Afghanistan Sinking
President Obama announced a winning strategy last night, in fact the only strategy can ensure success. He was talking about battling the oil spill, but the same strategy is the only way to guarantee victory in real war as well. The problem is this particular strategy is often THE most expensive option, and therefore the price can sometimes be too high.
Here’s what the president said last night:
“Make no mistake: We will fight this … with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes.”
Notably, that is NOT the approach the United States is taking in Afghanistan, where the president’s strategy is more like:
“Make no mistake: we will fight this with as much as we can spare, for a least another year.”
Here’s the thing about wars. They are either worth winning, or not. They are either vital to our national security, or not. They are either worth a thousand American lives, and untold shattered families, or they are not.
I’m getting a sinking feeling about Afghanistan, and I’m not the only one. There seems to be a rising tide of pessimism. You could hear it on Capitol Hill yesterday. You can hear it in the measured words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is cautioning abut the need to make significant progress by the end of the year.
“Significant progress.” I’ve heard those words before. And they have a hollow ring to them that doesn’t sound anything like “victory,” or even “success.”
Here’s a real sign things are going south. When the Pentagon sees the problem as the media not reporting enough of the “good news.” Reuters quotes Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell as frustrated that reporters are spending too much time on the front lines, and suggesting they should visit some of the more quiet, stable areas of Afghanistan to get a more complete picture. Uh.. Reporters are going to go where the fighting is. That’s where the war is being won or lost.
As I once told a general complaining about negative coverage of early operations in Iraq in, “If you want better war coverage, you should run a better war.”
I’ve been around along enough to know that sometimes things work out despite all the missteps and roadblocks. NATO’s air war on Kosovo comes to mind. But I’ve also been around long enough to recognize the same shopworn excuses about why we haven’t yet turned the corner.
I’m not saying we should stay un Afghanistan forever, (because that’s how it could take). I’m saying a open-ended strategy the only way to successfully build a functioning nation, which seems to be the linchpin of current U.S. strategy. And I think secretly, President Obama knows he may soon have to adjust that goal, or change the strategy to match it.
The question is, “Are we making America safer, and is it worth the cost?”
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, Strategy
