In Strange Turn of Events, Democrats Are Actually Questioning Wisdom of Afghanistan Policy
By Susie Madrak Saturday Oct 10, 2009 5:00pmAll wars depress me, but this Afghanistan one in particular makes me want to scream. Why are we there? Theoretically, to hunt down Osama bin Laden and stop al Qaeda from using it as a base. But is al Qaeda still there? Is that likely to work? Is it even possible? And if it is possible, is it worth the cost?
Nice to see a high-ranking Democrat asking these questions, too:
The veteran chairman of the House Appropriations Committee posed a series of tough questions Thursday to his colleagues and the Obama administration about the wisdom of further U.S. engagement in that war-torn country.
Rep. David R. Obey , D-Wis., in a statement expressed significant skepticism about the prospects for success of any major effort to stabilize the country, either through additional U.S. troops or by a concerted effort to train more Afghan troops and improve the country’s governance and economy.
“The problem with increasing the number of troops is that we become the lightning rod, and our presence runs the risk of inciting more anti-American sentiment that can become a recruiting tool for the very forces we seek to curtail,” Obey said of one option President Obama is weighing.
“If any adjustment is made in U.S. troop levels, it would be much better if those troops were focused on the job of training Afghani troops and police to take on the job of securing the population and maintaining law and order,” he said. “But even there, we have to ask what is achievable. My understanding is that there have never been more than about 90,000 troops under the sway of the central government. Now we are told that the goal is to train up to 400,000 soldiers and police personnel. I think it is reasonable to ask whether that is a realistic and achievable goal.”
As for a policy bent on counter-insurgency and nation-building, Obey said, “We should be asking not what policy is theoretically the most intellectually coherent, but which policy is actually achievable given the only tools we have in the region; the Afghani and Pakistani governments. Is there sufficient leadership, popular support, and political will, not in the United States but in Afghanistan, necessary for effective governance to take hold? “Equally important, he said, “Do we really have the tools to overcome language, culture, history and a 90 percent illiteracy rate to sufficiently transform such a country?”
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...to try to transform someone else's country?
Oh, right. Pipeline-istan. Strategic.
We have a winner
whether or not to get out but how to get out while not leaving the situation worse than it was when the US and its' allies went in. It will be extremely difficult to disengage from this conflict.
... if the answer is that there is no way we can leave without leaving the situation worse. What do we do then?
Simply on a human level, what happens when NATO forces leave?
I don't want to see a repeat of the killing fields of Cambodia in Afghanistan.
Having made commitments to local allies one cannot simply say "we're leaving and good luck".
{Thank You. SiteMonitor}
Last I knew there are countless, maybe hundreds, of countries around the world that are embroiled in civil war, lack of appropriate governance, hunger, strife, exploitation, terrorism and other issues which if not threatening us directly, threaten us indirectly.
But we don't chase after them with all guns ablazing do we?
We've turned our backs on most countries in Africa, supported death squads in South and Latin America, aggressively invaded non-threatening countries on false pretenses, we continue to allow genocide to occur, aid and abet military coups, dictatorships, puppet governments, brutal regimes and blatantly inhumane behavior and utilized all the preceding to our advantage when it serves our interest, to the detriment of countless millions of innocent lives.
And we think we have some moral authority to worry about how the Afghanis, Iranians and Iraqis will manage without us?
Good lord, please spare me.
Moral responsibility, to some degree yes. In your own self interest also yes.
Granted "Katenh" there are sooo many other conflicts through out the world that we could be or should be fighting, but the fact is that we didn't start those conflicts...at least directly so. Afghanistan IS our war to fight. And if we don't fight it, then it will most likely collapse again as it did after the Soviet Union left. The Taliban may or may not fight its way back into power. I would chose they don't even have a chance to! They are, in my opinion, worse than anything the Nazi's or Khmer Rouge could become. They are religious fanatics! Nothing more than those Evangelical freaks we're fighting in this country.
Why not reflect on history and remember what made this country great: taking on evil and tyranny through force. It's not very civil, granted, but when has all of humanity been very civil to itself?? And We may have not picked our fights all that wisely, most notably Iraq, but Religious tyranny is one thing than should NEVER be left unchecked! This is what we need to start focusing on...This should be our goal in this war!
So: as they stand up, we will stand down?
Sounds familiar.
Funny how just last year one of the biggest arguments being put forth for getting out of Iraq, not only among Democrats in Congress but among progressives here, was that it was diverting resources from the "important" fight in Afghanistan. Nothing has really changed much on the ground there, but everyone seems to have flip-flopped pretty quick.
You mistate the argument. The argument is that by invading Iraq, resources that were needed to keep Afghanistan from falling into complete chaos were diverted. It is not exactly true that you can "unring that bell", we are likely past the point of no return in both places. The guy whose sister we killed last year isn't going to suddenly give up his blood feud because Obama was elected.
On the contrary...George. That "sister" was most likely killed because the Taliban used her as a human shield...forcing her to stand in the path of ISAF Forces attempting. Thus allowing the Taliban to report American lead forces killed innocent civilians, instead of the truth. True-"Mr. Bedouin" isn't too intelligent because he's illiterate and only understands that that Big Boom was caused by America, but that doesn't change the fact that the Taliban still needs to be wiped out!
I was one of those who was (reluctantly) in favor of Afghanistan.
I was pissed off. But in retrospective, I was wrong. I let my emotions get the better of me.
A year is a long time in politics, even longer in war.
My point is this(if I can ever hit the right keys) This whole thing has been a fuck up since day one. Now , 8 years later, it's even worse.
Now, there are a number of ways to look at this.
1 Bush took his eye of the ball.
2 Bush took his eye of the ball.
3 Bush ruined the international support.
insert Iraq here.
4 The next guy is fucked, no matter what he does.
5 There is no way to fix this without everyone coming to the table to negotiate a peace.
insert fraudulent elections in Afghanistan here.
6 Bring them all home now.
only with point six. If everyone bails before negotiations there won't be any negotiations there will be wholesale slaughter.
I to was reluctantly in favor of going into Afghanistan to get BinLaden. But as it turns out we went into Afghanistan to get into Iraq for fun a profit! How many lives have been lost? How many lives have been ruined? How much money has been wasted? Who made the money from all this needless bloodshed?
What can we do to stop these things from happening over and over?
republicanism is a mental illness!
We are in Afghanistan because the 19 Saudi men who attacked us on 9/11 who trained in the U.S. and Germany and were led by a Yemeni psychopath hid out near there for awhile.
Makes plenty of sense.
We can solve the Afghanistan problem more or less the same way that we "solved" Iraq -- start giving money and arms to the people who are now shooting at us.
Always remember that the "killing fields" were in Cambodia and it is Vietnam that put a stop to that atrocity. (The U.S. supported Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge up to and including the reign of Bush I.)
U.S. history does not give me much confidence that our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is actually a good thing for the people of those two beleagured countries.
Afghanistan is where Empires go to die.
Reverse Order:
USA - check.
CCCP - check.
British Empire - check.
Oh hell - just read a history of the place. No one has been able to successfully subjugate them for any length of time. It's a mountainous wreck of a place filled with illiterate superstitious religious zealots.
The simplest and most obvious thing for the USA to do if it has ANY hope of surviving the next 20 years as an intact nation is to renounce its Empire, and take care of itself and leave the rest of us the fuck alone. We are more than capable of organising our own affairs, and we're tired of funding your war machine which has gone completely berserk and now dominates your economy.
The G20 are now arranging methods of pulling the plug on your corrupt idiocy. First, your currency has to go, and that will remove your economic empire. Peak Oil will remove your war machine, and then you can go back to be ing 5% of the world's population, no more and no less.
Welcome to the dustbin of history - where the rest of us live.
True those who don't reflect upon history are destined to repeat, but I don't think this is like any other conflict. The Brit's had their own way to fight a war. And they didn't bother to change tactics when the situation warranted! Hence the reason they failed. The Soviets were doing pretty good, until We "entered" the war. Plus their tactics didn't do them justice.
Dear Suzie,
You wrote: "All wars depress me, but this Afghanistan one in particular makes me want to scream. Why are we there?"
Angry people scream. Depressed people curl up into the fetal position and hope it gets better. I prefer to think of you as angry enough to care to contribute. :)
Which is what F. William Engdahl has done with his latest not-quite-yet-bestseller "Full Spectrum Dominance". http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/
I'm currently about 2/3 through this wonderful explication of the grand strategy of empire as espoused by all the usual suspects (Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Zinn, Bacevich, etc.), and I'm feeling more than usually enlightened. In fact, this book is having the anti-depressive and tonic effect of giving me the pleasure of quite a number of "ah ha!" moments. Mr. Engdahl, it appears to me, has delved deeply in the the queston "why are we there?" and has synthesized a cohesive answer. Which is the title of the book, you'll recall as "Full Spectrum Dominance" (FSD! Whooppee!).
So why do we go to blow up the South Pole of the Moon, as we've just done at tremendous cost to the future taxpayer? FSD!
So why are we going to seemingly start a major war in all of the Pashtun lands including Afghanistan and Pakistan? FSD!
Why are we in Afghanistan? It's because it is part of our encirclement of Russia which also means that we've expanded NATO (recall that it is NATO which is the name-plate military in Afghanistan) into Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia. And we wonder why the Russians are concerned about encirclement? Why it's FSD!
But wait, there's more. For the same price that we can capture and hold Afghanistan to encircle Russia we can use the same massive bases at Bagram and out in Herat to.... wait for it.... encircle Iran. Don't you just love FSD!
And as a special bonus, buy two and get the third one free... we can use our new AfPak bases to encircle.... China? Ain't this Empire stuff easy? Ain't you falling in love with FSD!
FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE! You gotta love it.
I would just like to have a member of congress, either house, tell me what our Afghanistan policy is.
As I recall, the original intent in Afghanistan was to get binLaden for his attack on the U.S. The U.S. has had many opportunities to get binLaden and they have not done so.
I believe that the U.S. government does not want to get binLaden. If they did that, we would have to withdraw from Afghanistan. (Even though he is most likely not even in Afghanistan. More than likely he is dead. How can a 6' 5" Arab who needs dialysis and lives in a cave disappear from the radar? Not fucking likely.
But I digress.
What is our policy in Afghanistan as of today? What will our policy be tomorrow? What is our objective? How will we know when we have reached that objective? What is our exit strategy?
NOBODY FUCKING KNOWS!!!!!!
Obama needs to be held to the promises that overwhelmingly got him elected to the office of President of The United States. Two of those promises were to get us out of Iraq and to get us out of Afghanistan. He has done neither and he does not intend to do either.
Unless he is forced, he will do neither.
Hi rockybelt,
You wrote: "Obama needs to be held to the promises that overwhelmingly got him elected to the office of President of The United States. Two of those promises were to get us out of Iraq and to get us out of Afghanistan."
That is not historically accurate. Obama did promise to "end combat" in Iraq. He never promised to withdraw our training specialists, embassy staff or re-development personnel there. And regarding Afghanistan it might have been a common misperception that Obama said he'd end that conflict. But he never did. In fact, he proposed to expand that war and he has done so.
What has happened, it seems to me, is that a whole lot of naive peace people deluded themselves into believing that Obama was something he never promised to be.
Bluntly, Obama never said he was in favor of peace. And he's proving himself to be true to his word. The Nobel nonsense nothwithstanding.
The Nobel prize thing may have been deserving for two reasons, (1.) that there was little peace making in 2009 anyway, and (2.) that the Obama administration pressed the "reset" button with Russia. Even though the Middle East enjoys the spotlight, it is a confrontation between the U.S. and Russia that would destroy the world. Hence, the World's concern.
With respect to Afghanistan, the problems occurred as a direct result of Bush policies. Early on, we were assisted by the Northern Alliance. We persuaded them to disarm, promising to turn Afghanistan into another France (nation-building). We lost sight of the mission, which was to destroy Al-Quaeda. Iraq was a huge bungle, because of the diversion of resources from Afghanistan, which placed the nation-building in Afghanistan on hold.
I think this. Al-quaeda is like a brain tumor. If you don't get it, it comes back with a vengeance. The Taliban and Al-quaeda are two birds of the same feather. When we drove them into Pakistan, we didn't follow up with Musharraf to finish them off. Now that the Pakistan army is finally driving into the border regions, the last thing we should be doing is allowing the Taliban/Al quaeda to recoup in Afghanistan, like they recouped in Pakistan earlier.
But, I don't approve of Obama's 7-10 year plan. We don't have the money for a 10 year plan. The easy way out is to rearm the factions that would keep the Taliban at bay and get out.
Hi NoBuddy,
You seen to be attempting to make an honest effort at thinking things through. There are some gaps in your knowledge and maybe I can help a bit.
You wisely suggest that "a confrontation between the U.S. and Russia that would destroy the world". In fact, it is the only thing that could destroy the cocoon that humans are so recklessly throwing away. I'm currently reviewing Vladimir Putin's infuriatingly honest speech at the Munich Conference on February 10, 2007: http://www.russian-victories.ru/putin_munich.htm I would strongly encourage you to do the same. If you do, you will perhaps find as I do that the leadership of Russia is quite a bit more sane than the corporate oligarchy who have stolen America from the rest of us.
***
You wrote: "With respect to Afghanistan, the problems occurred as a direct result of Bush policies. Early on, we were assisted by the Northern Alliance. We persuaded them to disarm,"
I'm not certain about what time horizons you are referring to here, but I will assure you that at the time that Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrakotos were funding the mujihadeen throughout the 1980s (Reagan and Bush I) that the U.S. was specifically NOT supplying the Northern Alliance then being led by Ahmed Shah Massoud. If by "early on" you instead are referring to the period from October, 2001 to January, 2002 (Bush II) then I'd say your view is baffling and irrelevant. What time period are you referring to?
***
You wrote: "We lost sight of the mission, which was to destroy Al-Quaeda."
Huh? That's the propaganda. There never has been a cohesive fighting force actually called "al Qaeda" by the ragtag terrorists who were its primary fighters. These people were all Sunnis who were readily dispatched by the CIA to fight in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. The fact of the matter is that the term "al Qaeda" was created at CIA headwaters in Langley where it was the Arabic translation of the term "database" which is what the CIA used as Rolodex to find crazed Muslim fundamentalist who were too stupid to figure out that their plane fare to hot spots the Langley crew wanted to stir up shit in was in fact being paid for by the U.S.A.
You really need to spend some time researching "al Qaeda". It's a covert operation run out of Langley. Don't be foolish.
Here's a big f*cking clue for you. The KUNDUZ skylift, which carried about 3,000 combined al Qaeda, ISI and mujahideen fighters out of a trap in Kunduz, Afghanistan and directly into combat for U.S. interests in the Kashmir in January, 2002. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/HER206A...
You know, if you lay off the doobies and start reading more history you'll make less of fool of yourself.
***
You wrote: "I think this. Al-quaeda is like a brain tumor. If you don't get it, it comes back with a vengeance. The Taliban and Al-quaeda are two birds of the same feather."
Huh? That's insane. As I state previously, "al Qaeda" is a propaganda/covert ops tool of the CIA/DoD.
In contradistinction, the term "Taliban" refers to all resistance to the illegal imperialistic occupation of Afghanistan by U.S./NATO forces. Taliban originally meant "student" and referred to the tens of thousands of Afghans and Pakistani kids who were deprived of a real education and instead put into brainwashing camps run by Saudi Wahhabist fundamentalist lunatics. But that name doesn't' mean a thing today, because it is simply a term for "Resistance" to occupation. As such, the taliban have more in common with the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia than they do with King George's crew, including the new kid on the block, Barry 'Man-I'm-High' Obama.
The taliban are the freedom fighters, the anti-imperialist league, the nationalist response to the ugly predations of pigs like us.
***
You wrote: "But, I don't approve of Obama's 7-10 year plan. We don't have the money for a 10 year plan."
Again, you are exposing your completely naivete about this subject matter. The actual century long plan is layed out in the Project For a New American Century's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" http://******/zhN2a
And reiterated here: http://******/GKESa
Read and weep.
[We don't allow URL masks here. Use the real URL, and it will work-Sitemonitor]
Dear Sitemonitor,
I was trying to use the ****** abbreviations in order to keep the URLs manageable, not for some nefarious purpose.
So, here's a second attempt at what I was trying to communicate at end of the last comment:
"Rebuilding America's Defenses" http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/archivos_pd...
"The Sorrows of Empire" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgnKZ5UgYS0
[No one is accusing you of that. We don't use them because our system is able to handle a full URL, users are able to see where they go, and not everyone has good intentions-Sitemonitor]
Sitemonitor,
Thanks for your patience with this newbie. :)
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