People are shocked! shocked! at Obama's war plan in Afghanistan. - 6-Dec-2009 - Generational Dynamics

In his speech last week on Tuesday, President Barack Obama announced that he will direct the armed forces to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. This is Obama's second major escalation of the Afghan war since he took office in January, having ordered the deployment of 22,000 additional troops earlier this year. It will bring the U.S. forces in Afghanistan to more than 100,000 troops, and more than half of them will have been deployed by President Obama.

My friends who voted for Obama are suddenly completely disillusioned. "I'm beginning to have serious doubts about Obama," said one of them darkly.

During the election campaign, Obama supporters, suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, were drooling with erotic pleasure almost every time he opened his mouth. It's too bad that they were so engulfed with passion that they didn't bother to listen to what he actually said.

During the election campaign, Obama could say anything he wanted, as long as he criticized President Bush. He would receive wildly enthusiastic cheers from his supporters no matter what the content of his speech. As I wrote in July, 2008, in "Barack Obama in Berlin calls for greater European militarism," it was clear that the people, in America and Europe, who were wildly cheering Obama had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. They were cheering a fantasy Obama, not the real Obama standing before them.

"This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons."

So now I would say this to my friends who drooled over Obama: What the hell are you complaining about? You got what you deserve, so man up and quit whining.

And let's not forget that this is (at least) the second time in six years that people didn't pay attention. When the ground invasion of Iraq began in 2003, it was overwhelmingly popular with the American people, and with almost everyone in Congress. It's only when things started going badly, that suddenly these same people decided that they must have been lied to, and that President Bush was the Devil's Spawn. How much longer will it be before Obama's supporters decide that he's also the Devil's Spawn?

Listening to the Sunday morning news talk shows today, I don't believe that I heard anyone outside of the Administration say that he liked President Obama's speech on Tuesday. Here's the most important excerpt:

"This review is now complete. And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.

People on the left criticized it because it was another escalation of the Afghan war.

People on the right criticized it because of the 18-month deadline. And listening to the Sunday morning news talk shows, there's apparently a lot of confusion over how firm that 18-month deadline is.

It seems that most people (including myself) believe that the 18-month deadline was added as a sop to his supporters on the left, and that in practical terms it's meaningless. (By the way, how are those other promises going -- closing Guantanamo in one year, and pulling the troops out of Iraq in 16 months?)

President Obama is very young, and so he doesn't have much credibility on the world stage. What little credibility he started with has been used up bowing to foreign emperors, and advocating policies in Iran and the Mideast that are turning into disasters.

A worse irony is that President Obama's Afghan war strategy is modeled after President Bush's "surge" strategy in Iraq, something that Senator Obama bitterly opposed before it turned out to be successful. However, as I wrote in "American army general warns of imminent defeat in Afghanistan war," the Iraq "surge" strategy will not work in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, what's coming up next week is so ludicrous, that even by today's low standards it's hard to believe.

First, President Obama is going to Oslo to accept his Nobel "peace" prize, where I understand he'll give a speech explaining why he's escalating the war.

Next, President Obama is going to Copenhagen to give a boost to the latest farcical climate change conference, a week after hacked 'Climategate' e-mail messages showed a pattern of deception and fraud among climate researchers that's similar to the deception and fraud used by financial institutions like Goldman Sachs or Citibank. Mr. Obama will make promises in Copenhagen that everyone knows don't even make sense, and will be rejected by Congress, just as Vice President Al Gore's promises in the 1990s were rejected by Congress.

I've written many times that if Al Gore had been President after 9/11, then we still would have invaded Iraq, and we would have been in the same place today. (See "The Iraq war may be related to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.") When generational forces are at play, politicians have no choice but to follow.

Now we're seeing the same thing with President Obama and the Afghan war. President Obama undoubtedly wishes that things might go differently, but he's doing what he has to do. The Afghan war is following a certain path as part of the approach to the Clash of Civilizations world war, and neither Obama nor any other politician can change that. Still, it would be nice if President Obama didn't always look like he has no clue what's going on in the world.

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 6-Dec-2009
People are shocked! shocked! at Obama's war plan in Afghanistan.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 6-Dec-2009 People are shocked! shocked! at Obama's war plan in Afghanistan.

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 6-Dec-2009
People are shocked! shocked! at Obama's war plan in Afghanistan.