Obama failing our troops in Afghanistan

By: David T. Pyne

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) gets high marks for demonstrating an uncommon degree of common sense on issues of war and peace as compared to most other US policymakers. During his campaign, Chaffetz stated that while in retrospect invading Iraq was probably a mistake, he likely would have voted to authorize the war had he been in Congress in 2002. Now he says he believes pursuing a more Al Queda-focused counterterrorist strategy in Afghanistan, as opposed to nation-building which has failed wherever it has been tried during the past six decades, might be a better course.

In a recent Salt Lake Tribune article entitled, Obama’s choice: Ramp up or wind down war in Afghanistan,h Chaffetz expressed reservations about sending more troops saying, “Adding tens of thousands of additional troops shouldn’t be the default answer. I don’t know that it would be a total failure to come home.” Chaffetz was right about the war in Iraq before and he is right about the war in Afghanistan today.

Chaffetz is not alone. In a recent Washington Times editorial, two prominent conservative Republican Congressman–Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) and Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) penned a scathing indictment of the President saying, “Obama intelligence and military tactics are endangering our troops on the ground. There is no demonstrated presidential commitment to winning. Given these conditions, can we support keeping American military men and women in Afghanistan? The answer is no. If the Obama administration’s priority isn’t providing our troops with the tools to do the job and win, we shouldn’t be there.”

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Bush and now Obama have demonstrated that they have had no idea how to win wars or no intention of allowing our troops to be victorious. In both cases, we were initially victorious in our mission objectives, but lost the wars when we overstayed our welcome and our never-ending occupation of both countries caused our enemies to multiply and provoked growing and increasingly bold insurgencies in a classic failure of counterinsurgency strategy. We should have brought our troops home to a ticker tape parade after we nabbed Saddam in December 2003 and after we overthrew the Taliban two years earlier rather than snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as we have done.

Since we invaded Iraq six and a half years ago and Afghanistan eight years ago, we have lost nearly 7,000 American soldiers and contractors killed in action with tens of thousands more severely wounded at the cost of a trillion dollars thus far. October has been the single deadliest month for US forces since the war began. It shouldn’t take a military strategist to realize that after fighting a war for over eight years without any real idea how to win, it might be time to consider a drastic change in strategy. This should include a sober assessment of the cost/benefit analysis of staying and fighting at a rising cost in American blood and treasure versus conserving our military strength and bringing our troops home to defend America from terrorist attack.

The Soviets fought an eight year long war in Afghanistan before finally realizing that victory was not a possibility in a conflict which some say began a chain of events that resulted in the collapse of the Evil Empire thanks to Reagan’s support of proxy forces against the Soviet invaders. If the Soviet Union could not win after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our troops fighting no-win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point where eventually the American Empire, as some call it, may decline precipitously or perhaps even collapse altogether. Worse yet, America’s increasing military weakness highlighted further by Obama’s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our Sino-Russian alliance enemies. Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and Afghanistan.

If the Soviet Union could not win after eight years of fighting in Afghanistan, what makes our leaders think that we can? The longer we keep large numbers of our troops bogged down fighting two no-win counterinsurgency wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, the weaker and more vulnerable we will become to the point where eventually the American Empire, as some call it, may decline precipitously or perhaps even collapse altogether. Worse yet, America’s increasing military weakness highlighted further by Obama’s ongoing demolition of our nuclear deterrent, might invite a catastrophic attack from our from our Sino-Russian alliance enemies.

Already some of our retired generals have stated that they believe our Army and Marine Corps ground forces have been broken by their over-deployment in the desert sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. This high tempo of deployments has resulted in much of our military equipment to break down while procurement and readiness are at their lowest levels over the past quarter century. Our national security always suffers when we get bogged down in wars where our troops are asked to bleed and die, but are not permitted by our political leaders to win. Our brave soldiers should never be allowed to sacrifice in this way without the hope of victory! The best way to support our troops is to bring them home to their families and make a commitment that we will not let a week go by without thanking a soldier for their willingness to risk life and limb to defend us all.

What is it going to take to get our political leaders to realize that the costs of staying and fighting the long war in Iraq and Afghanistan greatly outweigh the costs of redeploying out of theater? The same voices we hear calling for us to send another 40,000 to 100,000 troops to Afghanistan are the ones that would have called for us to keep surging and fighting in Vietnam in perpetuity at the cost of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers lives. It didn’t make sense to do that then and it doesn’t make sense to do so now. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the Evil Soviet Empire in part by employing proxies to fight and win our battles for us. We need to learn from Reagan and re-employ a strategy of arming and supporting proxies\both states and insurgent movements to fight our wars so our troops don’t have to.

America needs to conserve its military strength for a time when we they may be called upon to fight great power enemies, not waste it bogged down fighting Vietnams in the desert as we have been doing the past several years. Until we do, we will remain in a state of imperial overstretch and strategic paralysis with no reserve forces to fight new hypothetical wars of necessity and with a continuing window of vulnerability which our enemies will undoubtedly continue to exploit. North Korea has already been exploiting our window of vulnerability with their ongoing nuclear missile buildup as has the Islamic Republic of Iran is doing with its near imminent development of weaponized nukes. Even Russia has done so with their invasion of US-ally Georgia this past year.

Contrary to popular opinion, the surge did not win in Iraq where our Iranian enemies have triumphed in our undeclared war with Tehran with their Shiite Islamist proxies in total control of the country with the second largest oil reserves in the world. As Fareed Zakaria recently pointed out, we are already on our third surge in Afghanistan in less than two years and this surge is even less likely to succeed where the previous two failed since as General McCrystal has stated the situation in Afghanistan is fast deteriorating. McCrystal also openly asked in his report whether gany number of additional troops can compensate for the corrupt Afghan government which blatantly attempted to steal their recent presidential election. In a recent Washington Post article, conservative columnist George Will echoed his concern in noting that one of the prerequisites to the success of our nation-building strategy in Afghanistan is the creation of an effective central government, something that Afghanistan has never had.

We need to follow the America First strategy for victory in our just war against Islamist terrorists that renowned counterterrorist expert Michael Scheuer has advocated in his excellent book, Marching Toward Hell. Scheuer is willing to confront the harsh reality that our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have essentially already been lost due to the incompetence of our political leaders, but concludes it is not too late to defeat Al Queda if we make a course correction right away. I would encourage all Americans, and our policymakers in particular, to read Schemer’s book to better understand the true origins of our current war against Al Queda and what we must do if we are to win it.

“Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

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