Yesterday the House of Representatives voted on legislation to approve supplemental funding to support the President's new strategy in Afghanistan as well as to help draw down our forces in Iraq. While I supported many provisions in this bill, a vote in favor of this legislation is fundamentally an acceptance of an open ended military commitment to a regional strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan whose cost in terms of American lives and billions of dollars has not been sufficiently articulated to the American people. Because of this fact, I could not support the legislation at that time.While I do not agree with her vote, I do note that she is asking the right questions and further, she is showing the spunk that all of the US Congress, Democrats, Republicans, Socialists and Independents alike, need to show.
During the Presidential Campaign we were told that Iraq was the bad war and Afghanistan was the good war. Little did we realize that it wasn't Afghanistan, it was Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the western part of Pakistan being the center of Taliban and al Qaeda operations.
Thus, it is right and proper for Congresswoman Tsongas to withhold her vote until someone tells her, and the rest of the US Congress and the US People, the "plan." Back in early 2003, when we had just invaded Iraq, then Major General David Petraeus would ask Washington Post reporter Rick Atkinson, "Tell me how this ends."♠ It was a fair question then and it is a fair question now.
Asking how something as complicated as war will end is to ask for several different answers, based upon several different scenarios. It is like asking if Niki Tsongas will be in the US House in 2014. She will, unless there are only nine seats after the Census in 2010, but even so, she still might be if either of our Senators step down, and depending on if Martha Coakley or Marty Meehan elect not to run, and if she doesn't become the Ambassador to Greece in President Obama's second Administration. So, if Congresswoman Tsongas is looking for a straight line, there is none. But, she is right to ask such questions.
Congresswoman Tsongas tells us that so far her best answer is from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen:
'I think it's going to be a while. At what level of combat, what level of troops, that's difficult to predict right now.'That is still a pretty squishy answer. I think the Congresswoman is correct in wanting a better answer.
That said, we have to ask ourselves about what happens if we pull out. This is not just a political question, it is also a moral question. We have to ask ourselves what we owe the people of Afghanistan (and Iraq). For example, do we owe anything to the women of Afghanistan, who we encouraged to step out and claim full citizenship? Do we owe anything to those school girls in Kandahar, who had battery acid thrown in their faces for going to school? If we hadn't thrown out the Taliban they would never have thought of going to school. (My vote is yes we do).
Then there is the question of if al Qaeda is finished and with them all the takfiri, believing in compulsion in religion and the duty to kill those whose beliefs differ from their own. If we pull out of Afghanistan and leave it to the Taliban, it is not a big deal to us. If we pull out of Pakistan, and the nuclear weapons are controlled, it is not a big deal to us if the Government falls to a military dictatorship. However, if we stop pressing al Qaeda, they will be back looking for us, including looking for us in the United States.
If I liked the expression "Bottom Line," and I elected to give one to Congresswoman Tsongas, it would be to invite Dr David Killcullen in for a one-on-one discussion of the issue. And, as a next best option, she could read his book, The Accidental Guerrilla. If someone calls from the Lowell Office (or EMails me), I will personally pay for a copy to be dispatched to the office via Amazon.
We all need to engage in this discussion.
UPDATED: Added a footnote to reference a quote.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Robinson, Linda, Tell Me How This Ends, Page 68.
2 comments:
Cliff,
Thanks for writing that. And although Admiral Mullen's answer may be "squishy" I still think it's better than a lot of possible alternatives. I'm glad Mrs. Tsongas is asking the questions (though I hope that she's not blocking money that might help me roll around in an MRAP!), but I think one of the consistent themes I've heard from people who have voiced frustration with American policy -- legitimate frustration, that is, not just the reflexive America is damned-if-it-does-or-if-it-doesn't stuff -- is that we don't have such a great track record of standing by our allies.
You don't have to travel far to hear it, either -- just ask the many Lowellians who fought Communists in the 1970s in Southeast Asia. Or Iraqi exiles scattered around New England whose families rose up in 1991 when George H.W. asked them to (some are now working as interpreters, their stories are amazing..many spent years in Saudi before Am. Red Cross got 'em here).
I don't think of an "open-ended commitment" as a necessarily bad thing in and of itself, but like you said, we need to put it in some type of paramters to understand it. Just like the back-and-forth we had with Dick Howe on his blog about Iraq, I think the long-term residual idea is WAY better than just abandoning the people who stood by us in the hopes of something better.
Two unrelated notes: Niki Tsongas spoke at the Memorial Day thing yesterday about the post-9/11 GI Bill, definitely my next blog topic whenever I get to it. It's making huge waves among the ranks, mostly because of the transferability to dependents.
Second: I finally started checking Tom Ricks' site regularly. Consider me a ticket-holding rider on the TR bandwagon.
best,
gp
GP
I fully understand your second paragraph. My "Viet-nam War Protest" was taking leave and going home to Florida for a week when we stopped bombing in Cambodia. I didn't want to be on Korat RTAFB when the press arrived. I figured I might say something about the craven and cowardly US withdrawal. On the other hand, I had a ticket for the last "official" close air support mission flown into Cambodia. Lt Col Paul Schwimm took my place in the back seat of Colonel Bob Crouch's F-4E—he was the Wing Commander of the 388th TFW at the time.
I saw a comment this morning from someone about how some Chinese might well be regretting today that they got in the way of the UN reuniting Korea back in 1950. At the time their intervention probably seemed to them like the right thing to do. Today, maybe not, given the North Korean nuclear weapons (which are a spur to Japan to develop nuclear weapons) and failing economy and threat of collapse and an economic diaspora of North Koreans into China.
Regards — Cliff
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