Obama: I Will “Finish The Job” In Afghanistan
In his remarks today on Afghanistan at the joint presser, President Obama uses some language reminiscent of Republican criticism of Dems on Iraq, vowing to “finish the job” in Afghanistan and insisting that the American people will be supportive once he explains to them why the “job” must be “finished”:
I think that the review that we’ve gone through has been comprehensive and extremely useful, and has brought together my key military advisors, but also civilian advisors. I can tell you, as I’ve said before, that it is in our strategic interest, in our national security interest to make sure that al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas. We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks. And Afghanistan’s stability is important to that process.
I’ve also indicated that after eight years — some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done — it is my intention to finish the job. And I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals that they will be supportive.
Obama, however, takes care to cast the mission in Afghanistan as a global one:
The whole world I think has a core security interest in making sure that the kind of extremism and violence that you’ve seen emanating from this region is tackled, confronted in a serious way. Now, we have to do it as part of a broader international community. And so one of the things I’m going to be discussing is the obligations of our international partners in this process.
It remains to be seen what exactly the “job” is in Obama’s view and how well he defines it, and whether he establishes a firm timetable for its completion. Presuming job one is protecting the American people, the question is whether the public agrees that the only way to do this is to escalate the broader conflict, rather than scale back and focus only on Al Qaeda, and whether the public will agree that a broader military victory, presuming it’s attainable, would be worth the costs.
Full remarks here.
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The title says it all, “Pay as you fight”
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=23843F06-18FE-70B2-A86B432307487E33
…and so the collective mass media circle-j*rk about this issues starts anew.
to me this language is very much in line with not kicking the can down the road which I fully support and which is what he said a couple of weeks ago.
Well, Fluffington Post and KOS have already forgotten Obama’s pledges on trying to finish up in Afghanistan and are already full fledged 100% against any sort of escalation regardless of the consequences of pulling out immediately.
I guess I’m a hawkish lib….shoot me.
Who had the great article the other day about Obama and Afghanistan and how his decision would piss off progressives but how it’s really the best thing ever?
I may have the link still.
Mike: sorry, can’t afford a bullet. You get a pass this time!!!
Damn I can’t find the link and the article was excellent.
Why is it that Obama feels compelled in just about every public statement to take cheap shots at the prior administration? It shows him to be petty and small and defensive. I really don’t recall past presidents behaving this way.
Tena, it might have been this E.J. Dionne article.
“One senior administration official, emphasizing that final choices have not been made, described the policy Obama is likely to announce in early December this way: “It will not be open-ended, it will be limited in time, and the focus will be on strategy, not the number of troops.” It’s likely that the number of troops he’ll send will be below the 40,000 proposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
The president has decided that Afghanistan is neither Iraq nor Vietnam. This is a view that puts him at odds with both the hawks, who constantly use the 2007 Iraq surge metaphor, and the doves, who constantly look to Vietnam as a cautionary tale.”
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/third-way-afghanistan
I wonder how Congressional Republicans will respond to his plan, once we hear all of it. Of course, it will not be everything they wanted. I also wonder how they suggest we pay for it, war tax or not?
Imsinca – thanks for the try but it wasn’t.
It was an article that explained on a much deeper level how Obama has switched the dynamic between the WH and the military back to where it was before Commander CooCoo Bananas, Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld got ahold of it.
It explained the troop increase, the way Obama has operated vis-a-vis his commanders and has brought the power back to the CIC and out of the hands of the generals. Bush left everything but the torture to the generals.
I can’t remember who linked to it now – I had thought it was you but I guess not. Damn!
“I’ve also indicated that after eight years — some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done”
Do you dispute this qb, just curious.
Tena, I remember that but can’t for the life of me think of where it came from. I’ll search again.
I’m looking too, Imsinca.
Funny how Bush apologists would hope everyone would forget about the last eight years.
Sorry, we’ll remind everyone of all his failures every time someone tries to exclude the fact Obama got left a big ol’ **** sandwich on his desk in the oval office.
mike from Arlington – well Bush apologists and the entire Repug Party.
They pray for collective amnesia on the part of the public because the 8 years they were in power, especially the first 4 when they had it all – were a Total Failure. In fact, the Bush Administration and the REpug Majority were a staggering heartbreak of bad government, bad policy, bad security – it was the worst administration and majority ever.
Obama is a whole lot nicer about the last 8 years than the rest of us. But qb cannot let an Obama quote slip by without criticizing.
“Do you dispute this qb, just curious.”
Might depend on what he means. It is something of a generalized slur. Didn’t have a strategy? Obvious overstatement at best. Didn’t have resources? We probably never have the resources we’d like, but unclear what he is saying here.
I just think it is unPresidential and whiny of him to constantly put these complaints and self-justifications in his public statements. He was elected over a year ago. It’s time to stop his 2008 campaign and act like a grown up.
I consider this to be a tragic blunder on the part of President Obama.
He is going down the same wrong path that President Johnson did in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union did in Afghanistan.
I am predicting that if he sends 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, it will become the Albatross around his neck, that will defeat him in 2012. He will look ridiculous because he took all this time, before deciding to give the Generals what they wanted. He is starting to look like a man of half measures. What the hell was the point in taking all that time, just to pare back the request by a mere 6,000 troops. It turns out that he was just dithering after all.
Sending 34,000 Troops is validating the corruption and election fixing of Karzai. The President is rumored to be going to spell out, in his address to the nation, that if things do not improve rapidly, he will stop the flow of more Troops, and start to withdraw. He should be doing that now, because it is not going to improve. When it comes to Afghanistan, history is clear on that point, and The President is walking into a massive trap.
When things start to go bad, he will not be able to pull out, because that would reveal that he made a huge mistake by escalating in the first place, after saying he wanted to take the time to make the right decision. He has now made it his war, and his quagmire, and he will have to live with his decision, or he will look like he is weak, and giving in to defeat.
Once he gets further mired down in Afghanistan, the right wingers, who are the most vocal advocates for escalation, will not vote for him anyway, and many moderates and progressive voters will become disenchanted with him, and enough of them will sit out the 2012 election to assure his defeat.
Afghanistan can not converted from a 14th century tribal culture, dominated by warlords and drug lords, by just sending 34,000 more troops. The place is a hellhole, and the sooner we accept that, and configure our strategy to just go after the real bad guys who have attacked us, and forget about the impossible dream of building Afghanistan into a modern cohesive nation, the better off we will be.
Afghanistan is A Sow’s Ear, and President Obama has just promised that 34,000 more troops is all it will take, to make a silk purse out of it.
Not a chance in hell, that will ever happen.
There goes his second term.
I don’t see this as a tragic blunder, except for progressives.
Out here in America Land, most people will probably nod and let it go.
The only thing that will make or break Obama is the economy and jobs.
“qb cannot let an Obama quote slip by without criticizing.”
Pot, meet kettle.
I don’t mind at all if you libs and your Greatest President Ever keep right on whining and complaining and excusifying for the next 3 or 7 years. More power to you.
I just think it is an interesting reflection of Obama’s character — not the transcendant, magnanimous, post-partisan uniter advertised, but a petty and thin-skinned excuse maker.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and qualified credit for the decision, although not how he made or announced it. He campaigned on it as a war of necessity and mocked John McCain for lacking the courage or fortitude to fight it. He would have gone down in history as a craven fraud had he not followed through.
I am a bit puzzled about the reduction in the number of troops requested, but I don’t know enough details about that to say his or McChrystal’s is the right number. Politically, he would probably have been smarter to give McChrystal what he asked for.
qb
He tried, you may not have noticed it, and he keeps on trying with some Repubs. It’s pretty hard to unite people when they think you were born in Kenya, are a socialist and dangerous to the country. As I said earlier, he’s a lot nicer to the other side than most of us are. I seem to remember him saying we ought not to look back, but forward, when it came to the previous administrations torture activies even.
Anyway, the debate’s not worth having. Our perceptions are completely at odds and I don’t believe there’s any middle ground for us.
Up in the thread, quarterback says:
quarterback | November 24th, 2009 at 03:37 pm
Why is it that Obama feels compelled in just about every public statement to take cheap shots at the prior administration? It shows him to be petty and small and defensive. I really don’t recall past presidents behaving this way.
From Media Matters:http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200911240026
After clip of Obama criticizing prior Afghanistan strategy, Rush says, “This is a small and petty, spoiled little man”
Looks like our quarterback is a dittohead!
“Politically, he would probably have been smarter to give McChrystal what he asked for.”
Not necessarily. There is a whole hell of alot more to this than the military aspects.
Them man campaigned on this and I’m not surprised. The point is to get the Afghani’s to stand up while we stand down. Sound familiar?
“Not necessarily. There is a whole hell of alot more to this than the military aspects.
Them man campaigned on this and I’m not surprised. The point is to get the Afghani’s to stand up while we stand down. Sound familiar?”
If I could find that mofoing article – there is a whole heck of a lot going on under the radar, behind doors in the WH.
Obama isn’t Bush. He isn’t LBJ. He’s Obama. He wants a way out and said so and I’m going to listen to what he says about this decision. And I’ll keep looking for that piece I read that someone linked to a week or more ago that explained a whole lot of things.
Now I’m thinking maybe Bernie had that link.
“There is a whole hell of alot more to this than the military aspects.”
Exactly… enough with the troop size! It was never about what McChrystal wanted in troop size. It was always about results can we expect and exit strategy.
from the NYT:
For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council. The session began at 8:13 p.m., aides said, and ended at 10:10 p.m.
Mr. Obama’s military and national security advisers came back to him with answers he had requested in previous meetings, most of which focused on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?
The author of that article even correctly named the number of new troops Obama would send – he knew what he was talking about.
“I seem to remember him saying we ought not to look back, but forward, when it came to the previous administrations torture activies even.”
Yes, he did. Before he and Holder announced that they would in fact re-investigate the ETI program and launched unprecedented professional assaults on Bush administration lawyers — and illegally leaked information about their assault. All part of what Obama promised wouuld be a “reckoning” against the prior administration.
But let’s just call them the witch hunts they are.
“a clear rationale for what we’re doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals that they will be supportive.”
While I am in basic agreement with Liam…Obama is my President and I will try to listen with an open mind…but his clear rationale better answer the questions brought up by Liam and more importantly by Capt Matthew Hoh in his resignation letter.
He also better explain how we’re going to pay for any
escalation and why we’re doing HCR on the cheap but are so extravagant on our military adventures.
Most importantly he better offer a CLEARLY DEFINED exit strategy and warn if he plans any additional troop deployments…regardless of what the generals request…we have been through this before in Vietnam.
In 1964 we had 23,300 troops in country..four short years later we had over a half million. Ask any general about a solution and they will ALWAYS respond..give me more troops!
rukidding – Obama better do all that or what?
Seriously, are progressives going to get all sulky and let the Repugs take back over again?
That’s the only other option here.
Sending in a lot more Troops is not “A Way Out” no matter how many people try spinning it.
Adding more Troops is getting In In In Deeper, and Deeper.
We have been there for eight years, and things have gotten worse, not better. The Afghanistan people have heard it all before, from us, and from the Soviets before us. They are not going to stick their necks out again. They know that we have to leave, and that they will still have to live there once we have gone.
They have seen US Officers come and befriend them, and then go away, after their tours of duty are up, and see them replaced by new officers that they have no history with, and have to start all over again. That is why all the big colonial powers stationed their people permanently in their colonial offices, in order to maintain relationships with the indigenous populations. Even then, they ended up, getting gunned out of most countries.
Our Troops do no speak the language, or understand the culture, and they are here to day, and gone tomorrow deployments, so the Afghanistan tribal leaders are not going to go all in, on the side of the temporary strangers in their land.
We should be reducing our footprint, and keeping just a big enough base force to launch strikes from.
America has this strange belief that it can succeed where all others have failed. It is the naive doctrine of American exceptional-ism. How exceptional can a nation be, that has shipped almost all of it’s manufacturing jobs out to a country that looms as the biggest threat, in the future, and then borrow back all the money we spend with them, in order to wage wars, that the lender country benefits from, more than we do.
China loaned us back our own money, to fund the stupid war in Iraq, and they ended up getting big Oil Contracts, while we get to do the dying, and the paying back of the war loans.
China is now bribing their way into large mining contracts in Afghanistan, while we borrow back more of our money from them, in order to try and make their investments in Afghanistan more secure.
How many Troops did China send to Iraq? Answer; None, but they have sopped up the gravy for free.
How many Troops has China sent to Afghanistan? Answer: None, but they are also getting to sop up the gravy, for free.
We have become a nation of suckers who have fallen for our own false bluster.
Some one said: “I am not against all wars, I am just against stupid wars”.
Really? Then why is that person escalating this stupid war?
Eight years, and no light at the end of the tunnel, in a place, not a country, where a rag tag band of fourteenth century lunatic types have grown stronger, not weaker, since we went in.
After eigth years of failure, it is now; “A Stupid War”, and yet………
This is a tragic mistake by our President.
qb
It’s my understanding that Obama and Holder disagreed on some of this and also Obama would not allow the release of photos, and still hasn’t. It’s my belief he’s trying not to fan the abuse of prisoners flame, while I happen to disagree with him, I think we have the right to know what was done on our behalf. He has said we will not torture and otherwise seems to want to avoid the subject.
@Tena…that’s the same question I asked Liam…I’m not sure what…but just as LBJ found himself vulnerable to McCarthy and later Kennedy…as much as I admire Obama I would certainly be open to a challenge from a…dare I use the word…pacifist candidate from the left in a primary challenge to Obama.
Unlike Liam I’m not promising that would happen…but I personally would be someone who would vote for that person if Obama doesn’t get us out of this quagmire quickly.
I’m sick of the stupidity of a country that can’t provide healthcare but can piss away trillions on bs invasions of sovereign nations. England had their London bombing…Spain..the train bombing…they don’t feel the need for military adventures.
I really don’t know Tena but I’m seriously beginning to think Australia might be an option…Canada is just to fng cold.
Adding to my discomfort are the seriously disturbed individuals in the country who pull sh&t like this…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/michelle-obama-photo-goog_n_368760.html
@Rukidding,
I wish you would not mis-characterize my position. I said nothing about wanting a primary challenger to run against President Obama, in 2012. You need to go back and read what I wrote.
I said that this decision of his will turn off enough moderates and progressives, while not winning him any more support from right wingers, that his base turnout will be demoralized, and enough of them will sit out the 2012 election, that he will not win a second term.
I did not call for action to make that happen. I am saying that President Obama has made a decision that will end up very badly, and will cost him a second term.
As for those who think that the economy will save him; they need to put down their pipes. LBJ had a robust economic situation, when his war mistakes prevented him from going for a second term, and the current economy will not be nearly as robust in 2012, as it was back in 1968.
The jobs are all overseas now, and the new homes construction sector will not be providing very many jobs either.
@Liam…I apologize for overgeneralizing or insinuating your position…I stand corrected.
Basically we are in agreement I was just trying to explain MY position to Tena and did not mean to misrepresent yours. Sorry.
All, Happy hour roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/happy-hour-roundup-119/
Greg, whatever happened to the Obama’s original afghan strategy of winning the minds of people there ? You know like education, infrastructure etc. ? Is that stratergy still on or you guyz concentrate only on “military” aspect ?
amk, I don’t presume to know what Obama’s overall strategy will be. I’m willing to wait until he announces it.
Meanwhile, new thread:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/economy/happy-hour-roundup-119/
I’m seeing a disconnect in the comments I’ve read in various places between what Obama supporters heard him campaigning on ie: finishing the job in Afghanistan and the “change” that they also wanted from him. Seems to me, he’s being consistent here. The change in policy or strategy that he was referring to was from the Bush Admin-NOT a withdrawal of troops before giving a different strategy time to work.
Now, it may all be for naught as some say (I’m undecided on this) but one has to admit, that he is being very predictable here.
Chuck In Denton
I agree with you. He’s not doing anything really different than what he campaigned on. The situation has gotten worse over there and I think taking his time to find the best solution was the right thing to do.
I wish we could bring our troops home now, but I don’t think it’s realistic. I’ll wait and see what his strategy is and if it sounds reasonable I’ll support it.
I don’t think we should feel we can’t disagree with him, I do lots of times on the economic front, but it sure doesn’t mean I want to go back to Repubs in power.
Now Obama has decided to not sign the treaty to ban land mines , and to leave the Bush policy in place.
What ever happened to?
“Change we can believe in”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/24/obama-administration-decides-sign-treaty-banning-land-mines/?test=latestnews
“WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international treaty banning land mines.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly says the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy.
More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty’s provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Russia. “