POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

2Dec/0911

More reactions to Mr. Obama’s new Afghan strategy

Judging from some of the reactions to the President’s West Point address last night, I can say that he’s finally achieved his desire to be both post-partisan and transnational; because on both sides of the political spectrum, and the Atlantic, there seems to be a consensus that his speechifying failed to hit the mark and that there are fundamental, and perhaps even dangerous, flaws to his announced strategy.  Also, I’m not alone in my opinions of the speech, both before and after his address.

Lest I be assailed as a wingnut provocateur, I’ll start with this surprising reaction by Joan Walsh, a contributor to Salon and a regular on Chris “Tingle” Matthews show Hardball :

At the moment he needed all of his persuasive powers, Obama gave the worst major speech of his presidency. I admit: I expected to be, even wanted to be, carried away a bit by Obama's trademark rhetorical magic. But I wasn't, not even a little. I found the speech rushed, sing-songy and perfunctory, delivered by rote. I despise the right-wing Obama-Teleprompter taunts, but even I wanted to say, Look at your audience, not the damn Teleprompter, Mr. President. Obama looked haggard, his eyes deeper set, and I believe this decision pained him. But I'm not sure even he believes it's the right decision. Neocon Danielle Pletka Tweeted happily mid-speech: "So far, could be Bush speaking" and later, approvingly: "count me gobsmacked." That makes two of us. Rep. Maxine Waters spoke for me on "Countdown" tonight when she opened her remarks by telling Keith Olbermann: "I'm very saddened."

Gabor Steingart Writing in Der Spiegel was even more blunt:

Never before has a speech by President Barack Obama felt as false as his Tuesday address announcing America's new strategy for Afghanistan. It seemed like a campaign speech combined with Bush rhetoric -- and left both dreamers and realists feeling distraught.

One didn't have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama's speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama's re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.

Wow…That’s pretty tough stuff.  And just as I predicted last night, prior to the President’s speech, he didn’t use the word victory; which left The Dailey Beast’s Tunku Varadarajan wondering, “…would it kill him to endorse winning?”

But even tougher still is Colonel Ralph Peter’s thesis, that Mr. Obama is actually setting our military up to fail:

President Obama will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan -- but he'll "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." Then why send them?

If you're going to tell the Taliban to be patient because we're leaving, what's the point in upping the blood ante? For what will come down to a single year by the time the troops hit the ground?
 Adding to the confusion, Obama qualified his timeline by insisting that "we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground."

If conditions of the ground are key, why announce a pullout date?

Our president is setting up our military to fail -- but he'll be able to claim that he gave the generals what they wanted. Failure will be their fault.

He's covering his strong-on-security flank, even as he plays to our white-flag wavers. His cynicism's worthy of a Saddam.

Obama's right about one thing, though: The Afghans "will ultimately be responsible for their own country." So why undercut them with an arbitrary timeline that doesn't begin to allow adequate time to expand and train sufficient Afghan forces? Does he really believe that young Afghans are going to line up to join the army and police knowing that we plan to abandon them in mid-2011?

Does the 2012 election ring a bell?

What messages did our president's bait-and-switch speech just send?

To our troops: Risk your lives for a mission I've written off.

To our allies: Race you to the exit ramp.

To the Taliban: Allah is merciful, your prayers will soon be answered.

To Afghan leaders: Get your stolen wealth out of the country.

To Pakistan: Renew your Taliban friendships now (and be nice to al Qaeda).

This isn't just stupid: It's immoral. No American president has ever espoused such a worthless, self-absorbed non-strategy for his own political gratification.

And not only myself and Colonel Peters think that the President’s a priori timetable is a recipe for disaster.  From McClatchey (hardly a locus of wingnuttery):

President Barack Obama's effort Tuesday night to reassure Democrats who oppose the deployment of another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and to emphasize a U.S. exit strategy to pressure Afghan President Hamid Karzai to reform his corruption-riddled government could backfire.

The Taliban, al Qaida, their allies and their patrons in Pakistan and the Middle East, as well as America's partners, may think that Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011 signals a lack of U.S. staying power and dilutes any incentives for insurgents to switch sides or negotiate a political accord.

"It's a big mistake," a U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said of Obama's announcement that a U.S. withdrawal would begin in 19 months. "It just tells the Taliban and everyone else how long they need to last."

Indeed, this last observation is indicative of perhaps the most dangerous possible outcome of the strategy Mr. Obama outlined last night.  In the haste to have a timetable of withdrawal presented simultaneously with the announcement of the necessary troop build-up, an effort to avoid any possible comparisons to the “quagmire” of Vietnam, he may have inadvertently put into motion the same kind of ignominious defeat suffered in 1975; when the North Vietnamese, having patiently waited for effectively all of the US forces to be withdrawn as promised, finally swept into Saigon and achieved their long sought victory.

So it seems that in his desire to reassure his political base on the far left, Mr. Obama may have actually succeeded in the Vietnamization of the Afghan war; an outcome that would be cruelly ironic indeed…

Let me be very clear.  This is an outcome I do not want to see come to pass.  I want only what is best for our nation, our fellow Americans putting it on the line in the field, and our NATO and Afghan allies.  I do not believe in the politicization of war, nor of scoring cheap political points on the backs of our troops, nor of disingenuously using foreign policy issues as a cudgel against my political opponents.  And, I’m sad that I can’t be sure that the President’s speech last night wasn’t aimed at mollifying his political base; especially when Mr. Obama, among others, decried so loudly what they perceived as the politicization of the DOJ during the 2008 campaign. This is an arena where he could have developed a very real working relationship with Republicans across the aisle; and where his goodwill may have set the table for compromise on his domestic agenda as well.

Again, let me be very clear.  I fully support the President’s decision to deploy the additional reinforcements to Afghanistan.  General McChrystal is on record as believing he can accomplish the mission with the additional boots on the ground.  And, while I have my reservations about the declared timetable of withdrawal, I am encouraged by Secretary Gates walk-back of that schedule’s immutability during testimony today before the U.S. Senate.  It is my wish that Mr. Obama be the President under which this war is won!  But, there can be no replacement for victory, nor will any euphemism for such suffice.  While the sophistry of political correctness holds sway in some societal circles, it is not applicable to armed conflict.  In war there are but three real outcomes; victory-like in WWII, defeat-like in Vietnam, and stalemate-like in Korea.  In Afghanistan, and the war on terror, there is only one acceptable option.

Victory!

UPDATE: Karl "that magnificent bastard" Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal, pretty much agrees with the points I make; especially about how Mr. Obama can freeze out the anti-war left and pass any required legislation to support his Afghanistan initiative with a coalition of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats.  Now that just might be Change! I could believe in.

Rocketman

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1Dec/0915

A premonition of elements in tonight’s speech by the President.

While I heartily approve of the President finally deigning to approve General McChrystal's reinforcement request, a couple of facets disturb me greatly. 

First, were I Obama, in matters like this I would have tended to, you know, actually trust and rely on the recommendations of the commander that I appointed and whose strategy I gave public, full-throated endorsement to in March and August of this year.

Secondly, as President I certainly wouldn't be setting a timetable for withdrawl before I actually sent the necessary reinforcements.  That's kind of like a gentleman showing up on a blind date, and upon meeting, asking his companion just which hotel he'd be schtupping her in later !  It's definately putting the cart before the horse, and obviously inspires a strategy on the part of your enemy to simply lay low until your pre-determined withdrawl date, and then mount their own offensive!

Still, based on this move by John "Lurch" Kerry, I'm getting a feeling for what will be a major component of the President's message tonight:

President Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy today, and in the nick of time Senator John Kerry has arrived with a report claiming that none of this would be necessary if former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only deployed more troops eight years ago. Yes, he really said more troops.

In a 43-page report issued yesterday by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Mr. Kerry says bin Laden and deputy Ayman Zawahiri were poised for capture at the Tora Bora cave complex in late 2001. But because of the "unwillingness" of Mr. Rumsfeld and his generals "to deploy the troops required to take advantage of solid intelligence and unique circumstances to kill or capture bin Laden," the al Qaeda leaders escaped.

The timing of the report's release suggests that Mr. Kerry intends this as political cover for Mr. Obama and Democrats, and some in the press corps have even taken it seriously. But coming from Mr. Kerry, of all people, this criticism is nothing short of astonishing.

Yeah...Astonishing all right, especially in view of some stubborn facts and inconvenient truths provided by someone who is eminently knowledgable on the subject of that phase of the war; General Tommy Franks:

On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we "outsourced" the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

Contrary to Senator Kerry, President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to Osama bin Laden. The war on terrorism has a global focus. It cannot be divided into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both are part of the same effort to capture and kill terrorists before they are able to strike America again, potentially with weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist cells are operating in some 60 countries, and the United States, in coordination with dozens of allies, is waging this war on many fronts

So, on top of Kerry being terribly mistaken, and obviously playing domestic political games with foreign policy and the lives of our troops, he has also telegraphed what the President plans to use as his main talking point tonight; I BLAME BOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

Listen to the President's words tonight.  In between all of the palaver about avoiding a Vietnam-esque "quagmire" by stipulating withrawl dates in advance, he'll blame Bush for the situation we are in today, and he wil never use the word victory.  This is all a swan song, calculated to keep the nutroots and the far left of his party on board with his agenda, and to keep them energized and active.  It's more about securing his political flank than our soldiers flank; more about his electoral success than actual victory in the war that he spent two years calling the "good war"-using it as a cheap political ploy to showcase his foreign policy toughness, all while declaring the surge, and indeed the war, in Iraq lost.

So listen to him, remember his words, so that you'll be able to enjoy watching him try to weasel out later; when this promise, like many of his others, expires...

Posted at 19:50 eastern time, just before Mr. Obama's address.

Rocketman

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7Oct/092

Herbert & Cohen; off message, or off the reservation?

As mentioned in prior posts, some of the liberal intelligentsia of the fourth estate have lately been experiencing epiphanies, and in those moments of clarity are seeing Obama as he really is.  Instead of the demi-god ushering in a whole new era of hope-n-change, some are beginning to see him more as an inexperienced demagogue who is perhaps in over his head in regards to foreign relations and policy, and who’s lack of leadership has led to a derailing of his promised, ambitious, domestic social agenda.

Today the disgruntled liberals in the spotlight are Bob Herbert of the NY Times, and in his second appearance, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post.  Bob Herbert, who up until now has never penned a story about the President that cast him in an unfavorable light, is concerned that Obama doesn’t feel the pain of the unemployed nor an urgency to create government funded programs to employ them:

The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.
[snip]
We seem to be waiting for some mythical rebound to come rolling in, magically equipped with robust job creation, a long-term bull market and paradise regained for consumers.

It ain’t happening.

I get that Bob Herbert is feeling people’s pain, but my intuition makes me suspect that he’s concerned as much, if not more, about the electoral prospects of the Democrats in 2010 should unemployment remain high, as he is about the unemployed themselves.

Richard Cohen is also having doubts about Obama, this time around it's about his inexperience and how that affects foreign policy.  And, in not so many words, he wonders aloud whether the President is perceived as weak:

This is the president we now have: He inspires lots of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the latter, though, that matters most in international affairs, where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama. If he remains consistent to his rhetoric of just seven weeks ago, he will send more troops to Afghanistan and more of them will die. "This is not a war of choice," he said. "This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans."

[emphasis-ed.]

George Will, while hardly a liberal, also weighs in on the first couple’s self-centeredness as well as Obama’s certainty that the very power of the wisdom flowing forth from his lips is enough to sway any audience, solve any dispute, and correct any problems; and more realistically, the folly of that belief:

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about . . . themselves. Although the working of the committee's mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago's bid for the 2016 Games on aesthetic grounds -- unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.

In the 41 sentences of her remarks, Michelle Obama used some form of the personal pronouns "I" or "me" 44 times. Her husband was, comparatively, a shrinking violet, using those pronouns only 26 times in 48 sentences. Still, 70 times in 89 sentences conveyed the message that somehow their fascinating selves were what made, or should have made, Chicago's case compelling.
[snip]
It was gallant of the president to say to the Olympic committee that Michelle is "a pretty big selling point for the city." Gallant, but obviously untrue. And -- this is where we pass from the merely silly to the ominous -- suppose the president was being not gallant but sincere. Perhaps the premise of the otherwise inexplicable trip to Denmark was that there is no difficulty, foreign or domestic, that cannot be melted by the sunshine of the Obama persona. But in the contest between the world and any president's charm, bet on the world.

Notwithstanding Will’s snarkiness, he is most likely correct.  But there will be some folks who read these words that feel he’s just another right-wing hater;  I direct them to these postings by Ace in which he not only refutes the assertions nicely, but also flames a few of those wringing their hands in concern over such a pronounced and unpatriotic lack of civility.  So in keeping with one of the President’s favorite memes, let's consider such crying and gnashing of teeth to be mere distractions; more of the corrosive “old kind of politics” that have gone the way of the dinosaur in the age of Obama.

Still, there are many in the legacy media who remain ardent supporters of the President, such as those leveling the accusations of Republican sedition vis-à-vis the 2016 Olympic bid.  One of the higher visibility examples, in exposure only and certainly not gravitas, is part-time economist and full-time shill Paul Krugman, also of the NY Times.  His latest column, “The Politics of Spite”, an exposition on the Copenhagen catastrophe, is such an archetype of partisan high dudgeon that it should be included in a poli-sci style manual.  I’ll spare you direct quotations from the smarmy diatribe, but instead will point you to Bookworm’s post where she employs a plethora of evidence from Krugman’s own past columns  which exhibit the same behavior that he decries today; and in doing so proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that his picture should accompany the dictionary entry for “hypocrite”.

Rocketman

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