Obama: Losing Afghanistan, Too

Continuing his perfect record of failed foreign policy, Barack Obama is losing the war in Afghanistan:

Casualties there are mounting – this has been the deadliest month for US forces since the fighting began in 2001. The losses have attracted less attention in the US than British losses have in Britain, and pressure on the administration to pull out has been mild. But this will change...

Quietly, public opinion has already turned against the war. According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 51 per cent now say the war is not worth fighting. Among Democrats, seven out of 10 say that.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that only 32 per cent agree with sending more troops – something the army is expected to request imminently. To the question "What do you think will eventually happen?" came a response to thrill every Taliban fighter: 65 per cent said "The United States will withdraw without winning" and only 35 per cent "The United States will win".

The issue has not yet come to the boil but Mr Obama's position is as difficult as it could possibly be. This is now his war. He asserted ownership again only recently, calling the conflict for the hundredth time "a necessary war", unlike his predecessor's supposedly needless "war of choice" in Iraq.

Yet Mr Obama's war, necessary or not, will be hard to win, and impossible without greater expense of lives and money. Withdrawal, meanwhile, involves great dangers of its own. To complete the president's quandary, his rationale for the war is unconvincing and, as the polls confirm, his strongest opposition comes from his own party.

While it's laudable that he is continuing this war at all -- and I believe this is a war that must be won -- it is likely that he will take a political beating for it, and as such it is questionable that he will continue it.  Think Vietnam, Obama style.  He will soon be faced with the exact same choice that George W. Bush faced in Iraq: to hold steady or change course.

Bush took the advice of his commanders on the ground and changed course; it worked, and we won.  What will Obama do?  The commanders are pleading for change:

The United States and its allies must change strategy and boost cooperation to turn around the war in Afghanistan, the top U.S. and NATO commander there said on Monday, wrapping up a much-anticipated review.

U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal said the situation was "serious" but the 8-year-old war could still be won. He gave no indication if he would ask for more troops but is widely expected to do so in the coming weeks.

The stakes are very high, and Obama's current policies are not helping:

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren't near the village.

And so four Marines died in the ambush.

DPUD and WeaselZippers have the story.

There has been some agitation on the left about bugging out of Afghanistan. You know, Afghanistan, the war they claimed they so desperately wanted to win so they wouldn't seem wholly defeatist as they were calling to bug out of Iraq.

Ace of Spades provides the analysis:

Either we're going to give our troops every advantage in an effort to allow them to win or we should, in fact, get out. If Obama has in mind a Nixon-style "decent interval" where we are going to let troops be killed in an effort not to win a war but to simply contrive a politically-palatable "defeat with honor," then get them out of there. ...

If there's anything worse than losing Afghanistan, it's our policymakers deciding in advance to lose Afghanistan but then feeding our troops into the meat-grinder anyway as a political fig-leaf to demonstrate "well, we tried" before giving up.

I don't mean to be glib, but as Yoda said: Do or do not. There is no try. That may be a bit of silly Space Confuscianism but it's a damn good guideline in fighting a war. Our troops deserve a hell of a lot better than dying not to vindicate an important national security goal but merely to provide some politicians with political cover.

As John Kerry (I think) said of Vietnam, "No one wants to be the last soldier to die for a lie." And if these rules persist, if this happens again, our troops will in fact be dying for a lie.

Better to pull them back to their bases and let the country devolve into chaos and Taliban rule. At least then they can wait in relative safety for a president who values their lives a bit more.

And, if recent history is any guide, that would not include a President from any political party rhyming with shmemocrat.

There's my two cents.


PS - here's a bonus foreign policy gaffe: Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs uttered the ultimate unmentionable phrase 'war on terror', despite the Obama administration banning the phrase some time ago.  Good thing this is the smartest and most savvy administration ever, huh?