President Obama, pull out now:
As President Obama prepares to release a review of American strategy in Afghanistan that will claim progress in the nine-year-old war there, two new classified intelligence reports offer a more negative assessment and say there is a limited chance of success unless Pakistan hunts down insurgents operating from havens on its Afghan border.
The reports, one on Afghanistan and one on Pakistan, say that although there have been gains for the United States and NATO in the war, the unwillingness of Pakistan to shut down militant sanctuaries in its lawless tribal region remains a serious obstacle. American military commanders say insurgents freely cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan to plant bombs and fight American troops and then return to Pakistan for rest and resupply.
The findings in the reports, called National Intelligence Estimates, represent the consensus view of the United States’ 16 intelligence agencies, as opposed to the military, and were provided last week to some members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. The findings were described by a number of American officials who read the reports’ executive summaries.
American military commanders and senior Pentagon officials have already criticized the reports as out of date and say that the cut-off date for the Afghanistan report, Oct. 1, does not allow it to take into account what the military cites as tactical gains in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces in the south in the six weeks since. Pentagon and military officials also say the reports were written by desk-bound Washington analysts who have spent limited time, if any, in Afghanistan and have no feel for the war.
Just make it stop.
Quaker in a Basement
Every US military campaign has a plan and every plan describes an end state.
How come both the Bush and Obama administrations have done such a poor job communicating the desired end state to the American people?
agrippa
yes. It is far past time to leave.
Simply make a withdrawl schedule and pull out.
Write a cover story or not, as you wish.
Cris
What are our objectives again?
fasteddie9318
@Quaker in a Basement:
Because the plan looks something like this:
1. American troops stay there another Friedman Unit
2. ???
3. Peaceful, united, terrorist-free Afghanistan!
Dexter
The day Pakistan removes the militant camps, the very next its government will be overthrown by the radicals. So, it will never close them.
The gulf oil money (from Saudi Arabia etc) still flows freely to these militants. As long as that’s not taken care of, militants will thrive in Pakistan.
Not many good options there.
lacp
Fuck it, Cole. Why don’t you jump on it and come on in for the big win?
lacp
@fasteddie9318: David Petraeus is an underpants gnome? Who knew?
cleek
can’t pull out. people will point at laugh at our small peeners if we do that.
Xenos
It is a simple matter that the military, as a matter of discipline and morale, will never admit a conflict can not be won, even when there has been no coherent end state to the strategies floated about for years. It is imperative for the civilians to tell the military to when to stop fighting, for whatever reason.
Time to cut the BS, get out, accept that we could not get it to work, and focus, for once, on the long term. It is not what Obama ran on, but it would be a profile in courage for him to articulate this and act on it. Not holding breath…
Dave
What kills me is that the military HAD to know that the mountains border with Pakistan was the weak point in any Afghan strategy, since that is what killed the Soviets in the 80s. And since we were on the other side using that border – and the Pakistani government’s willingness to help the guerrillas – to bleed the Russians.
Joseph Nobles
The objective is preventing war between India and Pakistan.
El Cid
Awesome! I hope we have an even newer New Counter-Insurgency Strategy!
El Tiburon
Pull out now?
Please.
What part of Chalmers Johnson do you people not get?
We never pull out, we never leave.
It’s called The Military-Industrial Complex for a reason.
But thanks for the chuckle. I really needed that.
ruemara
Yeah, pretty much. I was taking pictures of my good ‘ole REALAMURRICAN Christmas Parade and not one but 2 ROTC regional groups went past and I almost went into desperate tears. How the fuck can I take pictures knowing that these earnest, ridiculously young people are a breath away from being deployed to a fucking stupid waste of a war? It is time to admit that there is no winning this war and pull the fuck out. Blow some dustpile up, declare a wonderful victory with democrazy for all and leave. Save a fuckton of money along with a fuckton worth more lives. If the Aghani people want a better system, then educate them and let them figure it out for themselves.
Zifnab
Whoa, say what? Two new classified intelligence reports got leaked? Sweet Mary Mother of the Lord Baby Jesus, get a fucking SWAT team on this STAT! There’s been a security leak and NO ONE IS BEING ARRESTED!
I think it’s high time we carpet bombed the NYTimes. Who is with me?
harokin
Cripes, it’s a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee — the people who have been wrong about literally everything forever and the people who consistently lie to further their career.
Cris
Okay, actually our objectives are
This really is hopeless, isn’t it.
harokin
@Zifnab: What’s awesome is the military saying these highly classified reports are “old news.”
singfoom
If you do not cheer voluntarily, you will be made to cheer. Obviously, it’s people like you that are giving psychic aid and sustenance to our enemy. If we leave, it looks like we lost. And we all know Americans *NEVER* lose.
/snark off
We just need to leave. We cannot make the Afghans govern themselves to our specifications and any attempt in that vein is destined to fail before even beginning.
The Moar You Know
@Xenos: That’s not their job. They’re supposed to fight to win, period.
THAT is the job of the civilian government. You will note that the military has upheld their end of the bargain. The civilians have not.
This thing is not winnable. Obama doesn’t want to go down in history as the guy who “lost Afghanistan”, so he and his cabinet are going to kick the can down the road and damn the cost.
Just like with LBJ: it’s going to take a Republican to end this war. Dems won’t do it to avoid being called pussies, still not realizing 30-plus years after Vietnam that they will be called pussies anyway because some hippies used to be part of the party back in teh 1960s, before they all cut their hair, changed into suits, joined the GOP and started looting Wall Street.
Scott P.
Good news: The 6th Circuit has ruled that emails are protected by the Fourth Amendment:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/paul/court-rules-email-protected-fourth-amendment
Cris
Excellent goal. So perhaps our real fear if we withdraw is not that the Taliban will take over Kabul, but that India will.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
I don’t see what the big deal is – this is nothing a little secret bombing of the
Ho Chi Minh trail in Cambodiatribal areas in Pakistan can’t fix.cleek
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
secret? all set there. drones tell no tales.
Brachiator
@Joseph Nobles:
I don’t think anything that the US is doing in the region will have any impact on what is going on between India and Pakistan.
@Xenos:
Allied countries (Canada, the UK, etc) are starting to pull their forces. This might give Obama the cover he needs to do a complete pullout.
Calouste
@Quaker in a Basement:
I don’t think even Dick Cheney though that “permanent occupation” was a good end state to communicate to the American public.
agrippa
It is much easier to get into a war than to get out; it is called ‘rolling the iron dice’.
It is a problem as old as war: how do you get out of a war that you have not won and have not lost?
Basically, you have to talk your way out. In order to do that, you need an interlocutor. If that interlocutor says: “I am not done with you yet”, you have a problem.
It is plausible to infer that this campaign in Afghanistan is distracting Pakistan from engaging India. I am not sure about that.
Another idea: the campaign in Afghanistan is diverting the energy of the non government radicals in Pakistan away from the Pakistan gov’t.
scarshapedstar
@fasteddie9318:
@Cris:
I’d say it’s more like:
1) ???
2) Win
3) ?????
4) ??????????
Jamie
My grandfather was a British soldier who served in Afghanistan in ~1919. The Old British took the hint and left after ~90 years of trying to civilize the Afghans. Nothing has really changed in Afghanistan since then. I wonder how long it will be before our sainted leaders figure that out.
Perry Como
Two more F.U.’s and we’ll have this thing won!
daveNYC
Tactical gains they say? What is that, that we took non-descript Hill #1234, or that our weekly body count of bad guys has gone up? Maybe we should bomb Laos just for old time’s sake.
WyldPirate
Excuse me, but is this the war that Obama is not at fault for continuing, even though he campaigned on it and even though an overabundance of historical evidence–both recently past to British colonial misadventures all the back to Alexander the Great–showed time and again that it was a wasted effort?
Must not blame Obama for foolhardiness. Besides he can’t possibly be responsible for the military being Commander in Chief and all.
Thoughtcrime
But if we leave, then we can’t test the effectiveness of our latest “game-changing” weapon, which coincidentally would be very effective against a domestic civil uprising: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101201/pl_afp/usmilitaryweaponsafghanistan
No more hiding behind walls you DFHs!
bobbo
Karzai wants us to leave. The Afghans want us to leave. What the fuck do Obama and Petraeus think we are supposed to do, keep staying until they want us to stay, and then . . . leave?
Joseph Nobles
@Cris: That is certainly Pakistan’s fear, and that’s why they are quite happy to see us busy in Afghanistan.
@bobbo: Karzai wants us out if we’re going. If we’re staying, he’d be happy for us to stay.
Davis X. Machina
@bobbo: Obama will have the same problems getting out of Afghanistan that DeGaulle had getting France out of Algeria, and from the same source — his own military.
Never mind that A-stan hasn’t been metropolitan territory for 130 years, like Algeria.
Armies aren’t in the losing business, and resent anyone who suggests otherwise. Sometimes they blow them up, sometimes they only try, and don’t succeed.
Karen S.
@El Tiburon:
Agreed. Once we pitch our tents (or giant embassies) somewhere, we do not leave.
matoko_chan
i think Obama should lissen to Sun Tzu….
..and the Caesars.
just jerk it out.
Cris
@WyldPirate: You’re still welcome to go beat your strawman in the quarantine thread. I don’t see anybody here absolving Obama of responsibility.
JerseyJeffersonian
Joseph Noble, cris, et al,
Regarding the influence of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan as a driving factor in the war in Afghanistan, I would recommend this post from retired Pakistani military officer, F.B. Ali from over at Pat Lang’s blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2010/10/pakistan-and-afpak-fb-ali.html#tp
A more succinct and well-grounded explanation of the conflict and its bases would be difficult to find.
One additional factor in the India/Pakistan conflict is of course, Kashmir. Pakistan has felt that all of Kashmir should have become territorially Pakistani, not just the portion they got at the time of the partition of British India. Consequently, they have supported an insurgency in Kashmir for many years, and this insurgency has manifested not only in actions in Kashmir, but also in terrorist acts in other areas of India, notably recently in the attacks in Mumbai. India in turn looks to agitate Pakistan through its covert and overt support of the non-Taliban, non-Pushtun regime in Afghanistan as a counterpoise. And we’re in the middle of this.
Mr Stagger Lee
Obama isn’t leaving, he seen the movie JFK.
He knows that if he proposes that we leave Afghanistan, the next scene will be Joe Biden signing a document and saying “Get me elected, I’ll will give you your Goddamned war!”