Current events are perpetually confusing and confounding to those who lack a sense of historical perspective. To the citizen with a reasonable education and a bit of curiosity, to he who is willing to dig and research, current events become a fascinating subject of contemplation.
I am astonished by the events surrounding the Obama administration’s handling of the war in Afghanistan. The Obama team ran their 2008 campaign not so much against the Republican presidential candidate, Senator McCain, as much as against former President George Bush, and tirelessly reiterated that the war in Afghanistan had been the “good war”, while the war in Iraq had been a disastrous misadventure and a “distraction” from the real “war on terror” (or “International Contingency Plan”, or whatever the phrase may be now).
That argument seemed somewhat reasonable and even many independents and moderate Republicans might have agreed. When Obama took office, he immediately risked alienating himself from his base when he decided to send 20,000 troops to Afghanistan to reinforce our small forces already in place. He then decided to form a “better strategy” that considered the “end game”—a swell phrase actually meaning: “how do we get the hell out of there”.
He appointed General McChrystal to head up the forces, and in March announced they had a new strategy. When General McChrystal wrote his report and requested around 40,000 additional troops in September to add to the 68,000 that were currently deployed, Obama seemed to stumble. He dithered around until December, excusing his pathetic inaction on the need “for a new strategy”—perhaps we should dub it “Obama War Strategy 2.0”.
He finally committed himself to a plan in December. Obama has decided to send—not the 40,000 troops requested—an additional 30,000. I can imagine that this must have been a tough decision on his part, since it is sure to alienate him from his far left base, which is already on the attack against him. So I feel it is fair to praise his “courage” for deciding to send additional troops and to shore up the forces.
Obama’s decision to send troops was also announced with a planned time-table for departure—or should I say, “retreat”: Summer 2011 and end in 2013.
Curiously, in his article in the Guardian UK, Ewen MacAskill, titled “Obama’s War: the final push in Afghanistan”, MacAskill wrote that “US officials said Obama wants almost all the US troops out before the end of his first term in office in January 2013, leaving behind a small contingency force. Gibbs said the president did not want to leave the problem to his successor.”
For a team that crowed that the GOP is in decline and will be out of power for the next forty years, the year 2013 should be not be considered the first year in office for “his successor”. What happened to all that confidence that Obama was “The One”? It almost appears that the Obama team has come to the conclusion that the battle can’t be won. No, not in Afghanistan: I’m talking about Obama’s re-election!
So, in one article, we find three amazing blunders by the Obama team.
First, it seems somewhat foolish to take the political risk of sending troops, an action that will irritate the left, but to send a smaller number than requested and which may not be enough—a decision that leaves him open to harsh criticism if he has to send more later on, or if he decides to abandon the effort as “futile”, since he can be accused of having provided insufficient support in order to win. His inability to make up his mind made him look weak, indecisive, and perhaps—dare I say it—cowardly. He has exposed himself thusly on both political flanks.
Second, by announcing a time-table for departure, he has not only signaled to our enemy what our plans are and the limits of our resolve, he has also boxed himself in. What if we are losing and need new troops? He won’t be able to send more without appearing foolish. What if things have stabilized but we need a little more time? He will be out of time, and will have to back-pedal in an election year. His only way of coming out ahead is if we suddenly win the war, the Taliban pack their tents and give up, and Al Qaeda is destroyed. What are the odds of that happening?
Third, it appears that, like Obama inadvertently signaling weakness and lack of confidence to our enemy, Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs seems to have signaled a loss of confidence within the Whitehouse about the possibility of re-election.
There are even more bizarre statements being made by the left. When MSNBC’s analyst Chris Matthews discussed the speech, he actually called the West Point venue “the enemy camp”.
"They start with a lot of excitement. I remember the scene in ‘Gone with the Wind' where the rebels are so excited about going to war with the North, a country they can't beat because of its industrial advantage and population advantage. They are going to lose that war eventually. I watched the cadets, they were young kids - men and women who were committed to serving their country professionally it must be said, as officers. And, I didn't see much excitement. But among the older people there, I saw, if not resentment, skepticism. I didn't see a lot of warmth in that crowd out there. The president chose to address tonight and I thought it was interesting. He went to maybe the enemy camp tonight to make his case. I mean, that's where Paul Wolfowitz used to write speeches for, back in the old Bush days. That's where he went to rabble-rouse the "we're going to democratize the world" campaign back in '02. So, I thought it was a strange venue."
What is strange is that our “elite” journalists actually think that West Point is enemy territory. They must be fantastically out of touch with reality, to be surprised to not see “much excitement” among the young cadets who are facing being sent to war. Does he honestly think those kids should look forward to risking life and limb in a very dangerous engagement? Is Matthews really stating that the limit of his understanding of the military mindset was formed by his viewing of “Gone with the Wind”? He says he didn’t see much “warmth” from the older officers…well golly, Chris, when your president has left their troops without sufficient reinforcements for nine months after the initial request for troops came in, what do you expect to see? When they hear the Commander in Chief alert the enemy about the limits of our commitment, when that commander sets new and dangerous precedent by forcing troops to “Mirandize” enemy combatants and places enormous new burdens on those troops that puts their lives at danger, do you actually expect them to “get a shiver up their legs” to hear your beloved Ditherer in Chief speak?
There was another phrase in Matthew’s idiotic statement that made me raise an eyebrow. When he says that the Southern Rebels were enthusiastic to go to war against the North, “a country they can’t beat because of economic and population advantage”, he again reveals a profound ignorance and contradicts the very argument about the war that he and other liberals are making.
“Ignorance”, I say, because the “under-populated” and “economically disadvantaged” South damn near beat the North. If Matthews would read more history, he might find out that the North, which had anticipated a swift and decisive victory, was greatly surprised by the tenacity, determination and military prowess of the Southern army. The mood in the North turned decisively against the war, and President Lincoln was beset by the “Copperheads”, AKA “Peace Democrats” who petitioned him to negotiate an end to the war—without victory (I guess then, as now, “victory” was never the objective in war for Democrats).
What’s truly amazing is that Democrats have been saying that victory is “impossible” against these “insurgent forces”—even though the Afghan insurgents are challenged by a much smaller population and economic disadvantages when compared to the might of the USA. So, which is it? If the defeat of the South in the Civil War was inevitable due to these limitations, then isn’t the defeat of the Taliban also inevitable for the same reasons?
Of course not. What defeated the South, and what will defeat the Taliban, is something that none of these effete and arrogant “Peace Democrats” have to offer: true grit. That is something George Bush had in Spades, and which Obama appears to aspire to, but has no experience with.
Is it any wonder the older officers were visibly skeptical?
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
An analysis of Resignation Letter by Matthew Hoh
The resignation letter of Matthew Hoh, the U.S.’s Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan, represented the highest civilian official resignation over the war and has been received with some fanfare by the left, as well as trepidation by the Obama administration, who has reached out to him and tried to coax him to reconsider or, alternatively, to rejoin them by taking a domestic post where he can influence U.S. policy there.
But what has been glaringly absent is a real analysis of the absurd statements made by this young man. While we should be respectful of his service, the fact that he served honorably in both a military and civilian position for the nation should not excuse his resignation letter from scrutiny. And once the veneer of his letter is peeled back, a number of blatantly idiotic opinions become revealed.
For starters, Hoh states that “…the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries.”
This single phrase is the heart of Hoh’s ridiculous opinion. It is true that al-Qaeda agents, working in European and American cities, planned and executed the attacks, and it’s also true that these were primarily Saudi citizens. But his statement grossly overlooks the fact that it was Afghanistan where the al-Qaeda terrorists received most of their training, and served as the enclave from which their highest officers organized, funded, and ordered attacks. The Taliban were not only complicit, but were directly responsible because they provided material and moral support for the al-Qaeda terror organization. After the attack, they brazenly protected the perpetrators and responded to the world—not just the United States—with arrogant threats and challenges, instead of helping the world to get its hands on these bloodied murderers.
Hoh then continues: “The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.”
Revealing a perverse form of the Stockholm syndrome, Hoh displays more sympathy for the Pashtun tribesmen who resent U.S. presence than he does the U.S. cause. If it was primarily the Pashtun who form the Taliban, and if it was the Taliban who supported al-Qaeda—which by its nature was primarily composed of foreign mercenary terrorists including Saudi, Georgian, Pakistanis and other nationalities—then it is fair to say that the Pashtun were not overly concerned about the presence of foreign fighters when they were initially in their midst, and it was their complicity with their actions that brought the full wrath of the United States to their lands. To say that their insurgency is “justified” is an attempt to obviate the fact that the invasion of Afghanistan was also justified, a rhetorical action that appears to undermine U.S. interests and a just response to a horrendous act of war.
Hoh says that “…this is not the European or Pacific theaters of World War II, but rather is a war for which our leaders, uniformed, civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our men and women.”
No, indeed it is not. But like the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was al-Qaeda and its close allies in the Taliban who launched the preemptive strike on the United States. The U.S. response to the Japanese was focused, furious, and justified. Hoh’s illogical argument would have rendered the American bellicose response on Japan inutile and would have justified any Japanese response as “justified”.
What’s more, for an individual who claims to know U.S. military history, he is either staggeringly ignorant of the facts surrounding World War II, or purposely overlooks the harsh realities of that war. It is false to pretend that U.S. troops in WWII were somehow better equipped than today’s soldiers. Their equipment was far more primitive and sparse than what our troops enjoy today. Leadership vacuums existed then, as now, and many horrific mistakes were made that cost our troops thousands of lives. In a single example, known as Exercise Tiger, which was a practice drill in preparation for the Normandy invasion, lack of preparation, leadership mistakes, and a surprise U-Boat attack killed nearly as many men in one day as what the U.S. has lost in Afghanistan over the course of eight years. What’s more, that exercise alone killed nearly three times as many men as what died on Utah Beach during the actual invasion. Many mistakes were made throughout the war included troops ordered to attack non-existant artillery emplacements, paratroopers accidentally dropped far from intended targets, troops killed by friendly fire and bombed by allied planes.
War is hell, they say. It always has been and always will be. Our troops have found themselves ill-equipped since the Revolutionary War, and have suffered horrendous losses to friendly fire and other mistakes, including the incident that killed Confederate General Longstreet in the Civil War. By comparison, our troops today are far better equipped, trained, and supported than at any other time in history.
Hoh’s most egregious comments are when he begins to question the entire strategy for the war. For example, he points out that the corruption and incompetence of the new Afghan government “reminds me of our involvement in South Vietnam.” He never bothers to consider that this new, incompetent government is a vast improvement over the brutality, inhumanity, cruelty and stone-age incompetence of the Taliban government, if we dare to even call it a “government”. The problems he highlights regarding fraud and corruption can be overcome with time, and are not unique to the Afghan government. What’s more, Vietnam did not attack the United States, but the previous Afghan government was complicit in the attacks on the United States which—by the way—killed more US citizens than the number who died at Pearl Harbor.
Hoh then says: “I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc….to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan…”
To suggest that we should “occupy western Pakistan” reveals yet another foolish opinion. Pakistan is not an enemy state; they have allied themselves with the United States to combat the Taliban terrorists and have lost more soldiers and civilians in this effort than we have (some estimates claim there have been thousands of deaths in Pakistan due to their assistance, including the assassinated Benazir Bhutto). While they have been neither as effective nor as cooperative as we would like, the Pakistanis have made great sacrifices and have risked their own internal peace in the effort to stamp out Taliban radicalism. And I must again remind Hoh that, while Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen were not involved in the 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan was. Yet despite that fact, the United States is in fact struggling to contain the terrorist threats that emanate from those nations. Hoh’s illogical conclusion appears to suggest that because the war in Afghanistan is difficult and costly, and because there are other threats also, if we don’t invade all the nations that threaten us, we should not invade any.
To refer back to WWII, it would be as if Hoh suggested that we should not have attacked Germany, Italy and Japan because we did not attack Spain, which had been a Nazi ally (even if Franco did remain neutral in the war). The Soviet Union, like Pakistan, was both a threat and an ally, but we did not invade Russia. So Hoh’s analysis reveals an infantile misunderstanding of strategy: if you can’t attack everywhere at once, then you should refrain from attacking anywhere at all.
Even a chess novice could see that this “strategy” is no strategy at all, but is instead an excuse for cowardice.
Hoh further reveals his ignorance when he says that “if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.”
Is Hoh unaware of our nation’s deep involvement in Mexico (not to mention Colombia)? Has he never heard of our efforts to strengthen their democracy, of our investment of time, resources and manpower in the counter-narcotic struggle?
Hoh summarizes his discontent by stating that our effort in Afghanistan “has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure.” To my knowledge, none of our civilian and military leaders have provided naïve positive statements about the war that could be described accurately as “Pollyannaish”.
Every assessment I have heard has been frank, forthright, worrisome, but has not promoted a hopeless and cynical call for retreat and surrender, which is what Hoh appears to promote.
But what has been glaringly absent is a real analysis of the absurd statements made by this young man. While we should be respectful of his service, the fact that he served honorably in both a military and civilian position for the nation should not excuse his resignation letter from scrutiny. And once the veneer of his letter is peeled back, a number of blatantly idiotic opinions become revealed.
For starters, Hoh states that “…the September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid and London bombings, were primarily planned and organized in Western Europe; a point that highlights the threat is not one tied to traditional geographic or political boundaries.”
This single phrase is the heart of Hoh’s ridiculous opinion. It is true that al-Qaeda agents, working in European and American cities, planned and executed the attacks, and it’s also true that these were primarily Saudi citizens. But his statement grossly overlooks the fact that it was Afghanistan where the al-Qaeda terrorists received most of their training, and served as the enclave from which their highest officers organized, funded, and ordered attacks. The Taliban were not only complicit, but were directly responsible because they provided material and moral support for the al-Qaeda terror organization. After the attack, they brazenly protected the perpetrators and responded to the world—not just the United States—with arrogant threats and challenges, instead of helping the world to get its hands on these bloodied murderers.
Hoh then continues: “The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.”
Revealing a perverse form of the Stockholm syndrome, Hoh displays more sympathy for the Pashtun tribesmen who resent U.S. presence than he does the U.S. cause. If it was primarily the Pashtun who form the Taliban, and if it was the Taliban who supported al-Qaeda—which by its nature was primarily composed of foreign mercenary terrorists including Saudi, Georgian, Pakistanis and other nationalities—then it is fair to say that the Pashtun were not overly concerned about the presence of foreign fighters when they were initially in their midst, and it was their complicity with their actions that brought the full wrath of the United States to their lands. To say that their insurgency is “justified” is an attempt to obviate the fact that the invasion of Afghanistan was also justified, a rhetorical action that appears to undermine U.S. interests and a just response to a horrendous act of war.
Hoh says that “…this is not the European or Pacific theaters of World War II, but rather is a war for which our leaders, uniformed, civilian and elected, have inadequately prepared and resourced our men and women.”
No, indeed it is not. But like the attack on Pearl Harbor, it was al-Qaeda and its close allies in the Taliban who launched the preemptive strike on the United States. The U.S. response to the Japanese was focused, furious, and justified. Hoh’s illogical argument would have rendered the American bellicose response on Japan inutile and would have justified any Japanese response as “justified”.
What’s more, for an individual who claims to know U.S. military history, he is either staggeringly ignorant of the facts surrounding World War II, or purposely overlooks the harsh realities of that war. It is false to pretend that U.S. troops in WWII were somehow better equipped than today’s soldiers. Their equipment was far more primitive and sparse than what our troops enjoy today. Leadership vacuums existed then, as now, and many horrific mistakes were made that cost our troops thousands of lives. In a single example, known as Exercise Tiger, which was a practice drill in preparation for the Normandy invasion, lack of preparation, leadership mistakes, and a surprise U-Boat attack killed nearly as many men in one day as what the U.S. has lost in Afghanistan over the course of eight years. What’s more, that exercise alone killed nearly three times as many men as what died on Utah Beach during the actual invasion. Many mistakes were made throughout the war included troops ordered to attack non-existant artillery emplacements, paratroopers accidentally dropped far from intended targets, troops killed by friendly fire and bombed by allied planes.
War is hell, they say. It always has been and always will be. Our troops have found themselves ill-equipped since the Revolutionary War, and have suffered horrendous losses to friendly fire and other mistakes, including the incident that killed Confederate General Longstreet in the Civil War. By comparison, our troops today are far better equipped, trained, and supported than at any other time in history.
Hoh’s most egregious comments are when he begins to question the entire strategy for the war. For example, he points out that the corruption and incompetence of the new Afghan government “reminds me of our involvement in South Vietnam.” He never bothers to consider that this new, incompetent government is a vast improvement over the brutality, inhumanity, cruelty and stone-age incompetence of the Taliban government, if we dare to even call it a “government”. The problems he highlights regarding fraud and corruption can be overcome with time, and are not unique to the Afghan government. What’s more, Vietnam did not attack the United States, but the previous Afghan government was complicit in the attacks on the United States which—by the way—killed more US citizens than the number who died at Pearl Harbor.
Hoh then says: “I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan. If honest, our stated strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy western Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc….to follow the logic of our stated goals we should garrison Pakistan…”
To suggest that we should “occupy western Pakistan” reveals yet another foolish opinion. Pakistan is not an enemy state; they have allied themselves with the United States to combat the Taliban terrorists and have lost more soldiers and civilians in this effort than we have (some estimates claim there have been thousands of deaths in Pakistan due to their assistance, including the assassinated Benazir Bhutto). While they have been neither as effective nor as cooperative as we would like, the Pakistanis have made great sacrifices and have risked their own internal peace in the effort to stamp out Taliban radicalism. And I must again remind Hoh that, while Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen were not involved in the 9/11 attacks, Afghanistan was. Yet despite that fact, the United States is in fact struggling to contain the terrorist threats that emanate from those nations. Hoh’s illogical conclusion appears to suggest that because the war in Afghanistan is difficult and costly, and because there are other threats also, if we don’t invade all the nations that threaten us, we should not invade any.
To refer back to WWII, it would be as if Hoh suggested that we should not have attacked Germany, Italy and Japan because we did not attack Spain, which had been a Nazi ally (even if Franco did remain neutral in the war). The Soviet Union, like Pakistan, was both a threat and an ally, but we did not invade Russia. So Hoh’s analysis reveals an infantile misunderstanding of strategy: if you can’t attack everywhere at once, then you should refrain from attacking anywhere at all.
Even a chess novice could see that this “strategy” is no strategy at all, but is instead an excuse for cowardice.
Hoh further reveals his ignorance when he says that “if our concern is for a failed state crippled by corruption and poverty and under assault from criminal and drug lords, then if we bear our military and financial contributions to Afghanistan, we must reevaluate and increase our commitment to and involvement in Mexico.”
Is Hoh unaware of our nation’s deep involvement in Mexico (not to mention Colombia)? Has he never heard of our efforts to strengthen their democracy, of our investment of time, resources and manpower in the counter-narcotic struggle?
Hoh summarizes his discontent by stating that our effort in Afghanistan “has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure.” To my knowledge, none of our civilian and military leaders have provided naïve positive statements about the war that could be described accurately as “Pollyannaish”.
Every assessment I have heard has been frank, forthright, worrisome, but has not promoted a hopeless and cynical call for retreat and surrender, which is what Hoh appears to promote.
Friday, September 4, 2009
When homosexuals guard the gate
In one of the most bizarre and offensive twists to the war in Afghanistan, new photographs revealed embassy guards engaged in heavy drinking and lewd sexual acts, such as licking each other’s nipples, grabbing each other's testicles, apparently buggering each other anally, and pouring alcohol down the backs of other guards and drinking it from the buttocks of other guards.
ABC News reports:
“Private security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were pressured to participate in naked pool parties and perform sex acts to gain promotions or assignment to preferable shifts, according to one of 12 guards who have gone public with their complaints.”
Photos of the behavior have been released that show naked men engaging in sexual “play” with other men. As a result, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that “the alleged lewd behavior of guards at the US Embassy in Kabul is ‘offensive’ {and} inexcusable’.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has requested an investigation into the behavior.
Ironically, the one aspect of this issue that has gone unmentioned is that the offensive behavior was not just “lewd”; it was homosexual. At the same time the Liberals and the Obama administration have been talking about overturning the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military that would allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military, America has just suffered a tremendous disservice by men engaging in homosexual behavior while they were supposed to be guarding our Embassy.
Not only will this serve as a tremendous propaganda boon for the Islamist extremists who want to portray America as a sinful nation, it will also damage the reputation of the US military and civilian guards, even though apparently no US military were engaged in the acts. This type of orgiastic indulgence is not an exception to homosexuality: it is quite typical of it.
These incidents should serve as a warning to everyone. This is exactly why homosexuals should not be allowed to serve “openly” within the military.
Yet again, American values have been embarrassingly undermined by the Liberal tolerance of homosexuals.
ABC News reports:
“Private security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were pressured to participate in naked pool parties and perform sex acts to gain promotions or assignment to preferable shifts, according to one of 12 guards who have gone public with their complaints.”
Photos of the behavior have been released that show naked men engaging in sexual “play” with other men. As a result, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that “the alleged lewd behavior of guards at the US Embassy in Kabul is ‘offensive’ {and} inexcusable’.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has requested an investigation into the behavior.
Ironically, the one aspect of this issue that has gone unmentioned is that the offensive behavior was not just “lewd”; it was homosexual. At the same time the Liberals and the Obama administration have been talking about overturning the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the US military that would allow homosexuals to openly serve in the military, America has just suffered a tremendous disservice by men engaging in homosexual behavior while they were supposed to be guarding our Embassy.
Not only will this serve as a tremendous propaganda boon for the Islamist extremists who want to portray America as a sinful nation, it will also damage the reputation of the US military and civilian guards, even though apparently no US military were engaged in the acts. This type of orgiastic indulgence is not an exception to homosexuality: it is quite typical of it.
These incidents should serve as a warning to everyone. This is exactly why homosexuals should not be allowed to serve “openly” within the military.
Yet again, American values have been embarrassingly undermined by the Liberal tolerance of homosexuals.
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