obama on afghanistan
 

what do you make of the obama administration's decisions regarding afghanistan, which were announced last night in the speech at west point?
what do you make of the speech itself?


i thought it would be interesting to start with an article that that solicited views from people in kabul:


e-Ariana - Todays Afghan News


here's a short article outlining mc-chrystal's statements this morning about obama's actions:
US General McChrystal vows to take battle to Taliban | World news | guardian.co.uk


i have pretty strong views on all this, but i at work at the moment so don't have the space to lay them out...i'll probably write something tonight.

but in the interim, what do you think the administration is doing?
do you think it will work?
how do you see this increase in troop levels? is it a phase toward a withdrawal or is it a step forward in a spiral of escalation?

and what about pakistan?
what if anything do you see happening with respect to the border areas?
(notice that obama was largely silent about this)

and how do you assess the current situation in afghanistan anyway?
where are you getting your information from?

I found this amusing article about Cheney's reaction to Obama's decision.
Dick Cheney Slams President Obama Over Afghanistan | eCanadaNow

18 months... isn't that close to reelection time? Odd how an ambiguous open-ended withdrawal strategy starts up right around campaign time.

Does anyone really think that we're going to be out of Afghanistan in 18 months? I've got a buck that says we're not. War is not something that you can schedule in your day planner, like some neighborhood beautification project. I should think that Vietnam would've taught us a lesson about allowing politicians and the media dictate armed conflict. Clearly, we learned absolutely nothing.

I've always felt that Afghanistan was where we belonged. I didn't like it. Not one damn bit. I still remembered the ass handing the Soviets had given to them in Afghanistan. I knew that it was going to be a son-of-a-bitch, just as I knew that we had to do it. Iraq, on the other hand, was a huge distraction from what we should have been doing, which was concentrating on, and winning, the war in Afghanistan. Either do it, or don't do it. So, now we’re sending 30,000 more troops. Well, good for us. It's about damned time. Is it enough? I don't know. I have no earthly idea. But it's long past time for us to actually commit to doing the job, and getting out of there in a reasonable period of time. 18 months, I don't believe, is realistic.

I will anxiously await Crompsin (Plan 9) to weigh in. As someone that was actually there, I would really to like to see his view on this mess. The rest of us are going to do little more than blow a bunch of rhetorical smoke.

but who exactly is the war in afghanistan against?
i understood that the bush people justified the action as a response to the 9/11/2001 business, so logically the objective would have been al qeada. but somehow along the way it turned into the taliban. in that, the us and its dance partners are basically both a colonial occupation force and a war band amongst others in a civil war context that has little in the way of patronage to offer and in the main doesn't speak the languages--so is uniquely ill-equipped to play the game that it has slid into there.

now the only reason i can imagine that the united states slipped into this situation in the first place is the utter lack of clarity about what the forces were there to do from the inception of this ill-advised, ill-considered adventure.
it seems in retrospect that the bush people only thought it out to the extent that they wanted to appear to do something--but at times, particularly given what's been coming out in the investigations into the iraq war that have been carried out in the uk, some results of which have appeared in the guardian over the past 10 days, at times i think that the entire afghanistan adventure was basically a smoke-screen set up to enable the iraq debacle, which was the central policy objective of the neo-con set within the bush squad **before** 9/11/2001 (pace the project for a new american century)...

it's astonishing to me the way this afghanistan thing has and has not been carried out---the phases of official interest followed by phases of not much happening, asleep at the switch for the most part, all of which is squarely in the lap of the bush administration...

be that as it may, it still seems to me that the disasters of the bush period have really damaged the obama administration, and afghanistan is just another gift from those glorious days of yore than keeps on giving.

it doesn't help that obama basically accepted from early in the campaign the "logic" of this "war on terror" nonsense as a whole...and decided for whatever reason that afghanistan was where the "real" war on terror was happening.
it really makes no sense.

anyway, it seems to me that this is basically a face-saving move designed to enable a withdrawal without having to face a defeat--which the military command warned was most assuredly a possibility a few months ago if something were not done. given the advantages that the taliban has in the countryside (different areas) and the absurdity of the karzai "government" as a state in anything like the centralized western sense of the term (it seems more a grouping of rivals to the taliban who are now not in a position to play the patronage game effectively, so their participation in the government is self-defeating and so on)....and the fact that the united states is part of the dynamics of a civil war and not at all, except in some alternate fictional television for americans world, actually engaged in anything like the "war on terror"---the only sane option is to get the hell out. and the only way to do that is by way of some face-saving move. and the option appears to be that the face saving move is going to be kill alot of people on the way out in some vague hope that it will inflict enough damage on the taliban that they won't sweep into power directly behind the american aircraft that take folk home.

i mean, you can read this all over the place, but all the taliban has to do in this situation is wait in pakistan.

so it's a mess, and a bush people mess to boot.

personally, i think it's a disastrous situation no matter how you look at it, and i do not envy obama or his administration at all for being put in this position by the incompetence of his predecessor.
it's easy to say in principle get the fuck out, but were i in his position, trying to balance the various modes of deterioration of american political and economic power against the costs of basically conceding "this was a terrible idea" in afghanistan and leaving, i don't know what i would do.

but i do know that i am opposed to this move on principle.

I think it's a huge mistake. Where have we heard "helping the Afghan people and training them to fight against an evil occupation" before? Oh, right....

I think for Afghanistan to be a success we MUST come to the table with the Taliban. I hate how they treat their women, how they teach the strictest interpretation of the Koran, and their mistrust of anyone outside of their immediate clans. However, they are the only way we can walk away from that country and not have it fall to shit.

By bringing them to the table, we can bring them into the fold without them simply waiting for us to leave before taking it all back. They are not interested in international terrorism, they just have their corner of the world and are content on it. If we give them a say in the government, it might be possible to fully disconnect them from Al Qaeda. We only went to war with them because they refused to assist us against Al Qaeda, the friend of my enemy is my enemy type of warfare. Al Qaeda is effectively no longer in Afghanistan, and a stable government is the only way to keep it from returning.

The government in Afghanistan in it's current state is a failure. No if's, and's, or but's.

The next 18 months will be a horrible waste of lives and President Obama will be responsible for them. There are less than 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Taliban was never a threat to the US anymore than anywhere else "terrorists" can train, which includes Germany and the US if we're talking about 9/11.

Then we are fucked, because you can't bargain with religious goat-herders and druglords. You cannot. They have no interest in anything the outside world can offer. They want to be left alone to run their 11th century fiefdom, sell heroin, and kill their own women and homos for sexual misconduct and there's not a goddam thing anyone in the developed world can do about it. You are not turning Afghanistan into Singapore, not in this lifetime. Fix the goddamn ghettos, education, health and economic system in this fucking country first. This bullshit of a slow drip of lost American lives and the flushing of billions of dollars absolutely down the shitter has got to stop already. Not one more wasted life or dollar on this nonsense. I'm for leaving a skeleton crew of NATO soldiers armed to the teeth with predator unmanned drones each with 40 hellfire missiles on board...and at the first sign of any fucking thing suspicious blow it into tiny pieces and return it to the sand from whence it came.

I think it's funny because we already have 200,000 troops committed, 30,000 is a drop in the bucket. considering we're only dealing with like something like a few thousand taliban and 100 or so al-queda from what i've read.

The Predator can only carry 2 hellfires and 2 stingers. Apart from that, I'm down with every word you said, powerclown.

The thing I'm glad about is that we DO have an exit strategy. As nebulous as it is, and as much as can come up in 18 months to screw up the best laid plans, at least I can now believe I have a president who's not committed to an open-ended state of war. I'm interested in that for US, not for Afghanistan. They've lived the way they currently live for thousands of years, and they've proven themselves throughout history to be AMPLY skilled at defending that way of life. There'll be no change we can bring in 18 months.

The thing that's really troubling to me about this is the way it's being spun by the left as a betrayal. Obama RAN ON THIS PLAN. Agree or disagree with it, fine, but if you're surprised by it at this point, you're just too dumb to vote anymore.

:eek:

I know!

I'm just glad that no openly homosexual people will be sent over there to fight.

It was a decent speech, but I wonder what 'details' were left out.

I think having a timeline as part of a plan is a good thing tough, but only if it is tied to multiple factors like per capita income, unemployment, afgan military/police strength, and reduced drug production.

The only acceptable exit strategy:

Hang Osama and Omar's heads on spikes in the town center of Kabul. Put a sign on the top that says, "Leave us alone and live in peace. Try it again and the heads will be yours." Then, pack up and leave like ghosts in the night. Of course, this all should have been done in 2002. It loses it's sting when it takes 9 years.

The only logical reason I can see for us going into Iraq in the first place was to have a standing army to the west and east of Iran. Whether that is the "real reason" for this ostensively inane clusterfuck or not...we will never know.

That is one of the most retarded things I've read here. If the threat of death was such a great deterrant we wouldn't need to fight this war.

the war on terror will never be won. It's not meant to be won. Fanaticism cannot be bargained with nor can it be defeated and the powers that be in our government know this. They are using this knowledge to promote their constant interference in the world markets to benefit themselves and it's a damn shame that so few people can actually see this for themselves.

Back during the Lebanese civil war, several local morons made the terminal error of taking several Soviet hostages.

A few days later, the son of a prominent cleric who supported the actions of the hostage-takers was found dead. Well, his torso was "found," his head (with the genitals stuffed down the throat, courtesy of the Spetsnaz) was delivered to the family, with a warning that such would be repeated and escalated if the Soviet nationals were not released. The Russians got their people back in short order, and the entire region has cut them a -very- wide berth ever since.

Agree 100%. It is too bad that so many people think that this is just because they "hate our freedom"

I heard a piece on NPR this morning full of liberal Californians bitching and moaning about all the work they did to get Obama elected and now they feel betrayed. I thought it was pretty rich, given that Obama made it perfectly clear during the campaign that it would take us a while to get out of Afghanistan.

I have to agree--I am just glad we have an exit strategy. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach to this, I guess.

Anybody who thought Obama was going to make getting out of Afganistan quickly wasn't listening to him. He made that promise on Iraq and is following through but he continually said he thought Afganistan was important and that we needed more troops there.

I think its a sign of how crazy politics in America have become. The Left is moving Right, the Right is going Independent...nobody in government has the balls to lay out a clear and decisive foreign policy, so we as a country are forced to slog through this garbage heap of poor decision-making and poor leadership.

this just trickles down... it's apparent in pretty much every aspect of our country at the moment, from families to corporations.

Michigan is pretty much fucked right now, it might as well be Siberia or Zimbabwe...people are begging for longer hours at work on a daily basis and I've heard stories of employees giving their less well-off colleagues free food, canned goods etc for the holidays. Is it time yet to give Chrysler/GM their monthly Billion dollar 'stimulus check' (aka corporate toilet paper) to help them to continue to build absolute crap?

Sorry I went full retard on you. I should have never gone full retard.

Obviously, this doesn't deter the people who value death more than life. I would call you "uninformed" to imply EVERY person (or even a majority of people) in Afghanistan values death more than life. The point is that we went to that country to catch or kill those responsible for 9/11 and those who harbored them at the time. Osama and Omar are all who are left of that goal. The rest of my grandstand is merely a show of resolve and strength. - two things that people in tribal cultures understand and respect. We will never win hearts and minds, all you can say is "don't fuck with us or we will destroy you."...then let them live however they want.

No, we went to Afghanistan to kill/capture those responsible AND prevent Afghanistan from ever again being used as a safe haven for those who would do us harm.

We have accomplished much of the first and are on the way to the latter....provided we are allowed to fight this fight like a true counter insurgency.

The Taliban has a near complete shadow government up and running across Afghanistan complete with courts, shadow sub-governors and people to handle the issues common to a normal government. It's success or failure depends largely on our ability to provide support to the Afghan People while simultaneously beating back the Taliban presence and (slowly) building capacity within the Afghan Government.

If we simply leave we will betray the hundreds of thousands of friendly, committed Afghans who have been working to rebuild their country and by doing so have entrusted their lives to our success. By pulling out and allowing the government to collapse those people will be executed, along with many of their families. Women will no longer be allowed to attend school; homosexuals will be tortured to death; radio, television, soccer, toys for children, phones, internet will all be banned; and Afghanistan will rapidly descend into the cesspool it was during the Taliban Regime.

If we stay and put forward a half-assed effort we will only delay the inevitable while US Soldiers continue to die.

If we do what the Commanding Officer of Afghanistan has asked, we stand a very good chance of hitting that hysteresis which allows us to build capacity in the Afghan government faster than the insurgency can tear it down...which will at first free up resources to focus on other things such as the humanitarian situation, corruption, etc. followed by the withdrawal of most of the troops which are now necessary in order to secure basic services.

The plan McCrystal has put forward is far more than a surge. It focuses heavily on engaging the local populations by providing enough soldiers to protect tribes/villages who want to stand up against the insurgents but who are repeatedly beat down when they try. Additionally, an increased presence will allow us to focus heavily on training the Afghan government, military and police while being able to better prevent corruption until the system grows strong enough to self-police.

Afghanistan will never be a shining light of democracy, and it will always be corrupt, but we can make it strong enough and 'honest' enough to function as a nation and to support basic freedoms while providing no harbor to extremists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/wo.../07afghan.html

By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: December 6, 2009
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration sent a forceful public message Sunday that American military forces could remain in Afghanistan for a long time, seeking to blunt criticism that President Obama had sent the wrong signal in his war-strategy speech last week by projecting July 2011 as the start of a withdrawal.

In a flurry of coordinated television interviews by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top administration officials, they said that any troop pullout beginning in July 2011 would be slow and that the Americans would only then be starting to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces under Mr. Obama’s new plan.

The television appearances by the senior members of Mr. Obama’s war council appeared to be part of a focused and determined effort to ease concerns about the president’s emphasis on setting a date for reducing America’s presence in Afghanistan after more than eight years of war.

“We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times,” said Gen. James L. Jones, the president’s national security adviser, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We’re going to be in the region for a long time.”

Echoing General Jones, Mr. Gates played down the significance of the July 2011 target date and indicated that the United States might withdraw only a small number of troops at that time.

“There isn’t a deadline,” Mr. Gates said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “What we have is a specific date on which we will begin transferring responsibility for security district by district, province by province in Afghanistan, to the Afghans.”

In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Gates said that under the plan, there would be 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan in July 2011, and “some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.”

In his prime-time address at West Point on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said that even as he planned to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, his administration would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”

The president’s speech set off alarms inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, as some officials worried about an American pullout before Afghan troops were ready to fight the Taliban on their own. It also set off a barrage of criticism from Republicans that the president was setting an arbitrary withdrawal date that would embolden Taliban insurgents to wait the Americans out.

On Sunday, the administration’s top civilian and military officials marched in lockstep in insisting that July 2011 was just the beginning, not the end, of a lengthy process. That date, General Jones said, is a “ramp” rather than a “cliff.”

As they seek to explain the new war strategy, administration officials face the task of calibrating the message about America’s commitments in Afghanistan to different audiences, foreign and domestic, each of whom wants to hear different things.

During weeks of wrenching internal debate, administration officials decided on the July 2011 benchmark in part to send a signal to Afghanistan’s government that the clock was ticking for Afghan troops to take a greater role against the Taliban. The message was intended equally for domestic consumption: assuring skeptical Democratic lawmakers and many Americans that America’s military presence in Afghanistan was not open-ended.

But the White House has also faced sharp criticism from Republicans, who said it made little military sense to set a withdrawal date 18 months in the future because it handed the American strategy to the enemy.

The announcement of the July 2011 benchmark was also greeted with concern during private conversations among American officials and their counterparts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and administration officials in recent days have acknowledged that they were surprised by the intensity of the anxiety among Afghan and Pakistani officials that the United States would beat a hasty retreat from the region.

In public statements since the White House strategy was announced, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has pledged to work with the United States to bolster Afghan forces. But he asked for patience and indicated that his country’s military might not be ready in 18 months to take responsibility from American troops.

During his recent inaugural address, Mr. Karzai said that Afghan forces would be able to take charge of securing Afghan cities within three years, and could take responsibility for the rest of the country within five years.

So officials attempt a balancing act as they sell the Afghan strategy. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of United States Central Command, said Sunday that there was a natural “tension” between a message of resolve and the message of impatience after eight years of war. But he said the twin messages were not mutually exclusive.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” General Petraeus said that the Obama administration was not planning a “rush to the exits” in Afghanistan, and that depending on the security conditions there could be tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan for several years.

Both Mr. Gates and General Petraeus also have the job of easing concerns among military commanders about rigid withdrawal timetables. Mr. Gates has said in public that he opposed firm timelines, and during the administration’s Afghanistan strategy review he insisted that any decisions about troop withdrawals be based on security conditions inside the country.

Administration officials on Sunday were also asked about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

Mr. Gates said it had been “years” since the United States had had reliable intelligence about Mr. bin Laden, but he said it was still the assumption of American intelligence agencies that he was hiding in North Waziristan, in Pakistan. General Jones said that Mr. bin Laden was believed to cross the border into Afghanistan occasionally, but he gave no further details.










Personally I think the plan is solid, but the timetable is extremely optimistic and we will end up having to extend it. In many of the provinces in Afghanistan the Police won't go out and about without a Coalition unit out with them...they will get exterminated. To assume that in two years the threat will have changed is naive, and no matter how well we are able to train the Afghan Government, you can't make them bulletproof.

The state of michigan could go a long way in to 'fixing' their state of affairs without waiting on stimulus money from the feds, if only the dems in charge up there could pull their collective heads out of their collective asses.

How?

it's been kinda interesting to watch the various parameters that were put into motion through the speech getting moved around.
now 18 months is a kinda guideline for withdrawal. not to worry, we weren't quite serious about that part.
karzai comes out saying that afghanistan will require us/nato intervention for something like 13 years.

the obama administration suggests that maybe, just maybe, pakistan would do well to intensify its various internally divided not terribly co-ordinated or successful non-actions against the taliban in the border regions.
i still wonder what could possibly be accomplished by this surge without sustained pakistani co-operation, which i do not see as happening.
and maybe that's why i keep thinking of that glorious preview of this sort of escalation as a precursor to de-escalation but not really scenario--cambodia and laos.
on the other hand, assuming there's no real change in how pakistan comports itself, where's the choice in strategic terms?
such a muddle and no way around it.

i don't buy the argument above that war against the taliban followed from actions that were allegedly directed against al queada.
they seem to me entirely unrelated, and the slide from one to the other an indicator of the incoherence at the core of the afghanistan adventure from the start. this is not to say that the taliban were swell guys while in power, but it's as is always the case in the world...if a less-than-swell regime is an american friendly regime, they are always less less-than-swell than a maybe less less-than-swell regime which is not american-friendly.

so maybe this is all really about the pipeline that has been talked about for a long time that would connect the baku region and its oil to the indian ocean...

Interesting conclusion. How do you explain Obama's involvement? Is he a "useful idiot" or deceptively complicit?

i see obama as entirely boxed in by the fact of the american adventure in afghanistan.
another way: that prior involvement, a gift from the bush adminstration that, like so many others, keeps on giving, constitutes the parameters that shape all possibilities that present themselves.
so the larger objectives that may explain why the bush people involved themselves (in a manner of speaking) in afghanistan are not at this point relevant. the (largely deteriorating) situation on the ground is all that's relevant.

the pipeline has been largely discussed in literature on the geopolitics of oil, and was a topic of considerable debate/interest around the time the bush people launched this particularly unfortunate neocolonial adventure.
that there was a plausible connection between wanting to install a pro-american regime in afghanistan and plans for the construction of such pipeline(s) seems to go a lot further in explaining why the americans et al are now party to a civil war against the taliban than the other explanations that have been floated.

Why or how is Obama boxed in? Isn't it his decision to set the course of action in Afghanistan? I partly agree that the situation on the ground is all that is relevant because that is what drives strategy and tactics but it assumes a need to have US military on the ground in Afghanistan - in that respect the goal or objective is most relevant. If your conclusion is correct, is it a worthy goal?

He's boxed in because we're already entrenched in the conflict, which limits his options.

To blindly say "his decision sets the course" is only useful if you are looking to scapegoat him. He operates inside a fairly tight set of constraints--both logistical and political.

assume that you've been appointed head vassal in some imaginary court and the queen has died.
she died during the administration of your predecessor as head vassal, who in turn was bumped outta office during the process of arranging for the funeral.
now you have to arrange the rest of the funeral.
you are boxed in by the fact of when you come into the office.
you might wonder whether the queen should have died, but basically the fact is that you are stuck in place during the funeral arrangement process and even that is not entirely under your control.

so yeah.

speaking for myself, i find that the afghanistan adventure was amazingly ill-considered even by the low standards one has to apply to the bush administration in order to get the meter of competence to bounce at all.
i don't think the united states should have gone there in the first place.
i don't see what possible end was served by it, and given the way that conflict has played out, a parallel view seems to have been held by the bush people for a period of 3-4 years, during which it was largely on the back burner while the other massive display of short-sightedness and incompetence in iraq played out at the center.
but i also don't buy anything about the "war on terror" as a rationale for anything.

but those are my personal views which i in a sense have the luxury of holding because i am not in a position of trying to figure out materially or strategically how to extricate the united states from the mess that the bush people left behind.
were i in that position, i imagine that my main goal would be to get out of afghanistan.
how exactly one would go about that is not obvious.

the obama administration is boxed in that way.

If i were Obama i would say that i was pulling out of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Once i start the pullouts both countries will descend into violence as every baddie around would come out of the woodwork thinking this is their time to take some power. Once this starts i would make a major U-turn and bomb each of these fucks into oblivion. Then I'd really pull the troops out.

I think Obama's big mistake was to not immediately pull out of both countries the second he was put into office. To show the world that he wasn't Geroge Bush and that he really was offering change. Now he's stuck.

Did he create the "box" by taking the position that Afghanistan was the "right" war when he ran for President?

If Afghanistan has become the "wrong" war does Obama have the courage to admit that it is the "wrong" war and change direction? If not is he worthy to be President in your opinion?

---------- Post added at 07:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:58 PM ----------

Isn't one of the perils of leadership to take blame for the actions taken under one's leadership?

This I do not understand, hence my questions. Obama basically has three military strategic choices, escalation, status quo, or de-escalation, so I agree that to a certain extent his broad options are limited, but given those broad options aren't his choices his own? He also defines the military goal, doesn't he?

---------- Post added at 07:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:03 PM ----------

You are clearly asking if I agree, and I don't. First, I have the choice of not assuming the position of my predecessor. Even to the extent "they" try to force me, I could choose death, imprisonment or some other consequence. Second, if I assume the position of my predecessor I have the option of fulfilling the queens final wishes as I interpret them. To the degree I am "locked in" I can clearly explain the circumstance and then take a new direction if I choose. With support and agreement I can change the direction of the arrangements. If I don't have support the "lock" I encounter is due to the lack of support not my predecessor. In the case of Afghnistan, I agree Bush and Congress started and continued the war for 8 years, however, Obama can immediately initiate plans to get out of the war if he chose to do so, he has not.

I think Obama is doing what he wants to do, or he is a coward bowing down to some ego driven political pressure to appear strong and the potential embarrassment of changing his mind. The thought of the second option makes me shiver given the potential consequences, but history has been defined on reasons with less reason and history tends to repeat.

these are kinda absurd questions, ace, which are based on some projections concerning who you are talking to and logical moves that seem to come from some private language space.

first off, speaking for myself, i never accepted the "war on terror" as a phrase that meant anything. it represented the illusion of a coherent response from the bush administration, so was a quintessential meme, something which acquired a weight entirely through repetition. apart from its rhetorical functions, there was no referent and could not have been a referent--so it's about constructing a signified and by constructing that signified providing a putative target against which the Mighty Penis of Retribution could then be smacked.
obviously and from the outset obama can on a very different platform. you'd have to have been a fool not to know his position on "the war on terror"....this is one reason i consider him a moderate and supported him with serious reservations. to my mind, he has been more or less as i expected he would be once in office---the ways in which that is not the case have almost all followed from the gifts left behind by the Magic Imploding Spectacle of the Bush People having been far more seriously problematic than i thought.

your notion of the latitude available to a Leader-type in a historical situation comes from fairy tales. anyone is shaped by the situation in which they find themselves. you seem to imagine that a Leader can somehow step outside his or her own context and make Abstract Decisions about that context as if it were someplace else, that affected someone else. i don't know where you get the idea from that this sort of thing is possible. maybe you think Presidents are gods somehow. so that kind of fairy tale, ace.

and the answer to your question of ownership of a particular decision seems to me to be so self-evident as to require no response.

Here we go again.

My first question was a simple question that begged to be asked given the conclusion you presented:

You never clearly answered the question and now you suggest that my further attempts at clarification are absurd!

In my world I was always told no question is a bad question. I don't get your attitude regarding questions.

O.k., that as a given - isn't it clear in your mind what you would do and why? If it is clear to you why do we make Obama's motives so convoluted? Or, are you telling me that, given your view, you would be "locked" into Bush's rhetoric, Bush's expressed or implied goals, Bush's folly????? The simplicity of my questions relative to the manner in which some avoid answering them makes me think that some don't like the conclusions honest answers would lead them to.


Elections have consequences and as an avid Bush supporter I understood that and I am willing to live with the consequences. However, and this is big, just because I understand and I am willing to live with the consequences does not mean I stop fighting for what I believe in. "Bush people" are problematic only to the degree that "Obama people" are weak. This is not about machismo it is realistic observation. Obama is in control, he has the power, "Bush people" do not have any power nor control - but if we can bend Obama to our will with no control and no power, isn't that a reflection on Obama??? Again, I don't understand why so much focus is being place on Bush?!?

You could not be more wrong. The first thing that came to mind regarding real leadership in defiance was Gandhi:

Gandhi Salt March: 1930


Call it "fairytale" if you want, but a person doing what is courageous by stepping outside of his or her "context" in spite of the consequences is honorable in my view and something that defines leadership.


You lost me here. On one hand it seems you argue the opposite view. Then this comes after a response. So I am finding it difficult to follow you with this last comment.

And, just from my point of view if something is self evident, it does not need to be pointed out, I always view this kind of comment as wasteful unless the motive is to be condescending - which is my assumption here - and the reason I generally get all pissy , if you ever want to avoid this, the pattern is "self evident". Yes, I know what I did and I know why!

Ownership. An excerpt from Rolling Stone McChrystal interview.

Excerpts From Rolling Stone’s McChrystal Profile - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com

We have a President in over his head. Many of the posts in this thread illustrated that. Obama still has not taken ownership of the war and the spin on the McChrystal interview will be that Obama is a victim of an insubordinate general. Will Obama have the will to fire McChrystal? Why didn't Obmam know about McChrystals issues?

Damn skippy.

Technically, McCrystal resigned and Obama accepted without hesitation.

In my opinion, McCrystal should not be doing interviews with entertainment magazines during wartime. Every engagement with the media needs to have the unity of message necessary for a cohesive chain of command. This is what gives the grunts the confidence they need in their leadership - that they aren't wasting their time or lives for a bunch of knuckleheads.

The contents of this article showed a disturbing lack of discipline. Even though I feel everything his staff said is true and Obama doesn't have a clue how to be commander-in-chief, that's what they signed up for. For them to undermine their commander-and-chief in public is wrong.

Having said that, McCrystal will now write a tell-all book, make millions, and be a hero to Republicans for further exposing the administration's flawed foreign policy.

No doubt McChrystal has to take responsibility for what happened, but if anyone spends any time with a group of guys once their guard is let down they are going to joke and make comments about their superiors. I think most reporters understand this, I wonder if the folks at Rolling Stone did? Also, McChrystal used the media in the past to send a message to the Obama administration, he may have used the media here to do the same. There is a renewed interest in the war and perhaps we should take another look at our military goals and objectives - which have never been clear to me.

I believe Obama's greatest problem with his Afghanistan policy has been his published, well discussed, time line for pulling troops out of the country. Good to see the President back track a little on this idea the last couple days, but still troubling.

McCrystal is a Democrat.

Exactly. Anyone willing to trash Obama will be a hero, especially if they are shedding their party allegiance and "doing the right thing." Just like Liebermann was when he opposed the Democrats.

Well, we have until July 1, 2011, before Canadian troops end combat operations and begin returning home.

I imagine we aren't the only ones who no longer have appetite for this, ten years into it....

here's a link to the whole rolling stone article:

The Runaway General | Rolling Stone Politics

Totally confused on what the July 1, 2011 date means, does anyone have a handle on it. I don't know what to make of all the conflicting messages.

Canada Day 2011 will mark the end of Canadian combat operations in Afghanistan. Troop withdrawals will commence from that date until the end of the year, by which time all combat troops will return home.

It's still uncertain what other roles the Canadian armed forces will play. It's entirely possible that there will still be support roles.

Unfuckingbelievable

Steele Says We Shouldn't Be In Afghanistan; Calls It Obama's War Of Choice | TPMDC

I don't like Steele and won't try to defend his words. However, I recall Obama saying Afghanistan was the correct war and that Bush lost focus on it. Obama escalated the war rather than bring troop homes. Obama's people are setting the strategy. Obama studied the issues in great detail before approving the surge. Obama set a deadline date that is not really a deadline. Obama severely criticized McCain for comments about long-term open ended military commitments, and this helped him win but he is acting no different than McCain would have. US casualties are peaking from month to month - so if Obama doesn't own this war at this point, then you are suggesting he will never have any accountability for the war.

Steele's real problem is that he is kinda weaselly like most politicians in D.C.

President Obama has had plenty of opportunities to end or scale back the war in Afghanistan and the war is unpopular. Steele was right.

Now let's go watch some lesbian bondage. James Bondage.

I'd rather not be in Afghanistan but the fact is that we started a war over there and toppled the government. Are we supposed to half-ass our way through the war and then just take off?

Unlike traditional military actions, in Afghanistan we can not even identify the enemy. The surge strategy will not work in Afghanistan. Nation building will not work in Afghanistan. I would primarily use small scale covert or military ops, strategically when needed - and I would do it forever if needed - no different than what I do to protect my home from pests. However, I would stay open to diplomatic solutions if a non-corrupt government got in power and actually got serious.

Actually, we interrupted a civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. The government was already a joke, but the NA actually looked like the odds on winner of the conflict. Had the Taliban lost, the NA would have created a moderate government of the kind we would like now, but would have done so in a way that can't be associated with Western influence.

If we left tomorrow, Taliban from Pakistan would push West, but it's entirely probable that the former NA, now represented in part in the new Afghani government, would take up arms again and the civil war would continue. In other words, Afghanistan would be in the same place in 2010 that it was in 2001.

We've already half-assed the war, and it's clear there's no chance of us full-assing it because we don't have enough troops or the will.

You both made pretty convincing arguments. I've been watching Rachael Maddow's show live from Afghanistan this week and the whole time you just wonder how anything we are doing is sustainable when we leave. I'm not up for an open-ended occupation so I'm fine with the idea of giving it a year and GTFO.

I found this on another forum I visit and I thought it brings a whole different perspective to Afghanistan. I'm to lazy to google for the link but I'm sure it's out there.




Sure makes a lot of sense to me.

i can't say that i had a space in my mind that was waiting to find out what the neo-fascist take on mc-chyrstal and/or afghanistan was, but now i know it.

and it's the classical thing: democracy is bad because it involves and endless debate, endless abstractions---in the cretin-speak of the article above, that is coded as "cluelessness"---what's required is the manly man Action of a Leader, someone who is a kind of combo-platter of Steely-Eyed Manly Man stuff and a technocrat, so a general really, someone who believes in the mission of national purification on military grounds and the greater Destiny of the volk and who i knows how to play the bureaucratic game while remaining all Steely-Eyed Manly Man about things. so what matters in this neo-fascist fantasyland, is the Appearance of Control. and stuff like Resolve, which is a nice word.

so the neo-fascist take of mc-chyrstal's pathetic rolling stone piece and on the afghan war more generally is a repellent exercise in nostalgia for the good-old-days of the bush administration.

and who is peter heck?

The Peter Heck Show - FRIDAY

an ultra-right wing christian radio talking head.

he appears to publish his columns on his webspace and they circulate through the network of reactionary blogs and messageboards. the dateline is a nice touch. it gives the impression that the source might be other than a webspace maintained by some neo-fascist christian fundamentalist.

well, there is a paper that publishes his columns. it brings you "news from a christian perspective." the about page is kinda interesting:

OneNewsNow.com - Your News Right Now

funny stuff.

While I agree we lack the national will to win this war, we have more than enough troops...

The problem now is in part related to the risk-averse nature of the public. They will not tolerate casualties so our soldiers are forced to take ridiculous precautions which severely limit their effectiveness.

I am not talking about the ROE or efforts to reduce civilian casualties. I feel they are a hard pill to swallow but largely necessary (though often over-interpreted to mean 'don't fight'). Rather, our soldiers are forced to patrol in large elements, heavily armored, with little flexibility. Rather than assume some risk by walking the mountains where the Taliban can be engaged, they are largely confined to the main roads where the MRAP's can drive. By not allowing reasonable body-armor restrictions soldiers simply cannot maneuver in an effective way or walk the long-distances necessary to really have a continual presence.

If you allow soldiers to take risks and shorten the bureaucracy associated with going on any mission then the OPTEMPO would increase dramatically and the soldiers who are already on the ground would be able to influence a much larger segment of the population.


On another note, the NA was not winning the war against the taliban. They had been pushed back into mountain strongholds but were not in control of any of the major cities (Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar, etc). They *may* have been able to outlast the taliban, but like now the taliban was receiving outside support.

Today the situation is looking a little better. We have been losing a lot of ground during the past couple of years, but that is (or should have been) largely predictable as most insurgencies follow a similar pattern before ultimately succeeding or failing. Many of the local areas which have been under taliban control for years are now signing security agreements and beginning to back the coalition and afghan government for the first time. By raising local (tribal) defense forces it is possible to deny sanctuary to the insurgents, which is the critical piece of the puzzle which has until now been largely ignored.

The situation in Afghanistan is difficult, but not a guaranteed loss...it depends on whether we allow the military to win.

By pulling out now we would save some money but would face negative second and third order effects which, IMHO greatly outweigh the money and lives spent on this war.

fill me in again on why exactly the united states is party in a civil war in afghanistan?
how exactly is "the public" getting blamed for the incoherence of the situation (from a vertical military viewpoint, from a mission viewpoint that's strictly military, the scenario in afghanistan makes little sense)? the press is pooled and has been. the military has impressive abilities to package and market war. and they do it continually. this "risk adverse public" business sounds like a hangover from the conservative mythology about vietnam (and so yet another version of the old "stabbed in the back" theory dear to problematically rightwing elements in all kinds of militaries...)

if the objective is a military defeat of the taliban...wait: is that the objective? since when? this returns to the initial question.

i think it was little more than a bone thrown to the right that obama argued afghanistan was a coherent action. it's seemed pretty clear to me that his administration has no independent vision of either why the bush people got the united states involved in the first place (the urge to "do something" after 9/11/2001) nor of objectives nor of strategy. all it seems to have done is allow obama to campaign as if this absurdity of the "war on terror" made sense and to co-opt a bit of conservativespeak at the same time.

if there's no clear idea of objective then there's no winning there's no losing there's just treading water for its own sake.

Why are we a party to a civil war? We aren't. The Taliban do not have a functioning government, though they do have a 'shadow government' that is the hallmark of modern insurgencies. The Afghan Government is weak, but in key areas functional. It has not been able to spread it's influence to the most rural and hostile areas of the country yet, but neither were we in the early days of the US.

If you mean why are we involved in a war there it is simple: State sponsored terrorism lead to Sept. 11'th. So we toppled the Afghan government and proceeded to attempt to crush Al-Qaeda. We then stayed because our departure would mark the beginning of a 'dying time' for the country as the remaining soviet infrastructure had been crushed, markets and commerce was in dissarray and the people had little means with which to rebuild the country. Basically, we were being nice...If we had smashed the Taliban and left the country in ruins with the majority of it's people starving you would be screaming bloody murder.

Coincidentally, far fewer Afghans are dying due to violence now than under the taliban regime. Additionally the standard of living is up across the country. How are we doing wrong here?



How about these clear objectives:

Clean up the mess we made by assuring the creation of a stable, somewhat moderate government which does not tolerate extremism or the type of 'terrorist' attacks by nonstate actors we have seen against the United States many times and nearly daily in nations such as Pakistan.

Create an ally in South Asia which can influence Iran, Pakistan and China.

With Pakistan: If we manage to stabilize Afghanistan the FATA will likely be (eventually) stabilized by Pakistan, eliminating the largest, most dangerous area of lawlessness and radicalism left in the world....There are other shitholes but the people in this one have the ability and will to reach out and blow people up around the world. Right now FATA based INS can play both sides (literally) by moving across the porous border at will to escape whatever half-assed operation a country is launching against them. If Afghanistan becomes stable it will largely seal the border with PK to prevent free INS movement. It will trap FATA based groups in PK where they will cause trouble, forcing PK to deal with.

With Iran: Afghanistan will continue to remain a focal point for Iran which will at least serve as a distraction and at best a moderating influence. Not directly as Afghanistan is hardly a shining example of how to be, but rather because playing nice with their neighbors will eventually become more profitable than importing modern weapons to the Taliban.

China: China is looking at a serious resource shortage in the coming years and interaction with Afghanistan could prove very beneficial to both nations. Because we will likely have a lot of influence for some time there are a lot of possibilities for us as well.


And even if you disagree with everything I wrote above, what about the people of Afghanistan who have committed their lives to creating the government and freedom we have promised them? Why would a peace-lover express a desire to abandon the tens of thousands of Afghans who stood up and worked with us to create a more moderate government? If we leave they will be killed. Some may survive if the militias rise again and warlords are able to protect certain areas from the Taliban, but most won't. I work with dozens of people who have bounties on their heads because they are making progress...and they continue to work towards a peaceful Afghanistan. How can you advocate yanking that out from underneath them?


As far as military strategy: Our senior military leaders serve at the pleasure of the president and are political appointees. When they express frustration at the lack of support they are receiving they are fired (i.e. McChrystal). It is evident to every soldier in this country that political necessity drives much of the decision making process here....if we anger the public or political leaders we will be unable to proceed with our mission and will fail here in Afghanistan. So we proceed with our hands behind our backs...still forward but less effectively than we are capable of.


But I am impressed how you managed to tie in my previous post about progress being made and the war being winnable with Vietnam (which as also winnable, by the way save for politics), right wing politics (but they are still politicians and equally responsible for meddling), convervativism, the 'war on terror', a captive press held by the military war-machine and multiple references to coherence or the lack therof. What?

Dude, you write some of the most politically loaded posts I have ever seen. When I attempt (poorly perhaps) to post my opinions which are based on first hand experience you insert political ideology where there is none.

If you really don't think the war is politically driven then the vast majority of your posts on the subject are contradictory. The military is an entity which needs to be pointed in a direction, given some right and left limits (time, budget, ROE, etc) and then left to accomplish it's task. I have personally seen a lot of meddling in the way we do business here and it has always had a negative impact on my ability to conduct my mission.

Also, my mission statement here is simple (though I am going to paraphrase a little bit): "XXX conducts Combat Foreign Internal defense in XXX (province) to stabilize the region and increase the legitimacy of the Afghan Government. There is no incoherence in that message. The mission statements grow more broad as you move up the ladder, but are still quite clear. The military at every level has a clear objective and is working towards that goal. It is at the political level where incoherence takes hold and I was not arguing against that fact.

---------- Post added at 04:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:13 PM ----------

Oh, I forgot to mention: The vast majority of the Insurgents we have killed this rotation have been foreign fighters: Punjabs, Turks, Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. We are night fighting the 'local people' but rather foreign ideologues who are attempting to forcibly subvert the local peoples.

Two days ago I watched an IED blow up a family of five out collecting firewood. The husband, wife, grandmother and baby were dismembered. We were able to save a young boy but he was badly hurt. I have since received several reports about the local Insurgents being congratulated on a successful attack.

We were recently given a night-letter where the taliban have ordered all residents in a large portion of our province to 'leave' because they are not supporting the taliban enough. They have warned that 'bad things will happen to those who stay.'

We have seen a dramatic increase in INS violence against civilians recently. I have had to deal with the aftermath of several rocket and mortar attacks against villages (rather than our base). The mullah of a local village was kidnapped, tortured, dismembered and put on display by the taliban for preaching 'moderate' viewpoints....He didn't even like us, he just didn't want his children to grow up poor and ignorant.

The locals in our village have started to rise against the taliban coming across the border and have recently routed several fighters who were attempting to assassinate a tribal elder.

The Taliban have once again adopted a strategy of outright coercion and force to get their way. They are not at all concerned about what the Afghan people want...The taliban want a destabilized, ignorant, poor base from which they can once again rise to power. They are willing to do anything to get it, and the locals are beginning to realize they have to fight if they don't want the taliban regime to come back.

It really seems to me like I am in both the just and the winning columns here....Why would you advocate leaving these people to fend for themselves?

slims...that's a peculiar delegitimation move you decide to make. it hardly seems necessary. but whatever.
i expect that the rhetoric of "i-am-here" vs. "you-are-political" was to nuke anything i might say.


on the other hand, i forget that you're there. when i read your posts i assume you were there but are sitting around at home amusing yourself on a messageboard. so first of all, your perspective is interesting and keep writing it here if you're so inclined. disagreements are just that.

but mostly to you and your comrades: be safe.


that said:


there's no doubt gap between the types of information that we respectively have access to. it's not real clear to me what kind of information you've got about the karzai government and the extent to which it is not in control of much of anything outside of kabul. but of course things change...the extent to which (from what i understand anyway) political legitimacy is mostly about protection and other basic--like real basic---service delivery type arrangements---and the karzai government can't deliver them. the us et al is--from what i can put together---seen simultaneously as allies of karzai, so a military arm of a particular faction in a fight against another faction...like a party within a civil war....and as an outside invasion force, which hands the opposition to kabul (the taliban) an easy trope to use to mobilize people. basic service delivery doesn't happen or is erratic...foreign invader....machiavelli saw this as a no-win situation. read the prince if you haven't.

all this and i don't doubt--at all--that the taliban are not swell guys.

and i do not doubt--at all---that in some alternate universe you and everyone else there would rather be doing things another way. but you're boxed in. you're boxed in by the situation you're in.

(the question then becomes what are we doing there? how thought out was it, getting involved there? i don't think it was thought out at all (preponderance of evidence: remember the wolfowitz "plan" for iraq?))



it's good that in some places for some periods things seems better. i assume that things on the ground move around all the time and that statements from people who read while sitting in a chair thousands of miles away seem quite removed from what is for you the reality of afghanistan.

the stories i know more more slowly. they're more general. they're products of the fog of war too. but it's not that difficult to see the basic political incoherence on this side that gets translated again and again into questions of what the us should do there, what the us is doing there and (most important to my mind) what is the direction to go in order to get out of there.


in your posts is this sense that you see the military as having some alternate possible mission that they can't do (hands tied behind the back and all that) that has objectives which are clear to you but not to people who have the power to create strategy (and still less to those of us who sit in chairs reading)...but that will never happen. and so long as that won't happen, the situation is such that the us cannot leave. so the logic is that this is an endless war.

the only people who win in that kind of situation are the people selling hardware and supplies. so contractors. no-one else. not you, not anyone who's actually there fighting, not the civilians around you, not the government of afghanistan such as it is...no-one.

and that's alarming.

Whatever my friend. Just saying it does make some sense. Why else would a 4 Star general who's whole life is nothing but the US Army do something so stupid.

I don't read anything much left of far left so fill me in on what the far far lefts take on things are?

Thanks!

IIRC the Soviet Union had well over 120,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan and they still lost. Even with the 30,000 troops President Obama is sending, we'll still only have about 98,000 troops and don't forget that we're also facing enemies in Pakistan. I respect the US military's ability to get things done (to a point), but we'd need more than 120,000 troops to see a likely victory.
They had moved out of the mountains, they weren't being pushed back into them. Like the Taliban, the NA had outside help (word is, from the US).
I'm afraid I don't see how anything that happens in Afghanistan could end up costing the US that kind of money considering that once the US pulls out the Taliban will have to face the much stronger Afghanistan government we've left in place. As I said, there would be civil war, tying up the Taliban for a very long time.

Roachboy: I was not trying to squash discourse, but rather get you to back off from loading my words. I obviously have my opinions, but I was trying hard to keep them apolitical and discuss based on the merits (or lack therof) of my post. Personally I feel the problem is systemic and not tied to a particular party....right wing has nothing to do with it as they prosecuted the war in much the same fashion.

With regard to your comments:
The information gap is huge beyond all reason. The media very rarely reports the boing, dull stories about small steps forward and chooses instead to focus on spectacular operations, big attacks and large failures. What gets lost in the noise is the near 100% reinvention of strategy here. Most soldiers only feel frustrated by the bureaucracy and have not yet seen the sea change that is coming.

You don't have to take me at my word for the country as a whole but please believe this: In my region local stabilization efforts have been paying huge dividends. Most of the army is struggling to adapt to the flexible environment that is a counter-insurgency....but the book on how such actions are to be conducted is being completely re-written in order to fully incorporate the local population and simply deny sanctuary (I keep mentioning that in my posts because it is absolutely critical to understand) to the insurgents. In areas where that occurs, it becomes a simple reconstruction and mentoring issue as there will be very little fighting left to do.

I understand how weak and corrupt the Karzai government is. It is something we have to deal with every day. But, they are in control of the major population centers and the population in those centers is mostly supportive of the Afghan Government (if not Karzai). We are also working both ends to tie the rural areas loosely to the government. As the country as a whole begins to buy-in they will necessarily take a more active interest in what is being done at the national level. I don't intend to paint a rosy picture, but rather one of potential.

With regard to the 'hands tied' aspect of this conflict: Political pressure is a reality in all aspects of our lives. Soldiers are doing their jobs and continuing forward with their assigned missions...they are just unable to carry out those missions as well as they could under slightly different rules. I was not implying in my previous post that we would be able to accomplish a 'different' mission if the rules were changed.

Right now most Infantry units will not leave the wire with less than a platoon. It means they can patrol an area with a lot of guys rather than patrol multiple areas with smaller elements....It makes their effective footprint much smaller.

It has become nearly impossible to get risky missions approved. We recently attempted to pre-emptively smash a large (several hundred) group of INS preparing to conduct an attack against one of our bases. It took more than a week of planning and working channels before it was finally denied because the INS had moved on by the time we were able to get all the approvals.

In order to get a basic mission approved we have to produce a monster power point presentation where formatting errors will get your mission kicked back to correct....which simply lengthens our response time and requires us to put a lot more time into producing pretty products than 1: training 2: planning or 3: conducting missions.

This is largely because of the pressure to do everything possible to ensure nothing bad happens. I hate to say it but ultimately we are soldiers and need the freedom to make mistakes or we cannot turn around quickly enough to counter INS fighters who have no paperwork before conducting operations.

Again, it is a frustration, not a show stopper. With the current rule-set these difficulties can be overcome through a combination of new tactics and more troops....But by allowing a higher OPTEMPO for the soldiers already here the additional troops would be largely unecessary (though helpful).

I fully agree with your statement regarding Political Incoherence....I was trying to separate that from the perspective of the Military...To most of the leadership on the ground here the war is winnable and we have clear goals.


Will:
The Soviet Union killed so many regular Afghans that they made enemies of the entire country. They also had less technology (which helps, but doesn't win the war, I know), a less palatable ideology and made a lot of mistakes which we have learned from. They also became tied to their bases and conducting only large operations...Something we are having trouble with but have not fully fallen into.

The Northern Alliance had pushed (slightly) out of the mountains as far as bagram airfield. They were stuck there in a stalemate and had been for several years. The airfield is only a handful of kilometers from the mountain safe havens and that is why they were not pushed back...The taliban had the NA guys near bagram outnumbered 10 to 1 but were fatalistic enough to believe that all they would gain would be a few kilometers of plain before being stopped by the NA at the base of the mountains.

Likewise in Nangarhar the NA controlled the northern mountains but not the dominant plain or the airfield.

The NA controlled most of the northern provinces but very little overall of the central and southern provinces. They had a large presence in the East but were not in control of any of the key industrial (such as it is in Afghanistan) or commerce centers.

Cowboy Up!


Translation:

We got big military, we gonna us it, don't "F" with us!

Me understand this, me not understand Obama nuance.

So you understand Kim Jong Il more than you understand Obama? I don't think you're alone on that.

I post my problems with Obama's politics. I have never posted my views on Kim Jong Il.

I know what I post is often so pointed that it can be shocking, but I never try to make what is simple overly complicated.

The truth is that we were attacked on 9/11 and some people (those who are honest), have to admit that their first reaction was to retaliate with force. A man with a gun, trained to use the gun, may not want to use it, but he will use it if he feels there is a need to use it to defend life, liberty and property. This is in the nature of some people. We can play games all day long with the reasons why we used our military in Afghanistan, but at the root is this human nature issue. Your nature may be different, and I understand that - but do you understand my nature? I will never initiate a violent act, but if I am hit - my reflex is to hit back. A person like me can be reasoned with, and I can be persuaded by people who have a different nature than mine and I will weigh what I think is morally right. I am not saying I just want to go out and randomly hurt people, that is the nature of a criminal, not me. I understand my nature and I understand the person whose instinct is not to swing back - what I don't understand is what is in the middle of these two - Obama. I also never really understood Canada, Did you folks support the war or not? Was military action the right thing to do or not? Why? To me Bush had clarity.

Also, at some point the need to keep swinging diminishes - I got there with Afghanistan a while ago. I understand (understanding and agreeing with. are different to me) those who want to keep swinging, but I don't understand those who "swing" for political purposes - which I think Obama is doing.

So, we can compare what I present to world leaders who would kill indiscriminately or those who have actually killed millions of people who wanted to live in freedom - but there is an honest and real difference.

...

We are a practical people. We'll help you do things if things need doing. We like results; we like accountability; we like to make sure what we're doing makes sense. Like you said, there comes a time when you have to stop swinging. Many Canadians supported the action in Afghanistan because the Taliban are bad people and were running the show there, and they appeared to be supporting and hosting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

That was ten years ago. We stopped thinking about it in terms of "this place is run by the Taliban and they're supporting and hosting Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda." For years now we've looked at Afghanistan as something else completely. It's not just about military might and using it.

I'm not sure what Obama's position is; I'm not sure of his plan. But perhaps the issue here is that he too knows it's not just about military might and using it.

The New American Century didn't work out as planned.

I can say that I supported the use of military action in Afghanistan, I think we sent the message needing to be sent, that Iraq had nothing to do with Afghanistan and I see no need for us to be there today. However, I am still willing to use the special ops or covert military action as needed.

What you wrote is a bit foggy.

Well, did we support the war...I guess...we sent troops... Now imagine that being said by:

http://starstore.com/acatalog/eeyore-standup-01.jpg

---------- Post added at 09:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 PM ----------

So, you basically agree with me and Kim regarding Obama nuance on this issue.:)

Regarding American Century, I just want world peace and for people to be free to live as they choose.

Well, not exactly. I just haven't happened to read much about the American position in Afghanistan recently. About nuance: sometimes it's required for difficult situations. The inability to use nuance can get you into trouble. I think this was G. W. Bush's problem. Leading in the aftermath of such a disruptive force must be a part of Obama's challenge.

Should Obama consider the cowboy approach? Maybe another surge. Maybe say "resolve" more. And "freedom." And "justice." He should review the most popular keywords that Bush used.

Yeah, it's too bad that wasn't the goal.

...

ace likes the clarity of cowboy movies. he thinks it's good when people say the sort of things that can only possibly hold true in simplistic novels. that clarity of fiction makes him feel like Purpose is Clear.
it's ludicrous in that thousand points of light kinda way.

meanwhile back in reality, to the extent that it's knowable, it appears that afghanistan offers no-one any good alternatives at all. like no-one. and it's beyond bad that people like slims and others in the various militaries which invaded afghanistan along with the u s of a are left hanging out to dry in an incoherent situation. nation-building without a direction, coalition formation without a center...the only thing that seems obvious as a strategy is fight the taliban...but it also seems that by doing that the us and what's left of its allies legitimate the taliban because they allow it to position itself as resisting occupation...apparently the niceities of not-meaning-to-be-an-occupation-force-but-being-one-anyway-until-we-can-sort-something-out are lost on alot of folk. much in the way the logic of opium eradication was. you know, a good idea from one viewpoint but not so much from another. works sometimes and for a while but then not so much. problems of resources, problems of consistency and delivery, problems of language, all that. not everything fails but not everything works and it seems, from a distance, like things are just sliding sideways. and it seems, from a distance, that sliding sideways would work to the advantage of the people whose homes are being messed with. motivation. this is not a new story.

but yeah. i can see the appeal of cowboys-and-indians particularly for the right given that it's their policies that landed the united states and others in the ongoing slow-motion clusterfuck in afghanistan in which sometimes for a while its not that and other times it is depends where you are and when you're there. like anything else, anywhere else. except with more guns. and language problems.

i dont see any good alternatives.
i agree with slims that it's probably not a great idea to just cut and run. but not doing it doesn't seem so great either.

basically there's no strategy. well there is one: dont appear to lose. that seems the primary objective of the moment, the main goal of the current campaigns: do not appear to lose.

alot of very bad things can happen to alot of people on all sides in that kind of strategic situation.

i hope i'm wrong.

What do you think we're doing now? Even the watered down reports of civilian deaths coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan are really high. The total number of civilian deaths is almost certainly in the mid to high tens of thousands, far higher than it would have been had we not made the mistake of invading.
Unmanned drones, the highest current level of US military technology, regularly kill civilians. It's getting so bad that in June the United Nations Human Rights Council released a 29 page report detailing the killing of civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. Doesn't this all seem a bit too familiar?
Respectfully, I disagree. The idea of the stalemate was pushed on us in the runup to the bombings of Taliban training camps in order to make the NA look like they couldn't win and the Taliban look a lot stronger than they were. Were the Taliban and NA evenly matched? Absolutely. Still, in late 2000 and early 2001, the NA were making huge inroads both in the North and East. Moreover, the Taliban were losing a lot of the support of the people.

There is nuance that is based on subtle tangible differences, perhaps the nuance in color shading in art. It is there, it can be seen, those who can not see it can be trained to see it and appreciate it. Then there is nuance based on manipulative techniques to deceive.

There is no nuance in war. War is death and destruction. Bush did not use nuance to try to deceive, he stated clearly why we did what we did militarily. Why is Obama doing a "surge"? Who really knows, because the troops are coming home in 2011, right? Wrong, it depends??? What is the goal??? Oh, never mind...I just don't get it.

There is another cowboy lyric, this one from Kenny rogers, The Gambler:

The Gambler (song) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Who's goal are you talking about?

---------- Post added at 05:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 PM ----------

Speaking of fog.

What can be said in a sentence takes you and the people you often cite hundreds of words. Perhaps to intellectuals there is comfort in being verbose.

There is more to it than that.

Is that too nuanced for you? Maybe read the rest of the speech and come back with some questions.

That isn't "resolvey" enough, don't you think?

PNAC's

It was just a reference to the logical argument you constructed. sending troops does not necessarily mean that Canada supported the war, in fact I think, as I have read from others and other sources, Canada's motivation may have been more focused on its relationship to the US rather than the underlying issue the US attempted to address in Afghanistan.

If really true why a date for withdrawal? Why did it take so long to decide on a surge? Why compromise on the troop request? Why continue the wrong war in Iraq at the expense of Afghanistan?

I don't expect you to answer those questions and others, they just illustrate the underlying issue with Obama's nuance on the issue.

I am at a point where I think we bring the troops home, Obama needs to present a compeling argument to stay - he has not. the answer to your question is - no.

I am not familiar with them and I doubt they represent anything other than an extreme small minority in this country.

---------- Post added at 06:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:55 PM ----------

No, because you confuse issues.

On one level there is an emotional response to war. In a ten year war cycle these emotional responses change. Part of what I posted is related to that and you seem to conflate that with something else.

On another level there is a rational response to Obama's rhetoric regarding the war. Part of what I posted is related to that and you seem to conflate that with something else.

On another level...oh what's the point?

It just so happens this extreme small minority is made up of people in (or previously in) positions of power and/or influence.

In the US? Who are you talking about? Perhaps there is a reason they are no longer in power.

I'm talking about those who came up with, were signators, or were otherwise involved with the Project for the New American Century.

I went to the website and most of the information is old but I found this, and as I read and interpret it, it is not as you describe. I would have signed it, my core belief is that if you don't live in freedom, my freedom is at risk and that freedom can not be taken for granted and requires strength to defend it:

Statement of Principles

I didn't really do much to describe it; I merely pointed out that what you want and what they wanted are two different things. The goal of the New American Century wasn't to achieve world peace and to have people be free to live as they choose.

I want world peace and people to live in freedom, they do to or did when they where active.

That's a kind way of putting it. It's all very ends-justify-the-meansy.

Because, you know, American military superiority + American hegemony = world peace and universally free peoples. It's like mathematics. Every time you do the calculations, the same answer comes up.

We can see it happening even today. Afghanistan and Iraq were like failed experiments, and now the U.S. isn't sure how to call them off. It certainly isn't sure on how to take the next step in its crusade for world peace and free peoples. Maybe all it did wrong is make a few mistakes in the math. Maybe it just needs more military and hegemony.

Maybe China has some ideas. But don't let them get too carried away. They aren't American enough. But they're working on it.

It is becoming difficult for me to follow you. What they want and what I want are the same - they elaborated on how to get there, I did not. American greatness does not necessarily mean it comes at the expense of others. Fighting for freedom is a necessary and worthy goal, it requires a strong military. I think you read things into their stated mission that is not there.

Is your argument that strong nations should not fight for the freedoms of oppressed people? I also know the concept of nation building and intervention is controversial, however, I think there is a role for strong nations, do you? And again, using Canada as an example, was your government wrong to use its military in a manner that supported the goals of PNAC in Afghanistan and Iraq?

It is a bit of a side topic, but regarding previous statements in this thread about the Northern Alliance:

I have had the pleasure during the past couple of days to speak with a Northern Alliance commander who has continued to work with the Americans following our entry into the conflict. I asked him specifically about the future of the Northern Alliance had we not entered the war when we did. Keep in mind that this is his opinion, but I trust him and do not think he had any reason to claim we were 'necessary.'

Basically it boiled down to this:

He told me the NA was more or less confined to Panshir Province, which was historically their stronghold. They had made inroads else where and had pushed as far south as Bagram with isolated areas of resistance in Laghman, Nangarhar and a few other provinces.

He told me that the progress they had made was going to be short lived. He explained that to be in Panshir at the time was a slow death sentance as the Taliban, having been unable to invade directly had decided to lay seige instead and used their superior numbers to cut off food and water which was depriving the people who supported the Northern Alliance of the bare necessities.

He explained that when Massoud was killed they were basically left leaderless with each element trying to fend for themselves rather than work together for survival. In his opinion, even had Massoud not been killed the NA would have only been able to hold out for another year or so as they simply could not get the resources necessary to sustain resistance.

It isn't hard documented fact, but it is the opinion of someone who was a participant and he definitely did not feel as though they were winning.


I wanted to share this because from his perspective (and that of many other Afghans) had we not gone to war they would have had no hope for any success or (relatively) moderate governance.

I also asked the Afghan Commander who we work with day to day (a different person) and he told me that as bad as things are now they are not nearly as bad as they were during the heyday of the Taliban. He was apparently imprisoned and beaten unconscious because he did not have a five-finger length beard and has no shortage of stories about Taliban Atrocities.

In my opinion this conflict is no longer about 'us' but rather supporting the people who have made a stand against extremism and whose lives depend upon bringing this conflict to a favorable resolution.

...

slims: very interesting.

regarding the objective, however: if that's the case then we really are party inside a civil war. the idea is to prevent people who oppose the taliban from being killed or imprisoned or, in some cases, worse. which means that the us has become a patron or a warband inside a patronage or warband-style political system. the us is being looked to for the same kind of protection and/or support.

but that's a situation for folk who are invested in remaining in aghanistan because...well...they live there.

it can't be a comfortable situation for the us military.

but maybe i'm missing something: what is the way out? i assume its a military defeat of the taliban? how is that gonna work? for example, has the scenario changed with the pakistan-afghan border. media coverage kinda dwindled away after the confrontation around the swat valley as if somehow that resolved something--which i suppose it did (the situation around the swat valley)--but it doesn't logically (well, tactically but based on limited information, so logically) extend to any rearrangement of factions within the pakistani military, so any rearrangement of the system that protected the taliban in the border provinces etc etc etc....if that scenario is largely unchanged (in its outline-i imagine its detail moves continually) then how is a military defeat gonna happen? and without that, how can the us possibly get out?

Roachboy:

I don't think the goal is a military defeat of the taliban, but rather to simply undermine their power base until they are no longer effective and thus irrelevant.

We are working at this in a number of different directions, but the key avenue is through the local Afghans by empowering them to resist the taliban and deny them sanctuary in their villages...which will drive them into the mountains (where we can fight) or into Pakistan.

The situation with Pakistan is changing, though it remains strange and confusing. We definitely have no love lost with PAKMIL along our section of the border (they have shot at us several times already) and PAKMIL typically at least 'allows' INS activity. We have had a whole host of instances where suicide attacks were filmed from a PAKMIL OP, rockets were launched at us from within easy view of PAKMIL, PAKMIL patrols were used to shield INS rocket teams (we won't mortar when PAKMIL is around), INS 'rocketeers' flee to PAKMIL OP's when we fire upon them, etc.

The wierdness is this: PAKMIL along the Waziristan/Afghanistan border is more or less composed of local militia who are pretty supportive of the Taliban. PAKARMY is not. There seems to be a lot of recent pressure being placed upon PAKMIL to at least give the 'appearance' of cleaning up their act. The solution: Give up the foreign/arab fighters when they attempt to conduct attacks.

PAKMIL still seems unwilling to take any action against the regular Taliban, but has been shooting at/allowing us to shoot at foreign fighters operating near the border. This is probably because the foreign fighters are causing at least as much trouble inside Pakistan as they are in Afghanistan.

It is nowhere near what you would expect from an ally, but it is a big change from the past. This is resulting in foreign fighters being forced to operate out of Afghanistan where we can target them. Additionally, the foreign fighters do not understand the local customs and because they have no family in the country are typically forced to 'tax' and compel the local population to support them which means the locals hate them.

It is pretty telling that in my part of Afghanistan most INS are now foreign fighters fighting as proxies rather than locals who are inspired to take up arms.

As you know I have a problem with nuance, especially when it involves war. It seems to me Canada played both sides of the issue with the Iraq war.

Canada and the Iraq War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia