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The media and the net are full of critiques of President’s Obama’s speech on Afghanistan, which in my opinion is the weakest and most badly organized speech I have ever heard him deliver. If you saw the cameras panning over the closed eyes in the audience at West Point (where being caught on camera in such a state probably will earn the sleeper a few demerits), apparently his audience was not overwhelmed either.
Since so much has been written about the speech, I thought I would do something different for this blog, which usually features long analytical speeches: distill its problems into ten short points.
1. Afghanistan is not a country. It never has been and probably never will be in its present form, at least not in the conventional sense we Americans think of a country. It is one of those lines drawn on a map at the end of the First World War by colonial powers totally contemptuous of tribal, ethnic and cultural complexities. To show you just how complex these ethnic divisions are, below are three ethnic maps from sources on the net. Note that none of the three agree. Also note the number of groups and their territorial strongholds.
2. Please, Please, Please Stop Referring to “The War on Terror.” You cannot fight a tactic. We are fighting someone, not something. Who is that someone and when will we know victory is at hand?
3. The Taliban, Al-Qaeda or Both? In the President’s speech and subsequent testimony by administration officials it is unclear who are fighting. Whatever the ultimate answer, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are not the same. Defeating each one will require different tactics.
4. Osama Is Dead or Seriously Incapacitated. I said this four years ago in the book Strange Death, but no one took me up on it. bin Laden’s fondness for attention would have caused him to be far more visible than he has been lately if he were alive and healthy. If he is out of the picture who is running Al-Qaeda?
5. Afghanistan is WORSE than Vietnam. “Never fight a land war in Asia,” said Dwight Eisenhower. What he meant by that was the terrain made finding and defeating the enemy almost impossible. Vietnam was a jungle war; Afghanistan is a mountain war. We forget that in the last century both Geronimo and Chief Joseph succeeded in keeping thousand of United States Army troops busy chasing them through mountains much less remote and treacherous than those in Afghanistan with only a few hundred men.
6. Follow the Money. When George W. Bush started the Iraq War I recommended that the Democrats not approve of the action without asking for a tax increase to finance it. It would have put the GOP warhawks behind the eight ball—if you want a war everybody needs to sacrifice, including the rich, Now we face the largest deficit in history and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Obama had a chance to remedy this. He blew it.
7. Health Care and Afghanistan Don’t Mix. Just as Congress is on the verge of perhaps passing the most far-reaching health care reform in American history, he dumps Afghanistan on their plates. Watch the two get tangled up. Watch for a mess.
8. Afghanistan is a Regional Issue. As was pointed out by several commentators on various networks last night, among the current players in Afghanistan are the U.N., Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, India, China and several republics of the former Soviet Union. Obama said nothing about this.
9. The Opium of the People. Like it or not the opium trade is major part of the economy of many parts of Afghanistan. Can we run a drug war and a conventional war at the same time?
10. How Long Can You Keep Deploying? There are units of the American military that have been at the front in both Iraq and Afghanistan longer than comparable units in any other American war. How long can we keep asking these troops to shoulder the nation’s burden? The new “surge” will leave America’s defense forces stretched perilously thin.
11. Remember the Bay of Pigs: Presidents seem to feel they have to flex their military muscles when they enter the White House. Just as John Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs, so has Obama inherited Afghanistan. He did not do enough to differentiate his approach from that of his predecessor.
12. Why West Point? The choice of West Point to deliver the address was perplexing. The troops were a “model” audience in the sense that they did not show much reaction to any of Obama’s points. If he wanted to unite the country behind this effort he should have chosen an agenda where there would have been more reaction. Also what about the other service academies? And what was with the music played after the speech? Finally, given the possibility that a military leak was responsible for this whole affair, choosing West Point seems dubious at best.
Bonus: What’s With McChrystal? The leak of the general’s request for more troops is at the center of this mess. Since the Gulf War, the military has become much more open about airing its policy wishes to the media. There is only one Commander-in-Chief. Since it is impossible to know if the general played a role in the leak, he cannot be disciplined, but Obama needs to send a message about who is in charge.
The Final Word
Once again we have a war that has no definable goal, no definable enemy, and no way of allowing the troops in the field or those of us here at home to know whether we are making progress or not.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
