Osler's Razor

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
 

This is a tough call. President Obama (and this was true of President Bush also) presides over the era of "no good choices."

President Obama could have satisfied me with one of two actions on Tuesday night: 1) an announced withdrawal or 2) a commitment to give the generals what they need.

I think we got number 2 (and I probably did not understand until then how much I really wanted number 1).

However, opting to not leave Afghanistan in shambles is an honorable choice given our national history in the region and the President's personal political history on this issue.

And, I do think Afghanistan is "winnable" (even though I have called in the "unwinnable war" on this space before).

Having said that, the right plan, the right personnel, and with a little luck, we can leave Afghanistan in much better shape than we found it.

My prayers are with the President, the soldiers, and the USA.

I am glad I did not have to make the decision--but I support the President's plan.
 

Yes, my general feeling is that, as Waco Farmer says, because of our history in the area (i.e. we bombed and finished destroying their country as we looked for Al Qaeda, and we put the Taliban there in the first place, as I understand it), we should try to help leave the country in better shape. I think we have a responsibility to do that.

Whether Obama's plan will accomplish that goal, I have no idea. It seems to me that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are two different elements to be dealt with; the Taliban, as I read in an interview with them recently, say "It's our country and we're not going anywhere," whereas Al Qaeda can go wherever they want and wherever they are welcomed. I'm not sure if the same strategy will work on both of those elements.

Ultimately I think the Afghan people need a better life and will probably support whoever is able to help facilitate that for them--the Taliban or us.

My understanding of the situation is probably very simplistic and un-nuanced, I realize. I have asked a couple of my former students, who are Afghans, to post here today. Maybe they will!
 

Danke Schoen, darling Danke schoen.

Thank you for all the joy and pain.

Picture shows, second balcony, was the place we'd meet, second seat, go Dutch treat, you were sweet.
 

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
 

Either all the Razor regulars (with the happy exception of Swissgirl) just took the last train for the Coast--or this subject is just hard as hell.

As I indicated earlier, my guess is the latter possibility.
 

Gosh, Prof, I would have posted earlier but I had to go to your class. Maybe I'll skip next time to do some blogging.

I second what Waco Farmer said about an seeking an honorable end to the conflict, but I also want to point out that I think we do have identifiable, attainable goals in Afghanistan. Obama's done a poor job appeasing his peacenik base so far, and Republican's are waiting with baited breath for him to flub something defense related. So I think he'd pull out in a flat second if he thought the next few years would be a futile waste of life.

Goal #1 - Take and hold. You're right that a large part of what we'll do in the next few years is re-conquer the flat parts of the country. the problem is that we really haven't done this yet. We took the Taliban out of power, but we haven't yet done the same kind of "community organization" that worked so well in Iraq. This is the "take and hold" strategy that the generals wanted more troops for, not more of the same. If we leave now, what are he handing the Afghans? A few remote outposts?

Goal #2 - A stable and legitimate government. Without the U.S., Afghanistan is a bloody, tribal, opium fueled civil war waiting to happen. It almost is already. Plus, Obama knows what a farce the last Karzai election was, and it's important that whatever government we back when we pull out is seen as legitimate. Otherwise the result's the same as leaving today.

Goal #3 - Put pressure on Pakistan. For all it's recent protestations, the Pakistani establishment is very close to appeasement of the radical element within it's own borders. It's to be expected when they're bombing targets within the capital city, and controlling territory within a day of the capital? Without our counter-terrorism operations, we may have seen Pakistan cave already.

Goal #4 - Root out Al Qaeda, or at least minimize it's base of support. This is the biggest reason we went in, and the biggest reason not to leave. If we can't scour them out of the mountains, then we have to reduce the amount of moral and financial support they receive from the population and poppy growers. This is what the take-and-hold strategy does, and why we need more troops.

I'm hoping that "You can't learn about the Middle East from newspapers" Guy comes back for this one...RRL shot him down pretty well last time.
 

I'm here, had to drive to Lake Jackson this morning for a deposition, but now I have arrived.

So, lets get it on.

Here is what bothers me about Obama's decision (in a shocking turn of events, I don't like it). It seems completely political to me.

Say what you want about Bush in Iraq, but you always got the sense that he meant it. Even taking him in the worst light possible, Jesus told him to attack Iraq, the oil companies agreed, so he made up a bunch of stuff about WMDs, and went and invaded. When he figured out he didn't have enough troops to win he sent more. You might think he was crazy, stupid, and maybe even evil. But it wasn't political. If anything, it was politically damaging to his presidency and legacy.

Obama basically decided he couldn't pull out completely, because that would be political suicide. He couldn't give the generals everything they wanted, because that would make him seem weak and ineffectual, and make him seem like he was giving in to the military establishment to the progressives. And he set a pull out date that is conveniently immediately before his next election. His decision seems to based almost entirely on a political calculus.

Had he said he was going to end the war and pull the troops out, I would've disagreed, but at least it would've been a bold, and potentially right, decision.

Had he said he was going to give the generals what they asked for (about 40,000 troops) and committed to some kind of firm goal (no matter how long it took) without a timetable, it would've surely driven his base insane, but at least it would've been a course, a path.

Instead, he split the baby. And that is almost always a bad idea. He didn't give the generals what they wanted (at least not entirely) and he signaled a date on which the war will end (also known as the, "just keep fighting us till 2011 and we will surrender then" date).

Surely, if he is who many of you believe he is, then he could've done better than this.
 

Hey - I was busy clarifying my 'mandated' table time for RRL on the earlier topic of overweight people.

As much as my heart say we should get out I don't think we can walk away without trying to get at al Qaeda. We helped create the bin Laden machine during the Afghan / Soviet war when we funded the mujadeen.

I think their needs to be a 3 or 4 pronged approach to make any progress as al Qaeda and the Taliban are 2 distinct problems with less in common than we think.

Prong 1: In the mountainous border region they need to employ a 'surge' of special forces to deal with al Qaeda.

Prong 2 and 3 involve increasing their policing efforts and tackling the Taliban. Tanks in flat sandy parts of the country.

The 5 or 6 part series by the NY Times jouranlist that was kidnapped and held for 8 or so months and then escaped made for enlightening reading last month.

There might even be a 4th prong that increases our efforts on the humanitarian side and this can involve the UN and countries that don't wish to commit more troops to the project.

I hate to say it but if you bring the troops home now many will leave the military (understandably) and will probably enter the ranks of the unemployed. This plans helps buy time for the US economy to recover and the unemployment rates to come down before scaling back our overseas involvement.
 

Are those the Rice Univ. cheerleaders in the photo?
 

I actually assumed that was the Texas A&M Dance Team that was in the photo...
 

RRL offers the conventional conservative critique--with which I disagree:

1. Obama's decision to fight is in fact courageous--considering his base of political support.

2. He didn't give McChrystal his 40,000--but generals know they don't get what they want, so they tend to "pack" the first request. I am betting General Mc is fairly happy with 100K to work with. BTW, Bush did the same thing on the Iraq surge--agreed to the lowest possible additional troops number.

3. Don't get caught up with the 18-month time line noise. It was a bone he had to throw his base. He is in it to win it. He just bet his presidency on winning in Afghanistan.

He could have walked away and blamed it on GWB up until Tuesday night (it would have been a stretch and totally lame--but he probably could have gotten away with it).

But not now. This is finally, irrevocably, inarguably, "Mr. Obama's War." Victory equals his political success. Failure equals his political destruction.

Therefore, any analysis that asserts this is Obama's way of "quitting" must deal with the fact that quitting (after this week) will be completely self destructive politically.
 

I think we all know that the best way to vanquish an enemy in a mountainous border region is to use dark magic to raise an army of Orc warriors and Oliphants and hope the Taliban doesn't know anyone in Rohan.
 

Yes, I know, I know. I have offered the "conventional conservative critique" because I'm just the right-wing standard bearer around here.

Tell you what, find me three conservatives who have written over the past 2 days, since the speech was given, that take the same position I do.

Lets take for example the editors of the National Review, who said, "What will endure is the policy, and on that — most important — Obama made basically the right call."

Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove have said basically the same thing.

Yes, some conservatives feel the timetable is wrong, and I agree with them on that. But my position, which is that Obama is now fighting this war in such a way as to try to avoid political damage and that a war being fought based on a political calculus is not only dangerous but wrong, isn't a position that is being taken by conservatives in any kind of consistent way.

And, lets at least be accurate. Bush actually sent MORE troops than was being requested by General Casey as part of the Iraq troop surge, not less.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003551131_webcasey01.html

And McChrystal surely did expect to get fewer troops than he asked for, which is why his report included a request for up to 80,000 troops. 40,000 was the middle ground in the report.
 

I have to work for a living! Sadly, I am not paid to comment on the Razor.

And I have kids to deal with.

What Obama did NOT say, but has now made clear was that he was wrong about the Iraq surge in 2007-2008 and that Bush and McCain were right. He's following the script written by McCain and implemented by Bush.

Anyhow, I want to think Waco Farmer is right, but part of me thinks RLL has a pretty good idea of how the Chicago politics trained White House works these days.

One good thing is that he didn't announce some sort of half-assed step by step plan that would have been more like the strategy in Iraq pre-surge or Vietnam. Incremental pressure does not work. Its "Go Big or Go Home."

Let's hope we're going Big enough.
 

Woe is you, RRL. Wow! It must be really hard to be a conservative when everybody is always picking on you.

A small sampling of similarly conventional critiques of the plan:

Ralph Peters: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/setting_up_our_military_to_fail_lBlTIHm69SM02Lly5JbNaO

Tunku Varadarajan: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2009/12/02/would_it_kill_obama_to_endorse_victory_225549.html

Fred Kaplan: http://www.slate.com/id/2237101/

Charles Hurt: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gutsy_move_betrays_the_troops_v8CSN2LdfHVmFpKewSfnBN

Orin Hatch on NRO: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTMwZTRkZDI3ZTJkZTliOTY0NDY2ZGY2NWNiNDk0ZTQ=

VDH: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWNkMGRlODAzNTE2NGNjNWQxMGI0NzFhNGJkMWM5YTc=

I will be happy to provide more upon request.
 

Prof., I posted this during your sentencing class (after Judge Johnson left), just so you know I'm not slacking on my blog studies.
 

Send all the hippies to Tora Bora
 

Jesse, it's too bad BLS doesn't offer a concentration in Blog Law. It would include courses on Free Speech, Internet Privacy Law, Law and Public Policy, Trashing Hippies (seminar), and Advanced Wikipedia Research.

Btw if that happens I am totally taking credit for it.
 

Oh, I could be the adjunct to teach the class on blog law. There'd be a whole section on obsessing over baseball transactions and statistics and another on Fantasy Football (my life is much better since I stopped playing).
 

It's addicting man. They might as well call it Final Fantasy Football.
 

Justin, was Windows 7 also your idea? If so, MS might fly you to Japan like those folks on the commercials!
 

This just in:

We in the h-e-double-hockey-sticks are we talking about something as trivial as war and peace.

Now this is something earth-shattering: http://www.wacoan.com/

Congrats!
 

I'm busy being subpoenaed to testify in cases in which I am lead counsel. Motions to quash and screaming take up much of my time.

Anyway, I disagree with RRL on general principles because exploitation alienation and dialectical materialism appear to me as Dickensian ghosts bent on my spiritual transformation.

Actually, I don't think this was a split the baby move. Progressives and the peaceniks will hate it and say it's another broken promise. They're a fractious lot and not that critical of thinkers. Big tent cons will like it because it's strong and nationalistic, which is why most liberals will hate it. I'm more like AWF - it's not a good decision, but when your choices are a crap sandwich and a crap sandwich with mustard, well, mustard helps. We couldn't leave without invoking the spectre of colonialism. We can't stay without making it worse. So we make it worse, but not as bad as a Vietnam style withdraw would.

Is it a good political move? No. It's a very bad political move, and the Obama Admin doesn't have Rove's penchant for spin. I wouldn't be surprised if this hurts the Pres almost beyond repair, unless we catch Osama bin Laden, in which case it's a hail Mary that paid off.
 

I agree with A Waco Farmer (4:38) - maybe for the first time!
 

Waco Farmer:

The posts you cite by Tunku Varadarajan, Orin Hatch, and VDH don't take the position I did, which was that Obama's move was completely a political calculation. They take the position that the pullout date is a bad idea, which I agree with, but wasn't really the point of what I said.

Fred Kaplan is a self-professed liberal writing on Slate.com. If he represents the conservative position then count me out.

Charles Hurt, in the post you cited, actually disagreed with me completely basically, by saying that Obama's decision was, "politically selfless decision to escalate the unpopular war in Afghanistan because he knows it is in the best long-term interests of his country -- no matter the political consequences."

The only post that you cited that seemed to come close to taking the same position as me was Ralph Peters. And since I didn't say I was the only one who said it, just that it wasn't exactly the party talking point, I guess that one post wouldn't disprove that.

Oh, and I'm fine with everybody picking on me. I just wish they wouldn't be lazy when doing it. When you start with the "RRL is just being a typical conservative" or some such similar thing, it is dismissive without actually presenting an argument.

But, no skin off my back.

Oh, and Lane, I'm not saying that it will work for Obama politically, I'm simply saying that the way I read his decision is that it was a political one. Whether it is effective or not, we won't know that for at least another 11 months.
 

Like I said, short of finding Osama Bin Laden and bringing him back trussed up like a turkey, I think it's suicidal. Or maybe he's trying for the noble political martyr angle. I don't know; I have to assume that anyone savvy enough to be elected President and run the sort of campaign Obama did isn't making a tactical blunder of this magnitude.
 

I'm drawing a mental picture of bin Laden trussed up like a turkey. I think I'll keep eating duck.
 

Hey, RRL.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. My bad. I admit I got a bit confused about which of your points was the original one.

Now I think I see. My apologies for the insulting tone.

Godspeed.
 

I trust Obama. He has a good heart, and it drives his mind, and decisions. This is ok.
 

We will stabilize part of the country, leave, and within the year the Taliban will overrun the whole country. When we effectively left Vietnam in 1973, it took the NVA about eighteen months to overtake Saigon.

Different location, same story, same corporate profits.