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11/25/2009
What does it mean to finish the job?
I’m not a foreign policy expert by any means, but like many of you, I’ve tried to keep up on the Afghanistan news and have been waiting the last 100 days or whatever it is for a declaration from the president about troop levels in that God forsaken corruption-ridden place. No promises, but supposedly the big decision is coming Tuesday.
I wasn’t too happy to hear the President still blaming President Bush’s administration. Is it in his genes or something that he has to do that?
“After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job,” Obama said at a news conference following his meeting with the prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh. “And I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, they will be supportive.”
I was interested – I guess you could say moved – watching Bill Moyers the other night. Not a common thing that I tune in – matter of fact, I reached to switch it off. But the subject was the Lyndon Johnson tapes – and the Vietnam War. A Moyers disclaimer was quick in coming – that indeed, most experts see that Afghanistan is not Vietnam. Nevertheless, could Lyndon Johnson’s mulling and troubled decision-making tell us something? Here are the audio clips, here’s the transcript.
The whole thing is phenomenal drama, fascinating and sad tragic history. Below is just a sampling.
[Old friend and mentor, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman] RICHARD RUSSELL: It's a, it's a, it's the damn worst mess I ever saw, and I don't like to brag. I never have been right many times in my life. But I knew we were going to get into this sort of mess when we went in there. And I don't see how we're going ever to get out without fighting a major war with the Chinese and all of them down there in those rice paddies and jungles [...] I just don't know what to do.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, that's the way that I've been feeling for six months.
RICHARD RUSSELL: It appears our position is deteriorating. And it looks like the more we try to do for them, the less that they're willing to do for themselves [...] It's a hell, a hell of a situation. It's a mess. And it's going to get worse. And I don't know what to do. I don't think that the American people are quite ready for us to send our troops in there to do the fighting. And if it came down to an option of just sending the Americans in there to do the fighting, which will, of course, eventually lead into a ground war and a conventional war with China [...] If it got down to that or just pulling out, I'd get out. But then I don't know. There's undoubtedly some middle ground somewhere [...]
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: How important is it to us?
RICHARD RUSSELL: It isn't important a damn bit, with all these new missile systems.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, I guess it's important to us-
RICHARD RUSSELL: From a psychological standpoint.
…. LYNDON B. JOHNSON: …. Yeah, I think that's right [...] I don't think the people of the country know much about Vietnam and I think they care a hell of a lot less.
RICHARD RUSSELL: I know, but you go send a whole lot of our boys out there-
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. That's what I'm talking about. You get a few. We had 35 killed-and we got enough hell over 35-this year [...] The Republicans are going to make a political issue out of it, every one of them, even Dirksen.
RICHARD RUSSELL: It's the only issue they got [...] It's a tragic situation. It's just one of those places where you can't win. Anything you do is wrong [...]
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Now, the whole question, as I see it, do we, is it more dangerous for us to let things go as they're going now, deteriorating every day-
RICHARD RUSSELL: I don't think we can let it go, Mr. President, indefinitely.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Then it would be for us to move in?
RICHARD RUSSELL: We either got to move in or move out. I -
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: That's about what it is.
RICHARD RUSSELL: You can make a tremendous case for moving out [...]
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Well, they'd impeach a President though that would run out, wouldn't they? I just don't believe that-outside Morse, everybody I talk to says you got to go in, including Hickenlooper, including all the Republicans none of them disagreed with him yesterday when he made the statement "we have to stand." And I don't know how in the hell you're gonna get out unless they tell you to get
In listening to the selected tapes, I was struck by two things – the mention of “middle ground” as an option – something it seems Obama is close to recommending. And - we can’t pull out because American power/pride/superiority is at stake. Whenever it’s coming, Obama’s long-awaited determination will set the U.S. on a course destined for a very rough ride.
Today’s NY Times analysis: U.S. strategy on Afghanistan will contain many messages
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
COMMENTS
A professor from Princeton developed an interesting game. He auctions off a $20 bill. Bidding begins at $1.00 and increases in $1.00 increments. The hook is this: If you are the second highest bidder you don't win the $20 and you still have to pay your bid. He has had bids as high as $50. It seems silly to pay $50 for a $20 bill or lose $49 and not get the $20. The point however is the psychology of an "investment" and "doubling" down to achieve a return of some of an investment that may be beyond total recovery. This type of psychology is what Pres. Johnson may have faced in 1967 when he decided not to run for president in 1968. He knew he couldn't win in Vietnam and couldn't abandon the investment either. Somehow he hoped that this country could get out and win. It took another four years and over 25,000 American deaths before we left, and lost. The Afghan war will be Obama's once his strategy is announced. I hope that his evaluative process has a clear sense of goals that can be achieved versus just getting out. It is better to lose $20 now than $49 later.
dave allen (Wed Nov 25 06:51:33 2009)
Well the question is "What does it mean" ... in my opinion it means NOTHING AT ALL. Just like all the other empty words we have heard from this perpetually-campaigning POTUS.
What ever happened to unemployment never getting above 8%? What ever happened to going through the budget line-by-line and eliminating the programs that don't work? What ever happened to shovel-ready jobs? OK - that one is a bad question, they WERE "shovel ready" alright ... just not in the way we understood it.
In 6 months this man has proven himself to be every bit the empty suit that many were afraid of, and finishing the job is just another empty (but probably fully tested and focus-group approved) catch phrase.
Jeff Riedl (Wed Nov 25 08:07:24 2009)
Sorry, Jo, I wouldn't watch anything that Moyers had been within a football field length of. Ever since I heard him on a rant against Christians many years ago on PBS he's been on my "do not watch" list.
IMHO,had politicians kept out of that war, we would have won it. The Tet offensive where our military was said to have been overwhelmed was proven to have not been true. General Giap, (head of the North Korean Army), in his autobiography wrote that his army was on the verge of collapse when the South Koreans and Americans withdrew. He claimed that had the Americans thrown in some more troops and held out a little longer, they'd have had to surrender. It's the constant dithering of politicians that has been the bane of our military for years. It's what makes our troops think that they're being attacked on two fronts, the front ahead and the front behind.
Will the troops in Afghanistan have to "mirandize" the Taliban and other assorted terrorists, too? Will prisoners be hauled back to the U.S. to be run through our courts?
The Obama administration runs this government as though it's their own private campaign bus. The first question in their collective mind is, "What will work for us politically", you know, the old "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste".
If you just think of any situation that way, you'll be able to figure out pretty closely to what it is that Obama will do. I'm not wonky enough to follow the winds of politics that closely, but I'm sure those that do can pretty well figure it out.
First he will blame former President Bush and then he'll do what's politically expedient. The political gales shift constantly which is why it's taking so long for Obama to make up his mind.
Is this a contradiction in terms from the rapidity with which they've pushed through their socialist programs? No. Far left Democrats have had years to prepare these policies but this "good" war in Afghanistan which was preached at us time after time to make President Bush look like a rough-riding unilateralist cowboy was just another political ploy that they seemed to have forgotten involves the killing of our men and women. A huge miscalculation. Americans seem to be very ho-hum about taxes and things they don't truly understand but they understand very well the deaths of family members.
I find it hard to believe that he'll do anything much different than President Johnson did. He'll keep dithering because he is on the horns of a dilemma. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Send too few troops and he may not have sent them at all and the Right will raise the roof. Send too many and people, especially the Far Left (his voting base) will howl to the highest mountaintop.
Whatever will keep him and his gang (i.e. Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Rangel, etc.) in office is what he will do.
C. R. Stevenson (Wed Nov 25 10:08:53 2009)
To be sure, BHO blames his predecessor for all his ills. That will lose whatever luster it has left as he gets deeper into his regime. But by now, he has made most of the problems his own by more or less continuing the policies of GB II. Not much change there, except for more war, more spending, more debt, less freedom, more of everything bad.
Let me add a link to an opinion piece by Tamin Ansary, Afghan American.
It is somewhat dated, as it was written in 2001, and read by me originally a few days later. Tamin is wrong in that we DID get permission to go thru Pakistan, but otherwise he is right on the mark, I believe, and his remarks are still relevant today.
So what ARE our objectives, and what constitutes success? Get bin Laden? Well he is likely NOT in Afghanistan anymore. Get the TAliban out? Done, but now due to our occupation, and the corruption of a puppet government, some are preferring their return. Bomb them back to the stone age? See Ansary for the answer to that and other potential policy objectives. Too bad more in government did not consult him first. I see no achievable objectives left, only continued occupation, a dangerously rising national debt, and more deaths on both sides, and more suffering for the Afghan people, whether we are there or not. The ONE achievable goal? Bring the troops home safely.
All this for a pipeline that is not likely to be built, and if we continue to occupy, will not be allowed to function if it was. Better to pay a higher market price for oil. But it is not clear that the market price would be higher if the war was not going on.
Ken Van Doren (Wed Nov 25 10:27:45 2009)
At the conclusion of the program, Moyers was very skillful in drawing likenesses between the Vietnam situation President Johnson faced and the Afghanistan situation faced by President Obama. He was equally skillful in OMITTING the key differences, the largest of which is that America entered Vietnam to fight someone else's war in the name of protecting them from communist takeover, grounded in a then-pervasive belief that communism needed to be contained --militarily if that's what it took. Quite differently, America went to Afghanistan in reponse to being surprise-attacked by a terrorist organization, with the objective being to eliminate regimes which provided safe harbors for terrorists to conduct recruitment/training/planning activities. After years of Vietnam involvement, many Americans understandably started to ask "why are we over there?" I think Americans have no lack of understanding about why we are in Afghanistan, but are frustrated with the difficulty in finding a strategy which will deliver the objective.
Tom Sladek (Wed Nov 25 14:19:06 2009)
Some of us observed-before 911, that US oil companies wished a pipeline thru Afghanistan. When the war started, I perceived that there was nothing of an exit strategy. Provide stability? In a fractious country that has never known it, and in which we were likely to be considered occupiers? The politics of the place are so mired, that we now oppose the Taliban, whom we helped to power, and at least early on, our "freinds" were the Northern Alliance, who also allied with the USSR when they invaded.
So did we go to kill or arrest Osama? About a year after sending troops there, GB II responded to a questioner, "I have very little interest in OBL now." Failing taking out OBL, what other justification is there for our presence? And how many small and weak countries that do not comply with our wishes are we willing to send our sons and daughters to die in, for causes which are ill defined, or base. (the greed for oil, for example. It ain't ours until it is paid for.)
Ken Van Doren (Wed Nov 25 16:53:20 2009)
Jeff,
Bush 2 was "the decider" and he decided alright. Shot from the hip. Got us into a war of choice in Iraq, didn't finish the job in Afghanistan, fiddled while Rome burned in the economy until it was too late, alienated most of our allies and enraged everyone else. Bush 2 was an example of why government should be spayed and neutered so it can't do harm. Well, along comes Obama who has to clean up this mess and after 9 months he is an "empty suit" ? Give the guy a chance . He studies problems and doesn't make rash decisions. I think 8 years of screwups can tolerate at least a year of trying to find the right solutions. Afghanistan isn't going to change much between now and whenever a US policy with achievable objectives is defined. At least Obama relies on his brains instead of his testicles.
dave allen (Wed Nov 25 21:19:33 2009)
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