Afghanistan: Obama's Fantasy Island

Obama will do the predictable next week and sign on to plans for an expanded American commitment in Afghanistan. It will be a somewhat modified version of the McChrystal strategy. The White House will dexterously perform its patented sleight of hand to cast the decision as the only reasonable course between the advocates of dramatic escalation and the cut-and-run crowd.

In truth, he could not do otherwise - for three reasons. One, he already has pronounced AFPAK "the necessary war." Two, he climbed out on the political limb during the campaign in boosting the Afghan enterprise so as to protect himself against Republican charges of being a spineless dove on national security, however misguided the premise. Three, Obama set the bureaucratic and military gears in motion back in March at the time of Super Afghan Review I. Hence, he is locked in through his own poor judgments on all three fronts: intellectual, political and military.

The month long Super Afghan Review II has had only one possible termination point. Now it is just a matter of stating publicly what was predetermined. The country's political class, loosely defined, is collectively as culpable for this feckless willingness to perform what is a fool's errand. For we haven't pressed to know why America is there, what reasonable expectations are, or the enormous risks of the venture. The administration has been very happy not having to answer those never posed questions. For it is incapable of a coherent response. Richard Holbrooke was queried at the Center for American Progress back in August how specifically he would define success. His response:

The specific goal ... is really hard for me to address in specific terms. But I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue, we'll know it when we see it.

The unwitting reference is to a comment by Supreme Court Justice Potter Steward in an opinion on a landmark pornography case. This is what passes for grand strategy in Washington these days under a change president.

I cited this bit of proffered wisdom to select audiences on a recent visit to Germany and Paris. In the former, groups of officials and politicians reacted with equal parts hysteria and hilarity. The French exhibited the traumatic signs of shock and awe: horror and disbelief. An illustrious psychoanalyst in the Heidelberg audience suggested that I receive a kickback for my provoking a spike in Prozac sales. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates was so taken with this inane formulation, though, that he repeated it a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning non-news program. The panel respectfully nodded. In a mature, responsible, polity this kind of insult to decent opinion and intelligence would have immediate and dire consequences. Not so in the United States anymore.

Frankly, we find ourselves in the hazardous and slightly ridiculous position of trying to accomplish the impossible at enormous costs in an enterprise for which we have neither aptitude nor method It is a venture aimed at eradicating a greatly diminished threat - al-Qaeda - that may no longer be located where we're hunting it nor capable of much more than elementary survival. The War on Terror is counter productive. We inadvertently have recruited and trained Islamic terrorists in Iraq, we have brought Pakistan to the edge of civil war, and we have ripped to shreds our authority and integrity from Marrakech to Mindanao.

There is no way on Lord's earth that Americans can create a Taliban-free Afghanistan where we are assured that a bunch of bad guys will never again be welcomed in whatever remote corner. Nor can we cleanse Pakistan of the people or the emotions we fear. (Point of information: no Afghan Taliban has ever attacked a Westerner outside of Afghanistan.)

Instead of thinking soberly, we have chosen to inhabit a fantasy island. George Bush founded it; Barack Obama has extended the lease. An enumeration of the bizarre doings we have been up to illuminates the absurdity of our position.

We still see ourselves besieged by the 20,000 jihadists allegedly indoctrinated and superbly trained by bin-Laden before 9/11. Popular imagery, propagated by our leaders, has heroic patriots in the CIA and FBI pouring buckets of hot pitch and scalding water on the fanatics as they scale the outer walls of our national citadel. Ask intelligence professionals, as I have, what we know of these diabolical conspirators and the names run out before all the fingers are ticked off.

We commend the FBI for having 400,000 persons on their "watch list." In other words, the entire bin-Laden alumni association multiplied by 20. That should be a cause for distress - not reassurance. Not only is it a rampant waste of resources but it tells us that the FBI really doesn't have a clue as to whom precisely they should be shadowing - if in fact there is anyone out there except a handful of marginal oddballs who shop for guerrilla gear on eBay (Miami), play paint ball games (Virginia) and collect a hundred tongue depressors (Queens).

We send our turbo-charged diplomats on repeated missions to Kabul and Islamabad that are colorful exercises for displaying our ignorance and our arrogance. Holbrooke makes himself persona non grata by screaming at Karzai in the man's own office. One need not be a Kipling fan, or have access to a crack squad of aces from across the government, to know you don't treat a Pashtun that way. I can say that with some authority having once had a near death experience in the departure hall of Calcutta's Dum Dum airport by looking the wrong way at a hulking Pashtun.

Hillary Clinton's recent foray was a veritable textbook of maladroit maneuvers. In the brief span of a few days, she crossly scolded Pakistani leaders for being too dense to see their imperative interest in igniting a civil war against the Pashtuns. She stonewalled a youthful audience on the issue of drones - perhaps in shock at being posed pointed and intelligent questions of the sort beyond the capacity of the Washington press corps. She turned a deaf ear to popular Pakistani ire at our foisting on them onerous loan conditions that in effect reduce their government to an American proxy. Her over confidence may have stemmed from the extraordinary leverage we have on Pakistan's zombie president Asif Ali Zardari; to wit, his two psychiatrists are in Manhattan - the same two who sent depositions to a London court three years ago affirming their professional judgment that he was mentally unfit to stand trial. Perhaps one of the fifty "metrics" being cooked up to measure success in AF/PAK will be whether the prescribed dose of medicine for Pakistan's president rises or falls. As for the photo of Clinton seated before a semi-circle of tribal elders, the best one can say is that a bit of levity must have been welcomed by our sorely tried allies.

The Clinton sojourn was punctuated by the revelation that President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai - top warlord of Kandahar, has contracted with the CIA on a retainer basis. He provides some of his armed militia men to provide helpful services when not occupied in their main vocation - escorting opium laden truck convoys through treacherous territory. How much the State and Defense departments knew of the deal is obscure. No one has bothered to ask that of Clinton or Gates or the White House.

Secretary Clinton's next port of call was Israel where she outdid herself in driving yet another stake through our other zombie interlocutor, the virtual Palestinian President Mr. Mahmoud Abbas. Already disgraced in the eyes of his own people by bowing to Washington's pressure to forgive and forget Israeli's bloody assault on Gazans in January, he now is instructed by the White House to ignore the uncomfortable fact that Bibi Netanyahu called Obama's bluff on the settlement "ultimatum." The latest watchword is that Netanyahu has made generous, "unprecedented" concessions to which Abbas should respond by adding one more sword thrust to his already well perforated body.

Meanwhile back in Washington, our pair of hyper ambitious generals - David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal - have thrown all their resources into the latest offensive aimed at pushing another American president to go for broke. Their rendezvous with destiny is now Obama's. McChrystal, lest we forget, was author of the self-serving Pat Tillman myth and the man who institutionalized torture at Camp Cropper in May 2003. Now he is authoring "hearts and minds" strategies - evidently a man for all seasons.

In the duo's current dubious battle, they are given encouragement by the nation's editorial writers and receive near unanimous backing from the capital's galaxy of think tanks. The famed Rand Corporation is using millions of Pentagon dollars to pursue the Mother of All Counter-Insurgency Studies. The project is promising, one of its directors former Ambassador James Dobbins told me, because it wisely has set as two positive reference points for successful, foreign led counter insurgency efforts: Vietnam and Iraq. We all have ways of amusing ourselves - I guess.

 

Comments

[Blutenhalbmond]

"The Republicans love it. They cannot lose."

Of course they love it and that is why they urge him on to send in the troops in Afghanistan. They know that more we send our soldiers to fight a no win war, the more is Obama weakened in the next election.Therefore for the US to get stuck to the Afghnistan tar baby is to their benefit and not to the nation.

Actually when one comes to think of it, more often than not, what is good for the Republicans is usually bad for the nation as a whole.

[Jeffreygeez]

I am hoping Obama gets us out of this war and takes the consequences.That would make him man of the century, and honorary Nobel Peace Prize winner always.

Of course the Republicans would then be hoping for an attack On America from someone who had a relative in Afghanistan at one time etc. Catch my drifft? I hope so. They only win by America being attacked.

Underneath it all, they hope for exactly that. Cheney most of all( The Cheneys) you know the blonde daughter who is????

End corruption in Afghanistan or for that matter Iraq, who are we kidding,????

Money talks B.S. walks. There is no way to stop it. It goes on here in America big time and we can do nothing about it, In Afghanistan, we wil depend upon them to stop corruption­??????????­?

Surely you jest. You Jest!

[voxpop4]

IF WE DON'T GET OUT OF AFGHANISTAN(AND IRAQ) WE IN THE USA WILL HAVE SUCH TROUBLE IT'LL MAKE WW2 LOOK LIKE A PICNIC! AND I MEAN HERE AT HOME, NEVERMIND THE WAR ABROAD! HERE'S A SCENARIO...TERRIBLE INFLATION IN A JOBLESS NATION. NO MONEY EVEN TRICKLING DOWN TO THE WORKING CLASS. AMERICANS WILL PAY 5 BUCKS A GAL TO GO TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT AGENCY! yOU THINK PEOPLE WILL STAND IN "BREAD LINES" THIS TIME..HECK NO! WE HAVE ALREADY A RIOT AND "COLUMBINE" MENTALITY. JUST WATCH THE 6 :00 O:CLOCK NEWS. IT'S LIKE HEARING A EULOGY. WORSE, WE ARE LOSING THE PRIME OF OUR YOUTH IN THAT SHOOTING GALLERY CALLED AFGHANISTAN. THESE ARE THE YOUNG PEOPLE WE WILL NEED TO BUILD OUR OWN NATION OR TO FIGHT THAT REAL BIG WAR CALLED WW3! MICHAEL BRENNER IS RIGHT..WHAT EVERF WE DO THERE ..WE LOSE ..ITS A LOSE , LOSE SITUATION. BRING OUR SOLDIERS HOME ..LET THEM WORK IT OUT..WE SURE CAN'T. OUR DEMOCRATIC LIFESTYLE IS SO DIFFERENT FROM THEIR SHARIAH LAW IT BOGGLES THE MIND. THEY EVEN KILL THEIR OWN KIND...THAT TELLS US ALL WE NEED TO KNOW..GET OUT NOW!

[Abe34]

I was humored when you discussed Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari psychiatrists in Manhatten. If we do pull out of Afghanistan, I'm sure President Karzai will be sure to catch the first plane to the U.S.A.

[wordvarc]

"w's continued war on Afghanistan:"

"It's all over but the shouting."

[Jeffreygeez]

¨´Hence, he is locked in through his own poor judgments on all three fronts: intellectual, political and military´´

Unfortunately you are correct on this. Obama has locked himself in. The Republicans love it. They cannot lose.

Nation building in Afghanistan??? How ABOUT NATION BUILDING IN AMERICA? How nuts is all of this?

[Jeaccuse]

I didn't know that Michael Brenner had such wonderful domain of the English language. What an article. Obama should framed it at the oval office so he will have an idea about the many mistakes he is making and that is not the change I was voting for. The only thing I did not buy is the first reason given for continuing with so many debacles. "The necessary war" should be no match for the many about faces about all the Bush's policies. Obama was, as I recall, dead set against any thing and every thing that smelled "bushie", but once elected he became another Bush. If he went back on his word about nobody is above the law or waterboarding is torture, then certainly he can state that the Afghan was is not necessary any longer and I have a list of reasons, but The Huffington Post will not allow me such long display of them. I don't understand why that adage about "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me", the republicans can ever get it right, but in my case and due to the many mistakes Obama has made and so many flip floppers, to my family and me, he is history. Next time he wouldn't be able to fool me twice.

[Trubulmaker]

The author is exactly right. The toll of these wars is grave beyond individual understanding... tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands of crippled minds and bodies (Americans are not even the majority of the permanent casualties), homes, jobs, families destroyed, perhaps millions of new enemies recruited. Beside all that, the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars that have been wasted are almost meaningless... even though they, too, represent substantial pain and loss.

The author is exactly right about the three reasons Obama is "COMPELLED" to escalate the war in Afghanistan... but there is a more important consideration, an even more overwhelming imperative than the intellectual, political and military inertia moving for escalation, if Obama can see it. To take the better path, the one OUT of Afghanistan and Iraq, DESPITE the likely political cost to Obama, personally, would show him to be a wise and courageous leader... if not immediately, certainly in the long run... and if that decision cost him re-election in 2012, that would be a grave mistake of the American electorate (obviously not our first), but it would not diminish Obama's moral achievement.

I can hope.

[JXJASON]

Call your members of Congress. Tell them to cancel all civilian and military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, recall all US citizens from those countries and bring our troops home.


There is nothing the US can do that will be effective in solving the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our government has been conned. We have been conned. If you continue to be complacent, you will contine to have a drain on our human and financial resources.

I , too, have been against these wars since they began. For 8 years, most Americans have done nothing to stop these wars.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich has tried to end our involvement and Dennis, too, has had trouble convincing members of Congress to do what is right for us on main street.

[jaysea50]

I have railed against our going to Iraq and Afghanistan since first hearing about going there eight years ago. Initially, I took alot of flak from hundreds of bloggers and poster since then. But now the pendulum is swinging the other way to the extent that I feel vindicated for lashing out back then. I was absolutely convinced the outcome would be what it is now. One didn't need a crystal ball to predict the path these forays would take, just a little pragmatic common sense - and about 3 cents worth of middle-east history.

[Radicalthinker]

Most of our problems in Afghanistan are a direct result of our faiure to develop a comprehensive South Asia strategy.

The real driver of Islamic militancy in the region is Pakistan's fear of India, and so the real challenge is to moderate the strategic competition between India and Pakistan. If we can do that, we might just turn this thing around.

For clues on how to do it, there is an excellent little piece here: http://bit.ly/3vYHPk

it's well worth a read

[JXJASON]

India V. Pakistan is NOT our fight. We cannot teach these governments or their people how to behave themselves.

We have no business being in Iraq or Afghanistan. These two wars were a huge mistake.

Our foreign policy needs to be changed. We should cut back on the budget for the State Department. We should concentrate on the problems here in the US.

Let the United Nations solve the world's problems.

[plaidsportcoat]

Thanks. Now, please, urge us to get out into the streets, as well!
Because that is the ONLY hope for Big O listening to us on the wars, at this point. Get some rich dem pal to fund all the bus trips needed for a huge anti war demo in DC, of many thousands - who would go if they had a little financial incentive--like a bus ride.

Because, now, the war industry is looking great to Obama's admin = it means jobs. Just like any war-mongering admin - they want people to be shut up and unquestioning, happily employed, which we are mostly NOT right now. If they start escalating wars, they will be putting more people to work---in the anti-green war industry. Great. Change.

[ChelseaC]

Mr. Brenner,
Well said.

[danielet]

If this is correct Obama would have failed to understand two things: 1) the world is full of people living a marginal existence who measure their lives in terms of day by day survival vs. daily losses. 2)The arrival of intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb Americans promising to stay convinces them only that either we are there to take over and steal whatever value there is in their bare subsistence or that we will stay trying to bring DEMOCRACY FROM THE BARREL OF A GUN, only to fail and run away, leaving them in a much sorrier state than before we came. Given Obama's Third World background, he can't plead ignorance to this. We created a small camp of secular urban Afghans whom, like "our" Vietnamese, we'll have to allow refuge in the US. But the truth is that the reasons we had to invade Afghanistan in 2001 no longer exist because Bush chose to focus on Iraq instead. NATO however kept enough forces around to make Afghans think that
we really want to turn it into a base, hence our absurd Karzai Mafia in charge. The Afghan popular immune system sees us as an infectious invader. This attitude is spreading to the Northwest. Even the neighbors (including Russia, China, India, Iran) all got together to form the SHANGHAI COOPERATIVE ACCORD to keep us out. We can leave and let it keep the Taliban out of power.

[memi]

Danielet
Excellent comment! It would be divine justice at work to be able to confiscate the Bush Family's holdings in Saudi Arabia and Cheney's Haliburton and all their other 'investments' and, after impeaching their negligent posteriors, divide their assets to the American taxpayers!...

As for Obama's "third world" experience, please do not for a minute think that this man who spent a couple of years of his public school education in Indonesia and went backpacking to India-Pakistan for a summer holiday in the early days has any clue as to what ails the 'third world'. He's a product of a middle-class family, his grandmother being a V-P at a bank and his Ph.D world-traveling anthropologist mother in charge of microfinan­cing/micro­loans as part of NGO executives. Obama himself is the privileged elitist product of privilege and I will believe this until such time as he releases all his university and law school records which he has refused to.

[gtposse]

This is one of the most thoughtful and profound analysis I have read. As the article points out the American media is filled with lackeys and blithering idiots. When they talk about Al kahida they show the same video clips that are over 10 years old of men with turbans and guns in training exercises.

I saw the Q & A from the students whe Clinton was in Pakistan and I would agree that these students have put the American press corp to shame including the Sunday morning bobbleheads. Remember, the press in this country gorge on the largess in Washington. They travel around the globe on the same aircrafts with the folks in the cabinet, they attend the same functions in Washington so why should they rock the boat or bite the hands that feed them garbage.

We are doomed in this country unless the we all wake up from our collective slumber. What made this country great was a solid middle class structure. We put our hopes in wall street and all these guys have done was to figure out how the minipulate financial instruments to enrich themselves.

Ask yourselves this question, In the last 15 years what tangible goods or services has wall street produced besides the minipulation of financial instruments. A rising stock market means absolutely nothing to 90% of the people in this country its a game for the Oligarchy and the ruling class.

Do your homework folks.

[mysaaed]

I am writing this comment as one of those who came in the United States after 1970. You have to understand that the people who were coming in the old days, they were coming to improve their by doing a honest work and not thinking to become a millionaire in less than five years and a billionaire in ten years. Those who came in early gays were sure that is the only country they really have and make it better. These dys United States is business place, make your money and if you don't like it leave. America is becoming the a dilated Manhattan.

[Nonamnesiac]

Excellent article. It's time for the adults -- the "out now" forces -- to demand immediate, safe withdrawal of all US troops and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq. We know the greed merchants from the defense industry and their new allies -- the private army mercenaries who are a second army paid for by Uncle Sam -- have bribed Obama and Congress (both parties) into funding a depression­-sustainin­g, deficit-ma­ssively-hi­king escalation in Afghanistan while continuing exhorbitant, depression­-sustainin­g, deficit-massively hiking troop levels in Iraq.

The warmongering teenage-wa­nnabe-test­onerers like Petraeus and MacChrystal are puppets used by these industries to convince the corrupt, ego-maniac Obama (who knows better) to escalate. And that defense industry (remember how the Defense Department hired retired generals to influence the American public to support the Iraq incursion by lying about it -- well those same retired general are back pushing escalation in Afghanistan) has now made a defeated, stateless al Qaeda somehow capable of getting hold of Pakistan's nukes if the Taliban throw out the corrupt drug pusherocracy we support in Afghanistan once we leave. This is the new "domino theory". The Vietnam "domino theory" said if South Vietnam fell, Japan would end up red (along with the rest of Southeast Asia). That did not happen nor was it ever possible. Nor will al Qaeda or the Taliban get Pakistan's nukes if the Taliban take Afghanistan. That's ridiculous fear mongering based wholly in fantasy.

All US troops and contractors out of Afghanistan and Iraq safely, now.

[soeasy]

I have two things to say to you all that know all the answers. 1) If you guys think that we can invaded another country, have so many of our soldiers killed, killed or were responsable for the death of many peple, including civilians, in both sides, involved other countries in this war that we declare, and just can pack our things , put our tails between our legs and say "Oops, we made a mistake, sorry!", you guys never had to solve a serious problems in your life. Because, If you had, a serious problem in your life, for sure somebody else or solved it for you or bought and paid for the solution and you never thought or felt the price. 2) If you are really against the war, do not stay confortably seating there giving opinion ;get organized. Organize groups of war protestors to peacefully make your point loud and clear. . Trust me, I doubt that, if people wil show up in the street and make it loud and clear that they had enough of wars , as the people did to finished the Vietnan war, the President and the Congress will not have a choice, but to listen. We do not need only to wake up; we need to get out of the bed. !

[Nonamnesiac]

Making the decision to "put our tails between our legs" is a serious decision. I'm old now and was one of those who organized and participated in strikes, civil disobedience, etc. to end the Vietnam War and have been involved in some of the demonstrations this time round. First of all, the anti-Iraq invasion demonstration that occurred just prior to our invading Iraq was larger than anything we did during Vietnam. My grandkids were in Italy when that demonstration happened and in addition to having millions in the streets in the US (not only in NY, DC and Frisco, but all over the country) there were 1 million in Rome (where I was) half a million in Naples, a million in Milan and similar rallies all over Europe. It didn't matter -- we were ignored.

Now the Democrats, including the so-called progressive ones are ignoring us. They were elected by an anti-war electorate to end the wars and the corrupt bloodthirsty neo-liberals are just as bad as the neo-Cons -- pouring trillions into the depression­-sustainin­g, deficit-hiking wars. They talk against the war while they fund it and lie that it's a war of "necessity".

Had we left Vietnam in 1967 (while people like you were saying we can't "put our tails between our legs") 30,000 of our troops would have lived and hundreds of thousands would not have been injured along with millions of Vietnamese for the same result.

Out NOW -- contractors and troops.

[Chip W]

My thinking, I think, is not uncommon:

I was behind the initial invasion of Afghanistan.
One reason for opposing the Iraq war was that it abandoned the real war in Afghanistan.
I was encouraged by Obama's shift in emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Now we should get out. There are no realistic objectives that are worth the cost and the damage.

What's changed - the situation, or perceptions? Mostly perceptions I think.