Open Thread About 30,000 in Afghanistan

~ Laura

I'm offering an open thread about Obama's speech last night. I wasn't overly impressed with the speech. We have no choice except to finish this war off properly, but Obama could done a better job of justifying the increase of troops.

Do time tables and exit strategies mean that we can never lose a war? Even if we get our asses kicked and the Taliban is still tossing acid in girls' faces, as long as we pull out in 18 months, we can claim that we achieved our goals of going in and getting out in a timely manner. We can claim a victory, even though we've lost. It is a chicken shit way of fighting a war, isn't it?

Published by Laura

4 thoughts on “Open Thread About 30,000 in Afghanistan”

  1. I thought the speech (the bits I heard) was pretty good. But, I think the answer is that we can indeed claim victory if the Taliban is throwing acid in girl’s faces, as long as it’s not knocking down our skyscrapers.
    It’s an ugly solution, but I think the total victory required to impose our will on the acid throwers is not something Americans are going to be willing to do, and not just for the lack of money. We also lack the will. The total victories in Germany and Japan (and the subsequent reshaping of Germany & Japan) included the fire-bombing of Dresden (civilian deaths controversial, but in the 10’s of thousands) and the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (100,000+ civilian dead). I would not be surprised if such intervention would need to be part of a solution in Afghanistan that remade the nation.
    So, Obama set out the much smaller, and confusingly morally ambiguous task of containing the badness in Afghanistan so that it doesn’t result in any more tumbling towers in the United States. He laid out the case for the strategy he’s taking (lots of variables and uncertainty, but not illogical on its face). So, I liked the speech.

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  2. My not very original comment is that the problem is, as it has been, when you declare war on a country when your enemy is actually a terrorist organization there really is no way to win. No one is authorized to sign an armistice treaty in a way that makes sense to everyone and signals peace.
    I wish that 9/11 had been the impetus to create a multi-national anti-terrorist police force with teeth rather than start a war or two.

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  3. I think the U.S. Army is the multi-national anti-terrorist police force. (Multi-national at least in the sense that it carries out activities in other nations.) For this reason, it’s foolish to think of “winning” or “finishing off” the fight against terrorism, any more than the New York Police Department could win “win” or “finish off” the fight against crime.
    The question is, is there a better strategy than establishing a client government in Afghanistan and propping it up with indefinite military support? If so, let’s hear it. If not, then that’s what we will have to do.

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