Obama’s Afghan speech at West Point
I didn’t watch it; I just got home. While I’m catching up on the speech, you can talk amongst yourselves if you like, here.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
I didn’t watch it; I just got home. While I’m catching up on the speech, you can talk amongst yourselves if you like, here.
Thanks Neo.
The weight of the decisions a President must make must be indefinable that sometimes reality and responsibility push through the fibrous template of the person. This is why I voted for Obama. He has the capacity to be much more than he is, sucking on the home front, but no one’s prefect (see G.W. Bush). Obama still doesn’t see that the intervention in Iraq was a part of the same war with Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, but I don’t care. The means “for life and liberty” damn sure justify the ends. We were mandated to act and a mega-Rwanda was averted which would have cost much much more in lives today, American and around the world, for generations to come, and we’ll hold a ring of security in Afghanistan from these fedyhene and provincial bastards and their hinterland fantasies and acid-in-the-face playgrounds and hands-on-plutonium possibilities until enough of them water the dust with their vile blood. Bush wasn’t all bad. Where tyranny breeds and rots the world is not secure, and it’s ahistorical and unrealistic to believe this can be stopped from spreading and imploding and being much much worse by leaving it alone; wish-thinking and dream-walking. This terror is not caused by our response to it. It is because we are opposites of it. America is not some inept and insignificant Guatamala. We are a great force for good in the world and if you don’t like it then kiss my ***.
Tonight was a clear statement of “The Obama Doctrine”:
“We will accept National Security Risk to fund social spending.”
The actual words, no goofing or paraphrasing:
“Indeed, I’m mindful of the words of President Eisenhower, who, in discussing our national security, said, “Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.”
Over the past several years, we have lost that balance….. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce, so we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.
All told, by the time I took office, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. And 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 for the military this year, and I’ll work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.
(so that’s what all that recent “bring down the deficit” talk was about.)
But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home….
That’s why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open- ended: because the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”
He’s essentially saying that the Bush administration did more damage to America than the war did to Afghanistan.
He’s betting 30 billion against another 9/11 in order to save money for his domestic agenda.
That speech is frightening. We are really in the shit now.
Read this part in a Jimmy Carter southern snivel for full effect:
“So as a result, America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict, not just how we wage wars. We’ll have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where Al Qaida and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.”
How about the foothold the taliban allies of al Qaida have established in the Whitehouse as we transition their power in Afghanistan to an “Afghan Responsibility” rather than defeating them?
Note the effect “growing pressure and strong partnerships” had on Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the Somali Pirates.
Honestly, the only “growing pressure” I’ve seen from this administration was the Justice Dep against the Military fighting this war.
nyo, I applaud your sentiments but I must point out that the man you voted for has pretty well demonstrated his diametric opposition to the philosophy and engagement you so eloquently expressed.
He’s a campus communist, a slick Chitown hack surrounded by sycophants and tic birds of such absolute lack of reputability that Adolf Hitler, were he to come back from the dead, would advise Obama to dig a little deeper for advice.
He’s just committed the United States of America to a regional defeat on the layaway plan. Al Q will content themselves with picking off the odd convoy or local politician and O will keep our warriors from going where Al Q lives.
It’s a winner for Old Media, too. Two years of covering tragic deaths of our pointlessly exposed troops and such an opportunity to craft the narrative of the “Afghan Vet” victim group.
Merry Christmas.
Heh. I just coined that:
“The Obama Doctrine: Accepting large national security risks to fund large social programs.”
American and around the world, for generations to come, and we’ll hold a ring of security in Afghanistan from these fedyhene and provincial bastards and their hinterland fantasies and acid-in-the-face playgrounds and hands-on-plutonium possibilities until enough of them water the dust with their vile blood
So long as it only costs 30 billion: We gotta save the big bucks for domestic spending.
Well, some eggs are just going to get broken to fund universal eggcare.
“We will accept National Security Risk to fund social spending.”
dang i didn’t catch that … ugggh
Son of a…..
I just realized all the dithering wasn’t about military options, it was about fiscal and political options!
Why 30,000 troops? Here’s why:
McChrystal actually gave him three options: High risk of failure—20K troops; Medium risk of failure—40K; High chance of success/victory—80k.
Now here is his speech boiled down:
“Afghanistan is an existential threat to the US.”
“The Bush administration under-resourced and accepted too much risk of failure in this necessary fight for our security to fight an uneccessary war for resources in Iraq while committing acts contrary to the morals of America.”
“In contrast I will under-resource and accept too much risk of failure in this necessary fight for our security to fund my ambitious, expensive domestic agenda to remake America while bowing and scraping to our enemies so they don’t attack us.”
“I will 3/8ths-ass this war to save money for the important fight of Healthcare, Cap and Trade and the Green Economy.”
(I’m sorry I’m on broadcast mode here. I am undone by this speech. I am beside myself and cannot stop yapping. I feel a little ill at the ramifications of this policy towards national security)
Let’s don’t “hope he fails”. Don’t throw the troops under the bus for domestic political victories. Give Obama credit where credit is due, watch him like a freaking hawk and criticize when warranted, but give due when it’s earned. Fair enough?
Nyo: America is not some inept and insignificant Guatamala. We are a great force for good in the world and if you don’t like it then kiss my ***.
Well, we’ve spent more defending Guatamala as part of the Monroe Doctrine than Obama is willing to spent in Afghanistan as part of the Obama Doctrine…..
So, actually, now we are now more insignificant and inept than Guatamala, whom we’ve now thrown to the Chavista/Ortega wolves.
We are a force for good in the world so long as it doesn’t risk funding for massive domestic social spending, I suppose.
Good thing about talk it you find out about the McChrystal options — thanks.
Let’s don’t “hope he fails”. Don’t throw the troops under the bus for domestic political victories. Give Obama credit where credit is due, watch him like a freaking hawk and criticize when warranted, but give due when it’s earned. Fair enough?
But by 3/8s assing a war he declared ‘necessary’, he already has “thrown the troops under the bus” in favor of gigantic social programs.
I disagree with his entire policy. The only credit he can gain is enacting budget-busting social programs while accepting the risk of underfunding national security. He further signalled a gigantic plus up of Homeland Security at the expense of military budgets.
What due has he earned with this stated policy other than derision and contempt? This is a disaster for the military, Afghanistan and our allies in the Middle East.
Like this statement: “Let me be clear: there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war.”
True. You didn’t have to deploy the abysmally small amout of troops in 2009 for this “plan”.
You had to start deploying troops in 2009 to have them in place for the 2010 “spring campaign season” in Af-Pak. So, no, there was no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war yet.
That delay will occur in late March 2010, but fortunately, there are abysmally few enough troops that they can be deployed quickly but will never develop combat power like a larger group slower in country.
JEB Stewart said (apocryphally) “Git thar fustest with the mostest.” We are getting there lastest with the leastest, but no, the delay hasn’t happened yet. Nobody fights in AF-Pak between Mid-Nov and about Mid-March….
(I’m really sorry–I’m just yammering away, Neo-neo, feel free to just delete any of my posts here….)
I guess what Obama really said was:
“George Bush delayed and denied resources to Afghanistan for 8 years to fight a war in Iraq I disagreed with”
“By not sending necessary resources George Bush denied for 8 years until 2010, I did not delay or deny resources because I hadn’t thought of an option that required any resources before now.”
Arrrrgh! The rest of the conservative punditosphere is really missing it on this speech tonight.
Obama did Draw a Line in the Sand:
He will not endanger his domestic spending by fighting the war longer than 30 billion dollars.
That is his Line in the Sand.
That is why he chose the “medium-high-risk-of-failure” number of troops. That is why he chose 18 months. That is why he had the Orszag-weasel in the war council. That is why it took so long to nail this option down: he had to factor in all his other spending and start flogging “budget reduction”.
Furthermore, we know know that any future budget predictions do not include spending more than 30 billion in Afghanistan.
I talked among myself.
Gray,
It was an interesting conversation. So, how do you really feel about the speech? Lols.
Obama did exactly what you expect a leader of a country or a company to do. Weigh all the options, the results and affects and come up with a plan that was evidently met with some approval by his war staffers. The 18 month limit makes total sense. It wasn’t to embolden our enemies as so many has quickly pounced on. It was in fact to tell the Afgan government as well as the rest of the world that we are willing to put our resources and military at risk for a time as long as the honest effort is there to get your collective heads out of your asses and stand up for yourselves. That is exactly how it should be. We can’t be the worlds police force. 230 years ago we stood up as a small nation for ourselves. In the end the French helped out but not until they saw the commitment and sacrifice our forefathers were making. That should be the same level of commitiment we hold the Afgans to. We ctrain our soldiers and marines in 12 weeks to be part of a great military force. Why should it take any longer for the average Afgan to train up and stand up for his own country.
hoolie,
Do you really believe he cares about the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government? He’s from Chicago, and these things never seemed to bother him there. No, he hates that national security is getting in the way of his utopian dreams. I use dreams rather than plans because as we’ve seen with health care, the boring day to day work doesn’t interest him.
Barack Obama has a dream: He stands above the world throwing out ideas for its perfection. The hard work of making small positive changes is left to others, who run the danger of being thrown under the bus if they dull his shining image. He stood before a group of young people who will risk their lives to protect America, and he asked them to think about the hard life he has. As a candidate, he did everything he could to undermine the sitting president. As we now see, all of his criticisms were totally superficial. He spent about $800,000 to get where he is now, and he expects our pity. BS!
There was no inspiring message to the Afghans in his speech, no words they could hold on in the tough times ahead. He sounded more like a collection man in a Chicago protection scheme.
OMT: Our soldiers have 12 years of schooling before they get to training camp. They can actually read training manuals. They receive further training throughout their careers. They are supported by engineers working constantly on drones and IED detection devices. Do you really think the Afghan army can get to this level in 12 weeks or 18 months?
Bush’s fault in Afghanistan was that he listened to his critics and did what they suggested: Outsource the war effort to our ‘allies’ – the NATO. And the 8 year war is a direct result of the ineptitude of NATO forces which did not want to fight, but only police. It is a failure of political will on the part of our NATO allies, but we choose to blame Bush.
maneocon,
To support your commeent, I offer this. About a week ago, there was a headline on German TV text news that German troops had been fired upon in Kundus. Now the text news blurbs are probably written by interns at the stations, but still, how can anyone living in a country with troops in Afghanistan find it newsworthy that someone shot at them. Such is the denial in the populations of our allies.
Don’t throw the troops under the bus for domestic political victories.
I wonder if Obama is paying attention to your wise words.
Otherwise, I get the feeling that he wants it both ways – to be seen as a peace-bringer by the left, and righteous hawk by the right. Meanwhile, he spends our troops lifeblood for his political aspiration.
By dribs and drabs, eventually he’ll declare victory and bring them home. But no victory over a resolute and implacable enemy who, unlike the Vietnamese, do wish us death and destruction.
Yes, I hope McChrystal fails The Won, and snatches victory from the jaws of “peace”.
neoneocon.com/2009/10/19/afghanistan-no-decision-is-itself-a-decision/#comment-130153
a LONG while ago i said turkey, iraq, afghanistan, pakistan, make a one country line in the sand preventing movement of the material that destabilizes and manufactures crisis!!!! and i said that since bush was threatening to spike the door shut, by removing the three players iraq, afghanistan, and finally iran, that everything was going to heat up so much, we are all going to want to get out of the kitchen.
hot enough yet?
Artfldgr Says:
April 9th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
http://www.neoneocon.com/2008/04/08/war-and-peace-and-the-dog-who-didnt-bark#comment-63467
go ahead and read it…
i was even talking about gold prices…
and i even mentioned why afghanistan would be a big problem:
Some 60 tonnes of heroin a year pass through Tajikistan with the assistance of part of the Tajik political elite and senior Russian military officers stationed as members of a Russian force on the border according to Anton Surikov, a Russian official with close links to Russian military intelligence.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/corrupt-russian-officers-profit-in-heroin-trade-752880.html
i laid it out…
and that was before obama was even elected.
heck, sergey and i argued a bit on the quality of weaponry… as of this week or last week they announced that it will be replaced shortly… duh
given that history has shown that they like to build things and let us think they havent yet. remember?
read above… read the articles in the news.
almost none of them bring up russias interests.
like not losing while the US wins..
better to have us both lose, no?
like having iran hemmed in as the only source
better to have more than one route.
like the weapons and cocaine building routes into africa… which way way way back then i said was going to happen as they were preparing a new trade line… weapons and coca from venezuela, to replace the weapons that cant make it through the land bridges.
should i link up the article on the new cocain trade in africa, the new weapons being made by chavez and russia, and so on?
anyone remember my comments in
Obama’s second Polish joke: the Obama Doctrine
neoneocon.com/2009/09/17/obamas-second-polish-joke-the-obama-doctrine/#comment-125938
Obama and the left doesn’t see them as that. They have the revolutionaries fantasy of a grateful other. What Obama is trying to do is ingratiate himself to his Soviet others, because he and they are now on the same side. His first time with them, they weren’t nice and such, so he thinks they need some sort of overture, some gift, and then they will realize that they are on the same team.
and that gift? what could the moves be?
Obama won’t move decisively. In fact he aint paying attention to outside he is too busy working on his image internally.
Even worse. They wrote Obama’s playbook and that was the old edition!
They know how he will interpret events reflexively, and Obama doesn’t even have to know or be doing what he is doing on purpose, as he is forced by the ideology he serves mentally to choose based on its rules.
He is up against a system that has unbroken leaderships since during WWII.
Some of those guys are still there!
this is easier than saying it over and over again for a couple of years…
oh… in that thread i coined this phrase as his doctrine.
“Unilateral preemptive concession”