It’s clearly no longer as fashionable to be an Obama supporter as it was in 2008. But not only am I still an unabashed supporter, I have just as much HOPE that he will be re-elected as I had that he would be elected president in the first place. I sincerely believe he’s that much better (for the U.S. and the world) than any candidate the Republicans can possibly nominate to replace him.
Nevertheless, regular readers know that I have been equally unabashed in criticizing some of his policies – as I did just yesterday in a commentary pooh-poohing his specious claim about abiding by the War Powers Act in his march of folly into Libya.
Well, as much as it distresses me, I am constrained to register another criticism today. This one concerns the big show he’s making of his plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan – complete with a prime time address to the nation tonight to inform the American people about it.
But unless he announces the immediate (i.e., not phased) withdrawal of all 100,000 combat troops (i.e., not just the 70,000 he surged into the killing fields of this country in 2009), his plan will amount to little more than another political feint:
It seems more than a little disingenuous for him to declare that he will begin withdrawing troops in July 2011. After all, even if he does, it could still take years after that date to reduce the number of troops deployed there to today’s level … or lower.
(Obama escalates war…, The iPINIONS Journal, December 2, 2009)
Reports are that Obama will announce the withdrawal of 5,000 this summer and another 5,000 by the end of the year. But this is only making a joke out of the farce the war in Afghanistan has become. It has been a misguided, costly and unwinnable mess for years.
More to the point, just as it was in Vietnam, the presence of U.S. troops is only delaying the day of reckoning when local factions will fight it out among themselves for control of their own country. So the sooner the U.S. gets out of the way the better. Not to mention the lives and money an immediate withdrawal would save.
In any case, the war in Afghanistan today is more about Obama’s Faustian ambition (he doesn’t want to be the president who loses this unwinnable war) than about U.S. national security.
Incidentally, the notion that Obama should follow the advice of his generals is belied not just by the Constitution, but by modern technology as well. After all, as commander in chief, it is for him to give orders based on all information available and with supervening regard for “the big picture”. And this is not the 1960s when the president had to rely on generals in the field for that information. Today’s media and technology are such that everyone in the world knows, almost in real time, what is going on. And the futility of continuing this war effort – even with twice as many troops – is plain for all to see.
Therefore, Obama cannot hide behind the advice of his generals who, like those in Vietnam, only want more troops to fight their war no matter how clearly lost the cause. Instead, leadership requires him to order them to bring those troops home … NOW! He should leave only enough (around 5,000) to man a base from which Special Forces can launch the kind of operations that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.)
Meanwhile, the blood of every troop who has died (and will die) because he decided to escalate this war instead of ending it in 2009 is on his hands. No doubt this explains the lines now creasing his face and grey hairs now sprouting up all over his head.
More troops only mean more sitting ducks for Taliban fighters.
(“Without [or even with] more troops, failure in Afghanistan is likely”, The iPINIONS Journal, September 23, 2009)
According to a report today by CNN, in the seven years before Obama’s surge (from 2001-07) 570 American troops were killed. In the two years since his surge (from 2009-10) 970 were killed.
And, no matter what Obama says about amorphous successes, he can cite no development in Afghanistan on his watch that was worth this spike in casualties. Even worse, everybody knows that, given the terminally corrupt, fractious and ungovernable nature of this country, whatever success there might have been since 2001 will be rolled back with a vengeance by Taliban and al-Qaeda forces whenever U.S. troops finally leave. I warned him….
Related commentaries:
Obama escalates war…
failure in Afghanistan is likely…