I am curious what my blogfriends have to say about this most recent Obama decision. SOF and I have spent some time talking about it, and we are still unsure. I just lectured on Vietnam and it is hard not to see the parallels between the late VN war and Afghanistan, when in both situation we tried to win the "hearts and minds" of people by killing a lot of their neighbors. They are not the same situation, to be absolutely fair, but it gave me pause as I spoke the other day.
We are, however, quite impressed with how Obama makes decisions. He has a good track record on this of making decisions that look "iffy" at the time, but prove to be pretty well thought out. As I said to SOF the other night, "he doesn't think with his gut, and thank God for that." And I mean that wholeheartedly. I think some of his critics on the right simply don't recognize serious consideration of a complex and perhaps unwinnable problem. Instead of the "decider," we have someone who actually deliberates.
In conversations with some conservative friends, I have been struck by the difference in how they see our country's founding. A) they most often see the government as some kind of external and evil force, as if the people have no say in our government, and B) they often see the role of representation as some kind of direct vote in Congress. In other words, they think that their reps have to do what they tell them to do, rather than the representative republic where the people elect virtuous representatives who then make the best decisions they can--even if they differ from those of their constituents.
Anyway. Hope you are all having a nice weekend. I would love to hear your thoughts on Afghanistan.
12 comments:
I;m not sure I understand Obama's rationale on the surge. I understand his logic about the 18 month thing--though I strongly disagree.
What I dont't get is why send 30k troops, when McCrystal asked for 40k? What was the logic/evidence that McCrystal's request was too high?
The way I understand it, Afghanistan is the Middle Eastern counterpart to Russia west of the Urals: anyone who invades it eventually loses. So I haven't really thought much about which of the various ways we can lose in Afghanistan would be preferable. So far, the "victories" like driving Al Qaeda out into Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons and is maybe 12-18 months away from civil war, haven't exactly been impressive. But I'd be interested to hear from people who have looked more closely at the situation.
LB, I think that is a legit question. I don't know the answer, but suspect that this is a compromise between those in his brain trust who wanted a larger commitment and the larger contingent who wanted to go even smaller on the military angle.
Streak, I get your point about this being a compromise, which is what I suspect too. That is what ultimately makes this decision so unimpressive to me.
By compromising on the number of troops Obama is playing a political game, by trying to satisfy the more doveish left-wing of his base, while still doing what the experts (the military) are telling him is necessary to follow through on his own counter-insurgency strategy he called for in March. I really think he should have had the guts to not bend to his base and follow through on what he wanted to do during the campaign and in March--do what it takes to win in Afghanistan.
This brings me to leighton's point, which is a good one, namely that Afghanistan is basically where good armies go to lose. I think there is an important difference between the US mission and previous occupations. Other countries were trying to conquer Afghanistan in the traditional sense for a literal empire. The US is hoping to provide the security to an Afghan government long enough to help them govern themselves. That doesn't make it easy, but I think it provides a key difference and a glimmer of hope.
LB, I wouldn't kid yourself. We don't want a strong Afghan government that doesn't support our interests. American empires have rarely been traditional, but that doesn't mean that they haven't included a form of colonial rule. Just in a different form.
I would also object to your distinction between the "doveish left wing" and "military experts." For one thing, some of the "doves" I hear who want to get out of Afghanistan are military people. Hell, there are a lot of conservatives in this country who think we need to bail. And there are liberals who want to do more.
Streak
I have to say this is one of the disappointments I have in our new administration. Amid what I consider to be a vast improvement over the last 8 years, the Afghanistan "strategy" is one point of departure for me.
I've been reading a few books relative to the area lately and have picked up some interesting points/quotes. The first one is by Lord Wellington after hearing of the British plan to march on Kabul and install a British approved Afghan king, "Wellington commented laconically that the difficulties would begin where the military successes ended." That was in 1838. Their resulting retreat out of Kabul 4 years later resulted in 16,000 British dead.
Another is in the preface to "the Shade of Swords" by M.J. Akbar, an Indian politician and editor. Writing in 2002 he said, "American troops will stay here longer than they expect. Kabul has always fallen without a fight, as it did in 1838, 1879, 1978, and 2001." Hmmmm, isn't there a saying about those who choose to ignore history??? For a while in SE Asia our neighbor was a Pakistani Pashtun. In discussing the initial invasion in 2001 he was obviously upset but resolved. "The British came, we waited and fought and they left. The Russians came, we waited and fought and they left. Don't the Americans understand that we'll do the same with them?" Keep in mind, he discussed the British like they were there yesterday AND this is a Pakistani Pashtun- not an Afghani. The Radcliffe Line meant nothing to him as he spoke with solidarity with his Afghani relatives.
Lastly, and then I'll stop with the references, is Rory Stewart's "The Places in Between" in which he chronicles his walk from Herat to Kabul ON FOOT in January, 2002. While most of it is a pretty straightforward journal, it does allow you to see the a perspective on the country that you wouldn't get from the news. He also gives insight into the lack of experience most beaurocrats have in the country at large with most of their information limited to the capital and one or two other cities in a country that is multiethnic, multilingual, and rural (about 80%). His interview on Bill Moyer's journal was, I thought, one of the most rational discussions I've heard on this subject, advocating a long term, small presence, drawing distinction between al'Queda and Taliban, and dealing with some specifics. One of my favorite quotes from that conversation was that "whatever moral obligations we have to the Afghani people, we are not morally obliged to deliver what we cannot achieve."
I am not trying to give anyone a history lesson nor am I claiming to be a military expert. However, as a citizen who was against the invasion/occupation from the beginning, I haven't seen any evidence to convince me that 8+ years of military intervention has led us closer to the stated purposes as I understand them. I don't assume the Obama administration has ulterior motives like those of the Bush gang, but I have to wonder. The wording is so vague. The Sunday morning interview shows did little to clear the water for me. It sounds like lots of generalities so that whatever happens we we can say that it's "what we said in 2009".
All that to say I disagree with the president's plan. A military solution in Afghanistan with occupation and escalation is not the way to go. Neither is a complete and total immediate withdrawl indicated. I think the call for smaller military presence with more specialized roles makes more sense. I think that history also shows that as long as there is an occupier present dependence will persist, especially if that occupation is accompanied by lots of cash. My long windedness above is my effort to say that my conclusions aren't out of thin air. I think American strategy flies in the face of history and the nature of the problems faced in this wonderful, complicated country.
BB, I will have to check out those books. I was never much of a supporter for occupation, as I didn't see any scenario where the occupiers would be seen as anything other that invaders. We also have a lousy track record in that region of the world in terms of being two faced. We claim to support human rights and democracy, but maintain good relations with a variety of despotic governments in that region.
I just finished reading The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East, by Neil MacFarquhar. This cemented my belief that we are taking the wrong approach. I certainly don't claim to be an expert on that region of the world, but MacFarquhar makes a strong case for what the correct approach should be and it does not include military occupation.
While I am glad Obama has thought carefully about this, I am disappointed that he appears to not to have even considered a more urgent withdrawal.
Bootlegger, these are all good points. I have read some on Afhanistan (though clearly not my area of specialty) and agree that history is not on our side here.
I think that here, as in many of his stances, however, Obama has been pretty consistent from the campaign. He never promised to end the war immediately here, and has been talking about a surge since last year (when his opponents didn't want to talk about Afghanistan at all). Ultimately, I am ready to give him some leash here since, as in so many areas, he has been handed just another disaster to clean up. There appears to be no right answer here, and that is just depressing.
Steve, we were commenting at the same time. I think that believing that Obama could push for an urgent withdrawal is just not politically possible in this country--not for a liberal. Hell, conservatives were already calling him an "isolationist" for this commitment of 30,000 troops. (Oh, and Rush Limbaugh hoped that the West Pointers would "detain" our President. ) And Republicans are already planning on blaming Obama for anything that goes wrong in the middle east. Sigh.
Just out of curiosity, but what does MacFarquar suggest as a correct approach?
I'm watching Adm Mike Mullen on PBS right now. He's just explained to Jim Lehrer how he is encouraging our troups to learn about Afghanistan, the people, culture, language, etc... like it's some new, novel idea. He says that this is a lesson we learned in Iraq. He also pointed out our new emphasis on minimizing civilian casualties because not to do so will not help us win over the nationals. Ya think????
I found myself shaking my head- this is the joint chief telling us that this evidently hasn't been the practices as of yet. This is embarrassing.
BB
I just read Krakauer's book on the Pat Tillman fratracide and McKrystal is knee deep in that scandal, so I know what you mean. It is disheartening.
He doesn't deal with Afghanistan, but suggests some broad policy changes (I am pretty heavily paraphrasing here):
1. Address the concerns of the people in their own countries at their level. These are things like justice and education. He thinks that too often we take a confrontational approach that dictates what changes should be made and how fast they should be made.
2. Washington needs to be more vocal in it's support for change. He says there are a fair number of reformers throughout the region that would benefit from a signal that the US is concerned and watching. The problem in the past is that we tended to support entities that had lousy reputations, were corrupt, or committed atrocities.
He also talked about how we shouldn't have been pushing so hard for democratic elections to happen so soon. They aren't ready, as they have lived under such severe repression that any notion of democratic process was just not there. The only groups that were ready were the religious fundamentalists. While democracy may be a long term goal, we should be pushing for a civil society.
3. We need to speak out against repression. The only time we do this is when it deals with a government that is not our ally. We spoke out against Iran, but we say nothing about Jordan or Saudi Arabia. The GWOT has made us allies with many of the repressive governments and their secret police that do not hesitate to use torture.
I think these ideas are valid, but I don't know if it says much about what we should do in Afghanistan. To be fair, Obama inherited a difficult situation, though the Afghanistan conflict had a degree of legitimacy that Iraq did not have. I wish I had the answers. In some ways, the problem is circular. If we had a better reputation, there is a better chance that we would seen as a positive force or an ally. Unfortunately, our occupation mostly builds on that bad reputation.
Post a Comment