Last-Man-Mistake-Death Opportunity Knocks
Obama admin to GIs, Afghans: Just hang in a little longer, die more, while we figure out whether it’s worth it or not. It’s Kerrythink in action, as Obama, in extended dither, tries to engineer a mistake some poor bastard can be the last man to die for.*
OK, that’s not exactly how NYT put it:
WASHINGTON — The White House signaled Sunday that President Obama would postpone any decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan until the disputed election there had been settled and resulted in a government that could work with the United States.
As an audit of Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 election ground toward a conclusion, American officials pressed President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff vote or share power with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister. Although Mr. Karzai’s support appeared likely to fall below 50 percent in the final count, together he and Mr. Abdullah received 70 percent, in theory enough to forge a unity government with national credibility.
The question at the heart of the matter, said President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services that the Afghan people need?” He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
He echoed the thoughts of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a top Obama ally and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who said in a separate interview from Kabul, “I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces, or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today, without an adequate government in place.” His interview was broadcast on “Face the Nation.”
“It would be irresponsible,” Mr. Emanuel told CNN. Then he continued, paraphrasing the senator, that it would be reckless to decide on the troop level without first doing “a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing.”
The signals come as Republican critics already are complaining that the president is taking too long to decide whether to send the additional 40,000 troops requested by his commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. They argue that Mr. Obama has left the impression of indecisiveness that has only emboldened the Taliban, making the task of the 68,000 American troops already there that much harder.
Well, sometimes not making a decision is a decision. Not making a choice when you really have no choice is pretty much a forfeit, though. Imagine where we’d be in Iraq today if George Bush had dithered like this, maybe we will, maybe we won’t, while the Iraqi government went through its extended birth pains. Pretty much not in Iraq, I’d guess, but not in a good way, fighting a wretched rearguard action on the way out as Iran and al-Qaeda fought over the bloody leavings of the great Iraqi genocide of 2008. With every last one of our allies looking on, doing the mental calculus on which way to go now that the United States has shown itself to be utterly gutless and unreliable.
With no vote of US confidence in any elected outcome whatsoever, which way do you think Afghans will be voting? I’m guessing the Taliban gets a big vote of terrified deer-in-the-headlights resigned inevitability.
* Letting John Kerry do your geopolitical deepthink for you, always a bad idea. Gives his age-old question new life. How do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake? Kerry and the Obama admin appear to be working on the answer. First, you need a mistake …
No danger that ill-fated last man would ever be Kerry … it was three scratches and hasta la vista when he bailed on his own combat command 40 years ago, leaving his crew to do the fighting and dying while he scored national TV facetime disparaging their effort, helping ensure there was a mistake to die for. Meanwhile, they are still dying in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars he supported before he decided to commit his thankfully not-very-considerable efforts to making mistakes out of them. Unfortunately, it could be Kerry’s time again. So who wants to be the last man to die for this mistake?
It’s a rhetorical question. That man or woman who will be the last to die for Kerry’s and Obama’s mistakes has no choice at this point, but didn’t need to be asked or told. That man or woman volunteered and probably already has been deployed in defense of our nation, the free world, and the values that sustain us even on the far side of the world, in conflicts that are hard to understand, when the light isn’t even visible at the end of the tunnel. Tragic, to see that kind of commitment and sacrifice thrown away. Tragic, to ask them to die for nothing, when so many have shown themselves willing to die for something.
via Bloomberg, a mother of one of the lately fallen to the man who sent her son, USMC Cpl. Nick Xiarhos of Yarmouth., Mass, into combat in Afghanistan:
The commander-in-chief hugged a grieving mother, telling her to be proud of her fallen son, a Marine killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.
Lisa Xiarhos also had a message for President Barack Obama: “Be strong and get the job done,” she recalls telling him. “Don’t back down. Send more troops. Support the ones that are there and do whatever you can.”
Washington Times, with a little more on Kerry’s grand “First, Do Nothing” strategy and Rahm’s echo.
Washington Post with leading House Dem Ike Skelton and erstwhile Senate Dem Joe Lieberman advising Obama to heed the echo of his own words. “War of necessity.”
Neptunus Lex: “… high-mindedness with an escape clause.”
via Commentary, Bill Kristol on Fox on the nuts andbolts of engineering a failure:
” … if there was a failure, it was a failure [in conducting a fraud-free election], in part, by Richard Holbrooke and the Obama administration. And because they have failed in that, they’re not going to send the reinforcements necessary for our military. It’s ridiculous. The best way to have a decent, strong, political government there is to go and win the war, just as in Iraq. We’ll end up with a decent government if we send the troops and if we work diplomatically to try to push the forces there to compromise and to — and to — and to be more honest.”
FireDogLake: “Quitting makes sense when the going gets rough! Rahm it through!” OK, that’s not exactly how FDL put it. (What the heck is a FireDogLake, anyway? Sounds like … CrispyYappyFloater.)
via HotAir, looks like someone’s ready to commit troops: Pakistan pushes into South Waziristan. Bit of a waste of time, lives and money if there isn’t going to be anyone pushing back on the other end, though.
Captain’s Journal looks at the Go-Deep-Vs-Go-Big & Long paper by LTC Daniel Davis, finds it wanting. I have an idea. I have an idea. How about going Big and Deep, and see if we can make it less Long? Herschel Smith also goes house on the notion that an insurgency or a counterinsurgency will remain static during a drawdown.
Donald Douglas of American Power at FrontPageMagazine: When Defeat is the Answer.
Groundview roundups at Thunder Run and Mudville.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:53 am Comments (7) on Monday, October 19, 2009
7 Responses to “Last-Man-Mistake-Death Opportunity Knocks”
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October 19th, 2009 at 11:43 am
[...] Jules Crittenden makes a good point — if we’re not pushing back with more troops on the other side of [...]
October 19th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
American Power tracked-back with, ‘Democrats Dither on Afghanistan Troop Surge’.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
[...] Via Crittenden. [...]
October 19th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
FireDog Lake: Sounds awfully smelly, in a soggy, burnt sorta way.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
A better name for FireDogLake would have been DogHumpsAir.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
that President Obama would postpone any decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan until the disputed election there had been settled and resulted in a government that could work with the United States.
You don’t suppose the Waffler-in-Chief is trying to wait until after the 2010 election results, do you?
Firedoglake = Sulfurstickscaninepuddle.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
To clarify, my post distinguished between the Afghan elections and our upcoming American elections, which I hope will be a fire-Congress shot across the bow.