Victory In Sight!
For al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as Obama explains his priority in Afghanistan. Getting Out. NYT:
“There’s got to be an exit strategy,” Mr. Obama said in a wide-ranging interview shown Sunday on “60 Minutes” on CBS. “There’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift.”
European officials have been outspoken about their plans to leave Afghanistan in the next three to four years. Mr. Obama’s remarks, which were recorded on Friday, indicated that the administration, which has more troops and resources in Afghanistan than European countries do, is also working toward a long-term strategy.
Last month, he announced that he would send 17,000 more American troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, adding to the 36,000 already there.
OK, just kidding, he didn’t actually say getting out is his priority. It was just the message coming out both sides of his mouth.
In the interview, Mr. Obama also signaled that the United States was redefining its mission in Afghanistan, away from the Bush administration’s broader strategy of promoting democracy, civil society and governance in Afghanistan and toward getting the country to a point where it is not used to start attacks on the United States.
Asked what the United States’ mission in Afghanistan should be, Mr. Obama replied: “Making sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That’s our No. 1 priority.”
Not clear how that No. 1 priority is accomplished without establishing civil society and governance in Afghanistan. Sorry, but I have a hard time buying tough-on-terrorism rhetoric when it has been consistently accompanied by abandonment and enablance sentiments and actions.
It’s left out of that NYT article, but in the 60 Minutes interview, Obama also stated, “Iraq was actually easier than Afghanistan.” Not encouraging, given his historic objections to winning in Iraq and his willingness to abandon that nation to genocidal chaos, leaving it as an operating base for terrorists. Another place where his priority is … get out.
He goes on to say about Afghanistan, “And so this is gonna be a tough nut to crack. But it is not acceptable for us to simply sit back and let safe havens of terrorists plan and plot.” So is his tougher-than-Iraq remark simply a self-serving I’ve-got-it-harder, or a lowering of the bar in expectation of the day when he’ll want to move on? Much as he has moved on from other inconvenient people and things in his political life.
This somewhat marble-mouthed NYT piece tries to carry Obama’s wartime water but ultimately cuts to the nub of the matter. Obama, a wartime president, pays the nation’s combat troops lip service, he doesn’t want to be a wartime president and is trying as hard as he can to avoid that reality. NYT offers unchallenged the Obama camp’s opinion that the fact that he was too young to be a draft-dodger helps him with the military.* The article quotes a Marine sergeant major suggesting Obama impressed the Marines at Camp Lejeune by acknowledging their achievements and sacrifices, which is interesting given that reporting at the time indicated his condescending, hypocritical approach got a tepid response. There’s also a hurtful LBJ comparison in there by AEI’s Thomas Donnelly, a reference to unremarked-upon escalation … and, if I may read a little more into it, the hope that he can make it all go away.
Gateway notices, as well. “It’s never about winning.”
Related, not so different, Breitbart at the Washington Times dreams of an American surge.
* Bob Owens at PJM put to rest the rumor that Obama didn’t register for Selective Service.
Topics: Afghanistan, Obama, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:25 am Comments (7) on Monday, March 23, 2009
7 Responses to “Victory In Sight!”
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March 23rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
I, for one, worry about using “victory” as an endpoint. I don’t think it’s possible, at least in the conventional sense, certainly not in the short term.
But why would the only alternative be withdrawal? Seems to me that it’s possible to keep a low-level presence in Afghanistan more or less indefinitely, playing whack-a-mole all the while.
So the goal would be to simply prevent the Taliban and their fellow travelers from establishing the security and freedom of action necessary to use the country as a safe haven staging area for major assaults against other countries.
March 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
So is his tougher-than-Iraq remark simply a self-serving I’ve-got-it-harder, or a lowering of the bar in expectation of the day when he’ll want to move on?
Both.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Obama, a wartime president, pays the nation’s combat troops lip service, he doesn’t want to be a wartime president and is trying as hard as he can to avoid that reality.
Seems to me, Obama is trying as hard as he can to avoid reality, period.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Obama never learned this valuable lesson; that when you rely on others for what you need, before you know it what you’re being provided has no value at all.
He, among others, speaks of exit strategies. In this they avoid a very real possibility, that we may never leave. That we have taken on the responsibility to maintain the peace in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. Having done so, we are obligated to maintain a permanent presence in that country, acting as arbiter and final court of appeal.
Again and again you’ll hear people claim that we can’t stay, that we have no right to stay. Consider this, we may instead have no right to leave.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Remind me again of how many decades we have had troops sitting on the DMZ. It was not outright victory in the conventional sense, but {so far} it has kept NK from going after Soutjh Korea and Japan. It might well be that we will be in Afghanistan with a limited force for just as many years.
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Seems to me we landed in Europe in June of 1944 and are still there. How come no one in the MSM is complaining about our forces being stuck in a “quagmire” in the Balkans? Clinton sent our folks into that mess in Europe’s own backyard, and here we are 14 years later STILL spending money on that outhouse of an area.
Afghamistan, like Iraq, is only one battlefield in what is, essentially, a world war by Islam on everyone who is NOT a Muslim. AQ already has prepped the next area in the Horn of Africa, and Indonesia and the PI are hotbeds of these skanks as well. Now we know that Hamas and Hezzbollah are also sending reps into South America and Central America to work with “revolutionary” groups there.
We will NEVER have a coherent policy until our government understands the SCOPE of this conflict, and accepts that the nature of the war is an attempt to destroy civilization and replace it with a 9th Century Caliphate. Worldwide.
March 24th, 2009 at 1:01 am
The primary reason for things bogging down in Afghanistan over the last few years is that too many of our allies are allies in name only and made promises and commitments on sending forces, and sent forces with less than zero value due to the many strings attached.
Not all our allies, but way too many of them, played this crap.
Then there’s the absolute idiocy of the ISAF 6 month rotating command structure, each country’s detachment of forces that are willing to actually fight and/or be of use, having their own AO, their own way of going about everything and almost no coordination between any of them at any time for any reason, ever.
All this craptastic appeasement given to nations only willing to provide, at most, token forces, minimal funding, and with sever lacking in logistics, with the US picking up the tab for all the slack, in money, manpower, equipment, transport, etc etc etc, but also expected to “mind its place” and let its “betters” run things or else be whined at for being a bully and have our “allies” start pouting and going about their usual pathetic passive aggressive backstabbing, sabotage crap.
And to all those who love to wallow in the doom and gloom pit, ask yourselves this.
Afghanistan is allowed to fall back into the hell hole it was in before. A few years later, there’s another 100K+ in jihadiscum trained up in the camps that are guaren-frikkin-teed to spring right back up in our retreat. These jihadiscum are again re-emboldened by the sure and unmistakable signs that yes, in fact, Westerners are weak, stupid, spineless idiots and can be defeated even just by making things go a bit slower than they’d like.
Now, where the ****ing hell do you think all those jihadiscum are gonna go to get their murder on? What do you think all those “muslim enclaves” and “no go zones” for non muslims and etc and so fort where created for during the ’90s, and early ‘00? Yep. That’s right. The earlier 100K+ of trained up jihadiscum that got sucked into and slaughtered in Iraq. They aint gonna make that mistake again. The hunting in the streets of Paris, Berlin, London and such places will be much more easy in the pickings.
So, weak sucks, keep running yer pie holes, and keep yer spines jellified, council self defeat and whine endlessly because things are hard. Help the enemy put an end to yourselves. It’s only right and just, according to the cult of cowardice.
PS. the rant part of the above is not aimed at anyone in particular, and expressly not aimed in any way at Jules or the regulars here, except maybe those regulars who are leftard trolls who always show up to speak for your enemy.