I did a short diary on this subject a few days ago contending that the conundrum facing the Obama Administration in Afghanistan is that it knows it can’t lose the war and, yet, it believes winning the war is wrong.
My analysis was flawed because I failed to take into consideration the chutzpah required to break out of this binary scenario. We are on the cusp of a campaign by the White House to convince us that Afghanistan simply isn’t important.
Fareed Zakaria, writing in the Washington Post’s Newsweek magazine, takes the position that our objective in Afghanistan should be to reduce it to a suppurating wound. He takes the position that we need to buy the Taliban to convince them to stop fighting, a rather stunning misreading of what we accomplished in Iraq with the Sons of Iraq movement, and accept that their dominance of a substantial part of Afghanistan is something we just have to deal with.
At least he concedes that keeping al Qaeda out of Afghanistan is a goal though how he plans on accomplishing that in an environment of warlordism is more than a little unclear.
In today’s Washington Post, former CIA weenie Paul Pillar argues that Afghanistan as a terrorist haven is a mistaken presumption that threatens to make Afghanistan [cue ominous scary music] another Vietnam.
For those of you who don’t remember, Paul Pillar is the CIA official who attempted to aid the election of John Kerry by attacking the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy shortly before the 2004 election in what was billed as an “off the record” address. Thankfully he was outed by Bob Novak. He also claimed that secular Ba’athists in Iraq would never cooperate with al Qaeda and defended the CIA’s gross shortcoming in Iraq intelligence pre-2003 by saying, in essence, so what?
Rationales for maintaining the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan are varied and complex, but they all center on one key tenet: that Afghanistan must not be allowed to again become a haven for terrorist groups, especially al-Qaeda. Debate about Afghanistan has raised reasons to question that tenet, one of which is that the top al-Qaeda leadership is not even in Afghanistan, having decamped to Pakistan years ago. Another is that terrorists intent on establishing a haven can choose among several unstable countries besides Afghanistan, and U.S. forces cannot secure them all.
The debate has largely overlooked a more basic question: How important to terrorist groups is any physical haven? More to the point: How much does a haven affect the danger of terrorist attacks against U.S. interests, especially the U.S. homeland? The answer to the second question is: not nearly as much as unstated assumptions underlying the current debate seem to suppose. When a group has a haven, it will use it for such purposes as basic training of recruits. But the operations most important to future terrorist attacks do not need such a home, and few recruits are required for even very deadly terrorism. Consider: The preparations most important to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks took place not in training camps in Afghanistan but, rather, in apartments in Germany, hotel rooms in Spain and flight schools in the United States.
When one gets belong the historical illiteracy in this statement, I’d refer Mr. Pillar to read the 9/11 Commission Report. According to that document the plan for the attack originated in Khandahar (page 155), the leaders were recruited in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan (page 160), and the “muscle” for the hijacks were talent scouted and recruited in Afghan camps (page 248).
He asserts that the internet is the new battleground
In the past couple of decades, international terrorist groups have thrived by exploiting globalization and information technology, which has lessened their dependence on physical havens.
By utilizing networks such as the Internet, terrorists’ organizations have become more network-like, not beholden to any one headquarters. A significant jihadist terrorist threat to the United States persists, but that does not mean it will consist of attacks instigated and commanded from a South Asian haven, or that it will require a haven at all. Al-Qaeda’s role in that threat is now less one of commander than of ideological lodestar, and for that role a haven is almost meaningless.
While one would be ill advised to deny that use of the internet, one would be an utter moron to argue that the internet is a substitute for a safe haven or that jihadi use of the internet goes back two decades.
A victory in Afghanistan, no matter how distasteful the idea is to Obama, is critical for several reasons.
First, terrorists do require a national actor to provide safe haven. Contrary to what some would have us believe, 9/11 was not produced in Adobe Flash and it did not use the internet to any appreciable degree. Terrorists require safe areas in which to train, safe areas in which to house their infrastructure, they need valid passports to allow them to legally cross borders, they need embassies to receive shipments of money, documents, or weapons. While the internet is important, the internet is no substitute for a safe haven.
Second. Even were Pillar correct winning in Afghanistan is vital because winning is all that is important. Any analysis of the war in Iraq will show that the Sons of Iraq movement came into being when it became obvious that the United States was not going to go away. Warfare is actually a series of cliches, success begets success, nothing wins like a winner, etc. Our withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 and our lack of response to the bombings of our embassies in East Africa, the bombing of our facilities in Saudi Arabia, and the bombing of the USS Cole all sent the message we were an easy mark. It has taken 8 bloody years in Afghanistan and Iraq to put the lie to that message. And the fact is, unless we choose to lose in those two wars we cannot lose.
Third. Given the importance, Mr. Pillar’s opinion notwithstanding, of sanctuaries to transnational terrorist organizations, it is vital that no country believes it can pick up the pre-9/11 policy of hosting terrorist organizations hostile to enemy nations and maintaining the fiction that you aren’t supporting them.
Fourth. Lots of young men have died in Afghanistan. The have died there for as good a reason as any nation has ever had for sending it’s young men in harm’s way. They deserve better than to have their families told that it didn’t matter.
Lastly, this Administration must be held accountable for something. To date it has delivered on only one promise, that Barack Obama would be elected president. The man in the Oval Office lambasted President Bush on the subject of Afghanistan and he must be held accountable for his words.
NObama Does Not Support Military Action
Ausonius Wednesday, September 16th at 1:07PM EDT (link)He is at heart a left-wing pacifist: if that were not so, he would not be idly coasting nowhere in Afghanistan, dithering as to whether or not a “surge Iraqi-style” is warranted, when it was warranted months ago. It is obvious he is ill at ease with things military: everything about him becomes even more artificial if he needs to deal with soldiers.
Others and I myself have written about the contradictions inherent in electing a crypto-pacifist president in an era when pacifism equates to a kick-me sign taped to the back of Uncle Sam, as you indicate above.
As I wrote this morning, storm clouds are gathering in various places, and Nobama’s little dove of peace will be hit by lightning.
No "Pending Decision" on a Surge in Afghanistan
Ausonius Wednesday, September 16th at 1:22PM EDT (link)I just caught on the radio a NObama spokesman saying that they “did not want to put the cart before the horse.” I am not sure what that means in the context, other than they will just keep doing the minimum in combat, rather than trying to win and end things quickly!
To be fair: W. Bush fooled around too long with NATO nonsense in Afghanistan. I have read that radiation bombs, missiles with MOAB’s etc. are in our arsenal: in those cave areas they should have been used a long time ago. Seal the caves off and in two weeks anybody left alive will be dead.
But if W. Bush did not use them, for whatever reason, we know that NObama will not consider them either.
"Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia"
civil_truth Wednesday, September 16th at 1:40PM EDT (link)The rewriting of history once again begins, as Obama’s campaign position gets retooled for his domestic agenda, to strengthen his position with the hard left.
And if Islamist control of Afghanistan and Pakistan is the cost of keeping the hard left on board with his ObamaCare “compromises”* to get it through, so be it.
Foreign policy is always subservient to domestic policy priorities and partisan political interests in this administration.
* I put quotes around “compromises” because Obama knows that he’ll get to Single Payer in the end once he gets the camel’s nose under the tent. So it’s no compromise he has in mind, just a road bump. He’s got the long view, which some of the hard left enthusiasts don’t have; they want it now, Obama is willing to set up the framework for Communism and wait a bit longer for the rest to fall in place.
And Rightly So!
The meaningless loss of American soldiers
Tbone Wednesday, September 16th at 2:40PM EDT (link)has always fittted the Leftest agenda. Obama has no problem not winning in Afghanistan and no problem staying their at a level that will slowly grind up our soldiers. Once the people have gotten tired of the drip, drip, drip of American lives, Obama and the Dems will cut off war funding and bring the troops home in defeat demeaning every American life lost there. Of course this will make it far more difficult to deploy troops in the future and justify draconian reductions in military spending.
I mean really, does anyone think that Obama cares about American soldiers dying?
And who says the Left can’t learn from history.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
How does the US train its troops?
ss396 Wednesday, September 16th at 3:05PM EDT (link)According to Pillar’s thesis, we only need our military bases for basic training; the rest of it can be accomplished over the internet. Yah? You betcha!
The sheer absurdity of that statement is beyond description. The latest dismal concerns floating around are comparisons of Afghanistan to Viet Nam. You want a comparison? Allowing the enemy a sanctuary determines that the war cannot ever be won. That was one of the major lessons learned from Viet Nam. You don’t give an enemy sanctuary; you don’t give an enemy quarter.
And you sure as #### do not bleed the US soldier to death, drop by [political calculus] drop.
If you pay people to sit on their duffs, you cannot be surprised when they do.
Amen! This Is What America Has Not Yet Realized
Ausonius Wednesday, September 16th at 4:29PM EDT (link)Amen also to TBone above!
The chicken-hearted Republicans are afraid to stand up and say exactly what we have written here: but this is exactly what America needs to realize.
W. Bush’s tongue-tied leadership - and at times just downright silent leadership - never delivered this message forcefully enough. Part of the problem also was Rumsfeld’s idea on doing things as cheaply as possible: that led to disenchantment and the growth of the anti-war movement, and ultimately was a factor in electing NObama.
But of course we cannot expect leadership from NObama for a war. He has little to no interest in Afghanistan, as is obvious.
As always, ignore the rhetoric: what is he doing?
If we get hit again, he will simply apologize to the attackers for our years of racist imperialism and hand them a bouquet of flowers. He will tell America it is time to move on and not seek revenge against those with legitimate complaints against us.
From everything I've read about Afghanistan
Scope Wednesday, September 16th at 8:36PM EDT (link)the Democrats bashed Bush because he took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan, by focusing on the wrong war in Iraq. It was political grandstanding for the Democrats to a degree, as right after 9/11 we had alot of both domestic and international support for going after the terriorists in Afghan. We didn’t have that support for going into Iraq, and, the Democrats, with their Bush Dereagment syndrome, tried to “use” the Afghan war to their advantage by saying that we should have stayed in Afghanistan. I agree that we should not have wound down their as much as we did. But, the Democrats, being anti-military, anti-war to begin with, just used Afghanistan as an excuse to bash Bush. Now that we seem to be in a quagmire in Afghanistan, with Russia cutting off the routes for supplies, and now only allowing us to use routes thru their country, at great cost, and only for non-equipment, we have been put in a pansy pickle. How much has the Afghanistan government charged us to keep our lease on the base at Bagram? Didn’t Russia offer them more money in lenient loans, as they were cutting off our supply line routes? Obama has zip, zero, nada, experience in fighting wars. Obama has appologized for the US in many foreign countries. Wouldn’t we love to know what the conversation went like with Obama and Putin? Obama probably won over many many because he said that he would get us out of Iraq immediately. What was the most hated thing about Bush- the Iraq war. Now McChrystal is asking for approximately 30 to 40 thousand more troops in Afghanistan. Obama has already made some noise about not wanting to use the word “victory.” He is either going to anger some of his biggest supporters by trusting his military leaders, and backing their requests, or, he is going to create a whole new anti-war sentiment in the country, just as volitile and uguly, as the anti-war push against Bush. He’s in a rock and a hard place, mainly because he was so vocal against the Iraq war. Now he has his own war, that he can’t blame on Bush. I suspect he will flounder and procrastinate, get alot of our military killed by his dawdling, and then will pull everyone out, and allow the US to have the same defeat and humiliation as we had in Vietnam, again with and by a Democrat Pres. He made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. Glenn Beck said last week, “we need to just get out of Afghanistan” and I was taken aback until he followed that statement with “if we are not going to fight to win, just pull out, and not get any more of our military people killed.” I agree.
I enjoy the argumentation in this post . . .
Yahuti Wednesday, September 16th at 10:16PM EDT (link)Leave it to Streiff to coal the fires in the belly.
As an old soldier who spent several years in Vietnam during that ‘late unpleasantness’, I subscribe to the doctrine which states: “If you are going to fight . . .
Fight.
Don’t **** around.”
Unfortunately, before our military will ever be permitted to take the fight to the enemy someone is going to have to precisely state:
1. What are our (political, diplomatic, military) goals in Afghanistan? To kill Taliban and deny the country to alQueda is simply NOT a credible national goal of any type (although I find nothing wrong with it).
2. For the love of god, for once since the end of WWII will somebody PLEASE define the term : “WIN” as it applies to the military effort in that particular rat hole.
Not only must a purpose and military mission be defined for Afghanistan, but also someone must articulate criteria to determine when our national security goals have been met.
Anybody want to take bets upon when or whether this (or any) commander-in-chief will rise to the occasion and offer some guidance on these topics.
My advice is not to take bets on it.
Since the end of WWII it has become ‘politically expedient’ for the American nomenclatura to send Americans off to foreign killing fields with a Hurrah, a pat on the back, a wink at each other - and no mission and no measurable goals other than to find, fix, close with and kill the enemy.
If that practice wasn’t dangerous and repugnant enough during the halcyon days when American leadership was at least knowledgeable, marginally capable and (somewhat) patriotic - and we had definable enemies - how dangerous can we suppose it is today with national leadership with none of those qualities?
We are in trouble as a nation also as a somewhat frayed culture. We have no national leadership. None in the White House and certainly nowhere to be seen in the Cabinet or among our expanding tribe of Czars.
Congress is controlled by leftist, nihilistic, America disdaining political ghouls interested only in the application of their considerable power not for the benefit of the nation - but to achieve their own narrow political goals, regardless of the costs to our purse, our culture, our national security and our standing among the nations of the world.
Our political parties appear to be reoriented from the country’s and citizen’s welfare to primarily that of the Party, itself, and its leadership.
So, what if we ‘win’ or ‘lose’ in Afghanistan? What will be our next (mis)step at home or abroad. That is the leadership’s attitude - in my opinion.
I am too quickly becoming convinced that our national leadership is getting even with this ‘rotten country’. Anybody here old enough to remember the anti-everything Weather Underground’s warning of the sixties: (I paraphrase). ‘You are too strong for us - at this moment. We will disappear today, and tomorrow we will reappear among you as your political leadership, teachers, police, parents, grandparents, etc., etc.,’
Well, Red State friends: They’re Here.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America’ for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’ That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
De Opresso Liber
Support the Vets for Freedom PAC
1SGinTN Thursday, September 17th at 3:51AM EDT (link)Only a fool would ignore the counsel of some of the foremost experts in counterinsurgency, generals Petraeus and McChrystal.
Petitions may have little impact on the decision process of the CinC, but what else can you do to help prevent him from being foolish?
http://www.vetsforfreedom.org/give_them_what_they_need/
Tu Ne Cede Malis
-Virgil
Official Surrender To Putin: NO Missile Defense For Eastern Europe
Ausonius Thursday, September 17th at 8:05AM EDT (link)On Drudgereport right now: 8:00 A.M. E.S.T.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100010237/barack-obama-surrenders-to-russia-on-missile-defence/
Surrender in Afghanistan and Iraq will be coming sooner rather than later: the Chinese will only be further emboldened in the Pacific.
Prepare for allies to start wavering and making their accomodations with the new barbarians bringing down civilization. I will be assembling a diary on that topic in a few days.
Retreat
proudgop Thursday, September 17th at 8:25AM EDT (link)Its pretty typical he is retreating here, retreating on our European allies with stopping missile defense shield
Sort of like health care
Jack_Savage Thursday, September 17th at 8:26AM EDT (link)They will cut their deal and hope they don’t get destroyed.
This Surrender - on the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland - Is NOT A Mistake
Ausonius Thursday, September 17th at 9:07AM EDT (link)NObama is sending a clear message: we will not defend freedom against aggression, because we are the worst aggressor, because as a racist imperialist nation, responsible for most of the ills of the world from poverty in Africa and the rest of the Third World to global warming, we have no right to defend anything or anybody!
This is NObama’s philosophy, and the timing cannot possibly be coincidental: the symbolism is clear, and in diplomacy symbolism counts for quite a bit. The Russians have a free hand to re-dominate the East, to ally with Iran, and to do whatever, because we have not moral imperative to stop them.
The Chinese must be delighted, as they circle “TAIWAN” on their maps.
For this to be more than a "happy coincidence",
blooch Thursday, September 17th at 9:20AM EDT (link)one would have to assume that someone in the Obama White House had ever read a history book not authored by Howard Zinn.
“I have to admit that Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a smart man. He was, in many ways, a psychologist.”–drealoth
Kind of hard to say AQ/Afghanistan is not an issue
bk Thursday, September 17th at 9:16AM EDT (link)the same week he’s saying he needs the Patriot Act and that the FBI is conducting multiple raids across the country for AQ cells.
Nah, bk - Obama Needs The Patriot Act To Go After Domestic "Enemies" (nt)
IJB Thursday, September 17th at 9:26AM EDT (link)I thought the world was going to like us again as soon as Obama was elected
bk Thursday, September 17th at 11:12PM EDT (link)