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Is She Selling the Wrong Plan?
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Secretary Clinton has committed $40 million to support elections in Afghanistan. But her boss appears to be dangerously abandoning the commitment President Bush showed to building democracy there.
President Barack Obama has finally unveiled his administration’s Afghanistan strategy, and in some ways the new plan looks a lot like the old plan: vigorously pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban militants holed up in the forbidding mountains and valleys of the Northwest Frontier Province, build up Afghanistan’s police and security forces, invest heavily in reconstruction projects, secure Kabul and help the weak federal government to extend its reach to rural areas, and reach out to Afghanistan’s neighbors to help secure and stabilize the country.
Afghanistan is a test of who we are as a nation. We walked in with the overwhelming support of the Afghan people, who really did throw flowers and sweets at U.S. troops, the way we were told Iraqis would do.
There are, of course, some substantial differences between the Bush and Obama plans for Afghanistan. Chief among these is the Obama administration’s decision to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single unit (Af-Pak being the preferred designation), in recognition of the unavoidable fact that success in Afghanistan is impossible to achieve without stabilizing Pakistan. Obama seems also to have had more luck than his predecessor in getting America’s European allies to send more troops to help train Afghan police, as well as, one hopes, more money to help in the reconstruction process. The E.U. has thus far provided Afghanistan with about $1.7 billion in aid, a significant sum to be sure but barely double what Iran alone has given.
Speaking of Iran, the Obama administration has offered the Islamic Republic a seat at the table at the Afghanistan summit at the Hague. This is a wise decision, considering that, when it comes to Afghanistan, the interests of the U.S. and Iran are almost wholly in line: Neither country wants Afghanistan to become a haven for Al Qaeda and both need desperately to stem the flow of drugs pouring out of Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most significant departure from the previous strategy in Afghanistan is Obama’s recognition that the Taliban cannot be defeated by force alone; that, in fact, some 99 percent of the people we call Taliban have no connection to Al Qaeda and, by all accounts, can be brought to America’s side (or, at the very least, convinced to stop fighting American troops) for a few dollars; and the promise of semi-autonomy.
Beyond all this, however, there is a glaring difference in emphasis, if not in policy, between Bush’s and Obama’s conception of “victory” in Afghanistan. This president appears to have no interest whatsoever in anything akin to “democracy promotion.” His outline for the war effort makes no mention of nation-building and contains no serious commitment to bolstering the country’s lagging democratic institutions. Indeed, Obama barely mentioned the word democracy when presenting his new strategy to the press.
Obviously, this is a major departure from the vision for Afghanistan set forth by President Bush, who in December, two months after the mantle of leadership had already passed to Obama, went to Kabul to stand side by side with Hamid Karzai—the obviously well-meaning but totally inept and quite probably corrupt president that Bush placed in charge of the country—where he once again declared his support for Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy. “You know, I was thinking when I—right before we landed, how much Afghanistan has changed since I have been the president,” Bush said in a moment of tortured nostalgia. “In 2001, the Taliban were brutally repressing the people of this country. I remember the images of women being stoned, or people being executed in the soccer stadium because of their beliefs… we could have replaced one power person with another. That would have been, I guess, the easy route, and then just left it behind, say we've done our duty and we've upheld the doctrine—and said, 'OK, we're now going to take this group, replace them with this group'—and just got out of the way. But that's not—that, one, didn't learn the lessons of the '80s and the '90s. And secondly, the interest is to build a flourishing democracy as an alternative to a hateful ideology. And it's not easy work.”
It certainly is not easy work. In fact, it is work that has been made far more difficult by Bush’s bumbling and his misguided war in Iraq. But there are apparently those in President Obama’s inner circle—including, presumably, the president himself—who believe that work to be impossible and no longer worth pursuing. At a news conference in March, Obama declared his support for elections in Afghanistan, but he seemed to go out of his way not to talk of his vision for a democratic state. Instead he made brief mention of “a commitment to political and economic development.”
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
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Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
Obama's Last Iran Option
Reza Aslan, a contributor to the Daily Beast, is assistant professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside and senior fellow at the Orfalea Center on Global and International Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He is the author of the bestseller No god but God and How to Win a Cosmic War.
So suddenly the Dems like the strategy of a 'surge"; how slick of them to not call it that. And why are American workers having yet even more money forcibly taken from them? To support these foreign elections no less. This isn't a "test for our nation", it's wasteful spending and we can only hope someone in power starts putting the brakes on this madness.
Afpac is a lot of things but in my opinion it is not a waste of money. It is our strike back for 9/11, it is the only real chance of getting a handle on these terrorist, it is a chance to tell the world don't fuck with us, it is a chance to fail which we are so good at.
Iraq was a total waste of money, prestige, face, lives, limbs, bullets, you name it but Afpac is not.
We cannot run the world. The best thing I've heard Obama say lately was when he told Steve Krofft that there had to be a way out of Afghanistan. When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, Jim Crowe segregation was the practice and order of the American South. It was a terrible thing and those states had poor regard for democracy or human rights. But it would not have been good for a foreign country to invade Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, etc. etc. We have to leave primitive places like Afghanistan and the wilds of Pakistan to develop on their own and it will probably be a faster process than we think. And I'm sick of American bombs killing civilians in error. What regard for human life is there in having a blase attitude about killing innocent people with bombs?
"Whether most Americans like it or not, we made a promise to the Afghan people to help them build a freer, more prosperous, and democratic society." This is a copy editing error: GEORGE BUSH "made a [false] promise to the Afghan people to help them build a freer, more prosperous, and democratic society."
Imposition on another society of what we perceive to be democracy in the U.S. is extremely ill-advised and ignores the complexities of politics and social structure in the country. I'd be surprised if you could even clearly define the term "democracy."
Democracy: What the United States was born on and what the U.S. dreams about having again one day.
Two Party Political System : Why the U.S. does now and will always dream of Democracy.
Hmm...Richard Holbrooke soundly rebuffed an NPR interviewer this morning when she suggested that Obama was stepping away from nation-building. Hope he wasn't being dodgy.
Building a society in our image in a country with a totally differently culture in not possible. We can influence and enable them to create a stable society, but that is about it. Pakistan is as big an issue as Afghanistan. Are we to do this there as well? At what point do we continue or disengage? Do we stay there without end? Why not just make them a colony? Why not another American state? The statements made (a big surprise) by the Bush administration were made without regard to the reality on the ground.
"SELLING THE (Af-Pak) WAR"
Selling the (Af-Pak) War
Professor Reza Aslan has written a very good article "Is She Selling The Wrong Plan, in basic support for the (Af-Pak) Afghanistan-Pakistan War, and presented the theory that the (EU), European Union, in fact supports the approach which the "Empire" is now charging ahead with. "The Imperial Media Messiah President seems also to have had more luck than his predecessor in getting the "Empires" European allies to send more troops to help train Afghan police, as well as, one hopes, more money to help in the reconstruction process. The (E.U.) has thus far provided Afghanistan with about (%u20AC 1.28 Bln) One-Point-two-eight Billion Euro's, in both construction efforts and training police.
The Taliban (Student Militants)
The Taliban ("students" militants") were developed to bring a fundamentalist Islamic sense of order to the chaos of Afghanistan left in the wake of the (USSR) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, defeating the "Empire's always wavering attention span. "Perhaps the most significant departure from the previous strategy in Afghanistan is the "Empires" recognition that the Taliban cannot be defeated by force alone and do not represent a threat to international security; that, in fact, some (99%) Ninety-nine of the people we call Taliban have no connection to al Qaeda and, by "Empire accounts alone, can be brought to "Empire's side (or, at the very least, convinced to stop fighting "Empire" troops) for a few Euro's; and the promise of semi-autonomy, Therefore, the "Empire" will attempt to split up the Taliban militants, and divide them from Al Qaeda, destroying, Al-Qaeda in (Af-Pak), preventing its proliferation into other regions. But the fact is the (Af-Pak); population holds the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden with his Al Qaeda network in high esteem and generally opposes the presence of foreign "Empire" troops within (Af-Pac) territory. And the first demand forwarded by the Taliban representative from their leader Mullah Omar, was for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the territory of the country as the condition for any negotiations, and without the support of the local population, it is impossible to win in (AF-Pac). The "Empire is only involved in (Af-Pac) for the sake of increasing its own political and military influence in Central Asia, the "Islamic Crescent."
(SCOA) Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Afghanistan
Afghanistan is viewed as a challenge for the whole world community by the (EU); however, answering it with war would not only be counterproductive, but at the special conference of the (SCOA) Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Afghanistan in Moscow, by the Russian Federation, were convinced that if the current "Empire's" military operation against the Taliban collapses for any reason, it would be a disaster for (Af-Pac) itself and for the region as a whole. The (EU) view (Af-Pac) as separate and not joined problems. Afghanistan as a country is seen as having limited problems, but is on the right path toward correcting them, which could be achieved and build, by a peaceful incorporation of the Taliban (Student Militants) and tribal militant groups into the process of constructing a new Afghanistan form of democracy different from the Western version, which in time would bring greater prosperity to Afghanistan, a process which has begun bring with it a significant shift for the better in Afghanistan life, with (7Mln) Seven million Afghanistan children having returned to schools, construction projects rebuilding road's, and infrastructure, bringing fresh water, and energy supply, within the country while training police to provide security. The (EU) is employing a mixed civilian-military approach, and is seen as the only way out of Afghanistan, without the destabilization of the entire region, and to that end have invested aid in the amount of, (%u20AC 1.28 Bln), One-Point-two-eight Billion Euro's. "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days' governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." --Dwight D. Eisenhower
Facing Grim Reality
The (EU) politicians and media see the grim reality, that in fact, driven by national interests, pride and powered by the "Empire's" own belief, in its 'messianic' mission, pushed by an "Imperial Media Messiah President", and supported by his (544) "Imperial Court", continues to seek the global domination that it has always sought since (WWII) World War Two. The situation in Afghanistan has quickly deteriorated becoming with each passing day more threatening and unstable. and the deaths of (2K) Two-thousand, Afghan civilians, not counting Pakistani citizens are just additions to millions that have died, and those additional deaths soon to follow, in (Af-Pac) in the near future, as the "Empire's" diplomats and "Military Industrial Complex" members work overtime to create the next (Af-Pac) military campaign, with the goal of imposing on yet another society the "Empires" version of democracy, ignoring any complexities of politics and social structure's within either country, upon which, it is to be imposed. With the introduction of yet another Combat Corp of (21K) Twenty-One- Thousand more "Empire" troops into it's (Af-Pac) military aggression, ending any chance and helping to shatter beyond hope, all efforts which could have been achieved for a stable (Af-Pac), "Islamic Crescent Regional solution. The "Empire" views the (Af-Pac) Campaign, as a test of who they are as an "Empire" a test of will's, the power and authority of the "Empire" has been challenged the power of the "Empire" and for that reason, and the deaths of (650) Six-hundred-fifty,"Empire" and European (NATO) troops, as an example to others that such pride full arrogance will not be tolerated, must be avenged.
Well at least you understand all of this gets laid on Obama's doorstep.....He makes the policy decisions, the secretary of state carries them out.
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