Thursday
Dec032009
Afghanistan Special: Josh Shahryar on the Obama Not-So-Grand Plan
Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 12:36 
NOTE: The second part of Scott Lucas's "Gut Reaction" to the Obama speech, covering the policy in Pakistan, will now appear on Saturday. Finally Barack Obama made up his mind about sending more troops to Afghanistan? If so, it's a vague resolution: the only specifics were that there would be 30,000+ more troops sent to fight the Taliban and troop withdrawal would start in 2011.
This is an announcement that comes up short in so many ways. Fighting the Taliban shoud not be the only worry for the US and the West. There are a wide range of issues that are jeopardizing security, stability, and democracy in Afghanistan, but none of those issues were discussed with even the vaguest of details.
A Gut Reaction to Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan Speech: The Halfway House of The Long War (Part 1)
Afghanistan may be a failure inherited by Obama from former President George W. Bush, but 10 months is enough to forget President Bush’s flaws for a moment and start scrutinizing President Obama’s policies. After those 10 months, the best that we get out of Obama is that he’s simply going to press ahead --- there has been no major shift in policy.
The most important of the issues ignored by Obama is the presence of warlords in the Afghan government, as their continued exercise of authority has made the Afghan populace disillusioned with the West’s approach to their troubles. There's the far-from-minor issue of Afghanistan turning into a narco-state. And Obama’s plan outlines little on how the US is going to deal with Pakistan’s continued sloth in stopping Taliban militants engaging in cross-border raids.
Corruption has become so widespread that hardly anything gets done in Afghanistan without being first tainted with a side-deal. The most prominent recent example is the serious allegations against the Minister of Mines and Industries, who reportedly received millions from China to grant them access to one of Afghanistan’s largest copper mines. There’s the challenge of making Afghanistan a state that is viable and not just heavily dependent on foreign aid. The trickle of money from the West, which will dry up sooner or later, and the sale of opium are propping up the country. Add to that astronomical unemployment, and you have a catastrophe in the making.
None of the above is addressed in a satisfactory manner in the Obama plan. In essence, this is simply a make-over of Bush’s policy in Iraq – a policy that might have succeeded there but might completely fail in Afghanistan. For, without addressing the above issues, even a million US troops will do little to help the situation.
Worse, Obama's not-so-grand package is wrapped in the announcement that troops would start to be flown back in 2011. This gives the resilient Taliban a simple timetable to follow. They’ve kept fighting for eight years, so no difficulty for them to sit back for two years and then start fighting full-force again .
On what basis is Obama going to bring the troops back? What makes him so sure that the war would be won or even stabilized by 2011? None of these questions were answered by the President, his plan, or his associates.
This is not the Iraq War. The people are different, their needs are different, and their problems are different. For all his rhetoric of change, Obama seems to really lack an understanding of what it really means here. And without that understanding, this war will continue to escalate and take more Afghan and American lives.
Reader Comments (12)
[...] by Nite Owl on Dec.03, 2009, under Afghanistan, General, Middle East, News Related, North America (Originally published in Enduring America: http://enduringamerica.com/2009/12/03/afghanistan-special-josh-shahryar-on-the-obama-not-so-grand-pl...) [...]
Take this to the bank:
We will lose the war in Afghanistan. Just as in Iraq, every serviceman or woman who has died there has died for no reason. Russia and merrie old England learned this lesson a long time ago. You would think....Never mind.
Suffice to say, on my best day I do not receive one tenth of the information that President Obama receives. I don't read any of the Presidential Daily Briefings that are placed on his desk every morning. Obviously he is in possession of a wealth of intelligence that you and I are just not privy to. Maybe we should be giving him the benefit of the doubt - and I have been doing just that, I promise you. But from my vantage point it appears to me that this president has failed to learn the lessons that have been passed onto us down the decades by the administrations of Franklin Delano Rossevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson - lessons involving bold action in times of economic crisis (more on that another day) and the utter folly of waging wars that cannot be won.
Let this be etched in stone:
Any country that would view its women as inferior beings not entitled to basic human rights is not worth one drop of ANYBODY'S blood.
I want to believe in this president. He is the chief executive I worked harder to elect than any other in my lifetime. I realize that it is simply far too early in this administration to write a final assessment of his term of office. That being said, my confidence in the Obama White House is ebbing rapidly. Where in the hell is all of this change I could believe in? Is the Bush Mob still in charge? What gives?
NOTE TO THE RIGHT WING:
No, I am still exceedingly grateful that John McCain and Gidget von Braun did not win the election last year. Have another sip.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen NY
WOW this is amazing. Thank you, Josh. Everything you said is what I've been thinking as well. But, as usual, you are much more knowledgable and eloquent.
Brilliant.
You will ALWAYS make me blush. haha Thank you.
I agree on most but I believe, the war in Afghanistan is no war to be won. It is a persistent dilemma for the whole West to be sucked into a society with submerged structures, totally corrupted and in no ways reliable. The only way to "win" was to win the people, daring for decades w/o perspective. So its the warlords & their drug business that feeds the people & recruits support. There should have been a focus on alternative ways to employ people, giving them a chance to develop new forms to make their living. The structures are an old heritage and can not simply be bombed away.
Pakistan as a "friendly" country but being in turmoil itself, was not of help but delivers safe haven for hiding terrorists. So if you want to go after terrorists, you cant stop at the Pakistan border. Since politics is a complex and windy road, US can not really want to do that. We have to take in consideration that Obama is struggling on quite a few battlefields and is taking heavy punches from all. He has bought himself a little more time to solve the Afghanistan issue, although he is doing that by risking lives of US & allied soldiers and - of course- afghan civilians. He certainly cant withdraw just so, he should have come up with clear demands towards Kabul, refusing to work together with neither warlords nor a corrupted administration, which just committed a big foul on past election.
So is Obama doing the wrong move? I believe, he has not really gotten a choice. As I said: he bought some time.
So true. There is no winning this war unless the U.S. and allies make a true commitment to helping the Afghan people deal with the country's internal issues that make them vulnerable to the likes of the Taliban.
Well, Hussy,
The issue is not really the presence, in my opinion. The US has a presence there even without the current troop surge. The main issue in my opinion is Obama's failure to recognize the reasons why the current troops stationed there have not been able to accomplish their goals. And you have stated many of those reasons yourself.
I think ten months is a very long time. You can do better than just do exactly what you were told by the Generals. Of course, to a military man the simple answer is always more troops, more aggressiveness and more bloodshed. Obama needed to use more diplomacy as well. That he has totally ignored for the time being.
I agree. Only with that 10 month wont work for me. Really, the battles Obama has to fight since Day-60 of his presidency are enormous. Maybe I am a wishful thinker, but I could see him following a double strategy: give in to the military to have them calm for a while & develop a real concept of structural change from the roots. But maybe I am just naive, mmh. I still have to make up my mind of what I can see as a "working" strategy. No easy answer & really easy to blame those who have to provide them. I know you might disagree.
Oh certainly. I'm not saying I'm right. :) I'm just saying that at this point, it looks like a sure fail. That's all. Like you said, there certainly might be more to it than we know. That too is tricky. Do you want transparency or do you want secret strategy? Kind of a Zen moment there.
Yes, it looks like a fail & it was a fail from the very beginning. And that goes way beyond 9/11. To me.
Agreed.
when politics dissolves into down-the-rabbit hole language, you know we no longer have a hope of getting a straight answer