Posted by
Bill Crawford on Thursday, June 11, 2009 4:39:40 PM
I've been trying to work this one out for a few weeks now. Afghanistan was supposed to be the "good" war, Iraq the "bad" war. Kabul was supposed to be the place where we went back to the holy Colin Powell Doctrine from the Gulf War- you know, clear mission, clear exit strategy, no troops without the proper support, etc.
So here we are, having given anybody who wants to know a clear date of our withdrawal in Iraq, and Obama is alienating his own base to gird up the new primary theater next door. For what?
To build a democracy in the Middle East? Hardly, not even Bush's neo-coms were trying that. To fight Al Quaeda? Everybody is telling me they are trying to take over Pakistan (and the nuclear arsenal there). To fight the Taliban? Which one? The Afghan Taliban? The Pakistani Taliban still clearly in country? The Taliban doing opium and cocaine trafficking with the local warlords? Or do we choose one from column A and one from column B?
What the hell are we doing there, Mr. President? I am not your base, okay? I am not uncomfortable with the concept of the projection of military power. Ratchet up a teleprompter and tell me what is going on.
Bush was not a master at communicating this stuff publicly, but it didn't take much to read between the lines and figure out what the plan was. I used to defend him all the time, and was able each time to present what he was trying to do, even when it wasn't working well.
If I were trying to argue for Obama today, I wouldn't have a idea where to start. Can anybody clue me in? Tell me what I am missing? Educate me.