Obama's Afghanistan Speech
As skeptical as I am of this enterprise, the key paragraphs for me were the following.
All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. Going forward, I am committed to addressing these costs openly and honestly. Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly 30 billion dollars for the military this year, and I will work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended - because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.
I would hope that "addressing the costs" of this escalation will bring the President to support Congressman Obey's War Surtax proposal. As the Wall Street Journal ironically noted, "Republicans, who oppose the idea of a war tax, generally favor borrowing the additional money necessary for the Afghan surge." It's all well and good for them to say we can't afford health care or more stimulus, but of course we can borrow as much as we need for the military. The hypocrisy is stunning. My earlier comparison to the oligarchs of Florence still stands.
I'm well aware, as Bob Herbert pointed out, that in contemporary U.S. politics Obama could not have announced a withdrawal of American forces.
The tougher choice for the president would have been to tell the public that the U.S. is a nation faced with terrible troubles here at home and that it is time to begin winding down a war that veered wildly off track years ago. But that would have taken great political courage. It would have left Mr. Obama vulnerable to the charge of being weak, of cutting and running, of betraying the troops who have already served. The Republicans would have a field day with that scenario.
But if Obama keeps his word (despite all the whining from McCain and the Republicans) and begins withdrawing our forces by 2011, then he will get the full out support of progressives in the 2012 campaign. Then, hopefully, in his second term he can really begin to address the military industrial complex and its chokehold on our treasury.
Most of the problems with the Obama Administrations strategies are due to not owning up to what they actually want, and think is right.
They continue to compromise with Republicans who won't vote with them, and attempt to appease those who will not be.
Thus you get tax cuts in the stimulus bill, and sending more troops only for a year, healthcare bills that don't have a public option that is open to the public, etc.
The right will never stop complaining, and calling Democrats weak, tax n spenders, and other dirty names. It is beyond foolish to form legislative policy based on the dream that it will convince your opponents to be nicer.
Instead Obama should form policy based on what is right, and what will actually help people the most. I think he has failed repeatedly to do this, and I think he uses bipartisanship as an excuse for his conservative politics that he doesn't have the courage to own up to. For example, he wants Olympia Snowe's support - or does he really just not want a public option because he promised that in smokey backroom deals?
December 2, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
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January 11, 2011 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
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March 23, 2011 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can make that agreement, even though I don't like the temporary surge and don't think it's worth $30 billion that would be better spent here -- I'll be a happy supporter if he sticks to withdrawing by the latter part of 2011. But it has to be a real withdrawal, not a brigade or two and I'm definitely going to have a hard time with "the situation on the ground means that we..." type arguments.
December 2, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your patience and sorry for the inconvenience!
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December 16, 2010 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry to go off thread but, just a question: why is the TPM Café "reader post" listing frozen since yesterday?
Could TPM post an announcement to state the problem and what is being done to solve it?
Thank you
December 2, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
see explanation here: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/miguelitoh2o/2009/12/taliban-al-qaeda-lets-call-the.php#comment-3688331
December 2, 2009 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good idea, and if the Democrats in Congress amounted to more than a pile of soggy noodles for Bush, Cheney and Rove to throw at whatever that late and unlamented Admin. wanted them stuck on, they would have started filibustering to get this Chickenhawk surcharge the day the Democrat majority was achieved following the November 2006 elections.
December 2, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope to see alot of democrats enlisting.
December 2, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
They may not be when they leave, but they WILL be when they return...
December 2, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps they would, if only College Republicans would blaze that path down to the recruiters' offices for them...
December 2, 2009 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK We will stay and give the territory of Afghanistan military democracy. Sigh... Democracy could be more easily exported to the world if it were to exist in the United States as a shining example for the world to see. I don't think many developed nations consider us to be all that free and equal. Nope. And our continuing military democracy delivery system is not winning a lot of allies either.
December 2, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not real excited by the prospect of wearing a birka (although it would make clothing choices easier and less expensive) and although my husband would probably relish the thought of me having to shut up and submit to his authority over me, chances of that happening any time soon are not real good, so I will be one of the women stoned to death in the street.
Leaving Afghanistan is not going to stop radical Islamists from trying to destroy this country and turn us into another Afghanistan. Just how do you think we would respond should the whackos get a hold of nuclear weapons?
The threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real, not something that was fabricated in a smokey backroom.
Is fighting in Afghanistan going to make it go away? No. Will fighting in Afghanistan slow it down a little? Maybe.
Yeah, we can come home, tuck ourselves into our little turtle shells and exist for whatever time we have left, or we can attempt to fight it...I chose the latter.
December 2, 2009 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a big question: either radical Islam is the threat you say it is or it isn't.
I'm going to go with -- it's not so big a threat that you meet it with 30,000 more troops and another $30 billion. It's not so big a threat that you let your military get bogged down in a near decade long occupation of a foreign country. It's not such a big threat that you spend your lives, time and money fighting it rather than more important battles at home.
No, it wasn't made up in a smokey back room. But that's where it was hyped up. and yes, it's hyped up. Al-Qaeda is the least of my worries.
December 2, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Des,I sincerely hope you are right.
But he has more info than I do. I voted for him because I trusted that he would do what he thought was best. I still think he is doing that. I seem to be in the minority around here. Wouldn't be the 1st time and won't be the last.
December 2, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you really think some dirtbag jihadists can use the tactics of terror to bring down the world's preeminant superpower? Not a chance...they only way we will be taken down is if we do it ourselves. And abandoning everything we stand for as a country to go after some criminals who pulled off the mother of all lucky attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which we seriously overreacted to and still are, gets us well on our way to destroying it on our own.
And far as Obama goes...he owns the war in Afghanistan now. No more saying he inherited it. And if things go very wrong and there are mass civilian casualties people could conceivably label him a 'war criminal'. Dangerous ground he is treading on. With his election he had captured the imagination of the world as a possible transformative figure...now he will probably be viewed as another in a long line of American-centric US presidents.
December 2, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes,I do think they can. I'm actually quite surprised they haven't done it already. We are vulnerable on so many levels...Look at how much those slimy bastards have cost us already, from the initial loss of life, to all the troops killed or maimed, to the dept.of Homeland Security, to TSA, to our airline industry, to our integrity (we were reduced to TORTURE!!!) If nothing else they have made a huge contribution to our financial insecurity. Put a couple of nuclear weapons in their hands? They have the ability to bring us to our knees.
Yes,I agree Obama has now bought this war. But with all my heart,I don't think he had any other choice,or he would have made it.
December 2, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
This reply right below was meant for your post here stilli. My bad...
December 2, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no way that Obama would ever call for a "war" tax of any kind. He wants to put it all on the deficit. He and his corporate buddies have a deliberate policy of increasing the deficit as much as they can, so they can increase the interest payments to the banksters. The interest is already over $400 billion a year, and the goal is to get it over a trillion a year. If the deficit thieves aren't stopped within a few years the only items in the federal budget will be the interest payments and the military budget. Everything else will have to go. And Obama knows this and is deliberately trying to make this happen. Like most right-wingers he wants to do as much damage to the American people as possible, and make it impossible for them to resist the ultra right-wing, corporate, warmongnering agenda.
December 2, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ever try living in the real world?
December 2, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of those 'costs', outside of the original attacks (especially the troops who have been 'killed and maimed), were because of decisions we made in the wake of 9/11. The jihadists didn't force us to torture, we decided to do that on our own. The jihadists didn't make us abandon the rule of law, we decided to do that on our own. The jihadists aren't warriors or part of an 'army' and don't deserve any 'honor' as being labeled as such, they are a criminal enterprise, plain and simple, and should be treated as such.
December 2, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Libertine...what are you smokin'? Of course they are warriors! They are fighting for their religious beliefs, regardless of how perverted they are, and they are willing to die in massive numbers for them. They are far more dangerous than a mere "country" we could be fighting against.
Worse yet, they have the added bonus of being able to hide in plain sight here in the U.S. and to recruit from our own population...
We ignore the threat at our own peril.
Given the absence of a better plan, I don't know what else we are supposed to do. I certainly have not heard any better ideas on these pages.
December 2, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not smoking anything stilli...stone cold sober, rational and very serious right now.
Was Timothy McVeigh a 'warrior' for attacking the federal building in Oklahoma City? Were the people who orchestrated the first WTC attack in the early 90's warriors and were they treated as such? I don't see it the 'warrior' way and never will. Terrorists are not warriors nor will they ever be. They are too cowardly to be warriors. Warriors do not target civilians, including woman and children. By labeling them as warriors shows a complete lack of confidence in our system of justice and law enforcement officials.
And what does them being motivated by some twisted idea of what Islam stands for make them warriors? They are thugs. They hate our freedoms and want to see us abandon them...which we have oblingly done for them in our efforts to 'defeat' them. We are destroying the fabric of what our country stands for, which is freedom, justice and equality under the law, thus giving them the ends they've sought. They have frightened us into giving up on the principles that made this country great to begin with.
December 2, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thugs, wariors, call them whatever you want. They threaten our way of life (even though "our way of life" could use a little tweaking)and we cannot ignore them.
What would you have us do, Lib?
December 2, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Again I ask how do they threaten our way of life? What can they do to us that will change what we are? They aren't a military so they can't 'defeat' us on the battlefield. I am not saying 'ignore them'. They need to be dealt with and the way to deal with them is by using the principles that have made our country strong...the rule of law and justice. Bullets will never defeat an ideology...only a better ideology will. Our overreaction to 9/11 was the best thing the jihadists could have ever asked for...it made them celebrities for would-be recruits. Our overreaction was completely counterproductive costing us tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of American casualties. The jihadists want to see us keep on treating them as warriors...it allows them to be able to keep killing Americans.
December 2, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeez, Lib, do you not get out much? Just the length of time it takes to board an airplane alone is a huge change. Pre 9/11 I knew no one who was prejudiced against anyone/everyone with an Arab sounding name. Now I don't think I know anyone who isn't.
Think about it for a few minutes. Can't you come up with a dozen ways they can disrupt our society to the point where we could barely function? If you can't, you just aren't very creative.
December 2, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
In Afghanistan, we are trying not to target any civilians, so there is a distinction, but there's still a lot of civilians dying from our actions.
December 2, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It's all well and good for them to say we can't afford health care or more stimulus, but of course we can borrow as much as we need for the military."
- I suppose Taplin's real message here is that Obamacare will have a withdrawal date too, like Obama's announced plan for Afganistan.
A hypocrite calling out hypocrites. What fun!
December 2, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hypocrite!
December 2, 2009 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Expressing Thanks doesn’t, can’t begin to adequately do justice to any appreciation of the wisdom expressed by Andrew Bacevich this morning on Democracy Now.
Most particularly his remarks concerning the cynical use of the cadets.
But then, you sit and watch their expressions as they sit and listen to him. Yes, they have their careers to consider. Oh for eternity’s joy: if only one had stood up, put his destiny on the line and yelled out a protest against Obama’s dastardly and cynical presence.
All their careers on the line. All of the future tickets punched. Brownie points.
If only one had risen and protested vigorously. THAT would have been one of the most electrifying moments in American history!!!
December 2, 2009 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can someone tell me why our President can pronounce Pakistan just like a Wellsey frat girl but when it comes to
Afghanistan he is back at the Pizza Hut in South Chicago. This makes him look and sound like a real foney.
December 3, 2009 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Most particularly his remarks concerning the cynical use of the cadets.
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April 27, 2011 3:48 AM | Reply | Permalink