Dems to Obama on Afghanistan: Not So Fast With More Troops

The Democratic leadership is questioning President Obama's ramp-up of the war in Afghanistan:

"I don't think there is a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in Congress," Ms. Pelosi told reporters, emphasizing that she was eager to see a report due from the White House in two weeks on benchmarks to measure the success of the administration's six-month-old strategy.

More here.

That sort of push-back, however belated and tentative, is promising, especially given that the White House has manifestly failed to spell out what our goals there are.

Comments

[Warty]

If you don't want kids to die in Afghanistan, don't send them there. He does. How sorry can he be?

[Mike in PA]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

[Nick]

Mike in PA, the face on that clock has been stopped for a loooooong time.

[!]

Ah, the long overdue surrender monkey thread is up.

[Rich]

FTA: "This is our last best chance to change things around."

The best is always yet to come.

[Mike in PA]

Nick, I'm not sure if it's stopped or cryogenically frozen.

[John]

I am not sure sending more people will accomplish anything. But maybe it would. regardless, once the Dems get whacked in the off year elections and blame Obama for it, I am quite sure they will redescover their oppostion to foreign wars.

[John Thacker]

the White House has manifestly failed to spell out what our goals there are.

What, you wanted consistency? President Obama has continually used Afghanistan as the "good war" and even claimed that we should have been spending more their instead of in Iraq. Yet at the same time in his speech he added all the Afghanistan war costs in with the Iraq war costs when toting up wasted spending that his new benefit was presumably smaller then. Presumably that's just because that's the only way he could get the war spending number larger so it would look good rhetorically. Even though the war spending has tapered off and should decline, whereas the health spending increases faster than inflation, and the ten year benefit understates the costs since, as he said, it only starts in year four or five.

[creech]

How long has it been since there was a confirmation that Osama bin Laden was alive?
Are we chasing a ghost?

[!]

and blame Obama for it

HA! Not holding my breath on that.

[!]

How long has it been since there was a confirmation that Osama bin Laden was alive?
Are we chasing a ghost?

The organization he created is not a ghost.

[@]

Nobody wants to be the one who Lost The War.
Not Johnson, not Nixon, not Bush, not Obama.

[R C Dean]

I was watching the news on teh television a day or so ago (it happens, albeit rarely), and they had some reporter embedded with Marines doing a patrol.

The reporter pointed out that the Afghan troops refused to go into heavy cover during the patrol. Too dangerous. So the Marines had to go it alone.

At that point, I said fuck it. If the Afghans won't fight for their country, neither should we.

[Pro Libertate]

I say we give it to the Russians. They'd like to prove their global power, anyway.

[Nick]

Then declare victory. Problem solved.

[creech]

No, Al Qaeda is not a ghost. As long as American foreign policy sticks its nose into the affairs of other countries there will be people who hate us enough to push back. So, do we keep growing new Al Qaedas or do we stick to defending America?

[J sub D]

Obama can blame everything that goes wrong in Iraq (everything will) on Bush (and he will) and I'll give him a pass (so far).

However, he did take ownership of the Afghanistan mess. Everything that goes wrong there (everything will) from the fraudulent election onward is his responsibility.

[Umbriel]

This is the same sort of meaningless, posturing "opposition" that the Democrats in Congress displayed when it was "Bush's War". All they want to do is distance themselves from an unpopular war in anticipation of the next election. They don't actually want to expend effort to stop it, possibly offending voters by looking weak.

At most, this will further encourage Obama to waffle, since he won't want to expend political capital on Afghanistan while there's a grand agenda like Health Care to be addressed. What it won't do is resolve anything.

[Mike in PA]

As long as American foreign policy sticks its nose into the affairs of other countries there will be people who hate us enough to push back.
While I think I get where you're going here, let's not be naive. There are those that will kill Americans regardless of any foreign policy we adopt. While we are certainly adding fodder for them, we are not creating them. They exist and we must defend against them. DEFEND.

[TrickyVic]

"""At that point, I said fuck it. If the Afghans won't fight for their country, neither should we."""

It took you this long to figure that out?

The fact that Afghans let the taliban rise to power should have been the first clue.

[TrickyVic]

"""Then declare victory. Problem solved."""

You can't declare victory unless you can describe the goal. The original goal was to remove the taliban from power for failing to hand over OBL. Sticking to that goal, we are obligated to keep kicking the taliban out of any place they hold power until they give us OBL, dead or alive.

OBL, or his bones, not in our custody or the taliban holding any power means victory is not achieved. Unless we change the goal to something more obtainable. What really complicates things is when the goal is changed to nation building. Particularly when the people of the nation are not really interested in having unified country, and prefer their fiefdoms.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

The fact that Afghans let the taliban rise to power should have been the first clue.

They "let" the taliban rise in roughly the same way that the South Vietnamese "let" the communists "rise". It's not too much of a stretch to argue that it's much like the way we Americans "let" Bush and Obama "rise".

In fact the average person has virtually no real power to stop it, even if highly motivated to try.

Nonetheless I still agree with your final point, that it's not worth fighting for their country, and we shouldn't be trying in the first place.

[max hats]

I was watching the news on teh television a day or so ago (it happens, albeit rarely), and they had some reporter embedded with Marines doing a patrol.

The reporter pointed out that the Afghan troops refused to go into heavy cover during the patrol. Too dangerous. So the Marines had to go it alone.

When I was in Iraq, Marines assigned to police and military instructional teams would tell me very similar things. Marines and soldiers on foot patrol have a combat load of about 100 pounds, Iraqis just carry a rifle, ammo, helmet and flak. But consistently, the Iraqis would say they couldn't patrol, were too tired to go on, etc.

At that point, I said fuck it. If the Afghans won't fight for their country, neither should we.

They don't see it as fighting for their country, so much as they see it as fighting for their government, or even just fighting for their paycheck or their boss in many cases. If the Afghan security forces are anything like the Iraqi security forces I worked with, our cause there is hopeless.

[TrickyVic]

"""It's not too much of a stretch to argue that it's much like the way we Americans "let" Bush and Obama "rise"."""

For America as a generalization (yes I'm aware that's a fallacy) American's chose Bush and Obama via the power of the vote. That's a little bit different from having to arm yourself against a rising power. But if there is a rising power that is bad for your country, the citizens have a responsibility to put their life on the line to defend their liberty before citizens of other countries do.

If they want to do nothing and expect the world to unfuck the situation they didn't stand against, fuck them. The rest of the world shouldn't care more about their country than they do.

"""They don't see it as fighting for their country,"""

They really don't. To hold that belief, you must first be intersted in having a country to fight for. They fight for their fiefdoms.

[TrickyVic]

We would be much better off if we didn't attach nation building to war. We should have just kicked the crap out of the taliban and left. Repeat as necessary. But because set nation building expectations, we are screwed for years to come.

[TrickyVic]

But a funny side issue, would republicans support Obama if he abandoned the nation building, called it victory and left, or would they call it cut and run?

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

We would be much better off if we didn't attach nation building to war.

Agreed.

American's chose Bush and Obama via the power of the vote.

"Power"? By what measure? It doesn't sound like you understand how this "voting" thing actually works.

I didn't choose Obama or McCain either one, but those were the only real choices I had to vote for. Can you tell me where my "power" is in all of this?

If you think the libertarians or any other third party had any real chance in this country, you're on drugs or Mars or both.

Get real. The fact that we vote *is* the problem we have today. It is not the solution.

But if there is a rising power that is bad for your country, the citizens have a responsibility to put their life on the line to defend their liberty before citizens of other countries do.

Sounds great in theory. I predict that in practice you wouldn't do a damned thing, just like everyone else.

In Afghanistan (like in Vietnam) the common people "let" the Taliban (like the Viet Cong) "rise" because -- the Taliban use the simple expedient of mafia methods to "aquire" supporters. It goes something like this when they show up at your house:

Taliban: Hey, that son of yours looks strong. We need volunteers to help us carry food. He's coming with us.

You: Uh, well, hey, okay yeah, that'll be just fine.

Because if you said anything else they'd shoot you on the spot and then take the kid anyway. Or maybe shoot him on the spot too just for good measure, or just because his old man didn't seem to be with the program.

There's at least half a dozen of them. There's also a big huge difference between "risking your life" and "committing suicide". Can you guess which of these two is the only option open to you in this all-too-realistic scenario.

Once they've got your son they'll need you to give them some food for him to carry. You'll give them that too.

And then you too will have "let" the Taliban "rise".

[han]

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee,

[han]

That could antagonize the 2 million