In July of 2008 during the presidential campaign Obama wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan.
While this disappointed many of his supporters, it was widely regarded among progressives as a hat tip to the conservadems, and not really in character with his true anti-war persona.
Be that as it may, many are now defending Obama’s latest troop escalation declaring that he always promised us that he would increase troop levels in Afghanistan.
Real News Network CEO Paul Jay talks with freelance journalist and author Reese Erlich following Obama’s announcement about dispatching 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
Erlich’s books include the 2003 best-seller, Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You, 2007’s The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of US Policy and the Middle-East Crisis, and his newest release Dateline Havana: The Real Story of US Policy and the Future of Cuba. He has produced many radio documentaries, including a series hosted by Walter Cronkite.
Last night after the Presidents speech at West Point, and since, everyone is attempting to break it down, praise it, or totally attack the policy of another escalation of troops into an already long running occupation of the country of Afghanistan. This occupation stopped being anything about the attacks on this country on Sept 11, 2001 as soon as the first drumbeat towards invasion and then long occupation of an innocent country and people Iraq. Afghanistan stagnated into an occupation and insurgent war of continuing death and destruction to all involved but especially to the greater innocent population of Afghanistan now into it’s ninth year!
For anyone who didn’t want to watch it, the full text of Obama’s Tuesday night speech is available here, from AFP via RawStory.
On Monday (Dec 01) Gallup reported that Barack Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan had dropped dramatically by nearly 20 points since July, and before his speech Tuesday night was sitting at 35%, trailing his already very low approval rating on virtually all other issues:
“Americans are far less approving of President Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan than they have been in recent months, with 35% currently approving, down from 49% in September and 56% in July.”
Gallup’s poll results are rather striking in visual form:
Even when broken down by political party his approval slide has been consistent across the board.
Okay folks, here’s the money quote that says it all:
Republicans generally gave Obama high marks for deciding to send 30,000 more troops.
“If you would have told me a year into the president’s administration (that) he would have doubled our presence in Afghanistan … plus not reduce our troops meaningfully in Iraq … I would have a hard time believing it,” Dan Senor, who was a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq under former President George W. Bush, said in a conference call arranged by the Republican National Committee. “So I’m pleasantly surprised!”
–Dan Senor, former Bush Administration Official, CFR-Neocon
When Neocons are “pleasantly surprised“, the whole World has a problem here.
But that is Obama’s true governing constituency (regardless of his totally disingenuous campaign theatrics). And to think they gave this guy a Nobel Peace Prize….for what???…..buying a dog?
New York congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) delivered a fiery critique of the Bush Administration’s drive to war in Iraq, labeling the push part of a “conspiracy” to deceive Congress and occupy the country.
(snip)
Speaking of the four protesters who spilled their own blood at a military recruiting center, Hinchey said “what they were protesting was the conspiracy of the Administration of George W. Bush to bring about an attack and then an occupation of the country of Iraq, and as a result making the world a much more dangerous and difficult place than it was prior to those actions.”
“It is that conspiracy,” he added, “that conspiracy which has now been documented by among other things official British documents called the Downing Street Memo which are communications between the highest ranking officials of the British government – the head of the British Intelligence, the foreign officer, the prime minister himself.”
Hinchley’s remarks break ranks with most Democrats in Congress, who have been critical of the leadup and operations surrounding the Iraq war, but who have been loath to deliver stinging perorations. The New York Democrat said he saw the trial as somewhat Orwellian — a move towards curtailing speech.
“We do not want to see an end to this democratic republic,” Hinchey quipped. “We want it to be strengthened. We want it to go on forever. We don’t want it to be ended by people who are telling us, or who would like to tell us, what we can do and say and even think. But that’s what this Administration is engaged in.”
Caught the first piece earlier today, lays out similar to what many in our country have been saying for years, especially the recent years, and similar to other countries that are supposed to be leaders on this planet.
Barack Obama is scheduled to lay out his latest plans for the war in Afghanistan Tuesday evening, and by all reports will probably announce an escalation – a “surge” – of somewhere in the neighborhood of 35,000 troops, which will bring the total number of US Troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000 and will severely strain an already stretched military and leave the US with effectively no reserve forces.
For a taste of how mainstream US media will paint Obama’s moves, here is NPR’s take this morning (Nov 30):
As NPR’s Cokie Roberts told Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep, Obama will be addressing several audiences — including the American public, which wants to hear details about the goals and timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces; and Pakistan, which he will seek to assure that the U.S. won’t completely leave the region “for a good time to come”
Tom Engelhardt of The Nation Institute and TomDispatch.com has written an alternative speech for Obama that I would much prefer to hear from Obama’s own lips, that he calls “The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give (But Won’t)”:
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
A New Way Forward:
The President’s Address to the American People on Afghan Strategy
Oval Office
For Immediate Release
December 2nd
My fellow Americans,
On March 28th, I outlined what I called a “comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” It was ambitious. It was also an attempt to fulfill a campaign promise that was heartfelt. I believed — and still believe — that, in invading Iraq, a war this administration is now ending, we took our eye off Afghanistan. Our well-being and safety, as well as that of the Afghan people, suffered for it.
I suggested then that the situation in Afghanistan was already “perilous.” I announced that we would be sending 17,000 more American soldiers into that war zone, as well as 4,000 trainers and advisors whose job would be to increase the size of the Afghan security forces so that they could someday take the lead in securing their own country. There could be no more serious decision for an American president.
Eight months have passed since that day. This evening, after a comprehensive policy review of our options in that region that has involved commanders in the field, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Advisor James Jones, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, top intelligence and State Department officials and key ambassadors, special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, and experts from inside and outside this administration, I have a very different kind of announcement to make.
I plan to speak to you tonight with the frankness Americans deserve from their president. I’ve recently noted a number of pundits who suggest that my task here should be to reassure you about Afghanistan. I don’t agree. What you need is the unvarnished truth just as it’s been given to me. We all need to face a tough situation, as Americans have done so many times in the past, with our eyes wide open. It doesn’t pay for a president or a people to fake it or, for that matter, to kick the can of a difficult decision down the road, especially when the lives of American troops are at stake.
During the presidential campaign I called Afghanistan “the right war.” Let me say this: with the full information resources of the American presidency at my fingertips, I no longer believe that to be the case. I know a president isn’t supposed to say such things, but he, too, should have the flexibility to change his mind. In fact, more than most people, it’s important that he do so based on the best information available. No false pride or political calculation should keep him from that.
As I’ve said in a few posts, the past week of the hearings, the picture coming out was our administration then especially, and others, weren’t focused on bin Laden, al Qaeda nor the Taliban who were harboring them in Afghanistan, their almost complete focus prior to 9/11, as to that region, was a growing want to have regime change in Iraq, that became the total focus on the same day as 9/11, as has been noted by Condoleezza Rice mentioning Saddam as a possible suspect behind the 9/11 attacks or supporter of al Qaeda, which he never was.
Like everything else the Bush administration touched the capture or attempted capture of Osama Bin Laden was a complete failure. As the world watched the U.S. military had pursued Bin Laden and his deputies to the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Trapped in the caves there Donald Rumsfeld then U.S. Defense Secretary decides that Bin Landen’s capture should be handled by the Afghan army while the U.S. army watched. Osama Bin Laden and his deputies escaped into Pakistan where they are still believed to be. Think about the consequences of that decision. Al Qaida though weakened at that moment would not only continue to exist but draw recruits as extremists saw Osama Bin Laden’s escape as a victory over America and its allies in the so called War on Terror.
Even if they had captured Bin Laden would that have destroyed Al Qaida of course not but they wouldn’t be the potent symbol they are today thanks to the complete incompetence of George Bush and his advisors.
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) recently released figures that show 1 out of 4 Afghan combat troops went AWOL or quit in the year ending in September. Desertion rates are so high and retention rates so low that Gen. McChrystal’s plans to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA) to replace American troops for Afghan security will not work, if the trends continue, because the ANA can get barely enough recruits to replace the losses. Making matters even worse, the loss rate is accelerating while the growth of the ANA is slowing. Moreover, A U.S. GAO report showed the ANA has a 19% absenteeism rate, leaving just 26,000 troops available for combat.
To fight this growing problem the DoD changed accounting procedures in September 2008. Formerly, only troops that were trained and assigned to a unit were counted. Now everyone, including green recruits, is included in the overall strength figures.
For anyone who didn’t want to watch it, the full text of Obama’s Tuesday night speech is available 
