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‘Afghan good enough’ Obama lowers the bar for victory in Afghanistan

American-led combat operations will cease in summer 2013, whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not.

By: Dan Spencer (Diary)  |  May 20th, 2012 at 06:00 PM  | 

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According to the New York Times, president Obama has “significantly lowered” the bar on how success in Afghanistan is defined.

In four years Obama has gone from ”we must never forget, this is not a war of choice, this is a war of necessity” and “this is a war that we have to win” to “Afghan good enough.” According to the Times, Obama’s new definition of victory in his war of necessity that must be won is Afghan stability and no unimpeded Al Qaeda safe havens:

“The goal is to have an Afghanistan again that has a degree of stability such that forces like Al Qaeda and associated groups cannot have safe haven unimpeded, which could threaten the region and threaten U.S. and other interests in the world.”

In today’s New York Times, David E. Sanger reports that Obama will announce at the NATO summit that “all combat operations led by American forces will cease in summer 2013, when the United States and other NATO forces move to a ‘support role’ whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not.” Worse, Obama planned this retreat without the benefit of military advice:

“When the president and a half-dozen White House aides began to plan for the withdrawal, the generals were cut out entirely. There was no debate, and there were no leaks.”

If Obama doesn’t care “whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not,” why wait until 2013? Is it because of the presidential election? Perhaps Obama doesn’t want to run for reelection in the middle of his Afghan retreat. As Obama explained to the Russians at the UN he’ll have more flexibility after the election.

Obama’s position on Afghanistan changes, or evolves, even more quickly than his position on gay marriage.

In 2008, Presidential candidate Obama said “This is a war that we have to win.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: A New Strategy for a New World, Washington, D.C., 7/15/08).

In 2009, President Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention that the Afghan war was a war of necessity:

“As I said when I announced this strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead. The insurgency in Afghanistan didn’t just happen overnight, and we won’t defeat it overnight. This will not be quick, nor easy.

But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaida would plot to kill more Americans.

So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is a — this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”

And while President Obama ignored military commanders in planning his Afghan retreat, presidential candidate Obama promised to act with “proper regard” to the advice of military commanders.

Nevertheless, Obama has decided to declare victory and retreat from Afghanistan regardless of whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not.

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  • aesthete

    Afghanistan is a “country” of little strategic significance, and the goals that we had in place (particularly under the Obama administration, but also under the Bush administration) were lofty and unachievable. Afghanistan was not a country where modern, secular, capitalistic democracy could be achieved. Hell, it’s hardly suitable for even iron fisted governance — nationalism isn’t a great force outside of the capital city and its immediate vicinities, there’s no legalized economic industry to speak of, illiteracy is staggeringly high, and infrastructure and development are terrible. Most of the country’s population isn’t even aware of 9/11, much less the causes, victims, and antagonists in the struggle. Much like our interventions in Haiti and the Philippines, Afghanistan is a failed, overly ambitious attempt at creating a nation where there is no “there” there, and we will lose as long as we burden our foreign policy with these unrealistic and unnecessary wishlists for third-world democratization.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      The safe-havens provided to the 9/11 terrorists by the Taliban absolutely required the Taliban be dealt a swift punch in the face. The removal of the Taliban from power in 2001 accomplished that.

      Moreover, we could use some bases in Afghanistan, and if the Afghanies don’t like it, we’ll don’t facilitate another 9/11 in the distant future. For now, tough luck, we’re keeping bases open in your country, deal with it.

      Bush’s Afghanistan strategy was a lot closer to what I’ve described above, and cost fewer American lives over seven years than Obama’s strategy has cost in 3 1/2.

      • checkmate2012

        Agree that the nation-building policy is bunk in a country stuck in the middle ages. Special Forces could have kept the Taliban & Al Queda at bay after we wiped nearly all out in the 1st few months in 2001.

        • Dave_A

          We never ‘nearly wiped out all of them’ – we broke their hold on the land, that’s all. If we had left in 2002 or 2003 (we weren’t really there much-at-all in 01) it would have actually accomplished nothing – another Clinton-style ‘America is pissed, so we break some stuff & change nothing’ waste of money.

          Plus it would have reinforced the STUPID notion among the American People that wars should last weeks, not years.

          Occupation and Nation-building is the ONLY way to win a counterinsurgency war, short of genocide.

          Special Forces are good for a few things, but they CANNOT fight this kind of war (or any kind of war) on their own – no matter how much air support we give them. They are most effective when used in conjunction with conventional forces….

          Without the work that conventional forces do during the day, the SF ‘night raids’ would be much less effective (I’ve been part of those conventional forces, I know)…

  • renl57

    Our military will not be able to destroy insurgents like the Taliban and the Haqqani network, as long as they can still operate in parts of Pakistan like North Waziristan. They will just wait us out there, as long as it takes for us to get tired and leave.

    But unlike Laos and Cambodia and North Vietnam, Pakistan has a nuclear deterrent. So we can’t clean the insurgents out of Pakistan; and it seems like the Paks either can’t or won’t do it themselves.

    Back before the 9-11 attack, al-Qaeda had gotten the Afghan government to allow al-Qaeda to set up a network of training camps in their country. Today’s Afghan government isn’t going to do that; and the Taliban won’t be powerful enough to depose them for the foreseeable future.

    I’m satisfied. I don’t want American soldiers to sacrifice their lives to help the Afghan people–unless America is directly benefited as well. The American military is not the Peace Corps.

    • juliea

      The Pakistan nuclear component certainly makes this complicated situation worse. It would be great if the U.S. could actually trust or rely on the Paks.

    • Dave_A

      We have alot of work to do, if we want to win this war.

      And we need to win it, otherwise the various malcontents that wish us harm will link this with Vietnam and declare that ‘America is beatable, just wait them out’.

      2024 is a reasonable exit date…

      Not 2013 or 2014.

      • renl57

        No thank you.

        America was NEVER a colonialist power (despite what the left says).

        We’re not the British Empire, civilizing India by staying there an entire century.

        What you’re proposing looks very much like the British Empire in India.

        • Dave_A

          First, there was no moral imperative behind the British being in India – there was an economic one – in the pre-free-trade world, the ONLY way the Brits could have anything close to a vibrant economy & high standard of living, was to acquire & control off-shore resources…. They did it to survive, and it made sense at the time…

          The reason for US to be in Afganhistan is not economic (there’s very little chance that the US will benefit economically from being there – Iraq was the only place we had a chance, and we passed it up because ‘We’re not an imperial power’)….

          It’s a moral imperative. We were attacked, the Taliban helped, and therefore they must be utterly destroyed.

          If it takes 30 years, OK. I’d obviously like to win sooner, but you can’t put military victory on a schedule – the enemy has a say on that one, and they tend to disagree vehemently…. That said, there are benefits to a 30-years war, specifically we’ll finally be able to flush the garrison-weenies out into retirement (so our troops won’t have to come home to whining about what they wear off duty, how they carry a backpack, or that there are too many different ways male soldiers are allowed to wear their hair)….

          But in the end, it is a simple principle: If you help to attack the United States – especially if you help to do so in direct violation of the laws of war (targeting civilians), then we will destroy you if it takes every drop of American blood, every ounce of American steel, and every penny in the Treasury.

          THAT is the policy we need to demonstrate.

          Leaving Afganhistan now, would be like calling Japan ‘contained’ after Iwo Jima & unilaterally ending WWII.

          - Dave

          P.S. If you think I’m kidding, the DC brass has decided that those issues – off duty civillian appearance, the existance of more than 3 authorized male hairstyles, and the manner in which troops carry backpacks – to be critical problems with today’s Army…. They are trying to roll back all the improvements made during wartime, and bring the obnoxious, pointless & intrusive regulations from the 80s & 90s back….

  • checkmate2012

    Not once has he used the word victory or success in reference to Iraq or Afghanistan that I can recall. We have seen his contempt towards anyone or business that is successful since it’s contrary to his fairness doctrine and now we get more of the same in this war.

    This statement, “?The goal is to have an Afghanistan again that has a degree of stability such that forces like Al Qaeda and associated groups cannot have safe haven unimpeded, which could threaten the region and threaten U.S. and other interests in the world.?, is really troublesome. First his use of the word, “again”; since when was it ever a stable place.

    Secondly, “unimpeded” in his sentence seems to mean that it’s ok for AQ to have some gains just not all the time given some degree of stability.

    I strongly disagree with his policy of sending the corrupt Afghan gov’t taxpayer dollars for 10 more years…what a waste to borrow from the Chinese rather than use the $ to pay down our debt. All in the name of politics. Disgusting after all the years of our military’s sacrific.

    • Dave_A

      And defeat is what we’ll get, if we leave before the Taliban are utterly stomped out…

      Not just hiding & waiting, like they were after the initial invasion…

      But destroyed, to the point where they hold the same position & power in Afgahn politics as the KKK does in ours.

      It’s not going to be cheap, or fast, but war & the maintenance of national prestige never is.

      Just like when we quit the First Iraq War early, the message it sends to the world is ‘You can beat America, they don’t have the guts for a long fight’…

      We need to STOP sending that message, no matter how much it costs..

      P.S. Forget about paying down the national debt. It’s never going to happen. The realistic goal, is to stop it from growing faster than GDP.

      • checkmate2012

        defeat more than once by foretelling our pullout date, then when he surged the troops at a level that was less then the generals wanted and now when he’s made a date certain withdrawl regardless of the conditions on the ground. I despise what he’s done in Afghan.

        Your sentence on “you can beat America…” is spot on and this is how O has mismanaged the war. Just wait it out is the Taliban’s motto.

        My point was the money influx won’t guarantee a defeat of the bad guys when we leave just a skeleton non-combat force that has to abide by his rules of (non)engagement.

        • Dave_A

          Romney isn’t bound to honor Obama’s 2014 date, and I would hope he won’t.

          As for the RoE – most of the problem there isn’t the top-bras, it’s lower-middle officers who are more concerned about their own careers than the welfare of their troops under fire.

          We never had any trouble with support being denied from Bagram or Washington…

          We did have constant troubles with a worthless Lt Col who wouldn’t let us shoot anything but illumination rounds, for fear that a stray high-explosive shell might make extra work for him, defending his career…

          So our guys sat there without artillery support, not because of anything a General or politician did, but because our own BN Commander wouldn’t grow a pair & sign off…

      • aesthete

        Doubling down on a bad bet doesn’t make other people respect you or do anything to increase the prestige of your nation, it makes people think that the US can be roped into pointless and expensive conflict with relative ease. No ruler looks at Saddam’s status after the Gulf War and wishes that fate upon their own country. Lots of countries (such as Iran and China) look at our two expensive occupations and public sentiment regarding same, and reasonably conclude that they can act without fear of significant American reprisal on account of how bogged down we already are.

        As Clausewitz put it, war is politics by other means. In politics as in war, doubling down on a bad bet just because the idealized outcome sounds good, is a terrible call. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 10 years, and it hasn’t yielded dividends commensurate with what we’ve put in. How is sticking around another 13 years of the same going to help? Gamblers’ logic didn’t help us in Haiti, and it’s not going to help us in Afghanistan.

        • Dave_A

          The same applies to Afghanistan, and to Vietnam. He became a symbol of defiance of American power – and inspired our enemies from then until we finally finished the job in 2003.

          It doesn’t matter what the conditions are on the ground, if the enemy we invaded to defeat remains in power or regains it within a year or two, we lose the war in the eyes of the world.

          Our own obsessing over the cost of the war doesn’t help, either – as it’s not war, but rather entitlements that are breaking our bank.

          We need to win, even if we stay another 12 years.

          It’s that important.

          • aesthete

            Public opinion in the Arab world is mercurial and rarely contingent on reality.

            There is no question that we utterly crushed Saddam Hussein during OIF. The dismantling of the Ba’ath party and its institutions and place in government is a matter of public record. Yet the Arab world does not consider the Iraq war to have been a success for either the Iraqi or US people. Indeed, Iran is seen as the primary beneficiary.

            http://aai.3cdn.net/2212d2d41f760d327e_fxm6vtlg7.pdf

            A majority of Arabs believe that 9/11 was perpetrated by non-Arabs and non-Muslims. This opinion holds across income and class differences. A plurality of Arabs believe that Osama bin Laden is still alive. Judging from polling, there is little difference between how Arabs see us after a war where the enemy is removed from government, and where it is not.

            According to Arab polling, we have lost every war in Muslim-majority countries since at least the end of the Cold War. Anyone who saw Saddam’s position from 1991-2003 as better than his position before the Gulf War was deluding themselves. “Winning” in a country even more removed from the Arab world than Iraq will prove nothing to people who are willingly blind.

          • Dave_A

            don’t think logically…

            In their minds, if they survive and regain power, they won…

            They don’t care about the damage done to the country they rule, so long as they get to rule again.

            If we were dealing with logical men, then a ‘Punitive Expedition’ might work – knock them around a bit, and they learn…

            We’re not.

            So long as they have a hope of gaining power, they will keep fighting.

            And if we pull out, they will regain power, and see it as a victory – as will future generations of international miscreants.

            We can only leave, when we have resoundingly won in both the political and military arenas.

            Too many good men have died fighting this enemy, to give up and give the enemy everything they want…..

          • aesthete

            that the problem group does not think rationally.

            We disagree on the response.

            I don’t see how it makes sense to “win” conflicts in two localized areas where “winning” is ill-defined, and where there is no guarantee of victory given a certain timeframe, and where no evidence has been offered that 10 more years will make a qualitative difference, when the previous ten years are such that we both agree that the Taliban could regain its power and influence relatively easily in the event of our departure. The problem is not localized, it is throughout the Muslim world. As we both acknowledge, our victories in the Gulf War and in OIF have not ameliorated or changed the situation. I think that our policy should reflect this data and the data that we have acquired from 10 years fighting the GWoT.

            We’ve lost good men in every conflict we’ve ever been in. For that matter, most nations can claim the same. That does not mean that we should give up on differentiating between situations where our losses get us something, and situations where we’re throwing good lives away for no good reason — we can honor the sacrifice while engaging in level-headed analysis of where we’re at and where we’re going.

          • acat

            with China.

            We leave. China steps in. The gloves come *off* .. and we agree to minimize – where possible – the inevitable anti-China bloviating of the Left as they do what’s needed. .. and extract the mineral wealth in exchange for their biological wealth.

            A tad cold-blooded, perhaps, but .. it does answer both problems with Afghanistan. They ain’t pacified, and we lack the will to pacify them as needed.

            Mew

          • aesthete

            have tried to do something like what you’re suggesting. Basically everyone has tried to get China involved in some capacity. China’s not buying, mostly because Afghanistan is tied up in a greater game which involves players that China has no interest in getting in the weeds with, such as India, Pakistan, and Iran. China’s focus right now is establishing itself as sovereign over all Chinese territories and consolidating power in these regions without political opposition, as well as over the China Sea. It would also like to see an arrangement where both Koreas, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries in SE Asia are understood as being within their sphere of influence. Getting involved in Central Asia makes friction with India, Pakistan and Iran likely, and detracts from this already established focus.

            Why would they get involved in a region that is relatively barren (China already has plenty of lithium deposits within its borders), when Africa is much more resource-rich (esp in resources that China is poor in), requires much less of China’s money/political commitments, and none of China’s military might? Why would it go out of its way to make our lives easier, when it has done fine pursuing its own ends elsewhere and when it has seen the much more advance militaries of the USSR and the US get trounced quite recently?

          • acat

            but prices are like {sphincters} – everyone has one.

            Mew

          • juliea

            Try about a dozen MONTHS. Boy howdy, it’s time to bring those good men and women in uniform home already. Enough is enough.

          • Dave_A

            And the worst thing we can do, is come home after all this and let the Taliban take the place back…

            Which is what WILL happen if we leave in the next 2 years.

            Leave now, and everyone who’s died over there (including 2 men from my platoon, last year) will have died for nothing.

            Leave when the Taliban are so hopelessly beaten that they can never govern Afganhistan again – and we will have sent a lasting message: Aid in an attack against the US, and you will never rule again.

            It’s a message we need to send, unless we want to invite another attack.

            Every time one of these regimes survives, it encourages more to try.

            They don’t think rationally – so logical analysis like asthete’s is lost on them.

            The only message they understand, is destruction.

          • juliea

            I was unaware of your status. It must be awful losing cohorts in all of this. But basically we will have to agree to disagree on this topic.

          • Dave_A

            .

          • renl57

            …that the Taliban can be destroyed in 2 more years?

            5 more years?

            10 more years?

            How is that supposed to happen, when our troops remain on the Af-Pak side of the border while the Taliban just commute back and forth between the Af side and the Pak side?

            We can’t employ massed bombing on the Pak side because they have NUKES. (We could never have bombed North Vietnam if the Soviets had supplied the North Vietnamese with nuclear weapons either.)

  • septembergurl

    designed to get Obama re-elected.

    First, he ran for President in 2008 promising to take troops out of iraq and put them in Afghanistan. This is based on the laughable premise that afghanistan was “the good war” and Iraq “the bad war.” Or as Obama liked to put it, Afghanistan was “the smart war’ and Iraq was “the dumb war.” A number of American morons vote for Obama believing he was right.

    Fast forward: Obama eventually escalate the war in afghanistan by putting in an additional 33,00 troops in 2009-10. He ensured that this escalation would be unsuccessful by stating that he would pull these troops out by 2014. The purpose of the escalation was for Obama to be able to say accurately in 2012 that he was taking troops out of Afghanistan, thus ensuring his re-election.

    fact: 2/3 of combat deaths in afghanistan took place in the 3 1/2 years of Obama regime — 1/3 under the 7 years of Bush. Bush was right to keep the level of troops and actions in afghanistan low. It is an enduring shame that Republicans allowed Obama to escalate troops in Afghanistan without a hearing or any kind of restraint. Indeed, Republicans like McCain and Graham were supportive. These troops have suffered and died for nothing more than Obama’s re-election.

    Obama now understands that the Afghan war is a loser and a disaster and he now attempts to disengage himself. No one, I suppose, will challenge him on whether the Afghan war is a “smart war’ or a “good war”. Certainly not Republicans.

    • renl57

      Bush kept the level of troops in Afghanistan low–but that wasn’t consistent with the lofty goals he set for our mission there.

      He turned it into a real nation-building exercise, talking proudly about civilian literacy and women’s rights in Afghanistan, talking like the U.S. was going to turn Afghanistan into a peaceful stable unified democratic society (which it had never been).

      The claim of Bush, McCain, and even Hillary and Obama (back in 2008), was that it’s failed states that become hotbeds of terrorism. So if we can turn failed states into successful ones, it will reduce the terrorist threat.

      This is just flat wrong.
      Iran–the main exporter of Islamist terrorism these days–is not a failed state.

      • septembergurl

        years, but nothing like what occurred under Obama.

        I’m really talking about the theme pursued by democraps from about 2004 on — that Bush had taken the focus off afghanistan and put it on Iraq. This was the big mistake from the Dems point of view — not the nation building in Afghanistan.

        In other words there wasn’t enough mission creep in AFgh for the Dems. Obama articulated this more clearly and strongly (also he had not entered the Senate till 2005 so missed the vote on going into Iraq) than his rivals and it helped him win the nomination.

        There were extensive week long hearings as well as legislation introduced(by Obama among others) to defund the Iraq surge while it was underway. There was an orchestrated campaign in the media against the surge and Petraeus.

        Nothing like this happened in 2010, Congress merely rubber-stamped Obama’s surge, even after Republicans took control of Congress and increased their Senate seats.

        That was my point. McCain and I guess most Republicans are still wedded to the notion you describe, that we have to prevent failed states because they will harbor terrorists. This was true before 9/11, but not now. When the Taliban take control of Afghanistan again (and they will), they’re not going to invite the terrorists back to plot attacks.

        • Dave_A

          Because if we leave any time soon, and they take control, they will see it as having beaten America, and thus having no reason NOT to return to their old ways…

          We have to win this, our national reputation & all the economic benefit we derive from it is on the line.

          It will likely be MORE EXPENSIVE to leave early, in terms of giving credibility to the narrative that America is in decline, than it will be to stay longer…

          • acat

            (the Pakistani tribal areas, that is…) I suspect that long-term basing in Afghanistan is a Good Idea.

            Mew

          • Dave_A

            Since (As the folks arguing against me have pointed out) we can’t really just invade Pakistan due to the whole nuclear issue…

            Basing in AFG gives us a good springboard for the sorts of attacks we CAN mount, short of full scale war…

  • http://itsaboutliberty.com/index.php kralizec

    Obama and the Dem’s engineered failure from the get-go, that they are redefining things and looking to tuck tail and run is no surprise, they never wanted to win this anyway let alone fight it or look like they are fighting it.

    Obama will have his exit and we will have our failure.

    If anybody was serious about “winning” this thing we would have staged a coup in Pakistan and seized control of their nukes, thus removing the nuclear concern and ending the sanctuary problem. As a side beneifit India might be able to be brought in and made a partner in the war against the Jihadi’s and they could be buying our old carriers instead of worthless Russian scrap metal.

    Then the whole lot of crazies could have been hunted down and killed.

    Afghanization like Vietnamization before it will fail utterly.

    I do not want anymore of our troopers dying for a lost cause.

    The best we can hope for now is to contain the crazies and spank them from the air whenever they start being a pain in the ass.

    There is little else we can do.

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