RSS Feed MenuAnybody who does not share George Will’s frustrations with the Afghan mission has not been paying attention.
That does not mean George Will is right in his call for American evacuation and a
comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units…
I think that policy answer is wrong. But if we are to reach a better answer, we need to deal with what is right in Will’s analysis of today’s grim and deteriorating Afghan situation.
Will is right about the weakness of the Afghan state. He is right about the endemic corruption of the Afghan government. He is right about the country’s deep backwardness. He is right above all about the Zen unreality of the current mission: to prevent the re-establishment of al Qaeda bases.
The Bush administration’s undeclared strategy in Afghanistan was to invest the minimum necessary to achieve stability – and then refocus on what it regarded as a more important and more winnable theater in Iraq.
Unfortunately, sustaining Afghan stability has proven much more difficult and expensive than imagined back in 2001 and 2002. Then candidate Obama compounded that Bush-era miscalculation with a poorly considered pledge to increase the US commitment in Afghanistan – a pledge that originated much more in the candidate’s political needs than in any strategic calculation. Obama has hugely reinforced the US Army in Afghanistan, with a big “TK” where his counter-insurgency strategy ought to be.
That’s a formula for frustration. What is being said by George Will in public is already being muttered in private by congressional Democrats.
Barack Obama has given Afghanistan men and money. But one vital resource is being withheld: presidential time and commitment. Turning around an unsuccessful war demands intense presidential focus. Everyone around the president must be made to understand that the war is priority 1, and that everything else on the agenda must be subordinated to this supreme imperative. George W. Bush accepted that responsibility in 2006-2008. Barack Obama has not. The results are as we see, in Afghanistan and now in the darkening assessment of as strong-spined an observer as George Will.
Chekote // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:30 pm
The United States has said that virtually all its troops, except some training personnel, are to be pulled out of Saudi Arabia.
So what was successful, Chekote … aggression, or appeasement?
The troops were stationed in Saudia Arabia at the request of the Saudis after Hussein invaded Kuwait. Once Hussein was removed. There is no reason to continue having troops in Saudi Arabia. I would say, aggression got the job done. Besides, our troops are better stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan so that we can have Iran cornered while we distabilize the regime by aiding the growing democracy movement there. Once regime change in Iran is achieved, we can look forward to settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have REAL Peace.
anniemargret // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Democrats supported Bush’s war in Afghanistan to dismantle the Taliban, al quaeda and capture Bin Laden. He had a 90% + approval rating after the 9/11 attack. The Iraq contention was that Saddam was linked to 9/11 and that his threat was an ‘imminent’ one. Apples and oranges.
Chekote // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:35 pm
ireign
Yugoslavia posed a real and present danger to America. You know, those Serb Jihadists. That’s why we had to bomb it into submission.
Chekote // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:40 pm
The Iraq contention was that Saddam was linked to 9/11 and that his threat was an ‘imminent’ one
No one ever said that Hussein sponsored the 9/11 attacks. That is another lie that the Left has been repeating for 8 years along with the unsubstatiated claims that the terrorist numbers had rocketed because of the Iraq War. After 9/11, the Bush administration decided not to take any chances that someone like Hussein with terrorist ties and WMDs could aid a biological, dirty bomb attack on the US. You live in NYC right? Were you afraid immediately after 9/11 that another attack would come? What did you want the president to do? Sit and wait for another attack or keep his fingers crossed that it would not happen again? What was your solution regarding preventing another attack?
balconesfault // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:42 pm
I think we can agree that Somalia was not a threat to us.
And perhaps someday we can all agree that American involvement in Somalia came when George HW Bush sent thousands of US troops into Somalia in December 1992?
A funny thing happened when a Democratic President escalated our involvement in Vietnam. He realized he wouldn’t be able to win a re-nomination and dropped out of the race. Meanwhile, as big a debacle as Iraq already was in 2004, there was no wiff of a primary challenge to George Bush.
Kosovo is what happens when you expand a treaty organization too large – you end up getting dragged into conflicts based on obligations that may not necessarily make sense. This is a useful cautionary tale as we seek to further expand NATO into the Caucuses.
Chekote // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I supported the Iraq War (although I don’t previously remember expressing this support on the blog) based on the intelligence we had that Saddam Hussein was pursuing wmd’s and given his past record that included gassing his own people, invading Kuwait, and trying to assassinate a former President, I thought it was imperative that he not have nukes.
That is EXACTLY the same reason I supported the Iraq War.
While I think Democratization is generally good (thus far, there has never been a war between two liberal Democracies) and am hopeful that we can at least build a stable Iraq, I don’t support wars solely based on spreading Democracy and neither do most Republicans.
Ditto.
balconesfault // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:50 pm
No one ever said that Hussein sponsored the 9/11 attacks. That is another lie that the Left has been repeating for 8 years
Yet oddly enough … the more one listened to supposedly liberal media, the less likely one was to believe this lie … while the more one followed news through Fox, the more likely one was to believe it.
See chart on Page 13
Chekote // Sep 1, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Kosovo is what happens when you expand a treaty organization too large – you end up getting dragged into conflicts based on obligations that may not necessarily make sense.
Kosovo did not pose as a threat to anyone. It was an intenal fight in what was left of the old Yugoslavia.
Chekote // Sep 2, 2009 at 12:01 am
Misperceptions included were that evidence of Iraq-al Qaeda links have been found, WMD have been found and world public opinion favored Iraq war.
Is this what you are referring to? If yes. Zarqawi (AQ) left Afghanistan and re-settled in Iraq. This was 2002. Why were AQ terrorists moving to Iraq? How was this possible without Hussein’s approval? To say that there were NO LINKS between Iraq and AQ is just not factual. In any case I stand by my statement that no one in the Bush Administration said that Hussein directed or participated in the 9/11 attack. As far as WMDs, Hussein had them according to the UN. Hussein also failed to provide any proof that he had destroyed the WMDs. Finally, if the Dems want to continue refighting the rationale for the Iraq War and blaming Bush for every ill in the world, it is fine with me. They will get killed the next election as the majority of Americans have moved on and now only care about how well Obama performs as POTUS.
balconesfault // Sep 2, 2009 at 4:53 am
Actually, I was referring specifically to this poll question:
“Is it your impression that the US has or has not found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization?”
Yes (by primary media source):
PBS/NPR – 16%
Print media – 4o%
ABC – 45%
CNN – 48%
NBC – 49%
CBS – 56%
Fox – 67%
Meanwhile – Zarqawi? Keep up, man.
Hussein’s Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Pentagon Report Says Contacts Were Limited
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 6, 2007
Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides “all confirmed” that Hussein’s regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.
The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community’s prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information. The report had been released in summary form in February.
barker13 // Sep 2, 2009 at 6:53 am
Re: Anniemargret // Sep 1, 2009 at 9:18 pm (#51) –
“barker: I agree with you about Afghanistan. Lordy, Lordy…will wonders never cease?”
(*GRIN*)
Hey… it’s just a simple statistical exercise; you can’t ALWAYS be wrong!
(*FRIENDLY PAT ON THE BACK WHILE CHUCKLING*)
BILL
anniemargret // Sep 2, 2009 at 7:33 am
http://www.zogby.com/news/readnews.cfm
They didn’t get their beliefs from the ‘liberal media.’
sinz54 // Sep 2, 2009 at 9:42 am
I don’t believe in nation-building either.
The British did a good job civilizing India–going after the Thuggees and helping to bust the caste system which included so-called “untouchables”–but that took literally centuries of sometimes brutal operations. Americans won’t accept that.
Besides, the Brits were quite open about wanting a worldwide empire for the sake of empire. The ostensible goal of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan was to fight terrorism. But the top al-Qaeda leadership seems to have fled into Pakistan. The U.S. can and should go after them there.
al-Qaeda has proven itself to be flexible and mobile–moving from country to country as needed. We need to be just as flexible and mobile, and not get tied down to any one country. Bush tied us down in Iraq, which was a mistake. Let’s not get tied down for many more years in Afghanistan.
sinz54 // Sep 2, 2009 at 9:51 am
Chekote & balconesfault:
The fatal tactical mistake that the Bush Administration made, was that they could decapitate the Saddam regime, but that the lower levels of society (civil service, police, infrastructure) would remain intact. And so U.S. forces could maintain a “small footprint” in Iraq, and Iraq would continue to function reasonably well under U.S. Military Government, until a new constitution could be written and a new government could be elected.
If that had been true, then when David Kay told Congress in December 2003 that no modern WMD stockpiles could be found in Iraq, the U.S. could have begun a process of withdrawal right then. (Rumsfeld’s original war plan, now declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, called for all U.S. troops to be withdrawn by December 2006.)
But we learned a hard lesson: The regimes of developing countries are personality cults. If you decapitate the personality, there’s often nothing left underneath.
As soon as Saddam fell, civil order collapsed, looting broke out, and ancient ethnic hatreds resumed. Terrorists and criminal gangs soon took advantage. Rumsfeld’s “small footprint” of 130,000 troops was totally inadequate to suppress anarchy. (Studies have shown that effective occupation requires a ratio of 1 soldier to every 50 civilians, which in Iraq’s case would have meant 520,000 U.S. troops to police the country.)
At that point, we were STUCK in Iraq. We couldn’t get out without leaving exactly the type of failed state we had said had given al-Qaeda safe havens. And so, instead of withdrawing, we got ourselves into a major counterinsurgency war. Rumsfeld had never believed that would happen.
sinz54 // Sep 2, 2009 at 9:52 am
anniemargaret #67:
The link you posted is broken.
sinz54 // Sep 2, 2009 at 10:04 am
Chekote:
Zarqawi (AQ) left Afghanistan and re-settled in Iraq. This was 2002. Why were AQ terrorists moving to Iraq?
In 2002, Zarqawi went to Iraq and set up shop in the Kurdistan region.
Given the poor relations between Saddam and the Kurds, this doesn’t sound to me like it was organized by Saddam.
wrs10 // Sep 2, 2009 at 10:17 am
Quite little forum is building up here!
Anyway, back to square one:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8233980.stm
2 September 2009
A member of the Nigerian Islamist sect behind a deadly uprising in July has confessed to receiving military training in Afghanistan, police say.
The member of the sect known locally as Boko Haram and Taliban said he had been paid $5,000 (£3,000) to do the training and promised $30,000 on his return.
The uprising in northern Nigeria left some 700 people dead, mostly militants. ………………….For years Western diplomats have feared a al-Qaeda sleeper cell might launch attacks on oil infrastructure in Nigeria, which is increasingly large supplier for the US……………….
Chekote // Sep 2, 2009 at 11:46 am
Sinz
Zarqawi went to Iraq to fight against Kurd nationalists. He fit the Hussein agenda to a Tee.
balconesfault // Sep 2, 2009 at 11:57 am
sinz: “The fatal tactical mistake that the Bush Administration made, was that they could decapitate the Saddam regime, but that the lower levels of society (civil service, police, infrastructure) would remain intact.”
It was worse than that – because you’re not considering the whole process of “de-Baathification”.
There was absolutely no way for the “lower levels of society (civil service, police, infrastructure) (to) remain intact” … because we deliberately banned virtually everyone who had held any level of responsibility in those organizations from having a job in Paul Bremer’s Iraq.
There’s a lot of reasons to believe that this wasn’t just stupidity – it was stupidity based on ideology. The neocons with little or no foreign policy experience who staffed the CPA were there to dismantle everything socialist (ie – the Baath Party infrastructure), and rebuild a new country to show what oil revenues and unfettered capitalism could accomplish.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48543-2004May22.html
When Ledeen’s group showed up at the palace — with their North Face camping gear, Abercrombie & Fitch camouflage and digital cameras — they were quite the spectacle. For some, they represented everything that was right with the CPA: They were young, energetic and idealistic. For others, they represented everything that was wrong with the CPA: They were young, inexperienced, and regarded as ideologues.
Several had impressive paper credentials, but in the wrong fields. Greco was fluent in English, Italian and Spanish; Burns had been a policy analyst focused on family and health care; and Ledeen had co-founded a cooking school. But none had ever worked in the Middle East, none spoke Arabic, and few could tell a balance sheet from an accounts receivable statement.
Other staffers quickly nicknamed the newcomers “The Brat Pack.”
“They had come over because of one reason or another, and they were put in positions of authority that they had no clue about,” remembered Army Reserve Sgt. Thomas D. Wirges, 38, who had been working on rehabilitating the Baghdad Stock Exchange.
Some also grumbled about the new staffers’ political ties. Retired U.S. Army Col. Charles Krohn said many in the CPA regard the occupation “as a political event,” always looking for a way to make the president look good.
brutus1791 // Sep 2, 2009 at 2:18 pm
First of all: THE John Batchelor????
If so that would be phenomenal.
Secondly, nobody here has asked whether this makes Mr. George Will a member of Mr. Frum’s “Unpatriotic Conservatives” list? http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/frum031903.asp
barker13 // Sep 2, 2009 at 4:32 pm
ReL Brutus1791 // Sep 2, 2009 at 2:18 pm (#75) –
“First of all: THE John Batchelor???”
Yeah. I was wondering the same thing.
(*SMILE*)
“…Mr. Frum’s “Unpatriotic Conservatives” list…”
NICE get!
(*WINK*)
BILL
Loss of Will - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com // Sep 9, 2009 at 4:55 pm
[...] maybe he’s not so much inside anymore, at least on this issue. David Frum writes that “What is being said by George Will in public is already being muttered in private by congressional Democrats,” and therein lies [...]