It's a time-honored Washington tradition. If you want to bully the government into doing something unpopular and the public into accepting it, manufacture a false emergency. Iraq war? If you don't approve it, mushroom cloud. Banker or IMF bailout? If you don't approve it, financial collapse. Social security privatization? If you don't approve it, the system will go "bankrupt." Our brand is crisis, as James Carville might say.
General McChrystal says that if President Obama does not approve 40,000 more U.S. troops for Afghanistan, and approve them right away, "our mission" - whatever that is - will likely "fail" - whatever that is.
But even if President Obama were to approve General McChrystal's request, the 40,000 troops wouldn't arrive in time to significantly affect the 12-month window McChrystal says will be decisive. So McChrystal's request isn't about what's happening in Afghanistan right now. It's about how many troops the U.S. will have in Afghanistan a year from now and beyond.
There is no emergency requiring a quick decision by President Obama. The current situation in Afghanistan is being used as a bloody shirt to try to lock America into to an endless war, and, as Andrew Bacevich argues in the Boston Globe, lock the Obama Administration into the continuation of military force as the main instrument of U.S. foreign policy.
The Washington Post reports:
In his 66-page assessment of the war, McChrystal warns that the next 12 months will probably determine whether U.S. and international forces can regain the initiative from the Taliban.
But as the Wall Street Journal notes:
a recent study by the Institute for the Study of War - a Washington, D.C., think tank headed by Kimberly Kagan, a military analyst who worked on Gen. McChrystal's assessment team - suggested it would be difficult to move enough troops from other posts to deploy anywhere close to 40,000 troops before next summer at the earliest.
The military agrees with the institute's overall findings, although [it] has identified different units it could deploy over the course of the next year.
Let's plot these two facts on the same graph.
Let's say that "12 months" equals 12 months. So, McChrystal's window is between now and next October.
Let's say that "next summer at the earliest" equals June.
We're in October now, so June is eight months away.
That means that for 2/3 of McChrystal's window that will "probably determine" whether we "win" or "lose" in Afghanistan, the 40,000 troops that Obama is being pressured to approve will be mostly irrelevant.
There is no crisis demanding a quick decision on McChrystal's troop request, and plenty of time to explore alternatives, including dramatically reducing our list of enemies, and dramatically increasing the role of diplomacy, negotiations, and deal-making, in Afghanistan and in the region.
In particular, if it's true that 70% of the insurgency consists of "$10-a-day Taliban," as a Senate report estimates, that suggests that we could make deals with (at least) 70% of the insurgency. Suppose that these deals cost us $20 per day, per fighter, and that there are 15,000 Taliban fighters overall. Then a deal with 70% of the insurgency would cost $210,000 per day. The war, on the other hand, costs $165 million per day.
If you assume that fighting this 70% of the insurgency has average cost, then fighting these 70% of Taliban fighters costs $115.5 million per day. So, if we made a deal with them, instead of fighting them, we'd save $115.3 million dollars, every day, for an annual savings of $42 billion dollars. By comparison, if the 10 year cost of health reform is a trillion dollars, then the annual cost is $100 billion. So making a deal with 70% of the Afghan insurgency would pay for roughly half of the cost of health care reform.
In addition, at the current rate about 23 American soldiers are being killed in Afghanistan every month. Assuming, again, average costs, that means that making deals with instead of fighting with 70% of the insurgency will save 16 American lives a month, or 194 American lives a year.
In what is surely an undercount, in the first six months of 2009, the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan recorded 1013 civilian deaths. If we use this figure and assume average costs, removing 70% of the insurgency would save 118 Afghan civilians every month, or 1418 per year.
And this analysis doesn't even consider the benefit of avoiding the wounding of American soldiers and Afghan civilians, nor the many other benefits of less fighting, including less trauma for American soldiers in Afghanistan - many of whom are depressed and deeply disillusioned, military chaplains tell the Times of London.
Nor does this analysis consider the benefits of less fighting in terms of less trauma to Afghan civilians and the economic benefits of less fighting for Afghan civilians.
In other words, there is at least one alternative to military escalation that would save more than a thousand lives and tens of billions of dollars every year, among many other benefits over military escalation.
Now, tell me again that there is an emergency requiring President Obama to approve sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/naiman
The advisor family:
Doctor Kimberly Kagan.
Husband Fredrick. He is steeped in Neo Con war philosophy at the American Interprise Institute. Fredrick's brother Robert and the brothers' father Donald were connected to the Neo Con's Project For The American Century. http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/2085-obama-sending-13000-more-troops-to-afghanistan
Kimberly Kagan was part of General McChrystal's assessment team.
Interesting background: Robert Kagan and William Kristol co-founded PNAC.
Frederick and his father David invented WND's.
Kimberly & Frederick were picked by Secretary Robert Gates to advise McChrystal. Others included Anthony Cordesman, assistant to Senator John McCain. William Kristol, of the Weekly Standard.
Dr. Frederick Kagan was at the core of the Project for the New American Century that was organized by Cheney and company after Cheney's boss, Bush senior lost to Bill Clinton. Their plan was to persuade Monica's boyfriend to kickstart a war with Saddam Hussein.
Clinton zipped down war; Obama has unzipped the PNAC plan open.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/jon-stewart-takes-on-fox_n_320287.html
After nine years of stumbling around the mountains of Afganistan, they have a new plan. After 20 years, they will have a new plan. After 50 years, they will have a new plan. After 100 years, they will give up and conclude the effort was a complete waste of time, money and effort. Here's your bill.
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http://www.themidnightreview.com
http://www.mumistheword.org
a. 40.000 troops.
b. 60.000 troops.
c. 80.000 troops.
d. A mix of all of the above.
Then they have many "independent" columnists on the pentagon's payroll writing for the media to press for 60.000. It's called PR. So in the end they get a "compromise" of 40.000, putting the government in a weak position. If things go wrong because it was insufficient the government takes the blame. That's how war propaganda works.
This was from Herman Goering... interviewed by Gustave Gilbert, an American intelligence officer, during the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Gilbert wrote the book, Nuremberg Diary.
One would think that the kind of force-intensive COIN approach that McChrystal is advocating would be a non-starter from the get go. But, we can forgive President Obama for taking due time to come around to accepting his vice president’s wise and reasoned approach (not the 'Biden approach' you read about in the media and blogosphere, I hasten to add) to meet the essential US/NATO objectives through a comprehensive regional strategy.
I would just add that persuading a healthy majority of the Taliban to participate in the process of political reconciliation at the national and local levels, through whatever means, is critical to any success here. And, if that proves not to be possible, then we are truly up the proverbial creek without a paddle, as they say.
And, there’s another fly in the ointment when it comes to the troops the General is asking for...I don’t know who he’s trying to kid, but whether he thinks he needs 40,000 or 50,000 or 60,000 more troops is a bit bizarre when you consider what it is he wishes to accomplish with those extra troops in the circumstances that currently exist in Afghanistan. The bottom line is that the number of troops that would be required to successfully execute the kind of COIN approach that General McChrystal apparently wants to take would be measured in the hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands...and, that’s if the necessary conditions for a successful counterinsurgency operation existed in Afghanistan - which, of course, is not the case.
...continued...
Listen dear lady, there's more to this war than meets the eye and "force" is the option that has been used since the Civil War.
Look at who is advising the prez, the whole bunch are war hawks!
Doctor Kimberly Kagan. Who is she and what has she and her her family been doing to promote war all these years? Husband Fredrick is steeped in Neo Con war philosophy at the American Interprise Institute. Fredrick's brother Robert and the brothers' father Donald were connected to the Neo Con's Project For The American Century. http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/asia-mainmenu-33/2085-obama-sending-13000-more-troops-to-afghanistan
Kimberly Kagan was part of General McChrystal's assessment team. Robert Kagan and William Kristol co-founded PNAC. Frederick and his father David invented WND's. Kimberly & Frederick were picked by Secretary Robert Gates to advise McChrystal. Others included Anthony Cordesman, assistant to Senator John McCain. William Kristol, of the Weekly Standard. Dr. Frederick Kagan was at the core of the Project for the New American Century that was organized by Cheney and company after Cheney's boss, Bush senior lost to Bill Clinton. Their plan was to persuade Monica's boyfriend to kickstart a war with Saddam Hussein. Clinton zipped down war; Obama has unzipped the PNAC plan open.
Dianne Feinstein loves the idea of more troops in Afghanistan.
Of course, her billionaire husband own two war related corporations that continue to get favorable contracts through her connections. But don't take my word for it, google Richard Blum.
But, you know, if the bank bailout didn't get done, we probably would have had a financial collapse and Afghanistan would have been the least of our problems, still.
"In particular, if it's true that 70% of the insurgency consists of "$10-a-day Taliban," as a Senate report estimates, that suggests that we could make deals with (at least) 70% of the insurgency. Suppose that these deals cost us $20 per day, per fighter, and that there are 15,000 Taliban fighters overall. Then a deal with 70% of the insurgency would cost $210,000 per day. The war, on the other hand, costs $165 million per day."
What, pray tell, happens when the Taliban can't be bought, oh wise think tank twit?
That could come in the form of jobs or projects. And it could well be the case that it would involve more political flexibility than the U.S. has demonstrated so far.
But recent U.S. press reports indicate that such flexibility may well be in the cards. Already, the Obama Administration has signaled that it does not consider the Afghan Taliban a threat to the United States, and reportedly new guidelines are being issued for local U.S. commanders giving them greater flexibility in negotiating with local insurgents.
"That could come in the form of jobs or projects. And it could well be the case that it would involve more political flexibility than the U.S. has demonstrated so far."
Whether it's cash in hand or an in-kind bribe, you are still alleging that militant Islamic fundamentalists will accept some kind of kick back from the US and put down their weapons. Seems a little too cute for me. It works in DC but not in AfPak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSeuLsNV4CA&feature=related
You ask how long the American ( as in US citizens) people will tolerate this madness. The real question is how long will China be willing to keep issuing loans to pay for this madness.
As for this nation's apparent ability to tolerate this kind of military spending year after year and administration after administration, I'll let Alexander Cockburn chime in : " Insanity effortlessly trumps common sense. "