Even as the American public has turned firmly against a continuation of the undeclared war in Iraq, George W. Bush continues blindly on a course to mire us even deeper into that pointless quagmire. Yet, it seems there’s no unified strategy among Democrat to end it. Even if the Democrats were unified, the relatively narrow margins in Congress in combination with Bush’s veto power and willingness to blatantly ignore settled law in pursuit of his ends would make striaghtforward resolutions to withdraw likely unsuccessful or ineffectual. I propose, therefore, that the Democratic Congress should explicitly link withdrawal from Iraq to a cause with overwhelming support – the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the extinction of Al-Qaida.
Broadly, I suggest an Act of Congress with the following main goals
- Commence using our military to provide security for America by immediately stopping all deployments to Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan instead. That gives us a year to wrap up any operations in Iraq before the last troops are scheduled to rotate home, which is more than enough time.
- Protect military families by limiting all war zone deployments of regular soldiers to 1 year in 4. This will reduce our deployed force, which will be a huge benefit to our army and budget. There will be no cost to operations in Afghanistan as we already showed we can take out the Taliban with a combination of political alliance with their opponents and limited use of observers and elite operatives.
- Restore the purpose of America’s National Guard by immediately ending all further foreign deployments of National Guard units. Exceptions will be allowed only in the case of constitutionally declared wars. Units currently abroad will be brought back as expeditiously as possible. When the next Katrina happens, they and their equipment will be here, ready to save American lives, not being worn away in a useless fight on the other side of the world.
- Develop political tools against Al-Qaida and the Taliban by developing an elite volunteer force, which will receive extensive Pashtun language training and extended deployments to Afghanistan where they will be openly embedded into society. These elite agents and soldiers will provide the reliable, socially connected backbone necessary for reconstruction and human intelligence efforts that have so far dismally failed. For these volunteers I would aim for something like 3 years of deployment in a 6-year enlistment, with a bonus offered for deployment for the duration of the enlistment.
- Cut the Taliban’s main source of funding by legalizing and regulating Afghan opium production and using it to supply the current severe worldwide shortfall of legal opiates.
- Develop a network that can find and catch Al-Qaida’ leadership by recruiting a large force of Afghani anti-Taliban and funding them extensively to infiltrate Pakistan’s porous border. The embedded, long-serving elite force of point 4 will be essential to this, A particularly valuable tools will be the religious differences between the Taliban and Al-Qaida’s insane Wahhabism and the ordinary and sensible Islam of the overwhelming majority of Afghans, For a billion dollars – less than a week of war in Iraq – we can hire 10,000 agents at $10,000 (a huge sum in Afghanistan). That many agents will make it dangerous for bin Laden or Al-Zawahiri to sneeze, never mind plan operations.
There is basically no section of American society that will not prefer this to our current situation, apart from Bush himself and his cronies. Most Americans personally prefer a course much like this. Those still cringing in fear of terrorism, who have so far been Bush’s greatest support, will be relieved that the US government is finally, after years of bumbling about, taking directed and positive steps to address the object of their fears, Osama bin Laden. The military will be gung-ho for this – see the stories of Pat Tillman and Lt. Watada for why. Business interests and small-government supporters will get a decrease in the budget deficit. Pacifists will not get the immediate peace they want – but they will at least get a major reduction in the intensity of warfare and an end to poorly directed attacks affecting mostly innocent civilians.
In the face of this overwhelming support the Republicans in Congress will not dare oppose the legislation. Now that the Democrats control Congress, the Republicans can no longer slip in secret poison pills or modifications, as they have been wont to do. And likewise Bush won’t dare veto – because if he vetoes a real plan to end this counterproductive waste of our military and go after Osama bin Laden he will get the impeachment he will so richly deserve.
The adults have Congress. It’s time to use it.