Afghan Hint at the Pentagon?

One of the things that really messed up the Bush administration was the absence of teamwork and coordination. Cheney/Rumsfeld simply violated the principals process, Rice couldn’t do anything about it, and that narcissistic little man listen eagerly whenever Rummy or Cheney told him he was doing something “strong” and “tough.”
.
One good thing about the Clinton selection is she does work and play nicely with others. IF Gates does the same, and they can coordinate responses, there is much more opportunity for success. I was worried about Gates not being comfortable on a Democratic team. This sounds promising, and, reassuringly reality-based.
.
Still wrong, IMO. I’d just get out, and let them settle their own differences, which would mean a return to a decentralized warlord state.

Is Afghanistan really a country that the U.S. is capable of “fixing”? I’ve never been convinced of this.

Joe,

Is it possible that our new president has already imparted his intentions? He’s a shrewd student of history…New and suprising retaliatory moves could be what Obama was alluding to when, at the inauguration, he quoted Paine’s version of George Washington’s speech made to the troops before re-crossing the Delaware. It was a speech Washington made to bolster his men before staging a suprise attack on sleeping Hessian mercenaries on Christmas eve. It’s already known that Obama was willing to go into Pakistan, he made a point of it during the campaign. Obama’s icy metaphor might herald a new type of American force, managed by diplomacy, while focused in military intensity. I think that Obama is making real “that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]…In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come”.

Allow me to quote Copland:

Listen, you deaf f—. I offered you a chance when we could have done something, I offered you a chance to be a cop, and you blew it! You blew it. – Moe Tilden

As bad as we screwed up in Iraq, Afghanistan was the area where we really had a narrow window of opportunity to do something and Bush blew it.

This is a part of the world with which I am familiar. I shudder at the thought of even a limited American engagement. But, if we can have one co-ordinated policy and a well defined set of goals which point to our departure at some early point it is the best I can hope for. But deep inside me I have doubts that we can get a working body politic in Afghanistan: it is not a “real” country and there is no unifying sense of nationhood. No matter our problems with Bush I still believed in our country. I don’t see that among Afghanis.

Why are we there, again?

For a second I thought sqr1 was quoting Aaron Copland, talk about fanfare for the common man. Personally I didn’t think much about ‘Copland’…mezzo mezzo.
.
Let me translate for the reality impaired, Joe Klein among them:
.
Afghanistan is where empires go to die, and we’re already doing well in that regard. So let’s set up a couple easy pins to knock down and get the hell out.
.
Everything has to be soft pedaled for people like Joe who still believe in, as Ackroyd calls it, the Great American Hegemony Project.

a significant shift in tone from the Bush Administration where “the goal was always freedom and democracy,” according to one defense expert.
.
Funny. I missed that goal.

Here is a novel concept to introduce into US foreign policy. Decency. Another…humanity. Joe, again, kiss my behind for all of your support of US foreign policy.
.
Let me visit and smell and esperience Cuba like the rest of world does. Oh, there is the matter of the Cuban fascists in Miami. Screw them.
.
My last rant tonight.

Compare Obama on Iraq in April:

And, see, the problem I have is if the definition of success is so high, no traces of Al Qaida and no possibility of reconstitution, a highly-effective Iraqi government, a Democratic multiethnic, multi- sectarian functioning democracy, no Iranian influence, at least not of the kind that we don’t like, then that portends the possibility of us staying for 20 or 30 years.

If, on the other hand, our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there’s not, you know, huge outbreaks of violence, there’s still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it’s not a threat to its neighbors and it’s not an Al Qaida base, that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable timeframe, and that, I think, is what everybody here on this committee has been trying to drive at, and we haven’t been able to get as clear of an answer as we would like.

To a degree, he’s been in sync w/ Gates for some time -
http://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-same-page-gates-mullen-powell-obama.html

OK, I went off on Cuba as an example of idiot foreign policy. Back to Afghanistan. May I suggest consulting Russia on the matter? Yes, the formerly godless, but now devout Orthodox Christians (news flash to the State Dept and the Vatican…they have really never relinquished their devotion to the spegetti monster in the sky). Let us march on.