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The American left and the Dems have set a trap for themselves in Afghanistan. Some of our favorites explain how. Corner posts from James Robbins and Kathryn Jean Lopez explain some of the problems.
They were just for openers, Victor Davis Hanson goes into detail in World Affairs Journal.
… It is worth remembering that when the United States invaded Afghanistan on October 6, 2001, many on the left forecast immediate doom. The craggy peaks of the Hindu Kush were too high. The weather was too icy. With Ahmad Shah Massoud’s assassination by al-Qaeda, the Northern Alliance would surely not fight effectively. The same fate that had defeated both past British and Russian imperial occupiers lay in wait for us. New York Times writer R. W. Apple summed up such liberal unease—shortly before the rout of the Taliban—when he declared the first weeks of war in Afghanistan had already produced a hopeless Vietnam-like debacle.
But Afghanistan proved to be the quagmire that wasn’t. The unexpectedly sudden defeat of the Taliban, coupled with the rapid establishment of an elected Karzai government, quieted anti-war opposition for a time—even as fleeing Islamic terrorists began regrouping with near impunity across the border in Pakistan. In the autumn of 2002, about a year after the Taliban’s fall, success in Afghanistan was an attractive argument for more action, not more caution. Surprised by the quick victory of American arms in Afghanistan—but continually worried about being seen as soft on national security amid growing public support for ending the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein—a majority of Democratic congressmen and senators voted in October 2002, weeks before the midterm elections, to authorize a second war in Iraq. Few on the left wished to go on record opposing another successful military operation. …
… then presidential candidate Barack Obama framed the issue in a debate with John McCain, “We took our eye off Afghanistan. We took our eye off the folks who perpetrated 9/11.” The Democrats strange and twisted journey from supporting the war effort in Iraq, to wanting it immediately ended, while wishing for more fighting in Afghanistan—a war some on the left had once declared impossible to win in October 2001—was now complete.
Such an odyssey was again reflected in self-described anti-war and then senatorial candidate Barack Obama’s July 27, 2004, comment on Iraq: “There’s not that much difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.” But later, on January 31, 2007, as a soon-to-be presidential candidate, and with news from the front now far worse and George Bush’s poll ratings diving, Obama scorned the surge, which he claimed had “not worked,” and pledged that all U.S. combat forces should be out of Iraq by March 31, 2008. He hammered that message throughout the summer and autumn of 2007: “The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year—now.”
Such a move would probably have led to an American defeat and Iraqi genocide, as the country would have been effectively trisected into a Kurdish breakaway republic at war with Turkey, an Iranian rump protectorate of Shiites to the south, and a radical Sunni client state of Saudi Arabia—all in perennial terrorist wars with one another, fueled by religious hatred and Iraqi oil.
But anti-war candidate Obama protected himself against charges that he was ignoring the danger posed by Islamic terrorists by making even bolder promises that he would send another 7,000 troops to Afghanistan and invade Pakistan, if need be, in hot pursuit of al-Qaeda. It appeared that Obama, and others who supported his new bellicose calls, was not really against the idea of either surging troops or crossing national borders to hunt down insurgents per se; they were just opposed to doing all that in the politically incorrect Iraq theater, but for doing it in the properly sanctioned Afghanistan war. So President Bush was to be condemned not just for having been too warlike in Iraq, but now also for not being warlike enough in Afghanistan.
In fact, there are a number of historical and practical reasons to doubt both the sincerity and the logic of the new liberal calls for escalation in Afghanistan—especially since it uncharacteristically committed the left to a renewed and difficult struggle against the Taliban that they may soon likewise disown. …
… “Taking our eye off the ball,” and supposedly ignoring Afghanistan, were rather inexpensive ways of voicing partisan attacks on George Bush’s Iraq War. But now the Iraq War has been largely won (the number of U.S. soldiers who died in actual combat operations in Iraq in October 2008 was seven; more than forty Americans were murdered in Chicago each month on average in 2008). And after January 20, 2009, Commander-in-Chief Obama will have the responsibility for the costs and difficulties of the Afghan war he had been apparently eager to take on during the campaign against Senator John McCain. Consequently, we may well see president-elect Obama’s once promised hawkishness dissipate. After all, many liberal hawks figured that they could issue their war cries without ever being forced to hold the reins of governance with commensurate responsibility, or, by that the time they were given responsibility, the Afghan war would be over.
Vowing to do what it takes in the good war by leaving Iraq—infusing more troops into Afghanistan, and occasionally invading Pakistan—was for candidate Obama always a rhetorical stance that proved both his anti-Iraq War bona fides and his larger credibility on matters of national security. But President Obama and his mercurial supporters in Congress will soon face a rather embarrassing dilemma. Without the responsibilities of a commander-in-chief, he once demanded we should leave Iraq when leaving would have lost that war. But now, as commander- in-chief he will soon learn that a few thousand more troops will not guarantee lasting victory over the Taliban. And changing strategy from stealthy attacks by aerial drones in Pakistan to open ground incursions across the border risks widening rather than solving the conflict.
“Taking our eye off the ball” was always a dubious campaign talking point. Afghanistan was not the only “ball” in the global war against terror; we never took our eye off it; and we were always binocular. What we may well see instead is that those who wished more of an American commitment to Afghanistan as cover for their opposition to Iraq will now desert President Obama, as anti-war critics take their eye off a receding Iraq and focus it instead on an increasingly violent Afghanistan—especially given the sensational terrorist acts associated with the near-rogue state of Pakistan. In that case, President Obama may well have to revert to his earlier manifestation of candidate Obama, who campaigned on the notion that a surge of military forces into an apparent quagmire was little more than an unsophisticated act of desperation—in a complex landscape that required American forces to exit and to allow indigenous tribal folks to sort out their own affairs.
Abe Greenwald with Afghanistan thoughts.
The myth about George W. Bush having traded a successful campaign in Afghanistan for a neoconservative fantasy in Iraq is exploding. Despite his campaign promise to redirect the American military focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, President Obama is unlikely to do anything of the sort. As the A.P. reports, “Obama said he wants to add troops to turn back a resurgent Taliban, but he has not gone beyond the approximately 30,000 additional forces already under consideration by the previous administration.”
At the same time, the President has been receptive to Pentagon officials wary of the 16-month Iraq-withdrawal timetable outlined by Obama the candidate. On Wednesday, Obama made his first presidential visit to the Pentagon and met with Gen. Ray Odierno, who recommends a significantly slower drawdown. …
Before items on the stimulus package, Ilya Somin in Volokh posts on why the size of government matters.
In his inaugural address, President Obama said that “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” This is a commonly heard argument in response to concerns about the growth of government. Who could possibly be against government when it “works”? Why not instead consider each proposed expansion of the state on a case by case basis, supporting those that “work” and opposing any that don’t?
Taken seriously, this argument leads to the rejection of any systematic constraints on government power. Why should we have a general presumption against government regulation of speech or religion? Why not instead support censorship when it “works” by improving the marketplace of ideas, and oppose it when it doesn’t? Think of all the misleading speech and religious charlatans that government regulation could potentially save us from! The answer, of course, is that government regulation of speech and religion has systematic dangers that are not unique to any one particular regulation. Given those systematic flaws, it makes sense to have a general presumption against it.
The same holds true for government intervention more generally, including in the economy. It too has systematic flaws that justify a presumption against it. Three of those flaws are particularly relevant to current policy debates. …
David Brooks has figured out the stimulus is a waste.
… Wise heads are now trying to restore structure and safeguards to the enterprise. In testimony this week, Alice Rivlin, Bill Clinton’s former budget director, raised the possibility of separating the temporary from the permanent measures and focusing independently on each. “A long-term investment program should not be put together hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package,” Rivlin testified. “The elements of the investment program must be carefully planned and will not create many jobs right away.”
The best course is to return to the original Summers parameters — temporary, targeted and timely — thus making the stimulus cleaner and faster.
Strip out the permanent government programs. Many of them are worthy, but we can have that debate another day. Make the short-term stimulus bigger. Many liberal economists have been complaining it is too small, so replace the permanent programs with something like a big payroll tax cut, which would help the working class.
Add in a fiscal exit strategy so the whole thing is budget neutral over the medium term. Finally, coordinate the stimulus package with plans to shore up the housing and financial markets. Until those come to life, no amount of stimulus will do any good.
This recession is scary and complicated. It’s insane to try to tackle it and dozens of other complicated problems, all in one piece of legislation. Leadership involves prioritizing. Those who try to do everything at once will end up with a sprawling, lobbyist-driven mess that does nothing well.
Yuval Levin Corner posts on the stimulus.
When they manage to unify the entire House Republican caucus with David Brooks and Peggy Noonan, you know the Democrats have seriously botched something. And boy, they really have. The more you look at the stimulus bill the clearer it becomes that it is the Congressional Democrats, not the opponents of this bill, who have failed to see that we are in a genuine and exceptional crisis. They’re working to use the moment as an opportunity to advance the same agenda they haven’t been able to move (with good reason) for a decade and more, and in the process are showing that agenda to be what we always knew it was: a massively wasteful, reckless, profligate, slovenly, higgledy-piggledy mess of interest group troughs and technocratic fantasies devoid of any economic thinking or sense of proportion. …
Same with Adam Smith.org.
Scrappleface has kudos for Obama’s tax collection scheme.
… “The president’s plan is simple but ingenious,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, “He targets wealthy individuals who filed inaccurate tax forms, cheating the government out of tens of thousands of dollars. Then he just nominates them for cabinet positions. They suddenly see the error of their ways, and they cut checks for the full amount owed, plus interest.” …