President Obama is set to make his “final” decision on Afghanistan later this week or early next. Presumably, his public orations will follow shortly thereafter — and not a moment too soon, given the mounting angst at home and abroad about the delays and uncertainties. He has spent the last month in endless meetings brilliantly dissecting everyone's facts and everyone’s arguments, including General Stanley McChrystal's. Yet, for all the back and forth, it’s not clear that any of his principal national security advisers (Secretaries Clinton and Gates and National Security Adviser Jim Jones) knows exactly where he’s coming out. Perhaps he’s shared his gut feelings with political intimates like White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser David Axelrod. Perhaps he still hasn’t made up his own mind.
Full counterinsurgency capability is a mirage. McChrystal might just keep asking for more American troops every year. Transforming the Afghan government and society is way beyond our power.
The White House does a good job of muffling presidential deliberations. And they’ve put the fear of God into those contemplating unauthorized leaks. So, to divine what’s really going on, it is necessary to sift slivers from the ether. No White House can totally squash that revealing either. Here’s what may be in Mr. Obama’s heart of hearts, if he could decide policy solely on the merits:
These are much more modest and attainable objectives than Obama’s earlier proclamations of a “fully resourced” “war of necessity.” It’s not a radical shift in policy. In no way does it mean retreat or defeat. It is a policy geared to a reduced, but long-run American presence in this region--a presence politically sustainable in the United States and sufficient to combat ongoing threats. Its underpinnings are far more realistic than the assumptions of the McChrystal strategy: Afghans will never be able to create and keep a 400,000 plus-member army, plus hundreds of thousands of reliable police. So, full counterinsurgency capability is a mirage. McChrystal might just keep asking for more American troops every year. Transforming the Afghan government and society is way beyond our power. It’s their culture, their history. And McChrystal’s military strategy can’t work without these non-military miracles. Finally, staying in Afghanistan forever is not the best or only path to save Pakistan from the Taliban. If Pakistan’s leaders don’t see their own vital interests, their very survival, in preventing a Taliban victory, no, repeat, NO American policy in Afghanistan can provide the missing incentives. The McChrystal strategy promises not victory, but an endless and uncertain struggle against a terrorist enemy that can already attack us from places outside Afghanistan.
• Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli: Obama’s Pakistan Problem•Patrick Hennessey: Of Course More Troops Are Needed • Elise Jordan: Why Afghans Are Turning on America
But the middle course that may be in Mr. Obama’s mind has its own problems—mostly political in nature. Though it makes practical sense, it may not get him out of the political fix he’s put himself in with the American military. From the military’s perspective, they’re just doing what the boss originally asked for. In March, he spoke of Afghanistan being one of America’s central security threats and fully endorsed a counterinsurgency strategy. Then he went so far as to fire his commander in the field and give the job to Gen. McChrystal for the express purpose of fighting an all-out counterinsurgency effort. Now, McChrystal—backed fully by regional commander General David Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen—is asking for a minimum of about 40,000 new troops to do the job Mr. Obama dispatched him to do. The president’s political difficulties worsened last week after Defense Secretary Bob Gates engineered the endorsement of NATO’s defense chiefs for the counterinsurgency strategy and presumptively for the 40,000 additional troops as well.
View as Single Page 12 Back to Top October 25, 2009 | 11:12pm Facebook | Twitter | Digg | | Emails | print President Obama, Afghanistan, White House Chief Of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Gen. Stanley Mcchrystal, National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Vice President Joe Biden, David Axelrod, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Pakistan (–) Show Replies Collapse Replies Sort Up Sort Down sort by date: octavio
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- Oct/26/2009/1:15 A.M. The soviets lost in Afghanistan,the USA lost big time in Viet- nam,the USA lost in Irak ( all arabs including Saudi Arabia will always hate the USA ). Is the USA going to keep borrowing money from the chinese,so that we can stay in afghanistan for 17 more years? Right now the USA has military bases in Colombia,South America.Is the USA going to start torturing and killing as many south americans as possible? ----- Reinstate the draft! the crooked republican senators have very few of their offspring in Irak and in Afghanistan.We need to keep everything fair. ---- We can not even pass a government run health care bill;How can we even dream that we will be able to correct the problems in Afghanistan? ------ Stop the lobbysts from corrupting the USA politicians!. ----- Get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. ----- Get out of Colombia,South merica as soon as possible ------ Prosecute Bush/Cheney. ------ Prosecute the crooks in the stinky USA Health Care Industry.1/3 of the USA population will get cancer during their life time.The hospitals are charging $ 250,000 for some chemo/radiation therapy.Multiply 120 000 000 ( one hundred twen- million persons) per $ 250,000 that is how much the USA Health Care Industry is stealing from the USA tax payers. ----- Why is it so difficult to copy one of the excellent government run Public Heath Care Systems from other countries? Is it because the crooks in the Insurance Industry do not want to lose their cash cow? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------
Let me get this straight, 100 people dying, 500 injured block away from the green zone in Iraq is not enough to change the media's "forget Iraq its all about Afgan now" stance. What does a helicopter crash (sad and tragic) unless shot down have to do with a surge? The media is driving our national narrative in illogical ways then claim they have no control over it.
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You have no clue as to what Clinton, Gates and Jones know regarding what the president has decided or when he is going to reveal it to you, because they aren't going to draw you into the circle. Nor should they. They do know that whatever decision the president makes that we do not have 40,000 additional troops to send nor will we have before the first of the year per Gates. They do know that the final deployment of the troops authorized in the Spring leave in December and that the harsh Afghan winter will slow conflict. They do know that even McChrystal states that regardless of troop numbers counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is ellusive and may very well fail. The public knows that McChrystal has proved that he lacks the self-discipline to follow military protocol and is unfit to entrust with national interest ane the lives of troops. McChrystal irresponsible ambition proves that he should be relieved to pursue his career as a media star.
Octavio says the USA has bases in Colombia and will the USA start torturing as many south Americans as possible? No Octavio, only those that need be. us is by invitation of their Colombian people to help stop the drug trade. the demand for illegal drugs has created a cesspool in Colombia and innocent woman and children are murdered by drug traffickers. The USA has been a savior to most of Latin American's displaced European colonizers and has helped to keep the communist tide from becoming a flood, which has attracted the native populations of malcontents, and unrelenting population explosion. The exception has been Venezuela, where a communist has tried to hijack the European run country and give it to the indigenous. peoples, but the problem as we all know is that they do not know how to rule, Most canot even write and have no education. A classic example of this is Zimbabwe,(Rhodesia) You cannot take bush people and istal them in european style government and expect anything but disaster. This will happen in every latyin american country if ther USA does not intervene. The hondurans have almost sucumbed to this and the natives ae indeed relstelss and if it were not for the powers that be intestinal fortitude to repel this onslaught, Honduras would be in the midst of an indigenous uprissing. Tha being said, it is not that a racist policy s being proposed, but a policy of reality. These natives have no education and no sense of a world view. They cannot run a country. They must walk before they can run. It is like teaching a child to drive a car. He may want to so badly, but his feet cannot reach the pedals and certain death is imminent. The children must grow and it will take generations, but slowly, they will emerge and become a force to be reckoned with. Look at the USA itself. the black population wanted to have full responsibility immediately and if it were not for the southerners and population in general, keeping them until they were ready, a disaster would have made the USA into a Zimbabwe. Hussein Obama is proof that with time and nurturing these peoples can be taught European ways and become mainstream and learn civilization. You cannot rush certain things and one must keep in mind that Evolution is nothing more than evenly paced Revolution. Spo Octavio, hold onto your dreams and when the time comes it will be known. Your misdirected anger at Republicans or USA policy is childish and you too will learn, that it is not the Republicans or Democrats that are the problem, (Two sides of the same coin) it is the large corporate entities and banking that control the governments around the world. A power shift and struggle is taking place now of monumental proportions, the final outcome is yet to be played, but many will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 19th century, directly from the 18th century. Many native populations have been kept at a disadvantage for a reason and when and only when they are needed to fill the ranks of productive citizens, will they be allowed to progress. It does look like we will need them to progress and sustain the system, so you do have hope Octavio, you must be a little more patient. Not every thing happens all at once and Revolution is not in the cards. Financial incentives to keep them happy will see to that. That much the powers have learned. It is not time to isolate markets, but broaden them.
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Cheney Blood Lust
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
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