Wa Slimes: Biden for minimal Afghanistan intervention; Clinton, Petraeus for nation building

[LittleBlue]

The Obama administration has conducted a vigorous internal debate over its new strategy for Afghanistan, expected to be unveiled by the president in a speech Friday.

According to two U.S. government sources close to the issue, senior policymakers were divided over how comprehensive to make the strategy, involving an initial boost of 17,000 U.S. troops.

On the one side were Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg, who argued in closed-door meetings for a minimal strategy of stabilizing Afghanistan that one source described as a "lowest common denominator" approach.

The goal of these advocates was to limit civilian and other nonmilitary efforts in Afghanistan and focus on a main military objective of denying safe haven to the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists.

The other side of the debate was led by Richard C. Holbrooke, the special envoy for the region, who along with U.S. Central Command leader Gen. David H. Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fought for a major nation-building effort.

The Holbrooke-Petraeus-Clinton faction, according to the sources, prevailed. The result is expected to be a major, long-term military and civilian program to reinvent Afghanistan from one of the most backward, least developed nations to a relatively prosperous democratic state.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/26/inside-the-ring-23718486/

I'm not sure whether to believe this or not considering the source. Is this true, or is this an effort to divide the administration?

Anyway, if true, I say go with Biden's suggestion.

[Scooterliberal]

1. A prosperous DEMOCRATIC state?

I pray Obama doesn't believe that can happen in that part of the world.

[karynnj]

6. See my post #4

The nominee for Afghanistan, Eikenberry was asked just these questions yesterday - and his answer was consistent with what they call Biden's view. There is also NO public HRC to suggest that she has this opinion.

(I have the links and starts points to responses by Eikenberry yesterday and HRC's responses on Afghanistan back in January.)

Consider who the story could hurt. Assume that the Biden approach, the only publicly stated opinion, is the policy and Obama announces it soon. The next article will be that Obama did not listen to his SoS's opinion - when in fact, other than their claims, it is not at all clear this is her position. (Also consider that it is not a popular position as even most Republicans have abandoned it.) They are assigning to HRC an unpopular position that the President is likely to reject and creating a picture of an administration that is divided and is obviously leaking. (This hurts HRC and Obama)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8296063&mesg_id=8296172

[Xipe Totec]

2. Nation Building? What the heck have we been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan so far?

A little late to whine about it now.

What a bunch of two faced hypocrites.

[Why Syzygy]

3. Moony Times. Suspect information.

Anyone else reporting same?

I don't even think google crawls them.

edit: The real reporting is bad enough.

In all, including additional forces ordered by former President George W. Bush, more than 30,000 new troops will be deployed this year, the officials said.

The administration officials didn’t give an estimate for how much the new plan would cost in full. The almost $2 billion a month currently going toward Afghanistan would probably increase about 60 percent for military operations there alone, they said.

‘Realistic’ Goals

Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said the goals of the strategy are “realistic.” He described them as: “Train the Afghans and then get the hell out of there."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aay7.k4F8rJM&refer=canada


~~~ And during the presidential race the rethuglicans were afraid Obama would withdraw troops and "lose the war". :eyes:

[karynnj]

4. Consider the source on this article

Obama will delineate his Afghanistan policy soon. They are claiming to know not just the conclusion reached behind closed doors, but which members of the cabinet were on each side. Now, do you think it likely that the Obama administration leaked its internal debate to ... the Washington Times.

You can find some detailed answers in the SFRC hearings. Yesterday, there was a hearing for the Ambassador to Afghanistan. At about 111 or 112 minutes in, Kerry questioned Eikenberry's earlier response to a question by Senator Casey to clarify just this question. Kerry characterized the alternatives as the building a government which he called what President Bush wanted and "help them to help themself" as what he saw the current view of the mission. This, of course, is the position labeled as Biden's. At around 115 - Eikenberry said that Kerry's interpretation is accurate. http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090326a.html

At her hearing back in January, HRC responded in vaguer terms agreeing that they had to be very very careful in defining the mission in Afghanistan. It did not sound there as if she was still in favor of the the Bush nation building role. Here is a link to her comments on Afghanistan - this clip starts with Kerry's concerns - start at about 6 minutes in to get the question and HRC's response. http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090326a.html

The best thing is to wait for Obama's speech on the policy going forward, but it is highly unlikely that Eikenberry would have so clearly agreed with Kerry's interpretation if that issue was up in the air or if Obama had decided on the nation building side. (Kerry did a very nice job getting clarity on this that I didn't really appreciate until reading this thread.)

[Mass]

7. I am not surprised Holbrooke and Petreaus would want to make nation building.

They really believe in that.

From what I have seen on more reliable sources than the WaTimes, the wider angle may have won. Too bad.

I guess we'll see what Obama says today.

[karynnj]

9. My worry about Obama on foreign policy was always

that he was incredibly vague - Kerry as a surrogate added a huge amount of credibility and was far more specific. When Obama had to be specific, he often used the comments Kerry had been saying for weeks before. If Holbrooke / Clinton / Petreaus really did push Obama to keep the Bush policy - or actually the Bush policy on steroids, it means that we really had no real choice back in the primaries in terms of foreign policy - and we got basically the Clinton treasury team.

I hope this is not true. It would be sad the there was no real change candidate in 2008, a change year - when in 2004, a year that did not favor change, either Kerry or Dean offered real change.

[ShortnFiery]

5. Biden is right but The Military Industrial Complex will not be denied it's WAR - Profiteering.

Occupations. This is SICK stuff. :nuke:

[wyldwolf]

8. Al Gore is (last I heard) also in favor of the nation-building approach in Afghanistan

From what I understand, he wanted to do this in conjunction with the military effort in 2001 - build infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals.

[karynnj]

10. Building infastructure, roads, hospitals etc

is consistent with the Biden ideas too - in fact, those ideas were put into proposed legislation. It was Biden and others on SFRC that argued for funds to do that. There is a nice exchange trying to clarify the difference at the Eikenberry hearing. The difference is enabling them to help themselves and heavy handedly creating a government for them.

(For links to hearing and startpoint for question - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8296063&mesg_id=8296172 )

(If you listen to entire thing - Former Senator Warner has some kind words for HRC - which I think you might like.)

[wyldwolf]

11. very good source, thank you. I can say this...

In some instances, assisting in building a stable government is the best thing. Take Iraq, for example. Under Saddam, they had a stable government - regardless of what anyone thought of that government. We destablized it and it was our job at that point to stablize it. Our mistake, of course, was trying to install another puppet regime there. But we still should have helped structure a new government and provided security while that was happening - IMO.

I see Afghanistan the same way. In 2002, leading up to the Iraq war, Al Gore said:

The events of the last 85 years provide ample evidence that our approach to winning the peace that follows war is almost as important as winning the war itself. The absence of enlightened nation building after World War I led directly to the conditions which made Germany vulnerable to fascism and the rise to Adolph Hitler and made all of Europe vulnerable to his evil designs. By contrast the enlightened vision embodied in the Marshall plan, NATO, and the other nation building efforts in the aftermath of World War II led directly to the conditions that fostered prosperity and peace for most the years since this city gave birth to the United Nations.

Two decades ago, when the Soviet Union claimed the right to launch a pre-emptive war in Afghanistan, we properly encouraged and then supported the resistance movement which, a decade later, succeeded in defeating the Soviet Army’s efforts. Unfortunately, when the Russians left, we abandoned the Afghans and the lack of any coherent nation building program led directly to the conditions which fostered Al Qaeda terrorist bases and Osama Bin Laden’s plotting against the World Trade Center. Incredibly, after defeating the Taliban rather easily, and despite pledges from President Bush that we would never again abandon Afghanistan we have done precisely that. And now the Taliban and Al Qaeda are quickly moving back to take up residence there again.

Later in that speech, he mentioned what should have been a priority for Bush in seeking authorization to invade Iraq from Congress:

The resolution should also require commitments from the President that action in Iraq will not be permitted to distract from continuing and improving work to reconstruct Afghanistan, an that the United States will commit to stay the course for the reconstruction of Iraq.

So I guess the level of nation building will be debated now.

[karynnj]

13. I agree with you completely on construction being the answer

Gore's comments were great and he was not alone in speaking of that need. I think most of the Democratic foreign policy experts did - I know Kerry did and I am pretty sure Biden did as well.

In addition to Afghanistan, John Kerry spoke of this even in 2003 and 2004 with regards to Iraq. He has spoken of that in general terms for many areas of the middle east and elsewhere.

Here is an op-ed he wrote on Lebanon:
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/entry/a_crucial_time_for_saving_lebanons_fragile_democracy/

and a video of him speaking of the West Bank at a MA forum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXd66eae9K8

As I said, Biden was the main sponsor of the legislation to fund these things - not brought to the floor last year - that will be re-introduced this year by Kerry and Lugar. (It is the SFRC's bill)

The difference spoken of is whether you enable the country to establish a government or you decide the form of government you think they should have. The difference is subtle.

There have been many good hearings already this year. One that Obama administration people have mentioned was Kerry's first round table hearing, which was on Afghanistan. Senator Fullbright had used round table hearings where the witnesses and Senators can have a conversation that is less structured than the formal hearings. Here is the link to it - http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2009/hrg090205a.html Everyone seemed to be speaking from the assumption that you need to help the country create safety and some reasonable life in order to give any government a chance to succeed. Here is the full list of hearings - http://foreign.senate.gov/hearing.html

[TwilightGardener]

12. So...what's the REAL goal of nation-building there? Pipelines? Strategic foothold?

Because it's not about "spreading freedom-n-democracy"--that was the big neocon lie for invading Iraq (after the other lies fell through). There's no way we're going to "reinvent" that country to make it amenable to our interests. It's not going to work--in fact, it will just confirm and reinforce what Muslim extremists hate about us, and thus make the situation worse. I support continuing the military and diplomatic mission there in order to minimize the terror threat to our country, and to provide some economic assistance and help Afghan civilians rebuild. Beyond that...we need to wrap it up.