So, essentially, there is no exit date from Afghanistan. We're being played.

bigtree

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Thu Dec-03-09 10:53 AM
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So, essentially, there is no exit date from Afghanistan. We're being played.

At a Senate armed services committee hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked whether the exit date was locked in. “I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving. It is intended to send a message about resolve and urgency,” she explained.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/obama-criticism-focuses-on-exit-date/article1386369/

This is what I feared when I allowed myself to be optimistic about an 'exit' date or a 'timeline' promised to be included in the president's Afghan strategy. The mention of 2011 in the president's speech was far short of a plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and has been presented in the wake of the address by all WH and Pentagon principals and advisers as a mere assessment point.

I posted SoS Clinton's remark made before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday because it illustrates that the reported effort to craft the planned escalation of force into an 'exit' strategy was designed to pacify critics who complained about stoking an open-ended conflict with the troop increase, and Afghans who either worry we're staying forever or worry that we'll leave the precarious government there in a lurch. There appears to have been no serious consideration by the WH and Pentagon of setting a real exit date, or even a committing to a definitive timeline.

What we got instead was a cast-off line in the president's speech about 'transfer of forces' in 2011, depending on 'conditions on the ground'. That little COTG rhetorical trick worked so well for the last administration (and the same folks who are presenting this 'new' Afghan policy) regarding leaving Iraq that this WH decided to roll with the deception as part of their Afghanistan presentation, hoping that anti-occupation Democrats are still believing the administration's earlier hints about leaving Afghanistan on a definite schedule.

Yep, the president gave us that little rhetorical twist in his speech about beginning the "transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq," the president said, "we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground."

I know, I know . . . President Obama isn't Bush. He's more intelligent, more caring, less connected to the MIC, so we should believe him when he said in the speech, "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home."

Yet, I get the feeling that the remarks about troops coming home was just a pacifier for his critics on the left, and the qualifier about 'conditions on the ground' was a wink and a nod to those on the right who act as if suggesting an end to the quagmire is akin to treason.

Defense Sec. Gates, when asked about the 2011 date, told lawmakers that it was just a "clear statement of his (Obama's) strong intent."

"It is our plan to begin this transition process in July 2011. If circumstances dictate in December (2010), I think as I said the president always has the freedom to adjust his decisions," Gates said. He insisted that the transfers would begin in the "most uncontested places" of Afghanistan first. Other areas of the country could remain locked in "extraordinarily heavy combat," he said.

Asked whether the July 2011 start of the transfer of security responsibility to the Afghans may not include immediately a withdrawal of U.S. forces, Gates said:"That is correct."

When you strip away the gratuitous rhetoric about leaving, the Afghanistan occupation escalation plan really has no predictable end - just a wish and a prayer which relies on militarily subduing the Taliban into a weakened position where Afghan forces can mop-up; enlisting and training Afghans to fight our 'war on terror' (to the ultimate number of 170,000 Afghan troops, Admiral Mullen said).

Just last week, the U.S commander in Iraq, Gen. Odienero, illustrated the cheapness of promises of withdrawal based on COTG by insisting he had until March 2010 to 'decide' whether to extend the Iraq deployments beyond the exit date that they sold to the public a short time into this presidency. The possible delay? Iraqi politics. Time and time again, we've been promised an Iraq exit after some Iraqi political milestone. Every time we get close to the date outlined, someone in the WH or Pentagon raises the bar, insists on another delay, and makes a mockery out of our trust.

Yeah, I've heard all of the excuses. "It'll take time to undo the last administration's mess. Give it time." Interesting how most folks in opposition to Bush never assumed there was any credible justification at all for his foot-dragging. Now with this new Democratic president, we're being asked to accept excuses and delays in both occupations which will allow more fighting, more killings and deaths, and more individuals bent on violent resistance to the U.S. and NATO's advance across their sovereign territory.

The administration and supporters of this escalation want us to go to sleep for a year and a half while our military forces attack and kill Afghans they'll invariably determine is akin to al-Qaeda - while expecting Pakistanis to repel those combatants who will undoubtedly flow across their border.

How about the truth from the administration, right up front? The only way to 'end' the occupation in Afghanistan is to leave. Staying and escalating the troops and the attacks will create a new round of reprisals from all sides. There won't be any net reduction of U.S. forces in 2011 because the Pentagon leadership and the president have set our 'goals' there in terms of 'defeating' and 'dismantling' an ideology which passes like a virus among those subject to our arbitrary and indiscriminate attacks. Most of the Taliban in Afghanistan are free-agents from the fugitive 9-11 suspects instigating from within Pakistan.

What this escalation is going to produce is a solidifying and hardening of an entirely new 'enemy' in Afghanistan, apart from the 'plotters' of 9-11 who the administration has obliged by sending U.S. targets to their doorstep. The military has said they believe that only about 100 'al-Qaeda are still within Afghanistan. Many more Afghans will be killed by our indiscriminate forces and labeled 'combatants' or 'insurgent'. They are to be regarded by the administration as proxy for the 9-11 fugitives which elude us in Pakistan. Driven by our attacks to violent resistance, they will be regarded by our military as mere obstacles to their consolidation of power and control over Afghans.

It's almost as if the 'election' there was a mere formality. There is no great fealty pending to the Karzai regime from the majority of Afghans and the U.S. doesn't seem to care. If the administration did actually respect these Afghans right to self-determination, they would allow Afghans to decide where and how to hold their government accountable. In this imperialistic mugging, the Obama administration is demanding that Afghans adopt our own intractable grudge match against a mirage of Afghan al-Qaeda induced and exaggerated by the U.S. to justify our marauding shakedown.

Very few in our government have the strength of character to admit that it's going to be impossible to 'defeat' every vestige of al-Qaeda in the region. It's a ridiculous goal, as our military force and presence has been, from the start of the invasion, generating more resistant violence than our troops can reasonably put down. Yet this administration and supporters of this escalation of force have locked our nation into a fight we're destined to lose badly.

There is no exit in the president's escalation plan for Afghanistan, only a prospect of more fighting, killing, and unrest; both in the country and across the border into Pakistan. I suppose, when they've had enough of the killing and deaths, they'll declare some kind of success or victory and bring our troops home. Not before our casualty numbers begin to look like Iraq's, I fear. That's a damn high price for this cynical politicking.

So, essentially, there is no exit date from Afghanistan. We're being played.

"Be Careful What You Wish For: You’re About To Get It"