Calling a Spade a Spade
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The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is overwhelming. Once again there are those on the far right that choose to follow the politically correct path rather than one of truth and honesty. I’m not saying Mr. Steele is the best chair for the Republican Party. If he’s unable to raise the funds required, then yes, replace him. But don’t excoriate him, or kick him to the curb for speaking the truth. Michael Steele’s comment “… a war of Obama’s choosing” is absolutely correct. I have written, not in those exact words, this same sentiment a plethora of times right here on this site.
In February of 2009 Obama sent 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to bolster the number of boots on the ground by almost 50%. In November he announced another 30,000 to prepare for a counter-insurgency strike, while the French kept a paltry thirty some hundred men committed to the fight. Gordon Brown sent an additional 500 to our 30,000, raising the number of British troops to a meager 10,000. This being the second highest commitment next to the United State’s. Out of the alleged 43-nation coalition nary a country sent additional troops, even the UN was non-committal. Since taking office President Obama has almost tripled the troop level in Afghanistan, and with the resignation of General McChrystal it appears more troops will go before this is over.
Of course we all know Obama didn’t start the fight, as he wasn’t the one who first sent troops. As a matter of fact, there were already 36,000 soldiers there when he took office. But now, we have almost 100,000 men and women over there and for what?
As a senator he excoriated Bush for fighting in Iraq and promulgated going after the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the perpetrators of 911. During his campaign Obama pledged to reduce troops in Iraq and concentrate on fighting our enemies in Afghanistan. As he reduced these troop levels he continually increased them in Afghanistan, exponentially, and to a staggering degree. So yes, I believe this is Obama’s war.
Americans are growing weary of the never-ending fight, nine years of conflict in a distant and desolate land. Current polls show most Americans want out, regardless of consequences. And for good reason, we can’t win. Another of Steele’s comments holds merit in this regard.
At a Connecticut fundraiser he was caught on tape criticizing Obama’s lack of education and understanding of war vis-à-vis Afghanistan. He intimated the President didn’t understand the consequences or ramifications of waging war in Afghanistan. That it has been proven throughout history that it is a losing proposition to do so.
“Well,” Steele explains, “if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan. Alright? Because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed.”
Well, he’s right, and he’s also a little off. The kingdom of Afghanistan was founded in 1747 and within the next ninety years they repelled or defeated many armies. Such as the Monguls and Persians on numerous occasions. Then Britain tried repeatedly during the 18th and 19th centuries to dominate the kingdom. The first conflict ended in a signed treaty in 1809 after a dismal failure by the Brits. It took thirty years before they tried again, but try they did.
Minimal success was afforded the British in 1839 when they sanctioned Shuja as king, someone they thought they could keep under their thumb. However, they found force wouldn’t work and wound up buying off the tribal lords around the land in order to maintain control. Then, realizing they had handed out more gold than they had collected in revenue, they cut back payments and the border lords turned against the them.
In 1842 the British retreated with a contingent of 16,000 men trying desperately to free themselves from an ugly land. They struggled for survival in the Godforsaken country with only one hope in mind make it through the snowbound passes between Kabul and Gandamak in an attempt to get back home. It didn’t happen. From attacks on all sides they were reduced to forty in number, and history recorded only one survivor from the onslaught, Dr. William Brydon. The British Empire learned it could not hold or control the country in which it suffered its most humiliating defeat.
Years passed, but when the Russians sent a diplomatic mission to Kabul in 1868 the British made their presence known one more time. Unfortunately, once again, after being summarily vanquished near Kandahar in 1881, the British negotiated their withdrawal. Abdur Rahman became the new king and the British paid him a subsidy for the next twenty years. Kind of a homage you see. “Please King Rahman, take our money and let us pass,” quoth the English. “Yours is our path to and fro to India.”
Would that be like paying the boatman? And is this going to be the final result for the US as well? I say quit the killing and just go ahead and pay them now, we’re going to wind up doing it anyway. Maybe that’s what Steele meant when he said, “there are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.” But I digress.
Skirmishes and minor fighting went on between the Afghanis and the Brits until the end of the Third Afghan War, where the Afghans finally won their right as a fully independent state. But the wars didn’t stop there. There has been conflicts between Pakistan and Afghanistan over border issues, confrontations between themselves and Iran along their borders, and a ten year war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan that started in 1979.
So, once again, Mr. Steele was right. It may not have been within the confines of a 1000 years, since Afghanistan was founded in 1747, but ground forces invading or trying to control Afghanistan doesn’t work. Any government of another nation cannot enforce their dogmas or idiosyncratic policies on a people of a country that do not want them. Afghanis do not want democracy, do not hold the same values as we, and do not seek to free themselves from the poverty and illiteracy they have known for all their existence. They simply do not know any better. Their education and beliefs are of a fundamentalist nature, handed down from one generation to the next. Their culture is of a biblical landscape and their thinking is of biblical times. That is the way they’ve been taught, and that is the way they live. No umbrage intended, but they are a primitive people. There’s no infrastructure, no industry, no GDP, academia, or anything else that would lead one to believe it is anything other than a land of philistines.
So yes, I believe this is Obama’s war, and he’s acting like the police or a state prosecutor. No matter what he’s going to make himself right, regardless who suffers or who is right or wrong. Michael Steele’s words may not be very palatable to the far right, war mongering Republicans, but they are factual and correct. They are the words most Americans think but do not express. We know in our hearts that what we were told by our enemy in the very beginning is true this is another Vietnam for America.