The Afghanistan Decision

Here’s my problem with the opposition to timelines:

The basic argument against timelines is that the enemy could then just go to ground until we leave. If that’s true, why couldn’t they achieve an early departure by going to ground anyway, with or without announcement of a departure date? It’s not like we’re going to stay there long if the Taliban appear entirely inactive.

In the real world, the possibility of an endless presence just gives the Karzai crowd an endless excuse for maintaining its own corruption and incompetence, creating an environment conducive to Taliban recruitment and public support.

No, tell Karzai if he wants to save his own a$$ he has X months to clean up his act and take charge effectively. If he can’t, or won’t, we can’t (and won’t) fix things for him.

Afghanistan is not an important place. It has hardly any al Qaeda left there. A long-term strategic alliance with it makes no sense. Now, if we were able to bring about good things there, we should do it; but we’ve been trying and failing for 8 years. It seems they don’t like having a foreign country occupy them. All we’ve done is create the world’s second-most corrupt country, behind Somalia.
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And I don’t understand why our presence in Afghanistan helps the situation in Pakistan. (Eric Martin: “Pakistan today is far less stable than it was when we first invaded: there are raging clashes between the government and militant forces causing refugee crises numbering in the millions, there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of domestic terrorist attacks, the Pakistani population is increasingly anti-American and increasingly radicalized, there is a crisis in leadership – with the current President, Asif Zardari nursing approval ratings in the sub-Cheney realm, etc.”)
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“Sending a message” is not a goal. It is Vietnam-speak– we wanted to send the message that we wouldn’t allow the dominoes to fall. But we won the Cold War not through misguided interventions in the hinterlands; we won it through a superior political and economic system. Our Cold War excesses, in Latin America (Guatemala), Africa (Savimbi), Asia, and Europe (Greece), brought shame upon us. As then, living our values, not bombing foreigners, is the key to our security.
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Spending 3 times Afghanistan’s GDP (source: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/10/the_price_tag_o/ ) on our occupation has not worked. Why continue with this policy? Honestly, why not just double everyone in Afghanistan’s salary next year, pocket the savings, and go home? Why would that be a worse policy?

Flown–

You’ve just made, precisely, the argument for both sides on timelines. My sense is that the President has decided that it’s unrealistic to think we’re going to be able to outwait the Taliban–they’re going to be there forever–and more important to send a message to Karzai that he’d better get his act together…and fast.

I am angry about the escalation but Joe you make a good point that does pacify me: at least we know where the goalposts are and we will be able to judge success or failure.

One thing that irks me though is that this invasion had a goal, years ago. It was to capture an international criminal who attacked us. What happened to that goal?

Heck, how has a mission to capture a criminal turned into a situations where we now need another 2 years to see if we’re succeeding or failing? It’s pretty maddening, you have to admit.

I have to agree here. What exactly constitutes “winning” in Afghanistan anyway?
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I really can’t support an escalation without knowing what the the endgame will be. This endless “war on terror” is nothing more than BS. If we want stability in Afghanistan and a decrease in the number of terrorists, potential and actual, we need to strengthen our relationship with Pakistan. They hold the key to greater stability in Afghanistan.

…we will know whether this enormous gamble is working within two years…

That’s a feature, not an ‘enormous gamble’, Joe; either it works and everyone can take credit for Obama’s decision or we’ve definitively proven that it won’t, and y’all can let the likes of Dick Cheney prattle on unchallenged about how Obama’s ‘weakness’ couldn’t fix Cheney’s colossal foreign policy failures made while Cheney was in office.

Gibbs did say on CNN this morning that the President would talk about time limits of some sort.

I remain ambivalent about this, and angry that we’re trapped in the necessity of staying – and I do think we could not tolerate the results of our leaving precipitously.

The taliban will always be with us because fundamentalism will always be with us.

Joe – Glad to see you on the American Masters special on Guthrie – (though is it a rerun? people looked younger than I think they are). You could have told us this was coming up and that you were on it, but if you did I missed it. Okay to toot that horn a little bit here.

Joe: can we really improve things in Afghanistan in terms of good govt and all that it means. The story about removing the President of Pakistan from the Nuclear “Committee” is astonishing and little has been said or reported about this development.

The main players who can do something about stability in Afghanistan are Iran, India and Pakistan. Our relations with Iran are an impediment. India and Pakistan have shown a tendency to juvenile behaviour. I simply don’t see how any number of US and NATO troops will restore stability or establish “good government” in Afghanistan.

What I see is American politics at play: the hawks and doves, business interests, the contractors and assorted riders on the defense gravy train who are unwilling to let go. And, while we focus on troop numbers let us not forget the 70,000 plus contractors in Afghanistan; the $40 a gallon gasoline and other expenditures.

Remind me: why are we still there?

… I’m ambivalent about all of this …

Joe, that is crux of the issue, isn’t it? The majority of the country stopped caring about Afghanistan the second we started talking about phantom yellow cake, aluminum tubes, and WMDs in Iraq. We never should have engaged either country militarily. To procrastinate now in withdrawing is to do so only to save face. If the people of Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t acquired the taste for governing themselves by now, they never will. Bring them all home, post haste.

“As then, living our values, not bombing foreigners, is the key to our security.”

Amen..

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

I like Cmdr Huber’s comment:

“Afghanistan, where it looks like we’re going to re-re-escalate in order to develop an exit plan, has become the Long War’s center of gravity. We’ve never seen the Pentagon and its confederates make such a media play to force a president to keep a war going indefinitely…
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Iran serves several purposes. It gives the Air Force and the Navy a reason to exist. We won’t bother to invade Iran; we’ll schwack it with air power. Iran is a convenient scapegoat. Whenever something goes wrong anywhere in the region, we blame it on Iran, even though we never have managed to prove any of our allegations. Most importantly, the Iranians give us a perfect excuse to maintain presence in the Middle East, so we can guard Israel from them and keep them from shutting down the Straight of Hormuz.

In all, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan form our Long War trifecta.”

http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/2009/12/get-real-about-iran.html

“Remind me: why are we still there?”

This seems to be one “unofficial” reason, though it is unclear “how any number of US and NATO troops” can secure a 700-mile pipeline corridor:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

… and of course, if our reason for Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan is to guard Israel and keep Iran from shutting down Hormuz…

Israel is not the US, she can defend herself well. And I would expect a single carrier to be able secure the straight (a destroyer or two…). So couldn’t we do the whole thing a little more cheaply?

[...] The Afghanistan Decision [...]

What, no one?

so I’ll prattle on..

Afghanistan is where the deskhawks have set up shop. I’ve read that proposed construction costs for the new US embassy in Afghanistan is about the same as its Iraqi predecessor (remember bad Cheney anyone? bad Obama too). Its the new Pentagon East division, not Iraq, not anymore.

But Iraq is just too bloated to pull that plug. A lot of money tied up there… where else could we spend that many US Dollars?

Iran is the bogeyman. You’ll read and hear how scary they are, and why serious people need to be worried.

There simply is no other way to justify a $700 Billion military budget.

“He is also sending a clear message to the Pakistanis–who are the real concern here–that we will not be abandoning Afghanistan anytime soon and that we’re interested in a long-term strategic alliance that includes economic, humanitarian and (targeted) military aid.”
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Is there really any doubt that we would be every bit as interested in that long-term strategic alliance, if we were to mostly withdraw from Afghanistan? And our presence in Afghanistan sends al Qaeda and Taliban militants into Pakistan’s tribal areas, where they further destabilize the Pakistani government and draw American attacks that…further destabilize the Pakistani government (and garner more support for the militants).
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Please tell your readers the truth about it: this escalation is to keep the Beltway “serious people” on board, McDonnell-Douglas and Raytheon in the black and Obama’s second term hopes alive.

Shepherdwong,
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We’ve needed an “enemy” or “threat” for the last half-century.
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The Cold War ended (darn those Russians) so we need someone else to justify all of that money on weapons.
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Iran/Iraq/Al-Qeida/Taliban/militant Muslims seem to fit the need quite nicely. Especially since we’ll never be able to tell/if when we have defeated them. They will always be with us to serve their purpose.
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And don’t forget Dow Chemical. M-D and Ratheon need something that goes “boom” to carry or to which to attach those “smart” guidance systems.

per my prev comment:
“new US embassy in Afghanistan”… sorry, its in Pakistan:

“The White House has asked Congress for – and seems likely to receive – $736 million to build a new US embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing for US government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.

The scale of the projects rivals the giant US Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.”

But not to worry…

“Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0528/p90s01-wosc.html

Eisenhower and Chomsky tried to warn us. The fact of that matter is, if we don’t somehow wrest control of policy-making from the hands of multi-national corporations, the country we’ve known and loved will be fed completely into their rapacious maws.

There is one reason for our mayhem in Iraq and Afghanistan and our menace toward Iran. And its not to keep us safe. No army can invade us, no navy can threaten us, no missile can reach us (well,Canada ?!..). And only sanctuary needed to plot another spectacular terrorist attack is a blackberry- no number of drone attacks will stop that.
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The reason is… the US military and its cadre of contractors don’t want to give up the money.

“We won the Cold War”. Debatable. Simply put, the Soviets made the hard choices about military spending about thirty to forty years before the US will.

And what was the last armed conflict of the Cold War? Why, the Soviets in Afghanistan of course.

The reason is…

yep. TPM has just posted a piece on the contractor surge that is in the works with a picture to suit. Questions: who profits???? Who sacrifices??? Funny how our esteemed Villagers skirt that issue.

But. but..we always thank our troops. When did we last thank the contractors?

“When did we last thank the contractors?”
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“Funny how our esteemed Villagers skirt that issue.”
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The silent acquiescence of our “watchdog press” – and the flow of taxpayer money it facilitates – is all the thanks our corporate masters really seek.

This must be another case of Obama being a radical, left-wing extremist. I think I’ll vomit on the next person who claims he is.

[...] Here’s his conundrum, not wanting to look weak like we know he is, he’s forced to send additional troops to Afghanistan to battle the current resurgence of the Taliban. Not wanting to look like a hawk, he’s forced to give his base what they’ve been wanting for years, a timetable for withdrawal. Mr. Obama is trying to have it both ways. And that’s the problem when you try to be all things to all people. Eventually you have to make a decision that one group or the other isn’t going to like. [...]

“…not wanting to look weak like we know he is…”
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This is war policy. The only way Obama is “weak” is if we are “weak” as a nation. Traitor.

Joe Klein:
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Thank you so much for responding to commentary; it is greatly appreciated.

Obama was never left of center, never. He is, was and has always been a centrist, pragmatic to the core. While I don’t agree with some of his cabinet appointments and some of his policy decisions, he is at least trying to solve some of the many problems that confront our nation. I am hopeful that he will be less centrist on some issues (such as Afghanistan) going forward.
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We shall see………..

He has done nothing but snub the Left since he got into power, a favor I intend to return the next time one of his sycophants comes asking for money or a vote. If they wanted to get the Left angry with them, to beef up their right-wing credentials, they have done a good job. The right is the only group celebrating this decision and Klein, of course.