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Afghanistan: Waiting for the 'Exit Strategy'
It's Afghanistan week, with President Obama's Afghanistan review complete and the new strategy for the war set to be released any day now. In his 60 Minutes interview, Obama suggested that he's leaning toward the "minimalist" theory that the war in Afghanistan has to focus on Al Qaeda and that the United States needs "an exit strategy." From the transcript:
"What we can't do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is gonna be able to solve our problems. So what we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there's gotta be an exit strategy. There's gotta be a sense that this is not perpetual drift."
Asked what America's mission in Afghanistan is, Obama replied:
"Making sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That's our number one priority. And in service of that priority there may be a whole host of things that we need to do. We may need to build up economic capacity in Afghanistan. We may need to improve our diplomatic efforts in Pakistan."We may need to bring a more regional diplomatic approach to bear. We may need to coordinate more effectively with our allies. But we can't lose sight of what our central mission is. The same mission that we had when we went in after 9/11. And that is these folks can project violence against the United States' citizens. And that is something that we cannot tolerate."
But Obama has is sending 17,000 more US troops to the war that can't be won militarily, and he's talking about "building up economic capacity in Afghanistan," which could take many years. Are we prepared to stay for years? Is Obama prepared to spend his entire presidency fighting the Afghan war? That's the question asked by Jackson Diehl in a Washington Post op-ed today, in which Diehl answers in the affirmative. Citing General David McKiernan, who's demanding a further buildup, Diehl writes:
McKiernan believes the Afghan army, now at 80,000 members, will have to grow to 240,000 before it can defend the country on its own -- and that raising it to that level will take until 2016. Would Obama be willing, or politically able, to devote the entirety of his presidency to a war that has already lasted seven years? The thousands of American soldiers and civilians pouring into the country deserve that strategic patience; without it, the sacrifices we will soon hear of will be wasted.
That doesn't sound like an exit strategy to me.
The indefatigable Walter Pincus, writing the Post on Sunday, describes the huge buildup of US-funded military infrastructure in Afghanistan, which makes it look even more like we're settling in for the long haul:
At Bagram air base, for example, the Army Corps of Engineers is managing about $650 million in construction. ... The [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers has become the largest employer of Afghans after the national government. Corps contractors ... will spend about $4 billion in Afghanistan this year and employ between 45 percent and 60 percent of the overall construction industry in that country. The U.S. Agency for International Development spends, he said, $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year in Afghanistan.The corps has about 720 miles of roads under construction in Afghanistan, with another 250 to 350 planned for next year. [The U.S. will spend] about $4 billion this year and $4 billion to $6 billion in 2010 to more road contracts.
Does that sound an "exit strategy"? No.
As the New York Times reported last week, current plans for expanding the Afghan security forces to 400,000 -- including raising the size of Afghanistan's army from 80,000 to 260,000 -- will cost up to $20 billion over 6-7 years. And that's just the cost of training and equipping the forces. Sustaining them will cost, I've heard, as much as $4 billion a year ever year after that. (Afghanistan's entire national budget is only $1.1 billion a year.)
Various reports leaking out about Obama's Afghan strategy suggest that Vice President Biden and Bruce Riedel, the former CIA officer in charge of the review, are leaning toward the "minimalist" view -- that the US cannot rebuild the whole country and repair its shattered society, and that as long as Al Qaeda is defanged, we've "won." On the other hand, General Petraeus, Centcom commander, and Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy, want a much bigger strategy. According to Jim Hoagland of the Post, there is a developing "synthesis that moves everybody toward a middle ground," whatever that means.
Last week, John McCain and Joe Lieberman, in an op-ed entitled "Our Must Win War: The 'Minimalist' Path Is Wrong for Afghanistan", attacked attacked the idea of limited goals, saying instead that there is no "shortcut to success," no "middle way":
As the administration finalizes its policy review, we are troubled by calls in some quarters for the president to adopt a "minimalist" approach toward Afghanistan.
[Tonight's] news conference by Obama will be a big deal, and not only because he'll be defending his secretary of the treasury and the bailout plan. He'll also have to convince Americans that he knows what he'd doing in Afghanistan. The US public is increasingly skeptical of the war. According to Gallup:
A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds growing concern about the war in Afghanistan at the same time that Americans' optimism about Iraq is growing or holding steady.Forty-two percent of Americans now say the United States made a mistake in sending troops to Afghanistan, up from 30% earlier this year and establishing a new high.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllThe veil of secrecy has been lifted on the FOIA, so bring out the TRUTH OF 911 VIA those Pentagon videos that have been held back and there will be no choice to get out of a nation that was ILLLEGALLY invaded!. Period.
Obama states that the U.S. "mission" in Afghanistan is to "make sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies." The United States has been stupidly attempting to do this with its military for over seven years now with little to show for its efforts. This would seem to similar to having an elephant trying to crush a flea.
Perhaps an analogy can be drawn to how the United States dealt with the mafia from approximately the 1930s to the 1970s. It could be argued that the mafia's structure was located in Italy and Sicily. The U.S. did not deal with these terrorists by bombing the Italians and Sicilians or sending in the army and the marines into those countries. It worked with the intelligence agencies of Italy and Sicily and treated the mafia as the Americans should be treating Al Qaeda and that is as criminals with the police in this country arresting many mafia heads and eventually breaking up their organization.
Also, at no time, as far as I can determine, has Obama, just like his predecessor, even attempted to discover or even wonder why groups like Al Qaeda have attempted, and will continue to attempt, to attack this country. It does not seem to have occurred to Obama, the former Harvard graduate, that the reason why the terrorists wish to harm the United States is because the United States has so many of its troops in the Middle East as well as the U.S. favoring Israel with weapons and planes and helicopters which are then used used against other Middle Eastern countries.
Until Obama decides to confront these hard realities, many Americans will come to realize that, to recall the words of Max Clelland, they have seen this movie before and that was when LBJ continually attempted to justify leaving troops in Vietnam as well as Nixon attempting to justify the carpet bombing of North Vietnam and Cambodia.
The only sane and intelligent exit strategy is for the United States to remove ALL of its troops from Afghanistan as well as Iraq since the presence of American soldiers in those countries will only [understandably] inflame not only the terrorists but also the citizens of those two beleaguered countries.
Mr. Obama will not withdraw troops from an ongoing war - that would be political suicide, especially if something blows up somewhere and it's blamed on al-Qaeda.
It is Congress that started this mess when they allowed Bush to start an unwinnable war against enemies to be named later.
It is Congress that must be part of the solution, but as I noted elsewhere, most of the pathetic slime that got us into this madness are still in power and not likely to end the war and thus show the world what a mistake they made and what idiots they are.
There is no victory to be found in Afghanistan and exiting an ongoing war is unthinkable, so that leaves only 'more of the same' as a strategy until Congress gets involved and cleans up their mess.
Would Obama be willing, or politically able, to devote the entirety of his presidency to a war that has already lasted seven years?
Who knows what Obama is "thinking" any longer? But the professional military class, the graduates of the military academies, the martial equivalent of the swindlers on Wall Street, simply want Iraq and Afghanistan to go on forever. That's how you become a general.
The CIA knows what to do. They learned it from the British Intgelligence people, who way back when ran the opium from India to China. We simply need purchasing agents in Afghanistan to buy up all the opium. This has to be cheaper than running our troops all over the place and the Afghan farmers would have some local control of their lives. Ignore the Afghan government. The brilllance of the English was to sell the opium from boats sitting off shore from Hong Kong. This model could easily be applied to the US. Opium is a downer and opium dens could be set up in every city, to supply the people as they loose their jobs, homes, etc. Stoned people aren't very good at rebelling. This could also have an impact on the drugs coming in from South America via Mexico. Thus the CIA could have a monopoly on drugs in the US. Just think the head of CIA could become knows as Drugs CZAR US.
CURTIS, I like your humor. Good post!
This is insanity!
How can anyone oppose this?
"Making sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That's our number one priority. "
Do you want to be attacked?!?
Joehope
Al Qaeda is also estimated to be in 50 to 60 other countries around the world. Do you propose that the United States then attack and invade those countries in order to [allegedly] keep America safe? As I stated in my earlier comment, almost no consideration is given to why these terrorists' organizations wish to take belligerent action against the U.S. It certainly is not because these groups hate America because of its freedoms or its culture. Rather it is because of the United States's belligerent foreign policy in the Middle East along with funneling missiles, bombs, planes and helicopters to Israel which then uses these weapons to intimidate other Middle East countries.
One does not have to wonder very hard why the terrorist organizations have not seen fit to threaten for example Sweden as it is hardly a coincidence that it does not have any troops in the Middle East.
"Do you propose that the United States then attack and invade those countries in order to [allegedly] keep America safe?"
No, I don't. But the difference in that while al Qaeda might be in, say, Germany; Afghanistan (under the Taliban) was a state sponsor of terror. I am willing to go to war with any state sponsor of terrorism.
"almost no consideration is given to why these terrorists' organizations wish to take belligerent action against the U.S. "
There is no reasonable justification for the 911 attacks. Also, Bin Laden is not a freedom fighter, he wants to establish an Islamic caliphate.
"It certainly is not because these groups hate America because of its freedoms or its culture"
But Bin Laden (and the Taliban) DO "hate America because of its freedoms or its culture" (among other reasons such as our support for Israel and our relationship to Saudi Arabia).
"Rather it is because of the United States's belligerent foreign policy in the Middle East along with funneling missiles, bombs, planes and helicopters to Israel which then uses these weapons to intimidate other Middle East countries."
Well, that's a one sided view. What about Hamas? What about Palestinians teaching their children to hate and murders Jews? What about homicide bombers mutilating and killing people in crowded pizzerias and discotheques? I would argue that Israel and the US have the moral and legal right to combat terrorism. Also, with regard to the US, we were attacked before we invaded Iraq, so setting that aside, how did we have "belligerent foreign policy in the Middle East"? The Gulf War was supported by the UN and most Arab states. So what are you referring to? Our brief involvement in Lebanon? It can't be the Shah, because Bin Laden is no friend of Iran...
"One does not have to wonder very hard why the terrorist organizations have not seen fit to threaten for example Sweden as it is hardly a coincidence that it does not have any troops in the Middle East."
Like it or not, we're not Sweden. We inherited the task of ruling the world following WW2, not because we wanted to, but because of the collapse of the major powers in Europe and Asia. We were left standing as the most powerful country in the world. It's a difficult position for a young country with a long history of isolationism to be in, and it's even more difficult because we are a democracy with a dislike of empire. But if we are stuck as the most powerful country in the world, then I have to say, it's better us than China, Russia, Japan or Germany.
Joehope
You are a prime example of what liberal interventionists are all about. What you choose to ignore is that as long as the United States is in Afghanistan the Taliban and the terrorists will continue to flourish. This, of course, is because the belligerent presence of the United States military in Afghanistan is the best recruiting tool that the Taliban and the terrorists could ever hope to have.
Albert Einstein once observed that imagination is more important than knowledge. I would add in addition to that empathy which so many Americans like yourself seem to be so bereft. Many innocent Afghans at wedding parties and funerals have been slaughtered by 500 lb. American bombs dropped from the skies by the U.S. Air Force. Will you fly to Afghanistan and tell the families who have lost their loved ones to American imperialism that their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, have died for an [alleged] noble cause? Who weeps for those people? Certainly not you nor Barack Obama. Are you going to claim that those innocent civilians were participating in "state terrorism"? If you do, I would suggest that you are greatly deluded in believing that America is supposed to be a force for good, as those Afghans [and the Iraqis and the Pakistanis, for that matter] would certainly attest.
What about those people? Or do they not count because their faces are brown and not American?
What about those people?
I mourn for every innocent Palestinian, Iraqi, or Afghan accidentally killed as well. It's a horrific and terrible reality of war that civilians will inevitably be killed.
What this needs to be weighed against is the value of your mission.
If the mission is to prevent a greater loss of civilian life then it can be justified.
At first, I agreed with people like Al Gore or Juan Cole's analysis and felt that the threat posed by Hussein warranted our intervention.
I admit, I was wrong. But now the challenge is to leave in the way that most effectively minimizes the damage cause by Bush's mistakes.
However, on Afghanistan I was right. We have a clear reason to be there, and that's 911. We can't leave until we make "sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That's our number one priority. " I think that is entirely reasonable.
Your concern "hat as long as the United States is in Afghanistan the Taliban and the terrorists will continue to flourish. " - is also reasonable. But I feel you are ignoring that Obama's plan includes not just a change in our military strategy, but also our diplomatic strategy. He is offering the Afghans real incentives to not to co-operate with the Taliban, but when that fails, military force may be necessary.