How much more blood and how many more billions will America pour into a senseless enterprise as it enters its tenth year with the threadbare façade of strategic coherence crumbling?
As the President goes to Lisbon this week to "confront" Hamid Karzai right after he enraged Gen. Petraeus by publicly demanding the US scale back its operations, reality calls for more than the usual coddling that has characterized such meetings.
A year ago, in sending more troops, the President said, "If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow."
Despite all the diplo-speak, can he possibly still believe that? In a time when our own country is in turmoil, doesn't it make sense to start calling Karzai's bluff?
Oddly enough, Obama's electoral shellacking provides him with bipartisan cover. The GOP wing led by war-loving John McCain is under siege from new Senators like Rand Paul, who shares his father's opposition to foreign military operations and the expense of waging them.
Two years ago, there was an exit proposal to increase funding and training for Afghans as US troops withdraw while trying to buy away less extreme elements of the Taliban and preserving the option of air strikes to keep them bought.
"Our strategy in Afghanistan," a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations contended, "should emphasize what we do best (containing and deterring, and forging coalitions) and downgrade what we do worst (nation-building in open-ended wars). It should cut our growing costs and secure our interests by employing our power more creatively and practically. It must also permit us...to focus more American resources and influence on the far more dire situation in Pakistan."
Months ago, Bob Woodward's book, "Obama's Wars," depicted a deeply divided White House over what to do in Afghanistan, with US intelligence describing Karzai as a manic-depressive whose mood swings are not always controlled by medication. Isn't it time to get him on a higher dose and get our troops out of harm's way while he tries to stabilize himself and his country?
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
A Thousand Dead and Counting
"If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan," President Obama said almost six months ago, "I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow."
Now, a Kabul suicide bomber raises the toll of our dead there to more than 1,000 as threats of terrorism on American soil are clearly tied to Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
Now, even the proprietor of the war, Gen. Stanley McChrystal admits that "nobody is winning at this point" and talks wishfully about creating "Afghan defense capacity" while conceding that "for a significant period of time, assistance to that capacity and governance and development assistance is probably to be expected."
Now, our young people are still serving as targets in a so-called war that is not really a war but a misbegotten attempt at nation-building in a tribal country where corruption is rampant and ancient hatreds defy naïve hopes for democratic rule.
Over a year ago, a persuasive argument was made to increase funding and training for Afghans as US troops withdraw gradually while trying to buy away less extreme elements of the Taliban and preserving the option of air strikes to keep them bought.
"Our strategy in Afghanistan," former president of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie Gelb contended, "should emphasize what we do best (containing and deterring, and forging coalitions) and downgrade what we do worst (nation-building in open-ended wars). It should cut our growing costs and secure our interests by employing our power more creatively and practically. It must also permit us--and this is critical--to focus more American resources and influence on the far more dire situation in Pakistan."
His proposal makes even more sense now, after what we know about the backing of the Christmas and Times Square bombers, another year of Karzai corruption and duplicity, and an accelerating toll of American casualties.
After announcing the Surge to an audience of West Point cadets, President Obama called it "the most emotional speech that I've made...I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back. There is not a speech that I've made that hit me in the gut as much."
It's time for the President to revisit that gut feeling and start summoning Americans who, opinion polls show, have their doubts about being there to stop sacrificing our young people senselessly in Afghanistan
Now, a Kabul suicide bomber raises the toll of our dead there to more than 1,000 as threats of terrorism on American soil are clearly tied to Pakistan, not Afghanistan.
Now, even the proprietor of the war, Gen. Stanley McChrystal admits that "nobody is winning at this point" and talks wishfully about creating "Afghan defense capacity" while conceding that "for a significant period of time, assistance to that capacity and governance and development assistance is probably to be expected."
Now, our young people are still serving as targets in a so-called war that is not really a war but a misbegotten attempt at nation-building in a tribal country where corruption is rampant and ancient hatreds defy naïve hopes for democratic rule.
Over a year ago, a persuasive argument was made to increase funding and training for Afghans as US troops withdraw gradually while trying to buy away less extreme elements of the Taliban and preserving the option of air strikes to keep them bought.
"Our strategy in Afghanistan," former president of the Council on Foreign Relations Leslie Gelb contended, "should emphasize what we do best (containing and deterring, and forging coalitions) and downgrade what we do worst (nation-building in open-ended wars). It should cut our growing costs and secure our interests by employing our power more creatively and practically. It must also permit us--and this is critical--to focus more American resources and influence on the far more dire situation in Pakistan."
His proposal makes even more sense now, after what we know about the backing of the Christmas and Times Square bombers, another year of Karzai corruption and duplicity, and an accelerating toll of American casualties.
After announcing the Surge to an audience of West Point cadets, President Obama called it "the most emotional speech that I've made...I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back. There is not a speech that I've made that hit me in the gut as much."
It's time for the President to revisit that gut feeling and start summoning Americans who, opinion polls show, have their doubts about being there to stop sacrificing our young people senselessly in Afghanistan
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Mideast Groundhog Day
Hamid Karzai is in Washington this week for another round of coddling an "ally" in the War of Terror who is conning us out of lives and money to preserve a shaky, corrupt regime.
Afghanistan's Caped Crusader will try to talk the Obama Administration out of diluting his stranglehold on the country by its emphasis on "empowering those at the provincial and district level," as a US official tactfully puts it.
Karzai, the Washington Post reports, has "bristled at suggestions...that one of the operation's major goals should be to dilute the influence of his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is one of the most powerful figures in the city and is seen by many Afghans as corrupt."
This Groundhog Day scene was unreeled many times in the Bush years as Pervez Musharraf sweet-talked us about what Karzai now calls "a matured relationship" between partners who "have joined hands to bring security to Afghanistan and by extension to the United States and the rest of the world" and went his own crooked way.
Musharraf is gone, Nuri al-Maliki is tap-dancing in Iraq amid renewed violence after failing to win an election, and now their Afghan counterpart is being fobbed off in a photo op with a President who clearly mistrusts him before what Maureen Dowd describes as "a private dinner at the home of Vice President Biden, who once stalked out of a Karzai supper at the palace in Kabul when the Afghan president claimed there was no corruption, and got furious again last month when Karzai said he would join the Taliban if foreign interference continued. (Translation: Stop upbraiding me, Obama, you’re stuck with me.)"
Are we? When the President made his agonizing decision for a surge in Afghanistan late last year, doubters described it as being like "an unemployed couple who just went out and decided to adopt a special-needs baby from a family that deals drugs and rear it in a neighborhood where the kids steal each others' lunch money."
The White House may want to take another look at the American couple who recently sent back an unmanageable Russian kid they adopted. If not, it will keep on being Groundhog Day in Washington for a long time to come.
Afghanistan's Caped Crusader will try to talk the Obama Administration out of diluting his stranglehold on the country by its emphasis on "empowering those at the provincial and district level," as a US official tactfully puts it.
Karzai, the Washington Post reports, has "bristled at suggestions...that one of the operation's major goals should be to dilute the influence of his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is one of the most powerful figures in the city and is seen by many Afghans as corrupt."
This Groundhog Day scene was unreeled many times in the Bush years as Pervez Musharraf sweet-talked us about what Karzai now calls "a matured relationship" between partners who "have joined hands to bring security to Afghanistan and by extension to the United States and the rest of the world" and went his own crooked way.
Musharraf is gone, Nuri al-Maliki is tap-dancing in Iraq amid renewed violence after failing to win an election, and now their Afghan counterpart is being fobbed off in a photo op with a President who clearly mistrusts him before what Maureen Dowd describes as "a private dinner at the home of Vice President Biden, who once stalked out of a Karzai supper at the palace in Kabul when the Afghan president claimed there was no corruption, and got furious again last month when Karzai said he would join the Taliban if foreign interference continued. (Translation: Stop upbraiding me, Obama, you’re stuck with me.)"
Are we? When the President made his agonizing decision for a surge in Afghanistan late last year, doubters described it as being like "an unemployed couple who just went out and decided to adopt a special-needs baby from a family that deals drugs and rear it in a neighborhood where the kids steal each others' lunch money."
The White House may want to take another look at the American couple who recently sent back an unmanageable Russian kid they adopted. If not, it will keep on being Groundhog Day in Washington for a long time to come.
Monday, December 14, 2009
"Smartest Person in the Room"
Watching President Obama on 60 Minutes recalls a memorable exchange from the 1987 movie, "Broadcast News," in which Holly Hunter's boss taunts her, "It must be nice to always believe you know better, to always think you're the smartest person in the room."
With a stricken expression, she answers, "No. It's awful."
Last night, as he was being pressed by Steve Kroft about the mess in Afghanistan, the President responded, not with dismay but beyond it with a laugh, explaining "this is really hard. And there's not a question that you asked that I haven't asked in meetings, and that I don't ask myself."
His reaction is a reminder of the limitations of brains alone in the life-and-death decisions made in the White House. After eight years of low intellectual expectations, the American people were ready for a renaissance in the coming of what a new Administration calls "smart power," but America's problems are beyond the multiple-choice format of TV quiz shows.
In citing Obama's West Point announcement of the troop escalation, Kroft told him "you seemed very analytical, detached, not emotional. The tone seemed to be, 'I've studied this situation very hard. It's a real mess. The options aren't very good. But we need to go ahead and do this.' There were no exhortations or promises of victory. Why? Why that tone?"
The President disagreed, calling it "the most emotional speech that I've made...I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back. There is not a speech that I've made that hit me in the gut as much as that speech."
That kind of decision, Barack Obama was reminding us, has to be made not just by a president who is "the smartest person in the room" about today's pluses and minuses but who has the reserves of emotional intelligence and moral imagination to absorb what it will mean for the future.
Just being smarter and more humane than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is setting the bar too low.
With a stricken expression, she answers, "No. It's awful."
Last night, as he was being pressed by Steve Kroft about the mess in Afghanistan, the President responded, not with dismay but beyond it with a laugh, explaining "this is really hard. And there's not a question that you asked that I haven't asked in meetings, and that I don't ask myself."
His reaction is a reminder of the limitations of brains alone in the life-and-death decisions made in the White House. After eight years of low intellectual expectations, the American people were ready for a renaissance in the coming of what a new Administration calls "smart power," but America's problems are beyond the multiple-choice format of TV quiz shows.
In citing Obama's West Point announcement of the troop escalation, Kroft told him "you seemed very analytical, detached, not emotional. The tone seemed to be, 'I've studied this situation very hard. It's a real mess. The options aren't very good. But we need to go ahead and do this.' There were no exhortations or promises of victory. Why? Why that tone?"
The President disagreed, calling it "the most emotional speech that I've made...I was looking out over a group of cadets, some of whom were going to be deployed in Afghanistan. And potentially some might not come back. There is not a speech that I've made that hit me in the gut as much as that speech."
That kind of decision, Barack Obama was reminding us, has to be made not just by a president who is "the smartest person in the room" about today's pluses and minuses but who has the reserves of emotional intelligence and moral imagination to absorb what it will mean for the future.
Just being smarter and more humane than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is setting the bar too low.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Keeping a Pakistan Campaign Pledge
President Obama seems ready to deliver on a threat Candidate Obama made over two years ago--that, if Pakistan doesn't go after its terrorists, he will.
The Surge in Afghanistan, according to White House leaks, comes with "a fairly bald warning that unless Pakistan moved quickly to act against two Taliban groups they have so far refused to attack, the United States was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama took flak for saying what the Bush White House was dancing around in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas:
“There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Pervez Musharraf, who bilked Bush for American billions without delivering on promises to go after those terrorists, is gone now, but the Pakistani military is still playing the same shell game, and one element of the new Afghanistan policy is to squeeze them into delivering more results for the new $7.5 billion they will be getting over the next five years.
Ever since bin Laden escaped into Pakistan eight years ago, the US has pursued a so-called “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush militants in the border areas. Until now, the American hammer in Afghanistan has been pounding against what our frustrated military calls "a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil."
The crucial results of the Afghan Surge will come less from the visible escalation there but from what happens under the radar in the arm-wrestling with a nuclear-armed, politically shaky Pakistan government that Barack Obama foresaw long before he moved into the White House.
The Surge in Afghanistan, according to White House leaks, comes with "a fairly bald warning that unless Pakistan moved quickly to act against two Taliban groups they have so far refused to attack, the United States was prepared to take unilateral action to expand Predator drone attacks beyond the tribal areas and, if needed, to resume raids by Special Operations forces into the country against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
In August 2007, then-Sen. Obama took flak for saying what the Bush White House was dancing around in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas:
“There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.”
Pervez Musharraf, who bilked Bush for American billions without delivering on promises to go after those terrorists, is gone now, but the Pakistani military is still playing the same shell game, and one element of the new Afghanistan policy is to squeeze them into delivering more results for the new $7.5 billion they will be getting over the next five years.
Ever since bin Laden escaped into Pakistan eight years ago, the US has pursued a so-called “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush militants in the border areas. Until now, the American hammer in Afghanistan has been pounding against what our frustrated military calls "a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil."
The crucial results of the Afghan Surge will come less from the visible escalation there but from what happens under the radar in the arm-wrestling with a nuclear-armed, politically shaky Pakistan government that Barack Obama foresaw long before he moved into the White House.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Infamy, Then and Now
Sixty eight years ago today, Americans suffered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that suddenly brought us into a world war that would last less than four years. This week, after months of debating, we took a step deeper into an eight-year war with no end in sight.
On December 7, 1941, I was a college student with a part-time job in a hospital maternity ward showing fathers their new babies on the other side of a large picture window. Those babies are on Social Security now, grandparents themselves, some of whom may have lost their fathers in World War II, but most of whose lives are not directly affected by this war compared to the one that started on a "date that will live in Infamy."
That next day, FDR declared that "since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire," promising that "I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
But it did--on September 11, 2001. Infamy comes in more subtle forms this century, and fighting it is like flailing at smoke.
Part of remembering Pearl Harbor today will be nostalgia for a time when we could identify our enemies and confront them head on, instead of becoming lost in the thickets of counterinsurgency and finding ways to "narrow the mission." If we ever reach V-Day in this war, will we know it when we see it?
On December 7, 1941, I was a college student with a part-time job in a hospital maternity ward showing fathers their new babies on the other side of a large picture window. Those babies are on Social Security now, grandparents themselves, some of whom may have lost their fathers in World War II, but most of whose lives are not directly affected by this war compared to the one that started on a "date that will live in Infamy."
That next day, FDR declared that "since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire," promising that "I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us."
But it did--on September 11, 2001. Infamy comes in more subtle forms this century, and fighting it is like flailing at smoke.
Part of remembering Pearl Harbor today will be nostalgia for a time when we could identify our enemies and confront them head on, instead of becoming lost in the thickets of counterinsurgency and finding ways to "narrow the mission." If we ever reach V-Day in this war, will we know it when we see it?
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Obama Buys a Used War
When the President unveiled his vehicle for getting from here to there in Afghanistan last night, it was not, as W's chief of staff described the Iraq invasion in 2002, a "new product" but an eight-year-old jalopy retooled for an even longer, bumpier ride.
As Barack Obama "assumed full ownership," there was no shortage of tire-kickers, starting with John McCain, who judges wars on durability (i.e., 100 years in Iraq). The President reportedly placated his rival in last year's race by assuring McCain that the 2011 trade-in date could be modified by "conditions on the ground," a warranty loophole big enough to drive another Surge through.
The post-purchase debate will be all the livelier for an aging gas-guzzler that has none of the curb appeal of George W. Bush's choice, the Saddam Hussein 2003 model with such then-new features as WMDs and a shock-and-awe startup for quick acceleration.
At a pre-speech lunch, the President failed to sell even such an avid buyer of that previous rollout as Tom Friedman, who now complains the new transport has too many "moving parts," that "Afghans, Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work."
With so much sales resistance, Obama may want to look back at Lyndon Johnson's experience. LBJ was moving along just fine with his newly unveiled war on poverty until he switched off for a side trip aboard the sputtering Vietnam buggy, which eventually took his presidency over a cliff.
As Barack Obama "assumed full ownership," there was no shortage of tire-kickers, starting with John McCain, who judges wars on durability (i.e., 100 years in Iraq). The President reportedly placated his rival in last year's race by assuring McCain that the 2011 trade-in date could be modified by "conditions on the ground," a warranty loophole big enough to drive another Surge through.
The post-purchase debate will be all the livelier for an aging gas-guzzler that has none of the curb appeal of George W. Bush's choice, the Saddam Hussein 2003 model with such then-new features as WMDs and a shock-and-awe startup for quick acceleration.
At a pre-speech lunch, the President failed to sell even such an avid buyer of that previous rollout as Tom Friedman, who now complains the new transport has too many "moving parts," that "Afghans, Pakistanis and NATO allies all have to behave forever differently for this to work."
With so much sales resistance, Obama may want to look back at Lyndon Johnson's experience. LBJ was moving along just fine with his newly unveiled war on poverty until he switched off for a side trip aboard the sputtering Vietnam buggy, which eventually took his presidency over a cliff.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Gung Ho-Hum
"For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" asks the Bible.
Barack Obama showed tonight that no president, however eloquent, can successfully summon Americans to combat with a divided mind and heart, that no call for national sacrifice can come with an expiration date, that it is monumentally wrong to send off all those shining young faces to a mission that people back home are confused, ambivalent and heartsick about.
The speech meant to rouse unity and purpose about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be more of a lawyerly brief about how the nation went wrong after 9/11 and how repeating those mistakes more intelligently will produce a different result.
“It is easy to forget," said the President in his peroration, "that when this war began, we were united-- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.”
Those young people at West Point will salute their Commander-in-Chief and follow his orders, wherever they lead, but older and sadder hearts will grieve for their future and for those who will follow them.
The speech tonight was given in Eisenhower Hall, named for a general who was victorious in World War II to become a president who took us out of what a younger Obama might have called "a dumb war" in Korea a decade later.
Barack Obama would do well to remember both Eisenhowers.
Barack Obama showed tonight that no president, however eloquent, can successfully summon Americans to combat with a divided mind and heart, that no call for national sacrifice can come with an expiration date, that it is monumentally wrong to send off all those shining young faces to a mission that people back home are confused, ambivalent and heartsick about.
The speech meant to rouse unity and purpose about the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be more of a lawyerly brief about how the nation went wrong after 9/11 and how repeating those mistakes more intelligently will produce a different result.
“It is easy to forget," said the President in his peroration, "that when this war began, we were united-- bound together by the fresh memory of a horrific attack, and by the determination to defend our homeland and the values we hold dear. I refuse to accept the notion that we cannot summon that unity again.”
Those young people at West Point will salute their Commander-in-Chief and follow his orders, wherever they lead, but older and sadder hearts will grieve for their future and for those who will follow them.
The speech tonight was given in Eisenhower Hall, named for a general who was victorious in World War II to become a president who took us out of what a younger Obama might have called "a dumb war" in Korea a decade later.
Barack Obama would do well to remember both Eisenhowers.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Bringing Afghanistan Home
The pre-game coverage of the President's speech at West Point tomorrow night is on track as White House spinners emphasize that he will "give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down.”
Translated, this means that a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is, to a place thousands of miles from home where they will kill people they don't know and where unknown others will be trying to kill them.
A gifted orator, the President will try to explain what lies behind the polysyllables of "deployment," "security" and "multinational strategy" and show that what some are calling "Obama's Surge" is part of "a necessary war" on behalf of us all.
He won't succeed. How could he? How could anyone? Except for those who are lost in some ideological wasteland, the President will be talking to and about thousands of sovereign souls, each humanly connected to many others, who will never be the same again after he says those words and signs orders to carry them out.
Before the Obama address, we should hear a voice that speaks for them as does Erik Malmstrom, a 29-year-old graduate student who went to Afghanistan three years ago after volunteering for service in 2002 "out of a sense of civic duty," "attracted to the challenge of serving in wartime and leading men in combat."
He came back after surviving roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and confusing fire fights that led to the sudden and inexplicable deaths of comrades in arms. After returning, he crisscrossed the country visiting the families of the fallen to deliver memorial plaques signed by survivors, stand at gravesides, leaf through albums of childhood photos and watch lighthearted home movies.
"I spent much of the time sobbing uncontrollably," Erik Malmstrom recalls and now he says, "I am overridden with conflicting emotions. I am indescribably proud of my service, but can never feel good about it. I did the best I could with an impossible situation, but left behind what has become one of the most violent and unstable valleys in Afghanistan.
"I am thankful for my friendships with the families of my fallen soldiers, but wish that it didn’t take tragedy to bring us together. Coping has not become any easier. My experience changed me forever in ways that I am still trying to understand."
Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring responses to the President from politicians his age and older. The voices we should be hearing are those of Erik Malmstrom and others like him.
Translated, this means that a 48-year-old man named Barack Obama will tell Americans how and why he is sending some 30,000 men and women, most of them younger than he is, to a place thousands of miles from home where they will kill people they don't know and where unknown others will be trying to kill them.
A gifted orator, the President will try to explain what lies behind the polysyllables of "deployment," "security" and "multinational strategy" and show that what some are calling "Obama's Surge" is part of "a necessary war" on behalf of us all.
He won't succeed. How could he? How could anyone? Except for those who are lost in some ideological wasteland, the President will be talking to and about thousands of sovereign souls, each humanly connected to many others, who will never be the same again after he says those words and signs orders to carry them out.
Before the Obama address, we should hear a voice that speaks for them as does Erik Malmstrom, a 29-year-old graduate student who went to Afghanistan three years ago after volunteering for service in 2002 "out of a sense of civic duty," "attracted to the challenge of serving in wartime and leading men in combat."
He came back after surviving roadside bomb attacks, ambushes and confusing fire fights that led to the sudden and inexplicable deaths of comrades in arms. After returning, he crisscrossed the country visiting the families of the fallen to deliver memorial plaques signed by survivors, stand at gravesides, leaf through albums of childhood photos and watch lighthearted home movies.
"I spent much of the time sobbing uncontrollably," Erik Malmstrom recalls and now he says, "I am overridden with conflicting emotions. I am indescribably proud of my service, but can never feel good about it. I did the best I could with an impossible situation, but left behind what has become one of the most violent and unstable valleys in Afghanistan.
"I am thankful for my friendships with the families of my fallen soldiers, but wish that it didn’t take tragedy to bring us together. Coping has not become any easier. My experience changed me forever in ways that I am still trying to understand."
Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring responses to the President from politicians his age and older. The voices we should be hearing are those of Erik Malmstrom and others like him.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Obama: War and Peace
Next week Barack Obama will announce he is sending tens of thousands more troops to fight in Afghanistan as he prepares ten days later to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
This juxtaposition raises questions about the "new climate in international politics" for which the Nobel Committee has cited him, observing, "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts."
But such instruments will not work against those committed to fight a Holy War to the death, and the President now says he "will finish the job" of what he deems "a necessary war" with some yet-to-be-disclosed combination of diplomatic and civilian efforts as well as military force.
When he tells the American people exactly how next Tuesday night, he will be facing a public that is deeply divided about the war. No matter how skillfully Barack Obama explains his decision, an older generation will be thinking of Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam.
Bill Moyers, who worked in the White House back then, speaks for all of us:
"(O)nce again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
"Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
"And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
"And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
"We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."
LBJ never won a Nobel Peace Prize and left office a broken man. In a new century, Barack Obama can learn much from his fate and write a different ending to the story.
This juxtaposition raises questions about the "new climate in international politics" for which the Nobel Committee has cited him, observing, "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts."
But such instruments will not work against those committed to fight a Holy War to the death, and the President now says he "will finish the job" of what he deems "a necessary war" with some yet-to-be-disclosed combination of diplomatic and civilian efforts as well as military force.
When he tells the American people exactly how next Tuesday night, he will be facing a public that is deeply divided about the war. No matter how skillfully Barack Obama explains his decision, an older generation will be thinking of Lyndon Johnson and the war in Vietnam.
Bill Moyers, who worked in the White House back then, speaks for all of us:
"(O)nce again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
"Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
"And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
"And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
"We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."
LBJ never won a Nobel Peace Prize and left office a broken man. In a new century, Barack Obama can learn much from his fate and write a different ending to the story.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Obama vs Karzai Over Exit Strategy
Barack Obama is doing what George W. Bush failed to do in Iraq--looking for "where the off-ramps are," according to a White House official.
As the President starts a nine-day Asia trip, he leaves behind the message that his Afghanistan decision has been strongly influenced by Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador who was once military commander there, whose doubts about Hamid Karzai are reflected in a White House statement:
"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended. After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time."
So begins the crucial battle there--Obama vs Karzai--to get Afghanistan out of its sinkhole of corruption and incompetence far enough to be able to stand on its own and allow US troops to withdraw in a foreseeable time.
Administration officials are reported to be pushing Karzai for a list of "deliverables" to prove that he is cracking down on corruption, including naming able technocrats to top cabinet positions rather than warlords who backed his re-election.
Cynics will claim that Obama does not have the leverage for this kind of arm-twisting--that we are stuck in Afghanistan and Karzai knows it. A former US ambassador there puts it this way:
“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself? The argument that we could pull out of Afghanistan if Karzai doesn’t do what we say is stupid. We couldn’t get the Pakistanis to fight if we leave Afghanistan; we couldn’t accomplish what we’ve set out to do. And Karzai knows that.”
Maybe so, but it's heartening to have a Commander-in-Chief searching this hard for an exit strategy before he commits tens of thousands of troops into harm's way.
There are rumors that the President may make a surprise trip to Kabul at the end of his Asia travels and confront Karzai face to face. If he does, he will have to do better in that battle than he has so far in the one with Republicans over health care.
At the end of his first year, Barack Obama is going to show us what kind of fighter he really is. Can Change come with brass knuckles?
As the President starts a nine-day Asia trip, he leaves behind the message that his Afghanistan decision has been strongly influenced by Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador who was once military commander there, whose doubts about Hamid Karzai are reflected in a White House statement:
"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended. After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time."
So begins the crucial battle there--Obama vs Karzai--to get Afghanistan out of its sinkhole of corruption and incompetence far enough to be able to stand on its own and allow US troops to withdraw in a foreseeable time.
Administration officials are reported to be pushing Karzai for a list of "deliverables" to prove that he is cracking down on corruption, including naming able technocrats to top cabinet positions rather than warlords who backed his re-election.
Cynics will claim that Obama does not have the leverage for this kind of arm-twisting--that we are stuck in Afghanistan and Karzai knows it. A former US ambassador there puts it this way:
“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself? The argument that we could pull out of Afghanistan if Karzai doesn’t do what we say is stupid. We couldn’t get the Pakistanis to fight if we leave Afghanistan; we couldn’t accomplish what we’ve set out to do. And Karzai knows that.”
Maybe so, but it's heartening to have a Commander-in-Chief searching this hard for an exit strategy before he commits tens of thousands of troops into harm's way.
There are rumors that the President may make a surprise trip to Kabul at the end of his Asia travels and confront Karzai face to face. If he does, he will have to do better in that battle than he has so far in the one with Republicans over health care.
At the end of his first year, Barack Obama is going to show us what kind of fighter he really is. Can Change come with brass knuckles?
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Afghan Flypaper
As Decision Day nears and the President considers four options for Afghanistan, a question hovers over his agonizing: Is it a war or an endless occupation?
Will 30, 40 or even 80,000 troops stabilize an unstable country with a corrupt government or, when turmoil persists, stir rage and hatred at Americans for making their people's lives worse?
We went in eight years ago to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists but have succeeded mostly in squeezing them, like toothpaste in a tube, into border areas and across the line into Pakistan.
As a connoisseur of irony, Barack Obama must appreciate the hard fact that the determination of Bush's Neo-Cons to dominate the world with American power has succeeded only in proving how helpless military might alone can be in a world of insurgents who can move freely and escape detection, as Osama bin Laden shows with every taunting tape.
The time the President is taking to decide reflects not dithering, as Dick Cheney puts it, but a recognition that in Afghanistan the US is on foreign policy flypaper, stuck in a situation where more strenuous struggling is as likely to lead to exhaustion as liberation.
The White House debate seems to be less hawks-vs-doves than a sincere struggle to find the least-worst answer to an almost impossible situation. According to one insider, the President is "simply not convinced yet that you can do a lasting counterinsurgency strategy if there is no one to hand it off to."
As a master of the English language, Barack Obama understands that that means an endless occupation.
Will 30, 40 or even 80,000 troops stabilize an unstable country with a corrupt government or, when turmoil persists, stir rage and hatred at Americans for making their people's lives worse?
We went in eight years ago to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists but have succeeded mostly in squeezing them, like toothpaste in a tube, into border areas and across the line into Pakistan.
As a connoisseur of irony, Barack Obama must appreciate the hard fact that the determination of Bush's Neo-Cons to dominate the world with American power has succeeded only in proving how helpless military might alone can be in a world of insurgents who can move freely and escape detection, as Osama bin Laden shows with every taunting tape.
The time the President is taking to decide reflects not dithering, as Dick Cheney puts it, but a recognition that in Afghanistan the US is on foreign policy flypaper, stuck in a situation where more strenuous struggling is as likely to lead to exhaustion as liberation.
The White House debate seems to be less hawks-vs-doves than a sincere struggle to find the least-worst answer to an almost impossible situation. According to one insider, the President is "simply not convinced yet that you can do a lasting counterinsurgency strategy if there is no one to hand it off to."
As a master of the English language, Barack Obama understands that that means an endless occupation.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Why Are We Still in Afghanistan?
Yes, yes, to fight the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. But eight years later, American blood and treasure are still being poured into a country of dirt-poor, illiterate people who support themselves by growing poppy for opium and heroin under one of the most corrupt governments in the world.
As Barack Obama makes a midnight visit to honor the incoming dead and console their families, critics may sneer at his theatricality, but the President seems to be trying to clear his head and heart of the numbers and jargon that have dominated months of discussion about whether or not to send up to44,000 more troops to do what those who are now dying there in record numbers have been unable to do.
During the Bush years, despite pockets of fierce opposition, the American mindset was dominated by a Neo-Con vision, unleashed by the trauma of 9/11, of a superpower with "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."
That led us into Afghanistan and then Iraq, where the blood still flows in factional fighting, and now the pressure persists on a President elected with a far different vision to stay on that course at the risk of being accused of dithering and defeatism.
At home on the economy, Barack Obama has been forced into pushing for Change on an unprecedented, unsettling scale, but polling shows the American people slowly overcoming their doubts.
How would they react to a daring Change in foreign policy? What would happen if, instead of escalating troop levels, the US took a different approach? Tom Friedman suggests one possibility:
"Yes, the morning after we shrink down in Afghanistan, the Taliban will celebrate, Pakistan will quake and bin Laden will issue an exultant video.
"And the morning after the morning after, the Taliban factions will start fighting each other, the Pakistani Army will have to destroy their Taliban, or be destroyed by them, Afghanistan’s warlords will carve up the country, and, if bin Laden comes out of his cave, he’ll get zapped by a drone."
This may be as wishful as the Neo-Con faith in nation-building in Afghanistan and Pakistan that has cost Americans so much and produced so little, but it deserves as serious consideration as what Friedman describes as the result of their alternative: "China, Russia and Al Qaeda all love the idea of America doing a long, slow bleed in Afghanistan."
Those are the choices Obama is facing.
As Barack Obama makes a midnight visit to honor the incoming dead and console their families, critics may sneer at his theatricality, but the President seems to be trying to clear his head and heart of the numbers and jargon that have dominated months of discussion about whether or not to send up to44,000 more troops to do what those who are now dying there in record numbers have been unable to do.
During the Bush years, despite pockets of fierce opposition, the American mindset was dominated by a Neo-Con vision, unleashed by the trauma of 9/11, of a superpower with "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."
That led us into Afghanistan and then Iraq, where the blood still flows in factional fighting, and now the pressure persists on a President elected with a far different vision to stay on that course at the risk of being accused of dithering and defeatism.
At home on the economy, Barack Obama has been forced into pushing for Change on an unprecedented, unsettling scale, but polling shows the American people slowly overcoming their doubts.
How would they react to a daring Change in foreign policy? What would happen if, instead of escalating troop levels, the US took a different approach? Tom Friedman suggests one possibility:
"Yes, the morning after we shrink down in Afghanistan, the Taliban will celebrate, Pakistan will quake and bin Laden will issue an exultant video.
"And the morning after the morning after, the Taliban factions will start fighting each other, the Pakistani Army will have to destroy their Taliban, or be destroyed by them, Afghanistan’s warlords will carve up the country, and, if bin Laden comes out of his cave, he’ll get zapped by a drone."
This may be as wishful as the Neo-Con faith in nation-building in Afghanistan and Pakistan that has cost Americans so much and produced so little, but it deserves as serious consideration as what Friedman describes as the result of their alternative: "China, Russia and Al Qaeda all love the idea of America doing a long, slow bleed in Afghanistan."
Those are the choices Obama is facing.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Dithering Before Sending Americans to Die
"I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary," the President said yesterday at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. "And if it's necessary, we will back you up to the hilt."
He was talking to men and women in uniform but answering an American who never wore one, Dick Cheney, who has accused him of "dithering" about sending more troops to Afghanistan during a speech at the Center for Security Policy last week to accept a "Keeper of the Flame Award."
It's not clear what flame the awarders had in mind, but the former Vice President, who has grown more overtly bellicose in his time out of office, was too busy with "other priorities in the 60's than military service" getting five deferments to avoid it during the Vietnam war but has been more than willing to risk others' lives as a bureaucrat ever since.
Sarah Palin has preempted the title, "Going Rogue," but Cheney is walking the walk as he offends everyone from John McCain to Orrin Hatch with those attacks on President Obama for "dithering" on Afghanistan.
After decades as the perfect behind-the-scenes factotum, he has now morphed into the runaway Republican who has no hesitation about sending more and more Americans to places where doubts are growing about US ability to win the so-called war on terrorism.
Cheney's nominal former boss, George W. Bush, has confined himself to giving inspirational speeches to crowds dancing to Beach Boy tunes, but the former VP no doubt considers that dithering while Rome burns.
He was talking to men and women in uniform but answering an American who never wore one, Dick Cheney, who has accused him of "dithering" about sending more troops to Afghanistan during a speech at the Center for Security Policy last week to accept a "Keeper of the Flame Award."
It's not clear what flame the awarders had in mind, but the former Vice President, who has grown more overtly bellicose in his time out of office, was too busy with "other priorities in the 60's than military service" getting five deferments to avoid it during the Vietnam war but has been more than willing to risk others' lives as a bureaucrat ever since.
Sarah Palin has preempted the title, "Going Rogue," but Cheney is walking the walk as he offends everyone from John McCain to Orrin Hatch with those attacks on President Obama for "dithering" on Afghanistan.
After decades as the perfect behind-the-scenes factotum, he has now morphed into the runaway Republican who has no hesitation about sending more and more Americans to places where doubts are growing about US ability to win the so-called war on terrorism.
Cheney's nominal former boss, George W. Bush, has confined himself to giving inspirational speeches to crowds dancing to Beach Boy tunes, but the former VP no doubt considers that dithering while Rome burns.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Passion of President McCain
If the election had gone the other way, Americans would have been spared all this doubt and deliberation about what to do in the Middle East.
Asked today whether adding 10 or 20,000 troops for Afghanistan would suffice, John McCain tells CNN it would be "an error of historic proportions" not to meet Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 or more.
If Barack Obama were as sure of anything as McCain is of everything, there would be no need for agonizing over what conservative Peggy Noonan calls "a choice between two hells":
"The hell of withdrawal is what kind of drama would fill the vacuum, who would re-emerge, who would be empowered, what Pakistan would look like with a newly redrawn reality in the neighborhood, what tremors would shake the ground there as the U.S. troops march out...a great nation that had made a commitment in retreat...
"The hell of staying is equally clear, and vivid: more loss of American and allied troops, more damage to men and resources, an American national debate that would be a continuing wound and possibly a debilitating one, an overstretched military given no relief and in fact stretched thinner, a huge and continuing financial cost in a time when our economy is low," with no guarantee or even definition of success.
A resolute President McCain would have little patience for this kind of hemming and hawing even though, as Frank Rich points out, "He made every wrong judgment call that could be made after 9/11. It’s not just that he echoed the Bush administration’s constant innuendos that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda’s attack on America. Or that he hyped the faulty W.M.D. evidence to the hysterical extreme of fingering Iraq for the anthrax attacks in Washington. Or that he promised we would win the war 'easily.' Or that he predicted that the Sunnis and the Shiites would 'probably get along' in post-Saddam Iraq because there was 'not a history of clashes' between them.
"What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan and Pakistan. He routinely minimized or dismissed the growing threats in both countries over the past six years, lest they draw American resources away from his pet crusade in Iraq."
But the Might-Have-Been Republican President is content to keep shooting from the hip even as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, another Republican, joins Hillary Clinton in emphasizing a more considered approach:
"(T)he new commander has done an assessment and found a situation in Afghanistan that is more serious than we anticipated when the decisions were made in March. So that's one thing to take into account.
"The other is, clearly, a flawed election in Afghanistan that has complicated the picture for us...
"The president is being asked to make a very significant decision. And the notion of being willing to pause, reassess basic assumptions, reassess the analysis, and then make those decisions seems to me, given the importance of these decisions...among the most important he will make in his entire presidency--seems entirely appropriate."
With McCain in the White House, Gates would be in deep trouble for waffling like that.
Asked today whether adding 10 or 20,000 troops for Afghanistan would suffice, John McCain tells CNN it would be "an error of historic proportions" not to meet Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000 or more.
If Barack Obama were as sure of anything as McCain is of everything, there would be no need for agonizing over what conservative Peggy Noonan calls "a choice between two hells":
"The hell of withdrawal is what kind of drama would fill the vacuum, who would re-emerge, who would be empowered, what Pakistan would look like with a newly redrawn reality in the neighborhood, what tremors would shake the ground there as the U.S. troops march out...a great nation that had made a commitment in retreat...
"The hell of staying is equally clear, and vivid: more loss of American and allied troops, more damage to men and resources, an American national debate that would be a continuing wound and possibly a debilitating one, an overstretched military given no relief and in fact stretched thinner, a huge and continuing financial cost in a time when our economy is low," with no guarantee or even definition of success.
A resolute President McCain would have little patience for this kind of hemming and hawing even though, as Frank Rich points out, "He made every wrong judgment call that could be made after 9/11. It’s not just that he echoed the Bush administration’s constant innuendos that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda’s attack on America. Or that he hyped the faulty W.M.D. evidence to the hysterical extreme of fingering Iraq for the anthrax attacks in Washington. Or that he promised we would win the war 'easily.' Or that he predicted that the Sunnis and the Shiites would 'probably get along' in post-Saddam Iraq because there was 'not a history of clashes' between them.
"What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan and Pakistan. He routinely minimized or dismissed the growing threats in both countries over the past six years, lest they draw American resources away from his pet crusade in Iraq."
But the Might-Have-Been Republican President is content to keep shooting from the hip even as Defense Secretary Robert Gates, another Republican, joins Hillary Clinton in emphasizing a more considered approach:
"(T)he new commander has done an assessment and found a situation in Afghanistan that is more serious than we anticipated when the decisions were made in March. So that's one thing to take into account.
"The other is, clearly, a flawed election in Afghanistan that has complicated the picture for us...
"The president is being asked to make a very significant decision. And the notion of being willing to pause, reassess basic assumptions, reassess the analysis, and then make those decisions seems to me, given the importance of these decisions...among the most important he will make in his entire presidency--seems entirely appropriate."
With McCain in the White House, Gates would be in deep trouble for waffling like that.
Monday, October 05, 2009
General Confusion: McChrystal, Petraeus
When Dwight David Eisenhower came back from World War II, no one knew whether he was a Republican or Democrat until he ran for president. He had spent his years as a commanding general steering clear of politics.
Not so today. Starting three years ago when Iraq was in shambles, George W. Bush took political cover behind Gen. David Petraeus, who successfully redirected a misbegotten war into a counter-insurgency that worked well enough to open the way for American troop withdrawal under the next president.
Now, in Afghanistan, this breach of traditional military-political separation is haunting the effort to devise a new strategy for another failing war.
Suddenly, Barack Obama's choice, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is embarrassing his Commander-in-Chief by making preemptive speeches about decisions still in the making, leading to the kind of possible confrontation unseen since Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for politicking to widen the Korean War.
McChrystal is no MacArthur, and his going public prematurely is much more likely the result of inexperience rather than arrogance, but the Petraeus precedent is complicating a painful debate in a time of political polarization.
As he showed clearly on 60 Minutes last month, McChrystal is a conscientious, forceful commander with no illusions about Afghanistan, but going public with what should be his confidential advice to the President before final decisions are made is a disservice to both his Commander-in-Chief and Pentagon superiors.
Meanwhile, Gen. Petraeus, who may or may not be thinking about running for president in 2012, is reported to have "largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular."
Petraeus is a gifted military man, as McChrystal also seems to be, but while they are in uniform, they would do well to keep their political views apart in the Eisenhower manner. If and when they become civilians, there will be time enough for airing them forcefully.
Update: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the Bush holdover, weighed in today, subtly criticizing McChrystal. “I believe," he said, "the decisions that the president will make for the next stage of the Afghanistan campaign will be among the most important of his presidency, so it is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right.
“And in this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations--civilians and military alike--provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately.
“And speaking for the Department of Defense, once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability.”
Not so today. Starting three years ago when Iraq was in shambles, George W. Bush took political cover behind Gen. David Petraeus, who successfully redirected a misbegotten war into a counter-insurgency that worked well enough to open the way for American troop withdrawal under the next president.
Now, in Afghanistan, this breach of traditional military-political separation is haunting the effort to devise a new strategy for another failing war.
Suddenly, Barack Obama's choice, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is embarrassing his Commander-in-Chief by making preemptive speeches about decisions still in the making, leading to the kind of possible confrontation unseen since Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951 for politicking to widen the Korean War.
McChrystal is no MacArthur, and his going public prematurely is much more likely the result of inexperience rather than arrogance, but the Petraeus precedent is complicating a painful debate in a time of political polarization.
As he showed clearly on 60 Minutes last month, McChrystal is a conscientious, forceful commander with no illusions about Afghanistan, but going public with what should be his confidential advice to the President before final decisions are made is a disservice to both his Commander-in-Chief and Pentagon superiors.
Meanwhile, Gen. Petraeus, who may or may not be thinking about running for president in 2012, is reported to have "largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular."
Petraeus is a gifted military man, as McChrystal also seems to be, but while they are in uniform, they would do well to keep their political views apart in the Eisenhower manner. If and when they become civilians, there will be time enough for airing them forcefully.
Update: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the Bush holdover, weighed in today, subtly criticizing McChrystal. “I believe," he said, "the decisions that the president will make for the next stage of the Afghanistan campaign will be among the most important of his presidency, so it is important that we take our time to do all we can to get this right.
“And in this process, it is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations--civilians and military alike--provide our best advice to the president candidly but privately.
“And speaking for the Department of Defense, once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability.”
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Good News About Afghanistan Ambivalence
The War on Terror, confusing and anxious-making as it may be, has produced one encouraging side effect in American politics: The gung-ho is gone as all sides concede the military effort in Afghanistan is a dangerous enterprise with an unknowable outcome.
As President Obama goes face-to-face with General McChrystal today by tele-conference, the debate over what to do next has been a good deal less rancorous than any other in recent Washington history. "Dithering" has been the harshest accusation against the White House by Congressional Republicans, as the Administration leaks reports of success against Al Qaeda by covert operations.
On PBS, GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss agrees with the Democrats' Carl Levin that "just putting troops out there is not going to guarantee success" and argues for more reliance on the military judgment than Levin is willing to accept, a far different tone than partisan disagreements over the Surge in Iraq.
As wrenching as what's at stake is, it's heartening to see some semblance of sanity in American politics, the disappearance of which Tom Friedman laments today: "Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word 'we' with a straight face. There is no more 'we' in American politics at a time when 'we' have these huge problems."
On the fringes, the overheated rhetoric goes on, from Gore Vidal on the Left expressing disappointment in Obama and predicting "dictatorship soon" to a Republican Congressman calling the President "an enemy of humanity."
In a perverse way, Afghanistan with all of its corruption and complexity is bringing back serious thought to political debate at a time when the substance of issues has been degraded into a 24/7 circus of media slanders.
Granted that self-interest is, as always, involved in both Republican and Democratic reluctance to stake their political futures on either going all in or pulling out of another quagmire in the making, the resulting focus on what's at stake there and how to going about dealing with it is a partial answer to Friedman's worries about "a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss political issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest."
Whatever the outcome of White House deliberations on Afghanistan, they offer the faint hope that maybe "we" can.
As President Obama goes face-to-face with General McChrystal today by tele-conference, the debate over what to do next has been a good deal less rancorous than any other in recent Washington history. "Dithering" has been the harshest accusation against the White House by Congressional Republicans, as the Administration leaks reports of success against Al Qaeda by covert operations.
On PBS, GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss agrees with the Democrats' Carl Levin that "just putting troops out there is not going to guarantee success" and argues for more reliance on the military judgment than Levin is willing to accept, a far different tone than partisan disagreements over the Surge in Iraq.
As wrenching as what's at stake is, it's heartening to see some semblance of sanity in American politics, the disappearance of which Tom Friedman laments today: "Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word 'we' with a straight face. There is no more 'we' in American politics at a time when 'we' have these huge problems."
On the fringes, the overheated rhetoric goes on, from Gore Vidal on the Left expressing disappointment in Obama and predicting "dictatorship soon" to a Republican Congressman calling the President "an enemy of humanity."
In a perverse way, Afghanistan with all of its corruption and complexity is bringing back serious thought to political debate at a time when the substance of issues has been degraded into a 24/7 circus of media slanders.
Granted that self-interest is, as always, involved in both Republican and Democratic reluctance to stake their political futures on either going all in or pulling out of another quagmire in the making, the resulting focus on what's at stake there and how to going about dealing with it is a partial answer to Friedman's worries about "a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss political issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest."
Whatever the outcome of White House deliberations on Afghanistan, they offer the faint hope that maybe "we" can.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Vietnam Again?
As critics taunt the President about becoming another Jimmy Carter on the economy or Bill Clinton on health care reform, an older generation is haunted by the makings of another LBJ in Afghanistan.
General Stanley McChrystal's call for more troops with the or-else warning that our mission "will likely result in failure" is an invitation to follow the Vietnam path that led to 550,000 Americans fighting and over 50,000 being killed in a tribal war that ended in defeat and humiliation.
LBJ was motivated by the Domino Theory ("If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco"). President Obama is concerned about Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as safe havens for the kind of terrorists who executed 9/11.
He is on the brink of making a commitment but worries out loud: "Are we doing the right thing?" he said on CNN yesterday. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?
"I'm answerable to the parents of those young men and women who I'm sending over there, and I want to make sure that it's for the right reason."
His hesitation is well-founded. Beyond all the political blather is the reality that Afghanistan, like Vietnam, is the quintessence of Matthew Arnold's 19th century vision: "on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night."
In today's New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat claims: "On foreign policy, Bush looks a lot like Lyndon Johnson--but only if Johnson, after years of unsuccessful escalation, had bequeathed Richard Nixon a new strategy that enabled U.S. troops to withdraw from Vietnam with their honor largely intact."
But Iraq, a highly developed society, is still wracked by violence with who-knows-what to come after American withdrawal at the price of more than 4300 lives.
How much honor will there be in trying to pacify a country beset by corruption, financed by heroin trade, and coming off a stolen presidential election? Even more to the point, do al Qaeda and its offshoots really need "safe havens" in Afghanistan when there is a world of Yemens, Somalias et al to hide them from exposure?
The President would be well-advised by the history of the last half-century to look beyond military escalation as "the right strategy" in Afghanistan.
General Stanley McChrystal's call for more troops with the or-else warning that our mission "will likely result in failure" is an invitation to follow the Vietnam path that led to 550,000 Americans fighting and over 50,000 being killed in a tribal war that ended in defeat and humiliation.
LBJ was motivated by the Domino Theory ("If we allow Vietnam to fall, tomorrow we’ll be fighting in Hawaii, and next week in San Francisco"). President Obama is concerned about Afghanistan, and Pakistan, as safe havens for the kind of terrorists who executed 9/11.
He is on the brink of making a commitment but worries out loud: "Are we doing the right thing?" he said on CNN yesterday. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?
"I'm answerable to the parents of those young men and women who I'm sending over there, and I want to make sure that it's for the right reason."
His hesitation is well-founded. Beyond all the political blather is the reality that Afghanistan, like Vietnam, is the quintessence of Matthew Arnold's 19th century vision: "on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night."
In today's New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat claims: "On foreign policy, Bush looks a lot like Lyndon Johnson--but only if Johnson, after years of unsuccessful escalation, had bequeathed Richard Nixon a new strategy that enabled U.S. troops to withdraw from Vietnam with their honor largely intact."
But Iraq, a highly developed society, is still wracked by violence with who-knows-what to come after American withdrawal at the price of more than 4300 lives.
How much honor will there be in trying to pacify a country beset by corruption, financed by heroin trade, and coming off a stolen presidential election? Even more to the point, do al Qaeda and its offshoots really need "safe havens" in Afghanistan when there is a world of Yemens, Somalias et al to hide them from exposure?
The President would be well-advised by the history of the last half-century to look beyond military escalation as "the right strategy" in Afghanistan.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Obama Is No LBJ
As Afghanistan starts to resemble Vietnam, Barack Obama is being compared to Lyndon Johnson, "a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad."
Such parallels must be irresistible to historians and journalistic Big Thinkers, but they overlook the reality that Obama and LBJ are as dissimilar as two presidents could be in every way that counts--temperament, personality and approach to power.
Even the comparison has its roots in the current president's reflective nature as opposed to Johnson's self-assertion and certainty, going back to a recent off-the-record dinner with historians in which Obama "expressed concern that Afghanistan could yet hijack his presidency."
Self-awareness and modesty are traits that could serve him well as Afghanistan threatens to become the kind of quagmire that resulted from LBJ's often-asserted refusal to become "the first American president to lose a war."
If hubris was Johnson's Achille's heel, however, caution is Obama's counterpart.
“We must never forget,” he said in a speech last week. “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”
Maybe so, but in LBJ's time, the domino theory about the spread of Communism seemed just as compelling and proved to be flawed. The question now is will Obama reconsider that "necessity," as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and others have been urging.
Depressed and defeated in retirement, Johnson was still trying to understand what went wrong, and I heard him give an assessment of his successor Richard Nixon.
"Not much here," LBJ said, pointing to his head and then his heart, "even less here," before lowering his hand below the belt. "But enough down there."
Unlike Johnson, Obama is not so obsessed with such distinctions that they will cloud his ultimate decisions about changing direction in a war that Americans no longer want.
If he stays true to his own nature, he can avoid LBJ's foreign policy disaster and keep trying to match his achievements in working toward a Great Society.
Such parallels must be irresistible to historians and journalistic Big Thinkers, but they overlook the reality that Obama and LBJ are as dissimilar as two presidents could be in every way that counts--temperament, personality and approach to power.
Even the comparison has its roots in the current president's reflective nature as opposed to Johnson's self-assertion and certainty, going back to a recent off-the-record dinner with historians in which Obama "expressed concern that Afghanistan could yet hijack his presidency."
Self-awareness and modesty are traits that could serve him well as Afghanistan threatens to become the kind of quagmire that resulted from LBJ's often-asserted refusal to become "the first American president to lose a war."
If hubris was Johnson's Achille's heel, however, caution is Obama's counterpart.
“We must never forget,” he said in a speech last week. “This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity.”
Maybe so, but in LBJ's time, the domino theory about the spread of Communism seemed just as compelling and proved to be flawed. The question now is will Obama reconsider that "necessity," as the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and others have been urging.
Depressed and defeated in retirement, Johnson was still trying to understand what went wrong, and I heard him give an assessment of his successor Richard Nixon.
"Not much here," LBJ said, pointing to his head and then his heart, "even less here," before lowering his hand below the belt. "But enough down there."
Unlike Johnson, Obama is not so obsessed with such distinctions that they will cloud his ultimate decisions about changing direction in a war that Americans no longer want.
If he stays true to his own nature, he can avoid LBJ's foreign policy disaster and keep trying to match his achievements in working toward a Great Society.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Crossed Fingers for Afghanistan
For the crisis du jour, the mode is ultra-cautious optimism as we tiptoe deeper into the Afghan-Pakistan quagmire with an infusion of 4,000 more military trainers along with civilian advisers.
The President's announcement today will put the bravest face on it, but the shadow of Iraq will be in the picture. An expert once described the war there as playing three-dimensional chess in the dark but that looks more like checkers compared to this. (See the gung-ho Long War Journal for a sampling of the daily reality.)
David Brooks comes back from his guided tour today "skeptical but also infected by the optimism of the truly impressive people who are working here," a non-sequitur after his gloomy assessment of the situation:
"Afghanistan is one of the poorest, least-educated and most-corrupt nations on earth...It has powerful enemies in Pakistan, Iran and the drug networks working hard to foment chaos. The ground is littered with the ruins of great powers that tried to change this place.
"Moreover, we simply do not know how to modernize nations. Western aid workers seem to spend most of their time drawing up flow charts for each other. They’re so worried about their inspectors general that they can’t really immerse themselves in the messy world of local reality. They insist on making most of the spending decisions themselves so the 'recipients' of their largess end up passive, dependent and resentful."
Add to this an intractable culture of corruption that has made the US-backed Karzai government shaky and the uncertainty of Pakistani support in the tribal regions despite our billions of aid to their government, and the questions of what we're doing there, for how long and with what prospects of success add up to another possible Iraq with more at stake and even less hope of disentanglement.
The Neo-Cons were criminally naïve about the Middle East, but it's hard to see much improvement in the "new" approach.
The President's announcement today will put the bravest face on it, but the shadow of Iraq will be in the picture. An expert once described the war there as playing three-dimensional chess in the dark but that looks more like checkers compared to this. (See the gung-ho Long War Journal for a sampling of the daily reality.)
David Brooks comes back from his guided tour today "skeptical but also infected by the optimism of the truly impressive people who are working here," a non-sequitur after his gloomy assessment of the situation:
"Afghanistan is one of the poorest, least-educated and most-corrupt nations on earth...It has powerful enemies in Pakistan, Iran and the drug networks working hard to foment chaos. The ground is littered with the ruins of great powers that tried to change this place.
"Moreover, we simply do not know how to modernize nations. Western aid workers seem to spend most of their time drawing up flow charts for each other. They’re so worried about their inspectors general that they can’t really immerse themselves in the messy world of local reality. They insist on making most of the spending decisions themselves so the 'recipients' of their largess end up passive, dependent and resentful."
Add to this an intractable culture of corruption that has made the US-backed Karzai government shaky and the uncertainty of Pakistani support in the tribal regions despite our billions of aid to their government, and the questions of what we're doing there, for how long and with what prospects of success add up to another possible Iraq with more at stake and even less hope of disentanglement.
The Neo-Cons were criminally naïve about the Middle East, but it's hard to see much improvement in the "new" approach.
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