Leaving Afghanistan
America has reached a crossroads. And Barack Obama has a difficult road ahead, because it is his task to lead the nation into a world of limits. From the very beginning, Americans have seen their country as a land of infinite opportunity. And, as long as the frontier beckoned, anything seemed possible. It was the frontier, after all, which nurtured Abraham Lincoln.
Now another president from Illinois has told his fellow citizens, as Richard Cohen writes in The Washington Post, that “the American century is over.” That knowledge will be a bitter pill for many. But America has been here before. Cohen writes:
I have heard this speech before. I heard echoes of Richard Nixon explaining “Vietnamization.” Gonna turn the war over to our stolid allies. We put them on their feet. We trained them. We supplied them. We schooled them at our elite military academies. They looked splendid in their uniforms. But when the U.S. pulled out, South Vietnam collapsed. It will happen again in Afghanistan. I think Obama knows that. He fought this war — authorized the West Point surge — because he did not know how to get out. Now, he does. As any previous president could have told him, it’s by getting out.
Some will see the retreat from Afghanistan, like the withdrawal from Vietnam, as a defeat. But the Vietnam War was a mistake. It was the wrong response at the wrong time. After 911, the enemy was Al Qaeda, not the Afghans; and Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the World Trade Center.
It has taken awhile to put Vietnam in perspective. And it will take time to see the last decade — with the benefit of hindsight — clearly. Recognizing the finite nature of one’s circumstances is the beginning of wisdom. And with that recognition comes another kind of wisdom. We are not merely citizens of the country of our birth or our choice. We are also citizens of the world — a world that has always been finite.
Owen Gray grew up in Montreal, where he received a B. A. from Concordia University. After crossing the border and completing a Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina, he returned to Canada, married, raised a family and taught high school for 32 years. Now retired, he lives — with his wife and youngest son — on the northern shores of Lake Ontario. This post is cross posted from his blog.
6 Responses to “Leaving Afghanistan”
The Taliban provided material support and protection to Al Qaeda. Iraq was a mistake. Afghanistan was not. The main mistake in Afghanistan was diverting resources to Iraq before the job was finished. That was a major error that unnecessarily prolonged this war.
You wouldn’t know he was viewing a world of limits if you had heard or read his statements after the deficit commission released its views; he insisted on no raising of the retirement age or reducing payouts to beneficiaries in any way. Totally unreal, unlike the true world of limits (after 2020 to be much harsher than it is currently).
Didn’t he utter the stupid phrases, “investing” [sic; spending] on goodies here in the USA, as well as talking that vapid talk about “clean energy” and things like infrastructure that he and the Dems in Congress had the chance to do with given the go-ahead for a stimulus in 2009, the opportunity which they ruined with misspending and other misconduct that cost them dearly in 2010?
[shrug] Oh, well. No doubt some relished that campaign sucker stuff he added to his speech. (His campaign stuff proves P.T. Barnum right every time. Suckers, suckers, suckers)
Zzzzz is correct. Iraq was a diversion, chosen out of ambition and conservative, rather than liberal, naivete’ for a change. (Flowers?)
That we’ve killed bin Laden pretty much has people here (States) ready to see a well-managed end to this Afghanistan adventure.
The funny thing is, with the bin Laden operation, ObamaCo scored what Rumsfeld could have only dreamed of — not quite a totally remote, painless (for us) push-button high-tech-gizmo warfare model, but certainly (as with our missile-armed unmanned aircraft) a much more limited, sharply directed, and cheaper kind of warfare. (At least, when it’s suitable and we can do it.)
Who knows what conclusions Pakistan will arrive at about our withdrawal (they’ll be encouraged to fill the void, no doubt, as will Iran, probably — and to some extent, India) or with our aerial strikes and Special Ops missions where and when appropriate.
Question: If it is easy for top AQ people to work/reside in Pakistan now, how much easier will it be if we are out of Af?
Question 2: How will the atmosphere between two nuclear powers without the heavy U.S. presence?
(I don’t know perhaps no change.) But, the Pak. terrorists that attacked Mumbai might be affiliated with AQ, that can’t be good a good thing.
Iraq was not a diversion. It was a definite seizure of opportunity for global expansion and economic domination as a result of what is known today as “Crisis Capitalism”. September 11 was the crisis, or if you will the “diversion” that gave the US and its allies the “leagal” backdrop for the invasion
of one of the wealthiest countries on earth.
This like Afghanistan is a corporate war, we’re dying for corporate greed and economic globization at the expense of the American working class. On top of that the US is now negotiating with the Taliban.
Ten years, two countries thousands of lives lost and the only winners are…………..
the CORPORATIONS!!!!!!
The misadvenure in Afghanistan will end when Congress cuts off the money. The Afghan Army will never be able to protect itself from itself because it has no reason or desire to do so.