(a summing up; how generals, eagle scouts, and tough-gal-ism got – and is still getting – thousands of people killed, for no good reason)
Afghanistan: President Obama’s Vietnam
By Jonathan Marshall, July 24, 2016
https://consortiumnews.com/
Now we are told that 8,400 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan to “support Afghan forces” and “go after” terrorists, when Obama leaves the White House. As Jonathan Marshall points out, the President asks us to take on faith that this is “in our national security interest – especially after all the blood and treasure we’ve invested in Afghanistan over the years.” (emphasis added)
And so it goes with our Lemming-in-Chief Barack Obama and those who lemmingly lead or follow him. A cartoon comes to mind: Two lemmings are chatting while standing in the line going up to the cliff. One says to the other, “Of course we have to go over the edge. Anything else would dishonor all the lemmings that have gone before us.” (NO way is this funny.)
On July 24, Consortiumnews decided to re-run an early piece (#1 below), noting that our young President had let himself be sucked into a fool’s errand (aka quagmire) in Afghanistan by be-medaled, be-ribboned, be-merit-badged, starry-eyed generals, Eagle Scout Robert Gates, and Hillary the Hawk. (Anyone who had been around a while could have made the same quagmire call; it was a no-brainer.)
That re-run from the Archive, prompted a review of some of the pieces Ray wrote on Afghanistan during the crucial period (2009-2011) when feckless decisions bereft of experience and vision were being made. Some of the items below have already been republished “from the Consortiumnews Archive.” To avoid confusion, they are listed below chronologically, in the order in which they were originally written.
Lastly, it seems appropriate to tack onto the end some wisdom from Rudyard Kipling – sadly; wisdom not required reading at West Point, the Ivies, or William and Mary.
1 –
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President
(Originally published March 28, 2009)
July 24, 2016
https://consortiumnews.com/
Editor’s Note, From the Archive: With still no end in sight for the Afghan War, President Obama can’t say he wasn’t warned. Barely two months into his presidency in 2009, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern welcomed Obama to his own Vietnam quagmire.
2 –
Kipling Haunts Obama’s Afghan War
October 30, 2009
https://consortiumnews.com/
3 –
Heeding George Kennan’s Sage Advice [on Afghanistan]
November 3, 2009
http://www.consortiumnews.com/
4 –
Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning
February 7, 2014
https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/07/obama-ignores-key-afghan-warning/
Editor’s Note; From the Archive: As the 12-year Afghan War grinds to what many Americans see as failure, ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other hawks won’t admit their counterinsurgency “surge” in 2009 was a waste of lives and money or that U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry was right when he warned President Obama, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote in 2010.
(Originally published Jan. 27, 2010)
5 –
Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp [see Hillary Clinton favoring giving the generals “whatever they need.”]
June 24, 2010
https://consortiumnews.com/
“Obama’s main dilemma now is likely to be how to say “no” when, as seems inevitable, Westmoreland — sorry, I mean Petraeus — makes requests for more “surges” of troops into Afghanistan. Petraeus is likely to tell Obama he must have additional forces, or he will go the way of McChrystal and invite removal — and then possibly run for president in 2012. In that case, Obama’s political advisers would probably say send more troops from wherever they might be scrounged up. …
“We may well end up with either a President Petraeus or another President Clinton in the person of Obama’s hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was one official praised by McChrystal’s wild-boy crew because she favored giving the general whatever troops he wanted. A McChystal aide is quoted as saying, “She said, ‘If Stan wants it, give him what he needs.’” … (emphasis added)
“The tragedy is that all this is unnecessary. If President Obama could get beyond these ill-conceived short-term political considerations, he already has available some well-reasoned guidance as to how to extricate the United States from the Afghanistan morass. He got solid advice last fall from retired Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, his ambassador in Kabul, who knows more about Afghanistan than Petraeus, McChrystal and special envoy Richard Holbrooke do, put together.”
6 –
What Obama Won’t Say Tonight
August 31, 2010
https://consortiumnews.com/
Editor’s Note: President Barack Obama’s aides say his speech Tuesday night marking the end of “combat operations” in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003. However, in this draft of a speech that Obama won’t give, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern suggests that the President pivot away from the phase-out of U.S. troops in Iraq and address the worsening quagmire in Afghanistan:
7 –
Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War
Sept. 24, 2010
https://consortiumnews.com/
8 –
“Giant” Holbrooke Failed on Afghan War
December 14, 2010
http://www.consortiumnews.com/
9 –
Obama Lacks Clarity on Afghan War [or Déjà vu all over again]
March 28, 2011
http://www.consortiumnews.com/
10 –
More U.S. Soldiers Die in Vain
August 7, 2011
https://consortiumnews.com/
11 –
Lemmingly, We Roll Along
August 19, 2011
https://consortiumnews.com/
… and finally (but, alas, too late)
From Rudyard Kipling
1 –
It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased;
And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East
+++++++++++++++++++++
2 –
… from ‘The Young British Soldier’
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier …
A soldier of the Queen!
++++++++++++++++++++
3 –
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.