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I'm not as interested in foreign policy/national security issues as I am other issues, but a lot of the writing on Afghanistan lately has got me thinking. Derrick Crowe has a good piece over at The Seminal discussing Obama Administration officials' unwillingness/reluctance to define victory in Afghanistan, and how so far the objectives of securing support for the regime have not gone well.
On the victory front, it's like they've learned their lesson from Bush's "Mission Accomplished" flap a little too hard. I give them credit for the strategy, to some extent- if you define victory, and turn out to be completely wrong, as Bush was, it blows up in your voice. If you even muse at what victory might look like, you risk, as Derrick argues, public discussion/debate on that front. I can see dozens of panel discussions and Atlantic magazine pieces on the topic.
On the other hand, if you refuse to define victory or publicly state goals, the questions over stonewalling become equally as bad. As do the concerns that we'll be stuck in a never-ending campaign there, spending billions of dollars to achieve an objective that isn't defined. That's where the Administration finds itself now, and it runs the risk of turning into a version of Iraq, which is what has me so concerned. The drumbeat has started.
In early July, Sen. Kerry pledged to hold hearings this fall as chair of the Foreign Relations committee. Before that, Rep. McGovern said this during the floor debate on the funding bill:
"I'm sick and tired of wars that have no exits, deadlines or an end," an anguished McGovern said. "We owe our troops and their families much better. "
"And I'm deeply concerned about how long we will be able to sustain and pay for an expanded military presence in Afghanistan. I simply want to know, 'What is the exit strategy that brings our servicemen and women home?'"
If you switched the word "Afghanistan" with "Iraq" in that statement, you wouldn't notice the difference. That's what concerns me so much. This pounding will only get louder on this topic, as it should. Robert Greenwald took a trip to Afghanistan recently and he and Brave New Films just released a new documentary on the topic (reminder, you can support our projects at OpenLeft by purchasing it through this link). Today, we find out the Administration is considering sending more troops, up to 20,000, there after committing another 21,000 this year. Does this have echoes of Iraq for anyone else?
Let me be clear: I'm for having the necessary amount of troops on the ground to win the war, within reason. My problem is with the Administration's refusal to lay out what is victory and how we will achieve it. If the phrase "no exit strategy" enters the American lexicon again, not only will it hurt Obama, it causes folks like me to become angry at an Administration that comes across as thinking the public isn't smart enough to understand global geopolitics and thus isn't entitled to a straight answer on the topic. Like Chris wrote today, Iraq was the major contributing factor to the GOP losing the 2006 elections. I believe the issue was not only defined by America losing the war and that being unpopular, but by the public being furious that there was no clear line of victory, and no exit strategy. I do not want to be swallowed by Afghanistan in 2010 for the same reasons.
Update: A new CBS poll comes out showing 48% approve of Obama's handling of the situation in Afghanistan, down from 56% in April. 40% say they want troops levels decreased.
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