Pick a number
The German magazine Spiegel writes pleadingly of the need for President Obama to provide more “leadership” on Afghanistan. It is one of several European newspapers that are wondering: what’s up?
Afghanistan and Pakistan are being shaken by attacks, and the Taliban is dictating the course of the war. US President Obama has been silent about the situation for far too long and European countries like Germany and France are correct to demand better American leadership on the issue of Afghanistan.
The most important piece of news from the most recent meeting of NATO defense ministers was that there was no news. …
For once, this hesitation cannot be attributed to widespread war fatigue in Europe. The mission in Afghanistan is seen as a toxic issue in all Western nations, and every government that has provided troops has come under sharp criticism at home. What the US’s NATO allies now find far more irritating is US President Barack Obama’s silence on the issue.
The world has been waiting for clear words from the White House for months. Obama has had government and military analysts studying the military and political situation in the embattled Hindu Kush region since early January. He appointed Richard Holbrooke, probably the US’s most effective diplomat in crisis situations, to be his special envoy to the “AfPak” region, he has replaced generals and he has deployed more troops. The answers Obama asked his experts to provide after taking office have been sitting on his desk for a long time. But the conclusions vary. Obama will have to make his own decision, one that will shape his political fate.
The UK Times wrote an article along the same lines. Compared to Barack Obama, it wrote, Gordon Brown was the model of decisiveness. Given that Brown is widely derided in the UK, that translates to “how can you fall lower than whale****”.
A remarkable headline on an opinion piece about Afghanistan in The New York Times, following an interview with David Miliband: “Britain resolves, US wavers”. If the American press can look to policy on Afghanistan on this side of the Atlantic and see relative determination, vision and clarity of purpose, then things in Washington must be dire indeed.
It is now two months since General Stanley McCrystal, the commander of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, told President Obama that a surge of at least 40,000 troops was required for the international mission in that country to succeed. Mr Obama is not obliged to follow his recommendation, but he is obliged to do something other than sit on his own hands. “I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way,” Mr Obama told the military, in a speech this week. This is not an unattractive sentiment. There is deliberation, nonetheless, and then there is dragging one’s feet.
Now is not a time for a president to dither. Yesterday, a Taleban suicide squad stormed a United Nations guesthouse in Kabul, leaving six international staff dead and nine injured. The Taleban do not carry out such attacks at random. They understand well the context in which they act, and do so in order to sway a decision that they believe can be swayed …
In war, morale matters. Coalition troops must risk death every day, without knowing what their ultimate purpose is, whether that purpose will change, or even if they have one at all. The resignation in September, but revealed this week, of Matthew Hoh, a senior US official, is a sympton of drift and despair. Mr Hoh is a former Marine captain, and was cited for “uncommon bravery” in Iraq. “My resignation is based not on how we are pursuing this war,” he said, “but why, and to what end.” Only Mr Obama can answer that question, and he must do so soon.
“Only Mr Obama can answer that question, and he must do so soon.” But what is the question? And what is soon? President Obama’s inaction seem incomprehensible according to the normal “rational actor” models which are used to predict behavior. That’s what has got the op-ed writers scratching their heads. Since they aren’t privy to what a politician thinks, what newspaper pundits do is put themselves in his place. And that normally works, but on rare occasions a politician starts doing something so completely unexpected and does so consistently for such a period that analysts begin to conclude that either the politician is behaving abnormally (“indecisive”, “paralyzed”, “agonizing”) with respect to his interests or they begin to suspect they have left a major factor out of the reckoning. The first indicates the pundits have misunderstood the man, the second suggests they have misunderstood the situation.
The classic deductive solution to the problem of unaccountable effects was the discovery of Neptune. Neptune was discovered because the orbit of the planet Uranus was discovered to be behaving oddly. Neptune was found to be there because it had to be there, given Uranus’ funny antics.
Neptune is the only planet in the Solar System whose existence was mathematically predicted before it was directly observed. By 1846, the planet Uranus had completed nearly one full orbit since its discovery by William Herschel in 1781, and astronomers had detected a series of irregularities in its path which could not be entirely explained by Newton’s law of gravitation. These irregularities could, however, be resolved if the gravity of a farther, unknown planet were disturbing its path around the Sun. That year, astronomers Urbain Le Verrier in Paris and John Couch Adams in Cambridge separately began calculations to determine the nature and position of such a planet.
People normally “drag their feet” if they are waiting for something to turn up. Some kind of timing issue, some development, some process in the background is being resolved. In the meantime an idle thread is being spun out to await the knock on the door. If that’s the case, there is an unseen presence in the policy room which nobody is yet openly aware of. We don’t understand the situation. Or maybe the Spiegel and the Times are right. The President just has a hard time making up his mind. We just don’t understand the man.
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Popular wisdom says that he is waiting out the elections and those thorny issues in the house and senate for the next couple of weeks. But I have seen stalling as a passive aggressive way of saying “no” without being directly accountable before as well. The pres is between a rock and a hard place here because even the a portion of the right would question our purpose there. The left would howl if any of O’s decisions reflected the values of his predecessor. Interesting times.
Strange times, aren’t they?
My reflexive reaction as an American to European plaintivness is to tell them to take a hike, since they have been fine with us taking the lion’s share of the burden. But the reality is that this is an acknowledgement of our power. Obama was described as an “effete academic weakling” over at American Thinker even before the election. They were right. He wants to dither like that unfortunate Danish prince and turn us into Denmark while he’s at it.
The One is waiting for healthcare reform to pass. He needs the votes of the far Left, and knows that deploying more troops will only irritate them. Once he rams the bill down the throats of the American people, he will be free to act. What will he do? He’ll probably send more troops in order to shore up his centrist credentials after the healthcare cram-down. Meanwhile, Biden makes defeatist noises to keep the Left happy. Then, Obama pretends to be presidential by over-ruling Biden and sending more men. The press will, of course, provide endless “hosannas” as to The One’s vision and courage.
He reminds me of Prince Sihanouk: playing everyone off against each other until he finds that he has no one left.
As with all things obama we have long since figured out that his dysfunctional personality and distain for all United States institutions lead him to perform a charade, a personality of the compensatory façade. He cannot adapt himself to liking this country for reason we have written about ad nauseaum.
This leaves us with a daily harrumph about his latest screwing of the American culture and people and his attempts to turn Omaha into Malmo. People, we are serving a noble purpose in performing this dissection of a madman who is attempting to destroy the greatest, most benevolent nation man has ever seen. Let us continue to unpeel each new onion he harvests from his tortured lunacy garden and the deal him a metaphorical but genuine electoral death blow in 2010. Then we can, by a thousand unpeelings be done with him in 2012.
This will take many of us to places within ourselves we seldom enjoy going. Confronting an ardent obama supporter, or pushing through his thugs at polling places with the help of a united phalanx of support. Call for help. Someone such as myself will step forward. You see thuggery ; throw your shoe at it, make it an issue but never simply take it. We are in a fight. Let’s make the best one we ever had. We will end up a saved nation. I believe in Texas hold’em they call it being all in. We’re all in.
The bill keeps coming in, but left unpaid the late fees (dead) are starting to pile up. Eventually there will be a knock at the door…
Maybe that’s what he wants. Another attack on U.S. soil will create a crisis Rahm definitely won’t let go to waste: no more elections. Ever.
(Now I’m starting to sound like a barking moonbat)
Consider a more limited problem: what is perturbing the orbit of Uranus, which in this case equates to what is the unseen presence in the policy room? Waiting to pass health care is one plausible possibility. There are others. But which? And worse, how can we know which?
The really disturbing thing about an “undetected presence”, or X factor, if it exists, is why it should remain undetectable. Then sensors are inadequate. We are like the team in the movie “Predator” who begin to worry not only about something they can’t see, but are concerned about why they can’t see it. Maybe we can change the filers on the sensors. Perhaps this is one situation where a really well connected, professional and funded journalist might make a real contribution. Maybe the WaPo or the Times will “explain” it to us sometime in the future. But how would we collaterally confirm it?
The other alternative is to conclude we’re over-reacting. President Obama is simply being cautious. Weighing things. Behaving responsibly. That hypothesis will probably be adopted as the default view. But like the null hypothesis, it can only be supported for so long in the face of contrary data. But I think this is what is most likely. The allies and the press will go along until they can no longer ignore it.
“the orbit of the planet Uranus was discovered to be behaving oddly”, was it was voting “present” or selling access?
If the old world is helping we owe them a report. If not, then they can read the tea leaves.
To be blunt:
I agree with the President on this. He needs to think long and hard. Afghanistan is a trap, pure and simple. I won’t go into detailed discussion, because most everyone on BC with a combat military background has already pointed out the danger of committing a large chunk of our available “combat power” (I hate that phrase, but to an extent, it is apt) to a “Dien Bien Phu” type of situation.
However, were I the local AO commander, while waiting for the Prez’s decision, I would be pulling back into defendable enclaves that could be protected with available assets. You don’t need LRRP’s when the enemy is moving siege towers into place (Pardon the mixed metaphors). I would also be looking into the local base library for a copy of Xenophon’s Anabasis.
Leifmeister –
Nice theory. If true, it disgusts me, because they really are “playing politics with soldiers’ lives.”
At what point can we stop imputing (correctly as it so often turns out) such despicable motives to the actions of O and the Dems? It doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon, that’s for sure. Maybe never – the Left plays for keeps.
Back in May of 1993, as the Clinton Admin faced multiple failed nominees for various posts and a generally slow pace of setting up shop, George Will was asked to comment on the situation.
He response was classic: “I disagree that the Clinton Administration is in disarray. This is what liberal government looks like.”
By the same token, I disagree that the Obama Administration is not exerting leadership on Afghanistan. This is what his kind of leadership looks like.
As the old saying goes “You can’t have Falstaff and have him thin.” And neither can you have Obama and have him decisive. It ain’t in his DNA.
The essential problem is that the Accidental President didn’t really think he would win, so he didn’t bother to actually make any plans or put any serious thought into what he would have as a policy until about Sep-Nov of last year. He has been winging it ever since.
Look at all of his “initiatives”; they are either cookie-cutter Commie drivel or completely off the wall. The man has no original ideas of merit. The Stimulus Plan was just a pile of pork that rewarded the Faithful Lefties, Iran has been a blazing success-he extended his open hand and they spit on it, his Nation-Socialist Healthcare has oozed through Congress with little or no guidance from his.
Afghanistan is just soooo complicated! All those unhappy people that hate us because of Bush. And the names are really hard to pronounce as well!
What makes it worst of all is those stupid remarks that he made during the campaign that keep popping up on YouTube; Afghanistan is the real war, taking our eye off the ball etc.
My bet is that he will continue to dither until the dung impacts the rotary air circulation device. People will end up dead due to his fecklessness.
Good Luck Europe, you are on your own on this one.
8. programmer:
To be blunt:
I agree with the President on this. He needs to think long and hard. Afghanistan is a trap, pure and simple.
Granted, but these things have been known about the Afpak theater for quite some time. I would have thought that 6 months into the new administration — to allow for absorption of solid, reliable inside data on the region and the war — would have been sufficient; that would have been July. Also, didn’t this President reiterate twice (in March and July/August) that we had a plan?
People also drag their feet when they know that the outcome of the decision will have negative consequences on some level, causing someone to be unhappy with it.
That’s what is happening here – whatever he decides, someone will be unhappy, and he doesn’t like to deal with that. And thanks to the press and the people who didn’t vote for McCain, he has never had to develop the skills/thick skin for dealing with that.
Look at DADT, as another example.
So, a German magazine wants Obama to be more decisive in
Afghanistan? How about the German detachment in Afghanistan
being more decisive and not avoiding combat?
there has been an awful lot of jihadi arrests in the US the last month or so, maybe that is related to why obama is hanging back on afghanistan.
my own feeling is that he is just voting “present” again.
He appointed Richard Holbrooke, probably the US’s most effective diplomat in crisis situations.
hahahahahahahaha, lol
He’s the perfect crisis manager for Obama, who is a walking crisis himself.
As for the perturbations of Obanus, I really don’t grok the question. Since when does Obama need an excuse to talk a lot and do nothing?
15. cjm: Man, I would love to believe that we are holding back our wrath because we are following up on a complicated ivestigation that would be compromised if we broke up the Taliban and AQ. I mean, I would almost stop depising the Commie Brat in the W.H. (well, maybe for a minute or two).
It isn’t a center of gravity that is causing the orbit to be deformed, it is a vacuum. A total lack of mass, perhaps best typified by the capital letter O. Regard it for a moment, all outer edge and completely devoid of contents. A sublime representation of our own Dear Leader. O. The hesitation is due to the fact that he lacks the will, mental discipline, nerve, background, depth of understanding and basic principles to take a responsible, patiotic stand. The vacuum sucks in all the energy and information leaving nothing in it’s wake.
O, often mistaken for 0, both have the same null value.
programmer; good point about the Anabasis, too bad there is probably nobody in the Administration that has ever heard of it. I hope some of our best and brightest are already making preliminary plans in that regard. I am laying even money that there isn’t any among the Secretaries or Czars that could give a decent account of Stalingrad, much less the heroics of Xenophon and his band of stalwarts.
A really depressing read is the antics of the Brits in Afghanistan in the middle of the 19th Century. You can lose an army in those mountains if you aren’t paying close attention.
Academic delay, sabotage, lunacy or simple incompetence? The default is to defer.
Our most self consciously academic Presidents have turned out to be our worst in the last 100 years. Wilson and Obama have both proven thin skinned and hostile to constitutional liberty. Another who affected academic airs, but without any qualification to do so was Carter. Arguably the most educated and scholarly American President was Taft who did not display the personality flaws of a stereotypical academic.
A diagnoses of conspiracy or insanity demands either overwhelming evidence, like that given in the Constitution for treason, or professional judgement subject to peer review. For the first case of conspiracy or treason we have limited but disturbing evidence but not such that would at this time convince the broad electorate or an impartial jury. We do have some members of the Club who have held Top Secret clearances, Habu, myself and others, and who can speak with some knowledge of the issues. These are by definition murky waters and while we may speculate freely here I wait to hear from a broader consensus of retired Intelligence professionals on the subject. My suspicion is that over the next several months those who stood aside from what could initially be considered partisan wrangling may feel called upon to weigh in on either side.
Regarding the possibility that Obama’s actions are disconnected from reality as it would be assessed by competent outside observers that could only be determined trained professionals who are usually loath to offer an opinion in advance of a crisis. If the working definition of mental illness is a condition that significantly impairs the ability to successfully function in the world as it is then a decisive judgement may be hard to arrive at. The man did get himself elected, regardless of the methods used, and that shows some competence at demonstrating functionality. Given that the demands of his position are unique it is hard to compare his failures with those of other CEOs. An argument that Obama fails to effectively serve the national interest, in either foreign or domestic policy because he is, to use a technical term, nuts does not address the question of the motives of his enablers and supporters. It is of course possible that two or three of the four possible explanations alluded to in my first paragraph are at play. There are practicing physicians, including psychiatrists, who are part of our Club. I would like to hear their opinions.
That leaves the fourth of my suggestions, simple incompetence. Even if Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the gang were dreaming of the triumph of History they may simply be chortling clowns who are in over their heads. As I said above differing percentages of these elements may be at work for each of the actors, POTUS, VPOTUS, Czars, Wallahs and Grand Nincompoops, in the play that we and the world can’t walk away from.
If only the Taliban were to stupefied by what they see to act.
Has anybody read this? Is this more than Strategic Hamlets redux?
One Tribe at A Time by Major Jim Gant.
H/T Theo Spark
So Spiegel is asking us to show ‘leadership’.
This begs the question of ‘follower-ship’.
A leader leads when followers agree to follow. When the followers don’t wish to commit to following the leadership, then it doesn’t matter what the leader says or does.
To wit: if Pres. Obama said that the right strategy was to put another 40K troops into Afghanistan, would Germany commit to providing some significant portion of those troops? If Obama said that the right strategy was to commit to nation building in Afghanistan for another two generations, would Europe commit to that? If Obama said that the right strategy was to put in place a nasty counter-insurgency operations program that would hunt the Taliban into extinction, would the French and Spanish provide the special forces to help us do that?
We already know the answers: no, no, and no.
Spiegel is not asking for ‘leadership’, it is asking Obama to make the decisions that Europe wants him to make. The ‘leadership’ they want is for Obama to commit to bugging out of Afghanistan. He takes the heat and political fallout; they agree to ‘follow’ and withdraw their own forces.
Afghanistan may indeed be a trap. The right strategy may not be clear in the minds of our political leadership, however much the military, the pundits and the clear thinkers elsewhere think they know about said strategy. The political cost of pursuing the right strategy may be high.
But the Europeans aren’t asking for leadership. They’re asking for permission to quit.
~ “I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm’s way,” Mr Obama told the military, in a speech this week. This is not an unattractive sentiment. ~
Well, I find Obama’s pious schmoozing of the military extremely “unattractive”, thank you. Under the circumstances, it betrays a certain disregard for those already deployed. Who did he think he was talking to anyway? Was that some sort of warm-up for his Nobel acceptance speech?
The Spiegel writer nailed Obama’s dilemma in the piece’s final sentence – “Obama will have to make his own decision, one that will shape his political fate.” On the face of it, that’s his priority regarding Afghanistan. It was never anything more to him than a political stalking horse. Beyond that, the whole thing must be incomprehensible to him. Certainly nothing in his experience or education has prepared him for the responsibilities of CIC.
That said, I’m not entirely satisfied with my own assessment. Of course Obama is a magnet for conspiracy theories, which I tend to distrust on principle because they tie up all the loose ends too neatly and it seems to me history is full of loose ends. Nevertheless, the bit about Neptune at the end of the post makes one wonder what the White House is hiding. The situation just seems too grave to be explained away by mere political opportunism.
This is only a problem when contrasted to the decisiveness of the previous administration. Now they have left us with a mess to clean up. And all we get is unpatriotic attacks from the former Vice President who spent most of his time at unidentified locations. No wonder the President hasn’t had time to read McChrystal’s reoprt. Perhaps after he sinks his hole-in-one he will be able to deal with this issue.
Does this mean Der Spiegel now want the US to assume a role of leadership? Sounds like it.
I thought the Europeans did nothing but fret and had decided everything we did was wrong. I thought it had been decided conclusively that we were the cause of all this is wrong with the world (aside from a few Danish cartoons).
I assume they will be quiet when we cause stress and give us their full support.
LoTM,
My vote is utter incompetence. The man has no worldly accomplishments to point at. His advisors are at best sub-par retreads from the Clinton Administration, the greater balance are so utterly worthless that they make The One look bright.
These clowns have been sliding by on Ivy League educations and good connections for so long they actually believe that thay are as good as the MSM says they are. The hazard of navigating in an echo chamber is that when you whisper “Move Left” you then hear the same, and when you ask “Move Left?” all you hear is “Move Left” in reply.
My guess is that President Obama is looking for something to consume. Welfare state proponents are by their very nature consumers. For the longest time European welfare states implicitly funded their redistribution efforts by consuming the free security services provided by the US. Afghanistan is a perfect example. Many of the allies are under contributing because they could rely on ‘consuming’ the US security surplus.
But if President Obama were at heart a welfare proponent, he’d be looking to consume himself. Suddenly the Europeans would have a competitor on their hands at the scavenger table. President Obama has been looking to help himself to “unneeded defense spending”. The NYT reports that Obama has cut military spending beyond anybody’s wildest expectations.
This comes just as House Democrats Unveil $894B Health Care Bill with the subhead warning the reader that “reform” isn’t complete yet. Now the President isn’t obviously against spending. Stimulus, Cap and Trade, Health Care are all examples of “good spending”. Miitary spending is “bad spending”. Afghanistan, ceteris paribus is bad spending. If he was going to fight Af/Pak all, had to be fought on the cheap. It was a “war of necessity” only insofar as it was necessary to paint himself as tough before the election. Now that he’s elected, priorities change. The Europeans are coming to terms with the fact there’s no constituency for providing security any more. Having cheered one of their own to the Presidency they are shocked to learn he is acting just like one of them. He’s looking to free ride. Remember how the EU was once called a French jockey on a German horse? Well the international system Europe once wanted was a European jockey on an American horse. Imagine their surprise when the horse decided to become jockey and began looking for a mount. Who could bear the weight of such a jockey, but that won’t stop a welfare enthusiast from trying. It’s a wild race to provide bread and circuses and Obama will heap his plate first before letting Germany or Britain scrape the serving dish.
My guess is that President Obama came into office secretly thanking President Bush for winning in Iraq and thought he figured out a way to “consume” that victory too and turn it into a cheap “grand bargain” which could contain or suppress the South Asian situation. But maybe Holbrooke couldn’t do a deal. Maybe there wasn’t a deal to be done. In any event, there was nothing to consume.
Having borrowed to the limit, getting ready to tax as far as he dares and having hocked the family jewels there is still a need to consume more and ever more. But like Bernie Madoff in his last days or the check-kiter living from moment to moment, the knocking at the door is growing ever more insistent. How long before the President opens it a crack and whispers out to the collector that there’s nobody home.
Canada’s General Hellier has just written a book about his term as head of Canada’s army and his role as head of NATO in Afghanistan. Thus he is doing the book interview thing (it is a controversial book – he is known for speaking his mind). In several interviews I have heard him say that 2/3 of Afghanistan is fine, governable and able to be protected by the Afghan army and police. It is the south and southeastern provinces where the problems lie and the mission to create a viable Afghanistan is possible. Ever heard this in the US or Canadian media?
So if this is true, and this is the critical war according to your esteemed president he should get of his ass and make the commitment.
“What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
“Pick a number”. Indeed. Liars rely on the inability of most people to be absolutely sure that they are lying. Thus the more “nuanced” the marks (aren’t we all?), the more the marks dither in indecision – “Is he, or isn’t he?”. Even when hard facts are available, the nuanced will say “Yes, but…”.
In our modern world, we are inundated with information, much of it contradictory. Most of us can’t even make up our minds about Global Warming (oops, Climate Change). “Well there’s this theory, and there’s that theory. What’s a person to do? Who knows? Who is John Galt?”.
Part of the problem is that for most of us, making a decision based on the available information isn’t a life-or-death issue. Maybe it’s about to become so.
The Manchurian candidate has discovered that his name is on the door. Last night he was at Dover to check out the consequences of the decisions that have been made in his name.
He’s not very bright. He can’t talk without a teleprompter because he doesn’t understand his own policies. Now he wonders if he can trust the voice that whispers in his ear. He wonders which voice he can trust. He wonders what his goals are now that the has achieved his every dream.
Ask yourself – from where are these 40,000 troops to come?
One unknown at this time is the situation in Iran and the Gulf. A surge in Afghanstan requires a DE-surge in Iraq since most of the troops will have to come from that country or via rotation.
What Spiegel is asking is that the US commit its reserves to one theatre. There are other risks out there and not committing keeps some options open.
Think Hood’s problem at Atlanta against Sherman. By not committing to stopping the March Through Georgia after losing at Jonesboro, Hood kept open the option of crossing the Ohio. He screwed up at Franklin and lost his army so maybe that’s a prescient example.
President Barack Hussain Obama AKA Barry Sortero (PBUH) is going to bug out.
He’s going to quit and walk away.
he’s going to lose this war.
He’s planned another Vietnam for America.
He is going to lose to assauge islamic loss of honor because they are such terrible soldiers and are now humiliated.
He is going to take a dive.
I’d say there was more evidence of an unaccountable “strange attractor” in BHO’s response to Honduras (or the economy). In Af/Pak, I’m willing to believe he is tactically hesitating to leverage the political situation. For local support and global approval wouldn’t it be better to arrive at our Afgan policy mutually with our Afgan partner? Whose policy should it perceived as being? Even if he’s decided, it might be smart to let the election finish before announcing it.
OTOH maybe he believes that Jimmy Carter should not have caved in to the conservatives.
Programmer #8: I do not consider Afghanistan
an (intrinsical) trap. It does have a resemblance to Vietnam in that both are salient positions. However, Afghanistan is a necessary salient in that if occupied by enemy forces it can be used to hurt us. That was not the case with VN.
In addition to which, Ike Eisenhower, Matt Ridgway and a single regiment of Marines in Northeast Thailand had the Ho Chi Trail effectively interdicted and enemy forces thus
stymied. The Kennedy administration threw away all that and then kept digging their hole deeper and deeper. In other words, Americans
actually created a dysfunctional situation. Then, as Sir Robert Thompson noted, kept doubling the effort and squaring the error.
In Afghanistan, the dysfunctional situation existed without any help from us. Therefore, ongoing American activities have the potential
to help as well as to hurt. In turn, this means that corrective actions are a bit easier to implement than they were during the previous dynamics.
I do not worry about anything on the scale of the original Dien Bien Phu. Enemy capabilities are far less than those of the bo doi and there is no nearby Chinese Border and Chinese Army to supply them with large quantities of American material captured in Korea. Nor do I believe that Afghan tribesmen can form the type of force General Giap fielded. A sparse population base compounds that factor.
We might see a little Phu-up but no big Phu-ups.
Back then, the compounding danger was that Lyndon Johnson did not want to be bothered with that “little piss-ant of a country”. It kept getting in the way of the Great Society.
Today our primary danger is that Obama and company do not want to be bothered with the new piss-ant as it gets in the way of all sorts of domestic looting and controlling. Couple that with a Naif-in-Chief and staff members too arrogant to realize their own shortcomings.
Upshot is that AfPak is manageable. 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is the center of our difficulties.
“Neptune (Sharia &/or Marxism) was found to be there because it had to be there, given Uranus’ (Obama’s) funny antics.”
Polonius: Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.
Wretchard, if you want a good historical analogy that even involves Islamic fundamentalists, I can think of none better than Gladstone, Gordon, and the Siege of Khartoum.
P.M. Gladstone thought he could wait the problem out and dithered interminably. He could not face the reality of the situation, and so he did nothing while hoping something else would turn up. He was asked repeatedly to send more troops, but he could not decide. At the very end he became frightened and tried to send more troops, but it was too late.
Gladstone was bluffing, trying to convince his constituents back home that everything was under control, that there was nothing to worry about. Gordon called Gladstone’s bluff with his life. Gordon knew exactly what he was doing, of course, and accepted the loss of his life as a minor sacrifice in support of his principles.
Gladstone’s government fell as a direct result of his folly.
You don’t need to postulate some invisible force when arrogance paired with foolishness provides the most obvious explanation. I suspect Sir William of Ockham would agree.
LotM points in the right direction.
Afghanistan remains above all an intelligence and special ops conflict. With a keen eye to the Soviet experience, Bush was wise to exercise a proxy strategy with a light footprint. Unfortunately, the previous administration’s indecision about opium has provided the means and motive for the “Taliban” resurgence.
We now have a perfect storm where Obama’s congenital aversion to plain speaking collides with the American public’s demand for clarity and the operational necessity for secrecy in what remains an intelligence conflict.
Further, Obama is caught in the partisan Democratic rhetoric that Afghanistan is the “good war” that Bush neglected to further his “bad war” in Iraq. Because of American political sensibilities this means continually endorsing the Daoud coup by propping up the “Mayor of Kabul,” whoever wins the next electoral farce. There is near consensus that success in Afghanistan necessarily means a central government based in Kabul with something resembling a democratic mandate, without reference to traditional Afghan notions of legitimate government. (Almost everybody missed the tragicomedy this year when Karzai’s term of office ended in May, he wanted to schedule elections sooner to avoid a legitimacy crisis, Obama dictated that elections occur in August. The result: a nearly fatal erosion of the illusion of sovereignty and democracy in the Islamic State of Afghanistan.)
It appears that Obama is now leaning towards a strategy of defending cities in the hope of cutting costs and avoiding casualties. Precisely the Soviet strategy! (This without secure logistic lines … At least the Soviets had the “friendship bridge.”)
Apparently, the notion is to concentrate nation building and reconstruction in ten “urban areas” deemed easiest to defend. Again emulating the Soviets. (Whatever educated Afghan cadres exist today are the product of Soviet development efforts, located in the selfsame areas.)
This bunker strategy of counter-terrorism will result in reliance on the very kind of force projection that results in the civilian casualties that fuel Afghan resentment of the occupation. (Consider this summer’s incident in Kunduz, an otherwise fairly quiescent area. A major setback.)
Meanwhile, the stable parts of Afghanistan that work, where progress is being made, are under the control of warlords friendly to the United States – Dostum in Sheberghan, for example.
The U.S. promoted Karzai in the loya jirga because he was an unaffiliated Pashtun without ties to the heavily Tajik Northern Alliance or other mujahideen factions. This avoided a shootout in 2002, but did not address Afghan sentiments about legitimacy. The romantic notion at the time was that the Afghans would be so relieved at being released from the Taliban yoke they would rally around a democratic state.
The only solution that I see is for the Afghans to hold another convene another loya jirga to appoint a king. A royal bushkazi tournament would do more to unite the country than anything that Karzai or a successor could ever hope to accomplish.
Be it 1170 and King Henry’s query.”"Who will rid me of this meddlesome
priest?”, or Brutus in proclaiming, “There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Name any specific issue and obama is anti American in deed and action. The topic serves only as a pallet upon which to swirl the colors until they are the bete noire of our current circumstance. The tide is running in our favor now and we should not miss riding ourselves of this dastardly poseur. Keep hammering him. He is running away from the population and into the arms of our enemies. Let it happen. The victory will be all the sweeter
wws @ 34, very nice – can I go to the previous thread and nominate this?
Cheney is right, Obama is dithering. Now, I have some small sympathy for that, since I am far from certain there is any military solution to Afghanistan, certainly none short of devastating large parts of the country – that are little more than devestation even before we begin.
The other available “solution”, as I’ve said here before, is major-scale nation building and an acoompanying cultural imperialism. Don’t like that, either, hmmm?
Pulling out is not really a solution at all.
But of course, that’s what he’ll do.
Get ready for a tidal wave of unctuous reasons, sending soldiers would just get them killed, Pat Buchanan and George Will agree, mission accomplished, we can be their friend and accomplish more.
So hey, why is nobody saying anything about this Marine Captain cum diplomat who has resigned in disgust? He says the Afghans only fight us because we’re there. While I can see his point, as a soldier, I cannot see his point as a diplomat. Did he think we entered Afghanistan in the first place to support a stable government?
“When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.” Ockham’s Razor
Which is simpler: Obama’s arrogance and foolishness or his adherence to authoritarian (Arbitrary Marxist or Arbitrary Sharia) view of government power? Modern authoritarian national leaders (think of Napoleon in Animal Farm) are arrogant, foolish and arbitrary (not government of “We the People” – not government with the informed consent of the governed). Why can’t Obama be all of these (with no violation of Ockham’s Razor)?
This is a White House full of legislators and bureaucrats, the environments they came from rewarded selecting the issues you could win on and ducking the others, and a bias toward inaction because the sin of omission is rarely even recognized whereas the sin of commission is punsihed severely.
So, while I don’t know what exactly Obama is after, I can guess that no one in his inner circle and certainly not himself has any experience with making a tough decision based on imperfect information, because the decision has to be made.
And this decision is nothing if not a tough one with imperfect information and unknowable consequences.
Hence, paralysis.
And, because it’s Obama, lame excuses that don’t really explain anything but sound superficially good to his core idiots.
The left sees the whole Afghan campaign as a justifiable payback to Al Qaeda, not the Taliban. If it wasn’t for that little misogyny problem the left would back the Taliban plain and simple. The left meme is that we lost the initiative at Tora Bora and everything else has been a feeble attempt at Whack-A-Mole ever since. I believe Obama when he says that the goal is to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice. He must consider having Pakistan press the initiative to drive out Al Qaeda as a bargain compared to the economic and political costs of sending 40,000 troops to the country next door. If Bin Laden can be brought to “justice” it is game over for the AfPak theater. The value of letting Afghanistan fall apart right now is that it will leave Pakistan with a status quo relationship with the Taliban (a secure border) a much needed stain on the Bush legacy so ably preserved in the OIF theater. The Democrats were absolutely counting on a total failure in Iraq and it didn’t happen so leaving Afghanistan in a disarray and dissolving into tribal violence should keep the tribes busy and assure they are not sponsoring AQ training camps for a while. I don’t think the administration much cares for Karzai and committing troops to basically support him seems unlikely in any event. Obama appears to buying time and the major players at the table are not Afghanis there the Paki’s.
In short, I think POTUS couldn’t give a fig about Afghanistan. What does that do for his domestic agenda to turn the US into a workers paradise? What would Che do?
LOTM and W.
The Uranus in the room is Michelle. She doesn’t do cookies either.
From threads ago…roads, roads and roads. “Valley-ism” is broken when the valley is merely a geographic feature and not a bounding prison.
Finally, I believe O is suffering from, amoung other things, paralysis by analysis; greatly overthinking the issues. We are talking about small enclaves of isolated family/ tribes. Appalachia was the same way 100 years or less ago.
Yeah, but the Hatfields and McCoys have nothing on these guys.
Josh, as one…don’t bet on it, even today.
obama shouldn’t dither. He should also withdraw from Afghanistan. It has never been a settled place by any force in history and our coffers are empty. We gain nothing by sending more troops.
Now I’m 100% for nuking the place and making it hot for a hundred years but troops and nation building, nope, a losing proposition.
Habu, there are many middle-grounds, doesn’t really have to be nuke’m or leave’m.
Just the one we’ve been pursuing is a loser.
I think we might need the exercise in nation-building, whether they like it or not.
michaelhoskins – if you say so! But even so, a whole nation of them?
whatever. i don’t think they know what to do because usa strategists (1) know they can’t enter pakistan’s tribal areas in force, unless that was what the islamic emirate of waziristan (musharaf/2006), (2) but they know the fata/nwfp has essentially been cannibalized by the taliban and that quetta is its base, (3) so even if they somehow get the framework of circumstances correct, at whatever cost, inside afghanistan with a proper sovereign seat reigning from kabool, (4) we still couldn’t reduce to mere reconstruction assets because, in the words of an afghan official, “all the taliban have to do is blow something up.”
most importantly, they know the pakistanis cannot be persuaded to be the hammer or the anvil; they make promises, they make gestures but they will not pull the trigger. but frankly, having gotten a look at this part of the world now, it’s hard to imagine it, within some reasonable time period, returning to its normal vegetative state.
too bad arms and ammo and satellite phones grow on trees over there, or something. *blink blink*
Our real problem in Afghanistan now is not just the war there but the problem that Obama and the rest of the Democrats have built for themselves.
I saw nothing wrong with the approach the Bush Admin was taking. Hold the cities and when required blast the Ke-Rap out of the hinderlands. And that’s all. Under that approach the chance that the Taliban and Al Queda would sweep forth from the mountains to retake Kabul and grab Peshawar is about the same as that the Cubans will capture Florida.
But Obama – and Hillary, Kerry, Gore, et.al, pushed Afghanistan as “the good war” that “Bush was losing.” It was a useful strawman with which to beat up a guy who has more guts and real concern for the USA in his fingernails than they have in their collective careers. Now, though they have to deliver.
No matter what we do, if there is one old Taliban with a walkie-talkie and an insolent attitude left in the mountains then Al Queda can say they have won. The Dems set the bar too high for purely partisan political purposes, have got the bill for required effort to jump over it, and are displeased.
As for the “careful deliberations” – one would have to assume they did that before they started griping about the Bush strategy -– if indeed their knew their anuses from earthen excavations.
And this business of “waiting until the Afghan elections are done properly” before making a decision is a thin veneer of reasoning indeed. That’s like waiting to fix the flat tire on the car until you need the oil changed – you will never need the oil changed because you ain’t gonna be driving the car with a flat tire.
Afghanistan war misses a LEADERSHIP, you can’t leave it to any alliees nation, too small to win ! because of the may ego quarrels !
I didn’t hear that Sarkozy was waiting for a retreat there, in the contrary. The soldiers that chose to go there made it freely, and they are proud to fight for little girls and little boys who can enjoy to play in a school play-ground, at least it’s what the soldiers are telling, and it’s what is worth for them to be on this front !
now, steve, France did provide her special forces when required as useful, now give me the goal, and they’ll be there again !
What Obama is waiting for to “turn up” is Iran’s nuclear break-out.
Once Iran has nukes (perhaps announced by a surprise nuclear attack on Israel wiping out most of that nation from Syria and Lebanon) the US will have “NO CHOICE” but to withdraw/surrender from not only Afghanistan but the Persian Gulf.
This allows Obama to make the US like Sweden, only weaker, and satisfies his Indonesian upbringing to “punish” the US while ruling as a quasi Third World crony socialist. Which is what he is, along with a good dose of anti-White Black Nationalism (something most of the Democratic Party endorses). Targeting the US White Middle Class, at the expense of the Black/Hispanic minority and elite SWPL yuppie ruling class.
This is an essentially reactionary mode, depending on the Media. To fly “air cover” by telling America to “worship the One” who makes defeat “good for you.” Because he’s a Black President(tm). Heck Obama is on the cover of “Men’s Health” — cult of personality.
It is a gamble. Most Americans will see Iranian control of the Gulf (and nuclear destruction of Israel) as a sudden impoverishment ($10 a gallon gas amidst a deep recession) with massive insecurity (will their city be next on the Iranian target list?) Obama can then only suspend the Constitution as he has been urged by various liberal commentators and pols, ala Lincoln suspending Habeus Corpus and the First Amendment.
Remember, both Obama (raised a Muslim in Indonesia post-Sukarno) and his backers (SWPL wealthy Yuppies) are not culturally American. Obama’s model is Castro, Chavez, and Ortega, same as Sean Penn’s, or Martin Scorsese (both of whom will travel to Cuba to do a fawning puff piece on Castro).
The question is, will Americans and the institution that still has respect: the US Military, allow Obama a “coup” to make the US like Venezuela? My guess is no, Obama and his backers not being culturally Americans have no understanding and only contempt for the people. It is not exactly 1789 but getting their.
Michelle Obama had a birthday party for Obama’s dog, complete with a “cake” made of veal.
‘What Obama is waiting for to “turn up” is Iran’s nuclear break-out.’
possible, but he can’t drag this out forever; at some point, dithering *will* start to convert the masses to “obama is an idiot.”
but maybe the real debate inside the WH is whether Iran already *has* a nuke or three…
He’s waiting for the situation in Pakistan to become so bad that the Paks wipe out the Taleban.
Now that will make ethnic cleansing look like a little feather-dusting. But that’s alright, the media won’t see a thing, and neither will I.
ADE
I think one of Mr. Obama’s sayings explained a lot.
He was complaining about all those hard decisions a POTUS had to make.
And he promised he would be ‘ready on Day 1′.
Monarchy Elitist: “Let them eat cake.”
Sharia Elitist: “Let them eat baklava.”
Marx Elitist: “Let them eat veal.”
Being President is hard! I use to accuse my Democratic friends of acting like any idiot could be President as long as that idiot was not named George W. Bush.
Normally, I would agree with Programmer that putting 100,000 US troops that deep in injun country deserves careful analysis. The surge in Iraq capitalized on a lot of work building Iraqi security forces. Are the Afghan organizations at a similar point? I would think they would be by now, if ever.
But my skepticism comes from another source.
Perhaps the real problem President Obama faces in Afghanistan is that he was once Senator Obama. As Senator he voted for a Date Certain for defeat in Iraq (March 31, 2008) — and not just defeat, but a military rout of possible historic proportions for the “redeploying” US Army. At least that is how it would appear in the international media — withdrawing through a flurry of Suicide truck bombs which, if they couldn’t hit a convoy would happily take out a nearby school or market. Somehow this debacle under President Bush would make victory in Afghanistan more “doable” for a future President Obama. This attempt at “lawmaking” showed we have a political elite that would tolerate losing a war for short term political gain — and that politics ranks national security where Obama’s concerned. It is the pull of “left politics,” combined Obama’s own political calculations, that everyone is looking for.
Sometimes I point out to my Democrat friends that a US President that stands up for US interests is predictable (he’ll have some firm political backing at home) while one that stands up for world interest as defined by woolly minded Scandinavian intellectuals, not so much. Because the question becomes: when will he turn tail? (This is not to negate the doctrine of “Self-interest, properly understood” — which allows some forms of altruistic behavior — since that doctrine is still grounded in self interest.)
Obama will have to make his own decision, one that will shape his political fate.
His fate–Nemesis–was sealed a long time ago, in his, and his supporters’, Hubris.
Alas, the once grand United States of America, is along for the ride.
Richard writes: “the knocking at the door is growing ever more insistent.”
Obama the City Mouse has taken over the House and thrown a fancy dinner party. The parasite mice guests arrive, more and more, millions, gorging themselves. They eat the food set aside for the soldiers also. But the interruptions, the knocking at the door, outside can’t be ignored. Obama tries to ignore the knocking (Fox News, Limbaugh, bad economy, war dead). He regales the guests with stories of Date Night, Bushitler, stupid Republicans, unpatriotic conservatives, Caribou Barbie. The parasite mice flatter the Host, telling him he is the greatest Host ever. Hooray! Obama Mouse loves the praise. He smiles. But the knocking is getting louder. The parasites are nervous but continue to gorge themselves at the dinner. One more bite before they scatter! But they remain at the feast, dithering, unable to leave the delicacies. Outside, the owner of the house is getting pissed. He’s got a dog. There are elections next week.
Fable aside, the noise in the communication loop inside the White House must be getting deafening. Attempts to reduce the noise, e.g. lowering the Fox News static, aren’t working. When a communication loop breaks down, you see people revert to form or break down in utter confusion. Think Nancy Pelosi at her infamous CIA press conference, stumbling on stage, unable to rely on habit or old sound bites. Bush was nearly stumbling when he was alone and abandoned at the time of the Surge decision. Watch Obama’s eyes, when he’s not turning on the automatic smile. He reverts to form, and his expression in those unguarded moments, as Wretchard has noted more than a few times, is downright angry and bitter.
What’s exerting the gravitational pull? Maybe its his abandoned child syndrome, and everything that has attached itself to that syndrome, like getting back at/sticking it to perceived authority, e.g. dominant culture, including patriotism. I look for him to get meaner. It’s the only thing he knows how to do.
Pakistan is to the Taleban what Russia was to the Germans in WW2.
Delay is the right strategy, and then open a second front.
ADE
Mark,
Mice are not parasites they just enjoy a good feast when there is a bounty at hand. They make excellent dinner guests because they leave no scraps and leave as soon as the meal is consumed. One could call them vermin but they are far more tolerable the cockroaches that have infected DC
There are two issues here. Lets not let the first issue – the fecklessness of the Obama administration – obscure the second issue – the real questions about viable options available to us in Afghanistan.
On the first issue, note that the war in Afghanistan was not at crisis level last year. Whatever one may think about Bush, no one doubted that he was stalwart against terrorism and those who shield terrorists. The current crisis is a direct result of Obama’s message to the world that he is the anti-Bush, that, unlike Bush, he will sit and deal with our enemies.
That message has had two effects in Afghanistan. First, the Taliban has decided to test Obama. Everything we know about the Taliban leader, Omar, indicates that his goal is full victory. Since Obama took office, we can observe that the Taliban have been increasing their attacks in a measured fashion so as to put sufficient pressure so that when Obama deals, he will do so on their terms.
The second effect is on the Afghan people. At the core of the current Taliban strategy is Obama’s stark message to the Afghan people – translated to them as “we don’t seek to defeat the Taliban – they will be in your future while NATO will soon be gone.” In other words, the average Afghan now knows that to offend the Taliban risks death, later if not sooner, while to offend the NATO alliance has no consequences.
That is why the key aspect of the decision facing Obama is not about the troop level, as has been advertised in the media. The key is the commitment to stay as long as it takes. The decision facing Obama is whether or not to try to persuade the Afghan people (and the world), in way that they find credible, that in this war his resolve is fully as strong as that of his predecessor.
That is just for starters, but, unless he is willing to make that commitment and make it credible, the war is unwinnable.
Its a necessary commitment, but far from sufficient.
I have always been struck, when I’ve had inside access at the decision level, how very different has been the perceptions held by the public and my own. I have no access now, but as Wretchard notes, there are numerous indications of factors currently missing from the public discussion that must surely be part of the decision process.
Aside from the potential effects of an Afghan decision on our domestic politics, about which we can speculate separately, we see many puffs of smoke which may, or may not, be indicators of raging fires in and about Afghanistan.
Many questions. Why on earth has the legitimacy of the Karzai regime been called into question at this very delicate time? Do these puffs of smoke reflect one side is leaking in response to a deadlock in the internal debate in DC? Something else? What is the true nature of the Pak campaign in South Waziristan? Is it as advertised, or is it for show for our benefit? What is going on inside Pakistan’s leadership and between their leaders and ours? Might determining the answer to these questions be one reason for Obama’s delay?
More questions. What was behind that leak from the Karsai government last winter that Russia had offered to provide full support if the Americans were to leave? Might the Uzbek-Pashtun rivalry that has complicated the current election process be connected? Or might it have been bogus? Are the Pak charges of suspiciously high levels of activity by India in Afghanistan only paranoia? Or is India preparing a squeeze play? Does Pak concern about India define a redline beyond which Pakistan will not offend the Taliban? What about all that border tension between China and India all of a sudden? A signal to Pakistan, perhaps? If so, what is being signaled? Are those recent Chinese military exercises for projecting power at a distance with airlift, the first of their kind, connected to plans for a post-American Afghanistan (and Pakistan)? If so, are these just contingency plans?
Still more questions related to games being played, foreign (NATO politics, outing of CIA agents, etc.) and domestic (Hillary’s role on the Obama team, her control of her department and its abilities and morale, etc.). Lots of em.
To cut to the bottom line. Every indication is that the WH is in way over its head and cannot admit that Bush had it right in Afghanistan, but even taking that into account, as a result of Obama’s earlier diplomatic blunders new and significant factors hidden from the public are likely at play.
Once again Wretchard has put his finger on a core issue. Unfortunately geopolitics doesn’t lend itself to the mathematical precision of planetary orbits, so its a guessing game.
Josh.
I could agree with you if their was a reason for us being in Afghan. There isn’t. We’re not going to change a thing in the long run. No one ever has. It’s tribal and will remain so.
Stop the taliban?
A joke.
Stop nuke polif?
A joke.
There isn’t a vital national interest for the USA to be fighting in Afghan.
What middle ground? An endless series of meetings with tribal chiefs to hammer out agreements that don’t last to sunset?
I don’t see it. We’re just wasting our military and money.
It may be incompetence but it is certainly not from obama or his people feeling incompetent.
I’m guessing that there are several factors involved such as:
1. As Leifmeister @ 3 points out, they can’t afford to tick off ANY group before they finish ramming “health care” down our throats.
2. There is a built-in excuse providing the appearance of a good reason for waiting for the Afghan election to be decided before “committing”.
3. There is the hope that something (it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad) will happen that will cause a consensus of some kind to emerge without them having to actually make a decision and then he can jump in front of the crowd and appear to be the leader.
4. As marymcl points out, Afghanistan was never more to obama than a political weapon to be used and he probably now recognizes that he can never “solve” the problem so will keep dithering until an external factor dictates a response.
I predict that any so-called “decision” by obama will just be a different form of dithering until the external factor dictates a response. Wasn’t it just six months ago that he unveiled a new strategy (copied from W’s strategy) and yet now we’re having to relook at the situation. Why in the world would anyone expect that we won’t be relooking at this situation until such time as something provides an excuse for a retreat.
a reply to ADE #58 – I think you count on too much enmity between the Taleban and Pakistan. Remember that the Taleban was the ISI’s creation, and even today there is still a surprising amount of Taleban support inside the Pakistani armed forces. (Our drone strikes only began to work when the targets were no longer made known to the Pakistani military in advance)
When the Taleban threatens Pakistan, then they are at war. But as soon as the Taleban remembers that they need to leave the homeland govm’t alone, then they will once again be free to do whatever they want. (and in most places already are)
Delay is NOT the right strategy; consider this saying reportedly very popular among the Taleban, said by them in reference to the well equipped NATO troops: “They have all the watches, and we have all the time.”
Here is a link to a rather incredible strategy which could lead to success in Afghanistan – it’s a bit of a read, but it could work. It would require a major rethinking of US policy, though, and that may prevent it from ever being tried.
http://blog.stevenpressfield.com/wp-content/themes/stevenpressfield/one_tribe_at_a_time.pdf
WRETCHARD IS CORRECT TO DETECT THE “PRESENCE-IN-THE-ROOM”- RECALL: RISING SUN/CONNERY/SNIPES-WONDERFULL ESCAPIST FARE…OR, RECALL: McCAIN IS THE MANUCHURIAN CAND…LE DUC THO PROGRAMMED HIM?WHO IS THE MANCHURIAN CAND? IT TURNS OUT IT’S BARRY ZERO…THINK FRANKFURT SCHOOL/COLUMBIA UNIV.ACTUALLY, IF YOU LISTEN TO BARRY Z. HE SAYS THE REVERSE OF WHAT HE THINKS..TO WIT: FOX NEWS/I’M NOT LOOSING ANY SLEEP…WANT TO BET?– HE IS! I BELIEVE KRAUTHAMMER’S DIAGNOSIS-THIS POSEUR IS AN EMPTY SUIT-HE’S “AVERAGE”…AND NOT AT ALL PREPARED…LADY LIBERTY WHY FORESAKE M.L.KING’S GREAT NOSTRUM FOR US ALL- CHARACTER/NOT SKIN TONE!THIS IS THE WRONG MAN AT THE WORST TIME- BUT, WE’LL BE FAR,FAR BETTER ‘CAUSE THE “DISCUSSION ABOUT WITHER GOETH THE USA” IS HERE&NOW…GOOD NEWS.BTW, THE MISSING PRESENCE ,WRETCHARD?: NEMESIS IS IN THE ROOM,BABY! BUT, AS AN IMMIGRANT I SEE STRENGTHS THIS NATION HAS IN ABUNDANCE-STEP UP ALL AND LET’S DANCE WITH OUR LADY LIBERTY- SHE’S STILL NIMBLE AND HAS UNBELIEVABLE MOVES-LIKE THE RE-INVENTION 2-STEP, SHE’S SO QUICK IT’LL MAKE BARRY’S HEAD SPIN- HOPE HE HAS GOOD HEALTHCARE- OOOOPS! FORGOT HE’S A GOV’T EMPLOYEE.WONDER WHY HIS KIDS AREN’T IN PUBLIC SCHOOL?
Re: Anabasis. For anyone interested in that fine work of Xenophon, http://chicagoboyz.net/ had an extended discussion and analysis.
“When you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.” Ockham’s Razor
The assumption of many is that Obama is struggling with all these complicated issues in an effort to do what is best for the security and creative prosperity of the United States, and that he is having a tough time making difficult choices. I believe in reality, as an Islamo-Marxist, he is struggling with these complicated military issues (and economic issues) in an effort to do what is harmful to the security and prosperity of our nation; he must however do this in such as way as to appear in the first instance; i.e.: Ockham’s Razor applies to nature and to normal people, but doesn’t apply to tyrants – or tyrants on the make. Again, “Animal Farm” provides a fitting metaphor which describes how power-seeking individuals can and must convince people that Ockham’s Razor applies, when in fact it must be violated:
“Squealer may represent propaganda overall, as he was the key spokesman for the pigs. His persuasive language and demeanor and re-interpretations of facts illustrates the power of propaganda to control under- and un-educated people… Throughout the book, Squealer justifies his arguments using his great powers of persuasion, his eloquent words, and his charismatic intellect… For instance, when the other animals question the pigs’ taking the milk and apples, Squealer reassures them that milk and apples are vital to pigs’ health, that the pigs are not acting out of selfishness… He devises various other reasons to convince the other animals of the farm to believe him, backing them up with claims of scientific evidence (for example, apples and milk)… and using difficult reasoning, which confused the other animals … Throughout the book, Napoleon and Squealer break the Seven Commandments, the tenets on which governance of the farm is based. To prevent the animals from suspecting them, Squealer preys on the animals’ stupidity and alters the Commandments from time to time as the need arises (The “Living Constitution” for pigs).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squealer_(Animal_Farm)
Marty:
The only thing I would change with Marty’s comment is to add “academics” to the list of what these people are. They are used to leaving the hard problems for someone else.
RWE puts it thus (or rather quotes George Will putting it thus):
And Wretchard points out that:
These three are all related observations. Liberals, Welfare State proponets, bureaucrats et al are by nature consumers and not producers. They live off the productive activities of others (though they usually don’t recognize it as such – I suspect they see producers the way that a rabbit sees a carrot: the carrot doesn’t get credit for growing, that’s just its nature). Like all consumers, they want the best deal. If it’s “expensive” (i.e. hard) to consume something, they’ll leave it and look for a cheaper alternative.
Liberal governments aren’t about solving problems, they’re about exploiting them if possible, and avoiding them if not. Obama exploited Afghanistan for what he could, now it’s time to avoid it and look for an easier meal ticket.
Worst. President. EV-AR.
If we apply Occam’s (famous) Razor I think this is what we get. exhelodrv just said it first.
This is just another form of voting “Present” again.
Not making a choice is a choice.
Maybe he’s waiting for positive responses from Osama, Mullah Omar and probably Hekmatyar, too. . . to his secret invitations for “talks.” Once he bows to them and gets them around a rug, voila! Problem solved.
LOTM @ 18:
Not to be argumentative, but not so. GWB had a sitrep where he had to make a tough call and he made it. Stuck by it and made it work. Several, in fact.
RAgnarD #68:
My experience of watching leadership in the work world is that procrastination comes from fear of making a (career damaging) mistake.
The irony, of course, is that the procrastinators often damage their careers more by delaying decisions than they would by “mistaken” decisions.
The man who calls himself “Barack Obama” is first, and above all, a bastard child of the sixties, a red diaper baby manque – he missed all the great stuff. The Mobe, Chicago, Ellsberg, Days of Rage, the Watergate hearings (no, of course they didn’t get off the Greyhound bus to watch them in 1972).
The defeat and subsequent near-destruction of the US Army and Marine Corps in Vietnam was the domestic Left’s GREATEST – VICTORY – EVER. Stanley Ann’s little boy Barry was too young to play. But he’s not too young now.
A catastrophe in Afghanistan can accomplish more for the communist insurgency here in the US than almost anything we could imagine. That must be little Barry’s fantasy – Church hearings, drastic military cuts, slash and burn at the CIA, those smart-ass white boy generals humiliated instead of them humiliating him – HIM, Stanley Ann’s little boy! They don’t know who they’re dealing with, but they’ll find out!
Of course, the law of unintended consequences continues to operate. Even a bastard Marxist could appreciate that, since it’s one of the Iron Laws of History.
An Obama-caused disaster in Afghanistan doesn’t have to lead to an even greater Leftist victory than Vietnam.
It could lead to Chile instead, or even Indonesia. How ironic THAT would be.
What interesting times we live in.
wws
Re: your link at #63, points up at #18.
#32 Dave
I would think twice before calling Afganistan a salient. A look at a map and where the heavy fighting is occurring suggests a redoubt. I concur completely with Habu that we have no need to be there. Yes, AQ may move back, but we’ll know where they are and can whack them from time to time as necessity requires. They’re going to be someplace and a redoubt is the best place to keep them.
Ned
Obviously, Obama is dithering because he hasn’t received instructions from his puppet-masters who purchased the Presidency for him on what to do.
The question then becomes “how important is Afghanistan to Russia / China / Saudi Arabia, or is it important at all, and is the PuppetMaster waiting for something else entirely before issuing further instructions to his vassel, That Dweeb in the White House?” Like, for instance, a swine flu epidemic that would enable a military take-over of the United States. Or a way to give control of America military efforts in Afghanistan to NATO. Or the UN.
Or the stock market. Has the White House stopped its efforts to take over the economy of the United States, which will be drastically altered if/when health care is rammed through.
It seems to me that, really, Afghanistan is very small potatoes indeed if you’re looking at the big picture of Really Bad Stuff being planned right here at home for the United States. And that’s not even counting whether or not Pakistan (and Russia/China) have given The Bomb to North Korea, Iran and/or Nicaragua.
I tend to agree with Habu. We need to get out of Afghanistan and leave them to their own Stone Aged habits, departing with a very solemn promise that if they *ever* allow another bin Laden to arise there, there will be no more talk talk, nor even any more shoot shoot, but merely one big ginormous mushroom-shaped B O O M which will nicely solve the whole issue for ever and ever. The End.
wws@63, Lifeofthemind@18, 73. My understanding is that Clinton and Gates are agreed that Defense should reduce its activities re: diplomacy in favor of State so my guess is that Gant’s proposal is a nonstarter in this Administration.
LOTM @ #18: I’ll try to take up your invitation though diagnosing someone who is not your patient is fraught with difficulty.
As Shelby Steele pointed out in “A Bound Man,” Obama has many contradictions in both his public and his private identity. Part hipster, part ex-pat, part Muslim, part radical Christian, part leftist, part establishment, part alienated, part privileged, he seems to be a man without a center. Any decision he takes risks disappointing or even violating one or another of his parts.
He seeks attention yet complains when attention is paid to him (such as the fuss he makes over the coverage of his expensive dates with Michelle during the worst economic times in decades). He plays hardball and surrounds himself with Chicago Rules types, but is extremely thin skinned when it comes to Fox News and even Edmunds.com’s criticism of the cash for clunkers program. He can give a prepared speech but freezes when the teleprompter malfunctions.
He has affiliated himself with very strong personalities, from Bill Ayers to Reverend Wright to Michelle to Rahm Emmanuel. But I wonder whether he has a single real and true friend — someone before whom he is not “on” and someone with whom he can truly be himself, whatever that is.
He seems most comfortable in the universe of hypotheses. That suits his utopian views and is consistent with the fact that as Editor of the Harvard Law Review he did not commit himself to writing anything of significance. To have written and published would have pinned him down to something tangible and therefore not hypothetical.
I believe he is lost in the tangible and comfortable only in the hypothetical. That is why the campaign fit him so well and governing fits him so poorly. And as such, he is vulnerable to the different pressures not only of his many internal parts (noted above) but also to the different agendas of his advisors.
His strongest advisors are focused mostly on remaking domestic America in their vision. The practical consequences of this for America’s position in the world are mere hypotheses to them. And all that suits the President because I believe his view of America is that it is too powerful and didn’t understand or accept him. And if I am right that he felt himself to be some sort of “alien creature” in the eyes of what he thought mainstream America was, then he would want to cut that tyranny down to size. The reason European criticism of American Exceptionalism appealed to him is that it was congruent with his own experience of alienation.
He seems to be drawn into poking others in the eye but then complaining when they poke back. In that sense he is like an inwardly cowardly bully who wants his way but also is afraid of conflict. And making a decision inevitably precipitates conflict.
My assessment is that Obama the man has only hypothetical convictions and tries to avoid the consequences of real and practical decisions. I base this not only on his dithering (good phrase wws) on Afghanistan but the way all his other leadership has turned out.
He could have had a health plan adopted if he had been willing to stand up to some of the disparate forces within his party and crafted something that would have been less comprehensive but more practical, and would even have gotten a handful of Republican votes. But living in the hypothetical world, and being unwilling to put his foot down and antagonizing some of his allies, he has allowed the process to drift and be taken over by Pelosi and Reid. No leadership here.
And same with cap and trade. A practical General would have laid out the sequence of battle, lined up the troops, established the logistical support, and than acted. But President Obama has little experience with logistics, is afraid to antagonize any of his troops (though willing to alienate those on the other side whom he might need later), and is paralyzed when it comes to transforming the hypothetical into the practical.
So I assess him as having a set of serious character flaws. He has no core, he lives in the hypothetical, he is a bully against those weaker than himself and a coward who runs from conflict with those stronger than himself. And he is deeply internally divided, and thus subject more than most to the influences of those around him, especially Michelle.
None of this necessarily negates the theory of incompetence and inexperience. Nor does it negate the theory of anti-American consipracy. And it also does not negate the theory that he is a pawn of other more sinister forces. But I think it does clarify a lot of the seemingly inconsistent behavior on his part. He talks a good game (the world of the hypothetical) but does not walk the talk (because he is too divided and too conflict-averse to make a decision for which he will have to take real responsibility).
Part of this is the curse of excess academia. I agree with the others who have made those points. (And I use Wilson and Carter as examples when friends say that the most important thing in a President is his intelligence.) The relatively inarticulate, like Harry Truman, Eisenhower, and George W. Bush, who are better at the practical than at the theoretical tend to make better Presidents. (I also say to those who claim that articulateness is the most important trait of a President, and say that to justify their vote for Obama, that Reagan was the most articulate President of all.)
So we have a man as President who has a fragmented identity, who is a bully but also a coward, who lives in utopian hypotheticals and has great trouble in the world of practicality attached to responsibility. He is more vulnerable than most to the whims of his advisors (remember he didn’t have a father and therefore strong men will fit that empty place), and has great difficulty improvising when he does not have a polished script. And he seems to hate the risk of being wrong or of being responsible for unexpected consequences.
There is no polished script for a war, especially one as complex as Afghanistan. So his default seems to be “delay and conquer.”
I don’t really know how certain this character analysis is — remember that none of us writing here at BC really know the man. But thinking this through does help me understand something of his moves the past nine months.
But it seems to me that every time America has been paralysed or indecisive it has been bad for the world. “Lost in thought” is not a good place for a President to be.
So I assess him as having a set of serious character flaws. He has no core, he lives in the hypothetical, he is a bully against those weaker than himself and a coward who runs from conflict with those stronger than himself. And he is deeply internally divided, and thus subject more than most to the influences of those around him, especially Michelle.
None of this necessarily negates the theory of incompetence and inexperience. Nor does it negate the theory of anti-American consipracy. And it also does not negate the theory that he is a pawn of other more sinister forces. But I think it does clarify a lot of the seemingly inconsistent behavior on his part. He talks a good game (the world of the hypothetical) but does not walk the talk (because he is too divided and too conflict-averse to make a decision for which he will have to take real responsibility).
Wonderful post. Commenters on the thread seemed to have three major theories to explain the President’s behavor: dither, blither and slither. The dither == incompetent; blither == the deceitful leftist; slither == the pawn of dark forces. As you point out, all the individual theories can explain a variety of accusations but except in combination, cannot explain them all.
The problem is that one can’t be all three at the same time. The blither and slither theses imply a huge degree of steely nerve. A man who can talk himself into being President of the United States on false grounds, who can bluster his way past the institutions of the Republic will certainly not flinch at dealing with the President of Iran or Venezuela. So my vote is against dither. The balance of probability suggests he is a very skillful left wing operator, whose allies are largely and maybe entirely domestic; though I suppose one should never be willing to rule out the possibility he’s made a deal with some dark force. But it is enough for the purposes to suppose the President is a skillful left-wing politician.
The problem is that left-wing political skill translates disastrous governance. Being good at leftism means being bad at running anything productive. Who would doubt that Chavez and Tony Blair were skilled left wing politicians? But as time goes by we can see that they effectively undermined what should have been unshakeable countries: one a country floating on oil; the other sustained by a skilled population with a long history. Yet neither Venezuela nor the UK were impervious to leftist “skill”. The left has reduced what should naturally have been the regional leaders to regional basket cases. North Korea has made a mockery of Korean industriousness; Cuba of the brilliance of its people. Even Germany could be reduced to squalor by Eastern Bloc. Leftist skill is virtuosity at the wrecking-ball.
It is more than an academic point. Barack Obama’s nature as a skillful leftist politician suggests the depth of the problem. It would be more comforting if he were a dither or a slither; because then he would be an isolated case. A one-off. Somebody who lucked out and made it past the gatekeepers. But Obama the blither is altogether more frightening. He is not alone. A large part of the electorate believes in what he aspires to. The gatekeepers put him there, at least some of them. Even if Obama were to resign tomorrow, another blithering politician would instantly rise to take his place. Because there’s more where that came from.
This suggests that the story of Barack Obama as it unfolds won’t be the drama of a single man, but the saga of an entire era. Barack Obama and the forces which oppose him are, I like to imagine, representative of the same kind of drama being played out all over the Western world. America as in many other things, is at the leading edge of vast political issues. We are either watching the triumph of the great world religion of socialism or seeing it fall apart. That crisis is distilled and focused in Barack Hussein Obama. Much has been made of the symbolism of his syncretic personality as a token of American racial contradictions. In truth he is the symbol of a far more universal conflict; one older even than slavery on the North American continent.
It may be a drag to live through this era of conflict. But from an historical point of view, we have got ringside tickets to the greatest show in seventy years. Since we can’t leave the Garden we should guzzle up the Jolt Cola and watch the match, conscious that it may spill out into the seats and become every man for himself. They will be talking about these years, those who survive it, for a very, very long time.
Wretched says: “We are either watching the triumph of the great world religion of socialism or seeing it fall apart.”
I think the latter, for a couple of reasons. They’ll likely be in power when the crisis occurs, and will have no idea how to stop it (neither will anyone else). And their policies depend on a thriving economy that they can milk for their schemes, and they’re doing what they can to destroy that.
I fear what will take it’s place. When the crisis occurs, whatever it is, fear and confusion will quickly transform to anger amongst the general populace. Especially those who have no real clue about the precarious position we are in. It’ll come as a big shock to them, and they’ll want to blame somebody.
In those circumstances humans are very susceptible to a demagogue blaming the other for all of the problems, when in fact the problem lies in all of us. Your previous posting about the BNP is an example of what I’m talking about. I fear we have something like that in our future, and that will benefit nobody.
Wretchard: “Leftist skill is virtuosity at the wrecking-ball.”
“Understanding socialism as one of the manifestations of the allure of death explains its hostility toward individuality, its desire to destroy those forces which support and strengthen human personality: religion, culture, family, individual property. It is consistent with the tendency to reduce man to the level of a cog in the state mechanism…” Igor Shafarevich
Wretchard: “We are either watching the triumph of the great world religion of socialism or seeing it fall apart.”
“There is, first of all, the profound experience of Russia, the significance of which we are only now beginning to understand. The question therefore arises: will this experience be sufficient? Is it sufficient for the entire world and especially for the West? Indeed, is it sufficient for Russia? Shall we be able to comprehend its meaning? Or is mankind destined to pass through this experience on an immeasurably larger scale? There is no doubt that if the ideals of Utopia are realized universally, mankind, even in the barracks of the universal City of the Sun, shall find the strength to regain its freedom and to preserve God’s image and likeness–human individuality–once it has glanced into the yawning abyss. But will even that experience be sufficient? For it seems just as certain that the freedom of will granted to man and to mankind is absolute, that it includes the freedom to make the ultimate choice–between life and death.” Igor Shafarevich
http://www.robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html
Wretchard,
Thanks for that long reflection on BHO. Some BCers have been dwelling in conspiracy theory land. Given the massive manipulation of oil/commodity prices in 2008 before a decisive presidential election and the fact that so many mega decisions were made behind closed doors related to the bailouts by Goldman Sachs alums, I understand this temptation and feel it myself.
But one man’s conspiracy still requires another man’s cock-up to be effective. The Soviet Union was probably doomed by the 1980s even if it was given a swift push, first by Pope John Paul II, then Bzrezinski who boasted inside the Carter Administration about provoking the Soviets into their Vietnam then by Reagan’s team who cut the deal with the Saudis to crash world oil prices when the Iran-Iraq war was supposed to keep them high for Papa Brezhnev’s tottering state.
Similarly, even if foreigners were plotting the breakup of the Russian Federation with Soros support, covertly supporting the Chechen separatists and grabbing Russian natural resources as cheap as they could with help from their oligarchs (as populary depicted in Paul Greengrass’ The Bourne Supremacy), the Nineties “Time of Troubles” was only possible due to weak leadership.
There seem to be some here at BC (and certainly plenty of anti-Russia lobby members in D.C. who to his day like to exagerrate their role in bringing down the Evil Empire) who are terrified that just as the USSR was partially bankrupted by cheap oil and a war in Afghanistan foreign powers are conspiring to bankrupt the USA with expensive oil and another Afghan quagmire out of revenge for losing the Cold War. Well I don’t buy it.
Our pols led by Pelosi/Bernanke are doing a bangup job of leading us to national penury on their own. And if anything, if one reads Pravda.ru these days, you see columns by one Stanislav Mishin, a Russian Orthodox nationalist whose article accusing America of going down the path of the Soviets was a smash hit all over the U.S. right web, including The American Spectator. That seems to be a big ideological shift from the Comintern times.
“There seem to be some here at BC…who are terrified that just as the USSR was partially bankrupted by cheap oil and a war in Afghanistan foreign powers are conspiring to bankrupt the USA with expensive oil and another Afghan quagmire out of revenge for losing the Cold War. Well I don’t buy it.”
How about this: There are foreign powers (Marxist and Islamist nations coordinating their political activities through international organizations such as the UN) conspiring to bankrupt the USA with expensive oil and another Afghan quagmire out of a desire to win World War IV – the final triumph of universal arbitrary (Marxist &/or Sharia) law. There is one thing that Marxists and Islamist agree on: Government of the people, by the people, for the people must perish from the earth.
http://fora.tv/2007/11/30/Norman_Podhoretz
http://www.danielpipes.org/5720/the-islamist-leftist-allied-menace
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/23743.html
President Obama (PBUH) has frozen at the trigger.
Dithering in war is the same as running in circles and bumping into each other during an ambush, gobbling like turkeys.
Then the Enemy just shoots your ass down.
The point in time of a battle when the other side turns to run away is the time when the most casualties are inflicted something about the bared human back while in battle mode invites the victor into shooting down those attempting to flee.
Dithering is going to get a whole bunch of our guys killed.
I hope they put this fact in the Barack Hussain Obama (PBUH) Presidential library.
sorry lotm, I had not recognized the link in your post.
for others:
Key observation of Gant’s strategy: “A strategy in which the central government is the centerpiece of our counterinsurgency plan is destined to fail. It disenfranchises the very fabric of Afghan society.”
Comments 77 and 78 are fine examples of what makes BC rewarding reading. No “paralysis by analysis” in either of those two.
re #78 – fantastic post, wretchard. “Dither, Blither, and Slither” – now that’s the entire reason I come here summed up in 3 words! I could never come up with anything that pithy on my own, and yet you encapsulate the situation perfectly.
As you know I’ve been in the “dither” camp, but your points are well taken. Since I value competence and real world success above ideology, it is very hard for me to accept that an intelligent person could fail to value those things. And yet – I do see that an ambitious person can see a way to power and privilege which involves throwing those goals out from the start. It would be the path of the con artist who achieves personal riches by destroying all those he comes in contact with, the life of the ultimate social predator. It would be the life of a man who has no true empathy for others, who would sacrifice anyone and anything as long as it led to personal advantage for the self.
We are getting very close to a functional definition of Evil here. All that is missing is malicious intent, but I think that eventually has a way of injecting itself into any soul of this type, even if it isn’t there at the start. Fertile ground, that type of thing. Perhaps the lust for power is evidence that it has already arrived.
You wrote: “We are either watching the triumph of the great world religion of socialism or seeing it fall apart.”
Our great hope is that both of these propositions are true at the same time.
Wretchard: “The problem is that left-wing political skill translates disastrous governance. Being good at leftism means being bad at running anything productive…Leftist skill is virtuosity at the wrecking-ball.”
This is a feature of leftist (Marxist) political philosophy and government power – not a flaw. The end result of Marxist political power is the inevitable rise of a new ruling class – not “social justice.”
“It is precisely this “new class” that reflects the defining contradiction of modern leftist reality: The goal of complete economic equality logically enjoins the means of complete state control, yet this means has never practically achieved that end. Yes, Smith and Jones, once “socialized,” are equally poor and equally oppressed, but now above them looms an oligarchy of not-to-be-equalized equalizers. The inescapable rise of this “new class” — privileged economically as well as politically, never quite ready to “wither away” — forever destroys the possibility of a “classless” society. Here the lesson of socialism teaches what should have been learned from the lesson of pre-liberal despotism — that state coercion is a means to no end but its own. Far from expanding equality from the political to the economic realm, the pursuit of “social justice” serves only to contract it within both. There will never be any kind of equality — or real justice — as long as a socialist elite stands behind the trigger while the rest of us kneel before the barrel.” Barry Loberfeld
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guides/Z-Social%20Justice-Code%20for%20Communism.htm
Another thing that could be “…perturbing the orbit of Uranus…” is the elctions next week. If it is true that these contests are a preview of 2012 they could be the key to what he does next. For an administration to whom power is all, those results, if they go badly for democrats, could fortell some very bad times for the rest of us. If the administration is in jeopardy, there could be a strong impetus to force all the “change” possible as soon as possible. We may see whose side this bunch is truely on.
One of the great things about the favorite post thread was the opportunity to look over old threads and rediscover some forgotten links. This one by Ali Sina, an apostate Muslim (h/t Robohobo) is a long discussion of Obama that makes some of the same points as Batman @77 above
http://www.faithfreedom.org/obama.html
@78 wretchard
“…Obama the blither is altogether more frightening. He is not alone. A large part of the electorate believes in what he aspires to.”
That’s the thing that keeps me up at night. You don’t need foreign manipulation when you have true believers right here. When someone as usually hard-headed as Camille Paglia can tear his policies to pieces but still insist he’s a fine president, I can’t help thinking of something Hannah Arendt wrote 60 years ago ~
~ ” The disturbing factor in the success of totalitarianism is the true selflessness of its adherents; it may be understandable that a Nazi or a Bolshevik will not be shaken in his conviction by crimes against people who do not belong to the movement or are hostile to it; but the amazing fact is that neither is he likely to waver when the monster begins to devour its own children and not even if he becomes the victim of persecution himself…..On the contrary, to the wonder of the whole civilized world he may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched.” ~
Origins of Totalitarianism (p. 307)
NahnCee @75 brought up the possibility of a swine flu epidemic leading to martial law or worse. All I can say is, the MSM browbeats the nation into semi-hysteria every flu season and just when I think they can’t sink any lower they break out the jackhammers. It’s something to keep in mind. Obviously I can’t guarantee there won’t be an epidemic but I’ll be greatly surprised if there is.
In C.S. Lewis’s story,”The Shoddy Lands,” the narrator finds himself transported from a conversation with a former student and his fiancée into a strange landscape, where grass and sky are blurry, and trees are dingy upright blobs. He comes upon the Walking Things, people-sized and moving, but indistinct except for an occasional detail, something a woman is wearing, or sometimes a man’s face. In all this dullness he sees that there is a source of bright, clear light, and finds that it comes from windows full of fine jewelry and women’s clothes. These things are perfect to the last detail; they are real.
When he comes upon a giantess, a vulgarly perfected version of his student’s fiancée, he realizes that he’s in the landscape of her mind, and that all the things that make life sweet to him hardly exist for her.
Lewis shows us the world of a vain and shallow young woman. But this is also the world of the narcissist.
Some things are quite real and vivid: those that serve his needs.
I think this helps to illuminate some of Obama’s apparent contradictions. About things that feed him, the narcissist is clear and decisive. About these he is not lazy, not bored or vague. During the campaign, Obama is described as driving many of the decisions, sure-footed, never hesitant. (Yes,it could be PR, but to me it feels true.) He is an expert at the one thing he has worked at all his life — the marketing of Barack Obama. We do not hesitate in the areas we know expertly.
But beyond, there is… unreality. I think Afghanistan is out there, in the shoddy lands. So are small business owners in America, and productive people generally, unless they are useful; then they may temporarily be like the daffodils and roses in the Lewis story, real because they can be cut for a vase.
In re-reading these comments two things come to mind:
The first is the man himself. He is not trusted to be as the rest of us. There is no faith that he sees the country and its storied history in the same positive light as we do. To me, his dislike is not even the cynical leftist slant that we’ve seen since the sixties but, rather, a visceral distrust and dislike of most things American. I can’t think of a more representative example as that during the campaign when he gave Hillary the finger. It was a sneaky, childish thing, full of contempt with her, the process, and the traditions of those presenting themselves for high office. He does not see himself as part of us but apart from us.
The second thing that struck me is Wretchard’s discussion of “consumables”. He said (much more thoughtfully and elegantly than I)that Obama is searching for more assets to consume. My point was that if the 3 elections now in process portend for him that his time on stage is short, his disinterest and contempt for us as a nation will become manifest and result in choosing social and political change over national security. I believe he could reason that in the country joining a world government he and his ideas would/could still survive and prosper. Continuing the war would/could result in starving the socio-political beast and reducing his hopes for “change he can believe in.”
I believe there are exceptional dangers ahead for us over the next couple of years and they will be seen on a number of fronts, all with a single unifying (but not readily transparent) goal.
I’m not sure dither is inconsistent with blither. Specifically, what it took to get elected was very specific and known, the decisions were easy. What it takes to implement a leftist agenda may look more complicated and uncertain once one is in power. I suspect the main goal is socialism in one country, the USA, but since the issues don’t line up all nice and neat one after the other, and the rest of the world keeps getting in the way, the problem of how to implement his transormation becomes very complicated and somewhat indeterminant. As other posters have suggested, does a decision on Afghanistan have an effect on health care? If so, what would that be? If I only get one bite at health care, I have to achieve my goals, how do I do that with all these nuisances like Iran and Afghanistan and Beck in the way.
So consider that maybe the hesitation on Afghanistan is that in itself it just isn’t that important, and the question isn’t what to do there, but secondary and tertiary effects on domestic issues.
Consder it like this:
1. Obama and the people around him believe that the USA has been a baleful force since at least 1945. It does not deserve to prosper, it must atone.
2. Leftists are moral, anyone else is not.
3. Leftists need to implement “social justice” in the USA.
Just take all that as a given, that’s how they think. The question then is how to accomplish those things in #1 and #3. Sometimes, there are tough calls. That’s when he dithers.
88. Dennis:
Those elections can play out two ways in my veiw. If they are disasterous for the Dems it may tell them their time is short and they best Rahm though anything and everything they can manage. Alternately, like a child burned by fire, they may shy away from the most agrressive actions to lull the public while they position themselves for 2010 and 2012. Either way it will be bad.
My hope is that the elections are a complete train-wreck for the Dems and they go totally bonkers. Once they drop the mask they will have few friends left. The Independents, and even the media, are already drifting away. It will certainly make a mess, but better that than trying to rebuild in 2016.
The Grand Army of the Patomic was potentially the largest most modern and well oiled killing machine of its day. Its failures were not due to the incompetence of the various corps commanders but due to the indecisiveness of the commanding General McClelland. His failure to put the machine into motion, to allow it to do what it was assembled and trained to do is a matter for much discussion and will not be resolved here but I have to believe little Mac was unwilling to order his men to their death, despite the additional lives his delay ultimately cost. It has got to be one of the toughest orders to give.
Having a taste of what the military is really about, could president Obama be similarly disinclined to give the order, despite the lives such a delay must certainly take. It could match what motivated his ill advised Photo op with the fallen.
@programmer
“However, were I the local AO commander, while waiting for the Prez’s decision, I would be pulling back into defendable enclaves that could be protected with available assets. ”
That way, the Afghan people in every little town will know that we have no concern over their security, and will cooperate with the Taliban out of fear for their own lives, and will not provide any information to either the Afghan, NATO, or US forces. By allowing the Taliban free reign outside of a few enclaves, that will ultimately allow security, stability and peace to break out in Afghanistan.
Great idea, that worked so well in Iraq from 2004-2006.
Dave,
“In addition to which, Ike Eisenhower, Matt Ridgway and a single regiment of Marines in Northeast Thailand had the Ho Chi Trail effectively interdicted and enemy forces thus
stymied. The Kennedy administration threw away all that and then kept digging their hole deeper and deeper.”
Please elaborate.
Obama is a book-learned internationalist. He’s being advised to back off so that Europe will have room to step up. If they don’t, he’ll punt the war to the next admin and try to look concerned. I don’t believe for a second that briefings have changed his gut feeling that the US is temporary, that the pursuit of its own interests is a good in itself. He’s already selling us out in umpteen other ways. Afghanistan is another opportunity to do the same. All in good time.
Hope this comment shows up before the thread is closed. Been monitoring. Haven’t had leisure to pipe up until now.
habu@4: People, we are serving a noble purpose in performing this dissection of a madman who is attempting to destroy the greatest, most benevolent nation man has ever seen.
A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we should declare the causes which impel us to the separation.
programmer@8: I would be pulling back into defendable enclaves that could be protected with available assets.
Premature. We may well be forced in to such a posture as we attempt a retrograde under pressure, but until the National Command Authority accepts defeat and orders the troops to hole up on the FOB’s, they need to be outside the wire drinking tea, arranging escape for locals who trusted us, and kinetically disrupting the enemy’s capability to interfere with whatever movements we make. Our Soldiers and Marines must not be made to slink out with their tails between their legs. If their country has given up on them, then they must ruthlessly inflict Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt up to the last wheels up.
Konyok@35: The U.S. promoted Karzai in the loya jirga because he was an unaffiliated Pashtun without ties to the heavily Tajik Northern Alliance or other mujahideen factions.
IMHO, Karzai was promoted because he cleaned up well and spoke English and made a good impression during media coverage of ODA 574 and the danger very very close JDAM at Showali Kowt.
josh@37: So hey, why is nobody saying anything about this Marine Captain cum diplomat who has resigned in disgust?
Old Blue has said something. So has Quatto.
Cannoneer out. Gotta check if the thread has closed yet.