Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
The Unfortunate Legacy of George W. Bush
On Saturday President Trump sent out a series of tweets that acknowledged that he had planned to meet this past weekend at Camp David with the leaders of the Taliban and the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, to engage in peace talks. When it was rumored in the past that President Obama sought such talks, private citizen Trump was highly critical. Something has obviously changed his mind.
Wrote the President, “Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately canceled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?”
That great military mind, David French (did you know he served as a JAG lawyer in Iraq?), responded:
These kinds of tweets, cheering on the collapse of talks, drew a response from former Ricochet editor Mollie Hemingway. “Disappointing,’ she wrote, “if unsurprising, to watch the swamp seek to extend the War in Afghanistan, which is nearing its 18th – 18th! – anniversary.”
We will soon see young men and women enter boot camp for our armed forces who will be asked to fight in a war initiated before they were even born. They will be asked to fight, perchance to die, but even after 18 years they will not be asked to win it. Because those who refuse to negotiate are the same people that also refuse to define victory.
In August 2017, French praised Trump as learning on the job that there were to be “no more Saigons.” And he also wrote, “As should be obvious by now, when fighting a militaristic theological movement conventional military ‘victory’ simply isn’t attainable. While there may be political settlements in given regions at given times, there won’t be a USS Missouri moment with al-Qaeda, ISIS, or any successor jihadist group.”
Was it only obvious two years ago? Or should it not also have been seen and clearly articulated 16 years before that? And how do you achieve French’s suggested “political settlement” if there is never, ever, ever to be negotiations?
Americans, unlike their European ancestors, have never sought empire. If we could state the nation’s philosophy of military engagement, in a nutshell, it would probably be nothing more complicated than “Get in, kick ass, come home.”
There was not a man, woman or child in America that did not fully support George W. Bush in the days following 9/11. But his legacy seems to be that he doomed us to the curse of the endless war. We have had the burden of Empire thrust upon us whether we asked for it or not.
No, I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. I imagine he thinks of it as service to the nation.
Lawyers.
The Small Wars were mostly proxy wars used by the administrations in a way similar to supposed CIA wars are now. The USMC would draft some of its Marines to legally leave the USMC and then join a foreign government or aspiring government to fight guerrilla wars. For instance, Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller spent several years in Haiti and Nicauragua fighting wars there. These were the banana wars that General Smedley Butler complained about being waged only to enrich corrupt American businesses.
This pre-CIA involvement in other countries is also how Maj. Pete Ellis was sent to spy on the Japanese in the 1930’s, and was probably captured and killed by them. We didn’t have a CIA so the Marine Corps essentially did a lot of that work.
But the Marines weren’t unique. It’s how Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers got to fight the Japanese long before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I’m not going to say any of those actions were wrong, but they’re not the type of actions that are thought of as being waged with clean hands.
The war in Iraq was most similar to the Indian Wars than any other war we’ve ever been in.
Between FDR embracing Stalin as an ally and Nixon’s meeting with Mao, how many deaths of their own people were those two responsible for?
And he even got a Bronze Star Medal (without “V” device or Purple Heart to match).
In both of these instances, the vast majority of the two dictators’ butchers’ bills were already rung up before FDR and Nixon shook hands with them.
I’m of two minds in this. I personally served, as a commander, with great Command Judge Advocates who protected commanders from various minefields and focused on facilitating mission accomplishment. On the other hand, I am well aware that a couple generations of military lawyers have already come out of law schools that conditioned them to act as a fifth column from 9/12/2001 onward.
Nearly all our political problems have a root in the Bush wars.
Officers give each other awards all the time(especially staff officers). Concerns about medal inflation only apply to the enlisted men and women…. Except for pretty white girls. Thirsty betas give pretty white girls medals for showing up. Its a tale so old that Angela Lansbury should sing a song about it.
When I was in Afghanistan, the battalion adjutant who was a very talented second lieutenant, approached me and told me that he was tasked with writing up awards for all the battalion staff and he asked me to provide him bullet points for “my award.”
I explained to him that there were some ethical problems with a second lieutenant writing award recommendations for field grade officers. There was also the ethical problem that none of us had done anything especially worthy of awards. We did a good job, but that’s not the standard. I declined to help him and told him I did not want an award.
His response, “Sir, you left your home, family, and your job to come here. That alone is worth a medal.”
But, I pointed out, they already have awarded me for that. I have a campaign medal. I have a mobilization medal. I have a defense service medal. I even have some sort of silly medal from NATO. Those are the very silly and unnecessary medals I get for leaving my home, family and job to come here.
Sadly, my entreaties had no impact, except that every other battalion staff officer got a medal except me. Apparently all my peers gladly allowed a second lieutenant to write them up for awards.
Medal inflation is a real problem.
That second lieutenant is a major now. I’m getting very old.
Oh, She….
This will not end well for Afghanistan.
For America – not much immediate difference, sad to say.
Forever War and all.
See, my question really wasn’t about “whataboutism.” It was about what’s going on in Donald Trump’s head that he would think that the Taliban are not the sort of people who would blow up an American solider and several others on the eve of super-secret, double-spy “peace talks.” It’s exactly what he should have expected, and even accounted for, IMHO. And if he didn’t, it might have been better not to put his naive frustration on quite such public display after the fact.
Service in a combat zone is dangerous.
I don’t understand. What’s wrong with trying to talk and then public calling them on this? How is this about Trump being naive and unprepared? I don’t know how you can know either of these, especially since I don’t think the interaction would look much different assuming he was prepared and savvy.
Ain’t nuthin. My scout platoon leader is a retired BG.
They never stopped killing random people. Not when the talks started. They didn’t change, they have been consistent.
I have a lot to say and am sadly on the road and cant say it.
Hitlers idea of Lebensraum was that the Slavic lands would be a perpetual warzone where the blood of the volk would be replenished by future generations of fighting slavic hordes.
How is this any different than the current fighting in Afghanistan?
The USA would never tolerate Canada or Mexico being controlled by a hostile power. Why should Pakistan be any different about its own security.
Finally W and Cheney nearly won Afghanistan. Then they allowed thousands of Taliban cadre to escape during the Airlift of Evil. This was the biggest military blunder in the USA since MacArthur outran his supply lines in Korea.
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Kunduz_airlift
Because pakistan is a failed state that can’t control its own territory. Fully 2/3 of its territory was controlled by a hostile group of Islamic radicals. If they can’t control their own country then international laws do not require other countries to recognize their government.
But then, the same can be said about Mexico.
All I’m doing is reading what the man said. I’m pretty sure Trump is the one who introduced the question of “what kind of people are the Taliban?” I know I didn’t bring it up. I already know what kind of people they are. I think most of us know.
I do think that question (the one Trump asked) is one that a prudent leader would have an answer for, in the hours before his sits down to sue for peace with such an enemy of his country. And I think it’s unwise, and even foolish, to imply (strongly and publicly) that he was startled by their action and doesn’t understand who he’s dealing with. YMMV, and that is fine.
Is it entirely fair to lay Afghanistan so much on Bush?
I would argue that if we had in Gore in 2001 (and thank the heavens we did not), we still would have invaded. 9/11 led America to cry out to do something in response – something actually effective as opposed to Clinton’s posturing, triangulating, and lobbing a few cruise missiles, or sending in the Air Force (vis. Serbia). Bill Clinton, over his 8 years, squandered an immense amount of military readiness and morale, and I would argue made 9/11 not only possible, but likely – it was another escalation among many that had, in Clinton, only earned feeble responses, and sometimes (like with the Aspirin factory hit) actual press condemnation for him “overreacting” (Clinton being one to always follow public opinion). Al Qaeda, thanks to Clinton, had little reason to figure that 9/11 would earn the response it did, and so had no clue it would galvanize things so.
Mind you, this is apart from any argument about why we are there now, or how long we’ve been there. I’m simply arguing that were it not for Clinton’s terrible foreign and military policies in the 90s, we may not have invaded the place at all.
What you’re saying is, that neither one could have claimed ignorance. We knew what we were getting with Uncle Joe as an ally. And Nixon knew what Mao had done in the Cultural Revolution and still chose to meet with him. The feelings about presidential meetings revolve more around the president in question and less about who he is meeting with.
Ok – that doesn’t contradict anything I said here. There was an overture, they didn’t change in response, and so Trump highlighted that. There was a chance for gains, but in the end we didn’t actually lose anything. I’m still struggling to understand how that makes Trump naive.
I’m not getting it. How does that imply that he was startled or doesn’t understand? I think I understand the progressives well enough, but I still sometimes make declarations to the same effect of “who are these people?!?” for various reasons depending on the context. Doesn’t mean I’m either startled or naive.
All political communication is performance and gamesmanship and negotiation. Do you really think that the president of the United States is unfamiliar with the Taliban? I don’t. I’m guessing his statement was more a refocusing and reframing for us, for third parties, and for the Taliban themselves.
And here’s how I heard it: He was hoping to meet with and negotiate with the leadership, but their terrorist cells are still off killing people. If the leadership can’t control their various cells, what good would it do to try to negotiate terms with the leadership. That’s a message for the Taliban as much as (perhaps more than) for us.
Well, on my behalf, as a manifestation of “performance and gamesmanship,” it failed. And I’m not reflexively anti-Trump. I’m also not reflexively pro-David French, who perhaps isn’t as smart as he ought to be. But I think French is largely right on this one, and I freely acknowledge that he (French) at least had the [redacted] to serve in a combat zone. Many do not. And someone has to be the lawyer on staff. So I’m not inclined to reflexively sneer at his service either, as has been tried several times on this thread, not necessarily by you.
I’ve told you all what I think about Trump’s Tweet. And I stand by what I said. I think it was unwise, and that the best one can say about it is that it is quite ambiguous. I can’t imagine Churchill, or even Roosevelt (both of whom have been invoked here) asking such a question, or “refocusing and reframing for us.” Just do the right thing, dammit.)
I’m familiar with the “yes, he’s a bastard, but he’s our bastard” school of thought, and there are times when that can be an effective foreign policy strategy.
This isn’t it. The Taliban is not “our bastard.” Never was. Never will be.
Have a marvelous day.
In what way? Are we not talking about the statement anymore? Are we now talking about the whole notion of negotiating with the Taliban to begin with?
I think it’s pretty clear I’m talking about Trump’s statement. That is what I’ve been talking about all along. What are you talking about?
EDIT: Someone, possibly @ejhill, is the person who introduced the matter of “the whole notion of negotiating with the Taliban” into my original comment, by invoking matters of old. Not me. And you, @edg, introduced the idea of “performance and gamesmanship.” I’m not sure how you get to where you are in this comment from my response to what you said.
I don’t understand still. I’m not trying to be dense here, and I’m not pretending (as one or two members have accused me of in the past). What was ambiguous about President Trump’s statement? What do you think the right thing is in relation to Afghanistan? I think that after 18 years, blood, and treasure that that’s an open and fair question. Total war and occupation is probably unrealistic and immediate and total withdrawal probably is too. Then what?
As far as Churchill and Roosevelt – I think they did a lot of focusing and framing with their public communications. I would say that’s all they ever did. The difference is that they were talking about clear and present existential threats. At that point there is no upside to gamesmanship and plenty of downside. With President Trump and Afghanistan, there is plenty of upside and little downside.
I’m not suggesting that strategy and I don’t think President Trump has suggested it. Propping up Saddam because he’s less bad than Iran is an example of that strategy. Talking to Kim or the Taliban is different.
So the Taliban will never be any good. What should we do? Continue on as-is indefinitely?
Ok, then in what way did the statement fail? What was it’s purpose and what is the effect?
Politics has always made for strange bedfellows. We should all hope a president keeps the doors open to talks with anyone for the sake of peace.