Obama's War

Afghanistan is now Obama's war. His speech Tuesday night at West Point solidified that point. Gone were the bullshit neocon platitudes about spreading freedom and democracy, protecting human rights, or making Afghanistan better for Afghans. Clearly, Obama is implying that Afghans don't want what we have to offer them. But we're stuck in that shithole thanks to Bush and Cheney, and it's Obama's job to figure out a way to get us out with a minimum of political damage, a modicum of billions, and a maximum of military success.

As Obama bluntly put it: "Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda." Once upon a time, this was Bush's goal too after 9/11. After leaping into that abyss in 2001, however, Bush suddenly realized that he couldn't get bin Laden and al Qaeda without help from the poppy-enriched warlords and tribal leaders, and he then got waylaid into Iraq by the neocon triumvirate of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove (helped along by Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and Rupert Murdoch). But after having Osama cornered and failing to get him, he was made to realize that Osama was more valuable politically if he were at large. And so they trumped up the bullshit story that Osama and Saddam were gay lovers playing tummy sticks and plotting to drop nukes and nerve gas at 30 Rock. Entering from stage far right: endless war in Iraq.

Well, Obama campaigned on the promise that he'd put Afghanistan back on the front burner while phasing out of Iraq (sounded like such a good plan, in fact, that Bush began implementing it for him). The Democratic election machine never made a peep about this plan other than to say it was the right thing to do. Now that Congressional Dems are expressing reservations about it while the GOP leadership is suggesting that Obama is following McChrystal's lead (as a way to steal credit from Obama in case of a positive outcome or to portray him as weak if the strategy doesn't work), Obama finds himself riding point with very shaky backup. So be it. Whatever the outcome, going after al Qaeda is and has always been the right thing to do. Lay waste to Afghanistan in the process, throw CIA operatives into Pakistan by the truckload to disrupt Qaeda from the other side and protect its nukes from falling into the wrong hands, and after the border mountain ranges look like a huge gravel pit, get out and let the warlords parcel out the land to whomever will pay enough for it.

So if you're ambivalent or even against Obama's plan, get this: Afghans don't want democracy, don't want freedom, and don't want us there anymore than we want to be there. I'm guessing that the last several weeks of Obama's meetings with his war council was not about finalizing the amount of troops to be sent, it was convincing enough people in leadership that there is just no good way to end this conflict and we'd better leave very little behind that could become a problem for us after we're gone. We need to remember that Obama has never portrayed himself as some sort of idealistic godfather of hope. Hope is, well, sometimes just hope. When reality ridicules hope, pragmatism works. And Obama is nothing if not pragmatic. I will not be at all shocked if he bows out in 2012 if his Afghanistan plan fails (like LBJ did in '68). The risks here are very high; what will win this war (again, for us) is focusing on what got us in there in the first place. Not the fear of another terrorist attack, but in exacting justice, punishment, and enough of a warning that no one else had better fuck with us again.