Hillary Clinton on Afghanistan
| Mon Sep. 21, 2009 2:56 PM PDT
Via Steve Clemons, here is Hillary Clinton on The News Hour tonight talking about Afghanistan:
MARGARET WARNER: Getting back to General McChrystal's memo though, he conveys a great sense of urgency. I mean there's one line in there in which he says, "failure to gain the initiative" — and he's talking about in the near term, while we wait for the Afghan security forces to really get able to handle this — he said, "risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency's no longer possible." So he is strongly suggesting that there aren't months and months to come to a decision here.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well and I respect that because clearly he is the commander on the ground, but I can only tell you there are other assessments from, you know, very expert military analysts who have worked in counter insurgencies that are the exact opposite. So what our goal is, is to take all of this incoming data and sort it out.
That's interesting. What exactly is Clinton referring to when she says "exact opposite"? Is she suggesting that a bunch of other analysts are saying we can take our time figuring out what to do? That's the literal interpretation here, but it doesn't seem very likely.
But if that's not what she means, then she must be referring to something more substantive about McChrystal's strategy. And the internal disagreements must be pretty stark if some of the advice Obama is getting is the "exact opposite" of McChrystal's.
There are only hints of what this might be, though. At one point Clinton says McChrystal's assessment is important, "but it's a part of the overall process and there are many other considerations that we have to take into account." To my ear, she also seems to downplay McChrystal's emphasis on governance, suggesting that although things in Afghanistan aren't moving at the pace she'd like, "there are some positive changes going on [...] and I can see, you know, the positives and then we want to move more to the positive side of the ledger." Then there's this:
We have a clear and critical objective of trying to disrupt and dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and their extremist allies and prevent a return to safe haven....Some people say, "well al-Qaida's no longer in Afghanistan." If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can't tell you how fast al-Qaida would be back in Afghanistan. So we have to be really clear-eyed about this.
I might be overinterpreting all this, but my take from this interview is that McChrystal wants to emphasize counterinsurgency (population protection, "heart and minds") more than counterterrorism (killing bad guys) while perhaps Clinton — and Obama? — would rather do the opposite. When Warner asks about governance, for example, Clinton doesn't seem very engaged: sure, Afghanistan is corrupt, but hey — the place has never been well governed and the improvements we're seeing now are nothing to sneeze at. But when Warner asks about al-Qaeda, Clinton gets much more animated. "We have to be really clear-eyed about this," she insists. There might be a bigger struggle over fundamental strategy going on in the White House than we think.
UPDATE: It looks like pretty much everyone agrees that the counterinsurgency vs. counterterrorism argument has now heated up to the boiling point. LA Times here, McClatchy here, Washington Post here.
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Comments
Hillary
Submitted by Steve High (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 3:32 PM PDT.
Isn't "we can win with the troops we have?" the opposite of "we need more"?
Not his perogative
Submitted by jimBOB on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 3:38 PM PDT.
Decisions about troop levels are really over McChrystal's pay grade, since they depend on assessments of goals, tradeoffs with other military needs, and diplomatic considerations. Bush used to pretend he was letting commanders on the ground make these sorts of strategic judgments, which was dishonest (he wasn't really letting them make the decisions) and cowardly (Bush refused to take responsibility for strategic decision making). Now the Pentagon is trying to use the fiction of deference to commanders on the ground to force Obama to give them more resources. Obama should tell them to take a hike.
The news report I heard on
Submitted by Trippp on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 3:44 PM PDT.
The news report I heard on NPR gave me the impression that someone, most likely the GOP, was spinning the report to make it sound like we need a lot more troops in Afghanistan and Obama is NOT taking that advice. Then some administration official (I didn't catch his name) effectively rebutted that spin by pointing to a specific section in the report that stated 'to focus on a troop buildup would be a mistake and not recommended.
So I think this weekend the GOP strategy was to lie about the report and hope the lies stuck.
Afghanistan Goddamn
Submitted by buddy66 on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 4:11 PM PDT.
The "exact opposite" of commitment is GTFO!
"When Warner asks about governance, for example, Clinton doesn't seem very engaged: sure, Afghanistan is corrupt, but hey — the place has never been well governed and the improvements we're seeing now are nothing to sneeze at. But when Warner asks about al-Qaeda, Clinton gets much more animated. "We have to be really clear-eyed about this," she insists. There might be a bigger struggle over fundamental strategy going on in the White House than we think."
It's obvious why Clinton would want to talk about Al Qaeda, rather than governing Afghanistan. We're very, very good at counting the bodies of dead terrorists, and very, very bad at counting legitimate votes in elections.
But this just seems like pushback against the incredibly leaky McChrystal folks. It's weak, as far as pushback goes, but it sure seems like the military brass is trying to roll Obama, whether it's McChrystal's gradualism or Mullen's immediacy. However, Clinton's suggestion that McChrystal's voice is just one among many doesn't make sense. This is, after all, the "scary smart" guy with whom Obama very publicly replaced McKiernan. So it would be interesting to know who the Secretary has in mind when she refers to other "very expert military analysts" who work in counterinsurgency. Seeing as CNAS -- the biggest game in town when it comes to counterinsurgency -- is now a major shareholder in the Pentagon, I'm left wondering who the lone counterinsurgent is that isn't all in with McChrystal.
I, for one, find it interesting that Clinton's was the face they put out there for this interview. They've rendered her largely mute on Iraq (which Biden owns), Afghanistan-Pakistan (or Pak-Af, as the proprietor of that one has now taken to calling it), and Eastern Europe ( with Gates on that like white on rice), but now she's the go-to explainer on the biggest quagmire since Vietnam. Yes, she's Madam Secretary, but that hasn't prevented them from stuffing her in the closet until now. What gives?
Caution: Adults at Work
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 4:49 PM PDT.
NPR's Tom Ashbrook had a fascinating discussion on Afghanistan today with Daniel Ellsberg, George Packer (article on Richard Holbrooke coming up in The New Yorker), and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. If you are seriously interested in this subject, you must listen to it.
h
Hillary is a woman of
Submitted by Luther on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 4:59 PM PDT.
Hillary is a woman of mystery.
war
Submitted by steve duncan on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 6:02 PM PDT.
On October 9, 1968 elements of Kilo Company, 4th Marines held the official ceremony paying tribute to those that served and lost their lives at Khe Sanh (Photo presented by popasmoke.com). Many Marines were extraordinarily bitter at leaving the base after they had paid such a high price to defeat the NVA/VC and shatter General Giap's highest priority objective
Robert Topmiller, an assistant professor of history and a student of Khe Sanh, expessed the outrage of abandoning this base:
"After 'over 1,000 Americans died fighting for Khe Sanh in 1968', Marine veterans of the battle witnessed the outrageous spectacle of the US command giving up the position without a fight where so many young Marines had recently struggled and died ... Perhaps ... a metaphor for the frustration and futility felt by those who clashed over thousands of 'patch[es] of ground' throughout the Vietnam War."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soldiers will be maimed or die. Families will be demoralized and destroyed. We will leave Afghanistan. Rinse and repeat.
It's the Grim!
Submitted by Ronald Weasley (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 6:04 PM PDT.
It's the Grim!
Seen this movie before
Submitted by Altoid (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 7:06 PM PDT.
McC must be of the school that says we really won in Vietnam, except that the politicians made us pull out. (And except that we lost, but never mind *that*.)
So this is supposed to be the bigger, better, second time around when we avoid the mistakes we made then and prove that the strategy/tactical approach was *too* right after all, nyaah nyaah? Which couldn't make more sense, seeing how similar Afghanistan is to Vietnam-- subtropical jungle and mountain, long coastline, massive infiltration from nearby neighbor of same ethnicity that claims it's been separated illegitimately, massive support from global military power. So much the same.
This is why the founding folks set up civilian control over the military.
ugh.. i hope we're going with McC...
Submitted by evermore (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 7:27 PM PDT.
McC is absolutely correct and HRC is dead wrong. Without concentrating on governance, we will lose. Concentrating on COIN and protecting the population is the only workable as the surge (what a misnomer) in Iraq showed.
governance
Submitted by rbe1 (not verified) on Mon Sep. 21, 2009 10:17 PM PDT.
Nothing wrong with concentrating on governance, but if we do, we may be forced to recognize the reality in Afghanistan, with the result that we quickly decide to withdraw.
"McC is absolutely correct
Submitted by MaynardHandley on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 1:34 PM PDT.
"McC is absolutely correct and HRC is dead wrong. Without concentrating on governance, we will lose."
And "losing" means what? "Winning" means what?
What *exactly* was this great victory that was "won" in Iraq? The deposal of some nut who was no great threat to the US at immense cost in money and lives --- this is what you consider a success? We should invade a series more countries --- perhaps Venezuela, then Nigeria, to rack up further such 'successes"?
Same goal, different means
Submitted by James E. Powell on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 12:02 AM PDT.
It is impossible to know what the Bush/Cheney Junta would have done without Osama bin Laden and 9/11. Bush/Cheney never wanted to kill Osama; they needed him alive and scary in order to win in 2004.
President Obama also wants to get re-elected, but he needs to kill Osama to lock it down. The "kill the bad guys" program will continue, perhaps with a back-channel message of "give us Osama and we'll leave," until that mf is dead.
They used fear!
Submitted by MarkH on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 5:04 PM PDT.
Today I read an article about AQ threatening Germany...just before an election.
Sounds familiar. Let's not be stupid about the politics or the military aspect of all this.
It's obvious why Clinton
Submitted by Oberon (not verified) on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 3:49 AM PDT.
It's obvious why Clinton would want to talk about Al Qaeda, rather than governing Afghanistan. We're very, very good at counting the bodies of dead terrorists, and very, very bad at counting legitimate votes in elections.
I totally agree. Put another way, fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban may be difficult, but it's nearly impossible for the U.S. to create good governance in Afghanistan. So if the latter is the goal, we might as well GTFO.
Saw this very interesting
Submitted by Chicounsel (not verified) on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 11:10 AM PDT.
Saw this very interesting post in the Corner by Rich Lowry about Obama's no-win decision about Afghanistan:
This Washington Post story captures the stark divide over Afghanistan, with a unified military command on the one side — including McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus — and a president who is not sure he wants to follow through on "the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago" on the other. There's this anonymous quote from one observer: "He can send more troops and it will be a disaster and he will destroy the Democratic party. Or he can send no more troops and it will be a disaster and the Republicans will say he lost the war." Isn't this extraordinary? Obama will roil the Democratic party by sending more troops to fight the war that Democrats have said for years is the "necessary war" (in Obama's words), the central war in the fight against terror, etc., etc. It's hard to imagine a starker demonstration of bad faith on an important issue of national security. I write about this today in my column.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton yesterday said Obama is getting "the exact opposite" advice from McChrystal than from other counterinsurgency experts. She doesn't say who these people are. The Post story says Obama is also getting "assessments from the State Department, the intelligence community, and his White House advisers." Are those people — the White House politicos in particular are very down on additional troops — going to trump the commanding general on the ground? We're going to find out.
******
If I had to guess, I would bet that Obama would do what Democratic Presidents always do with respect to tough foreign policy decisions, he will put his own political interests of getting reelected ahead of any national interest. Given his own rhetoric, Obama can't walk away from Afghanistan without admitting he was wrong about it being the "right war". and we all know that Obama is never wrong. This means that he will do the very least amount of troop increases that he can get away with without totally losing the support of Senator Levin and hope that it doesn't totally collapse before Election Day 2012.
Everyone is overanalyzing
Submitted by Yancey Ward (not verified) on Tue Sep. 22, 2009 1:00 PM PDT.
Everyone is overanalyzing this. There is no desire to stay in Afghanistan on the on the part Democratic Party. There is no desire to stay in on the part of the Republicans other than that they get to bash the administration over heads when and if Obama makes the decision to pull out.
Obama painted himself into this corner because he didn't have the courage of his convictions that both Iraq and Afghanistan were mistakes. Like the Democrats that voted to authorize the Iraq invasion and then turned against it a couple of years later, Obama wanted to look like a kind of hawk during his campaign- "Iraq war bad, Afghanistan war good" was the refrain the entire time from 2004 to just last month.
Winning in Afghanistan is not possible- at least, not winning in the sense that was meant by Bush, by Obama during his campaign, by McChrystal, or any other supposed "faction" in the administration. The best that could be done was to knock down the government, root up the terrorist organizations, kill a bunch of Al Qaeda and Taliban, and then leave. This should have been Bush's focus 8 years ago. I hope Obama can extricate himself from his campaign rhetoric and from the now obviously silly and contradictory things he said earlier in the year about Afghanistan. He needs to pull the plug. Politically, it will cost him some standing, but doing the right thing is not always a political win.
Here we go again
Submitted by Truthful James (not verified) on Wed Sep. 23, 2009 10:32 AM PDT.
I have mixed feelings regarding the machinations of leak and policy by leak and in terms of this one cover your ass by leak.
What was lacking in McCrystal's leakage was a sense of how victory could be quickly assured. It was a bit like the Westmoreland missives from Vietnam -- deja vu, as Yogi Berra said -- all over again.
America as a country demands wars be fought not on the colonial British and French models where the home front was ignorant except for the cheerleading press they had. Rather, we follow the the Lady MacBeth policy in her advice to her husband (W. Shakespeare's words): "If twere done, twere best twere done quickly." That is, overwhelming force not only at the tentacles but also at the source.
That demands an understanding of cost and benefit both overseas and at the ramping up of the American psyche. Our politicians are superb at ramping up: destroy (insert name of evil -- Hitler, Hirohito, Saddam, al Qaeda); Insert missionary nation building purpose ( Democracy to Germany, Japan; unitary democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan.) And of course, let your government do the Job.
We are great at using overwhelming technological force and defeating the enemy on the tactical battleground. The Lilliputians in asymmetric warfare motivated by both religion and tribal loyalties provide a different problem..
What we are lousy at is proper planning for limited war (guns and butter), with the objective of nation building. Institutions and Judeo Christian ideals are necessary for our version of Democracy and in Iraq and Afghanistan we thrust ourselves into cultural situations we knew nothing of and about which we cared not to learn.
The surge in Iraq worked because a-Q Iraq overplayed its Salafist fundamentalist agenda, alienated the Sunni sheiks who then came over to our side and provided positive assistance in destroying the third country fighters.
It will ultimately fail because we forced a unitary democracy with a strong central government under which the Shi'a majority will dominate. With the oil resource concentrated in the Kurdish north and the Shi'a south, the Sunni provinces are poor cousins.
A better solution would have been a nation such as we were initially under the Articles of Confederation, with advancement to a Constitution only when it became obvious to Kurds, Sunni Arabs and and Shi'a Arabs. that a closer association was needed.
We were concerned as we made policy with the close association of Shi'ites in Iraq and Iran. Shi'a in Iran was corrupted to overthrow the Shah. The Mercedes Mullahs are the only the first phase of a revolution there, as the current uprisings show. The Persian Shi'a and tnd the Iraqi Arab Shi'a have no love for one another, although there are opportunists such as al Sadr who have fallen under Iran's spell.
In any event, sporadically since the defeat of the Ottomans and under British aegis, Iraq has had a form of Muslim democracy. Afghanistan remains a collection of tribes. Taliban, while losing support because of its Saudi supported fundamentalism, has gained support against the invader -- the United States and NATO. There is not a possibility of democratic nation building.
al Qaeda has found a home in Pakistan. One recalls that the Pakistani ISI had been their benefactor during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Terrorism shifts to Pakistani approved and al-Qaeda sponsored efforts in Jammu Kashmir. The long term objective is to inspire Salafist adherents throughout India.
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If you were lost in the moon
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Oct. 6, 2009 6:32 PM PDT.
If you were lost in the moon sand of Afghan with McChrystal and an expert military analyst. The goal is get back to the plane alive and home. Who are you going with ? The expert military analyst or General McChrystal ? Oh no,not standing out here trying to analyze and they're shooting and we need men to hold the line. How do we get to that plane home safe McChrystal ? Send more troops ! That we understand and it helps support everybody back to the plane safely. Now which way to we go, to find the plane ? The military expert has a map and so does McChrystal but there are variations in route. Absorb the data on each map and who do you trust more, cause McChrystal is on the ground and has been there to know ? You go with who ever you want but I'm headed with McChrystal. Good luck getting to the plane safe.I hear Clinton saying they see the goal and know the mission. Clarity is being sorted out on strategy and all the data and various input recieved. Once the decision has been made the administration will cont. to review for mission complete and srategy changes needed for success in Afghan and for aid efforts to support their people. At the end of the day,we're on a safe plane home and Al-Qaida is defeated. How do we do that ? McChrystal needs more troops ! Amen and God Bless our troops !Make a decision cause we hear shooting and Gates sounds like he's going with McChrystal. McCain sounds like he's going with McChrystal. What's Obama doing ? He's in there with all of them and so is Clinton trying to sort out the specific's and the details on a winning strategy ! Hillary Clinton won't go until she has the details and specifics. Joe Biden is saying, not so fast and he's careful before making snap decisions. Now comes General Jones ! What do we need to win in Afghan ? More troops !
"Exact Opposite ?" Compare and contrast all assessments .
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue Oct. 6, 2009 8:18 PM PDT.
Means exactly what State Secretary Hillary Clinton just said. Clarity=Strategy=resources=details and specifics being sorted out for the best possible strategic outcome in Afghan and national security. Then a decision will be made and my guess is in a few weeks but not months. Congress will support whatever decision Obama makes and get behind him and that was announced today.All assessments are being reviewed from our military experts.
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