President Obama's Cynical Escalation of War in Afghanistan Is Not Helpful

© 2010 Peter Free

 

12 May 2010

 

The President’s hand in Afghanistan was initially forced by American politics

 

In retrospect, a man of the President Obama’s intellect can hardly have thought the war in Afghanistan could be won by military means.  Furthermore, he should have known that the war lacked a defensible strategic aim.

 

On record in opposition to the war in Iraq, one must intuit that President Obama supported the war in Afghanistan during the 2008 presidential campaign, so as to defuse Republican Party criticism that he (and Democrats generally) are weak on national defense.

 

Consequently, an ill-advised, counterproductive conflict has gotten longer courtesy of the gladiatorial morass that American politics has become.

 

Political quagmire will bring us all down

 

The thoughtless political quagmire which forces presidents into no-win situations is hardly a recipe for American survival.

 

Faced by an increasingly competitive future, what sense does it make for the United States to be imprisoned in mandatory geopolitical stupidity foisted on us by the self-serving flea-brains who run our national government?

 

The President then worsened the nation’s future by escalating the Afghan conflict

 

Though one might forgive President Obama for supporting a wrong-minded conflict in Afghanistan during the election (because he probably could not have won any other way), it is difficult to see his escalation of the conflict as anything other than a self-deceiving or cynical exploitation of the military for his political self-aggrandizement.

 

An intelligent, honorable person does not augment mistaken wars, when the price is paid by young military people and innocent non-combatants.

 

Afghanistan cannot be won by any means.  The idea that non-military assistance is going to help to turn the situation around is nonsensical.  Afghanistan is not a nation and never has been.  At best, it is a territory comprised of competing peoples who have no interest in problems that afflict the United States.

 

The United States no longer has the wealth, inclination, or staying power to do the work of nation-building.  Even if it did, it is highly unlikely that a proud and profoundly non-western people would sit still for imposed American values. 

 

The only beneficiaries of President Obama’s escalated war are military people seeking promotion and the military-industrial complex.  Everybody else, including the nation at large, lose.

 

So why did the President escalate the war?

 

It was the easy path.  In a nation comprised of mostly geopolitically ignorant and apathetic people, special interests run amuck.  Pleasing them is expedient.

 

Short-sighted generals wanted more troops and more promotions.  The military also retained a staging area for the extension of control into Pakistan.  Manufacturers, oil companies, and war suppliers profit.  The public deludes itself into thinking that progress is being made.  Troops feel supported.

 

What’s not to like, undoubtedly thought the President.

 

In the short run, the President cannot lose.  The escalation will almost certainly bring increased American control of certain chunks of Afghanistan with it.  That will lead to short-term stability.  Increased stability will lead Americans to think that a long-term problem has been solved.

 

Only years down the road will the vacuity of the escalated effort become apparent.  When increased culture-specific and generalized Islamic resentments resurface with a vengeance. 

 

The President is emphatically not the leader this nation needs

 

Having watched President Obama in action for many months, I am convinced that he is one of those Golden People who has never been genuinely tested.  Opportunities came easily.  His intelligence and charm opened doors without the prior requirement of proved ability, much less courage.  He is inspirationally charismatic.  And that has been enough to advance his career.

 

Running on a campaign of change, President Obama, in office, has been anything but.  He has surrounded himself with the plutocratic toadies who comprise the Washington Inside.

 

The easiest road to the historical status is by taking over an existing power structure.  The most expedient route to such a coup is to assure the establishment that the new ruler is not a threat to their accustomed ways of doing business.  (Witness the ridiculous corporate giveaways that allowed passage of ostensible American health reform.  What a nasty joke.)

 

This is not a man who has the courage of his purported convictions.  Nor is he one who is actually as analytically competent as he seems to think he is.

 

President Obama has demonstrated that he is exactly like most his predecessors in office.  He is a politician bent on self-advancement and self-preservation.  His campaign promises were either cynically made, or he had not the wit and the courage to carry them out.

 

At heart, I suspect, the President is more interested in looking good than he is in actually being good.

 

And that about sums up the current American condition.

 

Is there no one out there who will lead with honor and integrity?

 

People dying and sacrificing body and brain bits in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve better than cynically expedient leadership.

 

Even though most of our troops support these wars (in a combination of historical ignorance, idealism, courage, and honor), the American strategy (if it can be called such) creates more problems than it solves.

 

Leadership is about integrity, maturity, wisdom, honor, sacrifice, and courage.  The President’s escalation of the Afghanistan War exhibits none of these traits.