It’s Official: Obama’s Worst Mistake
The Soviet army withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1989
Barack Obama has officially made the biggest mistake of his presidency. In his speech at West Point tonight, Obama elucidated his strategy to escalate the Afghan campaign still further by sending in thousands upon thousands more troops, under the guise of bringing an end to the conflict. Rarely has the adage carried more weight: “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”
Insisting that Afghanistan is not Vietnam, Obama identified a few details that differ between the two, such as the fact that the US is not facing a “popular” militant movement in Afghanistan the way it was in Vietnam. Aside from the fact that this is eminently debatable (how could the Taliban function if they didn’t have some modicum of support among average people?), he predictably misses the bigger picture. It’s not about the details. It’s about the overall dynamics and the fundamental characteristics of the thing: a powerful nation that thinks of itself as inherently special, sending massive numbers of troops to a foreign land it barely understands, in an attempt to mold that land and its governing structure to its desire, battling homegrown militants that use guerilla tactics in a territory they are intimately familiar with.
Whether the US in Vietnam, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, or Britain in Afghanistan, or indeed Britain in the American colonies in the late 18th century, the basic plot remains identical. People always think that “this time, it’s different,” or that “we are different, we are unique.” They rationalize, twist the evidence, or do anything to escape from the cold, hard truth: we are not different.
Major questions remain as to whether the American public—right and left—will have the stomach for the inevitable increase in casualties that is in store. At some point the tired old line about the Taliban’s “threat” to America, the “costs of failing” in Afghanistan, and the vitalness of “success” in some godforsaken backwater of a country will wear thin in the face of mounting American bodies and spiraling American debt. The public, already dubious about this effort, will probably turn even further against it. It’s just a matter of time. And at that point, withdrawal won’t be an option, it will be mandatory.
Afghanistan defeated Alexander the Great. It defeated the British Empire and the Soviet Union. Now a new victim has come on the scene. As this surely final act in the American-Afghan play commences, a new empire believes that it is different. A new great power believes that history need not apply. As the cost, in human terms and financial terms, rises, rest assured that whatever Bush and Obama think or don’t think of history, it will not treat them kindly.
MORE ARTICLES:
The sad irony here is that Osama Bin Laden once said that his strategy was to draw America into a war it scouldn’t win, so as to destroy her economicly and morally. Looks like he has succeeded, and now both political parties have enabled him.
Brilliant strategy that.
My thoughts exactly:
http://100treatises.com/2009/11/keep-your-friends-close/
As long as the US fails to adequately understand the enemy, it cannot hope to “succeed” by any definition of that word.
Both George W. Bush and Barrack Obama are morons. I can’t believe that these two idiots failed to see the folly of getting involved in Afghanistan. Bush first got us involved in the U.S. invasion of that particular country back in December 2002. And now, Obama wants to escalate our presence there. Even sadder, I don’t know of any politicians – Republican or Democrat – who would have disagree with either man.
Morons!