James Taranto makes fun of an NYT preview of Obama’s Afghanistan speech, saying that a close reading shows that “after months of indecision, the president has finally resolved to be irresolute.” Taranto’s spoof runs thus:
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will give a clear sense of both the time frame for action and how the war will eventually wind down! Let every nation know that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, to ratchet back our presence after the buildup! Either you are with us or you are with those who would fail to make clear that a significant American presence will remain, not just for a while but for a long while!
It’s cruel send-up, but not as savage as the treatment afforded by the LA Times, which has an article called “5 things to listen for in Obama’s Afghanistan speech”. The most important thing to listen for, the LA Times suggests, is the sound of an American ultimatum on itself.
The troubled reality, of course, is the enemy can see the same calendar light and knows it must only wear down and out-wait the notoriously impatient Americans, as the Vietcong did in Vietnam, where American support for its domestic ally withered. And so did the local government’s ability to withstand guerrilla war.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs claims this “doesn’t make any logical sense.”
Also — and Obama may try to skate by this harsh fact — the 44th U.S. president has already issued this Windex ultimatum: Clean up your act or else. It worked so well that the autumn Afghan presidential elections were rigged anyway. …
- Are there real demands of Karzai? Specific ones? Obama aides promise “new wrinkles” to the ultimatum, meaning — what? That this time we really, really mean it?
- Any additional troop commitments by NATO allies?
- How does Obama fudge the exit timeline in public? Or does he?
Jake Tapper says “the president will explain how he intends to, as he said last week, ‘finish the job’ … the president will also explain to the American people his exit strategy. Part of the president’s challenge is explaining that while he’s sending more than 30,000 new U.S. troops to Afghanistan — bringing the total to around 100,000 — he is just as keenly focused on bringing them home … the president will convey to the Afghan government that it needs to get its act together and improve governance and combat corruption, a push he will make by saying the U.S. will insist on very strict benchmarks.”
He will lay down the law to Karzai, but Reuters says that for the surge to work the US needs to deal with the very same person. And not just with Karzai: according to Tapper, Democratic Congressmen say that any chance of “getting” Bin Laden depends on the cooperation of Pakistan. House Appropriations Committee chairman Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And I don’t think we have the tools in the Pakistani government and I don’t think we have the tools in the Afghan government. And until we do, I think much of what we do is a fool’s errand.” The President will have go get the cooperation of the very same people he wants to whip into line.
So Obama’s strategic dilemma is that he wants to “finish the job” and get out and he wants to get tough on his allies but needs them to accomplish his job. He is caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Under these circumstances, what odds would you give the job?
Never mind. Obama’s speech is likely to be soaring. Why he might say, “never in the field of human conflict have so many owed so much to so few.” Oops. That was the speech about the stimulus.
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This seems to me to be just like the exit strategy from Guantanamo, and is likely to be just as final.
The rhetoric will be soaring, no doubt, but watching this outfit work is a lot like watching the old Monty Python upper-class-twit-of-the-year contest. The frightening part is that we’ve only reached the part where they fall over the wall of matchboxes. Imagine what happens when they get to the revolver at the end. You had some conjectures about what is likely to happen when that moment arrives, if I recall.
And in the meantime, Obama of Arabia has been working the phones. But sadly:
Australia would not boost troop numbers in the war-torn country.
UK damns with faint praise
And as always, France refuses to pull its weight
They’ve already worked it out, POTUS is not serious.
But, when I think about it, neither should he be serious. Get out of the dump, everybody. Ringfence it, adopt the Israeli solution, wall them in. In 100 years, after several generations of television, let them out.
ADE
So, in summary, classic DC Doubledunk. Should be bomb our enemies or drop food to them? Well, do some of both, on alternate days.
Perhaps the best example of this – until now – was Chimmy Carter’s decision to deploy new ICBMs in response to the USSR’s relentless strategic arms buildup but to do so utilizing Alternative Energies and other Eco-Friendly Technologies.
Obama is going to throw a bone to those asking about his vow to fight the Good War and bail out of the Bad War by doing both. And to those wishing so strongly for the Last Helicopter Leaves The Roof of the Embassy Moment he is going to give them one of those, too.
Terrific. Next, nuke the whales.
It don’t mean nothing.
Whatever he reads off the TOTUS, words won’t convince people to quit hedging their bets and go all in to win.
The only reason Democrats gave a rat’s rear end about Afghanistan was that their faux concern allowed them to bash Bush and undermine the Iraq war effort. Now their Good War is their war to win or lose and our Commander-in-Chief’s concept of “victory” in Afghanistan does not inspire.
If he ever intended to win the war The Afghan Surge would have started three months ago. It will take a long time to get the additional boots on the ground. With much effort and at great expense they should be there by the snow melt in the Hindu Kush.
Then what?
Afghanistan: The speech you’ll miss
LA Times:
Where to start?
The Viet Cong ceased to be an effective force after Tet, in 1968.
The local governments were quite effective in keeping them that way. In fact there were over a million weapons provided to the local governments in South Viet Nam by the last invasion by the NVA.
The Democrats led by the late unlamented Teddy Kennedy killed a million or two people in SE Asia by wearing down the American people, not the Viet Cong.
History matters.
Never mind. Obama’s speech is likely to be soaring.
Those days are over. No more ladies to be photographed swooning (were they actors provided by AFTRA?), no more rock star. The swoonable speeches were backlighted by press-enhanced hatred of the Bush admin, coupled by a deluded willingness to believe in hope and change, and always followed by press-enhanced rave reviews DESPITE their lack of content.
Now that there’s a ten-month track record of this indecisive and cynical boy wonder, the factors that led the cheerleaders to believe they’d just heard the best speech since the Gettysburg Address have faded enough that we can all see the content, in addition to the form, of the speeches. The sneering backhands demonizing strawman opponents, the persistent incomprehension of world politics, which are not the same as using Tides Foundation funds to purchase rentamobs in Chicago.
The Cost of Risk Aversion from Tim Lynch.
He “had a plan” when he ran for office. Now that His Wimpiness has scared the rest of the nations with forces in Afghanistan with his inability to make a decision he decides to send more troops. Not enough troops, just more troops. Just enough troops for a full-scale disaster if (when?) Pakistan goes under and the supply line is cut. Too many to supply by air, but not enough to crush the AQ/Talis in one go.
He clearly has never read the Anabasis (I hope some of our generals in theatre have), watched the movie Khartoum or heard of Stalingrad. Whatever happened to catching Bin Laden anyways?
He isn’t smart enough to be a chess player, he isn’t savvy enough to be a poker player, so here we are stuck with the “Go Fish” master.
Sigh.
Afghanistan: 34,000 Troops Will Be Sent — So How Many Contractors? from Matt the Feral Jundi.
No big surprise in any of this. In fact, when my wife asked me what I thought his strategy would be, I told her that he would propose a large enough number of troops to make it look like he cared, but then phase it in over an extended period of time and establish a bunch of caveats that would make it easy for him to cut and run in a year when the strategy ultimately fails.
Viola! From what I am reading, I hit the nail on the head. If I can call this one two months in advance, then NATO and the Taliban probably also figured it out. So now the Taliban and Al-Queda just wait for us to flounder and NATO starts leaving tomorrow.
This is what happens when American domestic politics over shadow foreign policy. If Obama openly cuts and runs, he is toast as a bad president. Especially after he highlighted Afghanistan as a necessary war. But if he plays to win, his political base will slit his throat. So his answer is a strategy that sounds good and is guaranteed to fail within a year.
Only question now is which country will fall apart first, Afghanistan or Pakistan?
ws1835@11:
“Only question now is which country will fall apart first, Afghanistan or Pakistan?”
Or the US. A whole set of huge crises are gathering on the horizon to follow the ones we’ve already seen and are seeing.
Ug. I’m tired of interesting times.
11. ws1835: “Only question now is which country will fall apart first, Afghanistan or Pakistan”
I wouldn’t want to try to put the odds on that. If I was running AQ/Talis I would push in Afghanistan hard enough to keep the US busy while I worked like a madman to topple Pakistan.
My reasoning id this;
The US has a pretty much “hands-off” policy in Pakistan and Pakistan has Nukes. The first order of business would be to worm into the agency that secures the bombs (oops, isn’t that the ISI?), then cause enough chaos nationwide to allow some bombs to “go missing”. I couldn’t afford to bring about complete collapse as India would doubtless intervene to secure the storage/launch sites in that event. No, just enough trouble that accountability is tough for a few weeks. Then the government (such as it is) could make it known that some hardware had been stolen and it was “working hard” at tracking it down. In the meantime I now have a huge amount of leverage (even if I can’t deploy a nuke effectively) than I can use to make the Infidels and Apostates grovel before me.
Just think of the quaking and hand-wringing that would occur in the capitals of of the nations that I have issued fatwas against!
#6 Herb:
Yeah, I picked up on that “Vietcong” thing before I even finished reading your post. Why is it so hard to know history as it really happened?
Eisenhower ‘cut and ran’ from another hopeless situation, the Korean War. Ditto Nixon in Vietnam, Reagan in Beiruit and Clinton in Somalia. All of them were re-elected. I am not sure why continuing to dump billions of dollars down a bottomless sinkhole constitutes good leadership.
Obama’s procrastination was not only political but tactical as well.
The three month delay ensures few new troops or supplies will be in Afghanistan before winter. By the same token, he might also have ensured a number of troops have to stay over winter.
This speech tonight is going to be a truly historic failure, be there or be square!
If Karzai is such a disaster then isn’t our Afghan effort doomed to failure while he is in office? Or do you think Obama will give us a surprise this evening and announce Karzai is stepping down, or up, to take a position with the UN? Or maybe to serve as new social secretary for the White House?
Because history as it really happened is full of incovenient truths that get in the way of The Narrative.
The study of history is a political act. All the atrocities Americans are supposed to be so ashamed of are in our history. Dead white slave-owning males stole America from the “Native Americans” and everything since has been fruit of a poison tree.
My estimate is that 80% of Americans under 40 don’t know the history of the previous century, or the previous five centuries. The few that do had it learn it for themselves, or were educated by undocumented educators.
Anybody who wasn’t paying attention in 1970 ought to just STFU about Vietnam. Especially if you weren’t even around yet.
Afghanistan’s plains
Still more often sung than recited I suspect.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-young-british-soldier/
To the regiment.
It’s going to be interesting to see President Obama speak on the war tonight, since he is absolutely unqualified for the task he is beset with. I keep waiting for that fabulous “anti-war” (or is it “peace”) movement to break out again, y’know, like the one we had during the Bush Administration, but didn’t have during the Clinton Admin, and don’t have now. Almost makes y’think that the “peace movement” is sorta political.
Polls show that 2/3 of Democrats are against the formerly “good” war in Afghanistan. President Obama could not be more clear about the disdain with which he views American history. I can’t wait to see this speech.
As for Vietnam, everyone who has paid attention knows that LBJ fought that war as a series of “messages” he was sending to our enemies, and our ROE revolved around never making China, Russia or even the North Vietnamese mad at us. (Read “We were Soldiers Once … and Young” or “The Thirteenth Valley” to get a feel for how this stance worked out for our infantry.) The fact that the North surrendered after we unleashed a couple of weeks of hell on them known as Linebacker II (the Christmas Bombings) tells you all you need to know about the course of that war and what should have been in 1965 or so.
If President Obama comes out tonight talking about messages he is sending to Afghanistan and Pakistan and his “open hand not clenched fist” approach that has worked so well with Iran… I am going to add anti-war in Afghanistan signs to my Tea Party regalia. No war for messages! We’re in it to win it, or we can’t ask our people to be in it.
OK, here is what I don’t get.
If Mr. Obama were focused purely on the the politics, he would bring the troops home.
I mean, who is he playing politics to? His Left base always took the “Afghanistan is the real war” meme with a wink and a nod. They would cheer leaving the place. The Right would take this as a sign of a broken campaign promise, but how does that even matter?
Compares this with Bush Senior and the broken “No New Taxes” pledge that he went back on. First off, that pledge was to his base, because the liberal Left was eager to raise taxes, especially on wealthy persons or corporations. The meaning of the pledge and the breaking of the pledge and the politics is that Lefties for some odd reason would snark “What happened to Read My Lips”, but the snark was aimed at undercutting the morale of the Right.
Here, if we withdrew from Afghanistan and the Right snarked on Lefty Web sites (do we do this kind of thing?) “Oh yeah, what about Afghanistan being the Real War”, what difference would it make to morale on the Left — they want to end the war, even if it is their own guy, don’t they.
The difference is if withdrawing from Afghanistan would bring disaster and if Mr. Obama is getting a sense of it. One of the recent Kiss-and-Tell books has President W Bush remarking with respect to Candidate Obama “The world is a dangerous place, and ‘that cat’ doesn’t have a clue.” Now that Mr. Obama is in the White House and privy to all of the intelligence reports, maybe “that cat” happens to be President of the United States and indeed has a clue. Maybe he has bruises on his skull from contact with the proverbial “clue bat.”
So maybe the indecision is that Afghanistan is not just about the politics and the campaign promises — the campaign promise could be easily broken were there not serious consequences beyond the sphere of politics, and that is why the decision is so hard.
Capt Ramen #15:
Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan stabilized the situations you mention but realized that the Cold War was not going to be won in those places. They kept the eye on the ball, focused on the overall long term objective and refused to be drawn into pointless elephant traps. Reagan in particular came up with a plan he described as “They lose we win” and made it work. Even President Bush after Desert Storm realized that the USSR was entering its last phase and more military adventures in the middle east might hinder that fall or at least make it more dangerous.
Clinton in Somalia went in with a poor idea of what we were there for (simply to protect food distribution) and let the UN talk him into broader objectives for which he was unwilling to commit even the required modest resources. The Army asked for tanks and Les Aspin refused to send them.
Clinton went into Bosnia and Kosovo for personal and political reasons but followed his Somalia strategy of “if it ain’t worth doing at all then do it half-assed.”
Pres Bush in Afghanistan conducted enough of a war to ensure that there was no government there that would openly support the Taliban and Al Queda, which was all we needed.
Obama criticized Bush on both Afghanistan because it was politically expedient to do so and has not the guts to admit that he was wrong.
Neither Clinton nor Obama had their eyes on the ball because they didn’t know there is one, or at least refused to acknowledge the fact.
Cannoneer no.4 #18: I recall back in the mid-80’s having lunch with a couple of younger guys, a fellow USAF officer and his history major friend, and asking then if they realized that South Vietnam fell to a mechanized invasion that used more vehicles than the German invasion of France in 1940. Both were astonished by that fact – and note that was almost 25 years ago.
““I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,””
He says that like it’s a /bad/ thing.
I don’t think anybody has hit the true focus of sheer insult Obama is offering the country and its collective intelligence. The cream of the jest lies in the fact that this speech will be offered at the United States Military Academy: a speech the main purport of which is to play silly games with the lives of America’s professional soldiers will be delivered at the place which America’s professional soldiers are trained.
Was this accidental? The only thing Obama excels at is insulting the American people. Insults, unfortunately, are costly. You do the deed, you pay the price.
@22,
What makes you think the war against Al Qaeda (or more generally, the war against the failure of the nation-state) is going to be won or lost in Afghanistan?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending Obama in the least. Like most of our ‘leaders,’ he will chart some mediocre middle ground to try and placate enough of the various Washington factions; which will make things worse, and will leave the American Citizen holding the bag at the end.
What I object to is committing our reserves to this unending campaign, in a landlocked country, halfway around the world, with no strategic goals, not even loot, using money borrowed from our rivals. Is there a happy ending for us? I don’t see it.
23. Achillea: I think you missed the point about..
“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,”
Hirohito did not sign the document, two lesser officials did. I assume the Cannonneer was using the quote as an aside to The One’s total ignorance of things historical.
What if Obama is actually trying to lose the war and destroy the army while deflecting the responsibility onto General McChrystal?
Why would a US President do such a thing? The same reason he is destroying the economy, and trying to wreck the health care system. He dislikes the country and hates the military. Recently General McChrystal embarrassed him with his leaked advice. Also, destroying the pre-revolutionary military is exactly what you wuld expect of a Leninist. It is where Lenin and Trotsky begain in the summer of 1917. After the October Coup they accelerated the process, forcing out, or killing most of the non-radical officers, replacing them with radicals as soon as possible. Such a plan also makes sense if you postulate a long term plan for a Civilian National Security Corps, as large and well equipped as the army, which has been repeatedly mentioned already.
But is Obama a Leninist? Consider that his mother, his grandparents, and his signifcan other, father-figure “Uncle Frank” Davis were all supporters of the CPUSA, and the influential Davis even a Party official. All his other influences at school, and his friends were Marxists. He has had no non-Marxist exposure to give him an alternat view. When the implementation follows the plan, Occam’s Razor suggests it is not by coincidence.
Capt Raman #25:
I don’t think the war is going to be won or lost in Afghanistan. I quite agree with you that committing more forces there would be a triumph of political symbolism over military strategy.
My point was that what is important is keeping one’s eye on the ball – understanding the real war and what the real objectives are. Making sure that every last Pashtun becomes our friend is neither a practical approach nor a dreadful necessity. Reaching settlements in Korea and Vietnam reflected the desire to keep our eye on the ball – the USSR.
But what Obama lacks – and indeed the entire government – and in fact the entire world – is the concept of what the real war is about. Making sure that they are not plotting our demise in some cave is not important – Ted Kazinsky plotted our demise from a shack in Montana. Making sure that they can’t do it is what is important – and we can do that more effectively with some leaders with guts and some B-52’s with GPS guided bombs than with a bunch of troops clambering all over the ruddy outback of Central Asia.
Ironically, even as Obama claims to disavow old fashioned notions of victory being when the enemy leader comes down to sign treaty, that is just what he is fixed on – and I have no doubt that he would think the War was Over when Osama Bin Laden was in the dock in NYC.
Can someone here answer a question for me? I keep wondering where General Petraeus is in this. Isn’t part of CENTCOM’s AOR Afghanistan? Why haven’t we heard from him? I also just heard that the figure McCrystal asked for was more like 60,000/70,000 with a minimum of 40,000. Thank you in advance.
I dont know how many troops are “needed” in A’stan. I do know that by all accounts GEN McChrystal is a world’s leading expert in COIN and CG warfare. Now I expect that he looked at what needs to be done to get to some end point, made a list of activities and populated it with enough people to safely do it. Now there may be room for reasonable people to disagree over whether or not some activities are needed or not, but McChrystal was put in charge and asked for a recommendation. If he asked for 60-70K and is getting half that, its a big problem. Its made a whole lot worse if he’s given a time end point and being asked to manage a withdrawal with a lot fewer troops than he wanted to maintain and progress. This most casual student of history knows that a withdrawal is a lot more dangerous than a stalemate and infinitely more risky than a drive for victory.
I understand that Baraq and Biden are pissed that the Afghans haven’t stepped up to the task of having a fully functioning clean government and want to increase the pressure on Karzai. That’s really gonna work. The population is barely out of the stone age. They are no more capable of being responsible for their own security than a bunch of nine year olds. The material may be there in bodies but the mental and spiritual infrastructure simply doesnt exist. Iraq at least started with the vestiges of a middle class and a past history of being a successful nation-state (it was 2500 years ago, but it was.)
It will take at least ten years for A’stan to become anything more than a tribal enclave. Demands from DC for them to shape up are simple bluster and an insult to the people to whom they are aimed. Thats us and the Afghanis.
This is another Democrat effort to get a bunch of people killed, I’m afraid. They’re really good at that.
As I recall, and I may be wrong, Iraq really went to pot after the US declared Bremer to be viceroy, overlord, proconsul: Pick your colonial title (I took the VOPC bit from the Washingtn Post).
Until then, there were at least some in the world (Even the Islamic World) who chose to believe that the majority of Iraqi’s were liberated by the coalition. We were given the benefit of the doubt.
Bremer’s appointment was hyped around the world as the US taking over the country, and gave credence to the Baathist die hards claims of US conquest.
What does this have to do with Afghanistan!
Well, Afghanistan was treated differently. A provisional government was set up with the assistance of expats – this is the process where Karzai obtained his credibility – from one or more Loya Jurga’s, before his appointment. Then we saw, as with Iraq, the Afghans voting in a country wide election. Karzai won the first election.
In February, Holbrooks first meeting with the Afghanistan Coalition (Not Afghans) as Obama’s Afghan Czar (How appropriate – continue reading) was to suggest that we needed to neuter Karzai by inserting someone between the president and the rest of his government.
This didn’t happen.
This Guardian November 30, 2009 article suggests Holbrook has finally got his way http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/30/aghanistan-karzai-obama-united-nations” >US bid to bypass Karzai’s Afghan government upsets allies:
“Appointment of ‘high representative’ in Kabul forms part of Barack Obama’s latest strategy.
The US is seeking to extend its control over the day-to-day running of Afghanistan with the appointment of an international “high representative” in Kabul in an attempt to bypass Hamid Karzai’s much-criticised government.
The initiative, being pushed by the US special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, has caused a split between Washington and its closest Nato allies, who believe it could further undermine the Afghan president’s legitimacy and the United Nations’ role in the country”
While this sounds all fine and dandy, will it change anything for the better, or are we back to being seen as the Overlord. How will signalling that you are neutering the head of state sit well with Afghans in general.
Will corruption and collusion with ratbags and drug barons be curtailed or will corruption now be legal payments to valued allies (Or will no longer hear about the corruption).
The more important qustion for me is does this mean the State Department has control over the military strategy in Afghanistan. If so then the larger problem is not the neutering of Karzai but McChrystal.
#31 Davod – on what happened with Bremer:
There was a study conducted by Donald P. Wright and Timothy R. Reese, entitled: “The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005: on Point II: Transition to the New Campaign,” written in 2006 and 2007, published in 2008. The study covers the first 18 months in Iraq.
It describes the chaos and confusion that ensued in the aftermath of combat operations, not only on the ground within Iraq, but the unexpected decision by the Bush Administration to change responsibility for the Transition Phase. In the pre-war planning, the Bush Administration had “placed the responsibility for… the Transition Phase that included stability operations, squarely on the shoulders of the DOD…,” (Wright and Reese 2008, 13) but in May (2003),
“Most important was the Bush administration’s decision to create the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which became the sovereign political power in Iraq. The CPA, headed by Presidential Envoy L. Paul Bremer III, a career diplomat who arrived in Iraq in early May, replaced the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) headed by Lieutenant General (Retired) Jay Garner. ORHA had arrived in Iraq in late April with a mandate to deal with the expected humanitarian crises, to restore Iraq’s essential services, to oversee the reform of the Iraqi military, and generally to set the country on a very rapid path toward democratic self-government. But Garner had only been in Iraq for approximately 3 weeks when Bremer arrived to replace him and his organization.” (Wright and Reese 2008, 26)
The change in mid-stream caused a loss of momentum in getting up to speed with staff and organization for the CPA. The disconnect between expectations and reality on the part of both the Iraqis and U.S.-led forces, as well as the effect strategic decisions had, such as the CPA’s Orders to disband the Iraqi Army and the de-Bathification policy, created conditions for a multi-source insurgency:
“Lieutenant General Wallace described the situation in the summer of 2003 as follows:
The dissolution of the Iraqi Army meant that we put five hundred thousand [sic] military age people out of work instantaneously. . . . That created an instantaneous unemployment problem that might have been avoided. Now you had all these kids and young men who had families who were standing on the street corner wondering where their next meal was coming from. That was a big deal. And, as far as they knew, this was permanent, so their obligation to their family was to figure out how they were going to support their family.
“Wallace then noted the connection between the unemployment and the potential for the rise of insurgent groups in both the Sunni and the Shia communities:
[The obligation to support their family] made [the unemployed soldiers] appro¬priate fodder for just about any criminal organization, insurgent organization, dissenting organization, Shia militia, or you name it. You are going to gravitate to whoever can meet your needs and that was where they gravitated to during this very interesting month or two.” (Wright and Reese 2008, 118)
davod,
gave credence to the Baathist die hards claims of US conquest
You may care about giving Baathists credence or not and worry about their opinion. I do not care about their opinion and I believe the best way to counter any influence their opinion may have had was to publicly crush and humiliate them.
I have no problem with calling Bremer a Proconsul. I have no problem with rubbing the Baathists and neighbors Sunni, Shia or Fascist, nose in the fact that we sure as hell did conquer the country. We also liberated it. We do both at the same time, always have. I’d have had no problem with our pumping oil as fast as we could with profits going to American owned companies. I’d have had no problem with the price of oil crashing to $10 bbl and staying there for a few years, as we could have done. I’d have had no problem with the resulting implosion of the economies of Russia, Venezuela, and the arab members of OPEC and the frustration of their desires to fund subversion around the world.
We conquered them because they deserved it and we should have made it very clear to everybody that they really did not want to deserve an American invasion. Then after hunting down and killing the Baathists and turning a profit on the deal, as we could have, I’d have had no problem with teaching the Iraqis that as an American dependency, I’d have probably put them under the UN trusteeship system, they would learn the virtues of toleration to the army of nice missionary girls I’d have flooded the place with. Then when they had earned it after ten or fifteen years I’d have considered giving them back their country.
Afghanistan always was a different case. That is why the Bush administration always used a lighter footprint with more Special Forces and worked through the Loya Jirga and the former King.
Knight1,
Debaathification was a good thing but the massive unemployment and shortage of sufficient troops to guard ammo dumps was a bad thing.
What LOTM said.
But I’m not sure what he’s implying we should do about Afghanistan.
About Bremer … I can’t believe he was the right man for the job. I’m pretty sure nobody on the US side was ready for the nation building required – and that’s why we made what was probably the big error, dissolving the old military. OTOH who knows, maybe it would have failed equally the other way. The lesson for Afghanistan is the truth of the Islamic world under sharia law – there is no secular government separate from the religious. And as long as that’s true, what it means is that our secular government needs to dictate to the Islamic authorities, and if they don’t like it (and they probably won’t, at first), then they get to lump it. And if we’re not willing to do that, well, then we’re in for some rough times, ain’t we?
The problems with Iraq were:
1. failure to sufficiently plan for securing the loose ammunition and restoring essential services
2. failure to engage with all forces when the 4th ID was turned back by the Turks
3. failure to use momentum to overthrow the Baathist regime in Damascus
4. failure to arrest or kill baby Sadr
5. failure to tie rewards from oil production to local conduct
6. failure to insist on a secular multiethnic and tolerant new Iraq
7. failure to delay reestablishment of Iraqi sovereignty until after replacing the totalitarian culture.
We all know that Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. We also know that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. We should have been more flexible about responding to the betrayal by the French, and by the Turks who have since swung unambiguously into the Iranian-Russian camp. The important thing should have been to keep our eyes on the goal of so dominating Iraqi society that the culture could change enough so that they would no longer be a threat to us. That would have impressed itself on the minds of all in the region in a synergistic fashion. Instead we let the ankle biters emerge before we even reached Baghdad and we empowered our enemies. Maybe we should have done something with the old army, such as dismantling Saddam’s palaces by hand so the bricks could be used to make Iraqi hobbit holes snugger, but we didn’t fight to establish a Welfare State. We never had, nobody else who goes to war with the US expects to stay on our payroll after we defeat them. If we didn’t do that for the armies of the Confederacy, Germany or Japan then why should we have done it for Iraq?
Did not say much about Afghanistan. The problem isn’t in fine tuning the Bush plan but in the basic lack of credibility that attaches to any plan that Mr Cut and Run Obama promulgates. On the margin I suspect that the original Spec-Ops focus was appropriate to the location. We needed some mobile quick reaction forces to block the exits at Tora Bora and the failure to insert them has had very bad consequences. The real problem, given physical conditions and logistics lines, is in Pakistan. I would ostentatiously engage in intense private conversations with the Indians and affirm an alliance with them on every level.
Obama’s speech: “The days of providing a blank check (to Karzai) are over…”
“We will support Afghan Ministries, Governors, & ocal leaders that combat corruption & deliver for the people.”
“…our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended, because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.”
So he intends to stabilize the country by cutting out the government and dealing directly with local agents. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. What will stop Karzai from turning on us?
His eagerness to “build” America is arrogant and threatening. If he just left us alone the US could build itself.
#9 Anton
He clearly has never read the Anabasis (I hope some of our generals in theatre have), watched the movie Khartoum or heard of Stalingrad. Whatever happened to catching Bin Laden anyways?
I have a nephew who is a Marine Gunnery SGT. He has done 3 tours; 2 in the Horn and 1 in Iraq. He is in a specialist field which requires that he transfer to a different division because they need him, and he is not overly happy about the transfer. He and his family were visiting on leave between assignments. His old unit is thinking Afghanistan, real hard. Most Americans do not understand that the American military is far more intellectual than they are led to believe by the media believe. To advance, even as an NCO, you have to read the military classics, plus current works on the nature of warfare. We have a thinking armed forces. This movement began with the Marines under former Commandant Al Gray when he was FMF Atlantic.
I asked him if the people were reading Anabasis. He said no, and I ran it down in short form for him. He will be passing the word back to his old unit. He did say what they were reading about.
The First Afghan War.
They know about the Battle of Kabul. They know about Gandamak. And they know about Dr. Brydon.
MacChrystal said that he needed 60,000 troops to carry out the strategy that Buraq Hussein Obama ordered, and that time was of the essence. That was months ago. He said that he needs an absolute minimum of 40,000. And that was months ago. Time is the one thing that you cannot buy back, and it usually costs blood if you have to try.
And this Liu2 kou3shui3 de5 biao3zi5 he2 hou2zi5 de5 ben4 er2zi5 who is pleased to call himself the president is only going to send 34,000; months too late. The cost in blood is going to be paid by our sons and daughters. And if they somehow survive, if they somehow triumph; he will take credit as the des allerhöchsten Kreigsherr and ignore them. And if they pay the price in vain …. there will be another State Dinner filled with Hollywood glitterati; and all will be right in his world.
There is a bargain struck, implied but ever so real. Our sons and daughters put on the uniform, swear the Oath, and defend us at all costs from enemies without. The other side of that bargain, is that we owe it to them to protect them from attack from behind by those enemies within.
And we are not keeping our side of the bargain.
Subotai Bahadur
Life o’, I agree with your general sentiment, the speech was much worse than I imagined it could be, given the setting.
Then again, Obama’s Presidency has been much worse than I thought it could possibly be, especially in so short a time. It’s Jimmy Carter’s four years in the first four months, like being tear-gassed with inanity.
How could a C-in-C stand up in front of the Cadets at West Point and warble about his political differences with the previous C-in-C? We’re at war, what matters is what happens next week, next month, not some political soap opera. Dwelling on Iraq-as-distraction, it’s simply beneath the Office, imho.
And if finally solving Iraq was such a bad idea (after 12 straight years of bombing ’91-’03), is he saying he would rather have a peaceful, absolutely useless, Afghanistan instead of the immense strategic win that Iraq represents – the so-called “ball” that one really must keep one’s eye on?
Look how we’re doing with Iran and NorKor, are we wishing for the good old days when Saddam rounded out the Axis of Evil? A “peaceful” Afghanistan in exchange for Iraq back in the saddle with all the little chem and bio labs back in full swing?
Why don’t we get credit for Libya’s surrender, btw? I have seen recent articles that say before 2003, we thought Libya was an equal threat with Iran and NorKor. Well, we got Libya. Could someone chalk up that point?
Later, the Israelis destroyed whatever Syria had tried to hide just over the border with Iraq. These points should count. But our current C-in-C has a peevish aversion to admitting his predecessor in the Office did anything worthwhile. He doesn’t seem to know that this back-stabbing of Bush paints him in bright colors as a man who dishonors the nation he represents.
Why do liberals hate America? We’re the most liberal nation that ever survived in human history, and we have done more good for more strangers around the world than any other people.
God bless our troops, and God bless our President. We are all in this together.
Update and correction to # 37 above. If news reports are to be believed, Obama is only sending 30,000 and not 34,000 troops. Half of the required force, 75% of the absolute minimum force, after letting the enemy have the initiative for months. Here in Colorado, we are having memorial services for the troops from Fort Carson being killed every week or so. I fear that there will be more all over the country. He has said he will have the troops in-country in 6 months. And he will start pulling them out a year afterwards. This is going to be costly.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai Bahadur – thank you for clarity on the original numbers – I had thought that was what I’d heard.
The ever delightful Mary Katherine Ham has John McCain’s reply.
http://tinyurl.com/ygh2lx3
‘Success is the Real Exit Strategy.’
Somebody remind me how he didn’t get to be President.
Subotai Bahadur,
Half of the required force, 75% of the absolute minimum
Just to be charitable, is it possible that 30,000 is the number the Navy/Air Force logistics team said they could extract if the SHTF?
What will India do? Pakistan is upwind and to reliably destroy it’s capability to launch a second strike would take a massive preemptive strike of a hundred or more warheads.
In his speech tonight at West Point, President Obama said he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, repeating the successful surge of 2007 in Iraq. He also emphatically stated that we were in the Afghan war to win it, but only if we win it in the next 18 months, because after that we’re coming home. The thought of actually fighting someone, even in a must win war, has many Democrats anxious, fearing, as they do, that someone might get hurt.
The Afghan surge has now become
A source of major angst for some
Who worship at the feet of O the one
The Left for whom a war is fraught
With many horrors they had thought
Were safely buried now that they had won
But Barry O has other plans
He’ll strike the tribesmen and the clans
Because the Afghan war is win we must
He knows the left cannot complain
And so he surges the campaign
In motion ‘cause he knows the war is just
The speech though you’ll be pleased to hear
Will cause the lefty base no fear
For they all know we’ll soon bring home our men
The president, with stern iron will
Will surge our soldiers up the hill
Then turn around and surge them down again
Captain Ramen,
“Eisenhower ‘cut and ran’ from another hopeless situation, the Korean War.”
How do you define “cut and ran”? We still have thousands of troops there, South Korea became a stable democracy and economic success story, and the North Koreans have never dared to mount a full-scale invasion again (an enterprise which they undoubtedly know would result in disaster…for them).
Some “hopeless situation,” huh?
#41 LoTM
I don’t think that is it. The 30,000 is a reinforcement to the current forces and to the Allied forces. They total roughly 60,000. Given the scattered garrisons, long and vulnerable supply lines, and the need to bring all POL in to move the troops; I don’t think that air evac is possible for the forces we have now. I think his goal is a force too big to pull out quickly and too small to win. Mind you, I am not a nice person.
Subotai Bahadur
‘Cut and Ran’ was in quotations for a reason. The thousands of troops there are a mere fraction of what we had at the height of the conflict. Also remember that while the Korean War lasted 3 years, the last 2 of those years were marked by WWI style trench warfare, including sacrificing so many men for little to no ground taken.
SK is a success story because we had modest goals! Eventually that is. We certainly gave up on the idea of nuking China or freeing the entire Korean Peninsula from communism. We were content to switch to the defensive and prevent communism’s spread.
I am not suggesting we withdraw completely from Afghanistan. What I am suggesting is that we give up on this crazy notion that we can pacify the country in my lifetime. Bribery, military/civil advisers and some special forces are more than sufficient to prevent AQ from reestablishing their training camps.
44. Subotai Bahadur,
That is the same scenario that I foresee. He wants a Stalingrad or Dien Ven Phu. He is seeking to contrive an american military disaster. This would serve a Leninist agenda, would it not? You are not at all a nice person, but still far nicer than the Obamandias (Pigs be under him).
Captain Ramen,
the fact is, that after coming to office in 1953 Eisenhower made it clear via diplomatic sources that he would nuke China if a satisfactory peace were not agreed. And about the same time, March 5, 1953, Josef Stalin, who was calling all the shots, died, leaving a disorganized Politburo both able and dssirous of disengaging and reaching a settlement, which happened in July 1953.
This Afghanistan timetable is CRAZY!!
The GEN Petraeus on Fox and Friends right now is not the same guy who testified before Congress two years ago.
What bugged me most about Obamas speach last night was his repeaded mention of USA being too broke to afford to fight with the proper resources. There was at least three times where he said budget limitations were the main drivers for the withdrawal deadline. There is something possitive to tell our enemies in the world.
LotM@35: I would ostentatiously engage in intense private conversations with the Indians and affirm an alliance with them on every level.
So said Christopher Hitchens on Kudlow last night, presenting many of the same points he addressed in his current Slate article. He makes a persuasive case that the strategic focus of our foreign policy in ME is misaligned with regional interests. Team Obama** should be paying more attention to India, as the only democratic secular government with nuclear capability in the region, and less attention to Pakistan.
W@49: Peter Beinart was on the same Kudlow panel with Hitchens, which later included Sen Judd Gregg. Beinart went into assault mode on Gregg criticizing the ‘billions of dollars of wasteful defense spending’ – or words to that effect. Hard to convince me that the preliminary cost-cutting adventures weren’t focused on the military budget, but that has yet to play out.
**I am wondering who’s in the inner circle, given that Clinton has been marginalized at State (if true). I’ve heard names, but who is his Condoleeza Rice? Susan Rice? Holbrooke? Gates? Also wondering about his speechwriters.
The Astan war is over in Obama’s (PBUH) eyes and plan.
We have lost. why send more troops when you know the war is over no matter what on July 01, 2011
The idea is to get the talibans and Al Q to sit downm and stop fighting till we claim progress and leave, then the war for Astan will begin for real and that means Taliban/AlQ with Nukes.
If India doesn’t pre-empt the Pakis then the first atomic suicide attack will fall on the Hinus.
After that I expect the region and everything down wind will glow for quite a while.
Who cares? Well that fallout will drift for years raining down on every mother’s son and daughter shortening our collective lives.
It’s over in Astan and Obama’s (PBUH)is quitting.
Geeze Louise,
Uncomfortable as I am knowing that Hitchens is behind me I guess I will take agreement as it comes.
After watching the Administration’s rhetoric manifest its merry leisurely way into ‘strategy’ and half-hearted ‘action’, it has become apparent that the real war in the Kush has [d]evolved beyond the Administration’s grasp into a fight to deny Afghanistan itself as the base of operations for the Islamists’ insurgency to gain control of greater Pakistan.
While I’m not quite sure this state of affairs has been the reactionary response of our enemy to our work in Afghanistan -combined as it is with Pakistan’s apparent unwillingness to engage the Islamists within- or whether it is in entropic synergy with the widening divergence between the Administration and our military leadership with regard to the larger strategic goals of the GWoT, I am sure it does not bode well for our interests…Neither does it bode well for secular interests in Pakistan and India.
In any event, Pakistan’s nukes are now in play as never before whilst the American CinC has taken to openly -and actively- walking back on our original commitment to not only degrade the Taliban/Al-Q axis in a substantial material way, but also to deny them a base of operations that gives them the future time-space and/or state resources to project their power…Not just against US and our allies, but against the emergent strategic plum Pakistan; home of the Islamic A-bomb.
Anyway, I’m still awaiting President Zero’s fabled “overland invasion” in support of a revivified commitment of the Pakistani people to stand up and rid themselves -and the world- of the existential menace that is metastasizing within our respective bodies politic.
…Which is to say that while the enemy may not yet be banging at our domestic gates -as they are in Pakistan- in the effective [enough] organized fashion they were once capable of, they have certainly deeply penetrated the OODA loop of our civilian leadership-wreck and the national democratic socialist party base that orbits them. At this point in the game I’m hard pressed to maintain the fiction that the enemy has not indeed been given a veritable welcome mat to do so.
Interesting times ahead.
LotM@52: I understand the buzz on Hitchens but – I must say – he reminds of Winston Churchill (Geeze Louise ducks deep and low). I think it’s the bull dog truculence. I give him credit for taking his public lumps and fighting back – not always with good judgment or well-timed swings or even sobriety. But. Even our icons – Tiger Woods – are bumping against society’s standards – held most tightly For Others.
I think he just wants to keep foreign policy (e.g., Afghan) from blowing the lid off the domestic pot, until he can ram health care and maybe Stimulus-2 and Cap-n-Trade by, say, middle next year. Then he doesn’t care about foreign, and Subotai @ 44 may be right—I’ve thought for a long time that given the logistics, every soldier, airman or Marine is another hostage to those who control the supply lines.
I doubt he wants a Stalingrad or Dien Bien Phu, would not play well domestically, but a running retreat a la Israel from Lebanon ca. 2000 would be perfect from his POV.
And losing say 20, even 30 Blue Dog Dems in 2010 election not a big issue, maybe even a good thing for party unity, as long as Dems still control both Houses and his major programs are passed and now just have to be funded.
2/3 of Senate to ratify LOST or new GW treaty would be nice, but at this point looks like no GW treaty to ratify anyway and LOST is really small beer compared to health care.
Just my opinion, which I confess changes daily.
The Tribes
…But the stupidity of our current administrations efforts are not what got the blood up this morning….what do you expect from a President with no prior executive experience and Hillery Clinton?
This article from the New York Times about tribes resisting the Taliban is why I’m pounding away on the laptop in a Dubai hotel lobby.
Authored by Dexter Filkins the article announces a new strategy to called the Community Defense Initiative which is designed to engage and arm the tribes in the east and south.
The article talks about our bearded Special Forces helicoptering into Nangarhar Provinces Achin district with flour and some other nonsense to support the tribal chiefs who have run out the Taliban. It talks about other SF soldiers “fanning our across the country” to engage the tribes and support them in defending their lands and way of life from depredations by the Taliban. Dexter Filkins writes a great article and it is worth reading but unfortunately as in most things published by the New York Times it is complete bullshit.
—
—
I know that I make this point over and over but feel compelled to point out yet again that one cannot “do” counterinsurgency by commuting daily from a large FOB. The concept of “bearded Special Forces” fanning out all over the country to help the tribal chiefs is a joke. What needs to happen is to put American troops into these tribal areas to live with, train with, and become allies with those tribes. There is no other way and you don’t need “Special Forces” for that mission – regular infantry can do the job with no additional training. The SF guys should shave off those beards anyway – 8 years of incompetently planned and executed “HVT” missions have given those guys a well deserved bad reputation while accomplishing nothing of significance. What the hell is this helicoptering into Achin district by the “bearded soldiers” to pass out flour all about anyway? They could drive into the damn district in less than an hour, rent a nice safe house, move in and hang out for a year or two thus demonstrating a little commitment to the local tribes while simultaneously actually learning something about the place and its people. If they were really smart they would leave the beards, shed the uniform, rent local vehicles and ditch the stupid MRAP’s – that way the bad guys would not be able to so easily target them with IED’s – but that kind of thinking appears to be a bridge too far for the Army these days.
The American military is a world leading institution when it comes to developing and using emerging technology. Unfortunately that technology now allows our bloated, top heavy staffs to micromanage units in the field to an unprecedented degree. The results were predictable back in the 80’s when my Marine peers and I were first dealing with the impact of satellite position reporting systems, radios which actually worked most of the time and commanders who had video screens to watch in their operations centers. What we predicted back then and are seeing today is the stifling of initiative on the ground combined with the removal of the tactical decision making by the commander on the ground. Our OODA loop has now been slowed down so much by the ability of multiple staffs far removed from the battle to insert themselves into the process that we risk becoming as slow and cumbersome as the old Soviet Army. If we do not step away from the computers, comfortable quarters, lavish DFAC’s and get our collective asses out into the field to really protect the population we are going to end up with another mark is the “lost” column. There is no excuse for that.
Friday Morning at the Pentagon
Here’s Lt. Col. Bateman’s account of a little-known ceremony that fills the halls of the Army corridor of the Pentagon with cheers, applause and many tears every Friday morning.
“It is 110 yards from the “E” ring to the “A” ring of the Pentagon. This section of the Pentagon is newly renovated; the floors shine, the hallway is broad, and the lighting is bright. At this instant the entire length of the corridor is packed with officers, a few sergeants and some civilians, all crammed tightly three and four deep against the walls. There are thousands here.
This hallway, more than any other, is the `Army’ hallway. The G3 offices line one side, G2 the other, G8 is around the corner. All Army. Moderate conversations flow in a low buzz. Friends who may not have seen each other for a few weeks, or a few years, spot each other, cross the way and renew.
Everyone shifts to ensure an open path remains down the center. The air conditioning system was not designed for this press of bodies in this area.
The temperature is rising already. Nobody cares. “10:36 hours: The clapping starts at the E-Ring. That is the outermost of the five rings of the Pentagon and it is closest to the entrance to the building. This clapping is low, sustained, hearty. It is applause with a deep emotion behind it as it moves forward in a wave down the length of the hallway.
“A steady rolling wave of sound it is, moving at the pace of the soldier in the wheelchair who marks the forward edge with his presence. He is the first. He is missing the greater part of one leg, and some of his wounds are still suppurating. By his age I expect that he is a private, or perhaps a private first class.
“Captains, majors, lieutenant colonels and colonels meet his gaze and nod as they applaud, soldier to soldier. Three years ago when I described one of these events, those lining the hallways were somewhat different. The applause a little wilder, perhaps in private guilt for not having shared in the burden … yet.
“Now almost everyone lining the hallway is, like the man in the wheelchair, also a combat veteran. This steadies the applause, but I think deepens the sentiment. We have all been there now. The soldier’s chair is pushed by, I believe, a full colonel.
“Behind him, and stretching the length from Rings E to A, come more of his peers, each private, corporal, or sergeant assisted as need be by a field grade officer.
“11:00 hours: Twenty-four minutes of steady applause. My hands hurt, and I laugh to myself at how stupid that sounds in my own head. My hands hurt… Please! Shut up and clap. For twenty-four minutes, soldier after soldier has come down this hallway – 20, 25, 30…. Fifty-three legs come with them, and perhaps only 52 hands or arms, but down this hall came 30 solid hearts.
They pass down this corridor of officers and applause, and then meet for a private lunch, at which they are the guests of honor, hosted by the generals. Some are wheeled along…. Some insist upon getting out of their chairs, to march as best they can with their chin held up, down this hallway, through this most unique audience. Some are catching handshakes and smiling like a politician at a Fourth of July parade. More than a couple of them seem amazed and are smiling shyly.
“There are families with them as well: the 18-year-old war-bride pushing her 19-year-old husband’s wheelchair and not quite understanding why her husband is so affected by this, the boy she grew up with, now a man, who had never shed a tear is crying; the older immigrant Latino parents who have, perhaps more than their wounded mid-20s son, an appreciation for the emotion given on their son’s behalf. No man in that hallway, walking or clapping, is ashamed by the silent tears on more than a few cheeks. An Airborne Ranger wipes his eyes only to better see. A couple of the officers in this crowd have themselves been a part of this parade in the past.
These are our men, broken in body they may be, but they are our brothers, and we welcome them home. This parade has gone on, every single Friday, all year long, for more than four years.
“Did you know that?
The media haven’t yet told the story.”
V/R TK
TOM KUNK
COL, GS
Division Chief for ODO
HQDA, G3/5/7
I expect Wall Street, led by Goldman Sacks, has a similar ceremony for their fallen soldiers from 2008.
Oh wait, they were all made whole by the government.
Got it.