Let's be honest about Democrats and the Afghan war

[Oregone]

About the time that the Democrats started really emphasizing the need to fight in Afghanistan, Bush was running a full blown cluster fuck in Iraq. It was the perfect tool for a party perceived as war-wimps to beat the drum, talk tough on war, and still criticize Bush's imperialism and his failures.

In other words, it was political posturing. Talking points. Rhetoric used to win elections. The war was shit, is shit, and has always been shit to anyone who didn't drink the 9/11 kool-aid.

So, while its all great to talk about Democratic platforms and promises, its a good way to ignore talking about a shitty war that has no mission, purpose, or objectives. Its also a perfect way to ignore why those positions were taken (in order to get more Democrats elected). Campaigning operates on a premise that the Means justifies the Ends, in so long as the Ends includes more liberals in office to enact a liberal policy (rather than liberals tied to conservative imperialistic talking points that make them useless to the liberal agenda).

The war is crap to anyone who isn't a moron. The US is a country of morons. The Democrats had to exploit the idiocy of morons to get elected. They don't have to continue on without admitting they were wrong on that point.

Do we have to have one more fucking OP about "promises"? How is that even relevant to doing the right thing? How do they, alone, create sound public policy? Sounds like a lot of excuses. Forget about it.

Focus on the war itself. If you support it, and its escalation, I hope you have some ideas to defend besides playing "he said, she said" during the primaries.

[treestar]

1. Were the ones still in office against it to start with?

don't forget the atmosphere in late 2001.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

4. There were those who were against it in 2001

but maybe you should check your calendar, it is 2009.

[treestar]

7. You sound so superior

But this thing was started by Bush at a time when it would have been political suicide to be against it.

[mike_c]

16. that's a BALDFACED LIE so I'm calling it out....

It's time to tell the truth about that so-called "political environment." There has never been any backlash against the congress men and women who voted against the Iraq war resolution. Never. None. Period. That was a lie used to excuse the cowardice of those who voted to approve war against Iraq in 2002 and it's still a lie today.

On the contrary, any political backlash has been against those who voted FOR it. Many of them are no longer in office, and many more suffered political consequences. More than anything else, his vote FOR the IWR probably destroyed John Kerry's presidential ambitions, along with his fumbling attempts to justify it afterward. Joe Lieberman lost his party's primary over that issue more than any other. Hillary Clinton lost essential support because of it, and it likely tanked her presidential ambitions, at least in 2008.

[Hippo_Tron]

2. Agreed on all points, except...

As I was saying in the other thread they do in fact have to continue to exploit the idiocy of morons even when they are in office.
Obama promised to escalate Afghanistan so that he could frame himself as the smart hawkish alternative to McCain rather than the dovish alternative to McCain. Now he has to actually carry out that promise if he wants to be considered the smart hawkish alternative to Palin/Romney/Huckabee rather than the dovish alternative. Of course if the war does indeed turn out to be a clusterfuck, he won't exactly look so smart.

[Oregone]

3. "they do in fact have to continue to exploit the idiocy of morons even when they are in office"

To what ends? On how many different policies? What if it means abandoning the entire liberal agenda? Then what is the point in the first place?

Regardless, political strategy is not one in the same as political policy (though it may, and often does, dictate it). But to see people defending policy on the basis of strategic decisions and statements is sickening. Thats really what Im getting at. It seems you recognize the difference but disagree on exactly when a politician should diverge from their rhetoric for the benefit of a nation

[Hippo_Tron]

5. The end is keeping Palin/Huckabee/Romney out of office

Because they will do things that are likely far far worse than sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Sending additional troops is a bad option but it may be the least bad option for political survival. 9/11 unfortunately meant that it's not going to be peacetime for quite a while. Nobody we elect to office is going to change that.

[Oregone]

8. It seems that if you spend all your time trying to plug holes...

to stop a boat from flooding, rather than actually bail some water, eventually you are going to sink anyway.

There needs to be forward progress during Democratic administrations to mitigate regressive primal Republican disasters. It simply cannot be the temporary cessation of shit.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. I agree but I don't have a strategy for that

I don't think anybody else does either. Mitigating the disasters is what we are stuck with until this country either wakes the fuck up or somebody figures out a way to wake them up.

[pscot]

6. Word

n/t

[tekisui]

9. Those who harken back to the campaign to defend it show

the weakness of their position. No viable candidate was taking an out-of-Afghanistan stance.

A lot has happened in the two years since the Primaries started, as well. Obama's first surge led to record numbers of casualties. He expanded the use of drones in Pakistan, things have devolved into a Civil War there. Karzai stole an election and made deals with the Taliban.

Obama's effort are failing, and he is going to escalate further.

I am with you. Let's debate the war and the consequences of escalation rather than deflecting to candidate Obama's position.

[johnaries]

10. Excuse me, but what exactly is the "9/11 kool-aid"?

Granted, if just about anyone else had been in office but Bushco, 9/11 probably would have been avoided. However, can you deny the death of 3000 innocent Americans? Can you deny that the Twin Towers are no longer there? Or that the Pentagon ws attacked? Or that a United flight crashed because the passengers rebelled against their kidnappers?

Remember, there was a reason that Clinton fired a cruise missle into Afghanistan.

Yes, the war in Iraq was unjustified and illegal. The war in Afghanistan was justified and necessary. And it does have a purpose.

Yes, al-Qaeda has been driven into the mountains of Pakistan. And, yes, they have to be rooted out. We also need to at least attempt to stablie Afghanistan. If not, the Taliban will regain control and once again harbor al-Qaeda and give them a HQ and training grounds as well as strong recruiting.

Of course, al-Qaeda has cells in many different countries and we must continue international police efforts to stop them or at least contain them. But we cannot allow them to regain a foothold in Afghanistan.

One of the biggest mistakes we made in the Afghanistan/Soviet war was simply leaving when the Soviets did. We cannot afford to make the same mistake again. We must leave Afghanistan at least a little better off than we found it, or else we will see history repeat itself.

Many things have changed in Afghanistan, and we must adjust our strategies. This was the mistake Bushco made, basically ignoring Afghanistan. This is also what Obama has been "dithering" about. He will announce the new plans and strategies on Tuesday, so everything you have stated is pure speculation at this point.

Oh, and PS - I don't appreciate being called a "moron". Although considering by your posts you have no clue what you are talking about I'll consider the source and accept it as a compliment.

[Oregone]

11. A mindset justifying an immediate full scale ground invasion against goat farmers...

in response to isolated criminal activity by a gang of (mostly) Saudi Arabians


Face it. The US got hurt. It was angry and scared and needed to lash out. The US wanted blood.


No time for questions. Those were for wimps, traitors, commies, and others who gave aid and comfort to the enemy. We needed blood before the live 24/7 rubble cams shut down.


It was a fucked, fucked time to be an American.

[johnaries]

20. Wow, Rove would have been proud of that spin!

Looks like you need a quick history lesson. The people who masterminded the 9/11 attacks were being harbored in Afghanistan by a repressive regime. We asked that regime to turn the criminals over to face justice. They refused. We warned them that if they did not turn over the criminals that they would be considered complicit and we would attack and come after the criminals ourselves. They still refused. So we followed up on our demands.

By aiding and harboring al-Qaeda, the Taliban was complicit in the attacks.

Now, we are trying to stabilize Afghanistan so the "goat farmers" can live in peace and the Taliban won't return to harbor and aid more terrorists who will continue to attack the US and our allies at every opportunity.

Unfortunately, Bushco dropped the ball and has let Afghanistan become less stable rather than more so. We owe it both to ourselves and to the Afghan's try and stabilize the region as best we can.

[LooseWilly]

13. So, election histrionics aside... Why fight the war(s)?

In terms of the "official justifications" for the initiation of the wars: WMDs in Iraq, and pursuit of bin Laden/al Qa'eda in Afghanistan... well, both wars were colossal clusterfuck failures... and we might as well come on home. (As for the notion of the obligation to stabilize Afghanistan, and secure progress toward greater rights for women, etc... I suggest anyone making that argument check out the wiki on the history of Afghanistan... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan ... scroll down to the 1978-1979 history of the communist government in particular and notice that they were already on the road to all those things... until the US funded and trained the Mujaheddin to undermine that government, simply to fuck with the Soviets...)

Bullshit US propaganda about giving a shit about "justice" aside- Should we stay or should we go?

I've found a couple of stories that might be worth reading:
Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
by William Clark> (www.energybulletin.net) ... which opens very interestingly with

Contemporary warfare has traditionally involved underlying conflicts regarding economics and resources. Today these intertwined conflicts also involve international currencies, and thus increased complexity. Current geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran extend beyond the publicly stated concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear intentions, and likely include a proposed Iranian “petroeuro” system for oil trade.

Similar to the Iraq war, military operations against Iran relate to the macroeconomics of ‘petrodollar recycling’ and the unpublicized but real challenge to U.S. dollar supremacy from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.

It is now obvious the invasion of Iraq had less to do with any threat from Saddam’s long-gone WMD program and certainly less to do to do with fighting International terrorism than it has to do with gaining strategic control over Iraq’s hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so maintain the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the critical international oil market. Throughout 2004 information provided by former administration insiders revealed the Bush/Cheney administration entered into office with the intention of toppling Saddam Hussein.

and,

Welcome to Pipelineistan —By Pepe Escobar (www.motherjones.com) ... which likewise opens interestingly with

What happens on the immense battlefield for the control of Eurasia will provide the ultimate plot line in the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game.

Our good ol' friend the nonsensical "Global War on Terror," which the Pentagon has slyly rebranded "the Long War," sports a far more important, if half-hidden, twin—a global energy war. I like to think of it as the Liquid War, because its bloodstream is the pipelines that crisscross the potential imperial battlefields of the planet. Put another way, if its crucial embattled frontier these days is the Caspian Basin, the whole of Eurasia is its chessboard. Think of it, geographically, as Pipelineistan.

So, a long read through those two articles... and it becomes obvious that Iraq, Afghanistan, and potentially Iran, are players/battlefields in the global energy war for dominance over the means of production, distribution, and sale of oil (energy). It also becomes obvious that the current global military dominance of the US is being used to try to force a dollar standard onto all global oil sales... and it is also suggested that, should that dollar standard be broken... the US economy is "toast".

Needless to say, the complete destruction of the US economy (as it now exists anyway) is something that corporate interests will twist the living shit out of the arms and legs of any president, D or R, to prevent. And, if a president, D or R, will drop everything to look after Investment Banks and the Insurance Conglomerates that underwrite them... imagine what all they will drop into any convenient shitter in order to fight to maintain the Energy-Finance sector of the global economy (& I have no idea what all else segments of the global economy dove-tail in here... but A LOT, I suspect)?

And there we have it, I think. There is no way that Obama can NOT send the troops, and fight the fight. Failure to do so could endanger the entire house of cards that is the current US economy... and perhaps the entire global economy.

Unless, of course... somehow the Power Structure of this country could be re-organized. An economy that doesn't depend on buying imports with dollars that will never be used to turn around and buy US products... but rather will come back to the US through the oil purchases in NY... an economy that doesn't depend on World Bank loans to developing countries with the caveat that they MUST turn around and use the money to pay US corporations to build their infrastructure projects (using local sub contractors, no doubt, and pocketing 75 cents on the dollar in the process)... with the threat of the World Bank stepping in and re-organizing the developing country's entire economy to "help development" (make more money for foreign corporations doing business locally) if the developing country should happen to default on the loan... etc.

But, if the Democratic Party can't even pass a real health care reform, what are the odds of them restructuring the economy in order to brace for the eventual slipping of the dollar's control (and the pound sterling, in the London exchanges... which detail explains why the UK refuses to convert to the Euro like the rest of the EU) over the Energy Markets?

So... the question then, is: Are we as a nation willing to jeopardize our entire economy (which rest apparently upon some Byzantine geopolitical long term project guesswork...) by sabotaging the war effort to maintain control of "pipelineistan"?

(I, for one, am game. Anyone else?)

[harun]

14. I still come to DU because a few people are left who post well thought out intelligent posts like

this.

Thank You!

[timeforpeace]

15. Perfect. "...it was political posturing" Precisely. Resulting in being painted into a corner now.

[mike_c]

17. excellent post, K&R....

Thank you!

[ProSense]

18. Except that as far as the 2004 candidate, this is revisionist history

It was the perfect tool for a party perceived as war-wimps to beat the drum, talk tough on war, and still criticize Bush's imperialism and his failures.

Kerry never once minced words in opposing Iraq:

And the truth is that George Bush has made America weaker by overextending the armed forces of the United States, overstraining, overstraining our reserves, driving away our allies and running the most arrogant, reckless, inept and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country.

link

If the president would move in this direction, if he would bring in more help from other countries to provide resources and to train the Iraqis to provide their own security and to develop a reconstruction plan that brings real benefits to the Iraqi people, and take the steps necessary to hold elections next year, if all of that happened, we could begin to withdraw U.S. forces starting next summer and realistically aim to bring our troops home within the next four years.

link

I will make a flat statement: The United States of America has no long-term designs on staying in Iraq.

KERRY: And our goal in my administration would be to get all of the troops out of there with a minimal amount you need for training and logistics as we do in some other countries in the world after a war to be able to sustain the peace.

link

Do you remember that Kerry angered the Republicans one week into the Iraq war by calling for regime change in the United States?

As far as Afghanistan, Kerry wanted Bush to refocus on terrorism and not a conventional war. In fact, Kerry's entire 2004 campaign was about moving away from using the military to deal with terrorism by sending a few thousand specialized forces to Afghanistan to do just that: shift away from the so-called war on terror to dealing with terrorism through international crime fighting measures.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

19. The OP is not about the 2004 campaign

[ProSense]

21. It's a theory

About the time that the Democrats started really emphasizing the need to fight in Afghanistan, Bush was running a full blown cluster fuck in Iraq.

Ending the Iraq war was the focus of the 2008 campaign. The statement above is very general, and the 2004 campaign can be used to refute it.

Obama's campaign promise to refocus on Afghanistan was just that. He committed more troops earlier in the year. There is nothing about his campaign that stated that he will commit troops to Afghanistan no matter what. He is making an assessment and he needs to do the right thing, even if that means setting a timetable to withdraw from Afghanistan.





Edited for clarity.