Almost two years ago I wrote a commentary titled, “Obama Saluting War Dead Will Be Defining Image of His Presidency.” Nothing vindicates this commentary quite like the president feeling compelled to clear his schedule yesterday to be at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to salute the Navy Seals who were returning home from Afghanistan in body bags on Saturday.
This is why I am reprising the commentary I felt compelled to write on Saturday (August 6, at 10:32 pm) when I first heard news of this tragedy. For it is impossible to overstate what a strategic blunder it was for Obama to escalate this war two years ago or how critical it is for him to end it now.
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Al-Qaeda strikes back: the killing of Seal Team 6
I was just as happy as any critic of the war in Afghanistan could be when “Obama got Osama”. But even back then I felt constrained to temper the prevailing jingoistic triumphalism as follows:
There’s no denying the psychological boost this will give the war on terrorism. And the celebration this news prompted across the United States is understandable.
But, as victories go, this one is pyrrhic at best. After all, almost as many American lives were lost prosecuting this war as those that were lost on 9/11. What’s more, tens of thousands of innocents in Afghanistan and Pakistan were killed as collateral damage and over one trillion dollars were spent just to arrive at this point.
(Obama gets Osama, The iPINIONS Journal, May 3, 2011)
More to the point, killing Osama did nothing to change my informed view that, instead of escalating this war, Obama should have ended it:
Reports are that Obama has already made what he probably thinks is the Solomonic decision to send an additional 20 thousand troops to the killing fields of Afghanistan, giving his commanding general only half of the 40 thousand he requested.
Unfortunately, this means that troops are bound to be returning home in body bags throughout his entire presidency. Because, frankly, given the military quagmire Afghanistan has become, sending 20 (or even 40) thousand additional troops amounts to the proverbial tossing of a 50-foot life line to a man drowning 100 feet away….
(Picture of Obama saluting war dead the defining image of his presidency, The iPINIONS Journal, October 30, 2009)
Sadly, my foreboding view of this war came home to roost in spectacular fashion today when Taliban and al-Qaeda forces shot a U.S. helicopter from the sky over Afghanistan, killing 30 U.S. soldiers.
The nation should mourn the loss of any soldier. But there’s no denying the poignancy inherent in knowing that those killed in this attack were from the same elite Seal Team 6 that got bin Laden. Because the psychological blow this tragedy inflicts smacks so much of revenge for the psychological boost that triumph instilled. What’s more, there’s no denying this untenable juxtaposition:
It took the U.S. military 10 years to avenge the killing of 3,000 on 9/11 by killing bin Laden. It took the Taliban and al-Qaeda only 10 weeks to avenge the killing of bin Laden by killing these celebrated Navy Seals.
This tragic reversal of fortune will clearly undercut Obama’s telegraphed plans to exploit his daring order to get bin Laden during his reelection campaign. And, frankly, it’s silly to try to minimize the triumph this represents for al-Qaeda by spinning the notion that none of those killed were actually involved in the bin Laden raid.
What’s more, nothing vindicates my admonition quite like the fact that this episode represents the deadliest single day in this infernal 10-year war. And the fateful irony is not lost on me that this happened not on the watch of the war-mongering President George W. Bush, but on that of the putatively peacemaking President Barack Obama.
A further irony is that the shoulder-fired missile that was used to take down this helicopter is very likely a remnant from the stash the Americans supplied the Mujahedeen to help them take down Russian helicopters during Russia’s own ill-fated 10-year war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. In fact, it was such deadly missile attacks on helicopters that forced the Russians to finally turn tail and run – as was gleefully dramatized in Charlie Wilson’s War. This is why nobody can blame the Russians for expressing unbridled schadenfreude over this unfolding comeuppance for the Americans today.
But Obama does not even need to look to the Russians for an instructive precedent. For he could cite the precedent former President Bill Clinton set by beating a hasty retreat out of Somalia after rebels shot down a helicopter in the infamous Black Hawk Down incident. It was ignominious, but withdrawing troops soon thereafter spared the senseless loss of more lives and probably saved Clinton’s presidency. Not to mention the uncanny symmetry – with these tragic events occurring in the first term of a beleaguered presidency in both cases.
If all of this does not constitute a divine sign that Obama should declare victory and get the hell out of Afghanistan, then there is no God!
Related commentaries:
Obama gets Osama
Obama saluting war dead…