Obama's Afghanistan escalation speech: now *here's* a response video

Watch Rachel Maddow's superb post-speech comment on whether Obama is keeping the Bush Doctrine alive in Afghanistan. Spoiler: yeah. Follow Maddow on Twitter.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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EH

Man, do you people really think the Taliban was behind 9/11?

Besides that, “finishing the job we started in Afghanistan” is probably the surest way to maximize the amount of resulting misery. We don’t get it, but “getting it” is not the point of our presence there anyway.
Anonymous

The 9/11 atrocities were a Saudi Arabian operation. Planned by Saudis, executed by Saudis, financed by Saudis. This is a raw fact, not subject to interpretation; if Tojo had been staying in an English hotel when Pearl Harbor was bombed, that wouldn’t make Pearl Harber an English atrocity, it would still be a Japanese operation.

Afghanistan is a good place to blood troops. I’ll get flamed for that statement, but it’s again based on a raw truth: blooded armies, trained by men who have killed and survived, significantly outperform unblooded armies trained by military theorists. History proves this.

It’s nasty, but so are digger wasps.
f sharp a sharp infinity

Middleclass (#7) – surely the idea is to put the necessary troops on the ground to prevent the Taliban from carrying out any intimidation action against locals who don’t want theocratic rule while supporting the Afghan Government in stabilising itself? Sure Karzai’s gang are dodgy but a somewhat corrupt institutionalised government is better than theocratic murderers surely? The mission all along should have been eliminating the Taliban entirely – but Bush screwed that pooch by pulling troops out to go to war in Iraq. While the Taliban are still a potent force, any US withdrawal will lead to their re-conquering of the country. A powerful Taliban governed Afghanistan may decide to invade a destabilised Pakistan and BAM! Fundamentalist lunatics have nukes.

This goes beyond ‘is it ok to have US troops fighting in a foreign country’. It’s about stability of the region and ultimately the viability of Democracy there. Last time I checked we were passionate about democratic freedom – just not Bush’s weird bukkake version.
- middleclass
  
  “a somewhat corrupt institutionalised government is better than theocratic murderers surely ”
  
  This may well be true, but it is not for us to decide on one or the other. Lack of US muscle may cause the Taliban to return to power, which will likely lead to lamentable situations for many Afghans, but it is their own problem to fix. The best that we can do for them is to stop bombing them and then lead by example instead of trying to impose democracy.
  
  Pakistani nuclear devices are far from the most unstable territories and are in no danger of falling into Taliban hands. The military in that country is powerful and would not allow that to happen. That line of argument is a canard.
  - Ernunnos
    
    Lack of US muscle may cause the Taliban to return to power, which will likely lead to lamentable situations for many Afghans, but it is their own problem to fix.
    
    Considering that the U.S. only exists because of French intervention, I believe Americans are categorically prohibited from demanding that citizens of other nations obtain their freedom without outside aid. There are lots of things we can spend our money and military force on as a nation. Replacing regimes that don’t allow women to get educations and destroy priceless works of art because god told them to with better governments does more to improve the world than just about any other investment we could make.
mgfarrelly

Rachel Maddow is a hero. Any noisemakers on the right who want to claim she’s just their mirror image can be shown this clip and silenced. Holding “your guy” accountable is when you see who has ethics and who simply likes to be “right”.

Here’s my issue, are we, as Americans, safer? Our ports are still a mess, almost nothing has been spent securing them against real threats (chemical, biological, nuclear) our first-responders are still under-fundeded and under-trained (see Katrina) our vial infrastructure is crumbling, who needs blood-in-their-eyes terrorist when we can’t even keep the lights on or the roads passable?

Instead of spending billions and billions and billions more, take that money and rebuild neighborhoods blighted by decades of the drug war. Take that money and hire a million new teachers, take that money and pay for the tens of thousands of wounded veterans with life-long ailments and injuries from these two endless conflicts. Take that money and create an effective national strategy for dealing with terrorism that not only keeps people safe, but respects our civil liberties. Take that money and invest it in foreign aid and show the nations of the world that we’re not just out for their oil or on crusade.

A new Marshall plan, a New New Deal. Money well-spent, not spent on “MOAR WOR!”

Seriously President Obama, embracing a decade of failed policies to not appear “weak” to people who will always hate you anyway?

Fail Mr. President, FAIL.
middleclass

9/11 was largely planned in Germany, Spain, and Florida, and very little in Afghanistan. At most Osama approved the idea and funded the operation with a bank transfer from his hideout in Afghanistan.

Yes the Taliban is awful but that does not give the US a free pass to play nation building.

“When the US wasn’t even involved in Afghanistan, we had a fundamentalist group launch an unprovoked attack on our nation”

And they were not Afghans but mostly Saudis, and their main stated grievance was U.S. military presence in Arab countries and political and material support for the occupation of Palestine. They want us out, and will keep causing trouble until we leave.
Anonymous

maybe we should be aware of us history in afganistan
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02
Patrick Austin

@mgfarrelly: It’s no longer about making us safer (if it ever was).

I don’t get how this decision has anything to do with what has already happened and the original justification for war. I suspect Obama would agree that we shouldn’t have invaded in the first place. He’s probably not the sort to run off looking for someone to take revenge on when a bad thing happens.

Put yourselves in his shoes. You’re forced to choose between two basic options in the ultimate damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-dont situation. In the end, your decision is going to shape the future for an entire region, in addition to risking the lives of a hundred thousand of our soldiers and blowing through an amount of money that would feed and clothe most nations.

On the one hand, you pull out now and are 99% sure that the country would go apeshit and return to the control of people who are willing to cut off arms and behead and burn with acid all those who disagree with them. It’s not like the people will get a choice…they’ll be terrorized back into the old situation.

On the other, you stick around for a while and try to set up some a big Afghan police/military force and a strong man dictator who will be able to hold onto the main cities and will allow women to show their faces in public. MAYBE you get some infrastructure built. The extreme end of the political spectrum will still hang on to the countryside, will continue terrorizing people for the foreseeable future, etc.

Neither way gives the people of Afghanistan any choice in how they run things. It’s delusional for those of us in the first world to pretend that democracy can spring to life in a place where you get bombed or tortured for trying to vote. All you can do is look at it through your western eyes and try to figure out what’s right for a people who are about as different from us as they come.

Did he make the right decision? That depends on the chance of “success”. I can’t guess what that is, but _hopefully_ Obama has better advisers than I do.
futbol789

Antinous @ 12

That’s an argument for why we shouldn’t have gone into Afghanistan in the first place. What do you think the decision should be? Leave Afg immediately? What do you envision as the consequences of that? — Not rhetorical.

We’re there. The place is a mess. And that region is a tinderbox looking for a match. I thought the speech was depressingly short on civilian capacity building. I’m still not sure if that’s because the focus had to be on selling the 30k reup and it will be emphasized in later days from the State Department side or if it’s because they are really taking the focus away from civilian capacity building.

I’m not sure what population protection is going to provide in and of itself. More accurately, population protection is not an end, it is a means to an end.

If I understand correctly, the new brigades are going to Helmund and Kandahar provinces to drive out Taliban and take on the poppy issue. I think these are fine goals. But, without work developing the civilian side of life that’s an endless mission. I’m disappointed that this, I think, only yielded a couple sentences in the speech. Essentially, the plan is to clear, hold and then yield. As sold tonight. I hope there will be a focus on the build part. Afghanistan is where PRTs were developed. And there is a history of pushing civilian, governance and economic capacity building there. From what I’ve read, there is an emphasis on that. But, I’m very concerned that this was not the overwhelming focus of the selling point of more troops. If that isn’t what we’re trying to do, I don’t see any functional point to increasing the amount of military there.

But, the question of whether or not we should be in Afghanistan is more of a macro issue. Talking about it terms of never wnating to have been there in the first place isn’t worth while. We are already there. In terms of the Bush Doctrine, it’s a continuation of a war started under Bush more than a continuation of his doctrine. We aren’t preemptively attacking anything by staying and continuing a fight against the Taliban that we were already involved in. There’s an argument to be had about Obama’s continuation of the Bush Doctrine in Pakistan with our UAV attacks in the tribal areas there.

And it blurs the issue to confuse the position of the loosely labeled taliban today with Taliban in charge of Afghanistan in 2001. They very much welcomed Al Qaeda into their country. What that says about groups today labeled Taliban is like apples and oranges.

There was a portion of the speech that openly stated that it is now the policy of the United States to work with members of the Taliban willing to incorporate themselves into Afghanistan. Which is a big policy shift. They’ve been kicking around that notion for probably a year and a half, but it’s policy now.

Does the Obama administration hate peace as much as the last? I’m not too sure. The landmine treaty was passed over by the US since, what, 97 or 98 though? I mean, we can have a conversation about landmines where we talk til we’re blue in the face agreeing with each other on their nastiness. This is more complex than that.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  What do you think the decision should be? Leave Afg immediately?
  
  The Soviets were there for decades. We’ve been there for a decade. Things have gotten worse the longer Afghanistan has been occupied by foreign powers. This isn’t rocket science.
  
  The landmine treaty was passed over by the US since, what, 97 or 98 though?
  
  Change? Nobel Peace Prize? Did you understand that Rachel Maddow’s point was that Obama is simply following the Bush Doctrine to the letter of the law?
  - teapot
    
    That’s the same mindset that caused us to obliterate the nation of Iraq in search of a group that wasn’t based there.
    
    Anti, while I mostly agree with your sentiment, it sounds from your posts that you are suggesting there is no valid reasons for the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.
    
    While the question of whether any positive change is possible is still very much up in the air, I don’t think anyone doubts that the region between Pakistan & Afghanistan is used by groups (including but not limited to NATO) who seek to violently push their agenda onto others – both inside Afghanistan and abroad.
    
    Def a conundrum, but I’m not sure it’s fair to assume that pulling out now is the best option for the Afghani people. Previous context suggests that occupation leads nowhere – though I’m not sure that the occupation and ultimate goals of the Soviets were in any way designed to benefit Afghanistan.
    
    While ‘the coalition’ may be assing everything up as best they can, their goals are certainly more noble than those of the Soviets. Noble goals mean fuck-all when everything is going to hell, but just leaving now means leaving Afghanistan with a lot of our shit to clean up. Shit we brought upon them.
    
    Had the war in Afghanistan been approached with the same seriousness as Iraq we may not be having this discussion. If Obama was to truly pull a Bush on Afghanistan, surely he would just ignore it completely…
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Noble goals mean fuck-all when everything is going to hell, but just leaving now means leaving Afghanistan with a lot of our shit to clean up.
      
      What do you think our 100,000 soldiers are going to do over there? They’re there to kill people. That’s what ‘cleaning up’ means. Killing people. We’re semi-randomly killing people in order to prop up a corrupt puppet government.
      
      Every ooops-we-missed bomb that kills a civilian or twenty civilians recruits a hundred new members for Al-Qaida or the Taliban. And radicalizes people in the rest of the world. Every bomb that hits a wedding party in Kandahar creates a new terror cell in the Philippines or India or somewhere far from the action. What possible actions are 100,000 soldiers going to take that will change that scenario?
      
      What do you call it when you keep doing the same things over and over and over, expecting that you’re going to get a different result next time?
      - teapot
        
        Every ooops-we-missed bomb that kills a civilian or twenty civilians recruits a hundred new members for Al-Qaida or the Taliban. And radicalizes people in the rest of the world.
        
        I shout at my TV/computer regularly when this shit goes down. I mean billions in military spending and they can’t tell the diff between a wedding and terrorist activity? What a joke.
        
        I am going to cop shit for this comment; but I remember on the day of the Virginia Tech shootings the news was everywhere. 2 days beforehand, on April 14 2007, there had been several suicide attacks in Iraq totalling more than 60 dead and 225 injured. Despite the obvious tragedy of the events in Virginia, I simply couldn’t muster much compassion when everyone (media) was talking about the 33 dead and 25 injured Americans for a whole week while the attacks in Iraq went completely under-reported.
        
        What saddens me the most is that disparity in value that many in the west (as exemplified by the media’s disproportionate response to Virginia) seem to place on human life. Surely 60 people dying anywhere is more serious than 33 people dying… but apparently not when the people dying are funny lookin’ people with funny lookin’ writing and crazy gods. The worst thing is that the endless debate about gun control which was spurred on by Virginia (and happens everytime there is some horrible school shooting in the US) went absolutely nowhere – as it always does.
        
        Pouring soldiers into a place will most certainly end in more violence and we are in agreement that such a move will not solve the problem. It seemed from the atmosphere building in this comments thread that opinion was polarising between send more troops & pull out now. All I wanted to point out was that we, as citizens of countries that have caused this shit, have an obligation to the Afghanis to leave the place in a better state than when we arrived.
        
        While even 1 innocent life is a far too high price to pay for security/stability/world-domination, I think it is important to at least recognise that there are more personal freedoms for everyday Afghanis today than there were under the Taliban. If we can help establish a degree of stability for Afghanistan’s major towns and cities, then we are giving them the first and most important stepping stone to being able to stand on their own.
        
        I am no military expert (in fact, if you ask me, people who join the military are partly to blame for allowing the fucks in charge to wage war as they please), but I think its hard to suggest that the troop surge in Iraq didnt play a major role in curbing the sectarian violence and suicide bomb attacks at the time – giving the political establishment, army and police of Iraq a chance to develop and fortify themselves.
        
        No two wars are the same and the question of whether a troop surge will make any difference in this case is not what I am trying to answer – I just want people to remember that we are not playing a board game here, and that you can’t just pack it up afterwards and put it back in the box.
Mondoboing

I agree with many here – Maddow is mad because the war isn’t ending. But I don’t think Obama has sat around for months trying to decide between 20,000 troops and 30,000. I think he wants out, but the options are scoot now and pray – or give it one last heave, try to kludge the situation (in Afghanistan, there’s no such thing as a genuine long-term solution) and then get out, hopefully cleaner.

I’d like troops out ASAP, frankly, so Rachel and I agree. But equally, I can see the merit in Obama’s decision. And it seems utterly ridiculous to say his worldview and his foreign policy are merely continuations of Bush’s. C’mon lefties – we might not like everything Obama has done. But he’s no schmuck and being President means tough decisions and compromises.
ace0415

I too will profess my love for Rachael Maddow, and also admit I don’t agree with her on this one. We all have opinions on this subject, and it’s definitely an important subject we should all be discussing.

But we like to cherry pick the ideas that suit our opinions best, a practice I think we can all agree we don’t like (since it’s the practice the religious right enjoys, as well as their Republican counterparts). When you start with an ideological stand (war is bad, we should leave, this is clearly the Bush Doctrine, etc.etc.) and then go looking for reasons why you’re right while leaving out the reasons you’re wrong, that’s disingenuous and intellectually lazy.

The fact that this war in Afghanistan was ongoing when Obama took office is a relevant point, and changes the nature of the game. The fact that the Taliban are sympathetic to the Al Qaeda agenda is a relevant point. The fact that Pakistan is right next door, won’t let anyone do anything about the Al Qaeda presence in their country because of their own political instability (which has its own set of ridiculous reasons for existing), thus forcing the position of either “it’s their problem not ours” or “wage a covert war” (we’ve chosen cover war) these are all relevant points. I don’t hear any of them, either in Maddow’s piece or in much of the commentary here.

Some very good points are brought up. Yes, war is bad. Indeed there is admittedly no threat from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan right now, which seems to make it odd that we’re still there. The Bush Doctrine is crazy when applied in the way Bush applied it, undoubtedly. When all taken alone these sound like great points as to reasons we shouldn’t be in Afghanistan anymore, and certainly shouldn’t be putting more troops in there. But…

War IS bad, but it doesn’t go away simply because we pull out of Afghanistan (there’s no point in even arguing on the topic of war as people are quite fundamentalist, i.e. irrational, about it and that never leads to productive dialogue). There is no threat from Al Qaeda now in Afghanistan, but there is in Pakistan (covert war necessitated by Pakistani political paralysis), and there will be again in Afghanistan if we leave now. And this is all a continuation of the Bush Doctrine only because Bush started the whole thing, which he shouldn’t have in the first place. Obama didn’t start things in Afghanistan, and that is a very big point here. I hope he would have handled the situation better if he had had it to handle from the start, but he didn’t.

There is no doubt, none in the slightest, that this entire situation is insane. We shouldn’t have found ourselves in this position, and not just the position of idiotic wars on the other side of the globe, but in the position of being hated by crazy religious fundamentalists, and others, all around the globe. Cleaning up the messes left by other people is a dirty job, and I hope that Obama doesn’t create more messes. While I don’t agree with everything #25 said, I do agree that this disagreement with Obama’s “new” strategy seems to stem more from a fundamentalist bend toward our own left ideology than from a practical sussing of the relevant situations at hand. Let’s try not to eat our own kind.

We’re all scarred from 8 years of Bush, but let’s not jump at every opportunity to try to prove Obama is just Bush reincarnate. That’s just a bit nutty.
CrackWilding

The problem in Afghanistan, as it appears to me, is this: even if we wipe the Taliban off the face of the earth, Al Queda will just trot across the border and live comfortably in Pakistan. In fact, most of them already have.
futbol789

Antinous @ 45 -

I agree with the dangers you mention in the first part of your comment there. But I think it derails the conversation to argue that these mistaken bombings create terror cells elsewhere. This necessarily implies the US can conduct its foreign policy in a way that will not create terror cells. And that just isn’t accurate. In creating terror cells, it really only matters how they say what they say, not the actual meat of it. Besides the better reason to avoid military conflict where unnecessary is simply because civilian casualties are a heavy price to pay, however someone else will or will not use those images.

In terms of cleaning up, if we leave they’ll clean up all the same in their own way with much the same result. And it’s still a selling point for terrorist recruitment on account of we created that mess, it doesn’t matter who is currently perpetrating the now deliberate killing. At least that would be my point if I were a recruiter of terrorists.

I’m not sure wha you mean by more of the same. Atthe outset, when we were focused on Afg we were achieving positive results. I also don’t agree with the characterization of semi random killing. Just saying it’s more of the same doesn’t make it so. But again, these are more arguments for why the US should more seriously weigh the consequences of military action.

The killing will continue and the country will completely dissolve into a bloody civil war. Which may affect Pakistans stablity. And that would affect our security. But, it seems like we both agree that it should be q very heavy burden to engage in military action.

I’m not sure what we are to do about Karzai. Accroding to the laws of the country he is legitimately elected president. I’d like to see another loya jirga, but based on the characterization of obama’s speech, it sounds like they’ve labeled that a bridge too far. We’ll ride long enough for Pakistan to finish it’s offensive against their Taliban, inthe northwest at least, and provide an anvil for them. After that, it looks like we are out of there. I’m not so sure that is worth the extra troop effort. But I guess we will see.
thatbob

I distinctly recall Obama’s foreign policy platform during the 2008 primaries and general election: his position then was that the war against Iraq, a nation state that did not attack us, was a mistake and a drain on the real war on Terrorism, which should be fought in Afghanistan and, if necessary, in Pakistan, against Al Qaeda, the terrorist oragnization that actually did attack us on our soil twice. Something about extricating ourselves politely from Iraq, and putting more troops in Afghanistan.
- ace0415
  
  I recall the same. We have short memories.
AsteriskCGY

I just want a look at that flow chart at the top of the program that’s suppose to justify the war that was dug up. Looks nifty.
teufelsdroch

I don’t get it. Obama ran on this.

He picked the general. He picked the strategy (counter-insurgency). The number came back from generals on what they need to win, and he listened. Sounds like a great president to me.

The relevant philosophy is not the Bush Doctrine. It’s clear hold and build, the fundamental strategy that turned things around in Iraq. It works, and it requires investment.

If the reason I’m not a Republican is because of the fundamentalism and the anti-environmentalism, I just get sick when I hear this mealy-mouthed BS from democrats. Quit bitching and support your democratic president (or lose him).
- Anonymous
  
  I couldn’t agree more. His policy up to this point has been pretty inconsistent with his platform, but I’m glad to see he’s taking the most important thing (national security/global relations) in the right manner. Hopefully with this plan we can get out on his time table (18 months).
Rindan

You broke it you buy it. The US broke it. This is the reason why after the US screwed up Iraq for no particularly good reason they had to stick around until shit was more or less in order. There is now a mound of bodies in Iraq, but it beat the alternative which was to leave a mound of bodies and an ethnic genocide.

The same is true with Afghanistan. The US trashed that nation proper. Yup, you broke it. Now it is time to spend blood and money to fix it, or at least give a good go at it. In this case there are actually two nations at stake. Pakistan isn’t going to get a handle on its own insurgency if Afghanistan is a sanctuary. If defending the folk of Pakistan from our US created monster isn’t enough, the fact that they have a pile of nukes and are staring eyeball to eyeball with another nuclear armed nation should be.

Moral of the story? If burning money and getting your hands good and bloody doesn’t seem like a merry old time, don’t invade other nations. Once you beat the every loving piss out of a nation, destroy their government, flatten their infrastructure, and unleash a few hundred years of ethnic tension, and destabilized the entire (nuclear armed) region, you have bought that mess. The silver lining to this clusterfuck is that I have a feeling the US is going to think long and hard about whether or not it is REALLY worth it to invade nations in the future. I’m not saying that invading Afghanistan was a the wrong thing to do, but I think it will be a good generation of two before the US gets into its head that building nations is fun easy work and that kicking over every little belligerent dictator (like Saddam)that crosses their path is worthwhile.
freeyourcrt

So the new boss is the same as the old boss? Actually, Obama has better public speaking skills. That’s about it I think. Wait a second… nope. that’s about it.
Anonymous

Listen to Malalai Joya.
thatjasonguy

I’m don’t know enough to comment on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of any war currently going on in the world, but I will say this, continuing to write the military enormous checks to cover “un-budgeted expenses” is a horrible idea. If they want to spend money on making war in one place they should have to stop spending in another. Then we’ll see what priorities are really important.
Brainspore

“Giving up” may be political suicide but if Obama becomes the next LBJ he can kiss his legacy goodbye anyway. President Johnson may have signed the civil rights bill, created Medicare and pioneered environmental protection but the one thing most people remember is his escalation of the war in Vietnam.
futbol789

Antinous @ 38 –

I agree the Soviets made a mess of their decades in Afghanistan. Our objective their has been different in that the Soviets wanted to annex the country and we are trying to make it a self sustainable country.

The situation we face in Afghanistan has detrioted at roughly the same rate our interest in that war has. So far, I don’t see anything to suggest that a renewed interest won’t see the same positive gains that our initial vigor met. Note that this isn’t a commentary on the appropriateness of sending an additional 30k-35k soldiers. Just a statement that effort in Afghanistan is not *necessarily* unproductive or actively counter productive.

I agree that it isn’t exactly rocket science, but you’re making an apples and oranges comparison. I don’t think we should disregard that history, but it isn’t correct to argue that the Soviets couldn’t do it, ipso facto, the US can’t meet its objectives.

As far as Obama goes. The change on the war front was the shift in focus away from Iraq and to Afghanistan. That was his campaign promise. Essentially, he’s doing what he said he would do. Commentary on the viability of his recently released plan is appropriate, but this is the change he promised in the war front.

The Nobel Prize was largely for digging the Diplomacy tool out the shed in back, dusting it off, and using it prominently. This is seen in the work done to counter Iran’s nuclear efforts and his work on global nuclear disarmament. I’m not sure that this is a sign of malevolence. I am quite happy with the move in the diplomacy direction.

I’m not sure I understand exactly your (Maddow’s) point about following Bush Doctrine to the letter. If I take the meaning correctly, the argument is that because he articulated the goal of the troop increase as meeting and dismantling Al Qaeda where they have an ability to harm us, it isn’t so much that we’re continuing in Afg, it’s the logic behind it. Because it doesn’t preclude efforts in Somalia or Yemen or etc. Correct?

Doesn’t that leave him having to disprove a negative? Right, because in order to prove he doesn’t adhere to the strike preemptively without anyone’s approval where necessary he has to NOT attack Somalia or Yemen. So until he doesn’t do that he’s presumed guilty of being an adherent to that principle. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to prepare for and argue against the worst that could be when it comes to what the government thinks it should do. But, I’m not sure what the value is in that conversation. It can’t really be decided until someone else is in the white house.

I don’t think Obama is an adeherent to the damn the consequences and just attack Bush Doctrine. I don’t see anything that objectively proves that. But, there isn’t really anything that decisively disproves that either.
grimc

Hole not deep enuf. Must keep digging.
Antinous / Moderator

Ouch.
f sharp a sharp infinity

So the better option is to walk away and leave Afghanistan in a broken mess? You can’t just wish away a war or a failed state.
- Anonymous
  
  I agree. It’s important enough to give Afghanistan one more chance to improve before giving it up as a lost cause.
- middleclass
  
  “So the better option is to walk away and leave Afghanistan in a broken mess?”
  
  Yes, foreign troops are not going to fix Afghanistan. Obama should apologize sincerely to the Afghan people and then pull out entirely. The only people who profit from the kind of help the U.S. and NATO have to offer are the corrupt politicians of the weak (puppet) central government and the rearming warlords outside of Kabul.
  - JoshuaTerrell
    
    Instead of hoping the Afghani’s create a model nation state on their own, we can be there to guide them to it, while giving them the tools (a security force) to maintain the integrity of said state.
    
    The warlords and corrupt politicians are not going to go away when the only people (currently) with the power to keep them from exploiting their countrymen leave. The whole point of extra troops is to create pockets of stability to create a popular Afghan support for the new regime. The more Afghani people you have on board, the better the chances a DEMOCRATIC government is going to function properly neh?
    - za7ch
      
      White man’s burden is a bitch, ain’t it?
redaction00

I despise Bush and the Bush Doctrine… but, I don’t think Obama’s decision is an example of that doctrine. While the Bush Doctrine was to attack the source of threats, including those that might never actually materialize, I think Obama made the decision to continue fighting Al Qaeda solely because Al Qaeda has already materialized, when they attacked the United States. If there had been no attack (as in the case of Iraq), then there would be no justification for military action. (I know that people have argued that there is NEVER a justification for military action, but I can’t envision Obama suddenly withdrawing the entire military.) In this case, I’m glad to hear that he’s planning a civilian solution, trying to help establish some peace-time infrastructure for Afghanistan. I still have hope (sigh…)
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  So….how do you square 100,000 troops with 100 Al-Qaida operatives with no ability to cause us harm? Are we sending them to Afghanistan to rebuild schoolhouses? Or to bomb more wedding parties?
  
  Are you aware that the Obama administration just refused to sign the land mine treaty? I’m not seeing any benevolent or peaceful intent in this administration.
Anonymous

I love Rachel, but I’m not sure I totally agree.

Afghanistan truly has become a quagmire. I think Obama is making a practical decision here, and truly wants to get out as soon as possible, but at the same time ensuring the country won’t fall back into Taliban rule 5 minutes after the US is out of there.

Hopefully this troop surge will help quell a Taliban resurgence, and at the same time provide additional buffer time for the Afghani government and military to step up.

I admit I’m somewhat pessimistic about the chances, but I don’t think Obama has any good choices available to him, it’s a matter of choosing between bad and worse.
JoshuaTerrell

Afghanistan is not stable. Afghanistan’s instability is such that if it were left in the current state it is now, say if we just pulled up all our barbed wire and tanks and left now, it would be likely that it would fall into a state of even more instability that would create an environment conducive to the types of people who want to blow us (Americans) up.

Rachel is saying that Obama is pulling a Bush because Bush’s strategy of “shooting first and asking questions to see if it was a threat later” has caused two massive wars in two unstable regions of the world (due of course to the wars we started), that Obama (as the next President) is being forced to deal with. Obama is not following Bush Doctrine simply because he is trying to resolve the problems caused by Bush Doctrine. There are not simply two sides. Bush was a warmonger, this much is certain, but because Mr. Obama is attempting to resolve the conflicts in a manner that protects the United States from backlash, we call him Bush 2.0? Let me explain why Obama’s treatment of Afghanistan is different.

So Mr. Obama has two options. Retract support and distance ourselves from the conflict, and hope that the Af-Pak region doesn’t produce a conflict that affects the United States or our NATO allies. If we create instability in a region for some reason or another, then leave while it’s unstable, and the instability causes us even more harm…..you get the picture. The other option is to resolve the situation to the point where we can safely pass the buck to the Afghani and Pakistani people and let them run their own show. Mr. Obama believes that the best way to do this is with more troops, and sadly, more war. Considering that I don’t see a chorus of of other options to choose that don’t involve leaving entirely, I think it’s safe to say that you can’t stop uncontrolled violence without an even application of violence in the right place.

That being said, if you don’t like war, and people dying, and so on (which no one really does by the way), realize that peace is not going to spontaneously occur in Afghanistan. People are going to die. Our last President (and his political allies) threw us into two conflicts that were most likely unnecessary and unjust. But now that we have new leadership and a new direction, it’s time to leave these conflicts with the best possible situation, and that best possible situation is a stable Afghanistan. And we can’t do that by running away and hoping it happens on it’s own.

Time for a unicorn chaser.
- middleclass
  
  “The other option is to resolve the situation to the point where we can safely pass the buck to the Afghani and Pakistani people and let them run their own show.”
  
  So, in essence, the Afghan and Pakistani people cannot be trusted to handle their own lives. Instead, the U.S. must double down its military support for the central government and help it to conquer regions over which it has never had much influence. When the US is sure that the government has a monopoly on force throughout Afghanistan (a tall order) then the people of that country will be ALLOWED to exercise control over their own affairs.
  
  The United States and NATO do not own the Afghan and Pakistani people. If their is blowback from a withdrawal then the West must take its lumps and move on. The presence of occupying armies is one of the primary reasons for such blowback in the first place.
  
  Also: interesting news that the Afghan National Army we have cobbled together now appears to be a minority Tajik affair: http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/11/28/tajik-grip-on-afghan-army-signals-new-ethnic-war/
  
  And good news that the puppet gov. in Kabul is as corrupt a joke as it has always been: “only 30 of the 238 MPs attended Monday’s session”
  http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/obama-partnering-with-afghan-govt-but.html
  - JoshuaTerrell
    
    “So, in essence, the Afghan and Pakistani people cannot be trusted to handle their own lives. ”
    
    No, this is not the essence at all. The most organized people in the region with the power to control the country are the Taliban. If we leave without helping to create a suitable opposition for them in the form of a democratic Afghani state, then yes, Afghanistan will revert to the Sharia law dominated country that allowed the Al Qaeda sanctuary to launch 9/11 in the first place.
    
    “The United States and NATO do not own the Afghan and Pakistani people. If their is blowback from a withdrawal then the West must take its lumps and move on. The presence of occupying armies is one of the primary reasons for such blowback in the first place.”
    
    Guess what. When the US wasn’t even involved in Afghanistan, we had a fundamentalist group launch an unprovoked attack on our nation. An attack that still rivals in scale all subsequent retribution due to the NATO occupation. You are implying that another 9/11 would an acceptable effect of our withdrawal. I am stating that is precisely what we are trying to avoid by creating an Afghanistan state not populated by lunatics with guns and anger.
    
    On pupper gov: It happens. And it’s going to be a test to see what the FREE AFGHANI PEOPLE deicde to do about it. It’s not like the US is free from governmental corruption.
a random John

The most impressive part of the video is the graph showing the scale of escalation under Obama. Next year we’ll have three times more troops there than we ever did under Bush.

Impressive as that was, she contradicts herself on the thesis of the Obama continuing the “Bush Doctrine” since she admits that much of the war now is really about Pakistan. Of course she’s mad about that too since the CIA is conducting that part of the war. Perhaps she would prefer that we flat out invade? Oh wait, the point is to stabilize Pakistan because they’ve got nukes. The people of Pakistan wouldn’t stand for it, it would destabilize the country, and that wouldn’t help anyone.

Add to that the fact that it is hardly invoking the Bush Doctrine to simply try to finish the job we started in Afghanistan. Walking out on them yet again would be a disaster and would be a boon to the Taliban and Al Qaida.

Commentary Fail.
veganbelly

@Antinous

I didn’t think Rachel was being entirely fair on that point.

There may be only 100 Al-Qiada, but how many Taliban? Aren’t they as culpable for 9/11 and the resurgence of Islamic based extremism/terrorism?

Does the US just walk away and (likely) let Afghanistan fall into their hands once again?

It’s just a big mess over there, and pulling out now would probably be the worst decision, out of a bad bunch.
- za7ch
  
  “There may be only 100 Al-Qiada, but how many Taliban? Aren’t they as culpable for 9/11 and the resurgence of Islamic based extremism/terrorism?”
  
  When is it ever going to be enough with using 9/11 as an excuse for promoting the wars in three different countries? We get it, 9/11 was bad and scary and they’re all evil doers, sure, sure.
  
  Ward Churchill was so right, chickens coming home to roost. I suppose with the sort of American-Exceptionalism/nationalist crap most U.S. citizens seem to posses considering other people’s interests is outside the realm of possibilities -or you get the Obama obsessives who will do anything to justify his decisions to continue the slaughter which masquerade in the facade of white man’s burden bullshit.
  
  What ever happened to self determination?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  but how many Taliban? Aren’t they as culpable for 9/11
  
  No. That’s the same mindset that caused us to obliterate the nation of Iraq in search of a group that wasn’t based there. What profound cultural arrogance does it take for Americans to just sweep across the globe bombing countries because those Muslims are all alike. That’s Rachel Maddow’s whole point about the Bush Doctrine. We just point the finger at anyone whom we think might maybe be planning to do something somewhere someday and then we start shooting. It’s called a witch hunt. We’ve just traded the pointy hats for turbans.
  - middleclass
    
    The Taliban offered to help the US bring Osama to justice immediately after 9/11 (you’ll recall that they were chummy with US oil interests at the time) but Bush and co. saw a chance to do away with them altogether and took the opportunity to invade.
    - veganbelly
      
      @middleclass
      
      I’ll concede that’s a valid point, but that was then and this is now.
      
      I see the current debate revolving around whether the US troop surge will cause more or less misery for the populace there in the long run, and I currently believe it would be less, than if they just packed up their bags and left the country to fall back into a never ending civil war.
  - veganbelly
    
    I don’t agree.
    
    Iraq is/was a completely different situation. It was a completely unjustifiable war, based on the war mongering whims of Bush and Cheney.
    
    The Taliban knowingly allowed Al-Qiada to set up training camps in Afghanistan and plan the 9/11 attacks. While I think there may have been alternatives to an all out invasion, there was at least some justification for it in my mind.
    
    The point is, Obama has inherited Bush’s mess, and just getting up and walking away from Afghanistan will more than likely make matters worse there, not better.