One of the things that fascinates me about debating the supporters of President Obama's decision to send in 30,000 troops to Afghanistan is how often I feel confronted by arguments that don't necessarily apply to my position in the debate. While I think that most supporters of a troop surge honestly do believe it's the right policy position to take (or at the very least better than the alternative), part of the problem in even discussing the matter is a misunderstanding of the rationale behind opposing the escalation.
I'd like to take some time to address what I consider to be straw men that misrepresent my opposition to the President's decision. I won't pretend to speak for all of those who share my opposition to the escalation, but I know that I'm not the only one who's had to address these points again and again over the past couple of weeks. I hope I can be reasonably clear enough in explaining my reasons.
Obama pledged to escalate the war in Afghanistan during his Presidential campaign. You voted for him, so you can't say you're surprised by his decision when he's just fulfilling a campaign promise.
This is one of the most common arguments I've read from supporters of the escalation. Yesterday on Countdown, former DNC communications director Karen Finney tried to make the same point in her debate with Cenk Uygur. But it's irrelevant to why I'm opposed to sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
I voted for Obama in the primary against Clinton, and I voted for him in the general election against McCain. I voted for him in spite of his position on escalating the Afghanistan War. Voting for a candidate is not the same as supporting every one of that candidate's positions on the issues, and I certainly am not going to just reflexively support everything he campaigned for. I knew very well that he supported deploying additional troops to Afghanistan when he campaigned. I was opposed to Obama's Afghanistan War policy position during the campaign, I remain opposed to it now. My opposition has nothing to do with being "surprised."
Also, for those who would go further and suggest that you can't criticize Obama at all on this issue (let alone be "surprised" at the decision) because he advocated escalation in Afghanistan when he ran for President, please ask yourself the following questions:
- John McCain joked about "bomb, bomb, bombing Iran" during his campaign. He also advocated remaining in Iraq for "100 years." If McCain had been elected President, and if he chose to attack Iran and escalate the Iraq War further, would you have argued that it's unfair to criticize him for those things because he "made his intentions clear" during the campaign or because he was just "fulfilling a campaign promise"?
- Were you arguing that you're not allowed to criticize George W. Bush for ramping up the Iraq War because he promised to do just that during the 2004 campaign season? Actually, I think Glenn Greenwald makes that point better than I do:
The most bizarre defense of Obama's escalation is also one of the most common: since he promised during the campaign to escalate in Afghanistan, it's unfair to criticize him for it now -- as though policies which are advocated during a campaign are subsequently immunized from criticism. For those invoking this defense: in 2004, Bush ran for re-election by vowing to prosecute the war in Iraq, keep Guantanamo open, and "reform" privatize Social Security. When he won and then did those things (or tried to), did you refrain from criticizing those policies on the ground that he promised to do them during the campaign? I highly doubt it.
Have you forgotten that we were attacked on 9/11? The War in Afghanistan was a justifiable war, so why are you opposing the President's strategy? You don't want us to fail, do you?
No, I haven't forgotten 9/11. In fact, I remember quite clearly that my father and older brother were on a plane over the East Coast the exact moment that the towers were hit. Though they were not killed in the attack, I also remember how I didn't know about their safety for several hours after the first tower had collapsed, because a) I was in school all day and didn't have a cell phone or any access to a phone at the time, and b) I didn't have their flight number on hand to confirm that they were on a different plane.
I take what happened on 9/11 extremely seriously, as I'm sure everyone here (including the President) does as well. But leaving aside my personal recollections of that horrible day, I don't think 9/11 is an acceptable rationale for escalating the conflict. Not when we've been there for eight years already, and we're prepared to spend another 18 months more.
Whether or not we originally invaded Afghanistan for "just" or "moral" causes is a very separate question from whether or not escalating the conflict is a good idea. I understand that when we first went in back in 2001 that we wanted to catch the bad guys who attacked us. But going after Al Qaeda is very different from trying to depose the Taliban (who now controls most of Afghanistan). It's also very different from occupying a nation with our military, which we've sadly been doing for eight years. In the end, the result has been bloodshed that costs billions, and hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. And what position are we really in to pump billions of dollars into fighting in another nation (three if you count Iraq and Pakistan) when our own economy is in shambles?
I'm not rooting for failure in Afghanistan. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, I don't want the President to fail. I just think the escalation will prove to be a failure for which this country will be paying for years, in billions of dollars and blood.
The President announced a date for a draw down (July 2011), so you should support his plan (or at least wait for it to work).
Granted, setting a firm timeline is better than funding an open-ended commitment in Afghanistan with no set timeline for withdrawal. But 18 months is a long time for violence to build up, and for thousands of soldiers and Afghani civilians to be killed. I'm very skeptical that President Obama won't extend those deadlines again and again to meet the nebulous definition of "winning" the Afghanistan War. In July 2011, if General McChrystal declares that we haven't met our objectives, 18 months then becomes 24 months, becomes 30 months, becomes 36 months, and on and on we go. Plus, the current Afghanistan government is -- to be generous -- riddled with problems. Problems like corruption, drug trafficking, and a fraudulent election. How do we know that in 18 months, Afghanistan won't still have a corrupt, fraudulent government in place?
No, I don't know for certain that these things will happen. But given our heavy involvement in the region for the past eight years, I remain terrified that it will. So, I'm not about to support the escalation solely on the basis that President Obama set an initial date for withdrawal 18 months from now.
You don't have the information or intelligence that the President does.
It's true that Obama is privy to a lot more information and intelligence briefings than I am. But is it not possible to obtain intelligence on high-level Al Qaeda targets and eliminate them without having to send over 30,000 troops over a long period of time to do it? And if we have intelligence that Al Qaeda is planning attacks on America, as the President claimed in his speech, why are we escalating the troops into Afghanistan to get Al Qaeda if Al Qaeda -- by and large -- isn't there?
Even if our mission is far more expansive than eliminating high-ranking Al Qaeda and Taliban members, that still says nothing about whether the cost of such a mission is worth it. I will caution that by building up our troop level in Afghanistan, we're basically giving Afghani citizens who are already angry at U.S. presence in the region justification for opposing what they consider to be a foreign occupation, and they sometimes take action quite violently. We end up destroying their homes and their families, they want to get vengeance. Then they join an anti-U.S. faction that attacks our soldiers in the region. Then our pundits sit back in their chairs and beat the war drum again because violence in Afghanistan goes up. Then our Congressmen and Generals declare that we have to remain in Afghanistan (or escalate it further) for even longer than we had anticipated because the problem is getting worse.
If you think that this is just an empty concern, I suggest you read from David Rohde's account in The New York Times of his captivity in Afghanistan when he was held hostage by the Taliban.
My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.
Regardless of your position on the Afghanistan War, you should still support the President and have his back, no matter what.
So, I should just cheerlead the President's decision, even though I think the escalation is wrong? I should just dismiss my opposition to ramping up the Afghanistan War, even though we've been there for eight years and I'm fed up with the violence and bloodshed and financial burden of remaining? Because "no matter what," right or wrong, I have to "have his back" on this?
What does "having his back" even mean in this situation? If by "having his back" you mean allowing me to voice my dissent, to write letters to the editor, to Congress, and to the President's desk about why I think the escalation is a very bad idea.....then yeah, I suppose I "have his back." If you mean denouncing the teabaggers who would claim that Obama is a Nazi who loves terrorists, then sure, I "have his back" there too.
But one of the dangers about the "having his back" straw man is that it equates opposition to one of the President's policies with opposition to the Office of the President. It's a stone's throw away from suggesting that criticizing this war policy is unpatriotic, simply because the guy I supported in the general election is advocating for it. I happen to think it's a citizen's patriotic duty to hold the President's feet to the fire when we disagree with his decisions. Like Bill Maher once said: He's your President, not your boyfriend.
You can be opposed to the President's decision, but you don't need to be so vicious about it.
Look, I'm all for civil debate. And it's true that one can go overboard in his or her rhetoric. But that said, I still retain the right to be angry and opposed to the escalation, and any future decision Obama might make that I consider to be wrong. That isn't being "vicious." That's called standing up for my principles.
I guess you're one of those Obama=Bush people, right? I suppose you'd rather have a President McCain?
Uh, no. I don't think Obama = Bush. I think Obama = Obama. I also think he's better than Bush in many ways.
However, since he took office, there have been several decisions that Obama has made (and not made) that I strongly disagree with. And unfortunately, some of these same decisions were made by both the Bush and Obama Administrations. Specifically:
- Dismissing lawsuits outright by abusing the State Secrets privilege.
- Blocking investigations of torture at Guantanamo Bay and Bagram.
- Denying the rights of prisoners accused of terrorism or being associated with terrorists to be given a speedy trial in U.S. criminal courts.
It's true that Obama said he doesn't take his decision lightly, and that he differs from Bush's rhetoric vis-a-vis foreign policy in several ways. However, I don't think Obama's words are the most relevant issue for those of us opposed to the escalation. The relevant issue is results.
Frankly, if we're still in Afghanistan 18 months from now, and violence has gotten a lot worse, and we're no closer to stabilizing the nation with a government free of corruption (a prospect of which I am highly skeptical after eight years of trying)....then I won't care one bit if President Obama "didn't take the decision lightly." I will care that we're still in a terrible quagmire, and that our soldiers are still dying for something that neither I nor a majority of Americans think is worth fighting.
As for whether I would prefer President McCain -- of course not. I didn't vote for John McCain because I thought his policy positions (not to mention his Vice Presidential candidate) were awful. I don't regret voting for Obama. He was only one of two candidates that had a realistic shot at winning the election. I made my choice based on the fact that the totality of Obama's positions on the issues were more in line with my values than were those of John McCain. But that doesn't mean I supported everything Obama campaigned for.
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All of this being said, I wish our armed soldiers who are set to be deployed the very best. While I may strongly disagree with the President's decision, I still value your service and I hope you come back home soon and safely.
I also acknowledge that Afghanistan is a very, very complicated problem right now, and that the President has some very difficult decisions he has to make. But, I'd like to take the time to at least reiterate some other ideas for combating terrorism, suggestions that others have already made before me:
- How about we stop funding the War on Drugs? Opium trade is booming in Afghanistan and helping to line the pockets of Afghani criminals, including the corrupt brother of President Karzai.
- How about we close the detention sites where we've held prisoners indefinitely, without trial, and tortured them? I don't just mean Guantanamo, but Bagram as well.
- How about we give all prisoners in the war on terror not captured on the battlefield the right to fair, criminal trials -- and not just the ones for which the Department of Justice believes it can obtain convictions? I believe the strongest weapon we have against terrorism isn't our military forces, but the law.
These are complicated things to do. I understand that. But I think they're worth pursuing and would be a better course of action than escalation.
Thanks for reading. Peace.
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Brief update: I just want to clarify a couple things. One, I don't think all supporters of the escalation have made these arguments. These are just the most common ones that I've read during the past few weeks and days.
Second, I apologize if I'm slow at responding to others' comments. This is an issue where I think it's best to explain my position very, very carefully.
