Finish the Job
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President Obama has told visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he will “finish the job” in Afghanistan and wipe out every last lurking terrorist. “Finish the job” is one of those expressions that politicians use a lot when they don’t know what the hell they are talking about. It is widely believed that Obama will approve a 34,000 soldier increase for the conflict when he speaks to the nation next week. US soldiers cost $1 million each per year in Afghanistan, which suggests that it might be cheaper to give the insurgents good jobs working for the post office or something similar to wean them from their brigand ways. How much more surging can we afford, particularly as it doesn’t seem to be working?
I am all for finding and killing GENUINE terrorists (as opposed to farmers or wedding party guests) who threaten the United States but I have to wonder what Obama has been smoking lately. There is no coherency to the policies that he appears to embrace, which are little more than mission creep seeking to rebuild central Asia. There is little or no al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan while the presence in Pakistan appears to be fairly small and largely preoccupied with scurrying from one bolt hole to another. If the US successfully pressures al-Qaeda it will just move somewhere else and continue doing what it is doing, which does not appear to be very much. Is it really worth 100,000 troops on the ground at a cost of $170 billion per year? Not to mention lots of dead American soldiers.
The massive US troop presence in Afghanistan is there to fight the Taliban – which does not threaten the United States in any way, shape, or form – while shoring up Mr. Hundred Per Cent Hamid Karzai and his merry band of cutthroat thieves. Is Obama also telling the Indians wink-wink that he will next turn on the Muslims seeking to liberate Kashmir, who also do not threaten the US? Who’s next after that and where does it all end? If Obama seriously wants to “finish” it in Afghanistan he would gather in all of the country’s neighbors in a latter-day Congress of Vienna to work out a security formula that is acceptable to most of them and then pull out. Bring the troops home by Christmas.
Filed under: War
Here, here!
While Mr Giraldi has compared my comments to barnyard droppings, I find I agree with every word in this post. An interesting dilemma, for him.
Further, while I have been critical of William Lind, I think if he were to pull his 4GW out of the mechanics of murder, and re-focus on demonstrating to the world that we wish to quickly put the Afghanis in charge of their own fate, I think some of his work probably holds an answer for Obama.
That is, instead of putting Mr Lind in charge Special Ops on motorcycles, put him in charge of something similar to “go-viral.com”. (Where “viral” means becoming instantly popular on the internet, nothing biological).
The next administration should put a special prosecutor in charge of determining whether any soldiers lost their lives because of presidential personal vanity, and then put multiple people in prison for life (only if they’re found guilty, of course).
“President Obama has told visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he will ‘finish the job’….”
One would have thought that President Obama would already have been taught to curb his penchant for making soaring promises. And yet now he’s even making ‘em about things he can never really deliver on.
Presumably his next step will be promising the “mother of all solutions” to the common cold.
Increasingly, you get the sense that the poor man has no truly wise and trusted counsel to talk things over with.
Barney, it must be your Thanksgiving spirit! Thank you for you comment and happy Thanksgiving to you!
Philip, I sent a few hours last night in the companyof two guardsmen who were bound for Afghanstan. Afghanistan I’snt worth the life of a single such young man.
America needs to drastically reduce its boots on the ground and pursue a strategy which places counterintelligence on point, backed by Special Ops military strikes.
Is it cynical or naive to suggest Obama’s only reason for “finishing the job” is spelled P-R-O-F-I-T? As in War/Debt Profits? To all the Cunning Realists who answered both: Please consider Einstein’s and Russell’s choice first published in July 1955″…shall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war.”
My humble suggestion is to FLUSH the DC TOILET in 2010! Send every single incumbent running for reelection a pink slip based either on his/her undying support for those who kill children for money or for their inability to stop the crime.
I agree with Mr. Giraldi. the Taliban is NOT our enemy! it is AlQueda that is our enemy.
G.Curtis Hoskins,M.D.
General/President Eisenhower warned America about the “Military-Industrial-Complex”,yet Americans have given a blank check to the pentagon for the most expensive military ever. I say, cut out the pentagon entirely and spend the money on medical care and education.
G.Curtis Hoskins,M.D.