Rajiv Chandrasekaran has the report.
CAMP LEATHERNECK, AFGHANISTAN — Thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers traveling in helicopters and mine-resistant vehicles began punching into a key Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, as the largest military operation since 2001 to assert government control over this country got underway.
The first wave of Marines and Afghan soldiers swooped into the farming community of Marja about 2 a.m. Saturday local time (4:30 p.m. Eastern), their CH-53 Super Stallion transport helicopters landing amid clouds of dust on fallow fields. As the troops, weighed down with ammunition and supplies, lumbered out and set up defensive positions, AV-8B Harrier fighter jets and AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead in the moonless sky. …
Good time to draw attention to the cover piece of FP, “The Carter Syndrome.” It’s the one analogy for Pres. Obama that’s deadly, not as a current reality yet, but after the incredible drift of Obama’s foreign policy over the first year, with many losing faith. It’s particularly difficult for Obama now that the mood on the domestic front has turned wickedly mean. Obviously helped by his current support on foreign policy among Americans, but that’s partially because it’s been well off the front pages. It’s one of the reasons you’ve seen the right stirring on national security. They sense an opening, which is partly what FP’s “The Carter Syndrome” addresses.
… .. It is hard to reconcile the transcendent Wilsonian vision of America’s future with a foreign policy based on dirty compromises with nasty regimes. If the government should use its power and resources to help the poor and the victims of injustice at home, shouldn’t it do something when people overseas face extreme injustice and extreme peril? The Obama administration cannot easily abandon a human rights agenda abroad. The contradiction between the sober and limited realism of the Jeffersonian worldview and the expansive, transformative Wilsonian agenda is likely to haunt this administration as it haunted Carter’s, most fatefully when he rejected calls to let the shah of Iran launch a brutal crackdown to remain in power. Already the Wilsonians in Obama’s camp are muttering darkly about his failure to swiftly close the Guantánamo prison camp, his fondness for government secrecy, his halfhearted support for investigating abuses of the past administration, and his failure to push harder for a cap-and-trade bill before the Copenhagen summit. …
But at the same time, we have Rightwingers claiming Obama is “killing too many al Qaeda” (apparently the drones are supposed to act like a Road Runner cartoon and merely ‘hook’ the enemy and bring them back in the sky to drop them into proper jails – where they can be properly tortured and interrogated).
This country just gets crazier and crazier. One thing the Olympics seem to be pointing out: Canada is looking more ‘sane’ than “America” (a term US citizens arrogantly use as if Canada and Mexico are NOT ‘America’) with each passing year. I remember when being an “American” was something to be proud of. Today, people go overseas wearing T-shirts that say “We’re Canadian” –
- to prevent people from laughing at them – or worse, throwing things at them in disgust.
It’s getting really sad.
- and by the way,
it’s only my opinion, Taylor, but those people who continue to defend this country’s bullshit are sounding more and more like those idiots with the bumper-sticker that says, “My child can beat the crap out of your Honor Roll Student”
Just my opinion.
You probably disagree.
Wait a minute, this article has things so backwards I can’t begin to unpack it. GITMO is under US jurisdiction. We can close it our discretion, if we care to, to set an example. We can close Bagram prison too. If Wilsonian idealism has to do with intervention in other countries, then closing GITMO is simply an issue of being consistent with our own ideals. It has nothing to do with Wilsonian intervention.
We can pursue a human rights agenda most effectively when we lead by example, and aiding those who ask for it. Most other countries do NOT want to be lectured by a now hypocritical America anymore. Case in point: we are not about to transform traditional societies in Afghanistan or Iraq into modern democracies where women get to play the roles they play in America, certainly not by blowing up these women’s children.
Which is why China is capturing the world’s mineral resources left and right. They go to Africa, give the local dictator what he wants (roads, bridges, hospitals, arms, bribes), and don’t tell him what to do. Dictators love it, the African street hates it, and we are cut out of the action. Not only that, our endless wars are bankrupting us and that will end our “muscular” intervention policy if nothing else does.
To the point of the article: yes an effective foreign policy (like humane interrogation of terror suspects that yields useful intelligence) is quiet, probably doesn’t make for dramatic TV very often, and is harder to explain to a dumbed down populace. But that is what leaders do.
“We can pursue a human rights agenda most effectively when we lead by example, and aiding those who ask for it” sunlight
Which becomes sickeningly laughable when you consider how quickly we came to Haiti’s needs (and of course, they DID need help) – while at the same time the MSM media totally ignored the plight of our own South Dakota reservations – nearly destroyed by this winter’s attack. We’re real good at helping people elsewhere – but our own poor, suffering, homeless or needing of ‘health’ assistance ?
SCREW EM.
This country is in such dire straights it is time to get out of the empire business. We can’t afford it and the world no longer appreciates our motives because they have been made so murkey by the last set of war criminals who were in power for eight years.
In the same way it took a conservative, Nixon, to go to China will it take a military man as president to stand down our overreach? What do you think of the rumors that Petraous might be thinking of challenging Obama in 2012?
I’m afraid that if Obama keeps charging around in circles the Carter analogy will take hold. There are already some similarities showing up ie..highly intelligent man given to self-righteous inability to consider criticism and an unwilliness to open up his inner circle.
The big difference to me in the two is that Carter does have a set of unwavering principles.He is a great humanitarian and was right about energy independence all those years ago. It is a shame he was not effective at governing.
“when Carter rejected calls to let the shah of Iran launch a brutal crackdown to remain in power.” It sounds as though the right wingers at FP are lamenting the fact that Carter chose not to allow the shah to imprision and kill thousands of his fellow countrymen with our blessing. FP also seems to be calling Jefferson’s thinking “too small” and Wilson’s thinking “too big.” Obama, by agreeing to the milirtary offensive into southern Afghanistan, has stepped into it up to his nose. It won’t take much for the rest of his head to go under water. One hopes that the neocons and warmongers like Kagen and Hillary are very happy with themselves. What a debacle. Peace
pmichael~ We could go on and on…inner cities,New Orleans and the gulf states,the decimated rust belt and other industrial areas…
You are sure right about reservations suffering,I have not seen one thing about it.
I am grateful that Taylor writes on FP. There is so much demogogery and propaganda and politicalization of our country’s self defense that I find it very hard to know what to believe.
My gut tells me that the whole terrorism thing has been blown way out of proportion to further other goals determined by profiteers and right wing politics. It seems to me that we should lower the volume,narrow the scope and buck up to some possible threats.Another attack would be horrible but to act like scared rabbits ready to throw all of our civil liberties and constitutional rights to the winds to prevent one seems cowardly to me.
Imhotep says:
13 February 2010 at 10:25 am
Your argument isn’t credible, because you continually let Cheney, Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, et al. off the hook, choosing Hillary Rodham Clinton as the cudgel, when she was always only one vote in the Senate.
Additionally, if you’re also saying that we shouldn’t have hit Afghanistan after 9/11 then your entire foreign policy premise is too far left to be viable for any politician to consider.
Hillary Clinton is the Secretary of State. Today. Not Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld or any of the other warmongering neocons who you might name. She has the Presidents ear. They do not. What Hillary tells him would seem far more important to him than what FOX new or FP might spew to the public. That my “entire foreign policy premise is to far left” to be politically correct does not prove that it’s incorrect. On the contrary. bush counted on political correctness, a weakminded Congress and the stupidity of the public to be allowed to invade, incorrectly, Afghanistan. I thought that you were big into leadership? Leadership would correctly dictate that Obama withdraw from Afghanistan immediately. Political correctness and weakness demands that Obama escalate the war in Afghanistan. A path that Hillary and the rest of the warmongering neocons that you mentioned, I’m sure, wholeheartedly agree with. Peace
Wrong. Barack Obama was ALWAYS into an aggressive posture in Afghanistan. He said so innumerable times as a candidate. For the umpteenth time, Obama sets State policy, especially on matters of MILITARY ENGAGEMENT. Though I’m not by any stretch saying Clinton would do differently. She’s old school on that one, for sure. But let’s just keep it straight who’s the boss. It’s not “Clinton’s war” now, it’s Obama’s.
Get ready for Dick Cheney… From Mike Allen:
http://www.politico.com/playbook/0210/playbook956.html
THE NARRATIVE: Cheney will try to suggest that Biden projects weakness to terrorists and puts American lives at risk. It’s a vicious and highly personal charge that Cheney has leveled repeatedly since leaving office. Many find his tone — and often his timing — unbecoming of a former vice president. He and former President George W. Bush, lying low down in Texas, seem to have reversed roles since leaving office: Now Bush is the silent statesman, and Cheney is the bombastic partisan.
A source close to Cheney, who refused to be named, says he’s been successful. “You’ve seen the national-security debate shift, both because of the facts and the specifics that he has been able to marshal and speak about, but also because he’s given strength and support to others who are speaking out. You’ve seen the American people have a much better understanding of what the different policy choices are and were, than they would have if he hadn’t been speaking out. It’s forced the Obama administration to be much more rigorous in defending its own policy decisions and choices. If nobody had been out there challenging, they wouldn’t have been held accountable in the way that they have been.”
An irony of the Cheney offensive, per Jim VandeHei: Liberals complain that Obama has largely embraced Bush’s approach to terrorism policy, while Cheney feels Obama is essentially dismantling the last team’s work. The truth is somewhere in between, but clearly not as bad as Cheney would have people think. Obama still has not shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center, or the domestic surveillance program, or the program for trying some terrorists in military tribunals. He extended — not eliminated — the Patriot Act and has secretly used drones to assassinate more terrorists than the Bush administration did. He increased troops in Afghanistan and has not drawn down troops in Iraq any faster than Bush would have if he had another term in office. In this light, it’s hard to see the Cheney caricature of Obama as weak accommodationist who wants to talk his way out of terror threats. At the same time, Obama has pulled back on what he sees as the most inexplicable overreaches of the Bush-Cheney years — the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (“torture,” to critics) and the with-us-or-against-us rhetoric.
WHY DOES CHENEY DO IT?
His he trying to justify the illegal war in Iraq? I don’t know. He seems very strident in his criticisms of Obama. This is just my own thinking.
If Obama had done what liberals wanted him to do and exposed Cheney for what he is he wouldn’t be having to fight this right flank action.
England is at least examining it and they don’e seem to be falling apart or in any more danger from terriosts.
Jane Austen says:
13 February 2010 at 11:25 am
It’s Dick Cheney, what else would you expect?
“Your argument isn’t credible,”
Truer words have never ben typed.
“On the contrary. bush counted on political correctness, a weakminded Congress and the stupidity of the public to be allowed to invade, incorrectly, Afghanistan. I thought that you were big into leadership? Leadership would correctly dictate that Obama withdraw from Afghanistan immediately. Political correctness and weakness demands that Obama escalate the war in Afghanistan”
The folks who actually DID attack us on 9/11 WERE in Afghanistan and still ARE in Afghanistan. Find them. KILL them.
“England is at least examining it and they don’e seem to be falling apart or in any more danger from terriosts.”
Why is it England,Chila,Cambodia,Argentina,South Africa even Russia can honestly examine the actions/crimes of past “Rulers” and the world dosen’t end or the sky fall but we can’t?
Once again dear friends into the breach.
Politically and militarily going after Afghanistan after 9/11 was a done deal. One large quibble, Bush pulled the trigger way too fast. As a matter of checking off the boxes he should have negotiated with Mullah Omar a little longer just to prove the bad faith of the Taliban government.
The larger quibble with Afghanistan is mission creep and that the place is the graveyard of empires. Even if you look at what BushCo did in Afghanistan from a purely military prospective, it was all wrong. Our focus should have been on capturing OBL. Instead Afghanistan became a side show to Iraq.
Our mission in Afghanistan may have been morally, politically and militarily correct but it was not prudent. OBL sucked us into a very dicey proposition, just as he did the Soviets all those years ago.
The proposition we are attempting is to do nation building in a place that never had a central government. The place is a soup sandwich and is not going to get much better for a long, long, long, long time.
Call me cynical but the only reason that BushCo went into Afghanistan is because they absolutely had too if they were to achieve their idea fixe of regime change in Iraq; that is my take.
We probably did have to go into Afghanistan, but god’s bodkin we certainly did not have to spend eight years there stumbling around like blind elephants. The sooner we find a political solution to this mess the better. To paraphrase Bismark, Afghanistan is not worth the bones of one more Kansas National Guardsman.
“Our mission in Afghanistan may have been morally, politically and militarily correct but it was not prudent. OBL sucked us into a very dicey proposition, just as he did the Soviets all those years ago.”
OBL did NOT suck the Russians into anything. The Russians invaded and OBL as the loser son in the BL family went to Afghanistan and found his calling as a Jihadist.
“The proposition we are attempting is to do nation building in a place that never had a central government.”
I agree. Find OBL and his allies and KILL THEM and then leave and let the afghanis sort it out.
“Call me cynical but the only reason that BushCo went into Afghanistan is because they absolutely had too if they were to achieve their idea fixe of regime change in Iraq; that is my take.”
Again I agree, they saw Afghanistan as the build up for Iraq
“We probably did have to go into Afghanistan, but god’s bodkin we certainly did not have to spend eight years there stumbling around like blind elephants. The sooner we find a political solution to this mess the better.”
We ABSOLUTELY had to go into Afghanistan, THEY (the Taliban) were the ones harboring OBL and his buddies.
As for the politicol solution? Find OBL and KILL HIM. Find his buddies and KILL them/ Find as many Taliban as you can and KILL THEM.
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