Nation-Building At Home
How, oh how, are we not discussing the President's Afghanistan speech?
[S]tarting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead. Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security.
Note the drawdown of the surge forces concluding at the height of the 2012 campaign.
We do know that peace cannot come to a land that has known so much war without a political settlement. So as we strengthen the Afghan government and Security Forces, America will join initiatives that reconcile the Afghan people, including the Taliban.
I think there's a good argument to be made that any sort of settlement in Afghanistan will have to include the Taliban, but it's certainly contentious. Discuss.
The goal that we seek is achievable, and can be expressed simply: no safe-haven from which al Qaeda or its affiliates can launch attacks against our homeland, or our allies. We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely.
This is my favorite bit. This was, after all, the original mission of our adventure in Afghanistan, before mission creep set in and we started dreaming of a Switzerland in the Hindu Kush. Don't worry, that's about the last line I liked.
We will work with the Pakistani government to root out the cancer of violent extremism, and we will insist that it keep its commitments. For there should be no doubt that so long as I am President, the United States will never tolerate a safe-haven for those who aim to kill us: they cannot elude us, nor escape the justice they deserve.
Nothing wrong with the content, assuming he actually means it. But how deeply weird is the "so long as I am President" caveat?
When innocents are being slaughtered and global security endangered, we don’t have to choose between standing idly by or acting on our own. Instead, we must rally international action, which we are doing in Libya, where we do not have a single soldier on the ground, but are supporting allies in protecting the Libyan people and giving them the chance to determine their destiny.
Well, I suppose that's one way to describe presiding over a stalemate with no end in sight.
And here we come to the really fun stuff.
America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home.
Mr President, I think we've had quite enough of that already.
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Comments:
Re: Nation-Building At Home
I found what Jonathan Tobin had to say over at Contentions to be interesting.
May '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
"We do know that peace cannot come to a land that has known so much war without a political settlement."
I would have preferred them to be defeated before we start treating with them politically, but that's just me.
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Also, re: nation building at home, this post over at Reason is pretty great.
Nation-Building at Home Just as Crucial a Slogan Now as it Was 14 Thomas Friedman Columns Ago
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Early this year, Barack Obama gave up being President in order to launch his campaign -- which is why he and his party have not yet proposed a budget to replace the one voted down in the Senate 97-0. What he is doing vis-a-vis Afghanistan has nothing to do with American security and everything to do with the campaign.
May '10
Re: Nation-Building At Home
What strikes me is the enormous political gamble. What if it doesn't work? What if it all unravels as the drawdown is taking place? What if it feels to the American people like the end of Vietnam -- like defeat? Can he count on the press to report no bad news until after the election? It's hard to believe the president attaches no consequences to the action. I actually hope therefore that his judgement proves correct.
Dec '10
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Bruce Herschensohn, author of American Amnesia: How the US Congress Forced the Surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia, was on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday and he sounded more than a little frustrated. He said (paraphrasing), you don't "end" a war, you either win it or lose it. The president has chosen to lose Afghanistan.
Obama never intended to win. He wouldn't even use the word victory. My own response to the surge surprised me, being one of those bloodthirsty, neocon warmongers. I was against it. I thought Obama's decision to split the difference between the troop strength the military wanted and the numbers his leftist friends desired, was a giant tell. So, instead of being all-in with the intent to win, or all-out in the hope of cutting our losses, he made the worst possible politicized choice -- put more men and resources at risk with a CiC who doesn't have the will to win. I understand why Ann Coulter calls these guys treasonous.
Jan '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
As Claire so pointedly reminds us, the US media is remarkably adept at ignoring events in the outside world. The media wouldn't even need to actively cover for Obama. If they simply forget Afghanistan the way they've forgotten Iraq, it will be out of most American's minds come election time, no matter what the situation actually is.
For Afghanistan's sake, yes.
Jan '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
I opposed the Afghanistan "surge" because I thought it folly to apply the media shorthand for what worked in Iraq to Afghanistan. The Iraq "surge" was about strategic changes to the way our forces operated, organized and shared intelligence resources, and dealt with local players outside the government. The number of troops involved was its least significant aspect, and there was an element of cargo-cult logic in expecting similar changes to make a similar difference in Afghanistan, an entirely dissimilar context.
Nov '10
Re: Nation-Building At Home
I don't think it's a gamble at all, if you mean gamble in the sense of some chance at all of winning. My bet is that it will very much be a reprise of the end of Vietnam - a nominal peace with promises of support from the US and NATO, and then when the Muslim extremists roll back in force, those promises will be abandoned in a very much sauve qui peut debacle.
Jun '10
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Finally Obama's doing something he's good at. Not a minute too soon, I say.
Apr '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Cas Balicki
Finally Obama's doing something he's good at. Not a minute too soon, I say. · Jun 23 at 10:10am
Too bad campaigning doesn't balance budgets and refrom entitlements!
Mar '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
As the Taliban are fond of saying - "You have the clocks and we have the time".
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Obama's argument for nation-building at home is Progressive boilerplate. Progressives always aim to transform us at home and foreign nations abroad. Democrats tend to be more aggressive about the transformation at home (at least since the late 60's).
We are fighting three wars abroad, but many more at home--perpetual wars against the business cycle, crime, cancer, AIDS, poverty, and more recently carbon dioxide and childhood obesity just to name a few.
Mar '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
Diane Ellis, Ed.: I found what Jonathan Tobin had to say over at Contentions to be interesting.
Jun 23 at 6:01am
I've seen politicians sit on the fence before. This is the first time I've ever seen one pirouette.
The nation-building at home line annoyed me too. There are plans for a high-speed rail line from Chicago to Iowa City. I'm not clear on what need this is supposed to meet. I guess we'll have to build it to find out.
Jan '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
I listened to the Bruce Hirchensen interview on Hugh Hewitt as well. I think he made me rethink my position. While I don't want being automatically opposite of the President to be my default position, I respect this Hirchensen's outlook (also Michael Yon indicated that we're having real success over there). Its difficult to get a read from the military because those guys are so loyal/honorable - they don't complain and they obey the executive's orders.
I think the Afgans are a disaster but a "Win" sound a lot better than loss.
Jan '11
Re: Nation-Building At Home
I also forgot to add this move by Obama is clearly driven by polls and re-election than by the successful outcome of the mission.