Blame-shifting Afghanistan for Dummies.
Afghanistan and the long delay of decision-making at the White House has come to suit the Obama administration because the risk is much greater to decide than not to decide. This is POTUS and his long, long goodbye to all that war-making and overcooked democracy-building by the Bush administration. I am told the Obama administration aims to weary and bore the American public that answers polls so that AfPakia slips to the bottom of the pile of worries by the New Year. What is smart about this plan is that it is deeply cynical and matches the cynicism evident in the Karzai brothers and their Pashtun cronies. The so-called new round of elections in Afghanistan is unlikely to produce more than more confusion, making it nearly impossible for the American public to choose sides or hold POTUS responsible for abandoning American commitments to the people of AfPakia. Who are the people of AfPakia? No one is sure. The Pakistan army bludgeons away in Waziristan; the US uses Predators in the Northwest Province; and the US Marines fly around Helmland and other far flung provinces looking like Starship troopers. POTUS can decide or not decide and the sitrep in AfPakia will not change measurably. This explains the cleverness of the Obama administration blame-shifting to the Bush administration. John Kerry returned from Kabul and asserted right away that the mess over there is George Bush and Dick Cheney. Who can argue? Afghanistan was a mess before the October 2001 operation that felled the Taliban; Afghanistan is a mess everyday since October 2001. Is it a worse mess because of Bush? It is if you are practicing blame-shifting for dummies. Who are the dummies? They would be the small piece of the American public that answers brain-twister poll questions such as "Do you support President Obama's decision in Afghanistan?"
Blame-shifting Works.
Speaking Sunday November 1 to William McGurn, WSJ, re the POTUS talent to blame George W. Bush for any and all unhappy circumstances. Bill McGurn calls POTUS, "the Post-Gracious President," and he lists surprisingly repetitive anecdotes of POTUS and his Politburo, such as Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, using George W. Bush's failures to explain an Obama administration failure. Afghanistan-shifting, such as performed by John Kerry, is in a long line of GITMO-shifting, TARP-shifting, jobless-shifting, and regulatory-shifting. There is no limit to how much the Obama team can shift on to Bush and Cheney (though Rahm Emanuel has not yet tried Blagojevich-shifting on to Dick Cheney, so there may be limits). What is attractive to about the shifting is that it buys time. POTUS does not want to decide anything about AfPakia. Nor about Iraq. Nor about Jerusalem. All he has to do is say it is a mess and then use the weird "mopping" metaphor. Blame-shifting works. The public likes it.
Goodbye Afghanistan.
The latest round of shifting points to a decision of all of the above after the November 3 election. John Fund tells me that everyone in the Democratic party is watching Virginia, New Jersey and 23rd New York. So is POTUS. There are not enough troops available to give McChrystal what he says he needs, however POTUS can say he wants to send more and then send less, mentioning Predators, the Pakistan army offensive, the mess George Bush and Dick Cheney left. This is POTUS saying goodbye to Afghanistan. It will take four years to say goodbye -- a long, long goodbye of blame-shifting and speaking as if he is worried and vigilant --, and then after the re-election, POTUS can say goodbye all over again. POTUS is a man with a foot out the door, and if if you challenge his direction, he will remind you he is cleaning up after Bush and Cheney as fast as he can. Deeply cynical. Who is responsible for those air crashes in Afghanistan (above)? Bush and Cheney. Correct. Now you are on the team.
I don't think the voters are buying it. They're pretty dismayed by the surge of American deaths on the battlefield and they're blaming Obama, either for not sending in more troops or for not pulling them out altogether. They're blaming him for a decision he's not making. And, what's more, he's getting blamed by both sides.
No cynicism here, only the cynicism that says 'blame Bush/Cheney'. Perhaps Peggy Noonan said it best last week, writing about Obama's mounting troubles in the WSJ: "It's his rubble now," she said. Indeed, it is.
I must agree with Peter, disagree with JB. If it bleeds, it leads. And we're bleeding in Afghanistan, it is on the nightly news, and will continue to be. The longer Obama diddles, the more it looks like he just doesn't care. Which I don't believe he does, except in the context of how it benefits or hurts Obama.
I read Vox Day a few days ago, who finally threw in the towel and said we should get out. Perhaps, but a retreat now will send a message bigger than Mogadishu. And I think we all know where that leads.
I suspect Obama will follow his instincts, and as Surrender-Monkey in Chief, we know what that means. I think he's sorely mistaken if he thinks that procrastinating, then withdrawing, is going to win him any points. Maybe he'll win Cindy Sheehan's support?
Oy. Absolutely everything is going pear-shaped. God save us.
While the White House ponders, the enemy has learned from Vietnam. Welcome to Islamo-Tet. See how many suicide bombers it takes for the main stream media to start hand wringing that we have already lost. Then, when the "peace" demonstrators descend on D.C., and it gets reported every night that the American public has lost faith in the military, the White House will decide that more troops is not the answer. I hope to God that our brave men and women in the military will not have to pay too high a price for the political folly upon which we are embarking.
>Then, when the "peace" demonstrators descend on D.C.
Not going to happen. There's no draft to galvanize opposition to our mindless occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq--remember that when Nixon abolished conscription, young people in this country lost interest in protesting the war in Vietnam.
That said, the continuing collapse of America's economy will serve to bring our soldiers home. Of that you may be sure.
Yeah well it's like you're all right and all wrong. Who really knows? It is like Mogadishu but it's not Mogadishu, It's Viet Nam redux but it's nothing like Viet Nam The key here is perhaps Pakistan, but Pakistan is like many different keys to many different doors-Civil, Military, Intelligence, Its systemic synchronicity highly dubious, its treachery and calumny more likely an ally? an enemy? a partner? an adversary? It's all shifting sands. As for the cold Machiavellian real politik we JB listeners tend to adhere to ? well yeah POTUS VRS.PPOTUS may have its sway but for the fact that the current inhabitant of the HOUSE,like so many other phoney Liberals desperately trying to gain Street Creds in the realms of National Security now own the "dropped the ball in Afganistan" qualification to their Iraq opposition stance which they thought would serve as a cover to their perceved weaknesses on the Security Front. So BlameBushandCheney doesn't really fly except with the blind adherent loyalists, who unfortunately for POTUS have no stomach for armed conflict of any sort...I think herein lies the problem because what Afganistan would take is a sustained struggle with an international coalition in a pincerlike west-east east-west squeeze and a committment to natio-creation never mind building. Sadly for the world this is not forthcoming Our Presidents much overrated talent for consensus and coalition building is painfully exposed here leaving us sitting at the edge of our seats waiting for what will be the Beckett-ian "Godot", and the Eliot-ian whimper a cya political response that will leave our troops underserved and exposed. I hope this does not transpire but fear its inevitable.