OpEd:
Afghanistan Should Be An Apolitical Issue
December 3, 2009 by Kyle BradyTags: Afghanistan, Congress, Iraq, Obama, Politics, War
As required by the FTC, a Full Disclosure is available - this piece adheres to the Code of Ethics
On Tuesday night, President Obama made a speech that outlined his intentions and commitments regarding the American presence in Afghanistan, and the reactions, which began before the speech was even given, have been rather predictable. The decision to add 30,000 American troops to the region, with a subsequent entire withdrawal before January 2012, has redrawn party lines in a noticeable fashion, even though a new-found and unprecedented level of war-time transparency, at least in recent history, has been introduced.
Republicans have been, in general, accepting of the proposal, but are attempting to use it as a tool to predictably block out all other important issues, such as healthcare reform, the re-regulation of financial industry, and Net Neutrality. Democrats, however, are an entirely different issue: opinions on President Obama’s announcement speech run the gamut from those frustrated but in agreement out of realistic necessity to angry pacifists. For once, it seems that the Republicans are the party that seems to be closest to sanity, and this is extremely troubling.
Afghanistan is a tricky issue: the nation is not in any way similar to those found in the Western World – their borders exist only in the loosest sense of the word, the government is a shaky organization that has moderate control of the country at best, its people are divided into different cultural and tribal sects that don’t often cooperate or coordinate with each other, and their enforcement abilities are virtually nonexistent. This set of circumstances existed prior to the arrival of the United States and its Allies into the region eight years ago, but the last near-decade has only exacerbated the situation, as troops press against the declared stateless enemies throughout the region.
Unlike Iraq, the reasoning for having forces inside Afghanistan is clear: Afghanistan exists as a training ground for those who have declared an undying hatred, and holy war, against the Western World, and its issues bleed over into Pakistan, who are themselves part of an unstable relationship with India that is in the world’s best interest to closely monitor. The last eight years, however, have been a half-hearted attempt by the coalition forces in the region to deal with these issues, as attention was quickly refocused on an entirely unrelated Iraqi situation that had questionable intent at best. President Obama inherited this situation, and must now deal with the aftermath appropriately rather than making gut decisions or, even worse, letting the situation continue as-is.
For President Obama, there are essentially five options in Afghanistan: withdraw immediately, continue as-is, continue as-is with an end date, press harder without an end date, or press harder with an end date. Withdrawing immediately would start a catastrophic chain reaction that would invalidate the efforts of recent years, and is therefore not a legitimate option – just as continuing half-heartedly as-is is not. Similarly, continuing as-is with an end date is unacceptable, since it would essentially be admitting defeat, but with an expiration date. This then leaves two options: press harder without an end date, or press harder with an end date.
President Obama obviously chose the latter option, which is the intelligent choice since the military industrial complex would prefer to go on fighting forever rather than give up what they love, and profit from, doing. Contrary to some popular belief, this new policy is not against Obama’s campaign promises – he campaigned on neither a “no war” platform nor a “leave both wars immediately and forever” platform. He had indicated that he believed, as most did, that the situation in Iraq needed to be ended, and focus should be returned to Afghanistan, as that is where American foreign policy concerns directly intersect with domestic security.
This, however, is not understood by those who are typically supporters of the current President – a large number of Democrats, especially within Congress, are essentially pacifists by declaration or behavior, and cannot comprehend this complex issue. Keith Olbermann, while ultimately in disagreement with the President, perfectly encapsulated the problem as "lose to win, sink to swim, escalate to disengage", and several Congressional Democrats have stated they will not vote for the approval of these military expenditures since they don’t see the logic behind increasing troops to leave earlier.
Understandably, this is a complex issue, but politics and ideology should be kept well outside the boundaries of this discussion – the security of America, her borders and people should not be subject to a bickering about beliefs. Progressives and pacifist Democrats need to understand the very clear logic behind committing the appropriate resources to a task in order to accomplish it in a timely fashion, and Republicans must comprehend as well that the military’s endeavors do not eclipse all other issues within the nation. President Obama inherited an unenviable military situation and must now handle it in a fashion appropriate to his intentions, which he has communicated very clearly during the last ten months as reestablishing the power and nobility of America throughout the world.
In order to do this, President Obama must demonstrate to both the American people and the world at large that this country is once again in a position to fully commit resources to its goals. Furthermore, he has merely outlined his policy goals in a brief speech and has not written a dissertation, or even released a full policy description to the public. The longview of America's presence in Afghanistan has been established in the speech, but the minute details are not available, and likely won’t be, for the public to analyze and criticize, invalidating punditry on the viability of granular policy detail.
Presidents do not deserve a dedicated, unthinking following, despite what the previous administration may have believed; however, it is important to leave issues such as the security of the nation and the viability of another, which was severely damaged by the military’s very hands, outside the realms of partisanship, ideology, and high-minded ideals - instead exchanging wishes for reality in a factual, analytical assessment of the situation and its needs.
Barack Obama is the President that was elected for his intellectual abilities – it’s time, once again, to let him exercise them outside the realm of petty party politics.
Kyle can be found on Twitter and MySpace, or reached via email.
