Sam Stein had the opportunity to hear Said Jawad, who's been Afghanistan's ambassador to the USA since 2003, talk about the national security situation and reports that while Jawad avoided any specific mention of Barack Obama or John McCain, he broadly endorsed what Obama has been saying about Afghanistan. It seems, in short, that both Iraqi and Afghan leaders agree that Obama is right and Bush is wrong about the need to rebalance away from Iraq and toward Afghanistan.
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Afghans for Obama
30 Jul 2008 05:31 pm
Comments (33)
The day we let an Afghan tell us how to run Afghanistan...!
It seems, in short, that both Iraqi and Afghan leaders agree that Obama is right and Bush is wrong about the need to rebalance away from Iraq and toward Afghanistan.
So, Matthew Yglesias -- Harvard educated smarty pants with funny, Latinate name who happens to be Jewi ... er, a Secular Cultural Elitist -- are you saying that secret Muslim Barak Hussein Obama is in agreement with leaders of Muslim countries? Doesn't that confirm how dangerous Barak Hussein Obama is?
( / Jim Bob Murkin )
Meanwhile, everybody with a brain is saying Obama is wrong about Afghanistan, i.e., that more troops will solve nothing and merely turn Afghanistan into Iraq.
Obama and the Taliban
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JG30Df02.html
Among its many goals, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's historic July 24 speech in Berlin sought to demonstrate the senator's command of the world stage, particularly with regard to creating a united front with Europe against global terrorism. Given the largely positive reception it has received, he likely achieved this goal.But beneath the lofty rhetoric, Obama's strategy for prosecuting the "war on terror" is based on questionable, and potentially flawed premises - one shared with his Republican opponent Senator John McCain - which would likely impede the ability of either administration to achieve "victory" against Muslim extremism.
The linkage between al-Qaeda and the Taliban has been made so often since 2001 that the terms have become almost interchangeable, as if they represent the same overall movement or phenomenon. Indeed, the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 through 2001 harbored and supported Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, enabling the attacks of September 11, 2001.
But their cooperation then (and now) does not mean they can be fought along similar lines. Obama's close association of the two groups, which mirrors George W Bush administration policy, simplifies a far more complex reality, against which a strategy based primarily on force and violence will likely fail.
In this context, it is troubling that Obama, and most of the US foreign policy establishment with him, chooses to describe the Taliban as if it were a clearly defined, purely terrorist organization with little support among Afghans, which can be targeted and fought with a fair degree of confidence by US, and Obama hopes, increasingly European forces.
Such a view, which has also been applied to Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, is equally inaccurate in all three cases. This lack of understanding helps explain why all three movements have remained so difficult to defeat by far superior military forces.
If the United States and its allies are to continue the war against the Taliban well into the next decade (or at least administration), it would behoove Obama, and his Republican counterpart, to explain exactly who are the "Taliban" they plan to fight even more fiercely than before. Is there a hierarchical structure with a clear leadership and chain of command that can be identified and targeted? Is every religiously conservative Pashtun who is fighting against the US occupation a "Taliban" and therefore a legitimate military target"? What about the far larger number of Afghans who merely support them; are they "enemy combatants"? Are the 78 Afghan civilians killed during the month of July acceptable "collateral damage" in such a fight?
As important, does the US and its allies have the right according to the United Nations Charter and international law to capture, detain and even kill Afghans merely because they are suspected of subscribing to political or religious beliefs that resemble those of the Taliban, or even have fought with them?
These questions might seem pedantic given the commonly perceived urgency of fighting Islamic extremism. But if we consider that (according to the UN) as many as 90% of American detainees have never been involved in anything resembling terrorist activity, the importance of such questions becomes apparent. Moreover, the same slipshod logic that has governed American detention policies has also governed the use of torture, secret renditions and other policies that clearly violate internationally recognized standards of human rights and justice, and in so doing further frustrate the successful prosecution of the "war against terror".
It is equally hard to imagine how the military and civilian strategists planning the ongoing war can design appropriate policies for dealing with the root causes of the continued popularity of the Taliban without being able to answer these fundamental questions accurately.
The good news is that while we may not know exactly who is part of the Taliban, we do have a fairly good idea of what motivates the continuous stream of new recruits to its ranks. The British-based research group the Senlis Council released a report last month based on extensive research in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, which argued that frustration with war and unemployment was underpinning the insurgency against Western forces [1].
Similarly, The International Crisis Group's just published report on Taliban propaganda [2], argues that the movement is a local product of the anti-Soviet jihad and the civil war that followed, and linked to transnational extremist groups for "mostly tactical rather than strategic reasons but divided over these links internally". It both lacks a coherent agenda, and survives by exploiting local tribal disputes.
In other words, addressing core economic development and political needs of the majority of Afghans, and their brethren across the Pakistani border, would go a long way towards "draining the swamp" that feeds the malaria of religious extremism. But such a political reclamation process will not succeed as long as America's leaders don't understand the basic, if harsh, rationality underlying the continued salience of the Taliban message: that the movement will remain rooted in Afghan society, and therefore impossible to defeat, unless and until the large-scale poverty, inequality, corruption and other endemic societal problems are addressed by the international community and the Afghan leadership.
Obama's War?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13218
"We have to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in," says Barack Obama of the U.S. war in Iraq. Wise counsel.
But is Barack taking his own advice? For he pledges to shift two U.S. combat brigades, 10,000 troops, out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, raising American forces in that country from 33,000 to 43,000.
Why does Barack think a surge of 10,000 troops will succeed in winning a war in which we have failed to prevail after seven years of fighting? How many more troops is he prepared to commit? Is the Obama commitment open-ended?
For, without any visible strategy for victory, Barack is recommending the same course LBJ took after the death of JFK. Johnson bombed North Vietnam in 1964, landed Marines in 1965 and built U.S. forces from 16,000 advisers on Nov. 22, 1963, to 525,000 troops in January of 1969.
Gradual escalation, which is exactly what Barack is recommending.
LBJ never thought through to the end game: how to break Hanoi, withdraw and leave a South peaceful, prosperous and pro-American.
Has Barack thought his way through to how this war ends in victory and we withdraw all U.S. ground troops from Afghanistan? For this writer cannot see anywhere on the horizon any such ending.
If the old rule applies – the guerrilla wins if he does not lose – the United States, about to enter its eighth year of combat, is losing. And, using the old 10-to-one ratio of regular troops needed to defeat guerrillas, if the Taliban can recruit 1,000 new fighters, they can see Obama's two-brigade bet, and raise him. Just as Uncle Ho raised LBJ again and again.
What does President Obama do then? Send in 10,000 more?
The Soviet Union, whose 115,000-man army in Afghanistan reached more than twice the size of U.S.-NATO forces, even with the Obama surge, went home defeated in 1988. The Soviet Empire did not survive that humiliation.
Obama – and John McCain, who has endorsed the build-up – should, before committing any more combat brigades, explain how and when this war ends in an American victory. For as of today, the Afghan war resembles Vietnam far more than Iraq ever did.
Consider. Taliban attacks are up 40 percent this year. U.S. casualties in May and June exceeded those in Iraq. Gen. Petraeus says al-Qaeda is moving assets from Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Karzai's writ still does not extend beyond the capital. He is mocked as the "Mayor of Kabul." Security in the capital is deteriorating.
For the sixth straight year, the poppy crop, primary source of the world's heroin, has set a new record. The Taliban eradicated the crop when in power, but are now collaborating with farmers to extort cash to keep fighting.
Most critically, Pakistan has become for the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda the same sanctuary that North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia provided for the Viet Cong and NVA, with this critical difference: We cannot bomb or invade Pakistan.
The new Islamabad regime is exhibiting no enthusiasm for fighting the Taliban who dominate the border regions and North-West Frontier province and have sympathizers in Pakistan's military and intelligences agencies.
Air strikes, to which we have begun to resort, have resulted in wedding parties and families wiped out in their homes on both sides of the border. President Musharraf has even threatened to retaliate against U.S. forces if more of his people become victims.
Anti-Americanism, pandemic in Pakistan, is rising.
As for Afghanistan, how do we win a war in a nation of 27 million, the size of Texas, with only 50,000 U.S.-NATO troops? How long will it take us to train, equip and arm an Afghan army that is both loyal to the regime and an effective fighting force against its Pashtun brothers?
How, ever, can victory be achieved, if the enemy can retire every winter to Pakistan to rest, rearm and prepare new attacks?
If the Pakistani army will not clean out the border regions, how can we accomplish it with pinprick strikes by Special Forces, or Predators and F-16s, which invariably cause civilian casualties?
Afghanistan, in and of itself, is of no strategic importance, if it is not a base camp for al-Qaeda. Loss of Pakistan to Islamism, however, a nation of 170 million Muslims with atomic bombs, would be a calamity for the Near East and United States.
Under the (Colin) Powell Doctrine for fighting wars, questions must be asked and answered affirmatively before committing U.S. troops:
Is a vital U.S. interest imperiled here? Do we have a defined and attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully weighed? Is there an exit strategy? Is the war supported by a united nation?
How many of these questions did Obama ask himself before pledging 10,000 more U.S combat troops to what will surely become, should he win, "Obama's war" even as Iraq has become "Bush's war"?
I agree that before it becomes established as a talking point nostrum among certain liberal hawks that sending more troops to Afghanistan will improve the situation that an argument to that effect be made and compared with counterarguments. At this stage, it seems to me mostly a political stance, though one which is backed quite strongly by people considered to be experts, so it's not out of the blue.
Iraq was the winnable war, and it is being won (remember a few months ago when Yglesias was claiming that Sadr had "checkmated" Maliki?). The current enterprise in Afghanistan -- trying to create a stable, modern country there, while co-ethnic trouble makers can operate from Pakistan with impunity -- was never winnable. After helping the Northern Alliance depose the Taliban, whe should have simply let them run the country. Adding more troops to the strategic backwater of Afghanistan is pointless. We should just pick the least objectionable tribe, back them with air power and money, and be done with it. Add another 100k U.S. troops to the mix and you'll see casualties like we had in Iraq circa 2004.
Fred is exactly right.
For what it's worth, the majority of Americans polled by Gallup (July 30) now agree:
"PRINCETON, NJ -- By a slim margin, Americans say the war in Afghanistan is more important for the United States than is the conflict in Iraq by a margin of 44% to 38%. This question was asked for the first time in the July 25-27 USA Today/Gallup poll, so there is no historical record of changes over time -- if any -- in the public's views of the relative importance of these two wars.
President George W. Bush in essence began both wars, sending U.S. troops into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, and into Iraq in March 2003. Faced with this choice between the two, however, Republicans tilt toward saying the Iraq conflict is more important. Independents and Democrats say the Afghan war is more important."
59% favor more troops in Afghanistan. 57% say the troops should be moved from Iraq to Afghanistan.
He got every candidate to emerge from Iowa talking about change, had the Iraqi government and then Bush and then McCain endorsing his ideas on Iraq, Bush and Rice implicitly endorsed his negotiate-with-Iran plank by opening negotiations with Iran, and now Afghanistan is endorsing his plans for them....
Pretty effective. (No, McCain, that doesn't mean he's been in charge of gas prices for the past 6 months. Nice try, though.)
Good thing Obama wasn't effective in his original plan of abandoning Iraq by March, 2008.
As for negotiating with Iran, look how much good that has done. The EU-3 have been negotiating with Iran for years, with our involvement, to no avail. Sending a senior U.S. diplomat along to listen last time didn't accomplish anything either. If we want the Iranians to stop enriching uranium, and the Iranians don't want to stop enriching uranium, what's there to talk about? The Iranians have already been offered enriched uranium for their reactors from Russia, as part of deal where the Russians would collect the spent uranium. That would satisfy the Iranians' nuclear energy needs, but they don't want that deal. They want to be able to enrich uranium on their own, so they will have the capability to build nukes.
The Iranians have kept enriching uranium for years while the EU-3 negotiated with them, and they'll do the same thing with Obama if he gets elected president and persists in turning his debate gaffe into actual foreign policy. The Iranians would turn Obama into a second Carter: weak and ineffectual.
It's all well and good to posture "tough" in Afghanistan while downsizing the US military commitment in Iraq, but if Obama really believes that Afghanistan is more important than Iraq it's the first evidence of real irrationality on his part I've seen.
Al Qaeda is not "the Taliban", who are for all practical purposes "the Pashtuns". There are over forty million of them on both sides of the Afghan/Pak border, and simply replicating the Soviet tactics of throwing more combat troops into the Hindu Kush is likely to produce similar results--more US casualties, more civilian deaths, and more likelihood that the Taliban will merge with Pashtun nationalism to the great detriment of all involved.
Iraq, on the other hand, represents vital US interests on a number of levels. Will Obama "take his eyes off the ball"?
Obama: Hope for a Better World
An open letter to people of the United States
As Afghans have been victims of terrorism and extremism for more than twenty years, we better understand the pain caused by 9/11 attacks. That is why, Afghans were united and determined to join "War on Terror" led by the United States in order to fight the common enemy, i.e. terrorism.
The main goal of "War on Terror" is to safeguard the world from atrocious acts that destabilize and intimidate, but this has not yet happened. In recent years Al-Qaida and the Taliban have re-organized and gained power, implementing more terror and the fanaticism that drives it. In Afghanistan, warlords enable international terrorism by creating obstacles as we strive towards democratic governance and social reforms.
Terrorists enjoy the safe haven in Pakistan. President Bush and his team have not yet invested in a war so it will be won. As it is presently being fought, the US Army is fighting a war that perpetuates the enemy in a seasonal cycle of attacks and losses; the strategy isn't designed for victory but merely not to lose. Eventually as history has shown time and again in Afghanistan, the international effort will diminish and eventually be lost. There is no other way of saying that your soldiers lives and taxes are being wasted for currently decreasing chances of success. The lack of an effective strategy to overcome terrorism and stabilize the region is a prime reason for the continued chaos.
If the US really wants a major change; if you realize we share the pain you felt on 9/11 with attacks most every day; if you want your government to invest in a war to be won; and if you are certain that the world needs peace, then please support Senator Obama in his fight for "Change".
You can change the lives of millions of people; you can bring us all peace and development; and you can give us the right to live by intelligently exercising your right to vote.
Thank you
Khalil ROMAN
&
Ajmal Obaid ABIDY
Founders
Network of Afghans for Obama
Kabul-Afghanistan
Khroman2003@yahoo.com
P. S. Please forward it to as many Americans as you can.
Fred is completely incorrect on Iran.
Anybody who thinks Iran can trust the West - or even Russia - to supply its nuclear energy program with the fuel is an idiot. Iran KNOWS it cannot trust the West on this, because it was screwed for DECADES in attempting to restart its energy program by the West meddling with Iran's suppliers. This is WHY Iran went onto the black market for its requirements.
A number of countries have mastered the fuel cycle and thus have the potential capability of building nuclear weapons and Iran has every right to be one of them.
Second, that "senior diplomat" who was sent to the last meeting was under orders NOT TO DO ANYTHING. There WAS NO "diplomacy" by the US at that meeting whatsoever. In fact, the Israelis are saying that it was basically just a cover to justify the upcoming attack on Iran by saying "we tried diplomacy". The Israelis have that right.
Scott Ritter agrees:
Acts of War
by Scott Ritter
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080729_acts_of_war/
A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3 diplomat in the State Department.
I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself, was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification, to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.
Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s mandate in Iran.
Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).
The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F. Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation, opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of aggression.
Sending more troops or "focusing" on Afghanistan will in itself not change a thing - it's all about what they actually do there and how they do it. Apparently they're doing the wrong thing - hunting "terrorists" instead of curbing the drug trade and government corruption.
It's sort of interesting that our ritual moralizer takes it for granted that removing U.S. troops from Iraq would be "taking [our] eyes off the ball". Perhaps, rather, it's noticing the ball.
It would be interesting to see the reactions of the antiwar left if Obama gets elected and then proceeds to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The hardcore left, if you recall, was against the war in Afghanistan initially, but has largely ignored that war since, since it has been overshadowed by the war in Iraq. An anecdote that illustrates this: last winter, I was accosted by a middle aged woman on the Upper West Side who was handing out flyers to promote an antiwar rally. I asked her which war she was opposing, and she shot me an exasperated look and said, "Iraq, of course!". So I asked her what her opinion was of the war in Afghanistan. "I'm talking about the war in Iraq!", was her only response. In a way, it's not surprising that this aging lefty's focus was solely on Iraq: after all, it was the elephant in the room.
If a President Obama makes Afghanistan the elephant in the room, you'll see how quickly the antiwar left will turn against him.
It might indeed be "interesting" to see how the anti-war left might disagree with Obama if he carries out an escalation in Afghanistan -- but it wouldn't be surprising at all.
Similarly, it was neither shocking nor unanticipated that there was heated dissent against Obama's vote for the 'FISA' bill.
That many anti-war leftists might both prefer Obama to McCain and oppose any hawkish policies he might advocate or command.
Or is this just an excuse to say, basically, 'Where's yer messiah now, huh?'
I think you're right, Fred. The "hardcore anti-war left" would indeed be angry at Obama.
And then YOU will see exactly how small a fraction of the left that actually is, when 90%+ of anti-Iraq-War Democrats shout "Woo-hoo!" as the two brigades go to Afghanistan. Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination while talking about increasing troops in Afghanistan and striking into Pakistan, remember? His closest competitors were Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson, all of whom also ran on refocusing on Afghanistan. The two candidates who opposed that, Kucinich and Gravel, got crushed.
"He took his eye off the ball" and "Where's Osama?" and "Remember Tora Bora" and "Afghanistan, not Iraq, is the central fight against al Qaeda" have been central planks in the Democratic foreign policy critique for, what, six years now? And yet, people like Fred continue to pretend that the necessity of fighting in Afghansitan is a controversial issue among Democrats.
I think it stems from the fact that Fred's own party habitually lies about its foreign policy intentions, so he assumes that the Democrats work the same way.
Listen, I remember the initial opposition to the war in Afghanistan -- there were antiwar rallies in New York, for example, before the war even started. Remember also that a significant number of Democrats initially supported the war in Iraq (as did the majority of Americans). No one was saying "Woo-hoo!" as the war dragged on. Are you expecting a quick victory in Afghanistan with the addition of more troops (are you even aware that there is a record number of U.S. and NATO troops there now)? How, exactly, would you define victory there?
Are you expecting a quick victory in Afghanistan with the addition of more troops (are you even aware that there is a record number of U.S. and NATO troops there now)? How, exactly, would you define victory there?
Posted by Fred
If you wanted my guess, I would have to say that once implemented, such an escalation would require none of the freakishly dogged hawk pressure to stay there as we witnessed in Iraq.
As to whether or not a 'quick victory' is expected, I would say that none of the high-placed advisers expect a quick 'total' victory, but will carefully craft a set of goals based on what they think likely to be achieved.
A Democratic leadership would be therefore likely to play the same statistical games in claiming important victories that the war fetishists have done in Iraq (hey! we've gotten the violence back down to what it was 3 years ago! yay!), and not give much of a damn (as the hawks didn't with regard to Iraq) if those 'gains' are true & good enough and everything that was needed.
And my guess would be that a lot of Democratic-leaning voters wouldn't fear that Obama would feel forced to keep the troops in Afghanistan forever. So I think there might be lower levels of anxiety.
Fred,
there were antiwar rallies in New York, for example, before the war even started. Very tiny ones, compared to the tens- and hundreds-of-thousands that turned out for the rallies against the Iraq War.
Remember also that a significant number of Democrats initially supported the war in Iraq (as did the majority of Americans). No one was saying "Woo-hoo!" as the war dragged on. You're right, support for the Iraq War collapsed. Notably, support for the Afghan War did not, despite the fact that is has been going on longer.
Are you expecting a quick victory in Afghanistan with the addition of more troops (are you even aware that there is a record number of U.S. and NATO troops there now)? No, as Wesley Clark lays out well in his books, we don't fight wars with "We captured the capital, we win, let's go home" anymore.
How, exactly, would you define victory there? Osama's head on a pike on the White House lawn. No safe havens for al Qaeda. The Taliban out of power. You know, the stuff George Bush told us was the purpose of this war when he began it. I want that.
"Notably, support for the Afghan War did not, despite the fact that is has been going on longer."
Because it was overshadowed by the Iraq War. Wait until it gets center stage.
"Osama's head on a pike on the White House lawn. No safe havens for al Qaeda. The Taliban out of power."
The Taliban's out of power, and neither Al Qaeda nor Osama have a safe haven in Afghanistan. They may well have one in the tribal areas of Pakistan. But Obama did say he would consider invading Pakistan, didn't he? Was that just a gaffe, or a gaffe that becomes policy?
"Notably, support for the Afghan War did not, despite the fact that is has been going on longer."
Because it was overshadowed by the Iraq War. Wait until it gets center stage.
"Osama's head on a pike on the White House lawn. No safe havens for al Qaeda. The Taliban out of power."
The Taliban's out of power, and neither Al Qaeda nor Osama have a safe haven in Afghanistan. They may well have one in the tribal areas of Pakistan. But Obama did say he would consider invading Pakistan, didn't he? Was that just a gaffe, or a gaffe that becomes policy?
The Taliban may be out of centralized power in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is not a nation under central authority. It isn't, and no one serious seems to be pretending it is. That's how the Taliban seized power the first time. That's probably what types who mention the Taliban are mentioning, rather than circa 2003 talking points.
I'm not saying I foresee an imminent Taliban takeover, but I can certainly see that if you use the loose standards used to celebrate the surge, then you can similarly argue that the Taliban are positioning themselves to retake much of Afghanistan.
So, for example, you see reports such as
Al-Qaeda hails 'revival' in Afghanistan
By Michael ScheuerPakistan's GEO News TV correspondent Najeeb Ahmed interviewed al-Qaeda's operations commander in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu-al-Yazid (aka Shaykh Sa'id), at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan on July 21.
Abu-Yazid's performance was a strongly confident one, notable for its contrast with the grim presentation he made in March regarding the status of the Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan.
Abu-Yazid, a native of Egypt, once again emphasized al-Qaeda's lessons-learned capability - this in regard to excessive Muslim casualties in attacks by al-Qaeda and its allies - and described the increasingly positive situation the mujahideen face in Afghanistan.
Other media reporting shows Abu-Yazid's optimism is understandable: both the growing numbers of non-Afghan Muslim fighters entering Afghanistan and the July 25-26 terrorist strikes in India - which will increase Pakistan-India tensions - contribute to the insurgency's brightening prospects...
...Abu-Yazid's optimism is another signal of the ongoing revitalization of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, an insurgency now grown to the point, in size and geographic dispersion, that the two additional US brigades promised by presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain are likely to make little or no difference.
The Afghan situation, moreover, is certain to get worse before additional US or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops arrive because of the growing anger of Pakistanis over US air strikes in the FATA and the growing unity and anti-US/NATO attitudes being fomented among the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by those air attacks.
Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror; his most recent book is Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Dr Scheuer is a senior fellow with The Jamestown Foundation.
Again, I haven't seen a good, thorough argument that more U.S. troops would improve rather than not affect or worsen the situation, or whether other options would be better, but then I guess I have higher standards than most warhawks, especially of the Iraq war variety, in that I feel there ought to actually be some sort of rationally evaluable argument.
Because it was overshadowed by the Iraq War. Wait until it gets center stage.
Translation: I'm pulling things out of mid-air, for which there is no evidence. The problem with attributing the swing of public opinion against the Iraq War to "war fatigue" is that it ignores two important points: first, the Iraq War was controversial from the beginning, with less than 50% support on the eve of war. Second, there was that whole "complete discrediting of the given rationale for the war" thing. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was not controversial outside of a small fringe, and the cassus belli that led the public to support it isn't imaginary.
You're assuming that the public turned against the Iraq War just because it went on for several years. I don't think that's true.
The Taliban's out of power, and neither Al Qaeda nor Osama have a safe haven in Afghanistan. For now, but the Taliban remains a strong force in the field, and they are still working with al Qaeda, and can be counted on to give them safe harbor if they regain control of the country. We're holding and consolidating our gains, and fighting off the enemy's counterattack, still.
But Obama did say he would consider invading Pakistan, didn't he? No, he said he's consider striking into Afghanistan if there was actionable intelligence of top al Qaeda personnel and the Pakistanis wouldn't act. If you now put together an argument that relies on pretending not to understand how this is different from what we did in Iraq, I'm going to point at you, laugh, and remind you that you understood the difference just fine in 2001, when you were contrasting what Bush did in Afghanistan to Bill Clinton's "pinprick cruise missle strikes."
Was that just a gaffe, or a gaffe that becomes policy? Policy. One I, and most Democrats, and most Republicans, and most Independents, heartily support. Also, one he made quite clear during the primary, took some flack over, prevailed anyway.
Elaborate fairy tales that postulate "malefactors of great wealth", mysterious cabals of cosmopolitans, and Freudian diagnosis-by-television of important world leaders, combined with a distortion, if not complete absence, of actual history and facts, doesn't add up to "some sort of rationally evaluable argument", and that's pretty much what's been on offer by the folks who have been doggedly banging on for years that we'd be better off with Saddam Hussein in the Persian Gulf driver's seat.
"The Taliban" can't be eliminated without repressing the Pashtuns, of whom there are about half-again more than the entire population of Iraq, including all its ethnic groups and the Iraqi diaspora. Moreover, the terrain is far more unfavorable, there's more of it, and it includes an international border with a nuclear state of 165 million that doesn't want us operating there. Anyone who thinks a couple of brigades are going to make any difference in this situation are either idiots or liars.
We can support Afghanistan's development most effectively by buying up the opium crop and donating it to the WHO (the UN agency, not the band). Aid to development, training and logistical support for their military, etc. are good. A major military escalation is bordering on madness.
And to think that, for a second, I feared that one of the Iraq war hawks wouldn't show up and immediately model my suggestion that their loose standards of argument couldn't be used by anyone wishing to similarly advocate for an Afghanistan "surge".
My appreciation for Robert Powell once again.
More certainty from the Iraq hawk brigade that everybody except them are wrong about security policy.
Mr. Powell, I'll file your opinion right between "greeted with flowers" and "last throes."
Glad to be of service, Cid, and file away, joe.
Loose standards of argument are where you find them. What's important is being able to identify them when they show up, geography notwithstanding.
I'm confident that any application of objective standards will demonstrate the difference between the relative geostrategic importance of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Powell is actually correct about Afghanistan.
Which probably means Powell works for an oil company which cares about Iraq and not about Afghanistan (despite the oil pipeline being constructed there - Powell's company must not be involved in that project.)
In other words, Powell's euphemisms about "geo-strategic importance" merely means, "We want the oil."
A Democratic leadership would be therefore likely to play the same statistical games in claiming important victories that the war fetishists have done in Iraq (hey! we've gotten the violence back down to what it was 3 years ago! yay!)
Statistical Games?
Casualties.................July '05......July '08
Iraqi Civilians:................304............97
Iraqi Security Forces:.....518...........305
U.S. Troops:................. 54.............13
Where the hell did you get that, Fred?
Casualties mean injuries. Swear to god, I haven't touched google or anything else but I know damn well that's beyond wrong. I don't need to. I get the DOD press releases as a feed.
I'd like to know where Fred got those numbers too. I'm assuming he's talking about fatal casualties.
In terms of "we want the oil", by now even residents of the darkest nutbag echo chamber should know that "we" means the entire civilized world. Oil is the lifeblood of the world economy, whether or not we wish this to be true. With Iraq on line and producing up to its capacity, we've got a chance to bridge to alternative energy sources without having to go through a half-century of wars, anarchy, and economic collapse on a global scale.
Where I live, that's pretty much the definition of "geo-strategic importance".
Comments closed August 13, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Yglesias! No comment on the Artest trade? What's up with that?
Posted by socctty | July 30, 2008 5:46 PM