Comments on: I Guess I Should Say Where My Head Is At On Escalation In Afghanistan

By: karaka

karaka — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:32:07 +0000

I doubt that’s what endymion was referring to. It seems more likely the OP instead meant that claiming Afghanistan cannot function as a democracy because it has no real history of such democracy seems to essentialize Afghanistan in a manner that doesn’t speak to the systems made in the last eight years, which are notable even if they are not wholly successful.

By: empty

empty — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:19:59 +0000

See, this sort of ignorant othering is the exact reason I’m going to trust Spencer’s assessment over yours. Progressive objections to a peacekeeping and nation building effort in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly mired in this ‘East is East and West is West’ crap. Stop. It.

I don’t think killing foreign occupiers is an “eastern” concept. Is it?

By: MikeD

MikeD — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:08:48 +0000

You were indeed wrong, but don’t be too hard on yourself. Many of us chose to believe him when he said he wanted to restore the rule of law, and we were wrong too. There is a good counterargument to my POV that says, of all the promises he decides to keep, why should we have to accept that it’s the one for more war? I don’t have a good answer there, which is why, while if Obama had kept more promises I really would be frustrated with the community over the splintering I’m seeing among progressives over this decision, in the event I can only regret all the more the president’s failures to deliver on a number of other progressive issues and conclude that ultimately the blame lies with him.

By: ScottMcConnell

ScottMcConnell — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:54:23 +0000

I don’t claim to be progressive, just a reader of Spencer’s blog.
And also, in response to karaka and Mike D above– yes, that he campaigned on Afghan escalation is a pretty good reason for “stoic acceptance” by those who supported him then for this course. But I must confess, I took Obama’s commitment to win the war in Afghanistan about as seriously as people took FDR’s 1940 commitment to stay out of the war in Europe: i.e the words are one thing, the general aura given off by the campaign something else. But I was wrong.

By: karaka

karaka — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:08:16 +0000

Well said, as usual; particularly this:

It seems to me now that simple coherence in our politics demands that there be a certain stoic acceptance by those who sent this president to office of his seeking to institute policies that he clearly ran on, even in the primary, hearing very little of the resistance he now hears.

@Spencer, that’s pretty much how my own argument for continuance in Afghanistan came out, too.

By: micromeme

micromeme — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:46:31 +0000

Spencer,
please give at least a few minutes to thinking about the alternatives—100,000 troops in afganistan total = $100Billion per year.
Are you seriously suggesting that there aren’t ways to spend 100B/yr in pakistan (gdp $168B) or israel/palestine (gdp $198B) that would not work better against AQ’s roots (ie recruiting drivers) than continuing US occupations?
micromeme

By: MikeD

MikeD — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:45:10 +0000

It seems pretty simple to me to square these two circles (progressivism and occasional hawkishness) in this case. If you’re not on board with the policy you probably don’t much like this argument, but I think it is sound nonetheless, namely: this is what he said he was going to do, and progressives in droves sent him to office largely in response to his making that the central plank of his foreign policy platform. We progressives had every opportunity to reject the notion of a shift of resources from Iraq to Afghanistan in favor of the a proposal to retrench and begin to focus on needs at home rather than merely shifting the focus of our foreign efforts in the party primary from which this president emerged. It seems to me now that simple coherence in our politics demands that there be a certain stoic acceptance by those who sent this president to office of his seeking to institute policies that he clearly ran on, even in the primary, hearing very little of the resistance he now hears. I personally am ambivalent enough about the decision that perhaps this is a convenient argument. But I fear a certain schism in both the discourse generally as well as in the progressive if a president can run clearly and centrally on a given policy, get elected largely by a given constituency on the basis of that position (seemingly), and then retain zero support for the policy when he tries to follow through on it in office. I consider myself a progressive, but if this view gets me expelled from the tribe, so be it. My inclination in the face of the kind of political behavior l see among many progressives on this question (as opposed to civil liberties and detention policy, where Obama is clearly at fault) is to simply say there was no way to satisfy them.

The merits of the thing as far as I can see (at least as I would apprehend them if I were in Obama’s position) seem to me pretty simple too, and they are this: we face defeat in Afghanistan. Should we accept it and cut our losses or resist it? That’s the basic choice. It’s from that decision that the specifics of what is being done flow, and Obama’s task tomorrow night is to explain why, given the choice he is making with regard to the basic choice he is making — i.e., to fight on — (and given his proposals and rhetoric as both candidate and president, how in the world could that choice be surprising to anyone?), the steps now being undertaken constitute the best possible way, all things considered, to press that fight, in order to bring about the best outcome in that country and region for the U.S. that is possible.

There were certainly Americans we could have elected president in 2008 who might have made a different fundamental decision about Afghanistan than the one Obama is making tonight. But there was never any reason to believe Obama might have been one of the ones who would.

By: Jeff Kaye

Jeff Kaye — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:53:20 +0000

These are all good points, but I’d take this argument a step farther and ask, “what is meant by national interests”?

Do we mean the interests of military contractors, generals jonesing for glory, armament manufacturers, tech start-ups lusting for DARPA seed money, academics at think tanks who further their careers analyzing the “terrorist threat”? Or do we mean the interests of the nation’s millions of unemployed, or those who have no health insurance, or the homeless, or the working stiffs who commute to and from their jobs across a disintegrating infrastructure?

I feel, Spencer, your support for this imperial adventure is shaky and riddled with bad conscience. Come on over to the other side, as there is nothing to be gained to sit with the hawks on this one. They are on the wrong side of history, and they’ve already screwed things up royally. Now the U.S. is asked to fight to keep an actual puppet government in place, voted into office through massive fraud and violence, backed by some of the cruelest warlords on the planet.

Counter-insurgency programs grew out of the fight against insurgents in Algeria and Vietnam, and to a certain extent, the Philippines (the Huks). The French, British and Americans thought they could ape the tactics of the insurgents, and make it a battle for hearts and minds, village by village. The instrument on both sides was (and is) terror… because that is what war is — murder, terror, rape, destruction of the “enemy”.

The U.S. faces a disaster of Vietnam proportions in Afghanistan (though not necessarily in soldier fatalities). The Iraq adventure is truly not finished either.

If I were one of the old banished Soviet-style communists — banished from modern political discourse — I would say, “Go for it, comrades. We cheer you on. Apres vous, le deluge.”

By: Endymion

Endymion — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:25:15 +0000

The Afghans are never going to be as you want them to be– I would surmise that killing foreign occupiers is, if not the most satisfying thing in their lives –certainly the thing they have succeeded at, historically, more than anything else.

See, this sort of ignorant othering is the exact reason I’m going to trust Spencer’s assessment over yours. Progressive objections to a peacekeeping and nation building effort in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly mired in this ‘East is East and West is West’ crap. Stop. It.

By: jd99

jd99 — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:50:10 +0000

Afghanistan AND Pakistan?? Pakistan too, really? How on earth will 30,000 extra troops in Afghanistan “get rid of the conditions that allow AQ to function in Pakistan”? That’s a lot of conditions to get rid of in a country where we have no ground troops. Is there some unequivocal buy-in from the Pakistani government and citizenry that I don’t know about, or some new grand strategy that relies on the storied beneficence of the ISI? If there is, Obama should really play up that shit tomorrow night.