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What Obama Said and Didn't Say About Afghanistan

Michael Collins

It is easy to forget that when this war

began, we were united — bound
together by the fresh memory of a
horrific attack, and by the
determination to defend our
homeland and the values we hold
dear. I refuse to accept the notion
that we cannot summon that unity
again. President Barack Obama,
December 1

President Obama made this appeal

for unified support of his Afghanistan
policy at the very end of his speech at West Point last night. It seems awkwardly placed
at the conclusion of a long and fairly cerebral oration. After reviewing the arguments for
his policy, the placement may make some sense.

The president began by saying he was going to discuss “the nature of our commitment
there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to
bring this war to a successful conclusion.”

The pertinent history on our commitment, according to the president, began with the
attack on 9/11 2001. He told us that "ruthless, repressive and radical movement that
seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil
war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere." That
regime served as the incubator for al Qaeda’s planning and execution of the attacks on
New York City and the capitol.

Obama outlined the nearly unanimous votes in both houses of Congress to authorize the
war; an authorization that he reminded us is still in effect. He moved from authorization
to our quick military victory. Those efforts gave "A place that had known decades of fear
now had reason to hope." How? In concert with the United Nations, the United States
created a government headed by Humid Karzai, who remains the president of
Afghanistan today.

Obama's narrative shifted from the initial rationale and success of the Afghanistan
invasion to the reasons for action today. The Iraq War distracted from the efforts in
Afghanistan and disrupted our unified post 9/11 relationships with the international
community. He mentioned 160,000 troops in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan to illustrate
the skewed priorities but claimed that some progress in Afghanistan had been made.

Obama then hit on the rationale for continued efforts in Afghanistan and his surge of
troops. "The review is now complete," he said. The president decided that al Qaeda
poses an ongoing threat to the United States and that to meet that threat; three goals had
to be met.

What is the nature of the threat?

"This (Afghanistan) is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is

from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being
plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months
alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the
border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror."

To reduce this threat requires three accomplishments. Over the next 18 months, the
United States will "break the Taliban's momentum" and increase Afghanistan's
capacity." With increased security, U.S., NATO, and United Nations efforts will be more
effective in implementing an "effective civilian strategy." Finally, "we will act with the
full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership
with Pakistan." We were told that accomplishing these objectives will achieve the
security of preventing any more incursions by al Qaeda "within our borders."

President Obama failed to mention any of the threatened "new acts of terror." He also
failed to mention bin Laden.

The president then considered and dismissed three anticipated objections to his policies
and delivered his peroration at the beginning of this article.

Comment

President Obama is a gifted orator. However, in this case, he was long on style but
lacking in substance. He started out with a history lesson concerning U.S. involvement
with Afghanistan but he left out the most interesting parts.

From 1980 through the end of 1993, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan took
the lead in creating a radical Islamist opposition to the Soviet invasion and occupation of
Pakistan. This opposition was funded by U.S.- Saudi dollars and driven, to a degree, by
Saudi preferences for the most extreme Muslim groups in the country. Fighters were also
recruited by bin Laden, among others, to leave their homes in Arab states to volunteer for
Afghanistan.

The decades of suffering mentioned by President Obama hangs there without a vital
reference. U.S. policy helped create the chaos of the nation that we now occupy.

After Soviet forces left Afghanistan, there was a clear drop off in attention to the nation
with little funding to aid rebuilding as the president correctly noted. Known as the
Afghan Arabs, these wandering fighters appeared in various hot spots, including Kosovo,
where they fought openly for the Muslim Albanian population but used the chaos, as they
had elsewhere, to create a route for Afghan heroin.

Yet President Obama said, "What we have fought for -- and what we continue to fight for
-- is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will
be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access
opportunity."

What freedom and access to opportunity did the Afghanistan civil war and its aftermath
provide "other peoples' children" in view of the devastation of the U.S. supported civil
war?

And what "freedom and access to opportunity" have "our children" and "other people's"
children had with the ongoing opium trade centered in Afghanistan. According to the
New York Times, this accounts for 90% of the world's total right now.

From 2001 forward, political realities have taken precedence over heroin eradication. In
2005, the governor of Helmand province, a close political ally of current president Hamid
Karzai, was found with nine tons of heroin in his possession. He was removed as a
regional governor only to reemerge as a member of the Afghan Senate. But now poppy
eradication and an end to the heroin trade is a major priority and a justification for the
troop surge.

President Obama's eradiation of past history concerning the U.S. role in creating the
original radical jihadists and the de facto tolerance of the heroin trade was matched by his
failure to failure to address recent history.

The U.S. selected founding president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was widely accused
of election fraud in both rounds of the recent presidential election. Peter W. Galbraith
was the United Nation's Secretary General's special representative in Afghanistan. When
his efforts to monitor the election uncovered hundreds of incidents of election fraud, he
reported that Karzai's "majority" victory was due to fraudulent votes.

The situation was so intense, U.S. Ambassador and former commander of forces in
Afghanistan, General Karl M. Eikenberry, weighed in on the fraudulent election and went
so far as to be seen with opposition candidates who claimed that the election would be
stolen.

Karzai was forced into a runoff but opposing candidates refused to participate noting that
the same elements for fraud remained. Karzai
is now the president. He was mentioned last
night by President Obama as a key player in the
success of our "civilian efforts."

On November 11, the contents of a cable from

Ambassador Eikenberry on the situation in
Afghanistan were leaked to the press. The
general made a strong statement on the futility
of sending further troops to that country riddled
with the corruption in general and, by
implication, an illegitimate recent presidential
election in particular. The White House placed
a hold on any commitment for more troops pending further study.

This was President Obama's opportunity to step back and asses the value of investing in
further troop commitments for a nation ruled by an election thief. He failed at the task.
His response last night was a carefully constructed, self serving, and selective history of
our involvement in Afghanistan with a fairy tale explanation of why we fight -- for "our
children and grandchildren" and "other peoples" as well.

No wonder he put the glowing words about rallying the spirit of 9/11 at the end of his
speech. They were made no more meaningful by what was said before. Perhaps enough
people had stopped paying attention to reduce pathos of the statement in the context of
the rationale presented.

END

N.B. As an alternative to the president's narrative on U.S. initiatives in Afghanistan see,

Negotiating an Afghan Agreement by Brian Downing

See also, How We Got to Zero: General Eikenberry's Hail Mary Nov 13 & The Big
"Con": Taliban About to Defeat Pakistan, Take Control of Nukes, and It's Another 9/11
May 9, 2009

Full text of the president's speech.

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