If the rumors are correct, Barack Obama is refusing to simply double down in Afghanistan, instead demanding that timelines address concrete plans for withdrawal. This seems to signal that he's planning to get out of there sooner rather than later.
I don't know whether this is the correct decision, either strategically or morally. After running military operations in their country for eight years, I think we have an obligation to help the Afghanis build a functioning and relatively secure state, as long as such a thing is possible. But I don't know whether it is possible. I'll leave that commentary to the experts.
However, I do think that Barack Obama has to be congratulated on two things: courage, and a willingness to accept that there are sunk costs. Assuming that this war isn't winnable, the easiest thing politically would have been to send more troops into Afghanistan, some to be killed, some to kill innocent Afghan civilians. Just let the thing drag on at the edge of the national consciousness, and hope for a miracle, or leave a mess for your successor. It might have cost him in the future, as the death toll mounted, but the death toll in Afghanistan has been relatively low, and he needs political capital now, when he's trying to push through the most ambitious parts of his platform.
The other thing he's done is avoid the sunk costs fallacy. This is the economist's term for "throwing good money after bad", and as anyone who's ever worked at a big corporation knows, it's a really common way to do yourself, and others, a lot of damage. The bigger the initial investment, the more tempting it is to double down in an attempt to "salvage" the money you've already put in.
The problem is, whatever you've already sunk into the project is gone. Whether that project is a war or a new drug you're researching, you should be looking forward, not back. If the project's returns justify what you'd need to address, it makes sense; otherwise, you should drop it, no matter how much you've already lost.
That's very hard for most people to do, so I respect the fact that Barack Obama seems to be willing go there. He may be wrong about the war's winnability. But he's thinking about the problem the right way.
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I vote that way too. I can't stand the way Obama handles most foreign policy, apologizing to everyone, antagonizing our friends, and flattering our enemies. But if he can complete the reversal of our biggest mistake in the last two decades, more power to him. President Bush and the Republican and the Democrats and everyone reacted to 9/11 by treating it as an existential threat. We threw trillions of dollars at it, because we thought we were in WWII.
By now we can see that we aren't, and we should back it off. We aren't going to fix Afghanistan, not unless we're planning to be there for 25 more years.
By the way, I think Obama did the right thing about Georgia also, though he caught hell for it. We should not be dealing with Russia today as if it is the Soviet Union. It is an obnoxious big European country run by thugs, but it is no longer an existential threat to America or the world. We should deal with it like all the other gangs of thugs running around in the world.
You sound so certain the Sears Tower or Empire State building wouldn't have come down next if it wasn't for our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I'm not so certain.
While the wars have costed a lot, I think the horrific and high costs will turn out to have been "worth it".
A rational person could posit that invading Afghanistan and subsequently driving out the Taliban and Al Qaeda prevented an attack against the Sear Towers or Empire State State building. However, there is no reason to believe the same about Iraq. Iraq was not involved with 9/11 nor was it a home to Islamic extremism. To suggest otherwise, is a lot things, most notably, idiotic.
samX - "... the horrific and high costs will turn out to have been "worth it"."
Well said.
Regarding MikeR - "But if he can complete the reversal of our biggest mistake in the last two decades, more power to him."
IMHO, The biggest mistake is allowing the Iranians to progress
this far to a nuclear weapon. But from his comments, I am guessing that MikeR does not mind if Ahmadinejad completes that task.
Gulp. Angst, I would mind very very much, and I was very much in favor of stopping them. I consider them a dreadful threat, since their leadership seems to be crazy.
However, I don't really think they can be stopped. Or maybe they could be by a concerted bombing attack couple with a full blockade by the US - which isn't going to happen. I don't believe there's a thing Israel can do, however people talk.
Now, all I do is pray that the Iranian leaders, contrary to all expectation, turn out to have some sense.
MikeR - "However, I don't really think they can be stopped..."
In that case, might I suggest:
1) Converting to Islam
2) Moving to South America
3) Converting to Islam.
Angst, don't know how old you are, but I grew up in the shadow of the Soviet Union. I didn't become a Communist, and I don't think I'll become a Muslim.
I am 62.
What do you mean by existential threat? Russia still has nukes, and is arguably run today by people more likely to use them than the people who ran it in the 80s.
And Megan - thinking "economically" is in many cases just thinking rationally. But comparing lives to money isn't obviously one of those cases. Money is just material stuff - it is ok to use it, that is what it is for. But we may not use people. Talking about lives lost as a sunk cost at least verges on doing this. Part of my reason for writing this is to see if someone knows a good reason why it is not.
John 4, lots of countries have nukes. I don't like it, but there you are. The old Soviet Union was something different. We were fighting an attempt to take over the world, and they were pretty good at it too. They had nothing like our industry, but something like 50% of their GDP went into weapons and weapons development. America's strategy against them was containment till they collapsed, and it was ultimately successful.
When I was young, we were all taught (and I believed) that what I just wrote was paranoia from the military types. But now that Soviet records are available, it's no secret.
"Talking about lives lost as a sunk cost". You're making a good point:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view414.html#Fury
"Beware the fury of the legions." I think the army, once sent, has some rights that they should feel that they had a chance to finish what they started. Has to be taken into account. Certainly it was important to my thinking about the Surge in Iraq.
"What do you mean by existential threat? Russia still has nukes, and is arguably run today by people more likely to use them than the people who ran it in the 80s."
I am soooo over all the people bringing up supposedly MORE existential threats hither and thither as an excuse to do *nothing*.
Other than Israel, what friends has Obama antagonized? China may have some problems with some of his trade decisions, but I don't think it's that big a deal and basically the US/China relationship is on a pretty good footing right now. I guess some people would say he antagonized Poland, but frankly, who cares?
Well, he's gone pretty far out of his way to piss off England, Colombia and Honduras. Though I don't know if that last counts as a "friend" per se.
England, France, Poland, the Czech Republic and by extension most of Eastern Europe.
The more telling bit is that he pissed them off in order to appease Russia, who promptly sodomized him without benefit of lubrication on the issue of providing nuclear support to Iran.
Oh, and it looks like he's getting us into a trade war with China, but I don't know if you count them as allies.
Does "Don't get a land war in Asia" apply to trade wars as well?
No appeasement involved, just a reversal of a dumb unnecessary policy. The missiles in Eastern Europe were well up there on the hit parade of Bush Administration dopey ideas - not following through with it was a smart move. As I said originally, the "trade war" with China stuff is way overblown and basically we have a good relationship with China. The Commerce Secretary is somebody with long China ties and of course our Ambassador is a Republican superstar with lots of credibility with the Chinese. Hopefully, the goal of all of this is to extend the close US/China economic relationship into the political and military spheres, which I think is starting to happen. BTW, I don't criticize Bush on China - generally speaking, his diplomacy with China was pretty good. Could have been better, but at least unlike most of Bush's diplomacy, it was not disastrously bad.
I don't know what Obama supposedly did to piss off England or France. There was a kerfuffle about the Churchill bust, but I kind of got a chuckle at seeing a US President who didn't want to genuflect at the shrine of that overrated imperialist fart [deliberately provocative comment].
SA:
Of COURSE it was appeasement, otherwise why announce it on the anniversary of Stalin's invasion of Poland, why announce it to the SURPRISE of the two countries slated to receive these systems, why do it when "The Bear" is trying to "awaken" and retake it's former empire?
And why be so utterly shocked when Ms. Clinton comes back from Russia empty handed and unable to sit down for a week.
And if our ties with China are currently so wonderful, why are they taking us to Trade Court? I realize this could just be internal politics on both sides, but still.
Obama hasn't done anything to piss France off, other than be more of a wimp than they are. Which is saying something.
What he did to England (at least publically) was to return the Churchill bust, and give some rather shoddy gifts that were either deliberately insulting, or so poorly thought out as to be insulting (region 1 encoded DVDs apparently purchased at Walmart etc.).
He's treated our allies like barely tolerated relatives, and treated our enemies like long lost siblings. Given the nature of the two sets this is either complete irrational, or very suspect.
1. The claim about the timing of the missile defense announcement is a bit of a canard. The story was leaked to the Wall Street Journal, apparently by somebody in the government who disagreed with the decision. The intention had been to advise the Eastern European governments privately and then announce the decision publicly the following week. Once it appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Obama Administration went public. The decision was strongly supported by Bob Gates, hardly some pinko weakling. Again, the decision was not made for use as a bargaining chip Russia; the decision was made because it was the right decision.
2. The US currently has 200 disputes pending before the World Trade Organization, 97 brought by the US and 103 brought against the US. Of those, only 5 were brought by China. Not much of a trade war. That's how free trade works. It's not anarchy, it's the rule of law. Countries enter into trade agreements, and when there are disputes as to whether there has been a violation, you take it to the WTO, where you win some and you lose some.
3. Instead of just repeating everything that Limbaugh or Hannity says, you might try thinking occasionally. It really is a lot more interesting.
It’s now taken longer for Barack Obama to evaluate General McChrystal’s plan than it took George W. Bush to overthrow the Taliban after the September 11 attacks. From The Decider to The Ditherer:
Uh huh, good luck with that. Unlike Iraq, the Afghan government doesn’t have tens of billions in oil money to prop up its security forces or anything resembling an educated middle class, and the main source of revenue for Afghans is still, stupidly, only permitted by our enemies.
SamX,
I think Den Beste said it best:
"It’s now taken longer for Barack Obama to evaluate General McChrystal’s plan than it took George W. Bush to overthrow the Taliban after the September 11 attacks".
Isn't that exactly the point? Eight years later and the Taliban is still around, al Qaeda and Bin Laden are still around, and Afghanistan is not in much better shape than it was in 2001. Isn't it better to think before you act, so that what you do has some possibility of actually achieving your goals?
I think it was good to go wipe out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Maybe in Iraq too; though the evildoers there weren't involved in 9/11, I don't think the world will miss them.
It's the nation-building stuff that cost so much. I hope it succeeds in Iraq, but I'm no longer betting on it. And I don't know that it has much to do with protecting our buildings. I think we got sidetracked by a beautiful vision of freedom flowering in the Arab world.
Iraq has had four major elections since the beginning of 2005, and they are about to have another. In the last election,ever party that billed itself as religious lost ground. Every party that billed itself as patriotic gained. The current government helped crush Sunni Al-Qaeda in Iraq and led the way in crushing the Shi'a Mahdi Army. I don't know what you want to see before you will think the Iraqi government is worth betting on.
Iraq will become more free when the status quo of the countries on its border are not tyrannies -- and but if Iraq fails, there's no hope for those others. Afghanistan will improve as Pakistan improves. But if Afghanistan fails, Pakistan will too. We could not turn our backs on Afghanistan in 2001 or Iraq in 2003. We cannot walk away from either of them now. It's an existential issue.
After 9/11 it was politically impossible for the US not to attack anyone found to have supported the terrorists. Once it was clear Talibal-ruled Afghanistan was their main state ally, the US was going there, regardless of who was president. (Obama repeatedly endorsed this during his presidential campaign, calling it a war of necessity; however, I want to address a different issue.)
While it was clear that the US must (and in my view should) respond militarily after 9/11, the course pursued was not necessary. It would have been perfectly legitimate to just go there to break things and kill people, then leave. The only US interest in doing otherwise -- in attempting to build a quasi-functioning state, at hideous expense -- was to potentially clean up a festering mess.
If we (the US) pull out anytime soon, we will have accomplished the worst possible result (except for actually losing, see USSR): we will have alienated a great many Muslims, and betrayed many more; lost thousands of soldiers; killed thousands of non-combatants; spent vast sums of treasure; created a much better trained and organized enemy; and further destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan.
That doesn't mean I know what the answers are. But if Obama doesn't think he knows them, then that's one more bill of goods he sold us a year ago.
It is "festering messes" like Afghanistan that produce the al Qaedas. They are like cockroaches. You can go around stamping on them one at a time but that's not going to solve your roach problem. Ultimately, the only way to get rid of them is to get rid of the garbage dumps in which they breed.
Well, yes, that would be why I said that was the only US interest in going that route. HAVING DONE SO, the question is, what now? Finish the job, or pull out having accomplished the negative aspects of the task but not the positive?
There were NOT Islamist extremist in Iraq. To say so is patently false. Osama bin Laden supported an ANTI Saddam group in Iraq. If we want allies that do not permit Islamic extremism we should have left Saddam in power.
Jeff,
Memos indicate Saddam reached out to OBL. OBL apparently wasn't interested.
Also, Saddam himself went a little extremist after 1991. He had a Koran written in his own blood and broadcast the call to prayer on state TV.
Anyways, you didn't see a lot of AQ attacks in Iraq during Saddam's reign. They weren't best friends but they weren't especially hostile either. They were both Arabs and both Sunni supremacists so it's not that surprising really.
Jeff - "There were NOT Islamist extremist in Iraq."
Agreed. But the question remains - just exactly where do you fight a non-nation entity like Al Qaeda?
IMHO, IRAQ was a three-fer:
1) Saddam was a bad guy - and now he is gone. (From your comments, I'm guessing that you appreciated him, so perhaps you feel that he was not bad. We just have to agree to disagree.)
2) The US presence in IRAQ was a HUGH magnet for the Al Qaeda bad guys (kinda like a roach hotel.) They were recruited, and came by the thousands, bled out on the desert, and never left.
3) We have a seasoned fighting force with proven experience on the ground right next door to the real threat - IRAN. (But maybe you also agree that the the recent elections in IRAN were fair and Ahmadinejad should have a nuclear weapon and was justified in shooting the citizen protesters.)
These are some good points, but I disagree with #3.
As for #1, people forget the amount of disinformation that Saddam was spewing at the time. His ties, or lack of ties, to AQ were very much unknown - but he was in a bind. He was on the record, after having his tail handed to him in the first Gulf War - as being a sworn enemy of the USA.
How could he give the impression that he WASN'T at least aware of these attacks, or that he was making WMD's, or that he was a tough guy? If you don't recall him coming, hat in hand, to the UN and saying "I had nothing to do with this attack, I didn't even know about it, I'm not making WMD's, I know how serious this situation is so - please - inspect away! C'mon in, make yourselves at home..." That's because it never happened.
Congress and the President acted on the best intelligence available. It turned out to be bad intelligence, but it's what we had, and the times were a bit grave if memory serves.
And, yes, Iraq absolutely became a lightning rod for every radical muslim who could get there. That's irrefutable.
As for "seasoning" a fighting force, there's no denying that troops can and do learn things in combat that they don't learn anywhere else, but that doesn't normally take very long. It also doesn't take very long for them to lose their edge and become sloppy. This happens faster in actual combat situations, but even being field deployed will wear a team down, somewhat, after a few months.
Given how rugged Afghanistan is, at this point I'd bet that our troops have lost more effectiveness from being deployed, plus the occassional bout of serious combat, than they have gained by being "battle-hardened."
Max Hastings writes about this. Great books, if you're interested.
TallDave, I'm all for fostering reform. It's the sense of proportion that's at fault here. We're the United States. We run the world, and fix all wrongs. No, we're the United States. We are a super-power in cases of real emergency (=existential threat, =WWII and the Soviet Union), but otherwise we're a republic who should focus on ourselves, not an empire.
Radical Islam is awful, but it is not an existential threat. The Nazis/Japanese and the Soviet Union were nations with warmaking capacity similar to our own. They gave us a run for our money. Radical Islam is pathetic. They are terrorists because they have no real part of the technological world. We need to keep a sense of proportion.
Fair enough. But I think our response has been reasonably proportionate; WW II was a much larger commitment as a percentage of GDP and lives lost, and the resources marshalled against Communism -- Korea, Vietnam and the arms build up in the 1980s -- were similarly larger.
I remember reading a couple years ago that we were actually losing more troops in the early 1980s to accidents than we were losing to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
MikeR - "Radical Islam is awful, but it is not an existential threat."
Please tell that to a wife, husband, father, mother, or child who just buried a loved one in Texas.
Have you no shame?
By that standard driving cars on interstates is an existential threat to the US. More of one, arguably, since car accidents have killed more Americans than all terrorist attacks, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
I'm a little astonished at your comment, since it seems to be a non sequitur. I share the grief of those whose loved ones were murdered in Texas, and I also try to keep my sense of proportion. Awful is not the same as existential threat to our civilization.
existential n. - Of, relating to, or dealing with existence.
So because Americans were killed by Al Qaeda and Hasan that perforce makes radical Islam an existential threat to the U.S.? Faulty strollers have ended the existence of a few American children, so strollers must also pose an existential threat to the U.S. (remember the brilliant citation: existence n.- Of, relating to, or dealing with existence)!
I had heard about how Megan's threads bring teh stupid, but you really have to see it to appreciate it.
Have to agree with Gramsci (the commenter - not the loony Marxist, although I don't know why anyone would select that screen name, unless it is ironic). Amazing to see what hyper-partisan media have done to deteriorate independent thought. As I said in my original comment, however, it is just as bad on the left.
A few thoughts:
1) I'm not sure that, re Afghanistan, there is a reality that is knowable or a perfect decision to be made. Does he really know anything different now than, say, one month ago? Will one more opinion or position paper really make a difference?
Maybe there simply isn't a good choice.
The outcome will hinge much more on Obamas follow-through - his commitment and execution - than on what his specific decision ends up being. Whether he chooses to send more troops, or leave, he will not simply be able to make the perfect choice and then go back to domestic issues.
2) I am not sure his willingness to abandon sunk costs is really from any noble motives - his liberal base would be furious if he doubled down on the troops. It is also because his natural instinct is to split differences, and this has been largely closed off by McChrystals report.
3) There is a cost to delaying the decision. Whether or not Obama is to be congratulated for his deliberation, it is interpreted as hesitation and indecision by many around the world.
Megan seems to have some special insight into our President's thought process that I don't share. I have zero confidence that his calculations on this front involve sunk cost considerations, primarily or secondarily. Perhaps a link to justify this assertion is in order.
Maybe he's dithering to give the enemy time to regroup, rearm and reorganize.
There is nothing in Barack Obama's history, speeches or governing style to suggest that his goal is to win.
His goal appears to be to ensure that we lose.
If "ensure that we lose" means getting the troops out of that money sucking, empire killing pit called Afghanistan and worrying about Pakistan instead, then bring on losing. Bush effed it up good by ignoring the Ghan and concentrating on Iraq because of his daddy issues, and now can go on speaking tours, while the rest of us have to pay for it and watch the military suffer. As Ron Paul says, we marched 'em right in, we can march 'em right out. Let's worry about our own country before "reforming" others. That neocon idea is dying but not fast enough.
The failure of the plan is The Plan.
"Many of Obama’s supporters continue to believe, in spite of constantly mounting evidence to the contrary, that his motives and desires are to better the lot of America, humanity, and Mother Earth. Many of Obama’s detractors continue to believe, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, that Obama is, although malign, a “rational actor;” that his decisions, even though they disagree with them, are arrived at through known and understood political and diplomatic processes."
Those people are wrong. Obama wants to lead us into defeat, because he hates America. Always has.
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/terrorwar/afghanistan_the_failure_t.php
Oh please. If you seriously believe that Obama -- or any other national politician, right or left -- "hates America" or "wants America to lose," you have gone so far off the deep end that nothing you say is worth considering.
Of course, if you believe that, you are immune to rational persuasion anyway, and will view any contrary information as just more evidence of the depth of the conspiracy.
... you are immune to rational persuasion anyway ..."
No. I'm not immune to persuasion. How many times does Barack Obama himself have to tell you that winning is not what he's interested in before you'll believe what he tells you?
"This isn't a football game. So, I'm not interested in victory. I'm interested in resolving the problem." - Barack Obama
Obama believes that there is a solution to "the problem" that does not involve "winning." He has said so himself repeatedly. Here ... watch the video for yourself.
You're living in a fantasy world of your own construct where the plain meaning of the words that come out of the President's own mouth seem to i>escape your notice.
Barack Obama does not want to win the war in Afghanistan. He believes he can "solve the problem" by handing Muslims a victory in Afghanistan to celebrate. That is why he is dithering in Afghanistan. He has no intention of ever winning the war there. Because he's on their side.
He intends to let them win.
He sees that as the "solution" to "the problem" (as his twisted intellect sees it).
Megan - "If the project's returns justify what you'd need to address, it makes sense; otherwise, you should drop it, no matter how much you've already lost."
Three points from a different point of view:
1) On September 12, 2001, should President Bush have just said "Oh well, it was just 3,000 Americans and we should just write off their lives."
2) Was John F. Kennedy wrong when he said "Let every nation know... that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
3) From Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of "The Pentagon's New Map" (published 2004) rule #5 - In recognition of its dual role, the US military should organize itself according to two functions, the "Leviathan" and the "System Administrator."
* Leviathan's purpose is the use of overwhelming force in order to end violence quickly. It will take out governments, defend Core countries, and generally do the deterrence work that the US military has been doing since the end of WWII. The Leviathan force is primarily staffed by young aggressive personnel and is overwhelmingly American.
* The SysAdmin's purpose is to wage peace: peacekeeping, nation building, strengthening weak governments, etc. The SysAdmin force is primarily staffed by older, more experienced personnel, though not entirely (he would put the Marines in SysAdmin as the " Mini-me Leviathan"). The sys Admin force would work best as a Core-wide phenomenon.
"If the project's returns justify what you'd need to address, it makes sense; otherwise, you should drop it, no matter how much you've already lost."
It's just a "project" to them. Freedom isn't worth the "cost." It's diverting too much money from their pet projects such as forcing people to purchase health insurance and carbon credits.
1) The reason why we attacked Afghanistan after 9/11 wasn't mindless vengeance, it was to try to ensure as best we could that it didn't happen again. That's forward-looking.
2) Again, forward-looking.
3) Interesting philosophy, though I question how practical it is.
Alsadius - "3) Interesting philosophy, though I question how practical it is."
To re-introduce the topic, Alsadius is referring to Thomas PM Barnett's book "The Pentagon's New Map." It is a good read.
The focus of the book is how impractical it is (in the global sense) to allow the "Non-Conforming" areas to continue to disrupt the economic well being (as an example - the 9/11 Attack on the US) of the rest of the world.
While I do not take everything that Mr. Barnett says as the gospel, he does provide good insight on terrorism today.
John Quincy Adams: "We are the friends of liberty everywhere, the guardians only of our own." I think we have to recognize our limitations. I wish we could do more, but the rest of the world isn't helping much right now.
So I guess that you feel that after 9/11 we should have just licked our wounds and moved on because "the rest of the world isn't helping much right now."
You my friend, are a true patriot.
That's exactly what we should have done.
Sir Electron,
Thank you for your pitch perfect reply.
I think we should have done what we could to attack Al Qaeda, for instance what we did in Afghanistan initially. Since there was not much more for us to do effectively, we shouldn't have done more.
Full disclosure: I was in favor of invading Iraq, as at the time I thought we were in much more danger. It is in retrospect that I have regrets. And it cost us. I feel that the conservative movement was distracted from everything it could have accomplished when it was in power. Mr. Bush gave his whole presidency to Iraq. Bravely, but I think that it wasn't worth it. Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi are on the verge of breaking this country forever, because we conservatives spent our political capital on Iraq instead of on things like establishing nuclear power or getting rid of the Department of Education.
Now as to you: Why are you attacking me? Are you one of those who thinks that anyone who disagrees with them must be contemptible? Some of us want the US to succeed, but disagree with you on how that is to happen.
1. I don't think Obama has any intention of an immediate withdrawal. But since he knows that wars make or break Presidents, he wants to get it right.
2. Obama doesn't want to look at Vietnam and Iraq for models. They were failures. He wants to look at successes for his models. What are the successes? Gulf War I and the Balkans.
3. What lessons do you gain from the successes? a) Use a lot of force; b) Have a short time-frame for identifiable successes and a clear exit strategy because you know that you have limited patience with the American public; c) Make sure you have solid global support; d) Line up regional players who can help out with the logistics and provide economic and peace-keeping assistance on the post-war.
4. Obama hasn't acted because he doesn't have b through d lined up yet. I suspect it will be on the agenda, however, in Obama's meetings in China. A lot of people don't notice that China shares a border with Afghanistan and al Qaeda has recently made China a target because of its Uyghur policies. Sounds like a country that ought to be very supportive of what we're trying to do in Afghanistan.
5. Obama's level of patience is pretty amazing. My own life experiences tell me that it is an incredibly important character trait and one that is extremely rare.
PS - I really like this blog, even though I'm a Democrat, but the left is getting as annoyingly strident as the right these days, and I'm have trouble putting up with it.
stuart abrams - "5. Obama's level of patience is pretty amazing..."
WOW - I'm trying to think of a single item of REAL importance that Candidate Obama promised that President Obama has actually accomplished.
His level of patience obviously exceeds yours.
Actually, I call it dithering.
Obama doesn't have the luxury of a Gulf War I model where we kill an army and then leave without requiring the dictator to surrender.
We are already at war.. But not with an Afghanistan army driving tanks around the desert (the Gulf War I model). That was an easy war to win. But it's not a model Obama can choose.
We're not fighting a traditional army that has declared war on us. Radical adherents of the religion of Islam have declared war on us. They don't wear uniforms or drive around in marked military vehicles (like in Gulf War I or the Balkans.
God what spineless morons we've put in charge.
There is no "exit strategy" because our enemy has no intention of exiting the battlefield. Where is the battlefield?
Everywhere.
Not to debate your whole comment, but shouldn't Obama at least have 3(b) by now? Since he used it as a major campaign platform starting two years ago, and all?
One of the most truly revolutionary things that Obama ever said was his comment at a press conference that he generally likes to know what he is talking about before he opens his mouth. In today's hyperpartisan atmosphere, this is unheard of. People like Beck, Hannity, Olbermann, etc., rarely show any interest in becoming informed about something before expressing an opinion on it. Obama campaigned generally on a platform that the Afghan War was one of "necessity" and should be pursued more aggressively. You really can't express a view on how to do it with having a lot of detailed information about "facts on the ground." Admittedly, I don't have that, and Obama didn't have that before becoming President. Obama did make the initial troop increase in March, appointed McChrystal I believe in June, McChrystal completed his report in September, and Obama isn't satisfied that it answers all of these points adequately, so he's still refining the program. What's the big deal?
Obama did indeed have access to a vast amount of information about "facts on the ground" even during the primaries; it was all over the place. All you had to do was pick it up. Start with Michael Yon and the other independents, plus the American, British, and other journalists; pick the brains of retired military; etc.
Sure, after you win the election you have access to more information, but you've already laid the groundwork and formed a general notion of the intended course of action. After Nov. 4, though, Obama was fully plugged in. If this was indeed the dramatic priority he insisted it was, he could easily have had a final policy in place by Jan. 20, two and a half months after he won and had unlimited access to the same info Bush did.
Now, it's nearly 10 months later, and he still doesn't know what the hell he wants to do. IT ISN'T THAT COMPLEX. If this was important to him, he could have issued an order on 1/20 as good as any he can make now. If he gives a rat's ass about the outcome in Afghanistan, he should have decided long ago. If he doesn't it's even easier - just pull a choice out of a hat. The only explanation that fits ALL the facts is utter incompetence.
The question is whether Mr. Obama will be more patient than President Carter. Jimmy was still being patient when the 1980 election arrived, for which the voters had patiently waited, so that they could patiently get rid of him.
You won't hear me defending Jimmy Carter - bad President, very bad politician. I rather doubt that he is Obama's role model. Actually, if you injected Obama with truth serum and asked him which President in his lifetime he most admires, I suspect he would say Richard Nixon - cautious, calculating, brilliant, accused of having no guiding principles. If anything, Obama is probably more ruthless - he would never stand behind Haldeman and Ehrlichman the way Nixon did.
Okay, but I'm not sure that I see Gulf War I and the Balkans as being success stories. At least they weren't long-drawn-out. But I think both of them suffered from a total lack of clarity on what exactly we were trying to accomplish, and why.
Actually, we are still in Saudi Arabia and the Balkans.
Nope.
All US troops left Saudi Arabia by September 2003 and were redeployed to Iraq or Qatar. Almost all US troops left Bosnia in November 2004. Almost all of the peacekeeping forces remaining in Bosnia are EU.
Umm...NATO troops (that's us) are still in Bosnia and Macedonia and probably everywhere else.
Good to hear we are entirely out of Saudi Arabia, but that's only because we eliminated the threat they faced from Iraq. We *are* still in Kuwait however.
Please add Japan, Germany, and Korea.
Nobody is dying there. If say 1,000 soldiers a year were dying in those countries, do you think that the American public would tolerate continued occupation? I don't think so. Frankly, there is probably is not much reason for our troops to continue to stay in Germany and Japan. If the governments in those countries asked us to leave, we probably would. The new Japanese government seems to wants us out, and I don't see why we should object. Hopefully, when Dr. Evil dies in North Korea we will see an end to his malignancy and we we can think about leaving there too.
"If say 1,000 soldiers a year were dying in those countries, do you think that the American public would tolerate continued occupation?"
If just after WWII, we were experiencing casualties like that in Germany or Japan, there is absolutely no way we would have pulled out. We would have doubled down with extreme prejudice.
For Christ sakes, we're still in Korea 60 years later.
When will these morons realize we're never leaving Iraq. We're never leaving Afghanistan. Or Korea. Or Japan. Or anywhere else we've shed blood and treasure.
Do you people read history books?
Desert Storm was to get Saddam out of Kuwait, PERIOD. Mission Accomplished.
Yep. That was the mistaken strategy that should not be repeated.
You don't get a dictator out of somewhere ... you merely allow him to regroup, ream and resupply. Which is exactly what Saddam did and what caused Gulf War II.
The Lesson: Don't start a fight you can't, or won't, finish.
Kill the enemy. Dead. Period. Until you hear the lamentations of his women.
The Japan model.
Im pretty sure the reason we did not invade Iraq in 1991 were the same reasons we should not have invaded in 2003. Were you paying attention?
Jeff, you're a moron. We did invade Iraq in 1991.
Here's here are some travel photos taken inside Iraq in 1991.
Gulf War I: Goal - Get Iraq out of Kuwait. Done. You can argue that there should have been a broader objective but there wasn't. Can't say it wasn't a success because it didn't accomplish things (e.g. regime change in Iraq) that it never sought to accomplish.
Balkans: Goals - Stop ethnic cleansing and enable former Yugoslav republics to integrate into Europe. First part done, second part is happening.
Why do it? See references in comment above to Thomas Barnett. US is the only country in the world that has military (i.e. the Leviathan) capable of doing this kind of stuff. If the world is to be made safe for globalization, the US has to do it. But we should do it following some of the parameters I set out above.
It wasn't a success because it didn't accomplish anything and led directly to the second war.
It didn't "lead" to the second war. Saddam Hussein didn't start that war, the US did. You can say that getting rid of him was a good thing, and that's probably true, but I would say that the way we went about doing it was utterly insane. However, you certainly can't say that Saddam Hussein "started" the second war.
Stuart: Actually, it did lead to the second war. There was no casus belli without Saddam's flagrant failure to abide by the terms concluding Gulf War I. Legally, he started GWII. (Not that it matters.)
But I thought this was the good war, the necessary war. Obama said this up to only a few months ago. I'd like him to explain 1) what changed and when 2) which experts say McCrystal et al. are incorrect (and Biden better not make the list of experts) 3) why it took so long to do this review and what information has changed since the last review - as far as I know not one major factor has altered 4) why did he increase troop strength before.
I am really disturbed that he aparrently has his domestic political team involved in most meetings regarding the Afghan theatre. What seems wrong about Megan's hypothesis on Obama is that no facts on the ground are different from when he held his origional position of supporting this war. Not only that, he already put more troops into the theatre since taking office. What has changed since then? It strikes me that he just doesn't want to pay any political capital to win this - not that the relevent experts have new data. That being the case - then I think his origional supporting of this war was merely a useful club with which to beat on Bush. If so, pretty contemptible.
I agree. Megan seems to think he's trying hard to find the right thing to do on the merits; I think it's pure politics. He claimed throughout the campaign, at least two years counting the campaign for the nomination, to know that the right thing on the merits was more troops for this, the real war. What's changed is that that position has done its job of getting him the presidency, so he no longer finds it politically useful.
You're assuming he's a rational actor and wants to defeat our enemies.
That assumption should be questioned first, and then things seem much easier to understand.
I'll go ahead and make a prediction: Barack Obama will never make a decision on Afghanistan for the duration of his one-term presidency. He will constantly find a way to not make a decision - because it's just easier to go play golf.
Megan said: "However, I do think that Barack Obama has to be congratulated on two things: courage, and a willingness to accept that there are sunk costs. Assuming that this war isn't winnable, the easiest thing politically would have been to send more troops into Afghanistan, some to be killed, some to kill innocent Afghan civilians."
1) That's not the easiest political choice for Obama. He doesn't care about his Right flank. He's trying to prevent a collapse on his Left.
2) You don't engage in a war like you do a new drug. You do it because it *has* to be won. (Don't mention Iraq. I think it was necessary and --clearly-- so did GWB.) If Afghanistan is a necessary war --and Obama has repeatedly said it is-- even the use of the word "unwinnable" by the Strategists is suicidal. If you are not winning you figure out how you can. But saying "Maybe we can't win" is a self-fulfilling declaration. At the end of 2006, many people thought Iraq was unwinnable when a major opportunity for victory was already opening up in the Anbar Salvation Council. In other words, it was unwinnable until, oh look, we won.
Interesting definition of won. 3 years later we still have a ton of troops in theater, Iraq still isn't peaceful, we're still spending a ton of money there, and let's not get even into the nation-building benchmarks they were supposed to have achieved.
righties always have a problem with truth/reality. They exist in their little fantasy bubbles.
Um....we still have troops in Germany...and we flat out occupied the country until we got "distracted" by the Korean war.
Beyond some dream of "bringing the troops home" (we're still in the Balkans) what do you want? There have been 4 free national elections since 2005 -- the only for an Arab nation. Al-Qaeda and the former regime elements have become low-grade problems (like the KKK in the 50s) and the government took the lead in crushing the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq. The "bench-marks" were B.S. They were excuses for the Democrats to wave the white flag. Iraq's progress from the days of Saddam is admirable...and Iraq 2006 is only a taste of what it would have been if Saddam's regime were allowed to devolve.
"Um....we still have troops in Germany...and we flat out occupied the country until we got "distracted" by the Korean war."
Not to mention the fact that we are still at war with North Korea and still have troops massed on the border.
It's difficult to debate these children because none of them have been required to read a real history book.
protyase_ "Interesting definition of won. 3 years later we still have a ton of troops in theater"
Actually, yes. Having tens of thousands of US troops on two of Iran's borders is IMHO a VARY good idea.
But then again, perhaps you consider Iran a partner in peace.
I don't think Iran is worth a single US soldier's life or dime of my tax dollars. I'd prefer to abandon the whole area.
I suspect that for a few hundred billion dollars less than war we could have had unbelievably secure US borders and vastly better worldwide intelligence networks to track all the bad actors we could ever care about.
protyase - "I don't think Iran is worth a single US soldier's life or dime of my tax dollars. I'd prefer to abandon the whole area."
May I suggest that you change into your jammies, jump into bed, pull the blankets over your eyes and leave the security of the United States of America to someone else.
Thank You.
There was fighting in Germany years after the formal end of WWII and our nation building spending is a pittance compared to the Marshall Plan. We still have a huge number of soldiers in Germany - so I don't think your criteria mean we lost.
Iraq does not seem to be poised on the brink of total collapse and there is strong progress on things such as the Kirkuk oil fields. This despite folks like Galbraith pushing bad policy on Biden in order to make millions.
Still, I certainly think Iraq could go south - it is very likely to happen if we lose Afghanistan. But, I'd say we would have every chance of solidifying our gains in the country if Obama doesn't screw it up.
I'll probably get killed for saying this, but if we do ever want to get serious about a balanced budget we need to cut military spending (as well as d--n near everything else) and I can't think of a better place to start than removing troops stationed in the middle of the EU.
I'm not a WWII expert, but my understanding is that by 1951 (6 years after the regime fell = 2003-2009 in Iraq) the reconstruction of Germany was way further along. Also, a quick wiki search shows that Marshall was only $13B (=$120B in current dollars), so I would say that we've only spent a pittance. Marshall was all Europe.
I'll just have to respectfully disagree on how much more we should invest on "every chance of solidifying our gains". I don't see that we've acheived much of American value in Iraq, so don't see a point in investing more to protect in. Yes, this is brutally discounting the improvement we've made to the lives of many Iraqis, but that's an argument for unlimited US engagement/empire around the world, which I believe will simply hasten America's humbling not herald its bright future.
Sorry...I would NOT say that we've only spent a pittance. Little word, big meaning.
I'll probably get killed for saying this, but if we do ever want to get serious about a balanced budget we need to cut military spending...and I can't think of a better place to start than removing troops stationed in the middle of the EU."
Fine but you can't say we didn't win WWII because we still have troops in Europe.
I think the domestic politics are such that we are almost never talking about what strategic value Iraq may bring to us. The reasons from the left are pretty obvious as they would not like to hear of anything posative coming from Iraq and are even pretty grudging about admitting what a cesspit Saddam's Iraq was. I think folks on the right are unwilling to talk abotu what building a proto-democracy and allied country in the heart of the ME does for us in a real politic way because it would open them up to charges of empire.
I think the Marshall plan comparison needs to be seen in terms of the size of our economy - what did $13 billion mean in terms of our GDP at the time as compared to $120 billion to our current economy.
On the deficit front - I will say that the good thing about defense spending is that it is much more politically viable to cut. This is true once you get to some sort of stable point in history where defense is not an immediate priority. I don't think we are there compared to say during the Clinton years. I don't think ending the two wars would do as much as adjusting entitlements to a more sustainable track.
You do it because it *has* to be won..
World War II "had" to be won because hitler winning would have created a world we didn't want to live in and because the allies could win by crushing him with our military.
Afghanistan does not "have" to be won because "winning" is very,very hard to define, and because the cost of that "winning" will be huge and will not likely gain us nearly as much as we would like.
As far as Iraq being a "win" -- will we still call it a win 5 years from now, or it will be a trillion dollars and thousands of lives down the drain for very little?
Bush always thought in these simple terms of win an dlose, and that didn't turn out so well.
No point in arguing with bloodthristy neocons.
steve - "Bush always thought in these simple terms of win an dlose, and that didn't turn out so well."
Candidate Obama promised that ALL US troops would be out of Iraq by now. How come they are still there?
Because he was desirous of GWB to lose a war. He's less excited about losing one on his watch.
Wrong. Candidate Obama said that he would withdraw all combat troops in 16 months, which would be May 2010, with a residual force of trainers and advisers amounting to about 50,000 troops. Currently the schedule is to withdraw all combat troops by August 2010 (Obama admittedly missed his goal by 3 months) with a residual force of about 35,000, to be withdrawn by the end of 2011. Latest reports from the Pentagon are that this schedule is still in place.
Your criticism of his unfulfilled promise is perfectly valid, although I don't see the relevance to my statement.
I think that so many of these issues are extremely complex and reducing them to simple binary values is not helpful. This is what I hated so much about Bush's approach, you were either 'for us or against us', and it led to many of the worst decisions of his presidency.
At the very least, I think you would have to agree that Obama is a much more nuanced thinker than Bush. In addition, it is that nuance that he is criticized for. The right criticizes him as an 'apologist' because he accurately describes our mistakes even though he has also made many speeches about the greatness of america.
Consider his speech on race during the campaign -- he accurately described many important factors of race -- and got criticized for it because he described his "typical" white grandpa -- even though she was typical in her racist views and how those views lived along side so many of the values we would all admire.
You can hate Obama's policies or even hate him personally, but at least recognize that his consideration of complex issues is a quality that we do want in a president, and calling it 'dithering' is pretty ridiculous. We have seen the results of a 'no dithering' president.
Of course, there can be negative consequences from a prolonged decision making process, but the quality of the ultimate decision is the most important factor, yes?
At the very least, I think you would have to agree that Obama is a much more nuanced thinker than Bush.
So what? "Nuanced thinking" is a tactic, not a special ability. It doesn't take a genius to do it. But a love of pointless discussion and enjoying the sound of your own voice helps. And from what I've seen of it first-hand, I'm not impressed. I've been in lots of meetings where issues are debated round-and-round in perpetuity because there was no project manager with the brains to say "Enough discussion. What are our requirements? Which ones will be assigned to whom?"
steve - Thanks for your comments.
But a couple of points.
"The right criticizes him as an 'apologist' because he accurately describes our mistakes even though he has also made many speeches about the greatness of america."
Please capitalize America. It really is important to me.
"and got criticized for it because he described his "typical" white grandpa -- even though she was typical in her racist views and how those views lived along side so many of the values we would all admire."
I would never have even tried to describe your world view more clearly.
"Of course, there can be negative consequences from a prolonged decision making process, but the quality of the ultimate decision is the most important factor, yes?"
You assume that "the quality of the ultimate decision" is some static, tangible item. In a war, this has never been the case. More accurately, it is an ever evolving dynamic tension between forces with blood and treasure on the line. Opportunities lost in war time due to lack of response, come home to roost in flag covered coffins.
Either provide additional troops as requested by the general in the field, relieve him of duties, or bring all the troops home. But please, no more American blood without support from our Commander in Chief.
For James GW regarding pointless discussions: I've been in those meetings too, but your analogy doesn't change the fact that perhaps it's best to err on the site of caution when considering the outcomes before you decide to spill more American blood and treasure.
When we went into Iraq, all we heard was how they would greet us as liberators when the evil Saddam was gone. And of course, because Saddam was evil, this all made very good sense. No one questioned this fairy tale -- not the democrats and not the press in any real way (so there is plenty of blame to go around).
But of course, we learn over the following years of horror that there's this huge rift in Iraq between Sunnis and Shia, and oh my god, they really don't get along. Holy crap, now that Saddam is gone, they are killing each other. Who could have predicted that? Maybe a person who actually thought about outcomes a bit more before they started the war.
How many people who supported ousting Saddam would have made the same choice if they had known it would cost 6-8 years of war, a trillion dollars, and all the dead and wounded? We have no idea because that possibility, the real outcome, was never even presented as a remote possibility.
If someone contemplating a war makes an intelligent and honest assessment of the outcomes and still decides to go to war, then fine. Look at Gulf war I - very clear objective, successfully accomplished and not a lot of lying about what was happening -- GB1 didn't remove Saddam because he took smart people's advice when they said "you break it, you buy it". Contrast that with GB2 and his inability to think more than 20 seconds ahead and see what we got.
@Steve,
No. In war, a bad decision now is better than a perfect decision later.
Opportunities are gone in days, and President Obama has dithered for months, for no good reason.
There has been no new information/circumstances in Afghanistan since before President Obama took office.
I believe we are obligated (based on the SOF agreement) to pull out most of our troops from Iraq in the fall of next year.
Germany did not attack our bases in 1942. We went to war against them to help our ally, Great Britain. It was purely a war of "choice" (as all wars ultimately are--the French chose not to fight Germany and was overrun). The government also gave everyone the idea that Germany had *materially* aided Japan in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Since we had to relinquish Eastern Europe to Stalin in order to beat Hitler, I really don't see how your concept of "winning" is applicable to WWII.
In Afghanistan, winning means that it will not become a safe-harbor for Al-Qaeda. I don't know why that's so hard to get your mind around. Obviously, defeating AQ there, means we have to defeat them in Pakistan as well. It's not easy, but it has to be done.
WTF 1? We went to war against them to help our ally, Great Britain. It was purely a war of "choice"
Germany declared war on the US first. The US immediately returned the "favor"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/11/newsid_3532000/3532401.stm
WTF 2? Since we had to relinquish Eastern Europe to Stalin in order to beat Hitler
Stalin needed no inducement to fight Hitler after Germany broke the vonRibbentrop - Molotov pact.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/22/newsid_3526000/3526691.stm
Jody,
1. While Hitler *had* inadvisedly declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, he was in no position to do us damage in 1941. Certainly, the threat from Germany was not sufficient to PUT OFF fighting Japan in order to defeat Germany first. It was, in the words of others, a "war of choice"...an "unnecessary war".
2. The USSR was bleeding fountains in its war with Germany. There was a great concern that Stalin would sue for a separate peace after Hitler's failed assault. Stalin certainly threatened doing just that when he didn't think the US and GB were taking the war to Germany fast enough. Tyrants always fear their own people most of all.
People always say "Germany declared war!" So what? We could have negotiated a separate peace. Just because someone yells "Let's fight!" doesn't mean you have to punch him.
Well, I agree with the complaints. The Democrats used Afghanistan as a club against George W Bush and the Republicans. Successfully. Repulsive. And I don't have to like it. But let's not go to war because of politics.
But we are not going to war - we are already at war. Now the question is, do we win a war or lose a war. The consequences of losing have not been mentioned at all by this president or his administration. Nor mentioned explicitly in Megan's cost benefit "sunk cost" post. I just suspect Obama doesn't have it in him to be a war-time president. He seems so uncomfortable with American power that I cannot see him using it effectively. If so, it was not a good idea for him to have run for the office while we were prosecuting a war.
... And let's look at a few of those costs:
1) telegraph to the world that if you're in a literal or metaphorical war with the United States, the key to winning is to drag it out until a new regime comes in.
2) telegraph to the world that you should not stick your neck out on the basis of American support if you're likely to need that support more than a few months beyond a change in administrations.
3) telegraph to the world that the statements made by serious contenders for the presidency are just campaign crap and that there is no way to make any sort of prediction for how US policy will affect your nation when there is a change in leadership.
I'm very curious where this idea of "Obama being uncomfortable with American Power" came from? It seems to say there is some evidence that the guy is a pussy and I'm eager to hear what that evidence is.
You can look at someone's behavior and question the wisdom of their judgment, but attributing decisions to some kind of hidden flaw seems wrong.
I though Bush was a terrible president with regards to foreign policy, but I didn't question his motives -- he was trying to do the right thing even if his judgment was wrong. I don't understand why so many people will not give Obama the same benefit of the doubt - they will say he is trying to lose or imply that he is some kind of coward...
Not coward. I think he views morality through a prism of power dynamics and automatically sees the weaker party as the likely moral superior. I think he sees America's super power status as a sign of moral turpitude. Hence his constant apologizing for the USA and promises of redemption through his assumption of office. For evidence I submit things like: avoiding the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin wall; his frmaing of our history in major speeches; his U.N. appearance speech for example; the historical slant of his advisors - all of it leaves me with the impression that he thinks the use of American power has been almost universally bad. He is, as I said, deeply uncomfortable with American power.
"I don't understand why so many people will not give Obama the same benefit of the doubt" - steve, are you not aware that there were more than a few people who didn't give Bush the benefit of the doubt? How is it relevant that you did?
Miker: Bush was president for 8 years. He made lots of mistakes in his first term, but was still re-elected. He got the benefit of the doubt for a long time until many conservatives got sick of his incompetence, and yes,by then most liberals hated his guts. Obama was reviled/mistrusted form the very start by a lot of people before he even did anything that wasn't incredibly obvious to do. He got tagged as a socialist/communist/fascist for trying to 'take over' the banks despite the fact that he was continuing a Bush policy that was recommended by a majority of economists to avoid complete collapse of the economy.
Sure there were people who didn't give Bush the benefit of the doubt, but it seems they didn't start so early and with such venom with so little evidence as so many have with Obama. Maybe that is due to circumstances being so dire now, so we can't be sure of all the causes (i.e. whoever was president may have been blamed so much).
Bush was a much more bi-partisan person and had a history of working across the aisle. NCLB with Kennedy was one of his first deals in office.
I think the socialist thing got hung on Obama not just because of TARP and the banks. It was GM and Chrysler and how he handled the bondholders versus the UAW. Then he spent months in what can be reasonably seen as an attempt to begin nationalizing the healthcare system. His rhetoric during all of this was larded with lots of class resentment and class warfare stuff. He has villified the haves in this society pretty thoroughly and pretty unfairly. Are doctors really just about cutting off legs to make a buck? Do insurance companies only make a profit through defrauding their customers?
Then we have his associations with Marxist wackjobs like his pastor and early political cronies and you start off in a place where he needed to work harder to show he wasn't a left wing statist/corporatist or closet socialist.
I'd actually ask you what actions he has taken - even rhetorically that makes one think he believes in markets and respects players in those markets. By rhetorical I don't mean vague assertions that he believes in the free market. When has he verbally hit an ally or actually defended someone he is not politically aligned with? When has he spent political capital to support the private sector at the expense of the public sector?
You cannot try and ram a quasi-socialist health care system into place without debate and not get such a title rightfully hung on you. Obama is not a bi-partisan politician in thought, or deed, and he is only one in word in the most ambiguous sense.
"But let's not go to war because of politics."
Hahahaha.
This comment so encapsulates everything about the moronic children we have now running the country.
They think war isn't about politics.
If Obama can make the right decision and withdraw ground troops, he will have made the correct decision. It is not possible to create a stable government in Afghanistan that isn't a brutal dictatorship. This was always the flaw in strategy pursued by Bush, and one I think will be proven in Iraq, too, within the decade.
However, I will wait for Obama's decision before I congratulate him for his "courage". From what I have seen, he has displayed absolutely none to date on this issue. He is trying desperately to find a way out of a box he created himself when he uttered the nonsense about how Afghanistan was the good war while Iraq was the bad one. He is no better than all the other Democrats that voted to authorize the Iraq war while turning around after the invasion and criticizing it. I am guessing that Hillary Clinton is probably smiling to herself, just a little, over all the contortions Obama is putting himself through today.
And yet Rethuglicans support the A-Stan war 66%. Totally out of touch with reality or decency or anything.
It was entirely possible to support military action in Afghanistan without endorsing the course of action that's been taken. I always thought it made more sense to send bombers and a few divisions over to break a lot of things, then come home; there was zero reason to believe we could really reform the place. There are sound reasons for reflexive hostility to nation-building, and Afghanistan is shaping up as Example A.
Yeah - the Rubble Ain't No Trouble crowd never really got organized to promote their view. I sometimes wonder if the peace movement makes ongoing nation building style war much more likely. It is hard for a president to advocate just bombing the heck out of a place and leaving the civillian population to clean up as best they can afterwards.
Stuart Abrams - I am not so sure about your #1 and #3. Getting it right is as much about commitment and flexibility as it is up-front planning and decision making. This won't be a set-piece battle. I think the model for success may be more like Lincoln and Churchill - who combined a clear vision and stubborn willingness to see things through with flexibility and adaptability.
What I have seen from the Obama White House regarding execution and follow-through on other things so far does not augur well.
Not comparable. Lincoln and Churchill both dealt with what were essentially existential conflicts. Both also involved conflicts that were of shorter duration than the Afghan war has been already - the Civil War done in less than half the time we have already spent in Afghanistan. Obama is a politician (not a bad word, it's how things get done in a democracy, Lincoln was a politician too) and he knows that the American public has limited patience for a foreign war. Still, I think he does recognize the importance of the Afghan war. So you have to do it in a way that avoids the label "quagmire". Obama's not dumping McChrystal - he appointed the guy - but he's not convinced that his plans avoid the the quagmire danger. A reasonable caution. I suspect from the tone of your comments that you did not vote for Obama, so I suspect that you are not inclined to find that anything he does augurs well.
Wait - are you saying that Obama is committed to victory but in order to appease war fatigue and his left he needs to show that he is willing to give up and walk away? That this will give him the political space to succesfully prosecute the war? If so I really disagree with your his analysis of how you succesfully manage a war. How does this do anything but foment quagmire and defeat?
Define "victory".
In Afghanistan, winning means that it will not become a safe-harbor for Al-Qaeda. I don't know why that's so hard to get your mind around. Obviously, defeating AQ there, means we have to defeat them in Pakistan as well. It's not easy, but it has to be done.
Obviously, defeating AQ there, means we have to defeat them in Pakistan as well
And what is the maxmimum cost you are willing to pay for this "win"? Or is it infinite? Does that make sense?
More importantly, does AQ need a "safe harbor" to attack us again? It's hard to imagine exterminating AQ completely, especially since our actions may (hard to know for sure) be only increasing their numbers -- we kill some on the battlefield but our actions recruit even more to their cause.
And what is the maxmimum cost you are willing to pay for this "win"? Or is it infinite? Does that make sense?
When the cost of funding the Afghanistan project becomes in-and-of-itself an existential threat, then the 'cost' of a "necessary" war goal becomes an issue. Otherwise, it is irrelevant. We went to war against the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda military because failing to do so meant repeated 9-11s into perpetuity...with biological and atomic attacks being inevitable. We have to win so we have to win. Why whine about it?
There are plenty of other spending our representatives authorize that could stand cutting before we stop putting the Sunni Takfiri on the run wherever we find them.
Saying that "winning means that it will not become a safe-harbor for Al-Qaeda" is too amorphous. That may well be the ultimate goal, but it is achievable only if we have a political change in Afghanistan, not just a military intervention. We need to define the military objective more carefully, otherwise you run the risk of drifting off into a quagmire.
"That may well be the ultimate goal, but it is achievable only if we have a political change in Afghanistan"
Well, that would make it easier; so would political change in Pakistan. So would a rejection of Islamic chauvanism in the Middle East. But if we have to win then we have to accomplish that or do something else. And we *could* do something else. The Sunnis ruled Iraq for centuries even thought they were outnumbered. We could ally with the non-Pashtuns to marginalize the Taliban and break them. But we will never beat them if our leaders keep sending signals that the Taliban can't be beat.
If we have to win (as Pres Obama said we must) then we have to win, and we better start planning to do that.
I think the bigger problem is that we've ceded the soource of 90% of Afghanistan's income to the enemy.
We can have a War on Drugs or a War on Terror. Pick one.
"We went to war against the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda military because failing to do so meant repeated 9-11s into perpetuity...with biological and atomic attacks being inevitable. We have to win so we have to win. Why whine about it?" I guess this is our fundamental point of disagreement. I just don't think that your threat assessment is at all right.
Tall dave's point is essential -- why does our strategy not involve the drug problem and it's effects on funding our enemies?
We went to war against the Taliban and their Al-Qaeda military because failing to do so meant repeated 9-11s into perpetuity...with biological and atomic attacks being inevitable.
Then why aren't we now at war with Iran,and North Korea. NK has nukes and a crazy leader -- so nuclear war with them is 'inevitable' as is Iran. Both of those nations may pose an existential threat.
Would all the freedom-loving, nation-building, chest-thumping patriots here like to pay higher taxes to finance this little escapade? Freedom isn't free, right?
Not comparable. Lincoln and Churchill both dealt with what were essentially existential conflicts.
If that isn't true here, then the decision is rather obvious, isn't it?
My point about Lincoln and Churchill was not about the wars they were in, but rather, their character. If Obama decides to really get into Afghanistan, he is going to have to display a similar level of commitment. Lincoln, especially, was not universally supported - he was criticized mercilessly, in fact. But he stuck to his guns.
I suspect from the tone of your comments that you did not vote for Obama, so I suspect that you are not inclined to find that anything he does augurs well.
A little snide perhaps? Whether I voted for him or not, I don't wish him to fail - as I am along for the ride.
Not germane to your point about commitment and guts but I also think Stuart is incorrect when he claims that the war with Islamic terrorists is not an existential one. Certainly, it is one from our enemies perspective. They may not seem close to achieving their goals today but it certainly is their intention. "Death to the Great Satan" is a pretty fair statement of actual intent.
Furthermore, if you look at their progress on any kind of longer time-scale they are doing pretty well. Look at how many countries they control since the 1970s and they are certainly expanding. One wonders what they may think is possible if they succeed in driving us from Afghanistan.
I think it's a mistake to view groups like al Qaeda as posing an "existential threat" to the US. Don't get me wrong - they are hateful, bloodthirsty folks who want to do as much damage to us as they possibly can. But ultimately, the amount of damage they can actually do is pretty limited. I really have little doubt that we will defeat them, and if we don't, somebody else will, like the Chinese. In fact, I have no doubt at all that the Chinese will be involved in defeating Islamist terrorists, hopefully, in conjunction with us. What is your basis for saying that Islamists are "doing pretty well" and are expanding the number of countries they control? I can't think of any countries they control. A lot of people would say Iran, but that's baloney. Indeed, Iran and al Qaeda are bitter enemies, and if we play our cards right, Iran will be our ally in Afghanistan (it already is, to some extent).
Bah. The Chinese can't even take Taiwan.
They're a paper dragon.
Nonsense. A "similar level of commitment" to the Civil War or London during the Blitz? Please. The Afghan War clearly is not an "existential conflict" for the US. I think it is very important (not sure I would have used Obama's word "necessity") and I think it would be very, very bad if we pulled out, and I think that Obama thinks that too. However, it really isn't comparable to what Lincoln and Churchill were dealing with. We could pull out - I don't think we should and I hope we don't - and the US would survive. Again, we have paradigms for how to fight these kinds of wars - the Balkans and Gulf War I are successful examples. You can argue that Iraq post-2006 is another example, but I'm not sure yet. We still haven't succeeded in internationalizing the Iraq War, and that's because Bush's diplomacy was so bad. Hopefully Obama's diplomacy is a little bit better and we can succeed in regionalizing the Afghan conflict. As I said above, I find the timing of his trip to China very interesting, and encouraging.
Necessity does not refer to force disparity. I don't think that Osama Bin Laden compares poorly to Hitler in terms of commitment to reshape the world in the service of an evil ideology - he just doesn't have as much power. The fact that AQ is weaker in comparison does not mean we can choose to not have them try and kill our citizens and allies.
I am not sure what you mean in terms of using the Balkans or Gulf War one as models of how we succesfully prosecute the Afghan war.
Bush managed to get more countries contributing forces for Iraq than any other military engagement in all of history. We got as many foriegn forces as we managed to put together for Afghanistan. I hope Obama can get at least one country to put more forces into afghanistan. His behavior is such that this seems less likely than when he assumed office.
Read what I said above about the paradigm: Massive use of force; clearly defined objectives that are achievable in a reasonably short period of time; clear exit strategy; strong global support for the cause; regional players lined up to provide economic and peace-keeping assistance in the postwar. Here, the regional players are China, India, Iran, and Russia. They could actually make quite a bit of money out of this project, and in fact, China is already doing so (big investments in Afghan copper mining). We've got to get away from the mindset that says that our "friends" are the Europeans. That's Cold War thinking, not very relevant any more.
We can only do that if the enemy is a conventional one. You cannot fight a guerrilla force using your model let alone a terrorist network - this is why I am confused about how Bosnia or Iraq 1 is applicable.
It would be great to get China on board as they certainly would have no problems playing bad cop - saying we are all ok with someone else actually doing much worse things than we apparently were prepared to do ourselves in terms of torture of prisoners, collateral damage etc. I don't even know if the kind of harshness the Chinese would bring is something effective. A lot of people who thought waterboarding was too much argued that this kind of thing and worse just exacerbates our enemy. Is that true?
It is moot anyway as - for most nation states - it is more in their interests to keep America off balance and extended being the world's peace keeper than the benefits for them helping solve problems. Why would China help us with Afghanistan security issues or more genrally on a military front? They and the rest of the world get the benefits of our efforts without the costs. Many also will get more benefit from a weakened America than they pay in costs from the problems they could help us with.
If Obama et al. are focused on China it is all about selling our debt.
Nonsense. A "similar level of commitment" to the Civil War or London during the Blitz? Please. The Afghan War clearly is not an "existential conflict" for the US.
I'm just curious - what level of commitment do you think is appropriate? Call me old-fashioned, but if you go to war, you should fight to win. Of course, I am still waiting for a good definition of 'winning' in Afghanistan. But hey, the burden of proof is not on me. Wasn't it candidate Obama that assured us that Afghanistan was the necessary war? If it isn't, then he owes us an explanation of what has changed in the last year.
As for it not being an existential conflict - I'm not so sure about that for a couple of reasons. 1) Pakistan is right next door and has a shaky government, islamic terrorists and nuclear weapons. 2) when I look at the damage done to us by 9/11 - the original attack and our reactions to it. We have changed our way of life, enacted new laws, spent tons of money, still have forces in Iraq, etc... I'm not saying these weren't necessary, merely that 9/11 changed us and that we clearly cannot allow another such attack right now. Especially not right now.
I believe that regarding Islamic terrorists, we are past the point of whose fault this or that is. It is us, or them.
Hopefully Obama's diplomacy is a little bit better and we can succeed in regionalizing the Afghan conflict. As I said above, I find the timing of his trip to China very interesting, and encouraging.
I hope so too. We will find out in concrete terms how much it is worth to be liked and admired again. I hope I will be pleasantly surprised.
I think the real concern isn't Afganistan per se--or even Pakistan per se. The problem is whether the Taliban takes over Afganistan and, from that base, then takes over Pakistan and control of its atomic bombs. If these events came to pass, would the Taliban be tempted to give one or some to Al Queda? Even if so, do we care at all?
If one truly believes that Pakistan would never succumb to a Taliban take-over even if the Taliban takes over Afganistan (or if one simply doesn't care if the Taliban gets nuclear weapons) then getting out of Afganistan is an easy choice. But if one is not so sure, the decision is much more difficult.
I think that anyone who advocates pulling out of Afganistan either now or in the near future should also address what they think the odds are of eventual Taliban control of Pakistani nuclear weapons if we do pull out.
That's the equation that has to be calculated. There has been a lot of talk about the worry of the Taliban taking over a nuclear Pakistan, but even if we are gone from AFG, we could still take future actions to prevent that event if it looked like it was going to happen.
We already have a raving freaking lunatic in charge of nukes in North Korea -- is that guy more or less dangerous than the Taliban? People tend to forget the basic fact that the leaders of Taliban are still leaders which mean they like being in power and like being alive (and therefore aren't going to just launch nukes the first chance they get even if they are in Pakistan). All too often, people mistakenly conflate Islamic terrorists with Islamic leaders.
I would say the chances of the Taliban taking over Pakistan are approaching zero under any scenario. The Taliban is basically a Pashtun movement. The Pashtun are a very small minority in Pakistan, although they are the majority in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan (that's why the Taliban can go back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan so easily). The overwhelming majority of Pakistanis are Punjabis and Sindhis, and they have no desire to be ruled by Pashtun, Taliban or otherwise. More likely, if we pulled out of Afghanistan, the situation would pretty much go back to what it was in the two countries prior to 9/11. The Taliban would dominate the Pashtun in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban would pal around with al Qaeda and give them free run of the country, and the Pakistani military would cozy up to the Taliban, because the Pakistani military never really wanted to fight them in the first place because they always view their sole enemy in the world as India. However, US military action in Afghanistan has driven the war into Pakistan and essentially has forced the Pakistanis to fight the Taliban, which I think is a good thing. Meanwhile, Afghanistan itself would return to the state of civil war it has been in for the past 35 years with non-Pashtun groups (who make up almost 60% of the population of Afghanistan) fighting the Taliban. Bottom line, Afghanistan would be a hell-hole and the ideal breeding ground for groups like al Qaeda (which again, was pretty much the case prior to 9/11).
I don't think the "sunk costs fallacy" is the proper model for Afganistan.
A better model is how we treat chronic disease: Take AIDS treatment for example. Without treatment the patient dies fairly quickly, with the right drug cocktail, he lives much longer.
As long as we keep significant force in Afganistan, neither the Taliban nor AQ will find themselves in charge of much. They will spend their time and energy fighting our forces there, rather than hatching plans toward external targets. So, there is no sunk cost: Just as insulin keeps blood sugar under control, the US Army keeps Islamic extremists too weak to do us much harm.
Unless of course our presence there actually produces the opposite effect of people supporting the Taliban or AQ because they are sick of us being there.
That also assumes that we have no other strategy to deal with the disease of AQ and/or Taliban. Also, the Taliban and AQ should not be used interchangeably, the Taliban did not attack us on 9/11, AQ did.
Al-Qaeda was the security arm of the Taliban. It was not for nothing that they shielded OBL from American justice. They were Hand and Glove. Differentiating between them in 2001 would have only been more of that incredibly pointless "nuanced thinking" that Obama is praised for. They probably are even MORE the same entity now.
Oh no, we invaded TWO countries that never attacked us!
Well, three if you count Germany. And Korea, they never attacked us. Grenada, can't forget them. Oh, and Panama. And, technically, France.
Africa, didn't we invade at least one country during WW II? Pretty sure no African country attacked us.
Did we swing through Italy or Spain, too? I should know this. Damnned Germany gets all the attention...
This blog entry is a textbook example of why economics views, models, and tools are insufficient to study or formulate military strategy.
If I spoke about economics solely in terms of Clausewitz's Strategy of War, wouldn't I get laughed out of economics school?
Discussing military grand strategy in terms of sunken costs is similarly flawed.
Obama has not displayed any 'courage' about Afghanistan; instead, he has dithered, refusing to make a decision that he promised during his campaign. Many of us libertarian leaning folks have advocated more training for the Afghan army, less direct involvement of NATO forces in the field. Afghanistan needs a stable government and yes, we should help them achieve that. It won't be a democratic government; but it shouldn't be a religiously based dictatorship either. The Afghan people have shown that they are tribalists and do not want democracy in any Western form.
What really hurts is that in Iraq, the war we "won" and where American casualties are rising again, the Maliki regime is giving indications of being a Saddam-inspired little fucker.
From the Economist:
Old habits from Saddam Hussein’s era are becoming familiar again. Torture is routine in government detention centres. “Things are bad and getting worse, even by regional standards,” says Samer Muscati, who works for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby. His outfit reports that, with American oversight gone (...) Iraqi police and security people are again pulling out fingernails and beating detainees, even those who have already made confessions. A limping former prison inmate tells how he realised, after a bout of torture in a government ministry that lasted for five days, that he had been relatively lucky. When he was reunited with fellow prisoners, he said he saw that many had lost limbs and organs.
Read the whole thing at your on peril. It's kind of depressing.
Maliki still has to face the Iraqi electorate. Until he dispenses with that requirement, comparisons to Saddam are ludicrous.
Whining about the tactics of Iraqi security forces is fatuous without mentioning the tactics of the people they are fighting and what it will mean to the families of those security forces if they lose.
AQ in Iraq and the Ba3thists are putting bombs in mosques. They murdered children and booby-trapped their bodies. I don't care WHAT happens to them.
The Iraqi government is:
- torturing people - even after they confess to crimes;
- arresting journalists that criticize the regime;
- arresting political and religious adversaries;
- creating a police force under the direct orders of Maliki.
You can spin this all you want, but these are very bad signs. We'll see if democracy stands in the next few years. The Economist article ends with:
“This will be a police state, no question,” says a Western diplomat with long experience of Iraq. “It’ll take two or three years. But it’s coming.”
Let's hope he's wrong.
Shrug. I heard most of those complaints about Bush for the last eight years.
Seriously, what do people expect? This is still by far the freest country in the Mideast (excepting tiny Lebanon and Israel?). They have freer elections, freer speech, freer press than just about any country around them.
It's not going to become Canada overnight. Iraq is about what you'd expect for a country that was a blood-soaked police state dotted with rape rooms for 20 years. This is a country that experienced multiple genocides and three major wars under its last government.
This is a country where even at the height of the violence a shockingly large proportion of Iraqis said life was going well. It's all relative.
Average deaths are down about 90% from the Saddam era, elections are up 100%, GDP has tripled, basic services have doubled.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index.pdf
“This will be a police state, no question,” says a Western diplomat with long experience of Iraq.
Dollars to doughnuts that same guy was predicting the surge would fail 2 years ago.
Iraq has surprised a lot of people, in good ways and in bad.
The diplomat in question isn't identified. Apparently, The Economist likes to pull the same cute stunts with sources as our press.
No argument there. It's the current direction that's worrying. But these are pretty unpredictable, so there's no point in arguing about them. We'll see.
these things are pretty unpredictable...
Megan,
When I read your post, I was reminded of where I was when the OJ verdict was announced. We were off site for a staff meeting. During our lunch break, we learned OJ had been acquitted. Like virtually everyone else in the room, I was disappointed in the result. One of my peers, however, was overjoyed. She was sure OJ was innocent and that he had been framed by the police. Trying to understand where she was coming from made my head swim. I quickly determined the gulf was too great. How could this intelligent, rational, professional believe the OJ verdict was a victory in the cause of justice? I still don't know and most likely never will (other than to assume she'd not been paying attention to the actual evidence presented at trial, which she claimed was not the case).
That's how I feel when you congratulate Obama on his approach to Afghanistan. The man has been told by his military experts that the war is winnable. That, with the proper resources, they can deliver a functioning government to the Afghan people. He's also been told US casualties will continue to increase if more resources are not made available. He's been told the matter is urgent -- lack of resources is already causing Americans to die needlessly.
Contra all that, Biden and some diplomats with virtually no military experience or expertise, have told Obama the military experts are wrong. Additional resources, they say, might reduce casualties in the short term, but Afghanistan cannot be stabilized in the long term. Our better course is to withdraw and attack terrorists with cruise missiles and drones.
Who's right? Obama cannot know. Both groups may be wrong. But, the two groups (by and large) debated whether or not the surge would work in Iraq or not. Recall that Biden's big idea was that Iraq had to be partitioned into three countries to have a chance at being pacified. History gives one of the groups a lot more credibility than the other. Obama claims he needs more information and time to make a decision. Rather than defer any decision, the proper stop-gap is to deploy more people to save US lives and to stabilize the situation while determines his long term strategy.
I look at all of this and wonder how many of our men and women in uniform will die before Obama can buy a clue. You look at the same facts and announce: If the glove doesn't fit you must acquit.
Some people believe in jury nullification ... that even guilty black people should be let free.
You have assumed that Barack Obama is a rational actor who wants the same thing George W. Bush wanted when Bush invaded Afghanistan. But it's a mistake to make that assumption.
Barack Obama doesn't want the same thing. He's not interested in victory. He has said so himself.
Quit thinking he wants victory. He doesn't. How many times does he have to tell you that he's not interested in victory?
I believe in jury nullification. It destroyed Prohibition once and it can do it again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
Blacks have some legitimate grievances against the legal system. I'd rather see X criminals go free than Y innocents jailed, for large values of X.
Because it worked so well the last time we turned our backs on Afghanistan.
I know it's very progressive to decide to take your ball, go home, and leave the brown people to kill each other, but really, is it too much to ask that someone give a shit for the literally millions of people who's freedom we've essentially promised? Nonsecular Higher Power help you if you collaborated with the Americans when the country falls back into anarchy.
Our word as a nation has a tangible value, and violence becomes more, not less likely when nations/people whom we support can't really count on our support when the going gets tough, and our enemies are left to do the math on how many bodies it takes to turn "stop that or else" to "well, this is unwinnable". War is a contest of wills; beyond economics, beyond strategy.
Am I the only one who thinks this thread needs more blighter?
I think we've got different histories.
The surrender of Eastern Europe to Russia happened at Yalta. At the time the Soviets were about 40 miles from Berlin. That was very much not an inducement to help finish off Hitler as Stalin was poised for the coup de grace (and there was a bit of a race on). Further, the primary reasons for surrendering Eastern Europe was 1) the Russian army was shloads bigger than the Allied armies (like 3 times bigger) and already in place (making the surrender really more of a recognition of the facts on the ground) 2) FDR foolishly thought well of Stalin, 3) the Allies wanted the Russian on the Pacific frong (and made some further concessions in Asia).
Sure there was early concern of that Stalin would sue separately for peace (repeating WWI), but when Eastern Europe was granted to Russia the war was effectively over.
Second, it's not an unneccessary war if someone declares war on you first (think of the old Gandhi was fortunate to not be a Jew in Germany chestnut). You are right that there was a conscious decision to knock out Germany first (though Germany did not receive the initial focus), but that had (I thought until now) a fairly obvious rationale: 1) Until the Navy could clear out the Pacific, there was no way to get to the Army to Japan; in comparison, there were plenty of places to stage to fight Germany on land in part related to the following 2) Japan was nowhere close to eliminating any of the Allies whereas Germany was knocking at the door of Moscow and across the channel from London.
But all that being said, 1) we didn't have a major battle with Germany (Torch) until months after the Pacific had been turned (Midway). In fact there were about 30 major battles with Japan before Operation Torch so it's not like the US ignored Japan after Pearl Harbor to focus on Germany. 2) Germany was indeed doing damage to the US (though the uS was never in mortal danger, though the US was never in mortal danger from Japan either) and sank hundreds of ships off the East Coast in 1942 pre-Torch.
Afghanistan: Double down or withdraw ?
Nations gamble to attain their ends,
placing their bets in blood and gold.
The US is supposed to be an exception;
The _only_ good reason for spending the
lives of our soldiers is to defend the US.
I do not care about the "expert" opinions
of partisan political bottom feeders,
swimming around in Washington Think-Tanks;
The summarized expert opinion of qualified
military personnel, with the dust of Afghanistan
still on their boots is:
Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been driven
out of Afghanistan, disrupting their operations,
and arguably making the Us safer in the process.
The continued occupation of Afghanistan requires
fighting the Afghan tribes, who are _very_ hostile
to armed foreigners on their territory.
Unless we need to, and can afford to, maintain
a military presence there indefinitely,
we should get out now.
In order to make a courageous decision,
The President would have to place US security
above his own political interests, specifically
his need for every dollar he can find, including
from the military; Clearly, based on his past actions,
including his response to the Ft. Hood Massacre,
he cannot do this, even if the US needs to "Go Big"
before getting out.
In order to justify further "costs" The President
would have to be in favor of continuing the US role
as power projecting World Policeman; Not likely.
The good news is that the US will, over the next
few years, and design iterations of unmanned vehicles,
develop the capability to find its enemies wherever
they hide, and to defend its friends against them;
Guerrilla warfare will become a suicidal exercise
in futility.
I hope you are right about our future robot army. As long as they do not call it Skynet i am with you.
@ ajwpip: No Skynet
"Thou shalt not make a machine
in the image of a man's mind."
1st commandment of the Butlerian Jihad,
which freed humanity from its robot
overlords: Dune, Frank Herbert
Seriously, the progress in the field of
robotics and telepresence, _not_ AI, is
scarier than SF; being blown away by a
T800 is bad enough, because it does not
qualify one for a Get-Into-Paradise-Free
card, but to have something come slithering
into your bed, in your cave, in the Tribal
Regions of Afghanistan, with lethal effect,
is Too much for Ouma; time to go home. :>
The good news is that the US will, over the next
few years, and design iterations of unmanned vehicles,
develop the capability to find its enemies wherever
they hide, and to defend its friends against them;
Guerrilla warfare will become a suicidal exercise
in futility.
The bad news is that they are expensive and will be of diminishing effectiveness once the opposition learns to use spoofing and countermeasures. We will see a lot more of 'whoops, we thought this village was a terrorist training camp'.
@ ian: Whoops, wrong village.
What village, ian ?
The Techies have already demonstrated
prototype hardware that could be
developed into the sort of Micro-bots
shown in "Minority Report" (The movie,
not the commenter :)
Scan eyeball, match to known Terrorist,
terminate with extreme prejudice.
As to cost, review the price curve for
microcomputers over the last 10 years.
As to countermeasures, does the acronym
HARM ring a bell, loudly ?
No, ian, this meme is neither new, nor
original to me; Unwelcome to you, maybe:
Guerrilla warfare and Terrorism are
about to be overtaken, and run over,
by technology; Roadkill on the Highway
to the future.
Megan, did you really just assert that something Obama has done regarding AfPak has anything to do with courage?
I mean, I just reread the post so I am thinking I understand what you are saying correctly. You think what Obama has demonstrated is courage.
Right?
OK my conscience is going to kill me if I don't say I am sorry for that smart-alec comment. Sorry Megan.
Here's the way it looks from where I sit. Obama has said this is the important war and it must be won. Shortly after taking office he appointed a new commander and announced a new strategy. His commander has since requested more troops and stated that we will lose the country within 12 months if he doesn't get them. Obama has had that request since August.
This week they looked at 4 different plans. Shortly after CBS announced that he'd decided on one, the White House said they hadn't. Now we here he wants another plan (the 5th).
What would be courageous is if Obama straight up announced his decision and explained it. This feels a lot to me like Kabuki.
In most circles, especially among those who depend on the US for their security, what Obama is considering is called surrender.
This isn't a situation where there will be peace and wonderment if the US leaves. The situation will deteriorate. Iran and Pakistan will fill some of the void. The allies of the US who see an ally left hanging will consider their options, which is either to arm up or look for someone else with influence and power to ally with.
Oh well. What are a few brown people. The war was always in Washington anyways, the important war. One side won, the other lost. And all go home to good meals and security.
Derek
So you are saying that a brown president just doesn't give a crap about brown people.
If you really want to use our resources to save people with dark skin, why don't we spend 100 billion of our war funds and save 20-50 million or more people in Africa by reducing HIV, hunger and disease in the next 5 years...
So you don't think that there will be consequences for the local Afghanis if the US leaves?
And do you actually think that this is about spending $100 billion in Africa?
So maybe I'll rephrase that.
What are a few of the wrong brown people.
And yes, if Obama decides to leave Afghanistan, I would think that means he as a brown man doesn't give a crap about brown people in Afghanistan.
Derek
Of course, there will be negative consequences for the Afghan's if we leave. But Obama isn't the leader of Afghanistan, he is the leader of the United States and his job is to protect our interests first. He inherited a war that was a mess. He hasn't made it less of a mess and he is now considering the best policy to minimize damage to the US, and yes that might be at the expense of AFG -- would you rather it be the reverse?
Afghanistan is obviously a very difficult problem, which is why he's taking his time on this decision -- Colin Powell thinks it's a good idea to deliberate, but are we sour on Colin Powell now that he supported Obama even though everyone on both sides loved Colin before that? Or do we now ignore a great American like Powell because he supported Obama for pres (as Rush contends)?
>Of course there will be negative consequences for the Afghan's if we leave.
I predicted before the election that Obama would end up in the 'rubble don't make trouble' camp.
We shall see. I'm glad you recognize that there will be serious consequences for the Afghans.
I would hope that 'progressives' would consider that important.
Derek
DeGaulle-Algeria. France came out fine, Algeria too.
Hmm. Did Algeria have, other than France, a neighboring country that wanted to extend it's influence through military means?
Derek
Algeria was a colonial holding. Our relationship and interest in Afghanistan is very different. Also, I am pretty sure that Algerians didn't go over and knock down the Eiffel Tower with 3000 frenchmen in it without provocation.
See a lot of commenters think we can give up Afghanistan and concentrate on Pakistan or AQ or whatever. It won't work that way.
Our opponents would be emboldened by such a move, not deterred. Also, Pakistan and Afghanistan are linked - you abandon Afghanistan, or even just Pashtun areas, that could severely affect Pakistan.
If you want to leave Afghanistan it would be best to leave it with a large, effective army and central government, no matter how corrupt and undemocratic, at least it would last for 5-10 years.
Cheers Megan, we may be indeed on a way to find a true Commander-in-Chief here. Again and again in the history it is shown that whenever a President is ready to go beyond conventions of localized thinking and prestige of few Generals in war, we have true potential to realize what is good for this country.
Barack Obama has been elected to do this bold thinking and if President Obama is undertaking that, well, we are back in business.
http://www.21stcenturypolitics.com/
1. Can we please put a moratorium on the phrase "blood and treasure?" It was a cute anachronism a few years ago. Now it's just cliched and irritating. The money spent on the war comes from the same budget as Medicare. Do you refer to Medicare spending as "treasure"?
2. For all those who are enamored of the military planners, please refer to me a war that the military thought could *not* be won. Of course the military says the war is winnable. They thought Vietnam was winnable. They thought that WWIII could be won. They fact that *maybe* they were right re: the Iraq surge brings their accuracy up to about 50% (wrong on Vietnam; and not counting trivial wars like Panama and GWI that everyone knew would be won easily).
3. Ultimately, success or failure in Afghanistan isn't a military matter, is it? There's no question that we can keep killing lots of Taliban. The real question is whether a government can "take" and be stable and successful. If not, then we best be heading out now.
I'm not saying Obama shouldn't listen to the military. Obviously they are a chief source of information and their opinions should be taken seriously. But not rubber-stamped. An awful lot of smart and well-informed people think we should leave because the war isn't winnable. Those people aren't idiots just because they don't currently wear a uniform.
4. The irony on this thread is that many of the people who are criticizing Megan clearly don't even understand what she means by "the sunk cost fallacy." Here's a hint. Just because a war is "of necessity" doesn't mean it can be won. And if it can't, it is not "necessary" to sacrifice thousands of lives and billions of dollars to pursue it.
The way I look at it, Japan should have realized by May 1945 at the very latest that they were going to lose WWII. By that time, the war was "of necessity" because losing would mean the end of the Japanese empire. Nonetheless, it would have been best for all parties for him to surrender, rather than subject his people to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I don't think the situation in Afghanistan is as hopeless as that facing the Japanese, but the point is the same. You gain nothing fighting a war that you can't win. Indeed, you gain nothing fighting a war that you can win, if what you win is not worth the cost. That's known as a pyrrhic victory.
So Japan should have surrendered earlier.
The US should surrender in Afghanistan.
The cost of continuing is clear. What is the cost to the US of surrender? Because that is what we are talking about here.
Derek
The firebombings of Tokyo and other cities were war crimes. So was dropping the 2 atomic bombs. America still hasn't apologized to the Japanese people for these atrocities.
Do you refer to Medicare spending as "treasure"?
What do you refer to it as?
Your comments on Vietnam are wrong.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q4/view592.html#lessons
"Those who hadn't known that the US won the war in Viet Nam especially need to read this."
Viet Nam was winnable.
Cowardice has an effect that is different than courage, yes, but the result of cowardice is not destiny.
By the way, the paranoia about Iran and nukes is just that, paranoia.
Iran's leaders have *done* nothing to suggest that they are not rational actors. You need only look at the way they responded to the political unrest this summer. It was a very rational response carefully designed to keep them in power, when it would have been easy for them to act crazy and start a huge massacre.
Obviously, I don't support that regime, their repression, their economic policies, their pro-terrorism policies or anything else about the Islamic Republic. And the regime is frequently stupid. But it is clear to me that they will be deterred from using nukes by threat of nuclear retaliation. They don't pose an existential threat to anyone.
It is Pakistan's nukes that pose the existential threat.
And yet Israel with 200 nukes is considered *off limits* to any discussion or you get called a Jew-hating antisemitic, Hitler-loving Nazi. Interesting.
Nothing?
How about the fact that they are world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism (in both # of groups and $)?
Yes, the President is thinking about the Afghanistan problem in the right way. The pickle we are in is that our partner, Hamid Karzai, apparently cannot conceal his venality. Further, the UN has shown his recent election to be a fraud. Now, if it is true that our contractors are bribing marauding gangs to refrain from attacking our supply lines, and the gangs are using the money to buy war materiel to attack our troops, or something like that, then the situation has become a farce. I would consider restoring the Barakzai monarchy, with Ahmad Shah Khan as King. Why not? The King could be seen as virtuous and unifying, and might actually be.
There is a reason why imposing democracy as an aim of nation building doesn't work well, as we have tried it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Parliamentary forms of government are layered from the bottom up, not the top down. You don't start with an elected president; you start with elected town councils, then sheriffs, then county and regional legislatures, then a national legislature, and after all those are functioning successfully, a president. Each institutional layer depends on the establishment of the layers beneath, and that takes many years of practice. The alternative is as we provided: quick presidential elections, followed by years of insurrection, intrigue, and corruption.
Megan, you do get the die hards in here, I'll give you that. I agree with much of your analysis of this decision process. Just a reminder : "Barack Obama" is the president. That word doesn't appear in the post.
Megan, you are too young to have been around during the Vietnam war, but I assume you have access to books about it and the aftermath. Read them. I participated in many anti-war protests during those years and considered myself a progressive left winger. Nixon was the devil incarnate; McGovern was going to lead us to the promised land. The Vietnamese only wanted to be left alone, etc. When I grew up, I became a physician. A lot of my patients were immigrants from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I began to ask myself disturbing questions such as: if the people's revolution in SE Asia had been a good thing, why had these people risked everything to leave, fester in refugee camps or sail in flimsy boats across the South China Sea? Then reports began to surface about the genocide in Cambodia and the repression in unified Vietnam. Certain truths revealed themselves to me about the nature of evil in those couuntries and the culpability of the Americans who had first built up expectations and then run away. That did not happen in Iraq, but it's about to happen in Afghanistan. It's amusing that you liken Obama's actions to those of a businessman in limiting his losses. He never was a businessman, never will be. He is first and foremost, a demogogue who worked as a community organizer and uses the Alinsky playbook. Every move he makes is calculated, from the calls to make Afghanistan the war we need to win during the campaign, to the midnight salute at Dover AFB, to the failure to attend the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. He is as cynical a politician as has ever walked the halls of the White House and history will judge him in a harsh light, even if the dim bulbs in the print and electronic media won't at the present.
My view of the Vietnam War is a little different than Dan Smith's. I supported it at first, then turned against it when it became apparent that it was unwinnable, and ended up disgusted with both sides of the American body politic - the right for supporting a useless and destructive war and the left (my side) for not recognizing the truly evil nature of Communism and for not doing more to help its victims.
In the present case I disagree with Dr. Smith. Our only national interest in Afghanistan is in preventing its use as a terrorist base. Our present nation building effort and the escalation suggested by some elements of the military and by neoconservative commentators are not sustainable. The American public doesn't support it, and our European allies, even the British, are wavering. We have an obligation to those in Afghanistan who have sided with us, but we cannot and should not attempt to reconstruct Afghanistan as a democratic country. We are not the world's policeman.
As far as Dr. Smith's overheated opinion of President Obama, I disagree completely. Obama is a cool, pragmatic politician, and this is exactly what we need now. Given the choice between realists like Obama and misguided idealists like John McCain, I'll take realism any day.
The sad part is that I agree with Dan. We do have an obligation to those who helped us there, and it is an act of betrayal to leave them in the lurch. I just don't know what else to do. I don't believe we can stabilize the place without a twenty-year commitment, one Surge just won't do it, and it isn't going to really happen. And we can't afford it. It just isn't going to happen.
The saddest part about Vietnam is that we had already made that commitment. Vietnam was already stabilized, the Viet Cong was gone, and the only enemies left were external, that is, the North Vietnamese army. At the time it was overrun, South Vietnam didn't need America to send its army again. They just needed equipment and maybe some air support. America was so sick of hearing about Vietnam by that point that we wouldn't listen to a thing. That was the real disgrace.
It is sort of amazing what happened.
1) Tet wiped out the VC, and by bombing NV and mining Haiphong harbor, we forced the NV to sign a treaty, which was guaranteed by the threat of renewed bombing/mining as well as our aid to the South.
2) Congress announced that under no circumstance would we start bombing or mining again, and cut off all aid to the South.
3) The inevitable occurred.
Looking at the jewel of prosperity and freedom S Korea became, one can't help but weep for what a free SV could have been...
1) You optimistically assume that South Vietnam would be South Korea 2. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. Interventions shouldn't consider only best-case scenarios.
2) If you consider that improving living conditions in other countries is an important and worthy goal, you should take into consideration the opportunity cost of resources spent. Here's a guy attempting to do just that. You should love this fellow - he concludes that we shouldn't spend any money fighting AGW (although, unlike you, he accepts the reality of the phenomenon).
3) In general, whenever we have troops fighting in a foreign land, one basic concern should simply be: does the local population want us around? Sometimes this can be difficult to ascertain. But, in the endless debates regarding the merits of our military interventions, this is often not even a topic of discussion.
Forgot to say this - if you're feeling impatient watching the video, skip to around minute 6.
Assuming that this war isn't winnable, the easiest thing politically would have been to send more troops into Afghanistan, some to be killed, some to kill innocent Afghan civilians.
Well, it's true that both things would happen, with any significant number of troops at war anywhere... (the former being unavoidable until we invent remote controlled robotic soldiers, and the latter until we invent a way to never get bad intelligence, make mistakes, or just plain have bad luck - leaving aside the occasional outbreak of murderousness or lunacy in an individual or platoon.)
But isn't it a bit odd that you leave out "killing the enemy" (as opposed to innocent civilians? I mean, it's not like that isn't going on (in significant numbers!), and kinda directly related to the task at hand, no?
Two quick thoughts.
Is President Obama planning on removing the troops from Afghanistan and blaming President Karzi for having such a corrupt government the U.S. could never win?
Also, if President Obama denies substantial reinforcements will independent voters not think of this as a bait and switch after candidate Obama was so aggressive on prosecuting the Afghan war?
So you are saying that having a corrupt AFG government is not an impediment to our success in AFG?
Bait and switch implies that Obama was planning this all along. There is another alternative -- that he is making decisions based on a dynamic situation, or that his original thinking was off target. But of course,anybody who changes his position EVER is a waffler, and Bush was such a great president because he never waffled, which was really awesome because all of his decisions were so fantastic.
Although my example illustrates Bush as the example of foolishness, this is just an example -- look at the wise decision of his father NOT to occupy Iraq (i.e. - The important thing is the principle of making decisions carefully and being courageous enough to change course when you think changing course is the best way, even as you know you will be called a 'ditherer'). The party of the decision maker is not important.
Clearly the task of the US is made more difficult proportionally to the level of corruption of the Afghan government.
What I am asking is if it likely President Obama wants to reduce/remove American forces and not suffer the political consequences of ending the war in a manner that is likely to be perceived by a large portion of the public as a failure. One way to do this might be to shift the failure to the Afghan government.
I asked if independent voters will see this as a bait and switch because candidate Obama was very clear the Afghan war was one of necessity, as opposed to the Iraq war, and IF President Obama withdraws the forces they may wonder why it no longer is necessary.
"I don't know whether this is the correct decision, either strategically or morally. ... However, I do think that Barack Obama has to be congratulated on two things: courage, and a willingness to accept that there are sunk costs."
The worst conclusion I have ever read on this website even including commenters. I don't know the answer either. But this decision shows the complete duplicity of Barack Obama who when campaigning claimed this was the good war liberals supported while Iraq was the distraction. This proves he lied about his beliefs on the war for campaign purposes and you're congratulating him.
Beyond sad.
Anybody for a White Russian ?
No, it is not a mixed drink,
it is one of the opponents
to the Red Russians, whom
we left to be butchered,
when we brought our
Expeditionary Force home.
Unavoidable then, not so much now,
particularly with those Pakistani
Nukes in the equation, and the
option of giving the Tribes targeted
help in resisting their enemies,
both foreign and domestic.
Dr. Pournelle suggests buying the
Poppy crop, right out of the fields;
Now _that_ is stimulus. :)
There are no good options in Afghanistan regardless of who is in power. Every path you take, whether arming up, or phasing down, presents some setbacks and an unclear path to fixing a wreck of a country.
Obama presented Afghanistan as "the good war" which does not mean you necessarily keep fighting it. The fact that you are deliberating at all (instead of just arguing for a pullout) is consistent with his pre-presidential thoughts.
Also, there is always political consideration. A politician does not want to go down as being the guy who got a bunch of people killed, and without actually winning anything worthy of the costs (in time, lives and money). If Obama quickly sends troops, and things get worse, he is damned. If he does nothing, he is damned, and if he reduces troops, he is damned. It takes time to figure out which is the best damnation in terms of your own reputation (and nobody maintains a great reputation by destroying lives or harming the U.S. as a whole).
Ultimately regardless of party the person in office wants a good outcome for the country, but often the reasoning or set of assumptions is quite off. (And we can reject the idiocy of those, left and right, who begin their analysis with the idea of some vast evil intent on the part of the president...as in, "He is dithering to destroy America").
We always assume that those in power are vastly different from us in motivation and that they would do things in office (collapse the country) that we would never, ever consider doing if we had the job. We take the least likely motivations and move them up into slot one as the explanation for everything.
I don't usually like to claim greater knowledge, understanding, insight, or inside knowledge.
But I am struck that not one person articulated why we are in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what is really going on.
Afghanistan and Iraq were not retaliation for 9/11. Nor were they directly about al Qaida.
After all, an existential threat is always something that grew from an ignored situation, like the fire that burns a house down starts from not doing anything about exposed wires, smoking, etc.
9/11 changed the US' policy from treating terrorism as a criminal act to treating it as an act of war.
That means all terrorism, any terrorism, any where, can earn a military response. Not every act of terorrism everywhere, because taht is beyond our resources.
So we prioritized.
The group that authored the attack was in Afghanistan, sheltered by regime (a terrorist regime itself).
Take 'em out. Occupy the nation to make sure they don't come back.
Where next?
Iraq had no provable, direct connection to 9/11, but it was clearly deep into terrorism, harbored terrorists, used WMD on its own people, wasn't abiding by the terms of surrender, and is the most westernized/secular of all possible places to attack next.
Had the aftermath gone better, there would have been a 3rd.
But staying in Iraq to help them rebuild was successful in that it attracted lots of young terrorist wannabes.
It's clear as a bell: as long as we were fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan was extremely quiet and slowly making progress toward stability.
But when it became clear we won in Iraq (interesting that the terrorists see it more clearly than the American left), the terrorist pipeline terminus shifted to Afghanistan, bringing it into play again.
There is no good war/bad war. There is one war: The Long War.
We will win in Afghanistan when the terrorists realize they can no longer destabilize the society, when the citizens react toward them in anger rather than fear. When the terrorists shift to another location, we will have won in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, and we can follow them to the next location if we want. Probably Pakistan, maybe China, maybe one of the other 'stans.
At some point (and it may end with Afghanistan), the terrorists will realize they cannot defeat the US, that Allah is not with them in their quest to destroy the West and use terrorism to impose Sharia and the Caliphate worldwide, and they will turn to other pursuits.
President Obama's dithering is making things worse, because it is giving the terrorists time to regroup and reconstitute, and because it is giving terrorists hope that the US has returned to the craven US that chickened out in Somalia.
Every day that President Obama delays, the resolve of Islamic terrorists increases. There have been a lot of days already.