Is Afghanistan Obama’s War?

by lounsbury | September 3, 2009 at 05:10 pm

431 views | 36 Recommendations | 13 comments

The Wall Street Journal doesn’t think so, but they make some interesting points.

Quote

Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party. In this instance, President Obama has acted in a way that advances America's national security interests and its deepest values. Republicans should say so. As things become even more difficult in Central Asia, it's important to keep bad political patterns we have seen before from re-emerging.

The Wall Street Journal

My personal opinion about war is that we need to turn the corner in regards to how we have projected military power globally in the past, and return to being a nation that is what it once was many moons ago.

There was a time in American history that we were consumed with minding our own business, and the reach of American military might was restricted to those nations who compelled Congress to convene and formally declare war against.

What happens when a nation declares war on another nation, is that it becomes an act of treason to undermine the war effort until the war is finished, and it is understood that extra-ordinary efforts can and should be taken to secure victory and nothing short of it.

I agree with the overall assessment of Dan Senor and Peter Wehner that it is wrong to play political games with a war. They rightly point out the treachery of the Democratic Party for actively attempting to subvert a war in progress, and that of those Republicans considering the political mileage they can garnish by dragging a President with no political will to finish a war he didn’t ask for or start, through the mud.

The root cause is President Bush’s failure to Constitutionally address the post 9/11 threat, for reasons that I am frankly unable to comprehend; specifically in regards to Afghanistan. All he had to do was turn to Congress and he would have assuredly secured a formal declaration of war, but he did not. He did not and we are now dealing with a mess because we have allowed politics to become a factor because we are focused on our leaders rather than the goal of the will of the people to secure victory at any cost.

I am a soldier and I believe in winning every conflict we engage ourselves in, or else we should never consider any other options no matter how easy the fix may seem. Yes, Afghanistan was a stunning and easy victory militarily. We had the cooperation of the international community because they all understood that we were completely justified in toppling the Taliban, but in the end I fear we have failed to walk away when we could have and should have.

Part of the problem is that we stick around to rebuild nations we have conquered. The goal of war should be the total annihilation of the enemy, and that means dismantling the nation to rubble and ruins. Or else, we should not consider going to war in the first place. Either we face an enemy so threatening to the Republic that it requires the brutality of war and everything that that ensues, or we should not commit ourselves to starting what we don’t have the heart and will to finish.

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A. Tran

at 18:40 on September 3rd, 2009

Ironically, Afghanistan will become President Obama's war even though former President Bush started it ... To a great extent, the pragmatic American public is losing its will to pursue any war as the national debt shoots skyward and the domestic economy has descended dramatically due to a myriad of events.

Babel-Fish

at 18:42 on September 3rd, 2009

Every war sees political games being played...

lounsbury

at 18:09 on September 3rd, 2009

I sent you (Pythiian1) a private response by mistake, I meant this to be public in view. Sorry for the misunderstanding, but here it is for all to examine...

Actually, President Bush followed in the footsteps of all of the Presidents before him doing what he felt was in the best interest of this nation. I am not willing to join the ranks of anti-war zealots who offer nothing in regards to a debate on national security and possess the maturity of a toddler throwing a fit on the floor in the middle of a department store.

What we need to understand is that it is AMERICA's war!

We need to find a way to finish it, and learn from this. We need to turn to our Constitution when the prospect of war is being considered, and we need to only engage ourselves militarily when we are prepared to dismantle the military of the nation defeated in war to a state of weakness that would take generations to recover from and leave. We need to show those who wish to harm us that if they do, that misery beyond anything that they would hope to accomplish would follow the foolish act of provoking the United States of America to declare war upon them.

Babel-Fish

at 18:44 on September 3rd, 2009

Its actually a United Nations war?

lounsbury

at 18:53 on September 3rd, 2009

Perhaps it could be considered a united nations war, but it is not a United Nations (UN) war. Technically, it is run by NATO I believe.

Since NATO took command of ISAF in 2003, the Alliance has gradually expanded the reach of its mission, originally limited to Kabul, to cover Afghanistan’s whole territory. The number of ISAF troops has grown accordingly from the initial 5,000 to around 50.000 troops coming from 42 countries, including all 28 NATO members.

Here's a map that will make it as clear as mud!

http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/placemat_archive/isaf_placemat_090403.pdf

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 18:53 on September 3rd, 2009

Here is a perspective from Canada's National Post Writer David Frum. Frum was a speechwriter for George W. Bush. Here is his article Afghanistan remains worth fighting for

lounsbury

at 19:04 on September 3rd, 2009

Great article!

I agree that the issue of the ethnic composition of Afghanistan is EXTREMLY complex, and that we can't just walk away for very sane reasons. It might good political sense, but it would be a bad idea right now.

The problem with Afghanistan is ironically no longer Afghanistan, it is Pakistan. Afghanistan itself is very isolated and economically on par with Boise Idaho, hardly a threat. As long as it does not have a government as it did pre-9/11 that harbored terrorists who attacked America, the fall of Afghanistan is almost insignificant to us in regards t US national security. However f the fall of Afghanistan meant political and military in Pakistan (which it certainly would) then the game is different.

Without Pervez Musharraf at the helm in Pakistan, we don't have any degree of comfort in regards not only to a nation with nuclear weapons, but also the blowback that would occur if India entered the foray in it's self interest. What a mess!

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 19:05 on September 3rd, 2009

The second operation is the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established by the UN Security Council at the end of December 2001 to secure Kabul and the surrounding areas. NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003. By July 23, 2009, ISAF had around 64,500 troops from 42 countries, with NATO members providing the core of the force. The United States has approximately 29,950 troops in ISAF.

lounsbury

at 19:07 on September 3rd, 2009

And the numbers are rising

Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 19:19 on September 3rd, 2009

Those numbers are already out of date. I think US troop levels in Afghanistan are 48,000 now and General McChrystal will probably ask for another 20,000.

lounsbury

at 20:03 on September 3rd, 2009

Yep

francislholland

at 12:59 on September 7th, 2009

You said,

"Either we face an enemy so threatening to the Republic that it requires the brutality of war and everything that that ensues, or we should not commit ourselves to starting what we don’t have the heart and will to finish."

The problem the US has faced since the Vietnam war is that very few overseas excursions have met the above test for a sufficiently large part of the public and Congress.

Instead, wars have been essentially optional and many Americans want to opt out.

Presidents try to convince the public that the populace in another country doesn't support it's government, is subject to tyranny, and so it is in the cause of freedom for OTHERS that the US should go to war. Maybe this is the only way to gather broad public support.

However, this rationale for war in cannot be harmonized with bombing another country into rubbish and leaving it that way.

So theUS pretends to be trying to help a poor, suffering foreign populace hold elections even as the US tries to decimate the political force within the country that might win the elections, if it was allowed to participate in them.

The logic is that there is a small minority of hard heads in this other country (like the 29% of Americans that supported Bush through the end of his term), and the US has to annihilate or intimidate this minority so that elections can be held.

The writer is correct when he says that interventions in foreign countries should occur only when there is a country that is legitimately an enemy, rather than when the foreign country is onstensibly and friend, and the US is trying to surgically eliminate a small minority withn that country.

President Obama promised that Afghanistan would be his war during the presidential campaign. He ran to be its own and he won. I think neither Obama nor any other president could "win" the Afghanistan war, unless he seeks a Congressional declaration of war on the entire Afghan population, (which the US Congress and populace) are not going to support.

What percentage of Iraqis would agree that all they have suffered over the last six years was worth it? Not very many, I think.

lounsbury

at 15:08 on September 7th, 2009

I frankly don't care what Iraqis, or Afghans for that matter, think. I don't even care what Americans think after a war has been declared by Congress. Think whatever you want (it's every American's right to do so), but don't try to undermine it or else face the hangman's noose.

I doubt we'd go to war very often if we had that understanding. I doubt we'd be messed with either. I imagine that we'd be left alone for fear of being reduced to rubble with nothing but the back of our hand waiting for them at the other end.

President Obama can call this his war, but that is very arrogant any way you look at it. The United States of America goes to war, and I for one would never go to war in support of a leader. I'd gladly sit it out in jail rather than swear allegiance to any man regardless of his political party.