As they say, history repeats itself. And words very often come back to bite.
Tom Engelhardt in "Bitten by History: From the Gulf to Gaza and Afghanistan, the Familiar Way Proves the Wrong Way" on CommonDreams [reproduced from TomDispatch] reflects on a number of conflicts, including the one in Afghanistan, and the Obama position on them:
"And then, of course, there's the war in Afghanistan, which is for the time being largely out of American consciousness. On that war, Obama made another assumedly pragmatic decision on entering the Oval Office: it would be politically easier to expand the fighting there, blunt the momentum of the Taliban, and worry about withdrawal later. This, too, passed for pragmatism in Washington, especially for a Democratic president, supposedly vulnerable on national security issues and seeking a second term (something all American presidents desperately desire).
So, on December 1, 2009, he went to West Point and, with a reluctance you could feel -- even naming the date in 2011 when his administration would begin a troop drawdown -- gave his "surge" speech to the nation. He could have given quite a different speech. (I even wrote a withdrawal speech for him whose key line was: "Ours will be an administration that will stand or fall, as of today, on this essential position: that we ended, rather than extended, two wars.") He would have taken flak. The media would have been an instant echo chamber of outrage and criticism. But he would have made it through and ended two wars. No such luck.
As a result, sooner or later he's likely to find himself in political hell. Things are already going poorly in Afghanistan, not so surprising since the war there is the foreign-policy equivalent of a poorly drilled, poorly capped deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico. The only question is when the spill will begin gushing uncontrollably. Unfortunately, as TomDispatch.com regular William Astore points out, the Obama administration and the U.S. military high command are now hopelessly committed to a gambler's mentality in Afghanistan, which means that, as things get worse, the war will only expand. Escalating in Pakistan is clearly on the mind of American planners, a move guaranteed to be disastrous (which, of course, never stopped anybody). Extending the timeline for an American stay is another obvious option. Hard as it might have been to launch a withdrawal in December 2009, imagine just how politically difficult it will be, if things get worse, in 2011. Where's the value of "pragmatism" now?"
Tom Engelhardt in "Bitten by History: From the Gulf to Gaza and Afghanistan, the Familiar Way Proves the Wrong Way" on CommonDreams [reproduced from TomDispatch] reflects on a number of conflicts, including the one in Afghanistan, and the Obama position on them:
"And then, of course, there's the war in Afghanistan, which is for the time being largely out of American consciousness. On that war, Obama made another assumedly pragmatic decision on entering the Oval Office: it would be politically easier to expand the fighting there, blunt the momentum of the Taliban, and worry about withdrawal later. This, too, passed for pragmatism in Washington, especially for a Democratic president, supposedly vulnerable on national security issues and seeking a second term (something all American presidents desperately desire).
So, on December 1, 2009, he went to West Point and, with a reluctance you could feel -- even naming the date in 2011 when his administration would begin a troop drawdown -- gave his "surge" speech to the nation. He could have given quite a different speech. (I even wrote a withdrawal speech for him whose key line was: "Ours will be an administration that will stand or fall, as of today, on this essential position: that we ended, rather than extended, two wars.") He would have taken flak. The media would have been an instant echo chamber of outrage and criticism. But he would have made it through and ended two wars. No such luck.
As a result, sooner or later he's likely to find himself in political hell. Things are already going poorly in Afghanistan, not so surprising since the war there is the foreign-policy equivalent of a poorly drilled, poorly capped deep-water well in the Gulf of Mexico. The only question is when the spill will begin gushing uncontrollably. Unfortunately, as TomDispatch.com regular William Astore points out, the Obama administration and the U.S. military high command are now hopelessly committed to a gambler's mentality in Afghanistan, which means that, as things get worse, the war will only expand. Escalating in Pakistan is clearly on the mind of American planners, a move guaranteed to be disastrous (which, of course, never stopped anybody). Extending the timeline for an American stay is another obvious option. Hard as it might have been to launch a withdrawal in December 2009, imagine just how politically difficult it will be, if things get worse, in 2011. Where's the value of "pragmatism" now?"
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