Obama at the Precipice (Frank Rich)

[elleng]

We see the hawkish young President Kennedy wrestling with Vietnam during his first months in office. . .

The highest-ranking dissenter was George Ball, the undersecretary of state. Mindful of the French folly in Vietnam, he predicted that “within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles and never find them again.” In the current administration’s internal Afghanistan debate, Goldstein observes, Joe Biden uncannily echoes Ball’s dissenting role. . .

But the author of “Lessons in Disaster” does not believe that a change in course in Afghanistan would be a disaster for Obama’s young presidency. “His greatest qualities as president,” Goldstein says, “are his quality of mind and his quality of judgment — his dispassionate ability to analyze a situation. If he was able to do that here, he might more than survive a short-term hit from the military and right-wing pundits. He would establish his credibility as a president who will override his advisers when a strategy doesn’t make sense.”

Either way, it’s up to the president to decide what he thinks is right for the country’s security, the politics be damned. That he has temporarily pressed the pause button to think it through while others, including some of his own generals, try to lock him in is not a sign of indecisiveness but of confidence and strength. It is, perhaps, Obama’s most significant down payment yet on being, in the most patriotic sense, Kennedyesque.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27rich.html?ref=opinion
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We've got a REAL Vice President!

[bemildred]

1. Yep, if you want to be the boss, you gotta slap the underlings around from time to time.

(Figuratively speaking, of course.)

[Doctor_J]

2. Yes, Kennedy decided NOT to ramp up in Viet Nam

How'd that turn out for him and for America?

The MIC runs the country, and the President has to live and work in their world.

[bertman]

3. I recommended this even though I will NOT log on to the NYT webpage. Any way we

can get the rest of this story without joining up with the NYT.

Anyone who has studied JFK's presidency knows that he was committed to withdrawal from Vietnam. In 1963 the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Corporate Complex didn't have as much power as it does now.

This is David vs. Goliath. I hope David Obama has his sling handy.

[glitch]

5. Here you go - commondreams.org is usually good for reprinting the better articles.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/27

[bertman]

7. thanks, glitch.

[rainy]

6. My understanding is that Kennedy didn't even have soldiers on the ground.

He had advisors and others but no combat soldiers.

[chimpymustgo]

4. Top two recommended readers' comments:

-edit-

If we are in Afghanistan in force for more than another 2 years, we will be finished as the world's superpower. There are challenges that even a superpower cannot surmount. Pacifying Afghanistan is one of them. There are too many fighters of various stripes who want the U.S. out of the country. If we stay, I want an 80% tax rate on the top 5% (at least) in income of all types. If that is not enough to balance the budget, I want enough assets of the wealthiest confiscated until the bills are paid. If you think this is insane, I think running a tab on these asinine wars is insane.
Recommended by 255 Readers

-edit-

Frank ; You wrote : " Either way, it’s up to the president to decide what he thinks is right for the country’s security, the politics be damned."

Has the President done one thing in office that leads you to believe he does " anything " without first considering the politics? You are counting on integrity from a man who, so far, has demonstrated a complete lack of that quality.

What happened to "transparency " ? What happened to his promises to bring the troops home? Why does he now have to make a decision on something he said he had already decided?

I really do not understand how anyone can call themselves progressive and still support this corporate owned jellyfish . Obama hasn't changed governance at all from Bush governace. Bush has to be sitting in Texas , smiling, and thinking " I told you so ".

You all can continue to believe in fairy tales. I'm already looking for new honest forthright candidates.
Recommended by 188 Readers

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27rich.html?sort=recommended

[Tansy_Gold]

8. Oh, they wouldn't like this one over in GD-P ;-)

Happy to K & R.



TG

[Tansy_Gold]

9. The huge difference between JFK and Obama is that

JFK didn't have 50,000 troops already on the ground in Vietnam. Obama is already there, thanks to his predecessor. JFK had to decide to go in or stay out; even a decision to do nothing, essentially, was a decision not to go in, but it was an option.

Obama is already in, and in deep. Doing nothing is not a viable option for him.

Worse yet, if he determines that Afghanistan is not winnable -- and a determination of winnable presupposes a definition of what winning there is -- then he has to administer the withdrawal. We all know what happened when that moment was reached, involuntarily, in Vietnam.

I take issue with one other point:

“His greatest qualities as president,” Goldstein says, “are his quality of mind and his quality of judgment — his dispassionate ability to analyze a situation. If he was able to do that here, he might more than survive a short-term hit from the military and right-wing pundits. He would establish his credibility as a president who will override his advisers when a strategy doesn’t make sense.”

Obama's "dispassionate ability" for analysis may be his weakness in governing. He needs to have some passion, and I think that's been lacking. We were all so glad just to be rid of the booooshies that we granted ourselves a period of relaxing while the new guy took over. But the new guy has to do more than walk around and shake hands with all of us. He has to stop campaigning and start working.

I get sick in the pit of my stomach when I think what will become of Afghanistan if/when we leave. And then I have to remind myself that our presence really isn't changing anything. The Taliban and the warlords are still in charge, just as they always have been. If anything, we've made it worse.

And that points to yet another difference between our reasons for being in Afghanistan and our reasons for being in Vietnam. Forget the oil reasons -- we know they're there and we know what they are and that's fine -- because it's the propaganda reasons that really matter.

Vietnam and the domino theory were about state-sponsored politics. Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese and even the Chinese were not able to go anywhere else. They had to be fought there.

Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, however, were and are not tied to Afghanistan. We did not need to make war on the Afghan people, or even on the Taliban. That was part of the enormous clusterfuck of the boooosh administration's war-porn response to 9/11. They wanted war, not a law enforcement action, and they really wanted that war on Iraq. To get that, they declared war on Afghanistan and compltely fucked up the real reason they touted for it. So EVERYTHING about the Afghanistan war is futile in terms of stopping terrorism. EVERYTHING.

Kennedy didn't have the PR advantage -- either for or against -- that 9/11 gave boooosh. Dien Bien Phu was a French martyrdom event, not American, and it didn't happen in the homeland. Any opposition to an increase in the US presence in Afghanistan will bring up 9/11 ad nauseam; LBJ, who gave in and sent in the combat troops, had to do so with the fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin non-event.

All of which makes Obama's situation much more fraught with political implications, for himself and for the rest of the country going into an election year. JFK's America was not as polarized, not as volatile; Obama's is and could easily get worse.



Tansy Gold