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Obama’s War Problem

Don Irvine  —   September 1, 2009
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As U.S. casualties rise in Afghanistan the White House is facing a liberal anti-war backlash when Congress returns to work next week.

From the Politico

White House officials are increasingly worried liberal, anti-war Democrats will demand a premature end to the Afghanistan war before President Barack Obama can show signs of progress in the eight-year conflict, according to senior administration sources.

 

These fears, which the officials have discussed on the condition of anonymity over the past few weeks, are rising fast after U.S. casualties hit record levels in July and August.

 

The aides also expressed concern that Afghan election returns, still being tallied, will result in a narrow reelection for President Hamid Karzai that could result in qualms about his legitimacy — “Tehran II,” as one official put it, in reference to the disputed Iranian election.

 

The result: some think Afghanistan – not health care – will be the issue that defines the early years of the Obama administration.

 

“There’s no question that the drumbeat is going to get louder and louder on the left, and you’ll see some fall-off on the right,” said Matt Bennett of the think tank Third Way, the moderate voice of the progressive movement. “His supporters on the Hill are fighting a really serious political battle to keep the criticism under control.”

 

The Afghanistan conflict, which has gotten relatively little attention in part because Obama talks far more often about domestic concerns, is roaring back to the top of the Obama agenda as Congress is about to return from weeks of meetings with often unhappy voters.

 

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) last week called for a timetable to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan — the same tactic he and other war opponents used to build congressional support for forcing an end to the Iraq war.

 

But Obama officials — including National Security Adviser James Jones and Defense Secretary Robert Gates — know the problem is much bigger than Feingold and timetables. They anticipate a growing number of anti-war liberals will call, with increasing force, for an end to the conflict when lawmakers return. Cost could become an issue, too. With deficits high, there will be heavy pressure on Obama to find savings somewhere in 2010 — and war critics see Afghanistan as a good place to start.

Obama the candidate who garnered support from the anti-war left now faces the reality of the situation in Afghanistan as the president and realizes it isn’t so easy to just withdraw from the region.  So now we have the same groups that bashed the Bush administration gearing up to protest Obama’s war policies.  It looks like they have lost their hope for change.

 

Post #2295

 

 


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Don Irvine
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.




3 Comments for Obama’s War Problem

Eddie MacIsaac

Excellent article artice but you state “Congress returns to work”.

Congress may return to Washington but they never work.

There has been a great effort to revive the “Do Nothing” Party since Nazi Pillosi has run the house.

Jock Williams

As the American people slowly awaken to a realization that they have elected an “empty suit” -we will have to watch the results.

In Canada we can toss a mistake out -if public opinion is strong enough -but the US is doomed to four years of whatever mistake they may have made.

In fairness -nobody can possibly win in Afghanistan -certainly NOT Obama -but McCain could not have won either! History has taught us this lesson -or TRIED! If we failed to learn…well -sometimes that happens. The Afghan people have no history of democracy -and it cannot be implanted just because we wish it were so.

But Obama is incapable of dealing even with so small a matter as the Somali pirates. (I jest -the problem is huge -and even a huge naval power such as the US would be hard pressed to control the waters in question). Remember the words of the Marine Hymn which include the term “to the shores of Tripoli” and remember that the problem on those very shores was none other than piracy!

In the 1800s of course -it was easier to send a gunboat -and the boats were the likes of Old Ironsides and her sisters -behemoths in their day!

It remains to be seen what Obama will do about his wars -but I bet he won’t do a smidge better than George Bush (43) did -although in truth it may not be much worse either.

The lesson is -life isn’t as simple as it looks -and one good speech at a political convention doth not a President make!

Jock Williams Yogi 13

Neo-conned

Jock Williams –

I agree with your assessment of the Afghanistan war which Bush unconstitutionally got us into in bypassing a required declaration of war through Congress.
Columnist and foreign correspondent Eric Margolis wrote a number of articles on the situation in Afghanistan. In one of these, he stated –

[Al-Qaida never numbered more than 300 men. There are hardly any left in Afghanistan. Survivors scattered into Pakistan. Finding them is police and intelligence work, not a job for thousands more western troops.

US policy towards Afghanistan is driven by energy geopolitics. Pacification of rebellious Pashtun tribesmen is necessary in order to build energy pipelines south from the Caspian Basin. That is the primary strategic mission of US and Canadian troops.

Taliban fighters are not “terrorists.” Taliban was founded as a fundamentalist Muslim religious movement of Pashtun tribesmen to fight banditry, rape, drugs, and Afghan Communists. Taliban received millions in US aid until four months before 9/11. It had no part in 9/11 and knew nothing about them. The US overthrow of Taliban resulted in the Communists resuming control over half of Afghanistan. Under US occupation, Afghanistan has become a narco-state that supplies over 90% of the world’s heroin.

Pashtun tribes comprise half of Afghanistan’s population, and 15% of neighboring Pakistan’s people. The western powers are involved in an old-fashioned, colonial-style pacification campaign against the Pashtun Taliban. Imperial Britain, the Soviets, and now the US and its allies all employed the same classical colonial strategy: using puppet rulers, local mercenary troops, and lavish bribes to enforce their will. Afghans who resist get bombed.]
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis117.html

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, wrote in a column from 2/08 –

[Polls show that a majority of the troops and their families do not support Bush’s aggression. The fact that Ron Paul’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination received the lion’s share of contributions from military families also underlines the great divide between the troops and those who would “support” them by keeping them in Iraq and Afghanistan.]
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts233.html

I feel, Jock, that our policies of ‘regime change’ throughout the world over the past decades, via the CIA, was a grave mistake and not what the Founding Fathers had in mind for this country.






 
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