It’s something Obama and his team will have to decide.
The coming debate on Afghanistan and the policy review the Obama administration will do will happen amidst a fierce conversation among progressives. “Get Afghanistan Right” has been created for just that purpose, arguing against any further military involvement. Once Obama takes office it is sure to get even more intense. No one could suggest with a straight face that military alone will change Afghanistan. At the same time, the same applies to the U.S. having no military presence at all. Obama also has to convince other nations to commit troops in dangerous areas of Afghanistan, with renewed commitment.
Bush’s Iraq-centric focus leaves an inheritance around the world but especially in Afghanistan. A limited troop increase is being reported as “buying time” for Obama and his team to evaluate what should be done next. Amidst that evaluation is the core definition of what comprises America’s strategic interest post-Bush.
There are two main talking points used against increasing U.S. troop levels, though John Kerry did bring up the Vietnam syndrome during HRC’s confirmation hearing. One is obvious and it is what has been wrought in Iraq. Second is the constant refrain from people using the Soviet embarrassment in Afghanistan as prologue and projection. Neither of these reasons work, especially the first, considering Iraq is so totally different and it was completely botched from the start. Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal takes it on:
… I don’t disagree that there needs to be a serious discussion of the issues before a large number of troops are deployed into the region. And I am not really sold one way or the other on troop increases.
However, I do think that any discussion, must start with a candid assessment of American interests. And I do think that there is a major difference between the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Particularly in the FATA) and that of Iraq in 2003. In this case what is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan does in fact present a direct and immediate threat to American security and interests. [...]
As for the Soviet projection on what the U.S. could face, most people arguing this line are simplifying the history and the complexity of what happened back during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. One of the most formidable aspects was Reagan’s C.I.A. Director William Casey. Carter may have signed the directive to move against the pro-Soviet government in Kabul, but the extra legal lengths Casey went to in order to thwart the Soviets is historic. It was a trap that worked beautifully. Robert Gates, who will stay on as Defense Secretary, knows this all too well.
Digging out Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars (pgs. 104-105), I now play stenographer:
At the same time, ISI’s Afghan bureau selected small teams among the mujahedin who would be willing to mount violent sabotage attacks inside Soviet Central Asia. KGB-backed agents had killed hundreds of civilians in terrorist bombings inside Pakistan, and ISI wanted revenge. Mohammed Yousaf, the ISI brigadier who was the Afghan operations chief during this period, recalled that it was Casey who first urged these cross-border assaults during a meeting at ISI headquarters late in 1984… [...]
Robert Gates, Casey’s executive assistant and later CIA director, has confirmed that Afghan rebels “began cross-border operations into the Soviet Union itself” during the spring of 1985. These operations included “raising cain on the Soviet side of the border.” The attacks took place, according to Gates, “with Casey’s encouragement.”
[...] And as Gates reflected later, referring more generally to his sense of mission, Casey had not come to the CIA “with the purpose of making it better… Bill Casey came to the CIA primarily to wage war against the Soviet Union. …
Enter Gorbachev, the self-proclaimed reformer, though at first everyone in the U.S. government doubted it from Reagan on down.
The Soviet Union’s economy was failing. Its technological achievements lagged badly behind the computerized West. … Some analysts captured some of these pressures in their classified reporting, but on the whole the CIA’s analysts understated the Soviet Union’s internal problems. [...] This included the basic insight that the Soviet Union was so decayed as to be near collapse. [...] The Reagan administration was bound by a belief in Soviet power and skepticism about Gorbachev’s reforms. (Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, pg. 159)
No one should underestimate the challenges in Afghanistan, but if Obama’s commitment against allowing failed states is real, we all need to understand what this means in terms of the Af-Pak region. Is leaving Afghanistan to warring tribalism, as Pakistan continues to spiral downward, in U.S. interests? Are we willing to relegate Afghan women and girls to a pre-9/11 existence, reading stories of acid attacks on school girls, saying how horrible it is, while ignoring the standard that human rights is women’s rights, something that can only manifest with world engagement?
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — In a country where many crimes against women are still swept under the rug, the case of a 14-year-old girl whose baby was allegedly aborted by her mother and brother using a razor blade has outraged doctors and human-rights workers. [...]
Afghanistan will be a long-term commitment and much more difficult than Iraq. Nobody is happy about it. We either pick up the pieces and do it now. Or be forced to do it later. It’s about adding security so that the other side of the equation, building infrastructure and institutions, revitalizing Afghan agriculture and a host of other necessities can be done.
Helping Afghans continue to build security is the foundation for it all.
President-elect Obama’s national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones on the importance of Afghanistan:
In his own words: “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan.” — The startling assessment of a study this year led by General Jones for the Atlantic Council of the United States, a nongovernmental organization. He also has said that the war in Iraq caused the United States to “take its eye off the ball” in Afghanistan, and has warned that the consequences of failure are just as serious in Afghanistan as they are in Iraq. “Symbolically, it’s more the epicenter of terrorism than Iraq. If we don’t succeed in Afghanistan, you’re sending a very clear message to the terrorist organizations that the U.S., the U.N. and the 37 countries with troops on the ground can be defeated.”
There is nothing but tough choices ahead.
Taylor – I think you have stated the problem clearly and succinctly.
What I am most concerned about is the condition of women in Afghanistan. The entire country is so behind the times regarding not only human rights (women’s rights) but economic development and this is going to take a lot of critical analysis/thought. How best to help the women and children and how to develop an economy outside of poppy fields. Many people feel there is nothing of benefit (you know like oil) in Afghanistan for the US to even bother. I see Afghanistan in the framework of a humanitarian issue not just military.
I agree with the humanitarian issue, but it seems like Obama has the same views as bush when it comes to Afghanistan. We seem to think that 35,000 more troops is what is needed in this middle age country. The only thing I hear from Obama is we have to continue the war there, and it seems we learn nothing from history when it comes to Afghanistan. I hope Obama has a plan that makes sense, and really does something besides endless war.
May be off topic but, regarding women’s rights anywhere, this is a great article on prostitution that is well researched and hits home. http://agonist.org/node/56656
angels81 | 01.16.2009 – 09:42 am | #
angels81 – I hear you and I worry about the troop build up in Afghanistan but if we’re to make any kind of inroads into bringing Afghanistan out of the middle ages it will take support from not just our military but from the rest of the world. I don’t want us to engage in another futile war but to begin to bring the 21st century to Afghanistan and its people. And that’s why I said we need to think about this critically and come up with the right solutions. I can guarantee that if we abandon Afghanistan the Taliban will re-emerge and the women will be even worse off than they are at this time or were in the past. I don’t have the answers but I do wish I were young again just so I could go back into development work and work with the women and children.
I wonder how many people are paying attention to the plight of the Palestinian women in Gaza under the brutal, inhumane israeli killing machine.
How many women have been widowed? how many women have been terrorized? how many women have lost their children to the indiscriminate IDF killings? How many women have lost their homes?
when it comes to israel’s crimes everyone turns a blind eye.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:02 am | #
you’re conflating Israel with the Taliban’s deliberate oppression of woman? ridiculous.
women.
“Obama also has to convince other nations to commit troops in dangerous areas of Afghanistan, with renewed commitment.”
I think this is the key. The go-it-alone approach has only made things worse.
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 10:06 am | #
Really? How far do you want the israelis to go in their rampage and slaughter to be called “delibrate” in your book?
“In Gaza, the United Nations gave the Israeli army the coordinates of a UN school, and the school was then hit by Israeli tank fire, killing about forty. The UN put flags on emergency vehicles, coordinating the movements of those vehicles with the Israeli military, and the vehicles came under attack, killing emergency workers. The Israeli army evacuated 100 Palestinians to shelter, and then bombed the shelter, killing thirty people.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:14 am | #
what’s happening in Gaza is horrible. But the Taliban deliberately targets women for oppression, rape, maiming…it is institutional. Your comparison is ludicrous.
Afghanistan is tough. How do you teach people (the male population) how to be humans. The women under the Taliban are treated as slaves.
One thing that might help is an alternative to the Taliban. It seems like Afghanistan is one area that some basic economic aid would do wonders. Hopefully Obama will be able to forge some coalitions. I think its safe to say we have never had a president who used American influence as arrogantly as Bush.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:14 am | #
let’s put the cards on the table. Out of curiosity, what do you think of random rockets lobbed into Israel from Gaza? Women and children have been killed, what’s the moral justification?
Invoking the Afghani women to justify more killing is similar to the WMD blunder in Iraq.
Heres a good article by by Robert C. Koehler
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that, as Anup Shah noted recently in an essay on the arms industry for GlobalIssues.org, “The top five countries profiting from the arms trade are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the U.S.A., U.K., France, Russia and China.”
Thus world peace – at least the sort of peace that most of us envision, which is sustained by international cooperation and universal disarmament rather than subjugation and the capacity for hair-trigger retaliation – would challenge the status quo of the world’s largest economies, as they have come to constitute themselves.
As long as we stay trapped in the paradox of fear, we can’t even use our intelligence to save ourselves. We have employed it to serve only our self-destruction. The ultimate paradox is that the military industrial complex, that highest of high-tech human endeavors, about which Dwight Eisenhower sounded the alarm nearly half a century ago, is wedded to the most primitive of human emotions. We have become trapped in our collective reptile brain.
Only if we disarm our intelligence do we have a chance to find wisdom. And only wisdom can save us
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/15
Invoking the Afghani women to justify more killing is similar to the WMD blunder in Iraq.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:19 am | #
Who “invoked” any such thing?
Thus world peace – at least the sort of peace that most of us envision, which is sustained by international cooperation and universal disarmament.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:19 am | #
I appreciate your John Lennon sentiment but it is simplistic to the point of irrelevancy.
Invoking the Afghani women to justify more killing is similar to the WMD blunder in Iraq.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:19 am | #
and it sure seems like you’re implying that the plight of Afghani women “doesn’t exist” in your comparison to WMD, which “didn’t exist”
A gentleman called into C-SPAN this morning and said that in his estimate, most of the Afghans are illiterate and cannot even read their own language. They depend on the Mullahs to interpret the Koran for them, and generally, it is with hatred towards the west. He also said the Taliban pay bounties for American soldiers, especially to those who are supposed to working with American soldiers.
I’m reminded of what John Edwards used to say, and I’m hearing some words from Hillary now, that poverty is one of the main threats to our national security. Education in countries such as those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and in Africa, where children are subject to predators by Al-Quaida, needs to be developed in order for children to grow up and be able to think for themselves, and develop some kind of trade for more economic security. Corruption is probably the main problem though. Kenya is asking for more food aid, yet the government is horribly corrupt.
Chicken and the egg..
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 10:18 am |
How many Israelis did the rockets kill? How many women, children were DELIBERATELY KILLED by Israel? HOW many UN workers WERE DELIBERATELY KILLED? does the rockets justify the bombing of the UN refugee camps, schools, cemeteries and news buildings?
But let me tell what i would do if my country was shut down by a brutal OCCUPYING entity, and plagued by political assassinations, in violation of the truce; i would launch as many rockets as i can to free my people.
How many people have lost their families, children, homes, jobs, parents, wives in this holocaust?
ALL these poeple are potential scuide bombers in the making.
Imagine if someone kills your entire family,wife, kids, and destroy your home! what would you do?? Would you have nay hope in life?? I wouldnt.
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 10:27 am | #
No, im not implying anything. There are other ways to stop whats going on in Afghanistan and other parts of the world; The military and more wars IS NOT ONE OF THEM. IT WOULD ONLY EXARCEBATE the situation. Making more orphans, more widows and inflicting more destruction would incite more hatred and violence that would never end.
Even our puppet Karazai is fed up with the killing of innocent people and blamed the US military of recklesness and wants negociations with the Taliban to solve the problem but the US is not intretsed in peace.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:32 am | #
as I said it is a horrible situation and there are atrocities being committed by both sides. Your view however is a pro-Palestinian anti Israel stance and that is as extreme and untenable as any one sided view.
ALL these poeple are potential scuide bombers in the making.
Imagine if someone kills your entire family,wife, kids, and destroy your home! what would you
do?? Would you have nay hope in life?? I wouldnt.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 10:32 am | #
for sure I would not strap on an explosive belt and kill untold numbers of complete strangers. I would want justice, but murder in the face of murder is still, murder.
GeoT
Amen to your comments here. Some sound like Johnny One Note unable to contend with different issues.
for sure I would not strap on an explosive belt and kill untold numbers of complete
strangers. I would want justice, but murder in the face of murder is still, murder.
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 10:43 am | #
Thats BS. Of cource its wrong to go and just kill innocent civilains like the israelis are doing. But you dont know what you would do in such extreme situation.
I think this thread in not about the Israeli /Palestinian situation.
But you dont know what you would do in such extreme situation.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 11:13 am | #
I DO.
I think most know they would not, as GeoT said, “not strap on an explosive belt and kill untold numbers of complete strangers.” That IS something most would know.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 11:13 am | #
as soon as you realize there are good guys and bad guys on both sides the sooner you can resolve it in your own mind. Although you said the other day you hate your own country so maybe you will never be at peace.
“U.S. Pact Seen as Step Toward Gaza Cease-Fire
WASHINGTON — The United States has agreed to a range of measures, including providing international monitors, to help Israel stem the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, a step that could open the way for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.”
djjl | 01.16.2009 – 11:16 am | #
No, you dont. Its easy to speak from the confort of your home while playing with you 3 year old son..o, and your lovely wife making sure that your coffee has only 1/2 spoon sugar the way you like it. imagine a missile in the middle of your living room shattering that image.
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 11:20 am | #
wrong, im at peace with myself. I hate the actions of my gov that are against peaceful people and against any potential peace between people.
‘Anything moving in the zone, even a three-year-old, needs to be killed’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/24/israel
dundee19 -
Your remarks to djjl were uncalled for. And by the way you did say you hate your government. With that statement I am surprised TM didn’t put you in moderation. You sound like a very angry, bitter person with a real lack of perspective about Israel.
kris, thanks. Dundee19 seems to have little understanding of human beings beyond the most primitive. Most have an innate sense of morality and would never see any logic or moral equivalency in murdering innocents.
wrong, im at peace with myself. I hate the actions of my gov that are against peaceful people
and against any potential peace between people.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 11:31 am | #
hopefully the new admin, will have a more even handed approach to the situation. As I said Israel deserves criticism and the tactics they’re using now are deplorable. In the big picture however both sides are guilty of atrocities.
justlen | 01.16.2009 – 11:32 am | #
justlen! thought you were caught in in-law hell maybe :=)
kris | 01.16.2009 – 11:33 am | #
YES, i hate the actions of my gov. I think they are cowards.
im very angry about whats going on in the middle east. 1000 people dead should make everyone angry including the most cold hearted.
I dont know djj, and i dont know if he has a family. I just wanted to give him a glimpse of the palestinian daily life that you dont seem to care about.
You’re welcome djjl. And I absolutlely agree with your observation.
To the contrary dundee19. I do care about the Palestinians – I just realize that there is more than enough blame on both sides and to not acknowledge that leads to more of the same.
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 11:44 am |
Well, im not very optimistic but i pray to God that things will change under Obama.
I dont know djj, and i dont know if he has a family. I just wanted to give him a glimpse of
the palestinian daily life that you dont seem to care about.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 11:45 am | #
you need to stop making assumptions about people because so far they’re all wrong. If you insult the people you want to discuss something with guess what? They stop listening to you.
Well, im not very optimistic but i pray to God that things will change under Obama.
dundee19 | 01.16.2009 – 11:47 am | #
well, stop hating and start advocating in a positive way.
justlen! thought you were caught in in-law hell maybe :=)
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 11:45 am | #
Just a busy time at work right now.
dundee19
You are right in that you don’t know me and that should tell you that it is unwise to make assumptions about how someone you don’t know thinks.
I’m not a “he.” I have a husband, two adult daughters, one five year old grandson and another expected in April. I care a great deal about the Palestinian situation. You might want to read the article I posted “in the News” on Wednesday by Gene Lyons about the Gaza misery.
BTW, dundee19, my grandson expected in April will be born in the Middle East where my daughter and son-in-law have lived for the past 4 years. They will be living in the Middle East for another 2 years. Fortunately, they do not live in a war zone. For that we are pleased.
No, they are not military or oil company employees.
GeoT
Amen to your comments here. Some sound like Johnny One Note unable to contend with different
issues.
djjl | 01.16.2009 – 11:06 am | #
______________________________________________
I have found, djjl, over my 60 years on this Earth that trying to engage ‘johnny one notes’ is a total waste of time — to them they are ‘right/on the side of Angels/doing God’s work” and the rest of us who don’t take their views are ‘wrong/evil/traitors’. We saw that with the run up to the Iraq war from the neo-cons. Same mindset different hobby horse.
Hi SusanElizabeth1949. I agree with what you said. The assumptions some make about others is just weird. Kind of an “I’m OK and you are not.”
Just a busy time at work right now.
justlen | 01.16.2009 – 11:51 am | #
count your blessings
count your blessings
GeoT | 01.16.2009 – 1:13 pm | #
Every payday
Taylor just put up the story about the plane crash in the Hudson River. Just want to let all know that he was also the class of 73 from the AF Academy. Hubby doesn’t know if he taught him Chemistry or not. But he did have class of 73 students in his dooley class. Who knows.
Hi Betsy. What’s your weather like today?
Circuit City Stores Inc., the nation’s second-biggest consumer electronics retailer, says it has run out of options and will be forced to liquidate its 567 U.S. stores. Latest developments at chicagotribune.com:
http://link.chicagotribune.com/r/IO3TIN/Q10YI/5C7L71/DRU4/EWKA11/ZH/t
30,000 jobs gone.
djjl | 01.16.2009 – 12:20 pm | #
God bless them!!
Thanks dundee19.
Things are not always as one perceives them.
Friday free for all is up…
Indeed, they are blessed.
‘Anything moving in the zone, even a three-year-old, needs to be killed’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/24/israel
justlen | 01.16.2009 – 11:32 am | #
Thats the 3 year old boy and the image i was trying to portray, not really djjl’s son or grand son.
What else would you excpet from these soldiers??
dundee19
That article shows that his behavior was aberrant. Reminds me of what American soldiers faced in Viet Nam when the Viet Cong used children as their weapon carriers.
djjl I’m sorry I’m just now answering but had to do something before I could come back to this. Anyway our temp is 55 degrees today. And all next week in the 50s.
I don’t know if Afghanistan is worth it, but killing Osama Bin Ladin sure as FU*K is, and FAR past due!!!
I do not think the US has the money to pursue success in Afghanastan.
My personal opinion.
We’re broke.
We’re about to be a 2nd tier country, due to debt.
That’s reality.
We need to face it.
I never bought into Obama’s position on this.
Still don’t.