Yesterday's announcement by the White House that the president was ordering 17,000 more US troops into Afghanistan was particularly troubling to many of us who - unlike Mr. Limbaugh and his followers on Capitol Hill - actually want President Obama to succeed.
As a candidate, President Obama offered - and American's overwhelming chose - "new thinking" on foreign policy and national security. We had all seen the devastating results of a "Bring 'em on" foreign policy where the hole dug by "shock and awe" militarism got progressively deeper and the incessant demand from Pentagon officials for yet more troops to deal with the consequences became increasingly greater. President Bush was always ready to meet these demands. The result was a weakened America, a broken military and more than a trillion dollars - and counting - added to the national debt.
We were relieved when the new president announced during his first week in office that he was ordering a comprehensive review of an obviously failed US policy in Afghanistan. Things had steadily gone from bad to worse there. What was desperately needed was a fundamental course correction guided by a healthy dose of "new thinking."
New thinking was not in evidence yesterday when the White House announced that it was ordering 17,000 more US troops into harms way in Afghanistan even though it's comprehensive review would not be completed for several more weeks.
Military commanders apparently warned that it would be too risky not to deploy troops now out of fear that they would not be in place by the anticipated spike in fighting this spring. Nothing surprising here - when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Military commanders have a point of view born out of their training and orientation.
But, new thinking requires a broader view than what can be seen from a military lens. It begins with considering the risk that a military escalation will actually make things worse, not better.
First off, where does military escalation end? According to the Army and Marine Corps field manual, counterinsurgency operations require, at a minimum, twenty counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents. In Afghanistan, this would mean combined forces of 640,000 troops. No, I did not incorrectly add an extra zero - that is 640,000 troops. In short, even if we wanted to go down this road, we can't.
Several independent analysts have publicly warned that the presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important driving force in the resurgence of the Taliban. New thinking would at least consider the option of reducing, not increasing our military imprint as a means of dividing and weakening the armed opposition. At the very least, it would withhold final judgment and action until all of all options are subject to a truly comprehensive review.
The risks are too high to do anything else. As Katrina vanden Heuvel writes in The Nation:
Escalating the occupation of Afghanistan will bleed us of the resources needed for economic recovery, further destabilize Pakistan, open a rift with our European allies, and negate the positive consequences of withdrawing from Iraq on our image in the Muslim world.
What the nation needs is a truly comprehensive plan for Afghanistan and the region that is fundamentally different from the approach that led us to where we now find ourselves.
Problem.The only truly comprehensive plan for any region in The Middle East that would have any sort of hope of winning is to basically go in and carpet bomb, then send in ground militia to the entire region from Greece to Asia. Anything short of that would cause nothing more than a domino effect of "the enemy" fleeing east and us chasing the bad guys.
On the other hand, let's be realistic. We will NEVER fully pull out of Afghanistan or Iraq, the same way we have never pulled out of Germany and Japan 50 years later. We need to find a way to work with the people, in a dual strategy of military power, diplomacy, and economic support of the entire region. We also need to put our heavy hand on NATO to stop allowing The Middle East Fundamentalist Rulers to enforce strict warped skewed religious doctrine into the children, literally breeding new sets of potential terrorists through their schools.
Until someone, The US, allies or NATO themself go in with real humanitarian aid, reinforced by military strategy, millions and millions more Middle Eastern women and children will be brutally and needlessly murdered
Why would we, when the other hand is allowing that very thing to be established at home?
Having said that, there's been more than enough news in the last two weeks about the President being slow to respond to the Pentagon's request for more troops, because it's obvious we need a strategy based, not on shooting the locals, but encouraging them to work with us to stabilize their country. The "Sunni Awakening" seems like a good model to attempt to replicate, although I don't know enough about the various players to know if it's got a chance of success-- fortunately, I'm not involved, because I simply don't know enough to second-guess the President.
Yes if we can get the Afghans on our side then we could win but we are not winning them over, the trend is the opposite and what's happening in Pakistan bodes ill for any stability in the border areas...
"The one thing history teaches, is that man learns nothing from history.."
I would like to know where the Taliban support will be coming from that will defeat NATO.
They were trying to take and keep Afghanistan to add to the Soviet Union, we are trying to get Osama Bin Laden. That is a much more finite goal.
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/images_major_operations.html#albatross
New approach would be to pull out altogether.
This is continuing Bush's plans. Bush first secured the cheap oil in Iraq and laid plans for Afghanistan before he left office that Obama has not accepted. This is not all new, Obama is just continuing Bush's plans.
Puhleeeez. Sounding forceful and self-assured about what one speaks does not mean that one knows what he or she is talking about.
President Obama is demonstrating a new approach to Afghanistan. First, he has already said that America can not win militarily in the country. Second he devised a set of objectives before approving of the additional troops. Thirdly, he cautioned that our choices in the country are limited. And fourthly, he is only sending in the additional troops to bolster the strength of the small number who are already there because the fighting season will begin in a couple of months.
If you think that this is a continuation of Bush's plans you didn't understand Bush's plan and you certainly don't understand President Obama's plans.