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Do Obama Officials Know What his Afghanistan Plan Is?
On the vital question of whether Obama is committed to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July, 2011 -- or whether that's just an aspirational target subject to being moved -- the statements from key administration officials aren't merely in tension with one another, but are exact opposites:
Agence France-Press, yesterday:
President Barack Obama's administration said that a July 2011 target date to begin withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan was not set in stone. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and the top uniformed US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, sought to sell the new approach under fire from Obama's hawkish Republican foes.
During hours of questioning by two key committees, they made clear that his target date of starting a US troop withdrawal in 19 months' time -- a step some anti-escalation lawmakers, especially Democrats, had cheered -- could slip.
"I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving," said Clinton, who added the goal was "to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan."
Gates said the extra troops Obama had ordered to Afghanistan would be in place in July 2010, that a December 2010 review of the war effort would shape the pace of the withdrawal, and that the target date could change.
I asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs if senators were incorrect calling the date a "target."
After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in -- there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.
What could possibly explain a contradiction this extreme with regard to a question so central to the policy Obama just announced? How can you have the Defense Secretary and the Secretary of State testifying in front of the Senate that the July, 2011 date is "not set in stone," that they "have not locked oursleves into leaving," and that "the target date could change," while the President is saying exactly the opposite: that "it IS locked in - there is no flexibility" and "it's etched in stone"?
Is it remotely possible that the months of extremely careful, cerebral, thoughtful deliberations produced complete ambiguity on this central point, or is it that Obama's plan is designed to be sufficiently ambiguous so that nobody knows what it actually entails and everyone can therefore be told that it means what they want it to mean? And which is worse?
* * * * *
UPDATE: Here is the MSNBC segment I did this morning:
- Posted in
31 Comments so far
Show AllOr it could mean that the moon is made with green cheese or the man from
Mars just landed or… For the only way to know what our darling government
is going to do next is wait until after the fact.
Surely, for a full 100% of words coming out of government and mass media
are brainwash darkness, the maximum confusion and terror to keep us in
fearful submission to authority and locked in darkness.
When The Sun King went to West Point for his daily exercise in the eloquence of horse manure, he could have read out of a Betty Crocker cookbook or The Teachings of Don Juan. It would not have a bit of difference. There is no plan for Afghanistan except to occupy it forever and Kabul finally looks like any crackerjack suburb of the United States. I hold no brief for the murdering fraternity brothers, medieval thugs and fevered religious fanatics who comprise the insurgency. They are, however, about to deliver The Sun King a heavy whack on the back of the head that will blow all that lying, overbearing and egotistical snot out of his nose.
Mordechai 3:47 ------ Think about it.
Foreign troops are occupying a nation.
They are supporting a government partly composed of some of the worst criminals in any nations history.
In general the Afghan consider many of the USA supported warlords to be worse than the Talibs.
Do still wish to characterize all the resistance fighters (USA speak insurgency)as you did.
Or have you realized that some are ordinary citizens reacting to repression, slaughter,abuse and exploitation.
Put yourself in their shoes.
Former British ambassador Craig Murray tells us what the mission is in this quote:"Karzai comes directly from the Bush camp and was put in place because of his role with Unocal in developing the Trans Afghanistan Gas Pipeline project. That remains a chief strategic goal. The Asian Development Bank has agreed finance to start construction in Spring 2011. It is of course a total coincidence that 30,000 extra US troops will arrive six months before, and that the US (as opposed to other NATO forces) deployment area corresponds with the pipeline route."
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/12/obama_is_wrong.html
That pipeline had better be underground or it will be blown to bits in no time flat.
Gates and Clinton should be cited for insubordination. What kind of a mess is it that has the president giving one set of facts and Gates and Clinton giving the other? We are going the "win" a war this way? Good luck.
Anyone who thinks the US and NATO will be leaving just as the mission gets started has deluded himself. Occupiers never leave unless they are driven out, which is the Taliban's own mission.
Are there no shovels in Afghanistan?
THOUGHT CONTROL ---- WHAT IS THE DESIRED EFFECT?
Empire USA is hidden behind a corporate media smoke screen,
an unending barrage of thought control designed to blind
our minds by burning our emotions.
This latest piece of news for example, the effect of which
to give us an overwhelming conviction that Obama and everyone
in his Administration are pathological liars.
The dishonest author of this article for example, telling us
that “Obama's plan is designed to be sufficiently ambiguous
so that nobody know.” So that absolutely no doubt is in our
minds that our government is totally deceitful.
For our self-absorbed majority must be kept locked in a
state of total helplessness, and a key part of it is the
realization that they are helpless slaves to a government
that will always deceitfully lie to them, and if they dare
step out of line would not hesitate to kill them.
No serious person doubts that this timeline is a crock and was thrown in to keep anti-war people in his party hoping he isn't completely mad. With this announcement he joins the neocons in their insane belief that America's capacity to kill is all that is needed. He will be taught a bitter lesson by the poor little Afghans and the Americans will come losers as they did from Vietnam.
No, you miss the point entirely. Please read my post below.
For the problem is not that our public is too stupid to know the truth,
but that they know the truth and are too terrified to do anything about is.
Thalidomide
Hear! Hear!
Afghans-resist and defeat the American empire.
The whole MIC is 'locked into' this quagmire now and the Pashtuns can hold us there for 40 or 400 years while the Russians have their revenge. Heckuva job!
OBAMA HAS BECOME DELPHIC ORACLE LIKE--HE'S A HYDRA-HEADED SNAKE THAT SAYS THOUSANDS OF THINGS,MANY OF THEM AT ODDS.
TO WIT; WE'RE COMING TO AFGHANISTAN, NO WE'RE LEAVING;WE BRING PEACE, WE BRING WAR, WE WORK WITH THE LOCALS--BUT NOT THE PASHTUNS(43 % OF THE POPULATION. AKA, THE TALIBAN)
NEVER STATED; WE'RE THERE FOR THE GAS PIPELINE--KNOWN AS, NABUCCO
9/11, their answer to everything--oil and gas, my answer to everything.
QUESTION --IS KARZAI A FORMER OIL MAN FROM UNOCAL?
See the Naked Truthers' prescient answer in the adjacent article; Uncle 'Bomb says "whatever", but then reneges to that which the MIC demands with its (still) smoking gun to his head (just like the rest of DEM do).
Does Obama know what his Afghanistan plan is?
(Or does he have to wait until the Pentagon tells him?)
Does Obama know what his plan for anything is?
(Or does he have to wait for someone in power to tell him?)
Need you ask the question?
Truely tragic that the U.S. Government and mass media 'brainwashing', psychological warfare, works with technical precision! The American people have devolved into submissive, terrified 'sheeple' and are willingly going to the slaughter house while paying for the taxi ride to it!!! Pure and unfettered insanity!
Dr. Wu,
In answer to your question, YES!!!!
He brought the Taliban leadership to Houston in August of 2001 for wining and dining, in an attempt to get their approval for the pipeline across Afghanistan. They said emphatically, 'No Thanks!'.
Less than 3 months later, Afghanistan was attacked by the US, overturning a government we had been dealing with for several years. The ostensible reason was the Taliban would not turn over Bin Laden. All the Taliban wanted was proof of his involvement in 9/11 - none was forthcoming. No wonder we let Bin Laden go when we were within 100 yds and orders were sent(and resent when questioned) to change direction away from his location.
Now the pipeline again.
Oil and Blood.
But I could be wrong !
Gibbs thinks they are coming home in 2011, and Clinton thinks we will stay as long as necessary. Both Gibbs and Clinton are right. The pres said he "would begin" bringing the troops home in 2011. That's true. If you have 100,000 troops, and bring one of them home each month for 100,000 months, you have actually "begun" to bring them home.
The pres, if nothing else, is a master of ambiguity who phrases things such that everyone in the public can hear the same statement and walk away thinking they heard what they wanted to hear.
Caleb is right. What does BEGIN to withdraw commit us to? Maybe ambiguity is intentional. But up the road it will get us in trouble.
This is matter is irrelevant. If anything it shows deep disagreement at top level, which is not new.
But it is dawning that the Government of the USA is not relevant; that Americans have to push their government aside and stop this war.
Government has but one goal in orchestrating such confusing news, to keep our self-absorbed majority in fearful submission by the mind paralyzing thought that government is a deceitful liar and if they dare step out of line government will kill them.
I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving," said Clinton, who added the goal was "to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan."
I suspect that the death toll will make the people of the United States even less interested in "occupying Afghanistan" while the "leaders" ignore the blood.
She's telling the truth, she is "signaling", these signals have no relation to true intentions.
REBELLION ---- BY THE NUMBERS
First step is to get all true liberals to realize that the majority will always oppose us, as no rebellion on earth has ever had support of the majority, in a nation ruled by the majority.
Second, we must grasp the reality that government is not controlled by the 3% rich, but by the 60% most wealthy, as such excessive wealth has them self-absorbed and most greedy. Because that is just what wealth does, as the more they have the more prideful, ingrate and deserving of wealth they feel, and their only salvation is for us to cut them and their wealth down to size.
Third, take heart, as we are the majority of those who get involved. For the majority never get involved and we have the conservatives out-numbered two to one.
Forth, give our most intelligent leaders full support we must, but never for a second trust them behind closed doors. As surely they will enslave us at the first opportunity. For the purpose of this world is to prove the harm in it, the harm being a brain-power dictatorship and its our job to bring it to a screeching halt.
Perhaps the dichotomy can be explained by the curious assertion that a chisel had been used to etch the policy in stone. Since when have chisels been used to accomplish etching???
I appreciate humor -- second definition, to delineate clearly
Only in modern America can a president declare a timeline for the end of a war and no one on either the right or left believes him. This is truly bizarre. The right can't bear the thought that their precious excursions of death and destruction will end while the left has been so viciously abused the last 30 years, they can't believe it is true. The president says we begin withdrawal in July 2011. The press doesn't believe it. They go to his aide. He talks to the president. Yes, it is etched in stone. But no, Joe Palooka in Hoboken says it is a soft timeline. It is a soft timeline. Unbelievable.
As for Greenwald's update, I nearly busted a gut. Hitchens is talking about the grape economy that we need to build in Afghanistan in order to stabilize the region. Waaah! That said, he is right about this war on drugs and Greenwald is right about the inanity of the whole thing. That right wing wench nearly flew out of her chair at the mere thought of leaving Afghanistan. "You actually think we should leave Afghanistan now?" Ahem. Yes.
I saw a somewhat funny right wing lambast of Michael Moore,a movie, An American Carol.
The most salient information I gleaned from the film was in the finale when the sailor departing for Afghanistan says, This time we will finish the job.
This dovetails exactly with author Lam's article describing the USA's fetish concerning surrender in Vietnam.
Is it really true the rightwing teabags are supporting slaughtering Afghans largely because the Vietnamese defeated the USA?
Oh my God whither art thou?
An aspirational target? Glenn, I'm surprised at your naivety. The 2011 date was a sop to the base, who would have exploded over an open ended surge if there was not that cork in the bottle. It takes the pressure off the Democrats up for election in 2010 and buys Obama time to make more pretty speeches and win a few domestic bouts before he comes before the public in July 2011 and announces another surge. If he has enough political capital built up on domestic issues, which he thinks he will have, his daft followers will probably let him off the hook for 2012. After all, Americans are not really against wars, invasions, and torture--if their bellies are full and they can keep on shopping.
There's no point in believing that they will or even have any sincerity at all in planning to "possibly" withdraw in 2011. It's an empty "sales pitch" slapped onto a hook that's weighted down with a sinker. They're waiting to see how many bites they get and if they'll be able to reel in any fish with this trick-and-treat. If you don't "correspond" as approved, then you're treated as a "terrorist".
If 0's officials
knew his plan
what could they ever stand to gain
by admitting it?