HomePoliticsObama’s Afghanistan Mistake

During the campaign, I had hopes that Obama was making speeches about increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan as a way to toss a bone to the right-wing militarists in this country. I was wrong. Obama is increasing U.S troop levels by 17,000 in Afghanistan, starting in May. Big mistake. I found a very interesting article in The Asia Times that analyzes what is really going on. You ought to read it so that you understand the reality in Afghanistan. Once again, the U.S. is deaf to alternative viewpoints about foreign policy. The only thing the U.S. establishment understands is violence, violence, and more violence.

Update 2/22/2009: Here is an article that appeared in The Washington Post, lest I be accused of being “too contrarian”. There appears to be some hope that Obama hasn’t been completely seduced by the arguments of the neo-cons and the militarists, as he has said that he won’t make any more changes until the end of March, when his Afghanistan policy review will be complete. To this Vietnam veteran, though, I think Afghanistan is an example of George Santayana’s famous dictum of not learning from history. My stance on this is that violence solves nothing at all. As Boris Yeltsin once said, “You can build a throne with bayonets, but you can’t sit on it long.”

Update 3/1/2009: Here is an interesting article by retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel William Astore that makes a very good case for taking a very hard look at just what our troops are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why are we pouring our blood and treasure down these rat holes?


Comments

Obama’s Afghanistan Mistake — 3 Comments

  1. I don’t know much about this, but isn’t it because he’s trying to get Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban? Which, IF there had to be ANY war, this was the right one. And the bad guys in Afghanistan are kind of being protected by Pakistan, who has nuclear arms? And if we don’t help the people, they will be taken over by the bad guys and then we’ll really be in danger?

    http://www.GreenerPastures–ACityGirlGoesCountry.blogspot.com

    • What gives us the right to make decisions about how others live? What threat is the Taliban to us? Why do we think we have to be the policeman for the world? Don’t other people have the right to determine how they will live? It really is time for us to stop listening to the politicians in Washington and tell them what *we* want, not follow what *they* want!! Whose tax dollars are funding these adventures, anyway?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>