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Liberals lash out at Obama for sending more troops to Afghanistan
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Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan has stunned liberals
President Barack Obama has evidently shunned his liberal base by deciding to increase troop levels in Afghanistan by another 30,000 or more – a strategy that should be officially announced in the coming days. Case in point, Arianna Huffington, queen of the modern liberal establishment, declared that Obama’s decision calls into question his leadership. Ouch. With friends like that…
Obama playing same old politics
Ms. Huffington discussed her disappointment with Obama on the Charlie Rose show earlier today, basically chastising him because he stood before the country during the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and told voters that the greatest risk for the U.S. would be to do the same old thing, play the same old politics, with the same old players and then expect different results. "And yet here he is, "Arianna explained, "poised to do just that."
Progressive Democrats are angry
According to Roll Call, opposition is growing within the Democratic Party’s liberal ranks, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin who have publicly spoken out against Obama’s strategy. Representative David Obey (D-Wis) who chairs the powerful House Appropriations Committee is leading the charge to defeat Obama’s war plan and says the only way a troop increase will get through Congress is if it includes a surtax levied against the rich. Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are going even further and demanding immediate troop withdrawal. Thank God Obama has Republicans and conservative Democrats in his corner.
Bill Moyers warns Obama
Bill Moyers was a special assistant to the President during the Johnson administration and provides credible insights into the decision-making process that led to the escalation of the Vietnam War. Moyers reviewed the LBJ tapes on his program last week and drew powerful parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan. At the end of the program Moyers sent Mr. Obama a not-so-subtle admonition:
Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.
Left-leaning think tank organizes against Obama
If you oppose the war you can go to liberal think tank Just Foreign Policy’s website and send Obama an email demanding him to bring the troops home. The homepage has a picture of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai with a caption that reads “Why Die for Karzai?” . It links to an L.A. Times article written by former California state senator and famous Sixties anti-war protester Tom Hayden, who publicly endorsed Obama during the election. Hayden concludes that America needs a hero who has the guts to retreat:
This is the "march of folly" once predicted by historian Barbara Tuchman. And it requires an exit strategy, not a deepening quagmire. In 1989, German essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger wrote of the need for a "new kind of hero," not one who spills blood to save a reputation but one brilliant at withdrawing from untenable situations of their own making.
"It was Clausewitz," wrote Enzensberger, "who showed that retreat is the most difficult of all operations. That applies in politics as well. . . . It goes without saying that the protagonist risks his life with every step he takes on this path."
This is the choice facing Obama: Whether to send more Americans to their graves in support of Hamid Karzai while at the same time blocking the emergent quest for peace negotiations in Afghanistan.
Flagship of the left gives 7 reasons for negotiated peace
In The Nation, a 144 year-old liberal news magazine, Tom Engelhardt writes a clever yet poignant mock speech he would like President Obama to deliver at West Point in lieu of his much-anticipated purported fait accompli to escalate troop levels. Mr. Engelhardt highlights seven salient points that are hard to get around whether one is for or against the troop surge:
- We have no partner in Afghanistan. The current President took office by winning a scandalous election, government control doesn’t extend beyond Kabul and the Karzai administration is believed to have lost all credibility with the people.
- Afghanistan floats in a culture of corruption. President Karzai’s administration is packed with warlords who continue to depend on opium financing. According to Engelhardt: "Afghanistan, in fact, is not only a narco-state, but the leading narco-state on the planet."
- No improvement. Despite billions of dollars of American investment in training, the Afghan security forces are still understrength, corrupt, ineffective and held in contempt by most of the populace.
- We look like occupiers. The Taliban insurgency is spreading and gaining support because the Karzai regime has been so thoroughly discredited and reconstruction funds so badly misspent. Now, American and NATO forces increasingly look like an army of occupation, and sending more soldiers will only solidify this impression.
- Al Qaeda is no longer a significant factor in Afghanistan. Intelligence estimates say there are 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and another 300 in neighboring Pakistan. Our goal has been to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and we’ve been successful. Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization is still a danger to us, but not a $100 billion-plus danger.
- Nothing but a bloody bail-out. The Afghanistan war is the military equivalent of a massive bail-out of a firm determined to fail. The American people will be spending $100 billion dollars a year on this conflict if we send another 40,000 troops. We cannot afford to squander money on a failing war thousands of miles from home.
- We lack bench strength. The military is wearing down from shouldering the burden of two wars. Even if we were capable of sending 40,000-80,000 more troops they would be service people on their second, third, fourth, or even fifth tours of duty.
Mr. Obama's conundrum
Not only did he alienate liberals, but those on the right side of the aisle are also angry - but for different reasons - because they think Obama should send an additional 80,000 troops, as requested by General Stanley McChrystal. The bottom line is that Obama shocked the liberal establishment by agreeing to send one additional troop to Central Asia. Some believe he caved due to political pressure because he ran on Afghanistan being the "right" war - and now he must save face. It's fair to deliberate and take one's time as Obama has done before making such a critical decision, however, one wonders how much of the final outcome was driven by poll-watching and political calculation. Hopefully, politics wasn't too significant a component of the final decision to escalate war - that's a dangerous game. Obama might want to take a peek at the LBJ tapes, because when military strategy is purely driven by political objectives - we know what happens.
Related Links
Interveiw with Ahmed Rashid: Afghanistan needs (and wants) U.S. long-term committment (Huffington Post)
Cries from the valley: The epic suffering of Afghanistan's children (photo essay)
U.S. awakens anti-Taliban militia groups in Afghanistan
Video captures Afghanistan's "dark stain of corruption"
Michael Hughes is also the Geopolitics Examiner
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