Check out the Roll Call on the supplemental funds for Iraq and Afghanistan (and other purposes). I don’t have the time right now to calculate percentages, but it looks like the vast majority of the Black and Hispanic Congressional caucuses voted against any more funding for the wars. So did twelve Republicans (although some of them might have been objecting to calling the bill ’emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief and summer jobs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes’). I know I was not confused (unlike in my last post).
I would have reluctantly voted for this bill, but I respect those who did not. I would have voted for it because there’s a plan in place and it needs some time to see if it can work. But I don’t like passing these bills as emergency supplementals (we were supposed to stop doing that) and I don’t believe in the plan. I think the plan will fail. I think we’re wasting money. So, it would be a very painful ‘yes’ vote for me, and I’d expect to see some kind of miracle occur or I would not be voting ‘yes’ again next year. Among Democrats, 148 voted ‘yes’ and 102′ voted ‘no.’ I am more in political agreement on almost every issue with those who voted ‘no’ on this bill. But I’d cast my votes as if they were decisive and not to make statements from the safety of knowing that the bill will pass anyway. I do not want to see the troops left in the field without funding, nor the president left to hang out to dry before his policy has a chance to prove itself. So, he’d get that chance from me this year, but not next year if things don’t improve dramatically. My best judgment is that we cannot succeed, even minimally, in Afghanistan. The president has our money now, so let him prove me wrong.
In other news, the DISCLOSE Act failed.
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My judgment of Afghanistan is that we will know by October whether there is a way out. And this will hinge on Pakistan and its ability to clear foreign fighters out of the Pakistani tribal territories and the Northwest Territory. The other half of that task is having ISAF troops on the Afghanistan side of the border to capture any foreign fighters moving into Afghanistan. If these operations have a convincing result, the military might be able to tick off the removed al Qaeda item from their checklist.
I expect to see Hamid Karzai meeting with certain factions of the Taliban soon and more later, and for him to begin to distance himself from the US and ISAF operations. That all has to do with eventually coming to a political settlement. What will signal the success of that process, whether driven by the US or Karzai, is a status-of-forces agreement that essentially kicks the US out of the country (oh, and guarantees safe passage).
The framework of frontline states that can guarantee Afghanistan’s security is already in place. It is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, formed primarily by China and Russia but including all of the -stans, Iran, India, and Afghanistan either as full members, observers, or guests.
The only way Petraeus’s insistence on turn security operations over to locals is to allow US troops to begin concentrating for a couple of big operations and to facilitate evacuation when the order comes to leave.
Given the federal budget cycle, the supplemental likely extends the FY 2010 money well into FY 2011, allowing the FY 2011 money to run through December, if we succeed in getting out in 2011. If we don’t get out, it is likely more for domestic political reasons (Congress doesn’t have the will) than for strategic reasons.
OT: Taking a look at the Wikileaks material is worthwhile to get an idea of what the troops recorded doing. One of the more interesting Categories–you can search by Type of action, Category, Region, etc.– was about the projects that DoD assisted with. There are 88 project starts and 81 project completions. The projects used local contractors to a great extent and built wells, medical centers, schools, bridges, etc. Another Category to look at are psy-ops. Go have a look. I have not been able to locate any of the reports that back up the press reports with regard to Pakistan helping the Taliban, Task Force 373, etc. But there are over 90,000 documents there. And I don’t know how long the Guardian and NYT and Der Spiegel took to research their reports.
And Reid voted against the DISCLOSE Act; it will be back.
“we will know by October whether there is a way out“
There is always a way out. In this case you simply say “ooops, we made a mistake. We should not have treated the crimes of September 11 as a cassus belli against Afghanistan, of all places. We should have treated it as what it was, an international police matter. We should have gone after the people who planned and perpetrated the crime instead of pretending the Taliban, who are only fighting us because we attacked them, into the terrorist threat du jour.” Then you head for the egress.
“a status-of-forces agreement that essentially kicks the US out of the country“
Unlike the SOF agreement the U.S. imposed on the Iraqis, which guarantees perpetual U.S. military, and therefore political and economic control disguised as a withdrawal?
“Petraeus’s insistence on…“
Ah yes, the self-serving Petraeus who will most likely put in his bid for the presidency in 2016.
“If we don’t get out, it is likely more for domestic political reasons…“
How many Afghans, Iraqis, and U.S. soldiers have had their lives taken away or ruined for domestic political reasons? I would wager that most major decisions in war have more to do with domestic politics than strategy. In fact, I would wager that the decision to invade Afghanistan had everything to do with domestic politics and nothing to do with making an effective response to the crimes of 9/11.
Understand that I was not talking about the best of all possible worlds. I understand that there are many other options, and about the use of 9/11 as casus belli against Afghanistan.
I was describing what to look for if Obama really intends to get out by 2011 as one rumor has it.
The part about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization IMHO is already happening. And no doubt there have been discussions with the US seeking to broker a deal. The Pakistani Army presses relentlessly on in removing foreign fighters even as it continues relations with the Taliban; this is really a helpful action by Pakistan, US press notwithstanding. The rest is mostly a speculative reading of recent events to show how a figleaf-of-victory strategy might work.
And one of the things about international politics is that domestic politics always drives foreign policy. And the best leaders can shape strategy around domestic political pressure for or constraints on foreign policy.
about the use of 9/11 as a casus belli, I agree.
There’s a difference between going into Afghanistan to assure that it isn’t used anymore as jihadist playground to menace the US, Europe, India, and China, and occupying the country for a decade without providing the resources needed for the government or our troops.
“I was not confused…
“I would have reluctantly voted for this bill…because there’s a plan in place…and I don’t believe in the plan. I think the plan will fail. I think we’re wasting money.
“My best judgment is that we cannot succeed, even minimally, in Afghanistan.
“
So, you would vote to waste money, and more importantly human lives (many, many, many Afghan lives in addition to a significantly smaller number of American lives), because there is a plan in place that you don’t believe in and you judge will not succeed.
But you are not confused.
Politics doth make fools of us all.
And you clearly
Yes, it is easy to criticize those that authorize funds for soldiers in the field when they have serious doubts about the merits of their mission. By all means, take shots at them and at me. I explained my reasoning.
There is a plan in place to start winding this down next year. It is Obama’s plan and the Dems supported it. The GOP should support it because it is essentially what they and their presidential candidate proposed. A good measure of that plan is to save face, but it is the plan. If they agreed to it they should let it run it’s course.
Of course success there is going to look a lot like S Korea. We will be pumping billions of military aid into the place for decades in an attempt to create ANY sort of viable economy. Money there will trickle down from police and military forces into the economy. Its nuts, but that’s the choice we have and sadly the price we have to pay for electing (and Congress supporting) GWB’s stupidity.
The overriding concern for me is actually Pakistan. We can “nation build” in Afghanistan even if is likely to become a decades long commitment and not be very effective, but I’m afraid we will get sucked into protracted military action with Pakistan essentially to defend Afghanistan.
Your position sounds to me like “I am giving Obama enough rope to choke his policy to death.”
It’s more a matter of believing something to be the case but not being certain about it.
In the case of Iraq, even if Bush’s charges had been true, it still was obviously a terrible idea that would lead to horrible consequences. There may have been ways to limit the damage, but anyone could see that invading Iraq was going to cause catastrophic problems. Doing it without any UN authorization made that even more clear. In that case, you don’t provide AUMF and you don’t fund the thing without a timetable for withdrawal.
In the case of ongoing appropriations for Afghanistan, the president campaigned on this and he created a new plan that needs time to work. I don’t think it will. But I think he deserves a chance to prove it can help lead to a drawdown of troops in a more stabilized setting. It’s a very tough vote.