On Libya

The New Yorker has taken to applauding the President over Qaddafi's apparent downfall in Tripoli. I celebrate the downfall of this tyrant as much as that of any tyrant, including the likes of Saddam Hussein. However, this odd example of Libya, in which the United States occasionally tossed a few bombs at tanks and trucks, hardly constitutes a winning strategy for dealing with tyrants in the future. Or, for that matter, currently, in places like Syria.


Look throughout that New Yorker piece, and you will nowhere find an argument describing how Obama's actions were legal. I've pointed out before that the War Powers Resolution does not allow the President to just start bombing random counties without Congressional approval. I don't particularly care what the United Nations decided, they are not the legislature of the United States nor a substitute for it.

And this could not be described as a Western Crusade? Who did all of the bombing? Who provided the air cover? Arab nations? Nope. Say hello to white men flying above killing Muslims. The fact that we bombed halfheartedly does not mean it was not the West providing that firepower. The war could have been ended in February or March had appropriate firepower been supplied to the rebels, rather than waiting for Qaddafi's forces to push the rebels back to Benghazi and extending the war (with all the deaths that follow) for months.

"They are indigenous; they have legitimacy."

Irritating idiocy. You know who else was indigenous? Muammar Qaddafi.

The lesson every Arab despot should learn from our response to Libya and Syria is that if you have a powerful army and friends, you may butcher your own people at will and the United States will stand by. If, on the other hand, you have a weak army and our President feels like he needs a military victory to improve his own image, you're on our short list of targets.

This should not be seen as a model for future behavior. At no point did our President or his supporters have anything resembling a plan for dealing with Libya. That Qaddafi's forces suddenly collapsed is a blessing from heaven rather than a result of anything our President or Europe is responsible for. By far and away, the most disturbing part of all of this is that our President would illegally use force, that Congress would be cut out of such a decision. Our influence has not been increased at all by this event. And until Libya is a stable and free nation, we have not won yet.

Illegal, belated, halfhearted...the model for the future! NATO basically took out Glass Joe and had difficulty doing so. Good luck being relevant anywhere else. Like, say, Syria.

The Daily Snark 8/9

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have always been an important subject to me. My grandfather was a combat engineer in the Pacific during that war. The alternative to bombing Japan was invading it. People, like Greg Mitchell at The Nation, seem to think Japan would have thrown up their hands by that point anyway and that the bombings were not necessary.

The Battle of Okinawa, fought from April to June 1945, says otherwise. The closer we got to Japan, the worse the battles became. In this one campaign, the United States suffered many more deaths than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Mitchell doesn't point out that on August 10th, the day after the Nagasaki bombing, the Empire of Japan did not end the war. On August 11th, after two nuclear bombings and being attacked by the U.S.S.R., Japan did not surrender. On August 12th, Japan did not surrender. On August 13th, Japan did not surrender. Mind you, people are dying on every one of these days. On August 14th, Japan did not surrender. On the 15th, after a failed coup attempt by a military faction to continue the war, Japan finally capitulated.

The point here is simple enough: on August 9th, 1945, it was far from obvious to anyone that Japan would give in without another nuclear demonstration.

Had the atomic bombs not been dropped, it seems highly unlikely that Japan would have surrendered without being invaded. The American plan for that invasion, Operation Downfall, would likely have lead to the deaths of millions of Japanese and Americans. My grandfather, as an engineer, would have been key in turning Kyushu into a gigantic, unsinkable aircraft carrier in order to invade Honshu.

When given the choice between my grandfather (a person with no role in creating this war) dying in that invasion, and hence my own nonexistence, or the destruction of a city in the nation that launched this conflict, I feel no moral compunction about supporting the latter. No, nobody is arguing that the atomic bombing was a pleasant experience, but that does not justify having more Americans killed in order to protect the people who launched the war in the first place.

International law and justice is an unholy mess. In the end, the argument against using the atomic bombs is an argument in favor of risking my existence. No muddled argument about non-existing standards of international morality and ridiculous claims about Japan suddenly being willing to surrender will change my mind on this issue.

I, and millions of others, exist because of those bombs. I will not be made to feel guilty because I exist and the expense of a warmongering nation. The innocent people in Nagasaki certainly were wronged, but they were wronged by their own government that viciously attacked other nations, not by the nations that defended themselves.

The Daily Snark 6/24

This Libya mission continues to be a muddled mess. The House of Representatives shoots down an authorization bill but also votes to not defund the mission. If nothing else, this shows the importance of gaining Congressional approval prior to launching attacks overseas. I have no idea what our goal is in Libya or whether we are following our own laws in being there (though I highly suspect not in that second case).

Not the way "Hope and Change" was supposed to be.

The Daily Snark 6/22

Ban Ki-Moon was reelected to his post as Secretary General of the United Nations.

This is such an important event that I found out about it via Wikipedia, as no other news source found it worth making a big deal about. This may have something to do with the fact that the United Nations is effectively an ineffective joke at this point. Ban's first target is climate change; not terrorism, not collapsing economies, not rising food prices, not energy, not drug wars, but an unproven theory with "remedies" usually requiring massive economic hits on developed nations.

I can't imagine why the United Nations isn't a more powerful moral force in this world.

The Daily Snark 6/21

Osama bin Laden is apparently more popular in Egypt than Barack Obama. I don't fault our President for this; it was likely true under Bush as well. The short of it is, just because Egypt tossed out their autocratic ruler doesn't mean any democracy that arises will either love us, the Israelis, or peace. And it is far from certain that this will actually end in democracy rather than some sort of military junta.

I think the mess that is the Muslim world is going to bite us again before too long. Frankly, it bothers me that roughly 1/6th of world belongs to this backwards culture. Islam may have been the bees knees in the Ninth Century, but it hasn't advanced much since then.

The Daily Snark 6/7

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to Syria's President Assad as a "reformer" in order to justify President Obama's remarks about Qadaffi without applying them to Syria.

This is the result.

There should be a Congressional investigation and Secretary of State Clinton should either resign or be removed from her post. She is clearly unfit for it. Admittedly, she was protecting her boss, who said "[A]s president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action." Pretty clearly, he waited for images of slaughter of civilians. Still no action. Our President launched attacks on Libya because it was convenient, which is hardly a good use, morally or practically, of American military power.

So much for Hope and Change. I said for years that those on the Left did not have, and would not have, a better foreign policy than neo-conservatives. I consider this vindication of that opinion.

The Daily Snark 5/11

We are quickly approaching the 60th day of our attack on Libya. Surprising, huh? I'm attributing most of my surprise to the complete lack of coverage. Anyway, that 60 day mark is important, as is pointed out by RedState.com. Basically, either our part ends, or Congress has to approve of the conflict. Granted, the Obama administration completely ignored Section 2, so there is no real reason to believe he'll obey the law here, either. Granted, there is a fairly useless 30 day extension rule, but that just pushes the problem back another month; the conflict in Libya will not be over then, either.

This is why blogging is important. If I had to rely on CBS News to tell me this, I would never have found out. As much as I do follow and study politics, I don't necessarily brush up on the War Powers Act every day, so this little nugget would have escaped my attention.

The Killing of Osama bin Laden and International Law

Creating a paradigm for a just domestic system of law, from picking a form of government to effectively implementing the laws it creates, is extremely difficult. Creating such laws for the international community is likely impossible. I am not a fan of the phrase "international law", largely because I do not believe such a thing really exists. That has not stopped many people from using the phrase to condemn actions they dislike. This phrase was often dragged out against former President George W. Bush's policies, in particular keeping captured combatants at Guantanamo Bay and the Iraq War. Rather than attempt to write a book on the subject of international law, I will apply the laws as put forward by proponents of international law during the Iraq War to the recent operation that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

For starters, this operation occurred in Pakistan, a nation the United States Congress and the United Nations have not sanctioned the United States military to attack. It was often pointed out that the Iraq War could not be legal without U.N. approval (former Secretary General Kofi Annan made this point, for instance). Simply put, if those who opposed the Iraq War did so on principle rather than politics, they should be just as adamant that this operation into Pakistan was equally illegal and that President Obama is also a war criminal. To their credit, a few hard core members of the American Left, such as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, are indeed saying this. This argument was ridiculous in 2003 and remains so today. The majority of nations composing the United Nations are not democratic or respect human rights; a great many of them have a vested interest in hurting the United States. It is beyond insane to believe this rabble of tyrants and corrupt oligarchies can create a just and consistent international law. The repeated condemnations of Israel and the deafening silence concerning Palestinian atrocities proves this point. Furthermore, we are a sovereign nation; our government has a responsibility to its people, not to the international community, to keep us safe from harm.

Opposition to the Iraq War may be legitimate on the grounds that it did not further the goal of keeping us safe (I will not weigh on that here). Opposition based on not having a U.N. resolution was, well, stupid. Those who used that as an excuse must now explain their hypocrisy concerning the Abbottabad operation or declare the United States illegal in violating Osama bin Laden's rights; I do not envy them that position. This should serve as a lesson against using empty phrases. If you cannot clearly tell me where international law comes from, what it is, how we can uniformly tell what international law says, it may be best not to base arguments on it. The same is true for terms like "fair prices" and "social justice." Perhaps some other source of international law could or was cited against the Iraq War, but I am willing to bet it is no stronger than a U.N. resolution. At the very least, we can tell when the latter exist or do not. Other sources of international law will likely not be clear and even if such clear laws do exist, it remains to be proven that they trump the goals of governments to secure their own citizens' rights.

Secondly, it is now clear that Osama bin Laden was unarmed when Navy SEALS burst into his room. There are accounts (admittedly from bin Laden's wife and hence suspect) that the terrorist leader was executed. It is certain that the order to the SEALS was to kill rather than capture bin Laden. The most likely holding treaty here is the Third Geneva Convention, often used as an authority against the status of Illegal Combatant used by President Bush. Neoconservatives, President Bush's administration, and myself argued that as Al Qaeda terrorists are not signatories to the Geneva Conventions, do not meet the specifications required by Article 4, and do not follow the Conventions themselves (which, according to Article 2 would entitle them to protection), these combatants are ineligible to such legal protection.

Again, those making the case that holding prisoners at Gitmo and waterboarding a small number of them was illegal need to be in an uproar against what President Obama has ordered in Abbottabad. Osama bin Laden was unarmed and likely executed on the spot; if the Third Geneva Convention rules apply to Al Qaeda, this is a gross violation of Article 3, section 1, subsection a (banning "violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture"), subsection d ( prohibiting "the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples"), and Article 13 in its entirety. Again, a small number of hard core Leftists are making this argument, but the vast majority of Americans who criticized waterboarding, Gitmo, and the status of Illegal Combatant celebrated the death of bin Laden. Once again, these people need to explain their hypocrisy or defend poor bin Laden; once again, I do not envy that position.

I cannot repeat this enough: using vague phrases like "international law" and "social justice" may be persuasive as a cheap sophistry trick on the unthinking, but they carry very little intellectual rigor. Furthermore, they tend to trap their users when the situation changes. A great deal of criticism against Bush's policies can now be used to criticize Obama's mission against Osama bin Laden; those scoring political points during the last decade are going to do their best to forget their past positions now, but those of us who prefer truth to partisanship have a duty to hold those people accountable.

The Daily Snark 4/12

"The longer the stalemate exists with us as Qaddafi's active enemies, the longer he has to strike back at us via unconventional warfare or terrorism. "

~Me, Musings on the Obama Doctrine, 3/29/11

"Libya's former ambassador to the U.S. on Monday warned Col. Moammar Gadhafi will plot terrorist attacks against the United States if he is allowed to remain in power."

~The Hill, today.

As I was saying...

Musings on the Obama Doctrine

Last night, President Obama addressed the nation in the hope of clearing up both our role in Libya's civil war and the principles guiding the President concerning foreign policy. Coming up with a coherent foreign policy is difficult to an extreme; I am yet to find a truly convincing theory of international relations. Most tend to gloss over certain problems in order to purchase support for a few clearly stated ideas. Obama's doctrine (or so it is being called) lacks the clearly stated ideas but failed to prevent the glossing over of injustices or incorrect facts. In fact, it is difficult to really nail down just what it is the President even meant last night, but since he is in the driver's seat for the next two years, it is important to parse out what information we can.

The text of his speech can be found here.

Should the President be initiation conflicts without Congressional approval?

For starters, Obama has yet to gain approval for this use of force from Congress. While many liberals disliked the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nobody can deny that President George W. Bush received Congressional approval prior to the initiation of hostilities. There is a great deal of legal entanglement concerning the use of force, particularly with the War Powers Resolution, but even then a strong case can be made that Obama should have Congressional approval first. That Act gives the President the use of force under three circumstances:

1. A declaration of war. That does not exist in this case.
2. Specific statutory authorization. This is hard to distinguish from a declaration of war; regardless, it also does not exist in this case.
3. A national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. An extremely weak case could be made concerning attacks on our troops in the 1980's, but this argument has not been put forth. The United States is not under attack.

Simply put, Obama has no real authorization to launch these attacks without Congressional approval. As a general rule of thumb, unless we are being attacked, Congressional approval should be required before hostilities are launched against another nation. The President did not address this point last night, a very disturbing sign.

Can other nations or the United Nations send our forces into war?

The President largely relied on the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1973 to provide justification for the use of force. The United Nations is a questionable source of authority; until recently, Libya was on its Human Rights Council. Regardless, the right to use force resides with the federal government of the United States, not with the United Nations Security Council. Only a Constitutional Amendment may change that fact. We may use force at our discretion with or without United Nations approval.

Furthermore, the argument that N.A.T.O. taking over leadership improves America's position is ridiculous. America will provide the men, the muscle, and the money, but generals from other nations will lead it. Having the leadership is not the burden; paying for the muscle work is. The former is shared, the latter is not, and honestly cannot be, as most nations lack the ability to provide the hardware and soldiers for a sustained campaign beyond their own borders.

When may the United States overthrow dictators?

The President lacked clarity on this point. During his speech, he said

It is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs. And given the costs and risks of intervention, we must always measure our interests against the need for action. But that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right.

Obviously, we need some criteria. No such criteria are really put forth, however, that are consistent with Obama's past actions as President. There is the prospect of violence and civilian casualties, but the same can be said of Iran in 2009. There is supposedly a popular uprising in Libya; there was just as much evidence for one in Iran in 2009 and Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria today, yet we have not intervened there. We have an "international mandate" that includes opposition from Russia and China. A broad coalition, but not one nearly as broad as that which invaded Iraq in 2003 (often derided as "going it alone").

With much of the Middle East in turmoil, the question Americans want answer is: why are we intervening in Libya but not Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, or Iran?

And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.

Unless we are talking about Iran. Or Bahrain. Or Yemen. Or Syria. The goal is noble enough, but our President has not refused to wait for such images before.

Where does this end?

This is the big question. We have a confused strategy of seeking Qaddafi's removal but tying our hands behind our backs concerning the means of doing so. Qaddafi will not leave voluntarily, the rebels cannot remove him by force, and we will not do so. This leads to a permanent stalemate. The longer the stalemate exists with us as Qaddafi's active enemies, the longer he has to strike back at us via unconventional warfare or terrorism. That leads to the very real risk of a ground war we cannot afford right now. It is not certain that the rebels will win, even with N.A.T.O. air cover.

Even if the rebels topple Qaddafi, there is hardly anything we can do to plan for the aftermath. Yes, the rather unknown council semi-leading the rebels could claim control, but there is no certainty that they could keep it or prevent infighting from splintering them and leading Libya into a protracted civil war. There are people loyal to Qaddafi; will we protect those citizens should rebel forces attack them?

Make up your mind.

The President attempted to lay out a clear plan to let the world know when the United States will intervene even if it is not directly threatened. He failed miserably in that attempt. Furthermore, our commitment and goals in this particular case remain vague. If we wish to help the rebels, air strikes alone are insufficient; Qaddafi must go. But we will supposedly be bound by the U.N. resolution limiting our action to protecting civilians. Does creating a protracted civil war protect civilians? Spending ten days waiting while Qaddafi's forces overran the rebels and then suddenly striking Libyan forces out of the clear blue is hardly decisive leadership.

Creating a consistent policy for the use of force is insanely difficult and no ideology, left, right, or otherwise, should pretend it is not so. While the first two sections I wrote are rather limited to the President's theory, the following two certainly could (and were) applied to the neoconservative efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The benefit of previous policies was a clear cut goal that provided some benefit despite the other problems inherent in the theory. President Obama's plan lacks these clear benefits but maintains the inconsistencies; if it is to be considered a theory at all, it is one that should be rejected.

The Daily Snark 3/28

Begging for excuses at The New Republic. It is odd how the Iraq War has suddenly disappeared from the Left's history books.

Americans are not "rallying around the flag" largely because we have no idea which flag we are supposed to be rallying under. Is this an American lead operation? United Nations? N.A.T.O.? Libya rebels? Why are we there again? Many Republicans did criticize this action, yes, but so did many liberals. Indeed, support or opposition on Libya doesn't fall into the left-right spectrum very well. Many on the right are ok with overthrowing Qaddafi but are unhappy with how we are going about it; many on the left are ok with the procedures but unhappy with getting involved in yet another war.

To pin a lack of sudden support for Obama on Republicans is rather ridiculous. Nobody knows what the President is doing, so it is difficult to support him. Moderates, those most likely to change their minds, are the most confused by this turn of events.

UPDATE 3/29: Just to prove my point, Pew points out that there is little partisan difference on whether striking Libya is wise or not.

On Libya

I have been half working on my thoughts concerning international relations, in particular just war, but have not finished them before this current crises. Nonetheless, anyone who knows me knows I do not buy the theory that the United States can only act with U.N. or NATO approval, or that the resolutions of either can command the U.S. to act. Opponents of the Iraq War made a big deal out of U.N. approval and are now loath to act without it.

To my own rather great surprise, we began launching missile strikes against Libya this weekend. This occurred without any Congressional approval, a fact that I find disconcerting.

I have only one serious question though: what is our goal?

As our President seems determined not to lead this operation but rather provide support to the policies of others, we have to look to those "others" to find out what it is we are doing. The closest thing to a policy statement is the Security Council's Resolution 1973. This resolution allows allied forces to protect civilians and maintain a no fly zone. It does not, however, provide for removing Qaddafi from power. Our military and civil leaders seem confused on this point.

So, when does this operation end? It is rather ironic that the U.S. codename for the mission is "Odyssey Dawn." Odysseus spent many, many years at sea, lost and desperately trying to get back home. I sure hope that isn't our future in Libya, but that is the most likely outcome. Qaddafi is not going to surrender power or large portions of Libya; we will not remove the dictator; ergo, there seems to be no lasting peace without constant U.N. combat air patrols.

The problem with fighting by committee is that the committee members often disagree with one another. And if we are protecting the civilians of Libya, why not those of Iran? Bahrain? Syria? Sudan? North Korea?

Iraq?

I am not opposed to removing Qaddafi. I am opposed to letting a tyrant remain in power and paying for a no fly zone that only maintains an unstable equilibrium. The second we leave (and the cost will soon cause us to leave), Qaddafi comes back into power. If we wanted to intervene, the time to do so was three weeks ago when Qaddafi was on the ropes.

Our President seems intent on following a U.N. mandated policy of stalemate. A very expensive stalemate that can devolve into defeat if the coalition fractures. A stalemate that can be upheld by the United States alone the second our poor European allies decide it is not in their interest to spend more on this African backwater. Stalemate is not a policy we should be aiming at.

Building a New Pyramid

As the great philosopher Axl Rose (almost) sang, where do we go now, Egypt, where do we go? Yesterday, Hosni Mubarak was forced out of power, an event which was followed by amazing scenes in Tahir Square where hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have protested over the last few weeks. Most revolutions have this glorious moment when some hated leader is ousted by "the people." It is a fairly amazing sight; many protests turn out badly in repressive regimes and the ousting of dictators tends to be the exception rather than the rule. As one who appreciates liberty and democracy enough to study such things, I do hope the best for these people in their efforts, but I am also aware of the dangers ahead. Tearing down Mubarak was actually the easy part. Securing a free nation without falling into anarchy or tyranny (or maybe even both) will be a challenge.

The problem lies in the fact that there is no real plan of action now. For the last three weeks, Egyptians were united by an opposition to Mubarak, a fairly simple and not surprisingly controversial position for most Egyptians to take. But Mubarak is gone now; ironically, the glue that held the protesters together has also been removed.

Now comes the most difficult part of the journey. Egypt must create a new government, but how will they go about doing this? There are no real leaders in a position to create a new constitution save for the Army that produced Mubarak. It seems highly unlikely that they will be willing to give the people much more than they have now, as all concessions would come at the expense of the Army itself. The only other group that seems large enough and well organized appears to be the Egyptian Brotherhood, an option that strikes me as even worse. Can Egypt produce a Jefferson, an Adams, a Franklin, a Hamilton or a Madison right this minute, and even if they can, will they be allowed to create a government? I highly doubt it.

In all honesty, I doubt very much that the interim government will make significant changes. I have been much less enthusiastic about these protests than many others for this reason (though I have to admit I thought Mubarak would play his hand better than this). The fun, romantic revolution is over, but the revolution is not complete until liberty has been secured under a functioning government that respects the rights of all people. Creating such a government is among the most difficult tasks mankind has ever faced. I hope, by the grace of God, that the Egyptians will manage it, but I would not bet on it.

If I was an Egyptian, I am not even certain what I would want. The singular goal seemed to have been the removal of Mubarak. Well, they have their wish. What now? What do the protesters want and will their be such unanimity with the new goals? Many of us have been on pins and needles wondering how the protests would turn out, whether Mubarak would somehow tough it out or be removed. We have the answer, but now the really chaotic part begins. Outside of the really broad strokes I have already said, I don't dare venture a guess as to how the next few months and years will turn out.

Best of luck, Egypt. You will need it.

Thoughts on Egypt

The riots in Egypt over the last two weeks have laid bare a conundrum in American policy and ideals. We face a situation in which an allied dictator of sorts is threatened by a populist uprising. President Mubarak of Egypt has kept the peace with Israel and ruled over a stable nation for nearly thirty years, but there is clear discontent in his society over corruption and economic failures. I love liberty to an extent that many might consider excessive (libertarians are few and far between in our nation today, though this seems to be changing), but can the protesters be supported in this case? Machiavelli and Hobbes were quite right to pronounce stability a sine qua non to a prosperous society. Yet every dictator loves stability, too. The expansion of liberty must always be won with a wager against stability, but such undertakings are indeed gambles liable to failure.

In this particular case, failure would come at an exceedingly high cost. Egypt, along with Jordan, is one of the few examples of a stable nation with some degree of prosperity not dependent on oil in the Middle East. Moreover, any change in government risks future conflict with Israel, a conflict that certainly would engulf the whole region. We have an image to uphold of supporting freedom, an image of moral and strategic importance, but supporting the rise of chaos (or worse) is counter productive.

Liberty will never be sustained in a nation where the people do not acknowledge the rights belonging to others. The United States was extremely fortuitous to be created by colonists possessing a fierce devotion to such liberty and to have crafted functioning local governments based on this idea by the time independence was declared. Very few places are so blessed, and Egypt is certainly not in their number. Far too often, the people are tempted to disregard the vital liberties of disliked societal groups. A constitution is worthless scrap paper if the people at large do not respect the rights of speech, religion, property, and a host of others. France found this out the hard way after 1789. A people must possess a civic education to know right from wrong in terms of liberties and the civic virtue to abide by it, even if it means forgoing certain pecuniary advantages or the ability to silence critics.

Even with such citizens, the machinery of government must be adequate. If chaos emerges, the most ruthless and least disposed towards liberty generally emerge victorious. France, Iran, and most of post-colonial Africa show this. The people of Egypt could overthrow Mubarak, but they would not be able to replace him.

And this is why liberty must be held dear wherever it may exist already. Free people in stable societies are the rare exception in mankind's lamentable history. The combination of education, virtue, and a fertile political ground to grow liberty seems to be a sparse gift from Heaven; I do not see how those elements could be created but in the presence of the others, a rare condition indeed. The greatest threat to existing liberty comes from within, those who have lost their virtue of lack the proper education.

Current State of the Afghanistan Conflict

I am about to pick up The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost at the Owego library. This book was written by the Soviet General Staff to analyze their performance during the conflict. Given the situation we find ourselves it, it seems like an appropriate book to read. Before I do, I want to jot down a few thoughts I have about the state of the conflict.

We find ourselves at war with a terrorist band rather than a nation state. It has similarities to what the Romans faced trying to purge the Illyrian pirates but with far greater international and internal pressure to reduce unnecessary violence, even against the terrorists themselves. This enemy has already proven themselves capable of striking at us and striking hard; there is no reason to believe that, left unmolested, they could not perform even worse feats against us.

This war also has parallels to the Punic Wars. There, tribes and cities would routinely switch sides to whichever power appeared to be the strongest at the present moment in time. Tribes and factions throughout the Muslim world, not to mention individuals, are far more likely to join Al Qaeda if Al Qaeda has the appearance of winning the conflict. It is imperative that we never allow such an impression to be made.

Afghanistan is one of the worst places we could be fighting such a conflict. Iraq was far better. Guerrilla insurrections survive by not fighting pitched battles but rather operating with hit and run tactics, always preserving their fighting force from the militarily stronger opposition. This means the guerrillas need a place to operate from that either cannot be located or operated in by their stronger enemy. There are generally two places to hide: the terrain and the population.

In Iraq, the terrain is not particularly well suited to hide guerrilla bands. Large areas are fairly open; forests are few and mountains are primarily located to the north in Kurdish territory. The population was initially not hostile towards Al Qaeda or other insurgent groups. Ironically, the setbacks we faced in 2006, when Al Qaeda was left in charge of large segments of the population, proved to be beneficial for the United States. Strict Islamic law was applied; Iraqis, who have a long history of living in a quasi-western civilization, were appalled. At the end of 2006, the United States declared their intention to see the conflict through to the end, launching "the surge" and increasing the number of troops on the ground by tens of thousands. Al Qaeda was never strong enough to take on the full power of the United States military and after alienating the local population found themselves having no place to hide. Since 2008, casualties in Iraq have plummeted despite America having less than one third of our troops remaining in country.

This was a great win for us. Al Qaeda had declared that Iraq would be their central front in their jihad against us, but in the end Al Qaeda was largely annihilated! We should be proclaiming those two facts throughout the Muslim world to show we are more than capable of beating this enemy. As I said, and as ancient and modern history show, the side that appears to be winning is the side that people join while the other suffers desertions.

Unfortunately, political considerations got in the way. Our current administration declared that the Iraq war was "stupid" and that the surge would increase rather than decrease violence there. Afghanistan was the good war, the area we needed to be fighting in. Perception is what determines whether a person or tribe will join Al Qaeda; our performance in Iraq would be a great piece of propaganda, especially concerning Al Qaeda's boast that they would win there, but this administration will not use it because it would undermine their earlier ardent opposition to the liberation of Iraq.

So instead we sent a surge of troops to Afghanistan, put General Petreaus in charge, and gave them a two year deadline to achieve the impossible. Afghanistan is mountainous and borders Pakistan, a country that isn't hostile to the Taliban/Al Qaeda message. The people of Afghanistan are different from the people of Iraq; they do not have a long history of living a semi-western lifestyle and sharia law is more acceptable there. Our enemies can hide in the terrain and the population with far greater ease than they could in Iraq.

Moreover, this administration is blatantly putting political goals ahead of the military situation. Our generals flat out told the President that a timetable for withdrawing from Afghanistan is merely giving the enemy a countdown to victory, creating the impression among the locals that they cannot trust our commitment and driving them towards the enemy who will be there long after July 2011. If the Taliban remain then (and they will), communities will not want to explain why they helped the Americans to those brutal warlords. Best way of not having to say sorry is to not piss off the warlords in the first place.

Mr. Woodward's recent book quotes the President as creating the July 2011 deadline because "I [Obama] can't lose the whole Democratic Party." This has absolutely nothing to do with the military situation. More of our troops have died this year in Afghanistan than in any previous year; Obama's reelection should not be a reason American soldiers die.

I need to remind the readers that Obama had absolutely no military experience prior to coming into office; there is little evidence he has studied warfare, either. It almost appears that his decision to send a "surge" of troops and put Petreaus in charge comes from the fact that those combination of things worked in Iraq (despite Obama's vocal opposition at the time). As I've pointed out, the terrain and people are very different in Afghanistan than they are in Iraq. From what I have read, it seems our President was shocked he could not get an exit strategy out of his generals. This was a common complaint against Bush by the Left. Wars are not fought with exit strategies; you pick your goal and then you beat and kill your opponent until they accept those terms or are no longer physically able to resist them.