Can it get any more obvious that we’re wasting our time in Afghanistan? Actually, it can. It can’t get really obvious. But why do we have to wait for that?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Richard Holbrook is dead. How’s that for starters.
Hey if Petraeus keeps it up, maybe Karzai will rally up a populist mob and demand that the US pull out of Afghanistan.
And hey – if the US could have kept their … ahem .. “private security contractors” in check then maybe it wouldn’t have reached this point. The Afghans have legitimate complaints about how US backed “private security contractors” have been operating in the country and the US has basically been telling them to go pound sand for years.
Karzai may be a corrupt politician (hey, which politicians aren’t these days?), but he and his people have legit grievances that aren’t being responded to. What incentive does he have to work with the US when it’s becoming more and more clear that the US either isn’t capable or doesn’t want to help him keep the country secure?
Obama — or whoever — will have just as hard a time getting out of Afghanistan, because of our own military, as DeGaulle did getting out of Algeria, and this despite the fact that Afghanistan is not even a colony, never mind part of the metropolitan territory, as Algeria was.
It’s just not what armies do….
Other than some integrity perhaps, what’s preventing the Obama Administration from just declaring victory as Bush did regarding Iraq Enough time has gone by for people to lie to themselves and pretend that something worked. I don’t think that even the Wingnuts would complain (much).
Have a ticker tape parade! Get out the giant foam rubber fingers: USA! USA!
Bush had the advantage of a government that was willing to conclude a Status of Forces Agreement in order to tell the US to get the hell out. A government that you stood up that tells you “We can handle this. Get the hell out.” provides one hell of a figleaf.
Karzai would have to get the Taliban to join him is concluding a Status of Forces Agreement in order for the White House to declare victory and leave.
Whatever happens, the troops deserve a ticker tape parade for enduring crap and putting their life on the line day after day for an idiotic decision. That welcome home could go a long ways to mitigating the stab-in-the-back nitwits who would call Democrats soft on defense and disrespectful of the troops.
As he was sedated for surgery, his final words were to his Pakistani surgeon, according to family members: “You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/13/AR2010121305198.html
The problem is, our Commander-in-Chief is AWOL.
has been since Bush 41 (wish I coulda said Carter)
Reagan played at being a soldier
Clinton went to England
Bush 43 was AWOL
Obama managed to fit himself between it all
Only Carter and Bush41 had actual military experience… and I respect Carter’s more. It took a really rare person to get the respect of Hyman Rickover (which Carter did, as a nuclear sub commander in the Cold War). All Bush did was get his ass shot down in the Pacific in WWII.
Now who would I rather have in charge?
Why do we have to wait for that?
The obvious answer is the “stabbed in the back crowd” who are still smarting over a similar failure in Vietnam. Hollers of “treason” would arise if there were not at least a figleaf of victory (such as in Iraq, btw).
And instead of the backlash that Jimmy Carter faced for granting amnesty to Vietnam War draft dodgers, it would be a vicious reaction in a racist environment whipped up the the Republican co-opted and astroturfed TEA Party movement.
In two words: domestic politics. What always drives foreign policy.
It’s a bummer, but that’s why the reluctance.
If on the other hand, Hamid Karzai kicks us out, it is a different story. We have the figleaf. If we luck out and capture of kill bin Laden and Zawahiri, we have the figleaf.
The worse case scenario is fighting a rearguard action in order to protect troops being flown out of Bagram and Kandahar. Or having to fight a rearguard action to get troops for their current positions to Bagram and Kandahar.
You asked for it. Here it is:
If July 2011 comes and it is still on course, the figleaf is there to declare victory and leave. But we will wait until Thursday to see whether Gibbs had the straight scoop.