn't that a crusade of a lifetime? And is it even feasible? Tonight at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism (where I'm spending a few days) Moises Naim, the editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy, scoffed at the prospect of anybody telling President Karzai to eradicate corruption. Naim could not think of any country where corruption has been quelled. You might as well tell a foreign leader to eradicate cancer, Naim said, as a condition for our monetary aid.
And now a question about that aid. "We will also focus our assistance in areas -- such as agriculture -- that can make an immediate impact in the lives of the Afghan people," Mr. Obama asserted. One of the Senior Administration Officials in the press conference call expanded on this enthusiasm for the "bottom-up dynamic." "Our top development priority in Afghanistan will from here forward be agriculture, which is very much sort of swimming with the stream and with the traditions of the agriculturally-based Afghan economy."
The image of "swimming with the stream" in a time and place of war does not inspire me with confidence. But one thing I am confident about is the learning curve of the Taliban and other insurgent groups in AfPak. Any poor sod from the U. S. Department of Agriculture who ventures "in country" will be a primary target. As of now the members of the provincial reconstruction teams are afraid to leave Kabul. How is that going to change? What is going to transform USAID into an effective counterinsurgency team member in only a few years?
My question about the fate of the wheat farming assistant leads to the question of all questions. Why would any civilian, an expert in agriculture or public health or energy infrastructure, be willing to give his or her life for a project to which our president is not fully committed? On the one hand, Obama says he is "convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan." On the other hand, minutes later, he says that the Afghan people "will ultimately be responsible for their own country." Certainly, Pakistanis and Afghanis will not fully commit. They will hedge their bets against the possibility that once we have departed the Taliban (or some newer incarnation) will prevail; and therefore since they are hedging their bets and not going all in with the Obama plan, the Taliban will indeed prevail.
This is the contradiction at the heart of Obama's plan, as laid out before his audience at West Point. A telltale sign of weakness was the way in which he tried to counter what he called "a range of concerns," addressing them not in the vigorous way of which he is capable but simplistically. Mr. Obama equates "those who oppose identifying a timeframe" with a commitment to nation building. Such casuistry is not worthy of him, especially since he must know well that the U. S. military most decidedly does not want to be in the business of nation-building at the same time that generals appreciate the advantage a timeframe gives the enemy. Mr. Obama states the obvious on which we all agree: "America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan." But it is not an endless war which the military have assessed will be needed in Afghanistan -- it is a long war. In the appendix to his RAND counterinsurgency study on Afghanistan, Seth Jones lists all the insurgencies world-wide since 1945. Some have been waged for half a century. The average length of an insurgency, according to Seth Jones, is fourteen years.
I had been bound and determined to be persuaded by the president's speech last night, particularly since I knew that so many on both the Left and the Right would not be convinced. And it seems to me that Mr. Obama's overarching vision is a good one. "America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict. We will have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power." Yes! And perhaps it is not surprising that in Afghanistan he has not mastered that end game. But there was a meretriciousness to the speech tonight that I find deeply troubling, particularly in the use of beautiful words and cadences to slide past the underlying reality.
America will speak out on behalf of human rights, Mr. Obama said, "and tend to the light of freedom" -- among other pretty phrases. "That is who we are. That is the moral source of America's authority." What did the dissidents in Iran, Palestinians in the West Bank and the women of Kandahar and Kabul think when they heard President Obama deliver his remarks? That is my last little question. Because hasn't the moral source of American authority always been our willingness to die for others' freedom on foreign soil?
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No matter how hard you want it to be.
"I thought the speech was breathtaking for its superficial rationality and utter naivete. It was exactly the sort of speech a learned professor might give, if he didn't know anything about the real world. A complete mishmash of compromise and cross purposes. The idea that he can shove over 100,000 troops into Afghanistan, with about an equal number of private contractors, quickly get the job done, and then quickly pull them back out again a few months later - is just so unbelievably dumb. And the idea that he has any sort of leverage to force Karzai to clean up his act - when he is all that we've got there and he knows it - is much worse than wishful thinking. Increasing America's bombing of Pakistan will do more to destabilize the government there and help to recruit more Taliban than anything else we could do. Stating that the safety of the American people is at stake in Afghanistan is absurd and intellectually dishonest. Why is it that in all these months of deep consultation, nobody ever bothered to tell him the only two essential facts that he needed to know:
#1. Wars never go the way that you plan, which is exactly why it's best to avoid them.
#2 Nobody has ever conquered or subdued Afghanistan for very long, which is why it's best to get out as soon as you can."
Imagine: on January 13th, Karzai is assassinated. Who would OBush go with then? Big Minh????? Yes, I'm a bit sarcastic. His only resort thence, other than withdrawal, would be to go with Big Karzai. And speaking of withdrawal, if the American military is not allowed to get it's rocks off, watch the hell out.
Indeed, had she been president, she probably would have dispatched at least 120,000 troops by now, and probably a few stealth bombers to boot, allthewhile prepping the military for the preliminary phases of "Operation Iranian Freedom".
At one point in his speech the President mentioned that we are committed to stopping those who kill innocents. Surely he recognized the irony inherent in that statement. I doubt that the total number of dead and maimed innocents who were done in by "terrorists" such as al Qaeda and the Taliban is one-tenth the number of innocents who have been done in by U.S. bombs and assaults in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that doesn't include the displaced persons who have moved to other countries fleeing the carnage or those who are starving or freezing to death as "collateral damage".
This vet wants us to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq and focus on the domestic security of our own citizens who have been bankrolling these abominations we call wars of necessity.
--Goering at the Nuremberg Trials
1) The Administration is not waiting until the surge is in effect to identify those Afghans with which they will work, they are doing so now.
2) Corruption does not have to be defeated, it only has to be managed --- just like here at home.
3) The 30,000 more Americans troops and 7000 more foreign troops will allow other participants to "get out" of Kabul and into the field.
4) The President *is* fully committed to the reduced goal of establishing an Afghan government as an alternative to the Taliban. Our troops can understand this; why can't you, Ms. Fowler?
5) & 6) I imagine the women of Kabul and Kandahar will look hopefully on our support of the current, secular Afghan government, which has permitted women to attend school and remove the burkhat. As to our source of moral authority, our campaign in Afghanistan is for the protection of Americans and American interests and allies against the real threat of al-Qaeda. It is not another *crusade* against "evildoers", or whatever the last administration decided to use as a tagline.
Bombs will kill women in Afghanistan: http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog/?p=604
a) The Taliban kill many women in Afghanistan; the rest they enslave.
b) The US no longer "bombs" Afghan targets, due to the capacity for civilian deaths.
c) Al-Qaeda bombs anything perceived as too "Western" --- including schools and markets.
While liberation of Afghan women is not the US' overriding objective, our abandonment of Afghanistan would consign the female population to religious slavery --- a fate not all Afghani women consider preferable to death.
We cannot have that short of a timetable. It tells alqaeda to lie low for a while.
We cannot stay their indefinitely.
I think We should leave now.
either agree with me or go full in. dont try to appease incommensurable views
Sorry, but the truly progressive among us voted in 2008 not only for an end of the Bush-era, but a close to the philosophy that forbids the questioning of our leaders.
Get used to it.
This would have been the right plan for 2003. For 2009 it's the politically safe choice.
Where have we been successful combatting gang wars?
I would suggest that we need to understand (and maybe even resolve) how to 'win', i.e., stop gang violence in places like E. Los Angeles, Philly, New York, etc., before we try it half way around the world. If we HAVE been successful in fighting gangs somewhere, we need to apply those methods to Afghanistan...
If we are clueless (or at least wildly unsuccessful) in our own cities, with our own citizens, why would we think we will be successful in Afghanistan?
Finally, 'precision' in our use of military power is nonsense. Military force is a blunt instrument at best. What do you think the reaction of residents in East LA or Boston or Chicago would be if we treated them the way we treat innocent Afghan bystanders in our 'war' on terror? It only digs a deeper hole if you trash the very people you must have support from in order to prevail.
We were taught that forty years ago. Too bad we didn't learn.
"As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, our or interests. And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I do not have the luxury of committing to just one. Indeed, I am mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who - in discussing our national security - said, "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."
Which makes sense to me. He's basically giving the military a year to get some traction on this thing and then we leave. Not enough, you say? Others say too much. Beyond agreeing that we can't exactly just leave on Monday, nobody really knows.
His plan, while not great, really is the best plan we've had thus far for that disaster.