Bringing Afghanistan Home
Pre-game coverage of the President’s speech at West Point tomorrow night is on track as White House spinners emphasize that he will “give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”
Translated, this means that a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is, to a place thousands of miles from home where they will kill people they don’t know and where unknown others will be trying to kill them.
A gifted orator, the President will try to explain what lies behind the polysyllables of “deployment,” “security” and “multinational strategy” and show that what some are calling “Obama’s Surge” is part of “a necessary war” on behalf of us all.
He won’t succeed. How could he? How could anyone? Except for those who are lost in some ideological wasteland, the President will be talking to and about thousands of sovereign souls, each humanly connected to many others, who will never be the same again after he says those words and signs orders to carry them out.
Before the Obama address, we should hear a voice that speaks for them as does Erik Malmstrom, a 29-year-old graduate student who went to Afghanistan three years ago after volunteering for service in 2002 “out of a sense of civic duty,” “attracted to the challenge of serving in wartime and leading men in combat.”
He came back after surviving roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and confusing fire fights that led to the sudden and inexplicable deaths of comrades in arms. After returning, he crisscrossed the country visiting the families of the fallen to deliver memorial plaques signed by survivors, stand at gravesides, leaf through albums of childhood photos and watch lighthearted home movies.
“I spent much of the time sobbing uncontrollably,” Erik Malmstrom recalls…
9 Responses to “Bringing Afghanistan Home”
With all due respect, I would not call the discussion and debate before the president's address to the nation on sending more of our young men and women to Afghanistan,” pre-game coverage.”
You, yourself, aptly describe the seriousness of the issue.
Just a comment…
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Good point DE.
And yet he has let the cat out of the bag hasn't he? If Obama wasn't sending more troops, this article by the same author would be about how horrible that decision was and how it would cost lives too.
So yes, “pre-game” is exactly the accurate term, even if politically incorrect..
And that contention is based on what exactly?? I don't recall seeing Stein waffling on this issue.
“So yes, “pre-game” is exactly the accurate term, even if politically incorrect..”
Reading Stein's post in context, I know that he doesn't intend to make light of the debate about the war in Afghanistan. I just find it an unfortunate choice of words.
On the other hand, Silhouette, I strongly disagree with your “game” insinuation. Discussing, debating, even strongly disagreeing with decisions about war and peace, about sending more Americans into harm's way is absolutely NOT a game, and not even “politically incorrect” it is offensive.
Uh yeah well…I was pointing that out in the author's choice of words, not my own. I was making a point about how he trivialized the issue and then went on to sob great tears of “woe” about it.
Nice spin though saying I am the one calloused pointing it out as a “game” [on behalf of another]. Gotta give credit where it's due..lol..
By the way, since Robert Stein is a WWII vet, I think it's a pretty safe bet that he wasn't making light of it.
We're not reading much about Iraq these days. Why is that? Could it be that the surge, advocated by Senator McCain, has been largely a success? To write about Iraq would be to credit former President Bush with a good decision, with cleaning up his own mess. Let's at least give him that much, whatever his many other failings. As for President Obama, the man is growing on me. He's as flawed as I am! No good choices in this situation, I'm afraid. Yes, many more will die. The meaning of those sacrifices will be what we attribute to them.
These are not drafted soldiers, but volunteers. Many enlisted because of the events of 9/11/01. They are there rooting out the very terrorist groups that attacked us on that day, killing 3,000 Americans and a good number of citizens from a handful of other countries. In place of those radical groups, the objective is to leave a stable government that is better than what they had before, that respects the rights of women and is non-oppressive of its people. That's the goal. That's not so hard to understand, is it, Mr. Stein? President Obama should repeat it every day, as should those around him. It's a worthy goal, and it's an achievable goal. I pray for my President, I pray for our troops in harm's way, and I pray for the Afghani people.
“a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is”
Would that make anybody older than Obama less qualified, then? Cheney? Biden?