Afghanistan
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The details are apparently to come tonight in his prime time speech, but I’m pretty much on board with the strategy in Afghanistan. I frankly am surprised that folks on the left are expressing some kind of shock or anger when this is what he has said forever on the issue.
Afghanistan harbored the plotters of the 9/11 attack. Al Qaeda is there, supported by the Taliban. I don’t think there is much hope of a western-style democracy in much of the middle east, and that pipe dream should remain dead with the Bush administration. But we can’t allow our clearly defined enemies to continue to operate, nor can we give them room to do so. That is why I believe President Obama is engaging in this strategy in Afghanistan.
And I think its the right thing to do.
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
I noticed this with the left for a while, especially when Obama’s campaign became “real” to them and they knew that he had a shot at winning the Presidency.
Some have a genuine hope that he would adopt highly progressive positions but others are dishonest in that they think he is Dennis Kucinich or something.
I quite frankly think that some think he has no positions of his own and that he must be “molded”.
What IS clear is that Obama must highlight that Bush screwed this up, period. The “This is Obama’s war” canard must be fought back, hard. Sure, Obama takes responsibility for decisions made here on out but taking over after 7 years of mismanagement is hardly the same as being the person that gives the order to invade in the first place.
Well I’m not that okay with us still being in Afghanistan, but this was the war that should have been fought and done with by now.
I think it’s time that the soldiers in Iraq should be coming home. That war was an unjust war, and we should have never went to war in Iraq.
Morally justifiable, but practically impossible.
Free your mind, your ass will follow . . .
Bring ‘em all home…Great Britian, Germany, Korea, Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We’re broke and can’t afford to police the world a day longer. A few strategically placed aircraft carriers should be enough to keep Al Qaeda in check.
A friend of mine said this is likely to turn into Obama’s Katrina. To which I replied, no, more likely it will be Obama’s Afghanistan, following Bush’s Afghanistan. The difference is we will prevail against those whom we should have been fighting form the start.
“Obama’s Afghanistan, following Bush’s Afghanistan”, following Russia’s Afghanistan.
…following Britain’s Afghanistan.
The alternative?
Pull out and let a failing state completely collapse?
Plus, a failed Pakistani state (which has nukes, btw) due to having complete mayham in a neighboring country?
Please. For all of this talk from the left about pulling out, no one is offering a serious proposal to making sure that Pakistan stays stable while Afghanistan’s government is revamped.
Get real. Offer a plan that amounts to more than just pulling out to end the misery,
No matter what Obama does he’s “soft on terror” to the Clear Channel and Foxies
I agree, in a way. I find timetables for pulling out a strange thing. It’s not like the goal of invading was to just kinda stick around until we figured we’d had enough. Seems to me the decision to leave is premised on a) achieving the goals we had when we invaded, b) being able to hand off to others, or c) failing. Just pulling out without some acknowledgement that our presence is no longer needed seems to me to be mission fail. (And to be clear the major fail was Iraq, draining resources, attention and squandering goodwill).
Part of the problem is a lack of clear goals – this is what did us in in Vietnam – the goal of “not losing” doesn’t work, but identifying what “winning” is is impossible when you have a military engaged in working towards achieving political or civil goals. It would be terrific to have a plan for failed or failing states that pose a threat to our security. This is really one of the big security challenges facing the entire world. It’s just that no one seems to know what the hell you are supposed to do.
For insight on this and other difficult questions, I find that it helps to turn to a higher being from beyond the boundaries of space and time:
As much as I admire and respect the President, I have had grave doubts as to the continued necessity of prosecuting this entirely unwinnable conflict.
While it’s certainly true that BushCo effectively sabotaged any real chance the US and its allies may have had to prevent the war from escalating into a decade or more long theatre, it is also true that after 7+ years of ignoring Afghanistan, the current options going forward now encompass ever more unpleasant degrees of losing.
The Karzai government has been a disaster that continues to show absolutely no chance of becoming a functioning steward of the country, and has lost the support of the vast majority of the population; allowing it to operate in the guise of a US fostered puppet will not garner any shred of legitimacy from the Afghan people, which the recent elections proved conclusively.
For the President to suggest tonight that an additional 3 year commitment of forces dependent upon the political and military situation at that time, is hardly going to allay the fears of those in the US on the Left, Right or center, that this conflict is leading towards a viable exit strategy. The war will by then be entering its 13 year, longer than any other military engagement the US has entered into. Meanwhile virtually no one suggests the US and NATO can sustain their involvement indefinitely.
Does anyone really believe that by then the Afghan security apparatus will be sufficient to allow NATO forces to withdraw, when they have utterly failed to become self sufficient after 8 years of supposed training? I recognize that under Bush, much of that policy was under utilized, like so much of his administration’s handling of the war, but there are growing concerns that as in Iraq, the Afghan military and police are rife with sympathizers who support the ‘insurgency,’ and are among an alarmingly high percentage of the general population who despise the presence of foreign troops in their country.
What no one is willing to talk about is the pipeline, the conduit for the ultimate prize of the vast Central Asian oil and natural gas deposits, which has been the wetdream of petroleum conglomerates for decades, and was the same motivation which drove the Soviet Union into
Afghanistan in 1979, and drove them into defeat and oblivion ten years later. They too had an escalation process resulting in over 100,000 highly trained and technologically advanced forces battling the US backed Mujaheddin, who ultimately morphed into the Taliban after Western interests in Afghanistan faded in the early ’90′s.
If the initial point of the invasion and occupation by the US was to remove the Taliban, the opportunity to do so effectively was also squandered by Dumbya, as the Taliban have reconstituted in the years the military focus became Iraq, and they now control and operate in more territory than Karzai has ever done. What is worse, they are now doing so in large parts of neighboring Pakistan, which only further exacerbates the unpleasant reality that this region is now the most unstable on the face of the Earth.
If another rationale for the war was to destroy Al Queda, that too has failed, as it is now more powerful and influential in both Afghanistan and Pakistan than before the invasion.
Just as in Iraq, the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan has only served to inflame and accelerate the factionalization of indigenous tribal conflicts, with the added bonus of renewing an explosive growth in the narcotics industry.
Where in all of this gigantic mess does anyone believe there can be any form of ‘victory’ after 3 more years of this?
A succinct and depressing analysis of this entire mess.
I have mixed feelings about the President and our goals but I generally support viewpoint. What is the great alternative? So if we just pull out…how does that actually change the idea we still fight terrorism. I think peoples opinion will remain largely unchanged by his speech, but I think we also deserve some harsh realism and pragmatism from our President. It may piss off the left(me included) and of course anything he does will piss off the right, but maybe that is the best response.
How quickly we forget. We’ve been doing Obama’s plan since March. You might as well blame Bush for the Sotomayor nomination.
Yeah, I keep trying to visualize/rationalize a solution set somewhere down the road, but my internal ‘lets get real’ meter keeps saying “aw jeez, we’re fucked….”
Oh wow 10 whole months that is just like 8 years…oh wait no it’s not.
We gave Bush 8 years to finish this war, and he didn’t. Now President Obama is going to have to finish it.
To bad we didn’t have this kind of debate when Bush was pushing to go to Iraq.
Maybe the war in Afghanistan would have been done by now.
OW- Let me ask the same questions I’ve asked Republicans:
Are you a veteran? [If so, thank you for your service.] Are you in ROTC/OCS/something similar? [If so, thank you for your commitment.] Have you previously contacted a recruiter, but were not accepted for enlistment? [If so, thank you for stepping forward.] Do you know that you are not eligible to serve in our military, and therefore don’t want to waste a recruiter’s time?
Otherwise, it would appear that you are eligible to serve in our military (healthy heterosexual well under 41), but have not. Have you at least considered it? What resulted from your deliberations? If you haven’t even considered it, why not? How credible is your ‘support’ for the Afghanistan War if you only want “other people” to actually to fight it?
I second that.
My take is more simple…it’s fucked.
You don’t know how much I wish it weren’t.
Let’s see; Bush fucked this up royally in a span of 7 years, but after 10 months and Obama hasn’t magically resolved it, so HE’s the incompetent one?
That’s the kind of reasoned logic that makes Sarah Palin a viable candidate for president.
‘Get real. Offer a plan that amounts to more than just pulling out to end the misery,’
Be our guest; what do you suggest?
You guys are making a big deal out of this. Analysis and what not…actually it is quite simple. Enjoy Christmas…..pack the A Bag….pack the B Bag…..ready…..go…..simple.
Wek,
Give me a break….really….So, according to you, you have to actually be IN the military to have an opinion and support the President’s decision? I am a Democrat, but I am close to the middle on a multitude of issues. But your argument is horribly inconsistent with the makeup of our country and it’s employment of military force. CIVILIANS make the decision to go to war. SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AIRMEN, MARINES and sometimes the COAST GUARD fight the wars and defend our nation. I have lurked around this site for a number of years, and I will say that Oliver doesn’t want “other people” to fight any war. I suspect that if Oliver could snap his fingers and make the necessity for armed conflict disappear he would.
That tired-ass argument you propose is right on par with Republicans saying that Democrats are Milquetoast when it comes to defending this nation. Your comment is offensive in a number of ways. I wouldn’t critique an individual’s patriotism or support of his President based upon his military status. The fact that you asked those questions and mockingly answered, (thank you if you do) is an insult and waters down the true meaning of thanking a service member for his or her service. I don’t know if you have served or not, and frankly I don’t care, and wouldn’t bother to ask because that factor, much like your argument, is devoid of weight in this matter.
War, in its definitive terms, is the continuation of political action by means of force. So, the fact that a breakdown in civility, politics, decorum, and protocol has occurred doesn’t mean that the person that says, “There is no peaceful outcome to this”, needs to have have landed at Omaha Beach. Simply, the person needs to realize the cost of sending folks into war. To the American citizen, the support in resources is not a choice in this country…if you work, you pay taxes. The support in ideology and the FREEDOM to express that support is a RIGHT. Maybe you need to learn the difference…in uniform, or out of uniform.
spot on on your first post, and sadly agreed on your second, jr.
But we can’t allow our clearly defined enemies to continue to operate, nor can we give them room to do so.
Al Qaeda is a terrorist group, not a species of tree frog with a limited habitat. They can and do exist everywhere.
The whole point of the 9/11 attacks was to try to sucker us into doing what Obama is doing now: getting the American military bogged down in Afghanistan. By sending in more troops, Obama is playing into bin Laden’s hands.
Um, what that dude said. Heh.
“How dare you say we didn’t build you a house? There’s a house of cards right there!”
No. Not what I’m saying at all. This is the United States and everyone has a right to their opinion. I just tend to respect a person’s opinion on a serious subject (i.e. war) if they’ve put their ass where their mouth is.