The Audacity of Nope: Now More Than Ever

Nope, we are not going to drink the Obama cool aid. The delusional quality of the surge speech, 1 December, was masked by a supremely well delivered address (all the more frightening as the style covered the lack of logic and substance) harkening back to the rhetorical heights of the Kennedy presidency. Obama is no George W. Bush and yet he calls us to national unity after he acknowledges the apparent lack of consensus about his proposed expansion of the war in AFPAK lands. He stated the obvious: we have a weak economy, an over-stressed military, and a very sceptical public, tired of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he calls for that which he has just admitted doesn't exist and cannot as long as people assess the facts in the real world.


We were not told how he would pay for the expanded war while he also needs to pay for health care and rebuilding the national infrastructure. The states are collapsing under the weight of lost revenues and unemployment numbers not seen in a quarter of a century.


He and his advisors have conveniently put aside the counterinsurgency doctrine manual written by the very generals running the two wars currently under way. The numbers of allied troops needed to clear and hold a country the size of Afghanistan would be in the range of 630,000. The doctrine did not fit the political situation so the doctrine mysteriously changed. Just as the numbers that were presented to the Bush administration by the Joint Chiefs in the run up to Iraq were deemed too high: ergo, the numbers change and the strategy is built on rosy projections of allied and indigenous troops joining the fight to hold key cites and choke-points along the southern border with Pakistan.


The idea that the enemy will react to this incremental pressure with a number of counter moves has seemed to escape those in Obamaland. Winter is upon the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, and military operations will be at a virtual standstill until the spring of next year. It would be especially ominous if the insurgency continue the fight during the winter. We are still seeing plenty of fighting and it is December. With more Americans to shoot and material to loot and blow up, the opportunities for high profile attacks go way up....remember the Tet Offensive....of course not. Force protection, i.e. soldiers protecting soldiers, becomes an ever bigger issue as the U.S. military presence is enhanced. The Taliban know that the American public is sceptical about the war...A Tet-like offensive in several areas at once could see our casualties go from eight a week into the hundreds. The enemy has patience; it is their land and their tribal networks we seek to overcome. Obama did not address any of the possible options of a counter attack by the Taliban...at a time of their choosing.


The speech Tuesday night was a classic of imperial newspeak. Obama stated that America is not an imperialist power in the classic sense. With over 450 major bases and hundreds more installations around the world, with a navy that is larger than the next three navies combined and a military budget that is larger than that of the entire EU, Russia, and China's defense budgets combined...why would anyone think that the United States posed a potential or actual threat to them? Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy has added up a conservative score card for American causalities versus Muslims killed by American actions. The numbers for the past 30 years are 10,325 Americans killed and 288,000 Muslims killed (see http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30 ). You want to know why they hate us? Read this piece and think about the kind of firepower and carnage that is about to descend upon Afghanistan.


Obama is going to be a one term president for all the wrong reasons. Had he withdrawn the troops and lost the next election, he would have a place of honor in American history; this move will mark him as just another spineless political opportunist who played at being a leader without truly being one.