Obama Reduces Bombing in Afghanistan
From the Voice of America...
The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan says he will sharply restrict the use of air strikes in an effort to reduce civilian casualties in the fight against Taliban militants.General Stanley McChrystal has told The New York Times newspaper that in most cases, air strikes will only be used in Afghanistan to prevent U.S. and other coalition troops from being overrun by adversaries.
This is a very good thing, and a shining example of Obama's much more intelligent foreign policy, compared to Bush/Cheney.
There's also a relatively small real danger attached to it, and significant political risk.
The real danger is that American troops will inevitably be exposed to some enemy fire from locations which would have been bombed to smithereens under the old policy, although every counter-insurgency expert in the known universe agrees that in the long term American casualties will be diminished if we stop making blood enemies every day.
But Republicans can still accuse Obama of being "soft on the Taliban," and if they can find even one American soldier to exploit as a poster-child for their propaganda, even one soldier who was killed by enemy fire from a house or hovel which would have been pulverized by the Bush/Cheney bomb-first-and-ask-questions-later insanity...
Then the right-wing propaganda apparatus will immediately shift into high gear, ten thousand voices will denounce Obama for sacrificing American lives on the altar of left-wing surrender-monkeys, and Republicans will sing that song all the way to 2012.
That's an excellent analysis. In fact, I think it is can be applied more generally to the state of politics these days. Republicans invariably favor policies that will bring them short term political gain, even at the expense of doing long term harm to the country. You see this in action in everything from the reckless abandon with which Bush and Cheney blew sources and active operations in order to "prove" how good a job they were doing keepin us safe from th' evildoers, to favoring economic policies that promote bubbles to "drill baby, drill."
On the rare occaisions when Democrats manage to muster up the courage to implement--or even talk about-- policies that will benefit the country over the long, or even medium, term at the expense of incurring some short term pain, Republicans perceive it as opportunity and throw one of their patented orchestrated orgies of vitriolic outrage.
In a sense, they're compelled to do it because if long-term benefit does result from Democratic policies, it causes the Republicans long term harm. It this becomes imperative for them to do everything they can to kill such policies before the benefits can accrue.
What they seem incapable of grasping is that most of their current structural problems are due to their own penchant for policies that are, in the long term, harmful to the country.
June 23, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree about long-term policies favoring Democrats, and it's just another reason why I can't understand their timorousness about issues like national healthcare.
Democrats could destroy the Republican Party with single-payer healthcare, and not only now, but with an even more complete destruction as Americans slowly recognized the blessings of more reliable medicine for half the price.
Republicans are terrified at the prospect of the Democratic Party as the party which brought us the blessings of national healthcare, and they will stop at nothing to defeat it.
But I can't understand why the Democrats have always waffled away from single-payer, and even now they may waffle away again.
June 23, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
uhhhhh... massive, ginormous, gargantuan campaign contributions from the health "insurance" and pharma lobbies?
Just guessin'... ;)
June 24, 2009 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm all for it on the face of it, but something about this story doesn't add up. Of course, Afghanistan's elections are on August 20, and it's difficult for the 40+ candidates to campaign when there are devastating air strikes blowing up the voters. Especially air strikes that don't follow protocol, as a recent report found. (Whoops! So-rry!)
Giving lip service to concern for civilian casualties is always good PR for Americans at home. Incessant stories about dead civilians is a total downer. Americans want the bad guys to die, not the good peeps like us. We also like happy endings, and when we watch the elections on CNN in August, our eyes will well up when we see the thriving tendrils of democracy spreading across the god-forsaken dust of Afghanistan like kudzu.
To your point about Republicans, here's an even weirder article, which has far riskier quotes like:
Huh? We are?
You do? That's not what we've been told by the hawks.
Anyhoo, then there's this quote about what's in it for Afghan civilians:
So, for civilians, the risk will actually increase; but on the other hand, that makes for a more dramatic election story come August. I hope Anderson Cooper has booked his flight. I'm sure there will be lots of coverage.
Check out this piece about Karzai's running mate.
June 23, 2009 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
The VP candidate Fahim is a very interesting fellow, formerly best friends forever with General Tommy Franks, and likewise with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the warlord of all warlords, assassinated September 9, 2001.
This is a guy who is more powerful by far than the national government in the north, and it would be silly for Karzai to pretend that he doesn't need Fahim and his friends to hold off the Taliban, and...
Karzai is not a silly man.
Thanks for the link. I hadn't realized there was so much pointless hand-wringing about a very pragmatic choice for vice-president, which has obviously been endorsed in advance by NATO.
About Andrew Exum (Abu Muquwama)...
Exum is a very smart ex-Ranger with significant combat experience in Afghanistan, but the rant you quoted is more inspire-your-platoon than public policy analysis, and it cannot compromise Obama.
June 23, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's untenable, isn't it? If we don't bomb, the Taliban is emboldened to use more civilians are human shields because we are seen as wanting to protect civilians. If we do bomb, civilians, as well as civilization, are caught in the crossfire. War sucks.
June 23, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The following was reported today by BBC News'...At least 45 people have died in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft in Pakistan...' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8115814.stm)
You will note that when pilots are activated the term 'air strike' is used. When drones are used, the action is referred to as a 'missile strike.'
The end result is always the same, innocent lives are lost.
A few weeks ago 60 Minutes did an indepth feature on drone v. pilot strikes. How the later strike stays with those engaged in the action, compared to the former strike which is more akin to computer game warfare, and those engaged in this activity go home to milk and cookies with the kids.
War is hell, but if we are going to engage in it, then do it for the right reason. For the noblest reason possible.
June 23, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Missile strikes inside Pakistan are even stupider than high-altitude and "close air support" bombing in Afghanistan, but winding down either policy is still an improvement, and that's all I claim, and of course you didn't claim that I claimed anything else.
But if we jump off the relative scale of evils, and look at the effect of drones flying into Pakistan and zapping "suspected insurgents," this craziness could be the critical shock to the system that brings down the civilian government, and puts the ISI or some coalition of Islamist parties in charge of a hundred functional nuclear weapons.
Chaos on the Pak-Af border is bleeding all over Pakistan, and now the Pakistani army is preparing yet another offensive in south Waziristan, which is already flooded with refugees from the Swat Valley.
What next?
I don't know.
June 23, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
The following was reported today by BBC News'...At least 45 people have died in a missile strike by a US drone aircraft in Pakistan...' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8115814.stm)
You will note that when pilots are activated the term 'air strike' is used. When drones are used, the action is referred to as a 'missile strike.'
The end result is always the same, innocent lives are lost.
A few weeks ago 60 Minutes did an indepth feature on drone v. pilot strikes. How the later strike stays with those engaged in the action, compared to the former strike which is more akin to computer game warfare, and those engaged in this activity go home to milk and cookies with the kids.
War is hell, but if we are going to engage in it, then do it for the right reason. For the noblest reason possible.
June 23, 2009 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
apologies for duplicate posting.
June 23, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink