Obama To Outline Afghanistan Strategy Tonight
Tonight at 8 PM Obama will be giving a speech at West Point to explain his administration’s plans for Afghanistan. We’ve already heard some details – he’s adding at least 30,000 more troops and plans to have deadlines, including a deadline for leaving by 2017.
The revised strategy for Afghanistan that President Obama will announce Tuesday is expected to focus new resources on training Afghan security forces and shoring up the central government, an approach certain to revive a debate about the possibilities and the limits of nation-building.
Republicans are already howling. Why? I’m not sure but it doesn’t really matter what Obama does, they would criticize it anyway. It’s going to take a while for the troops levels to build up, at least 6 months (you see now why Obama’s supposed dithering really didn’t make a difference here). So now we’re going to try nation-building in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires.
Diplomats and officials involved in past nation-building efforts generally agree that the process works best when warring factions are ready to make peace. Elections, while important to lend legitimacy to a new government, should not be rushed — creating lasting institutions is more important. The international community must have realistic, if modest, goals. Regional experts need to be consulted, and neighboring countries should be brought on board.
And nation-building should be done primarily by the people of the country involved, with the outside world there to assist, diplomats said.
Above all, there must be resources.
“More manpower and more money produces better, faster results,” said former U.S. diplomat James F. Dobbins, now with the Rand Corp., who has had firsthand experience in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. “There is a correlation between the commitment and the achievement.”
He added: “Lesson one was decisive force. Employ a force decisive enough and impressive enough to deter any violent resistance.”
All this says to me is that nation-building is extremely difficult and only works if you get the co-operation of the local populace. Do we have that? I’m pretty skeptical after 8 years of war there already. Of course, our alternative was pulling out of Afghanistan and leaving a failed state full of radicals. So instead, we’re staying and propping up the weak and corrupt Karzai government.
Here’s my question: is there any policy pronouncement that Obama can say tonight that will get your approval for staying in Afghanistan? What are you hoping to see from Obama tonight?
Tags: Afghanistan, President Obama
History has shown us over and over again that no country ever withdraws from Afghan they all get KICKED OUT and have their asses handed to them. So be prepared to suck it up folks.
I have been less than thrilled with a few things Obama has done so far. The stimulus bill isn’t moving fast enough for my tastes, I wish he would grow a pair with the repuke party…. but this decision on Afghanistan and the potential fallout could prove to be a very clear strike one.
To be honest, nothing short of Obama saying the leaks were all false and he is instead ordering the arrest of McChrystal for his role in betraying the family of Pat Tillman and totally withdrawing from Afghanistan will get my approval.
I think he is under undue pressure for war hawk generals, advisers who profit from war and they are using his military inexperience in their favor.
7 stories Barack Obama doesn’t want told….
Shocking info: http://www.35energy.com/news/7-stories.html
wow, what a waste of time. take your moronic conspiracy theories back to Beckistan. I believe the topic was about tonight’s speech on Afghanistan. N
ot the latest Right Wing Terror Party slander to make you guys feel better that a black man is your president, or that a democrat is your president, or that sarah palin is NOT your queen.
Time to pull out the old records :
“And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die.”
“Those who dont learn from History are condemend to repeat it.”
And so it goes.
I would have been alot happier with a strategy that concentrated in picking off al-Queda elements rather than nation-building. Because I don’t think that we are prepared to do it well (cf Iraq), but we are prepared to just funnel alot of money to the Haliburtons to, you know, not do it well.
An end date and an exit strategy is positive, but I want to know why Afghanistan nation-building is in my best interests. The real long-term threat is a destabilized Pakistan and more troops and more money in Afghanistan doesn’t necessarily get to that problem.
What would be really useful right now would be for those who keep wringing their hands over how the national debt to step up an ask how this gets paid for. In fact, I’d like to see all of those who have been smacked around by repubs and blue dogs over the price of health care to serve some of that back. Someone I read recently noted that the easiest way for this escalation to go away would have been to ask McChrystal for a plan that was deficit neutral AND to round up 60 votes for it.
“to ask McChrystal for a plan that was deficit neutral AND to round up 60 votes for it.”
Very funny Cassandra…….I wish I could manage a laugh
any liveblogging tonight?
Too sad to liveblog. Obomba.
it’s kind of making sense.
this is a pretty interesting speech…. i think i just heard him tell the anti war liberals to shut the hell up
I’m liveblogging! woohooo
where? *looks around outback*
bill o’reily just called the afghans “savages” i dont tivo, but please someone be able to post it
“I would have been alot happier with a strategy that concentrated in picking off al-Queda elements rather than nation-building.”
I agree 100% with Cassandra. The Afghans have never been united as a rational nation state except in opposition to a foreign power (think of the Communist and Nationalist Chinese uniting against the Japanese, knowing full well they’d be back to slaughtering each other as soon as the bell rang) and we’re just the latest superpower deluded into thinking we can buck the trend. Pull back and launch Predator strikes on the Taliban when they show their asses, but don’t sacrifice another American trooper trying to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century. That’s right, 20th…the age of running water and telegraph lines.
Kucinich is presently on Fox with O’Reilly, agreeing with me and Cassandra. Essential viewing.
Hey Frieda,
Another old record:
Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother
Far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today
Father, father
We don’t need to escalate
War is not the answer
Only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today
What’s Going On
Marvin Gaye,1971