David Broder to Obama: Stop Taking the Time to Get it Right

Broder has gone senile, I'm afraid.

I'm sure that Fred and company want to get their war on and figure the sooner a decision is made the more likely that decision will be in favor of the long war. But there are ways to say the same thing without sounding like a senile old man.
I noticed that few if any necons or hawks came to Broder's defense - that has to tell you something. Expect to see a retirement soon at WAPO.

I am not a hawk, I believe the Afghanistan war is for practical purposes unwinnable. McChrystal delivered his recommendations to Gates 2 1/2 months ago and noted the current strategy will not work. Despite this, Obama continues to follow a failing strategy and send Americans into harm's way.

Neither liberals nor conservatives should be comfortable with this. I am surprised at the patience and tolerance for more deaths shown by people who are ostensibly pacifists.

It's tough to balance the competing interests of informing a decision and making a decision in a timely manner. There aren't any right answers, but from what I've read the President intends to make a decision by the end of the month and that works for me. At the very latest, a decision should be made by the end of the year.

you usually make better sense. McChrystal wants 40,000 more troops in harms way. How do you think that's going to affect the level of violence and deaths of American troops. Any way you think they'll go down? Right, no way. So making no decision is preferable on that metric than making a decision to go McChrystal's way. Of course he could stop all American deaths over there by terminating the mission right now. Is that what you're advocating? Pretend you're a business manager. Your staff brings you a handful of suggestions you don't like. Do you choose the least worst and go with it? Or do you send them back to the drawing board? I'm not a hawk either. But I do respect a leader who takes the time to get it right than one with the "ready, fire, aim" approach of the Bush administration. Just imagine where we'd be if he had held off on the Iraq war until the WMD issue was accurately assessed. 4,000 dead American soldiers would still be alive today, 25,000 would not have been maimed and we'd have several trillion less in national debt.

Any way you think they'll go down? Right, no way.

If McChrystal is right that more troops are needed to carry out the current strategy, then of course we could reasonably expect fewer troops being killed when more are deployed. Some pundit (I forget who it was or I'd quote) gave an analogy of a burning building- is it safer for the firefighters if the chief sends in a smaller number of them, or if he correctly assesses how many are needed and sends the appropriate number in to put out the fire?

I am surprised at the patience and tolerance for more deaths shown by people who are ostensibly pacifists.

As opposed to what? Sending 40,000 more troops?

What if they're fighting a chemical fire with water hoses and the chief sends in more firefighters? Will that put out the fire?

Bush was too quick, Obama too slow. Oh, for the Goldilocks president who gets it just right to satisfy us.
If we had all the information and intelligence available to us that the President may have, we would be better armchair generals.

lol, dduck, good one

To add a wee bit, sending 40,000 troops is inherently a long-term decision and it's more justifiable to only make such a decision taking a long-term view point. Sending 40,000 more troops is essentially a 3 year decision, minimum. Months for roll-out, probably working at least another year to see if it's having an effect, and then months of roll-back after hoped for success. It would make no sense to immediately sign an order to send 40,000 troops and then 6 months later stop and review the strategy. Review it now, which will take some time, make a call.

If this was a shorter term decision, such as a requisition of needed supplies (and therefore a reallocation of the budget), then Obama should be rightly criticized for not making a decision in a week or so.

Either way, I hope we have a better exit plan. I'm amazed at how many wars our recent presidents have gotten us into war without a plan for getting us back out. That exit plan is at least as important as the invasion plan.

As opposed to what? Sending 40,000 more troops?

My first preference is to withdraw from Afghanistan. My second preference is to pursue a strategy that will work. Right now we have neither.

Afghanistan can neither be subdued nor governed. Our "mission" was to drive Al Qaeda from it's sanctuary. We have accomplished our mission.

Given that the mission has been accomplished and that nation building is not possible, the decision should be to declare victory and leave. That we should send more to die and be maimed to build a nation that cannot be built is indefensible.

Never thought I'd live to hear myself say this, but I agree with Dick Cheney (though from an entirely different perspective). Obama is dithering.

CS -

You know I respect the heck out of you, but what is "the current strategy"? More importantly what is the end goal there? Do you believe Afghanistan can be governed by anyone? Or that 40,000 or 500,000 more American troops will be able to accomplish that? The real question, it seems to me, is what we are trying to accomplish at this point. Is the end goal to make the country a little less violent? To stop drug trafficing? To prop up the Karzai regime for a few more years? To establish a colony (sarcastic)? What are we trying to accomplish? Really, what?

Edit added: Your analogy to firefighters assumes the fire can be put out. I'm not sure that is a valid assumption with Afghanistan.

I think what we are trying to accomplish is to keep the Taliban from retaking the country as soon as we leave and giving Al Qaeda a home base from which to operate again. The hope is that if security can be arranged for a large portion of the country for some time, then enough strength will take hold in the regime to combat the Taliban by itself. If the leaks and reports are accurate, Obama's not convinced yet that the plans he's been given show that end point of leaving. If there is no such end point possible, then the idea is to switch to a simple "bomb the Taliban" strategy and leave the rest. I've seen no dithering.

OK Pacatrue, I'll admit to some hyperbole on the agreeing with Cheney comment. If our goal is to keep the Taliban from retaking the country, we will be there for generations. As for Al Qaeda, they already have new santuaries. Please tell me how we accomplish these things short of permanent colonization.

If we want a permanent presence there to keep the Taliban off guard or to make sure Al Qaeda uses someplace else as its sanctuary, why not drop a few million into Karzai's Swiss bank account in exchange for establishing a permanent military base and stop trying to subdue or govern the country? Ok, that's more hyperbole, but there's a real point here. Afghanistan has never been governable and has never been controllable. That's not hyperbole. Why should we believe that we, with 40,000 more troops, can do what no one has ever been able to do in all of history?

Times have changed, strategies have too, but altogether too slowly. However, a real glimmer of hope is that the military mindset has changed recently as a result of the success of the Predator. One of the top commanders there remarked that the idea of having a 24/7 air presence anywhere was unthinkable until the last decade. Today, the "pilot" of a Predator unmanned drone can finish his shift and turn the job over to someone else, something that has never been possible before. Now the military is looking at even longer missions including airships that could stay aloft for 3 years at a time. We don't know what the discussions are right now, and dduck's armchair generals quip was most appropriate. It is not inconceivable that we could establish a more or less permanent surveillance capability far cheaper than troops can provide.

I commend to you all the recent Esquire article that really gives a flavor of what it's like for our troops in Afghanistan. http://www.esquire.com/print-this/afghanistan-w...

As I've proposed here (armchair president?), what I'd do is buy all the opium, buy all the guns, hire all the Afghans and win this war economically, instead of militarily.

Haha, well, the difference in our positions is that you already know that there can be no successful government in Afghanistan. With that knowledge, then, yep, time to pick up and leave, by and large. My understanding is that Obama's trying to reach your current state of knowledge.

(Hope you don't mind the bit of cheekiness. Meant in good spirits.)

GD -

"As I've proposed here (armchair president?), what I'd do is buy all the opium, buy all the guns, hire all the Afghans and win this war economically, instead of militarily."

Not only would that save lives, it would probably be cheaper.

Perhaps I should offer to advise him and share my "knowledge", aka opinion.

On the other hand, maybe I just spent too long at the Buffalo Chip Saloon and Dance Hall earlier and should go to bed and save further comments till morning. Btw, there really is such a place in Cave Creek, AZ and I really did spend several hours there with friends earlier.

Don't worry about being cheeky...made me laugh.

Sorry, more targets, more casualties.

Certainly you mean "our last president" not "recent presidents" with no exit strategy. Clinton ended Kosovo & how many Americans have died there recently?

Yes, we managed to get out of Somalia and Kosovo, but not because we had exit plans.

Well, Clinton said we'd be out of Bosnia in 12 months and we were there for many years. Both Kosovo and Bosnia aren't exactly stable and we've provided no long-term solution there. Sometimes what happens isn't what you plan for.

Obama came into office thinking he had the ends and ways figured out and was going to adjust the means. Along the way he had second thoughts about those ends and ways - good for him for not blindly following his campaign rhetoric.

What if they're fighting a chemical fire with water hoses and the chief sends in more firefighters? Will that put out the fire?

No, of course not, and I'm not critical of the idea that the strategy may have to be re-revised after an assessment of whether or not the revision that Obama announced in March is working and/or workable. But since a new strategy is not yet ready, we can't leave the troops who are there hanging and more may need to be deployed in the interim. My comment to GD was in regard to the faulty logic that sending more troops necessarily means incurring more casualties. In some situations, more troops in the theater can increase the safety of all of the troops because they can then actually carry out tactics to acheive security goals. McChrystal, apparently from what is known about his report and recommendations, believes this is one of those situations. I have no way of knowing if he's correct, or if he is, does that mean that we'll tip the tide toward potentially creating enough security and stability to leave with something we'd consider a 'victory'. But that's a longer term question, and the immediate one is whether or not we need more troops there until the long term goal and possible exit strategy are decided.

You know I respect the heck out of you, but what is "the current strategy"?
The counterinsurgency strategy announced by Obama last Spring. All of the questions about strategy, goals, and exit plans are valid, but where were all of you guys during the campaign when Obama continually talked about ramping up efforts in Afghanistan (the war we must win) and this Spring when he announced that he was sending reinforcements and committing (well, sort of, anyway) to this COIN approach? (Mind you, I don't know if you personally opposed all of that tidbits and raised the questions then, I'm just saying that there was a general absence of debate about it at that time.) I suppose the Kucinich wing of the Dems have been pretty outspoken about this all along, but otherwise most people seemed to go along until now, when a second round of troop deployments is needed to continue on this course. Some are using the legitimacy of the Karzai election as the turning point, but really...if you believe that Afghanistan is ungovernable, does it matter whether or not that election was fraudulent? If it's true that the country is made up of feuding warlords and the vast majority of the people are illiterate, can any election be considered legit and binding, and would it really matter?

I actually think that the corruption in Pakistan is a bigger problem, but it seems that we're constantly walking on eggshells (for good reason, but it's still very problematic.) We've given billions in aid to Pakistan (and that was designed to help Pakistan help us in the border region) but they divert it to build their capacity against India.

Where has the State dept been in all of this? Part of the strategic announcement in March was about a standing trilateral negotiation between US, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and beefing up diplomacy with all of the regional players. That was March, now its November. Is there really any indication that there's been any 'smart diplomacy' going on there? Can we move beyond 'reset buttons' and apologies for the past administration's cowboy diplomacy?

More importantly what is the end goal there? Do you believe Afghanistan can be governed by anyone? The real question, it seems to me, is what we are trying to accomplish at this point. Is the end goal to make the country a little less violent?

I would say the end goal all along should have been to establish enough security and stability in the region to prevent a power vacuum that would result in the re-ascendance of the Taliban (and probably, re-establishment of safe haven for Al Qaeda.) That is not actually a goal that can be accomplished militarily, but I do feel that a strong military presence is a necessary condition for the political goals to be accomplished.

Word is that McChrystal actually said that around 80,000 troops are needed, and he suggested that perhaps 40K could be US troops and 40K additional NATO forces. I speculate that what has actually been going on has been an attempt to see how many troops NATO allies might add before we commit- but the reaction from Europe has been the opposite of what we'd want. They seem to be saying that if the US is wavering, they're certainly not going to step up. I think the rhetoric being used for US domestic political purposes is that maybe we have to rethink our entire commitment, and the election is being used as the main rationale for that, but using that kind of rhetoric weakens the ability to ask European countries to further their commitment. Of course another angle is that Europe may not even have the capacity to send the number we need, so it may not be all about the political will to do so.

more targets, more casualties.

A conclusion that can only be reached if one believes that our military consists of sitting ducks who are deployed without training or leadership.

Hey, ACP (Arm Chair President): A Modest Proposal. I hope they are at least they are considering at parts of your plan. LOL

"My comment to GD was in regard to the faulty logic that sending more troops necessarily means incurring more casualties. In some situations, more troops in the theater can increase the safety of all of the troops because they can then actually carry out tactics to achieve security goals."

You betcha. A lot of ACG (Arm Chair Generals) don't realize that point. Well said.

CS -

I understand what you are saying about Afghanistan being the "good war", and you are correct that there was little public debate about the subject either during the campaign or in the early days of the Obama adminstration. Your read of the political climate is correct.

On a personal level, I have criticized our continuation in Afghanistan for years and opposed the Iraq invasion since before it took place, but that is my traditional conservative reluctance to get involved in foreign entanglements.

My criticism of recent American military involvement is that we repeat the same mistake. We (politicians) set our goals/mission. The armed forces enter and accomplish those goals/missions, all to great acclaim. We really were greeted as liberators initially in Iraq, for example. Then, having achieved our stated mission, we decide to stay on and engage in nation building. It is not something our military is designed for and eventually descends into civil unrest, resistance and our being viewed as occupiers who need to be expelled rather than the liberator perception of the initial action. At that point, our mission becomes murky, our politicians flounder (Bush in Iraq, now Obama in Afghanistan), the American public becomes disenchanted and our allies seek to disassociate themselves.

It is this hallmark of American military policy, as defined by political leaders, that leads enemies to position themselves not for battle but for counter insurgency after we have won the war. It is also this hallmark of our policy that repeatedly turns victory into murky stalemate. Reagan understood the idea of getting in, acccomplishing the mission and getting out (Granada); GHW Bush understood it (Gulf War); but, subsequent administrations seem not to have learned, or to have forgotten, that lesson.

I agree with almost all of that, tidbits. The problem is though, we have to deal with the situation we currently find ourselves in, not the one that might have been if we hadn't entered into these two wars.

At this point, I would hope that a well considered strategy will evolve for Afghanistan/Pakistan, and I am by no means a dove.
I found an article in yesterday's NYT, Business Section, to be very interesting as it applies to war as well as our every day lives. The basic theme is "escalation of commitment".
Food for thought.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/business/econ...

Heh, good article, dduck. It's funny because as I was writing my last comment to tidbits I was reminded of the line from the movie "Wargames" where the computer learns "this is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play." An observation that fits those bidding games as well.

What I carried away from that article is we all over commit to something. If you are a Dem. or a Rep., you wind up defending some ill conceived strategy because "your guys" developed it. I like the moderate concept since I don't feel like a traitor if I am flexible enough to consider another viewpoint.
However, when in the presence of die-hards left or right, I get out the big guns and blast away, damn the torpedoes.

The partisan digging in of heels is a good point too, but I was struck by the description of games that have a very slim chance of winning and a greater chance that you'll end up losing, and facing the choice of cutting losses at some point or losing bigtime.

The only problem with the analogy to 'deciding to play the game of war' as it applies to our current wars is that I'm not convinced that not playing would have been a winning situation either. That's less clear with Iraq, but WRT Afghanistan few people would have agreed with allowing the Taliban to remain in power when they wouldn't turn over Al Qaeda. From there though there's also the problem that removing the Taliban left a void that can't be left unfilled either.

tidbits wrote: "My criticism of recent American military involvement is that we repeat the same mistake. We (politicians) set our goals/mission. The armed forces enter and accomplish those goals/missions, all to great acclaim. We really were greeted as liberators initially in Iraq, for example. Then, having achieved our stated mission, we decide to stay on and engage in nation building."

Raising the troop strength to General McChrystal request would put our troop strength to where Soviet troop strength was during the1980's... and we all know how that worked out!

You are correct. The trick is to be careful not to over commit. Very difficult. Look at some of the long-winded discussions we have here. Once you have posted your position, and added variations and retorts, you find it almost impossible to quit since you've invested too much time and brain cells (and darn it you know you're right) the other guys won't quit either. Blah, blah, blah.

I think ObamaRahm should do exactly as they think best, including stalling a decision, and ignore every post in here that tells them to do otherwise.

SteveK -

Yeah, we do seem to have a remarkable ability to ignore history, whether it is the implacably warring tri-tribal artificial British colony/nation of Iraq or the tribal/warlord culture of Afghanistan and its resistance to being subdued or governed.

Why so many American politicians think the rules of history don't apply to us is difficult to understand.

where were all of you guys during the campaign when Obama continually talked about ramping up efforts in Afghanistan

Things have changed considerably in Afghanistan, or at least the assessment thereof. I don't think ANYONE as of the end of 2008 was estimating the strength of Al Qaeda in the country at 100 (and 300 in Pakistan). Now the idea of sending 40,000 troops to fight 100 insurgents seems a bit excessive. We don't know what the goals, aside from fighting them, are. Take a look at the article I linked to, in order to get a sense of what a "mission" there is actually like. Personally, I think McChrystal is mistaken in trying to increase this kind of combat. I think Obama is right to say 'wait a minute. Isn't there a more modern approach to this situation? Give me more options.' It's a good thing when a leader presses his staff to think outside the box to come up with a more sensible approach. After reading the article, you tell me if having twice or 4 times the boots on the ground is really the answer. If I'm a middle manager, of course I want to triple my staff and can reasonably assert that I could make more progress that way. But my boss might very well say 'find a way to do more with less human resources. Think of ways to use other resources.' As I mentioned, the remote warfare capabilities of unmanned drones is a game changer, getting eyes and weapons above the insurgents with far less risk than troops trekking through that difficult landscape.

Speaking as someone who deployed to Afghanistan in 2005 and continues to study the country excessively, estimations of AQ strength at the end of 2008 were not surprising. They were also irrelevant since the goal in Afghanistan was the creation of a friendly government to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a safe-haven to AQ or anyone else.

The decision on troop levels is down the line from other considerations. In the military this is usually the "ends, ways, means" continuum where a strategy will have stated ends achieved by the ways (plans, operations, etc.) and supported by resources, or the means. A good strategy links ends, ways and means.

If the desired ends is a "nation" of Afghanistan, with a legitimate government able to control its territory and adequately represent its population, then that requires a different set of ways and means than something else. McChrystal's recommendations are based on the assumption that the goal is going to be nation-building. I think what happened is the President Obama is, after initially putting out a plan for nation-building, is now questioning it and looking at changing the "ends," or the our goals. If he does, then the the plans and resources necessary to achieve that will change as well. So I think the discussion among the President's advisers is much more fundamental than troop levels and goes to the heart of strategy - identifying an acceptable and achievable goal for our Afghan policy.

Personally, I don't think it is possible for us to do the kind of nation-building that the strategy, up to this point, had as its goal. Nation-building is a multi-generational, expensive effort and I seriously doubt the American people have the patience to commit resources for that length of time for what is a country of limited strategic significance. So I'm glad to see the President look at other options and hope he comes up with something more modest in scope.

cost of additional troops to Afghanistan - $40,000,000,000
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/1...

population of Afghanistan - 28,396,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_Afgh...

troop increase cost per capita (Afghanistan) - $1408

per capita income - $416
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_...

opium growers per capita income - $300
http://www.newsweek.com/id/129577

I just can't imagine that there isn't a better way to spend the equivalent of more than 3 times the annual income of every man, woman and child in Afghanistan to improve their security situation. Microloans? Local infrastructure improvement programs? Read the Newsweek article above. I don't believe the majority of the population wants to be opium growers, and I doubt they want the Taliban in control any more than we do. What I believe they do want is food, water and shelter. If the Taliban gets them that, they win. If we can find a way for them to get it for themselves, I think we might be able to win back a few hearts and minds.

Just to put this in perspective:
equivalent for US per capita - (47,440/416)*$1408 = $160,640
Imagine what problems we might be able to solve here if some external entity were willing to spend $160,640 for every man, woman and child in the US. Per year...

And remember, this is above what we are currently spending in Afghanistan.

Excellent comment, Andy. I think this is exactly right:
McChrystal's recommendations are based on the assumption that the goal is going to be nation-building. I think what happened is the President Obama is, after initially putting out a plan for nation-building, is now questioning it and looking at changing the "ends," or the our goals. If he does, then the the plans and resources necessary to achieve that will change as well.

And I don't fault Obama or his administration for that reassessment, except that I don't see that they've really spent the last 7 months implementing the nonmilitary parts of the strategy that they announced last Spring. The point of the military engagement is to give time and space for the political solutions to be worked out. In Iraq there was coordination of these efforts with the military surge, and while it's still tenuous there has definitely been more progress than most people would have predicted.

If this is accurate, apparently our Afghan ambassador hasn't been supportive of the nation building strategy. Now, if so, is that because he's right and it can't work, or is it not working because he and other key players aren't committed enough? I'd like to think that we didn't waste more than half a year and billions of dollars, not to mention however many soldiers' lives, while the diplomatic team wasn't committed to their part of the strategy- but it feels an awful lot like that's what has happened.

I have no way of knowing if he's correct, or if he is, does that mean that we'll tip the tide toward potentially creating enough security and stability to leave with something we'd consider a 'victory'. But that's a longer term question, and the immediate one is whether or not we need more troops there until the long term goal and possible exit strategy are decided.

That is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into Iraq initially and that kept us there. And this is what I find discouraging, because even people who were gung ho supporters of the Iraq invasion before it happened will say now that It may have been a mistake to go in there without a plan, and yet we're now having it insisted to us that Pres. Obama should do exactly that, make exactly the same mistake, all over again.

Obama is trying to avoid making the same mistake Bush did in Iraq, and he is being criticized for that by the very people who now admit the mistakes progressives have been pointing out all along regarding the Iraq war.

Broder is just a stupid DC fixture, and can be immediately discounted -- heavily.

More and more people are agreeing that Obama is taking too long to decide what to do about Afghanistan. I remain in the minority who doesn't believe there is any "crisis" [sic] or need to rush. There is no way any decision will be "brilliant" or popular or widely accepted or pleasant in any way. I hope the consequences are less rather than more bad for us, whatever the eventual decision is.

It is this hallmark of American military policy, as defined by political leaders, that leads enemies to position themselves not for battle but for counter insurgency after we have won the war.

That is an excellent point. It turns on its ear the oft-repeated Bushian argument that we can't have timelines or exist strategies because then the enemy can just wait us out. The enemy is already waiting us out, because they know our m.o. by now, lol.

No, it's not true that this is an example of not learning the lesson of Iraq. As I pointed out earlier to tidbits though, we don't have the luxury of pretending we're not already there- we have to supply troops to back up the troops who are there, unless Obama is ready to begin bringing everyone home.

Obama is trying to avoid making the same mistake Bush did in Iraq, and he is being criticized for that by the very people who now admit the mistakes progressives have been pointing out all along regarding the Iraq war.
Bush made a series of mistakes, so it depends on which one(s) you are referring to. One error was believing in the Rumsfeld idea of smaller troop numbers (which actually was correct, and fairly brilliant, for the initial mission of invading and deposing Saddam- but was incredibly shortsighted in not meeting the needs of the aftermath.) Another error was in allowing disputes between the Pentagon and State Dept to undermine the definition of the mission. On both of those counts, Obama could well be repeating Bush's mistakes instead of learning from and avoiding them.

The problem is though, we have to deal with the situation we currently find ourselves in, not the one that might have been if we hadn't entered into these two wars.

And the problem with that argument is that it assumes the situation we currently find ourselves in is not still being materially affected by the policies of the previous administration. Everything the Bush administration did and planned to do from day 1 -- day 1 being 9/12 and continuing -- has helped to create that situation we are in now. So Obama cannot decide what to do in the situation we're in now without considering how we got into that situation. Even more to the point, Obama has to consider his options in the context of the possibility that actions taken long before he took office have effectively destroyed any possibility that may once have existed of succeeding in Afghanistan.

Or as Gore Vidal pithily put it: "The United States of Amnesia."

I have very little respect for Vidal anymore, but that was one of his on-targets.

Thanks for your input and thanks for your service. It's appreciated. (Did you read how disrespectfully they treat soldiers in Germany? Is it true?)

Andy, thoughts I can agree with! How awesome is that? :-)

Yes to food, water, peace. It's to bad the Taliban attacks aid workers, road builders, and cuts off your fingers if you vote.

Well said, chmbrln

"What if they're fighting a chemical fire with water hoses and the chief sends in more firefighters? Will that put out the fire?"

Do I get to choose the chemical in the scenario? What if it is a water reactive chemical? Fwoof...

(To what extent sending more troops is putting more water on such a chemical, I leave to you to wonder.)

Even more to the point, Obama has to consider his options in the context of the possibility that actions taken long before he took office have effectively destroyed any possibility that may once have existed of succeeding in Afghanistan.

How so, specifically? Mainly the arguments about Afghanistan being unwinnable haven't changed or been affected by past policy mistakes- they're historical arguments about the nature of the 'country' (not really a country at all) and its level of development (primitive.)

The only argument I can see about Bush policy damaging things stems from a failure to deal with potential political/diplomatic issues early and aggressively, which again seems to be something that is continuing under Obama's State Dept.

It's clear that Obama is stalling a decision until he can complete his study of all those foreign countries that have successfully taken over and ruled Afghanistan in the past.. Oh yeah, how did Alexander do it?

Maybe he's stalling until a trust-worthy, corruption-free government is in place with which we can partner..... Who's got that kind of time... Shades of General Ky in Nam.

"In his book The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia, drug trade historian Alfred W. McCoy alleges that Ky was directly involved in the burgeoning opium and heroin trade operated in part by corrupt elements in the South Vietnamese administration, and that Ky was dismissed from his role in a CIA-sponsored Air America air lift program because he was using government aircraft to transport opium."

Opium crop is up 30%, somebody's making money

Maybe he's stalling because more troops are just more targets for IEDs.

Don't trust me, trust stars and stripes

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&...


Nation building? Osama hunting? And when you've got a clear idea on how to proceed, feel free to post your solution. I'm sure we'll all be waiting. In the mean time, let a smart man try to figure out what to do with an impossible situation.

Actually, it's not just about repeating, in Afghanistan, the same mistakes we made in Iraq. It's about going into Iraq in the first place, and how that affected the already-started war in Afghanistan. Pulling out troops from Afghanistan to start a second, completely unnecessary, war in Iraq, crippled our efforts in Afghanistan in a way we have never recovered from. And I don't see how the current administration can devise a new way forward in Afghanistan that is even the least awful of all the awful alternatives without learning the lessons of that catastrophic policy. And it was a policy. It wasn't a "mistake" (going into Iraq when we were already in Afghanistan). It was a clear, deliberate, thought-out policy that was in place before the WTC ruins had stopped smoking.

How so, specifically?

Starting a new war when we hadn't finished the one already in progress.

And the fact that the above was a conscious, intentional plan that had been on the wish list before 9/11 and started to take solid shape at about noon on 9/11.

How so, specifically?

Starting a new war when we hadn't finished the one already in progress.

Even if I accept that argument (it's at most a partial explanation for the Afghan conflict getting drawn out), it still isn't an explanation of why Afghanistan is 'unwinnable' vs. just not having gotten to the end point yet. And it doesn't explain why Obama, during the campaign and the first few months of his presidency, still thought (or at least according to his rhetoric) that Afghanistan was winnable but now may be rethinking that.

Even if I accept that argument (it's at most a partial explanation for the Afghan conflict getting drawn out), it still isn't an explanation of why Afghanistan is 'unwinnable' vs. just not having gotten to the end point yet.

Because in the vacuum that was created by that decision -- after the Taliban had been overthrown and fled to Pakistan -- said Taliban were able to regroup and regain strength. And because, if one adds that reality to the larger historical reality of Afghanistan being unconquerable and unwinnable for any foreign power or empire, then one sees that if every foreign power in all of human history has failed to achieve its aims in Afghanistan, and if, cognizant of that reality, one then adds to that a political decision to take the focus off Afghanistan and essentially, in policy terms, abandon the effort there -- thus playing against the lessons of historical reality -- that is likely to make a war in an unwinnable country even more pointless.

As for "why" Afghanistan is unwinnable, in an historical sense: The "why's" of that historical reality are complex -- geography, climate, culture, are just a few of the factors -- but if by "why" you mean to dispute the very notion that Afghanistan is unwinnable, as opposed to acknowledging the reality of it's being unwinnable and asking why that is so -- then my answer would be, "Because nobody has ever been able to win it, and plenty have tried." I think Barack Obama has many abilities GWB did not have -- curiosity, flexibility, imagination, compassion, brains -- but I don't believe he is more awesome as a military strategist than Alexander the Great was.

Old Arizona joke: The most commonly heard words before the rattlesnake strikes are "Here, hold my beer and watch this."

Or: "If you can't dance the two step, get the hell out of Texas."

Well, we can't do the Afghan two step and the bravado of reaching for the snake won't kill the snake.

The only time period that Afghanistan was "winnable" was that short time when Osama was trapped in Toro Boro. Had GWB concentrated on that target, OBL would now be dead. Remember that the Taliban were to be punished for allowing al qaeda sanctuary, and OBL was to be tracked down and killed or captured.

Even after his escape into Pakistan, the US could have followed him there without political or military reprisal. Bush didn't fulfill his reason for going to Afghanistan, and 8 years of twiddling his thumbs there now means Obama is faced with a no win situation.

Nation building was never part of the original strategy, not should t it have been.

"Nation building was never part of the original strategy, not should t it have been."

Fair enough, and true enough. But what would the critics (not only of Bush or now, Obama, but of the USA, reflexively) rush to say? That we "owe" it to the nation, and so on.

No, we don't "have" to rebuild or improve any nation where we fight; if we have enemies, our task is to kill or stop them, and destroy their property and their territory until they stop attacking or threatening us, the way wars are normally fought. Occupation is optional, and merely is a matter of control; we don't have to waste one minute or one dime more than necessary there.

Is that really want current critics want? Now, and also later, after we leave?

Nation building was never part of the original strategy, not should t it have been.

In both wars, nation building wasn't announced as the strategy but I don't see how it wasn't inevitable due to the instability of the region and that it would have been unacceptable to leave a power void.

The sad, cold hard truth is that tidits is right that insurgencies are going to be the rule rather than the exception, and largely that's because we don't have international cooperation in the form of effective and noncorrupt international institutions or alliances to help create regional stability. In the absence of that, nature abhors a vacuum in the political world just as in the physical realm.

CS

"In both wars, nation building wasn't announced as the strategy but I don't see how it wasn't inevitable due to the instability of the region and that it would have been unacceptable to leave a power void."

Fair enough, but the US is never been good at that. We pick exiles to rule and never look to make sure they're not corrupt. Remember, Bush was in negotiations with the Taliban prior to 9/11 to get a pipeline laid across their country. After 9/11 and out attack in Afghanistan, that pipeline was the only thing done there in terms of infrastructure improvement.

The current system of government there is funded by the US government and Opium poppies. As I said earlier, poppy production is 30% higher than prior to 9/11 and only about 3% of the trade is carried on by the Taliban. Who do you think the other 97% is?

Karzai's Brother On C.I.A. Payroll: NYT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/27/karzai...

To quote a pertinent snippet:
"The CIA's ties to Karzai, who is a suspected player in the country's illegal opium trade, have created deep divisions within the Obama administration, the Times said."

Backing Karzai is backing the same kind of thugs with the same CIA connections we had in Viet Nam.

If you really want nation building, don't build it on opium. The problem is no one, even the CIA, doesn't want to kill that golden goose. The Taliban are narrow-minded religious zealots who think women are low grade property, but they also tend to enforce some form of medieval form of government. Compare that to the last election we supported, 30% fraud and 3 cents of every dollar sent to rebuild Afghanistan actually reaches people who need help.

What kind of nation do you want to build? 1920's Chicago?

DLS

"Is that really want current critics want? Now, and also later, after we leave?"

The only thing improved by us so far is the opium trade. Tell how you want to nation build this place.

CS - "In both wars, nation building wasn't announced as the strategy but I don't see how it wasn't inevitable due to the instability of the region and that it would have been unacceptable to leave a power void."

Please provide a step-by-step strategy for building Afghanistan into a governable nation. Please include financial and personnel costs as well as a time frame. Please add what quantifiable measures we will use to determine when a nation to our liking has been built as well as when and under what circumstances we will leave, and upon what benchmarks we will rely, if our attempt is not fruitful (keeping in mind that we have been there for eight years so far without accomplishing that objective).

Thank you.

Sarcastic, yes. Sorry. But, also true. Equally sorry. Afghanistan has deteriorated even with us there. No matter when we leave, the old ways will return. How much blood and treasure are we, or should we, be prepared to give to forestall the inevitable.

Same with Iraq. Within a few years of our leaving, Sunni and Shiite will be at each others' throats, and the Kurds will be demanding independence as a separate nation. All of that will lead to internal civil war, or fractious and violent internal strife. Turkey and Iran will use the excuse of Kurdish calls for independence to regionalize the battle and expand their influence. Iran in particular, which has already capitalized on our presence to expand its regional influence.

Forestalling the inevitable does not strike me as a viable goal. Maybe our fundamental difference is simply that you believe these nations can be "built" as we would like and I do not.

My not very objective analysis would be that hope is on your side and history on mine. :-)

Hey, Kathy...

"Iraq invasion before it happened will say now that It may have been a mistake to go in there without a plan"

We did have a plan for Iraq, Kathy. It did not predict, however, the flood of insurgents coming in from all over the middle east - to use it as a battleground - not originally, anyway. But that's what happened. We created a void after Saddam. We worked hard to fill it, but it was way bigger than we could do quickly. The surge fixed that problem.

In Afghanistan, it's a whole other animal. We cannot directly compare this to any other war - not even to the USSR occupation. Many of the same issues remain - opium empowered warlords, etc. But the USSR did not have the Pakistan border contention, nor did they have Iran as an enemy to deal with. This war is different.

This is the exact reason I can empathize with President Obama. This needs to be done RIGHT. I'm glad he's taking his time. I just pray he makes the CORRECT decision. If he doesn't, after having taken the time (potentially costing lives), he'll never live it down. This could be the one albatross around his neck.
I hope not. I'll continue to pray for widsom for the President.

What kind of nation do you want to build? 1920's Chicago?

To be clear, I don't personally want us to be nationbuilding at all- I just don't know what the alternative is.

My discussion of it here as the default strategy are more along the lines of pointing out to the critics of nationbuilding that you can't just say we shouldn't be doing it without offering your thoughts on the alternative.

My last comment applies here as well, tidbits.

Your view is that nationbuilding won't work and nothing else will either and we just have to accept that. Me, I don't understand why Obama looked at the possibilities of regional diplomacy in March and thought there was a possibility there but now has seemingly changed his mind. If I saw more evidence that they had been working at it and not getting results, I might be persuaded that they gave it a shot and now it is time to give it up, but to me it looks as though domestic political concerns are influencing him too much.

"No, we don't "have" to rebuild or improve any nation where we fight; if we have enemies, our task is to kill or stop them, and destroy their property and their territory until they stop attacking or threatening us, the way wars are normally fought. Occupation is optional, and merely is a matter of control; we don't have to waste one minute or one dime more than necessary there."

Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 disagrees with you. Since we ratified it we are stuck with it. Articles 47-78 in case you wanted to look

BTW, I'm not as pessimistic as you are about Iraq and that probably influences our thoughts on what might or might not be possible in Afghanistan. I'm wondering if you've seen this (I'm guessing not, since no one talks about Iraq anymore.)

It doesn't prove that the Kurdish question won't cause things to blow up as you suggest, but it's a move much farther in the direction of unity than anyone would have thought possible a couple of years ago.

CS

"My discussion of it here as the default strategy are more along the lines of pointing out to the critics of nationbuilding that you can't just say we shouldn't be doing it without offering your thoughts on the alternative."

And as I said in my first comment, let a smart man take all te time he needs to figure out how to solve an impossible problem.

"The only thing improved by us so far is the opium trade. Tell how you want to nation build this place."

I'm not saying I want to "nation-build" Afghanistan. But what to do? Pacify and hopefully improve or assist it, with a deliberate choice of general and implied-limiting language, is my answer. Consider the case with Iraq. We failed to "win the peace" (the occupation and reconstruction and advance of state of development) in Iraq, and were criticized for that widely, in addition to failing to pacify it in the manner of a conventional occupation (or in the post-World War II examples in Germany and in Japan, especially).
Note that the criticism is so broad and deep, that despite the falsity of it, such objectives are implied as obligatory. I say, then, we ought to satisfy ourselves with being realistic. First and foremost, pacify the nation, then do our best not to leave a power vacuum (what we feared we would leave in Iraq during the early 1990s if we had replaced Hussin then, and what we ended up doing in Iraq earlier in this decade).

We agree that the Obama administration has done us no favors on the situation in Afghanistan to date. The same could be said of the Bush administration before. But, as you said earlier, to paraphrase, the situation is what it is.

I will read your link from the other comment & get back to you after I have had a chance to see what it says.

"Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949"

OK, "necessary" is expanded more than it would have to be otherwise, be, in theory; you're right.

"you can't just say we shouldn't be doing it without offering your thoughts on the alternative"

I'd concentrate on other details. To name one, securing and sealing that border with Pakistan.

OK, I have to sign off now and may not have much time tomorrow, but I'll check back if I can.

CS - Believe it or not <he said in utter astonishment> I actually was aware of the information provided in your link.

My time frame for the diintegration of Iraq is three years after we "leave" on the Sunni/Shiite issue and five years on the Kurdish issue. The report about parliamentary elections is, my pessimistic view, interesting window dressing. Neither Iran nor the Shiite majority will allow real power to fall into the hands of the Sunni once we are out of the way.

I truly hope you are right and that I turn out to be completely wrong headed, but history is the best teacher, and these folks have been hating on each for hundreds of years.