The mission remains impossible (Afghanistan)

[IndianaGreen]

Mary Dejevsky: The mission remains impossible

If the power and prestige of the US presidency emerge in good order, the same cannot be said of the military operation in Afghanistan

Friday, 25 June 2010

That Barack Obama and Stanley McChrystal were very different creatures was apparent from the first. Aside from a certain ranginess in their physiques, they had almost nothing in common; not language, not manner, not approach. Which did not have to be a liability. The one had to run the country, the other a nasty war. Their strengths might have been complementary, to mutual benefit.

This was not to be – for reasons that had less to do with the general's disparaging remarks than with the President. The barbs that have most wounded Obama have been the twin accusations of scholasticism and indecision. Vilified for what was seen as a late response to the BP oil spill, he could not risk the impression of weakness another time. Magnanimity was not a realistic option. A diminished President had to behave as the boss, on his own account and that of his slighted staff.

In so doing, of course, he also drove home the constitutional point that US military officers – however senior – are the servants of elected politicians. This is always a useful argument to make in a democracy, and it is the line Obama stressed in his pronouncement from the White House Rose Garden. Although McChrystal had not challenged the President's policy, he had belittled his authority. Rightful precedence was restored. With speed and ruthlessness, Obama showed that a US President has the power to propose – and dispose.

If the power and prestige of the presidency emerge in good order, however, the same cannot be said of operations in Afghanistan. To be sure, Obama did his utmost to limit the damage. His immediate nomination of General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal showed concern not to leave a vacuum and signalled not only continuity, but even an upgrading of the mission, given that Petraeus was McChrystal's senior.

Yet McChrystal's indiscretions cannot be separated from the progress, or lack of it, in Afghanistan.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mary-dejevsky/mary-dejevsky-the-mission-remains-impossible-2009649.html

[PurityOfEssence]

1. this war is the most grotesque of stupidities

It cannot be won. It is quicksand. The very act of prosecuting it further beggars any sense at all, and can only be explained as macho blustering and fixated inflexibility.

Ever seeking the middle road, our President wants both a surge and a timely withdrawal, even though the counter-insurgency concept necessitates a lengthy involvement. Seeking to please both the war-wary and the hawks, he decides on less of an increase in troops than is desired by the aggressive. The ultramoderate is consistency himself.

Admiral Jacky Fisher put it best: "The essence of war is violence, and moderation in war is imbecility." Somehow, we want a kinder and gentler war, and there is no definition of "winning". There is literally no description of what a victory would be. Nobody even tries. It has some vague suggestion of being when the Taliban is driven from the country and peace and harmony settles on the land like some mythic fog of contentment. Fat fucking chance.

We are fighting a war of occupation as an alien people in a land subjugated by a religion that far too easily metastasizes into a tyranny that doesn't even tolerate music, much less women's rights or something as outrageous as cosmopolitanism. It is a religious war, whether we like it or not, and we're in abject denial of this fact. We're attempting to reach agreement with a culture that specifically denies toleration, and we're doing so at force of arms and in a laughable alliance with tribal thugs, drug lords and corporatist functionaries.

The logistical realities are ridiculous, it being a landlocked country literally surrounded by hostile and barely compliant "allies", and can barely support a small modern military, much less an adequate one for the task. To anyone with a lick of sense or a crumb of awareness of history, it is the sheerest folly, yet we must suck it up and somehow believe that our wondrous leader must have some godly chess move in mind that is beyond us mere peasants. It is so blatantly idiotic, bereft of any non-ugly outcome and morally bankrupt that hardly anyone can scrape up the willingness to say it out loud: this is already a defeat; it's just a question of the degree, and it will get worse with each passing bit of rural pacification.

Besides all this, the jingoistic posturing and blind faith saps our will and ability to deal rationally with reality itself. To swallow this, as seemingly everyone has, betrays our deep moral cowardice and selfish denial.

Thank you for continually posting these threads, and shame on the blinkered extremists among this administration's partisans for stifling the decency of dissent.