On the eve of the most historic decision Obama will make during his presidency, whether it be one term or two, speculation runs rampant that there will be a massive escalation of US troops into Afghanistan, which will set the American foot deep into the wet concrete of this fiercely tribal society, of which eminent anthropologist Dr. Louis Dupree wrote are "almost genetically expert at guerrilla warfare after centuries of resisting all comers and fighting among themselves when no comers were available."
The mystery is the source of this perception. As even peace activists announce that there will be large, and largely impotent, demonstrations, upon the "announcement of the surge," the evidence shows that not a single administration official has hinted that this is the president's decision. In fact they have taken continual pains to deny it.
In early November, in response to reporters' questions about an all-but-certain escalation, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that anybody who says Obama has made a decision:
"doesn't have in all honesty the slightest idea what they're talking about. The president's yet to make a decision" about troop levels or other aspects of the revised U.S. strategy in Afghanistan."
The Pentagon and a continuous stream of "unnamed military officials," on the other hand, have waged a masterful campaign, which has openly angered administration officials, to leak, spin, hint at, and build the climate for, public acceptance of what 6 out of 10 Americans now do not want: an escalation.
The only real hint of administration intentions, in fact, has been Obama's curt and leaderly dismissal of the 4 options presented to him by General Stanley McChrystal last month, all of which involved more troops. The evidence given far more attention has been that of armchair commentators and pundits, whether through the anonymity of the Internet or by name on printed pages, which blithely asserts, without ever citing a link or a source from even a low-level administration official, that this is the way Obama is leaning.
The UK Telegraph reports:
"Tensions between the White House and the Pentagon over the deployment have already bubbled to the surface. Senior presidential advisers have accused generals of leaking the misinformation that Mr Obama has all but decided to dispatch more than 34,000 additional troops, in a bid to force his decision"
This weekend we even got to see mere two-star general casually preempting his boss's speech Tuesday night, on whether he will go up, down, or stand pat on Afghanistan. CENTCOM Major General Kenneth Dowd, who reports directly to David Petraeus, saw fit to all but announce, by granting a "wide-ranging" interview to the St. Petersberg Times, that there would be an escalation, and it would be massive. This follows a pattern of leaks on the part of General Stanley McChrystal of which, Professor Rick Ayers, writing for Huffington Post in "General McChrystal's War," said:
"McChrystal's recent leaks and public comments have pushed the limits of their PR strategy...In the end, the military (not the troops, mind you, but the officers and the massive military industrial complex behind them) need war and promote it."
The headline could be "Major General Announces Escalation II for Obama," but instead it is "CentCom planners study massive move of equipment to Afghanistan."
In the interview, General Dowd holds forth:
"This is probably the most complicated logistical operation we've done in our lifetime."
"
Dowd said landlocked Afghanistan presents greater difficulties than Iraq with its fewer routes of supply, and that CentCom is conducting an assessment of air strips in Afghanistan. Dowd said engineers will have to expand them.
"I'm a little concerned about" airfield capacity...We've got to expand and make it better."
"I'm a little concerned"? That says it all. The president out of the loop and the escalation a "done deal." The previous week, the AP floated an article quoting "anonymous," "unauthorized" military officials giving a number in the 30 thousands of more troops as the decision Obama has made:
"Administration officials said Obama has not made a final decision about the number of troops he would approve. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the president's plans, said they expected the total to be between 32,000 and 35,000."
It is important to remember that all this is taking place nearly a year after the first escalation, from 32,000 troops to the present 60,000, when Obama granted the generals everything they wanted and National Security Advisor General Jones warned them that if they were thinking of coming back for more after this, the president might justly have a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment
This second round of Pentagon pressure on Obama for more war began in September. That's when General Stanley McChrystal's classified report that the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating was leaked, which put pressure on Obama to agree to McChrystal's request for more troops. During the first round, Bob Woodward reported the conversation from the meeting room in which Obama's principles, including Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and Jones himself, met with the Pentagon brass:
[National Security Adviser General] Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said..."the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." The principals...made this recommendation in February during the first full month of the Obama administration. The president approved the deployments, which included Nicholson's Marines...
"[The Pentagon staff] then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around..."
Woodward reports that in the meeting room, Jones said that:
...after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment."
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. WTF.
The fact is, given the real evidence, at this juncture Obama could say just about anything tomorrow. Despite the wildly successful national whisper campaign which is echoed even by mainstream reporters who should know better, he and his team have remained tight-lipped. He has shown his willingness and ability to take everything his generals have given him, like McChrystal's 4 options, and toss them into the trash, saying, That's not good enough. Start over. He has shown he cares not a whit for what Dick Cheney says about his "dithering."
On one side Obama has Captain Matt Hoh and, more importantly, former commander of US forces in Afghanistan General Karl Eikenberry, who is now the ambassador. Eikenberry took everyone by surprise and strenuously argued against an escalation. On the other side, there is General Stanley McChrystal. Eikenberry, the Mandarin-speaking soldier-scholar (Harvard MA, Stanford PhD) who says more troops would be a bad thing,versus the advice of McChrystal, who proclaimed publicly that if his boss does not give him what he wants, he will be endangering America.
Unlike many other wars, the stakes in Afghanistan are truly far-reaching and even apocalyptic. As many people say, the comparison to Vietnam is incorrect. This is worse. In Vietnam soldiers could operate year-round. In Afghanistan when the mountains and passes freeze, roads are impassable, and the air is too thin for helicopters to operate properly. The only ones with the run of the land are these hardy inhabitants who, Special Forces in 2001 was astonished to see, hopped from rock to rock with their rocket launchers like mountain goats and fought barefoot, sometimes even in the snow.
The consequences of a failure in Afghanistan, a failure of understanding, not a failure of arms, will be an America bloodied and bled dry once and for all, and a rising China gleefully stepping into the ashes of Central Asia, and onto the hallowed ground on which our troops fell. Obama's domestic agenda will be dead, his presidency one term, and a war will be hung around Democrats' necks by Republicans for the next 50 years as a "Democrats' war," canceling out Iraq and returning to Republicans the electoral edge.
Obama should on Tuesday night announce that we will stay in Afghanistan, but the formula will be reversed, with 90 percent of resources used for a civilian solution and 10 percent for military. That would mean an immediate timeline for withdrawal of most troops. Eikenberry last summer voiced frustration that his multi-billion dollar request for specific, targeted aid to civilians, including for jobs which would take young men out of the arms of the Taliban, was languishing in Congress, as his former soldiers bled in the valleys.
Eikenberry, or McChrystal. One or the other represents the future of American foreign policy for many years. Perhaps the fate of America itself. Imagine that President Obama has two speeches on the desk of his personal study, as he alone grapples with this decision. One is the speech they want him to make. The other is the right thing to do. He is waiting to hear from you, the people who elected him. Tell him you will back him to the hilt against the military-industrial complex.
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