How Long in Afghanistan?
| Thu Jul. 2, 2009 9:54 AM PDT
I haven't been keeping close tabs on the details of our mission in Afghanistan lately, but Steve Hynd mentions something today that's interesting. Back in March, Barack Obama said we would be focused primarily on counterterrorism — killing bad guys — but now that's changed. Without really announcing anything, the mission is now apparently focused on counterinsurgency and nation building:
Counter-insurgency "clear, hold and build" has entirely taken over from counter-terrorism "hunt, kill and disupt". That might be the right thing to do — although I have my doubts — but the point is that it wasn't what Obama said would happen and government policy has radically shifted in favor of an interventionist, long-war, nation-building policy straight from the military and the folks at CNAS without any official announcement or very much public debate. In fact, it's almost as if Obama himself hasn't been told.
I don't have anything much to say about this, and it might even be that Steve is drawing too strong a conclusion from a couple of hazy data points. I'm not sure. But it seemed worth sharing. Just how long is Obama planning on staying in Afghanistan, I wonder?
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Comments
Maybe I am just imagining
Submitted by PaulinRI (not verified) on Thu Jul. 2, 2009 10:49 AM PDT.
Maybe I am just imagining things, but I distintly remember Obama stating that we needed more troops on the ground instead of relying on airstrikes which tends to cause more civilian causalties (which caused a storm of protests because it was "blaming the troops"). While this is not a an explicit statement about a change in strategy but it is as close as one is going to get in a presidential campaign. I certainly took it to mean exactly that, for whatever that is worth.
No problem
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 2, 2009 12:13 PM PDT.
Well, since all during the election we continuously heard from the left that Iraq was the "wrong" war but Afghanistan was the "right" war. I bet if you go down to the recruiting stations it will be hard to even get near because of all the leftists enlisting to fight in the "right" war.
So how is Ogabe's "smart diplomacy" thingy working out for you guys?
Mission Creep
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 2, 2009 12:24 PM PDT.
Hi Kevin, and thanks for the link. Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal is calling it "mission creep".
a mismatch between operations and the strategy laid out by the President (or at least an overemphasis on building up the Afghan government's credibility) and a complete lack of resources to do population-centric counter-insurgency, particularly when it comes to Afghan troops. If we don't have civilian development and post-conflict reconstruction experts or indigenous Afghan soldiers then how exactly are we supposed to maximize any security gains made in Afghanistan?
Regards, Steve
heard from the left that Iraq was the "wrong" war
Submitted by tpx on Thu Jul. 2, 2009 12:36 PM PDT.
Those were milquetoast moderates, not leftists.
We wiil fight male
Submitted by Luther on Thu Jul. 2, 2009 6:21 PM PDT.
We wiil fight male chauvinism and burqas on the land, on the seas, and in the air and forget bin Laden until the debt president bankrupts us.
Not that long - only till we
Submitted by gcochran (not verified) on Sun Jul. 5, 2009 7:23 PM PDT.
Not that long - only till we go broke.
