Will Obama Take The Coward's Way And Just Take His Orders From The Pentagon?

We didn't elect the Pentagon. We elected a leader promising us Hope and Change. Of course all during the campaign Obama badmouthed U.S. involvement in Iraq but always talked up Afghanistan. I don't know a single person who didn't think he was just saying that to sound plausible to imbeciles. Now he's stuck with his campaign rhetoric: "a war of necessity" and all that bullshit, with a Military Establishment itching to blow things up; and with an Intelligence Establishment that is addicted to the unaccountable money it makes-- off the books-- from the Afghan opium/heroin trade. What a mess. And the coward's way is to just compromise, split the difference, go along with the generals...

Watching Obama since he's become president has convinced me, there's nothing to Hope for and no Change coming. And, yep... he's a coward. I know not everyone will see it the same way I am. I know plenty of folks are going to want to cling to their prayers that he really is-- or ever was-- the Change and Hope guy. But if you don't start weaning yourself away from that now, it'll be worse later. Did he sell us out on health care? Abso-effin'-lutely! Good for Big Pharma; good for Big Insurance; good for Wall Street; good for Obama 2012. And for America? Sucks. Look no further than the crap with eyeballs he hired to run his administration-- corrupt Wall Street banksters (Summers, Emanuel, Geithner, Rubin) every bit as bad as the monstrosities Bush inflicted on us. What happened to the whole fixing Wall Street thing? Nothing's substantively changed and no one's in jail but a handful of rogue players. The dozens of dirty dealers who gamed and collapsed the system are still living high on the hog, gobbling up our tax dollars as bonuses and enhanced compensation packages.

And next up is Afghanistan... more catastrophe and disaster for the Afs and for us courtesy off the Nobel Peace Prize winner. He can fool a bunch of Norwegians but why should we be fooled? Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Jack Murtha, chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee are warning him not to listen to the generals, warning him that he's stepping right into Redux Vietnam. Murtha also raised concerns about dire economic risks of expanding the war in Afghanistan, where he said there is no apparent “achievable goal.” But he doesn't have what it takes to say no to the Pentagon and the CIA. Let me leave you with an analysis of the Big Picture for the U.S. challenge in Afghanistan from Stratfor Global Intelligence from last week:

The best argument for fighting in Afghanistan is powerful and similar to the one for fighting in Iraq: credibility. The abandonment of either country will create a powerful tool in the Islamic world for jihadists to argue that the United States is a weak power. Withdrawal from either place without a degree of political success could destabilize other regimes that cooperate with the United States. Given that, staying in either country has little to do with strategy and everything to do with the perception of simply being there.

The best argument against fighting in either country is equally persuasive. The jihadists are right: The United States has neither the interest nor forces for long-term engagements in these countries. American interests go far beyond the Islamic world, and there are many present (to say nothing of future) threats from outside the region that require forces. Overcommitment in any one area of interest at the expense of others could be even more disastrous than the consequences of withdrawal.

In our view, Obama’s decision depends not on choosing between McChrystal’s strategy and others, but on a careful consideration of how to manage the consequences of withdrawal. An excellent case can be made that now is not the time to leave Afghanistan, and we expect Obama to be influenced by that thinking far more than by the details of McChrystal’s strategy. As McChrystal himself points out, there are many unknowns and many risks in his own strategy; he is guaranteeing nothing.

Reducing American national strategy to the Islamic world, or worse, Afghanistan, is the greater threat. Nations find their balance, and the heavy pressures on Obama in this decision basically represent those impersonal forces battering him. The question he must ask himself is simple: In what way is the future of Afghanistan of importance to the United States? The answer that securing it will hobble al Qaeda is simply wrong. U.S. Afghan policy will not stop a global terrorist organization; terrorists will just go elsewhere. The answer that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is important in shaping the Islamic world’s sense of American power is better, but even that must be taken in context of other global interests.

Obama does not want this to be his war. He does not want to be remembered for Afghanistan the way George W. Bush is remembered for Iraq or Lyndon Johnson is for Vietnam. Right now, we suspect Obama plans to demonstrate commitment, and to disengage at a more politically opportune time. Johnson and Bush showed that disengagement after commitment is nice in theory. For our part, we do not think there is an effective strategy for winning in Afghanistan, but that McChrystal has proposed a good one for “hold until relieved.” We suspect that Obama will hold to show that he gave the strategy a chance, but that the decision to leave won’t be too far off.