Three-Quarters Measures
I certainly hope President Obama's plans for Afghanistan work out, but he didn't give the generals all they'd hoped for. He still had to throw some sops ("sop" can be plural, can't it?) to his left flank. (They'll still be unhappy. I suppose this is what Joe Biden's apocalyptic language before the election was referring to.) He's sending less soldiers than requested and plans to start pulling out in 18 months--which must be comforting to the Taliban, who can lay low and wait out the clock.
This is a war of necessity, according to Obama himself. (I realize a lot of people just said that to look tough, all the better to attack Iraq, but he's repeated the idea recently). You either fight a war or you don't. The "exit strategy" is win or surrender. Half measures are worse than nothing.
So there's no point in splitting the difference. Solomon threatened to cut the baby in half, but he didn't plan to do it.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:02 AM
5 Comments:
its an easy criticism just to say that the time limits won't work. On the other hand, time limits can be a great tool for focus. An open-ended commitment- which is basically what we've had since 2001 though not always fully-resourced (to use the annoying jargon of the moment) - leads to laxity, careerism and corruption on the part of our local allies. We don't want to settle in, we want to win (however you define that).
Its a risky strategy but I don't know of any other non-risky strategies available.
I'm not using some cheap debating point. You can have goals in a war, but not deadlines. Informing the enemy you'll be leaving at a date certain is absurd.
Perhaps we should try this approach on other issues. If we can't fix health care in six months, we'll give up. If we can't deal with climate change by 2012, forget it. No more open-ended commitments, since that means we can't focus.
It appears Obama's heart isn't in this war, despite rhetoric to the contrary. I don't mind him playing politics with Afghanistan--that was inevitable--I just wish those politics were smarter.
Deadlines tend to focus the mind. Not our minds, but those of the Afghan soldiers we're training. Knowing you won't have the heavily equipped, air-supported US Army to call on will hopefully speed up the process that will allow us to leave behind a good, or at least tolerable, situation. The idea is, let Al Qaeda and the Taliban hide while we train an Afghan army up to basic competence. That's not analogous to domestic health care, which will remain OUR problem after any deadline.
You can't say we're fighting a war which is important for all humanity, but we're gonna pull out as soon as we can. Really? What happens if things aren't ready? You still pull up and leave, forget saving the world? Why send anyone to begin with? This is the logical upshot of what Obama said, which is why his people are so ferociously backtracking today on the pullout.
Things have been orchestrated so the news will be filled with stories about the troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq the year Obama runs again.
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