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« on: June 23, 2011, 11:19:23 PM » |
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The Patriot Post - Opting Out of Enduring Freedom
From The Federalist Patriot
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Opting Out of Enduring Freedom
By Mark Alexander · Thursday, June 23, 2011
Political Expediency vs. National Security
"It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." --Benjamin Franklin
In opposition to the advice of military and intelligence advisers -- but with the support of popular polls -- Barack Hussein Obama is moving ahead with his plan1 to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan beginning this July. In other words, though the drawdown does not comport with the best interests of U.S. national security2, it does conform to his 2012 political campaign agenda.
Obama rolled out his worn rhetoric about Iraq being the wrong war, which distracted our nation from the right war, Afghanistan, which would seem to contradict his drawdown plans. As you recall, President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom against al-Qa'ida and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, in response to the 9/11 attack on our nation. Operation Iraqi Freedom3 was not launched until 20 March 2003, after Saddam Hussein refused, repeatedly, to comply with UN Resolution 1441, giving him "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations."
At the time, we had ongoing combat operations over Iraq enforcing the "no-fly zone," and arguably, "Desert Storm 2.0" was necessitated because we departed Iraq prematurely after the first Desert Storm in 1991.
Obama credited himself with having taken "decisive action" in late 2009 by ordering a troop surge of 30,000 to Afghanistan. History will note, however, that he dithered for several months before finally granting his military commanders a smaller surge force than the one they'd requested, and that he hamstrung our forces by announcing a date certain by which we'd begin to remove them.
Obama has committed to withdraw at least 33,000 of our 100,000 warfighters in the region by "next summer," just in time to mollify his anti-war base and re-energize them for the 2012 presidential election. That would be 30,000 more than his advisers requested, which might explain why he made no mention of General David Petraeus, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
In early May, besieged with the failure of his socialist economic policies4, BHO received a short-lived bounce in the polls after announcing that he (read "U.S. SpecOps5") killed Osama bin Laden, thanks to intelligence "extracted" from Jihadi insurgents captured in Iraq when George Bush was president.
As Obama's domestic policies continue to fail miserably, and his popular approval sinks to new lows, he hopes to get another pop-poll bounce with the announcement of the Afghan drawdown. He jibed, "America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home," but just hours before, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke downgraded the outlook for the U.S. economic recovery, the direct result of Obama's "nation building here at home."
All political shenanigans aside, the question we should ask is what action in Afghanistan is in the best long-term interest of our national security? Is our nation-building strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan the right strategy, or will targeted hunt and kill operations suffice.
For the record, the primary national security objective of both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom were not, first and foremost, to eradicate dictators and establish democracy and free enterprise through extensive and expensive nation-building efforts. Our objective was to contain the nuclear threat6 posed by asymmetric elements in the region. Obama is of the opinion that we can better do that by retreating from the region.
In plain words, our objective was (and should remain) to prevent the detonation by Jihadi terrorists of a nuclear device in one or more U.S. urban centers. If you think the cost of keeping the battle on their turf for the last 10 years has been expensive, try calculating the cost of recovery after a fissile weapon detonation in Boston or Baltimore, and the resulting economic consequence. Notably, the economic collapse of 20087 can be linked directly to the economic consequences of the 9/11 attack, but those consequences were minor in comparison to the cost of a nuclear attack.
The nuclear deterrence objective depends on a coherent Long War8 strategy to combat Islamist adversaries in the region, and around the world, but Obama has now made clear his intent to short-circuit that objective for his political expedience.
Obama errantly believes that concessions will inspire our Jihadi foes in al-Qa'ida's broad and amorphous terrorist network to go home in peace9. However, since he took office, casualties in Afghanistan have increased five-fold. If history repeats itself -- and it will -- Obama's foreign policy today will cost us dearly at some future date. Retreat from Afghanistan without a clear military victory will be seen by jihadists as a victory for al-Qa'ida and Islamo-Facists around the world. (Tellingly, he never once used the words "win" or "victory" last night when he announced his rationale for withdrawing our forces.) |
