Civil War on Daily Kos. Congressional opposition gathering forces, starting with Feingold and Grayson. The speech starts in five minutes. Obama is expected to announce withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011 following the “surge” – his spokespeoples’ words.
Republicans mostly silent right now, but I expect they’ll have it together to say something tonight.
So will Obama be FDR or Johnson? I’d really like to believe that 30 thousand troops can pull Afghanistan out of the 13th century, but I just don’t see it. No invasion of the country, from east or west, has managed to end in anything other than catastrophe. I guess Obama feels lucky. I doubt the 30 thousand troops nor rural Afghan citizens feel quite so lucky.
Addendum: Well, on my way home from Eureka I listened to the speech and then randomly selected AM stations to get the right wing talk spin. One guy, a host named “Mark” who airs on KOG 780, which comes out of Reno and can be heard in Sohum at night, called Obama a “demagogue.” Another avoided the topic altogether and instead spent the evening turning on Huckabee for pardoning the cop killer due to what they said was a bogus religious conversion. Others wove between the speech and other issues such as mammograms. The conservative talking points can be reduced to three points:
1. He waited too long to make the decision.
2. He’s not sending enough troops.
3. He shouldn’t set timelines for withdrawal
They also didn’t like Obama’s veiled criticisms of Bush re Iraq. And one guy I didn’t recognize actually criticized him for pushing the issue of defining victory according to specific goals as opposed to the total destruction of all organizations of terror.
Meanwhile, the left is split wide open. Conservatives can rightly ask those Obama supporters backing the plan whether they would have supported the same policy under Bush. They also rightly demand an admission that the “surge” in Iraq actually worked. One silver lining is that Obama did confirm the winding down of the Iraq war with the redeployment of all combat troops.
There will be some protests. Not as large as the initial Iraq war protests. Routine; almost obligatory.
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December 1, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Tom Sebourn
I wasn’t impressed with the speech. He did, however not go against the military commanders in the field. Bush did not do what the people on the ground wanted. Instead he went to Iraq. Why? Because he said he would in his biography before he became president.
Obama is going to do what he can to support the war mongers that can line the pockets of politicians or make them go away. He had a stoic look during the speech. Like a shark with dead eyes or something. I don’t think this is what Obama wanted to do, but it might have been the politically expedient thing to do.
If the Generals are right, he could have some sort of victory. The people that die between now and then would just be collateral. I hope Obama knows some reason for this that I don’t know, but I have hoped that before, only to be disappointed.
December 2, 2009 at 12:06 am
Anonymous
Glenn Beck had it right tonight. He pointed out that Lincoln was very unpopular because he fired all of his generals for incompetence, one after another. And then Beck said that Obama should follow Lincoln’s lead and listen to his generals. Should he listen to them before or after firing them for incompetence?
December 2, 2009 at 6:55 am
Zeno
Our military occupation of Afghanistan strengthens the cause of Islamic extremists, and thus does not make the US homeland any safer. While the justification is somewhat stronger than our invasion of Iraq, ultimately I don’t see either of our current wars as generating much incremental improvement in the safety of the US homeland.
Meanwhile the costs are mounting. First and foremost are the thousands of dead soldiers and civilians.
But we shouldn’t lose sight of the financial costs as well. The hundreds of billions of dollars that we have thrown down the toilet of Iraq and Afghanistan come at a very high opportunity cost:
– Crumbling US infrastructure that desperately needs billions of dollars of new investment, but that we cannot afford since we pour our money down the Iraq/Afghanistan drain.
– Millions of unemployed Americans who desperately need jobs from WPA-style stimulus that we are told we cannot afford.
– Millions of Americans lacking any sort of healthcare insurance, as we are told we cannot afford to care for our own people.
– Outdated and inefficient energy generation and transmission infrastructure overly dependent upon climate-destroying coal combustion, which we are told we cannot afford.
So now we are going to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan to 100,000, on top of the thousands in Iraq. Meanwhile our economy, our health, and our environment crumbles. I fundamentally question Obama’s judgment on this decision. It is time to pull the troops from BOTH Iraq and Afghanistan, and to start investing in the future of this country.
December 2, 2009 at 8:23 am
Dave
Zeno nailed it.
I’m not surprised to see that Obama couldn’t stop all the players that have been in place since we invaded Afghanistan. He caved in to reality.
The thought of the soldiers and innocent civilians that are going to die because of the politics involved makes me sick.
Tens years of senseless slaughter in Vietnam before we deserted the South Vietnamese government and scampered out of that mess.
It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see the slaughter in Afghanistan is going down the same road we took in Vietnam. No resolution. No victory of any kind. Just dead people sacrificed on the alters of ideology.
When will we learn?
December 2, 2009 at 8:25 am
Dave
Oops! That’s “altars” …I’ll go away now.
December 2, 2009 at 8:57 am
Eric Kirk
While I don’t disagree with you generally, I really do think that the anti-war movement needs to abandon some of the mantras, including the Vietnam comparisons. Afghanistan is not Vietnam. Neither is Iraq, which despite many dour predictions, including my own, appears to be winding down at least in terms of our involvement.
Obama is right that the violent opposition in Afghanistan is not broad-based the way Vietnam’s was, and the ground conditions are much different. And counter-insurgency strategies have evolved in both the military and non-military elements. And this is something the anti-war movement needs to come to terms with; the “surge” may in fact stabilize Afghanistan as a similar strategy appears to have stabilized Iraq. Not entirely defeated the insurgency, but stabilized it to the point where there is a self-sustaining republic.
Some in the anti-war movement are actually nervous about that prospect, because it sets bad precedents. What may have worked in Iraq, and what may actually work in Afghanistan, may not work somewhere else because just as counter-insurgency learns and evolves so does insurgency, and because ground conditions are different everywhere. And there is the basic philosophical question of the role of the US and other superpowers with regard to intra-national conflict, and specifically whether imperial designs are moral and practical even with the right causes and best of intentions.
But people will die violently in Afghanistan if we stay, and if we leave. As to which will result in more deaths, I can’t say. The carnage with the North Vietnamese takeover following the war was considerable, and some of the American anti-war movement turned viciously on people like Joan Baez just for pointing it out. It was even much worse in Cambodia; so bad in terms of millions of deaths, that I waver in terms of whether it would have been worse for us to move into Cambodia following the war in Vietnam. When Vietnam invaded in 1978, much of the Cambodians saw them as liberators; certainly the hundreds of thousands surviving in work/death camps. But obviously the Vietnamese government was not on the side of angels.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose Obama’s escalation, but we’re in the habit of comparing everything to Vietnam. To quote Samuel Goldwyn, “let’s have some new cliches.”
December 2, 2009 at 11:35 am
anon
LET;S SEE,BUSH AND CO WENT INTO AFGHANISTAN TO GET OSAMA,OSAMA GOT AWAY..THE TALIBAN WAS ON THE RUNNOW OBAMA HAS TO FINISH THEIR FU=-K UP..I DONT WANT TO BE IN HIS SHOES OH,AND BY THE WAY..THE TALIBAN IS KNOWN FOR KILLING WOMAN AND YOUNG GIRLS FOR WANTING AN EDUCATION .
December 2, 2009 at 11:43 am
Zeno
The issue of Vietnam as an analogy for Afghanistan cannot be dispensed with as easily as some might like. The analogy fails in many ways, such as the original purpose of the US invasion, the underlying conflicts within the country, and the nature of other stakeholders dragged into the conflict.
But … like Vietnam, our intervention in Afghanistan is premised on very heroic assumptions about the prospect of imposing something like a western-style democracy where no such institutions have existed. It is unrealistic in my opinion to think that after we leave, Afghanistan will have stable national democratic institutions. In my opinion the most likely outcome is that it will revert to either tribal enclaves or some sort of fundamentalist dictatorship after we leave. Thus I am not at all sanguine about the incremental benefit of our intervention from the standpoint of nation-building.
But perhaps we are really there to seek revenge and to establish a reputation for toughness with al Qaeda, as suggested by all the rhetoric about 9/11. Problem: Like Vietnam, Afghanistan has a very potent insurgency that is highly effective against conventional “outsider” invaders. Who is the civilian and who is the insurgent? The very act of taking the fight to the insurgents imposes collateral civilian harms that undermines the “hearts and minds” support for the US intervention (a la Vietnam) and strengthens the cause of the insurgents. Yes, al Qaeda also involves outsiders, but they are seen by many as protectors of Islam against American infidel invaders, as is the Taliban. In my opinion, the outside invader partnering with a corrupt and weak post-colonial puppet regime to fight a communist insurgency (Vietnam) of true-believer zealots is somewhat analogous to our current role in Afghanistan, where we are partnering with a corrupt and weak Karzai fighting an insurgency of Islamic fundamentalist true-believer zealots.
So yes, violence and death will occur in Afghanistan regardless of our role. But in my opinion we have to look at are role from the standpoint of our national interests. What benefits does the US derive from escalation, and do these benefits exceed the costs? In my opinion the answer to the latter is no.
December 2, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Matt
The reason we are in Afghanistan is the same reason we are in Iraq: we now flank Iran on both sides. None of this ever had anything to do with terrorists and “nation-building” – it’s always all been about oil and natural gas. Check out a map – we have Iran boxed in.
December 2, 2009 at 8:23 pm
sam
Matt nails it. Obama is just continuing the plan of PNAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Also,remember the axis of evil. A lot of people are making money on war and none of them or theirs will be fighting and dying while we slaughter innocent civilians in our quest for resources.
December 3, 2009 at 3:45 pm
El Pearl
Finally at the end of all this Matt & Sam got it correct. What’s it always about greed an the people that will do anything to make more money. Not caring who lives or dies.
December 3, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Eric Kirk
It’s the type of thing I might have said in my early 20s, but I think that’s a little cynical. It’s not always about the money. Some people really do legitimately look at the world differently and it’s not always necessary to assign evil motives to those who see it differently.
December 3, 2009 at 5:59 pm
sam
Eric, you seem a little naive. Is making money evil? Corporations exist to make money for stockholders. It’s evil when lies are told to achieve those profits. “Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said in an interview that the removal of Saddam Hussein had been “essential” to secure world oil supplies, a point he emphasized to the White House in private conversations before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Additionally, in his memoir, Mr. Greenspan writes: “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game War isn’t peace and all of you who want wars should have to fight them.
December 3, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Eric Kirk
I guess so. Or maybe we just need some new cliches.
Wake me up when someone on the left has an original thought. We’ve been sadly lacking in them for the past few decades.
December 3, 2009 at 8:49 pm
mresquan
Sometimes using common sense could be considered an original thought.
Common sense should tell that the surge won’t better anything,and common sense would tell one that you simply cannot compare Afghanistan with Vietnam due to amongst other things,the geographic differences…..the terrain and environment…..and their locations….and the political fallout….the internal strife within….the methods of defense…..
December 3, 2009 at 8:56 pm
sam
Eric, as usual, is unable to muster any facts to back up his arguments. Faced with reality, all he can to is try to insult in his effete, cowardly way.