Boston Globe: Kerry joins skepticism on Afghan troop increase

[karynnj]

{div class = "excerpt"]

WASHINGTON -- After a string of high-profile skepticism from Democrats in Congress about the war in Afghanistan, Senator John F. Kerry will also express concern in an interview airing Tuesday on PBS and in hearings he will preside over on Wednesday ("Countering the Threat of Failure") and Thursday ("Exploring Three Strategies for Afghanistan") as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Key Democrats have done their best to preempt any potential request for more troops from Obama. At a press conference on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she did not believe there was much support for sending more troops. In a floor speech on Friday, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin said he wants to see an increase in Afghanistan's armed forces before committing more US troops.

Tuesday on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Kerry will express his own "long-standing concerns" about whether the current military footprint in Afghanistan is the best way to achieve US goals, according to Kerry communications director Frederick Jones.

But Jones said that Kerry, who first made his name opposing the Vietnam war, will "reserve final judgment on troop levels and our policy writ large until he hears from the administration and military leaders."

[beachmom]

1. Thanks. I'll check out Jim Lehrer tonight. nt

[wisteria]

2. Yes, thanks for posting. I really want to hear what Sen. Kerry has to say. n/t

[TayTay]

3. Those hearings could be quite interesting

I wrote this in another thread:

Those hearings this week are starting to look really interesting. Sen. Kerry has scheduled a hearing for Wed afternoon for a battle of the experts to define the strategies. They basically are:

pursue a counter-insurgency strategy. This is the troop-intensive strategy that seeks to, well, nation-build our way out of trouble in Afghanistan. The Long War, defined. (decades, maybe?)

pursue a counter-terrorism strategy. Maintain a small but very supple force of specialized forces to pursue and eliminate the enemy. Leave the nation-building to NGO's. Our troops are not trained in nation-building. (Three cups of tea is not doable by an armed forces.)

recognize the limits of our power, delineate our place in the greater area and maintain as small a footprint as possible. We have no way to "win" in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda is not confined to that area any more that it is confined to any other place on earth. (Bacevich position of classical conservatism that seeks to keep the US out of these struggles in the first place.)

This is a setup hearing that defines the terms that are being debated. What exactly are all the talking heads talking about when they refer to a strategy in Afghanistan. Well, these are 3 strategies and Sen. Kerry means to lay them all out. (And I could construct an argument from existing Kerry speeches to adopt/dismiss all 3 strategies, btw.)


The next hearing on Thursday morning takes this information and talks about how to avoid failure in Afghanistan. This should be fascinating because we don't know yet what the Chairman considers "failure" to be.

I can cite references on where the people testifying are coming from, but I think it would be quite insightful to think about that roundtable from back in February. What are we doing in Afghanistan? What are we becoming in Pakistan? (Yes, I mean becoming. I can't help but feel that the push to more mechanized, remote warfare plays a part in this. War cannot be pursued as if it were a video game. Mechanized, remote war and the use of drones and so forth in Pakistan is something that should weigh on the soul. A soul that has thought of these things before in other wars might just be inclined to revisit them. ) I don't know, part of me wants to "read up" for these hearings by perusing Shakespeare. Odd thought, that one.

The more important hearing is Thursday, but the Wed afternoon hearing is classic prosecutor: lay out the terms for the jury to see, clearly and in full.

Terms we might hear a lot: Asymmetric Warfare: Warfare in which belligerents are mismatched in their military capabilities or their accustomed methods of engagement. In such a situation, the militarily disadvantaged power must press its special advantages or effectively exploit its enemy's particular weaknesses if the disadvantaged power is to have any hope of prevailing. Using an adversary's strength against him, while exploiting his weaknesses.

[karynnj]

4. Thanks for your insight

These hearings could be incredibly important - if just to understanding the possibilities and the various downsides.

You (and Beachmom in various older posts) also make me see that Kerry really is the right person to chair this - a brilliant prosecutor, who went to war himself and who dealt privately and publicly with the moral and the policy issues of another war. Few equaled him in 1971, when he had no position, no experience as a lawyer or Senator, and no access to all the policy makers - all of which he has now.

[TayTay]

5. Thanks, and thanks for all you have been writing here

It has been wonderful.

I have been trying to keep up, with my limited knowledge and understanding, of the changes taking place in the US Defense Dept. The Services are undergoing a revolution in technology that is absolutely breathtaking in scope. SecDef Gates is actually leading that effort, in many ways, and in many ways it will be a good thing. But not in all ways.

This leads back to a discussion of what we are doing in Afghanistan and everywhere else to "fight" terrorism. Terrorism, as someone very wise once pointed out, is a tactic. You can't fight it, per se. You have to fight a level above that. That is where strategy comes in. Is there a level above strategy? Yes, defining the goal of the mission comes first. So, first we have to define the enemy. What is our goal? Who are we fighting? How are they fighting us? What weapons, personnel, equipment etc are they using? What are we countering that with and, perhaps more importantly, what do we perceive them to be doing or how are we anticipating their moves? What is the goal? Then we can talk about the strategies available to us and their advantages and drawbacks. Then tactics, then logistics.

We are on the cusp of changing perception of what warfare is and that it has a "place" in which it is conducted. Afghanistan is, for today or for this hour, a place where our enemies might be. But, that "place" is fluid and can change at "internet" speeds. So, how do we strategize for an enemy without boundaries? Is Afghanistan/Pakistan/Iraq etc really a battle ground in this forever war or a waystation? Is the kind of a war that envisions "place" already lost? Interesting thought that one.

[ProSense]

7. Interesting stuff.

These hearings are going to be fascinating.

[MBS]

6. great quote from Globe columnist James Carroll

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/14/the_cloud_of_war/

Colin Powell famously echoed Tom Friedman’s Pottery Barn Rule: You break it, you own it. But Powell was wrong. We broke Iraq and Afghanistan, and now they own us. The main effect of our intervention in both places is that endemic conflicts (which predate our presence) are now being fought with unimaginably more lethal firepower. Especially dangerous is the Taliban’s transformation by its war with America from a crackpot cult with local reach into a mythic resistance force drawing ever wider support.

[YvonneCa]

8. PBS Newshour did a story on this...

...tonight, with a short Kerry interview. They mentioned his hearings. :)

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

[beachmom]

9. Thanks. At this link, you can download audio. Streaming video

should come within the next 24 hours.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/newshour_index.html

Also, did you guys see they have archives going back to 1997? That might be worth checking out.

[beachmom]

10. Good post in the Wash. Independent:

http://washingtonindependent.com/59411/crucial-senate-hearing-on-afghanistan-scheduled-for-tomorrow

Crucial Senate Hearing on Afghanistan Scheduled for Tomorrow

By Spencer Ackerman 9/15/09 6:51 PM

As I reported today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ thoughts on the proper U.S. force posture in Afghanistan “is a work in progress,” according to Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell. If there’s a Senate hearing that stands a chance of tipping the undecided — or even changing minds — it’s tomorrow’s Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

The witness list at Senate hearings often tends to the mushy center or the ignorantly dogmatic, instead of analysts capable of proceeding from firm principles, tracing an argument’s logic and dealing with its uncomfortable implications. Not so tomorrow. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the committee’s chairman, is calling John Nagl, the president of the Center for a New American Security; Steve Biddle, the Brookings military expert; and Rory Stewart, the head of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

Expect a heavy hearing. ...

More at the link.

[TayTay]

11. Just so

And these people represent 3 distinct strategies or ways to proceed in Afghanistan.

Counter-insurgency
Counter-terrorism
withdrawal leading to a limited, targeted presence

3 very distinct roads to travel.