Rather than speculate about what Obama might say Tuesday nite, or actually be able, or willing, to actually do about Afghanistan, I'd like to deal more with the real root issue of how we got into this mess in the first place, and how to avoid such messes in the future...
That's what I think we need, to even begin to deal effectively now, with the present situation.
First of all, some historical perspective is necessary. And I'm not talking about the history of Afghanistan, which is irrelevant...but the history of the US, and it's foreign policy.
Let's go back to the beginning, with a jump back in time...
A few rich white male Protestant merchants and farmers, slavers and Indian-murderers, for the most part, chafing under taxation, decided to rip off the colony from the King, because it would increase their own wealth exponentially, so they enlisted the aid of England's arch rival, France.
Emulating the hyperbolic rhetoric of the French, they declared independence, and won the support of the "common" people, with a lot of jive about democracy and freedom, which was really all about the ability of this new elite to make all the decisions, instead of the King, so this new elite would be free to get a lot richer.
Of course, they had no intention whatsoever to actually allow real democracy, which their private correspondence, and even some published polemics of the time made clear, in their reference to the supposed terrible things like "mob rule" and "anarchy" that would inevitably ensue with real democracy.
They ingeniously crafted a Constitution and governmental structure that both ensured that real popular democracy be very difficult and unlikely to occur, and that no one faction among their own elite circles would be able to dominate the others, under a rubric of "separation of powers", and "checks and balances".
Thus, a "level playing field" was devised, to make sure that all elements of their own elite circles would have an "equal opportunity" to get richer, and "share" the power (and wealth), without being materially challenged by any likely prospect of the actual real popular democracy they rhetorically promised the masses.
Fast forward to 1917, and the Russian revolution.
Despite everything they could do, including building up Hitler, to sic on Russia like a mad dog, they failed to outright destroy that revolution, which had defiantly implemented a whole new system, based not on private ownership of the means of production, for private profit, even against the public interest, but on actual real popular democratic control of the production and distribution of goods and services, in the public interest.
While "we" failed to destroy that revolution, "we" did succeed in pretty severely crippling it, by supporting the counter-revolution in a prolonged civil war and then imposing world war, and then, failing in that, deploying a ruthless international monopoly corporate fascist campaign of encirclement, embargo, boycott, and relentless attempts to infiltrate, sabotage and propagandize the revolution to death.
Then, "we" pointed (with typical extreme exaggerations, twisted spin, and outright lies of monopoly corporate fascist commercial mass media) to the murderous socio-economic conditions "we" had deliberately and viciously imposed upon them, including the harshly detrimental political effects of those conditions, the severe hardships, the defensive necessity of martial law, and all of the horrors that followed as a direct result of such grossly sub-optimal conditions, as "proof" that this new concept of actual real popular democracy, in the public interest, instead of private profit against the public interest, was "obviously" non-viable, and undesirable.
And yet, despite all of this, Russia was able to survive, lift itself by it's own bootstraps, and become a world power...and even inspired others world-wide to emulate their new approach, in resolute opposition to the neo-colonial imperialism of the US and it's allies.
The US employed the same tactics against China, Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba, and anyone else who dared to stand up to US imperialism and monopoly corporate fascism, to considerable, similar effect...and similarly failed, for the most part, to suppress these developments, even though "we" did manage to similarly cripple them pretty badly, causing similar socio-economic and political hardships that have cost millions of lives, all in support of the "theory" that capitalism is "better" than "communism".
Now, having borne the main brunt of attack for over 50 years, Russia has faltered somewhat, and lost some of it's previous status as a world power. But at the same time, China has risen to become the fastest growing economy and military power in the world, subject to outstrip the US before long, if "we" don't nuke them first (untenable, since that would only result in the communists nuking us), or otherwise causing them to falter like Russia, which doesn't appear very likely, since they now practically own us, economically.
Russia is also somewhat on the rise again, now, and remains a major world player. China is far more active, and has far more money to spend, and can offer much better terms than the capitalist nations and corporations in Africa, which has even been evidenced by their outbidding all competitors for major contracts in Afghanistan. Then, there's Latin America, where China is also pretty active, and that pesky phenomenon of so many former revolutionary armed struggle formations now seizing the power in their countries democratically, electorally, one after another, in fairly rapid succession.
Which pretty much brings us to the present day.
Our efforts to suppress communism have come at great cost, not only to the "enemy", but also to the US, and in spite of it all, we now find ourselves the ones being encircled, substantially denied the non-competitive exponential expansion of neo-colonial access to resources and markets required by ponzi-capitalism, such that our elites are forced to extract those absolutely necessary extreme profits from within our own borders to prevent a complete collapse, in a frenzy of zombie cannibalism.
So...Afghanistan presents us with a crisis, which could be a turning point, one way or the other, similar (but not quite the same, really) to the crisis it became for Russia, previously.
We can either continue the same old, time-tested (failed), consistent pattern of practice, of suppressing popular democracy, by supporting, funding, training and arming the most right wing reactionary conservative fundamentalist throwback warlords we can find, to sell their nation's ass to US imperialism for a few well-placed bribes, in the false name of "freedom and democracy", and, in the process, directing them to harass, torture and murder the "damn commies", like, anyone who opposes such machiavellian imperialist manipulations by demanding real national sovereignty, genuine democracy, self-determination, human rights, civil rights, labor rights, etc. in their country (and if they are unable or willing to adequately suppress the left, sending our own troops in there, to force them to kneel to the empire).
...Or we can drop the bullshit, and virtually reverse our foreign policy, admit the errors of our ways, and begin to support popular democracy, for a change, both at home, and abroad, for justice and peace, to save the planet.
While this may be a somewhat simplistic overview, it really is as simple as that.
Either we drop the bullshit, and do the right thing, or we continue to try to bullshit and jive the whole world, and ourselves, to the bitter end...and considering the fact that the ice caps are melting, it does appear that the ultimate end will, indeed, be bitter, and sooner than anyone ever thought.
There's really no such thing as a "liberal" fascist. "Socially liberal, but economically conservative" is really an oxymoron. There is no "3rd Way" or middle ground.
So, what's if going to be people? Democracy? Or monopoly corporate fascism?
Either we are democratic, or we are not.
Bring the Better Democrats!
Seize the Time!
Seize the Power!
All Out for 2010 and 2012!
All Power to the People!
Death to capitalism as we now know it, and it's moribund form, fascism!