Promise Keeping in Afghanistan and Iraq
6 Comments Published March 29th, 2009 in National and International Issues.Obama is doing what he said and saying what he does.
During the election, Obama said he would pull out of Iraq and go after Al Queda where they really are in Afghanistan.
Force levels are being cut in Iraq at this moment and a new focus on Afghanistan has been announced.
I feel safer already.
And it’s not just because he’s doing the right things. It’s also because he’s made it clear what he intends to do in a way that is convincing and realistic. The idiot Bush … in true cheerleader style … played to the bleachers. Obama plays against the other team.
Obama understands that America does have a legitimate reason to go after the people who would attack us, but that we do not have the right to impose our way of life on other people no matter how ‘right’ we might think it is. America is not the world. America is one country in the world. We have values. They have values. If America respected the values of other people more, maybe they would eventually respect our values a little more too.
Bush made hollow speeches that sounded good in the Bible Belt about creating democracy throughout the Middle East. (All the while ‘paling around’ with kings and dictators and refusing to support a truely democratically elected government in Palestine.) But Obama simply says his goal is to defeat Al Queda.
“I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”
I think that bin Laden might actually be a little concerned about his future for the first time in twenty years.
I agree with absolutely everything you wrote in this blog, Dan.
And I am so very pleased with the fact that Obama is being so transparent and making such an effort to inform us and include us — it almost makes it seem like he understands he was elected by the people to do a job for them – that he understands that he is not a king unaswerable to the masses. “We’re all in this together, so tell me what you think, and I’ll tell you what I and all these smart people I’ve surrounded myself with have figured out about how to handle the mess we’re in” seems to be his motto. – The man is amazing. – And his wife is not too shabby either!
Yeah … Michelle is indeed … ummm … not too shabby.
Obama’s actions so far in Iraq and Afghanistan are to continue what Bush started. Thanks to military success, troops can be withdrawn from Iraq and sent to Afghanistan.
I do appreciate Obama’s desire not to get involved in nation building in Afghanistan, but I’m not sure we are going to be able to avoid it. Unfortunately, terrorist organizations seem to have more persistence and a longer attention span than we do. Building the Afghan army and national police seems to be a prerequisite to keeping Al-Qaeda or an Al-Qaeda affiliate out of Afghanistan in the future after we leave.
Obama is correct to focus on Al-Qaeda. Bush’s grandiose vision of turning Iraq into a cradle of democracy was doomed to failure from the start.
How do you feel about the US tacitly permitting the Taliban to return to control in Afghanistan as long as they are not associated with Al-Qaeda? The Taliban are bad people but other than providing a haven for Al-Qaeda I’m not sure they pose any threat to the US.
“… what Bush started …” !!??
Bush was forced by events to (finally) ditch Rummy and accept a Secretary of Defense from his father’s administration. (You know … the Bush who refused to go into Iraq because it would turn into a trap.) Gates then had almost complete freedom of action since he was imposed on Bush and wasn’t part of the Bush inner circle anyway. BEFORE confirmation in 2006, Gates testified to Congress that we were not winning the war. Not exactly a glowing testament to Bush.
It was the independence and forthright action of ROBERT GATES that we can thank for military success in Iraq, not the idiot Bush. Gates was the only piece of the machinery that changed and another thing we can give Obama credit for is looking past politics and keeping him on.
“I do appreciate Obama’s desire not to get involved in nation building …”
Au Contraire Mon Frère!
It was the idiot Bush who refused to recognize the vital role of ‘real’ nation building. While Obama is boosting the troop commitment to Afghanistan, the real effort will be going into creating the kind of nation that can actually work with us and finally get al Queda. As the AP reported, “Obama also promised a major boost in civilian personnel and development assistance including tripling US aid to Pakistan to 7.5 billion dollars over five years.”
As Marvin Weinbaum, a State Department analyst on Afghanistan and Pakistan until 2003 said, “The Bush administration used that kind of rhetoric, that it’s going to create a model democracy and meanwhile tried to do it on the cheap. It never really made the … commitment and then let things slip away.”
Since Obama has demonstrated fast action in the first 100 days of his administration, we’ll see al Queda can last eight years of his administration.
“How do you feel about the US tacitly permitting the Taliban to return to control in Afghanistan as long as they are not associated with Al-Qaeda?”
It worked with the Sunni in Iraq. I’m not sure that they will be ‘in control’ on anything more than a regional level. And heck, how much different is that than the religious enclave called Utah?
Bush was forced by circumstances to try the surge. For far too long Bush and Rummy hung on to the notion that victory in Iraq was going to be quick, cheap and easy.
When Bush finally did realize what needed to be done he did it in face of considerable opposition from the public and Congress. Gates was essential for victory — It also helped that he finally got some military leaders that were willing to tell him the truth.
As to your last sentence – at least here in St George the religious police rarely beat women in public for not wearing burkhas or young girls for trying to go to school.
We agree about most of this. The primary point we disagree about is Bush’s role.
The single area of expertise in Bush’s administration was the manipulation of public perception. Certainly, the spin that Bush’s (admitedly excellent) professional liars put on it was that this was Bush’s executive decision. If it was, then it was his first. Given that Gates was the main new element in the mix, however … and that all of the old elements were gross failures … it seems more reasonable to me to assume that Gates was the critical decision maker and he was simply wise enough to allow the White House liars to do what they were good at.
“At least here in St George …”
True. But fifty miles up the road …
Such is the civilizing influence of multiculturalism. (Respect for other ideas is a main theme of the main article above.) We all learn from each other. I note that they even serve hot herbal tea (a ‘hot drink’ if there ever was one) in the delightful rooftop restaurant at the top of the Joseph Smith building (the former Hotel Utah).
Now if we could only wrest absolute control of the Utah Legislature from those Talib …. excuse me …. Republicans up there.