AFGHANISTAN

The word in the media is that Obama has decided to send about 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He will make a speech to the nation on December 1 [next Tuesday] announcing the decision. It is not difficult to figure out what he will say. He will lay down, firm, inflexible markers of success. He will say that if the Kharzai regime has not made major advances in combating corruption and establishing a legitimate government in six months, he will begin the withdrawal of American troops. He will say that in any case, he is prepaqred to commit troops for only five years, after which they must be totally withdrawn. And he will say that the focus of the mission of the troops will be on counteracting Al Qaida, not on fighting the Taliban.

And he will mean every word of it.

So Kharzai will make some head fakes in the direction of dealing with corruption. [Will he really put his brother in prison? I doubt it.] The Taliban will continue to expand their sphere of influence. [Just today there are reports that they have opened operations in an area of Afghanistan that the Americans had thought was secure.] And inevitably, American casualties will rise.

But the blood of these men and women will be on Obama's hands, not on Bush's hands, for with the escalation, the war will become Obama's war. Six months from now, no real progress will have been made, but there will be some Potemkin Village successes to which the generals will point. What is more, when they ask for more troops, to protect those already there, how will Obama say no? After all, it will be he who chose to send them there.

This is wrong, wrong wrong. It is a mistake of monumental proportions. And all the deliberateness of decision making, all the lines drawn in the sand, all the time lines and deadlines and inflexible conditions will not make it anything but a mistake.

I have seen this movie before, and the sequel was Richard Nixon.

MIXED SIGNALS

On Wednesday, I watched the Fort Hood ceremonies, including Obama's speech. It was moving, beautifully crafted, a splendid performance. But as I listened, a thought I saw something that sent a cold chill up my spine -- a gifted, dedicated man who had run as a candidate committed to domestic change and progress, but who was becoming transformed into a war-time president by the pressure of events. I was very fearful that the terrible burden of being responsible for sending men and women into combat had changed him. I do not for a moment think he wants to be a wartime president, as George W. Bush clearly did, but he may think that he has no alternative.

Then, today, I read reports that Obama has rejected all four alternatives for Afghanistan as presented by his advisers, and demands to know what the "off ramps' are for our involvement there -- this coming on the day that Ambassador Eikenberry's extremely negative report was leaked to the press.

There is really nothing at this point for us to do but wait and see how it comes out. I continue to believe that his presidency hangs in the balance.

PROPORTIONALITY

I am often struck by the disproportion between the significance of the major issues of public importance about which I pontificate knowingly in this blog, and the insignificance of the personal matters about which I anguish privately. Right now, three things are weighing on my mind: the fate of the health care reform bill, the war in Afghanistan, and the health of my cat, Murray, whom we took yesterday to the emergency room of the North Carolina State University Veterinary School with a life-threatening diebetic attack that has mushroomed into something much worse. I am not crazy. I acknowledge that by any measure to which I could give rational assent, either of the first two issues is to the third as a galaxy is to a dust mote. And yet, in the emotional balance of my life, the third far outweighs either or both of the first two. If Murray pulls through, we will need to care for him for the rest of what I hope will be a long life, giving him twice a day subcutaneous insulin shots and watching carefully to be sure that he does not become hypoglycemic from too much insulin. Murray has been sick for several days, and yesterday, even though it was a Sunday, I called the emergency service of our vet and took him in to be seen. The vet offered the opinion that if I had not chosen to take him in, he might not have lasted through the night! When she said that, I experienced not relief but what can only be called a retroactive shock that left me wrung through.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is calling the House bill Dead on Arrival, Joe Lieberman is renewing his threat to filibuster the bill in the Senate, and new reports suggest Obama is leaning toward the disastrous decision to send 38,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. I know that if I have any self-respect as a blogger, it is those matters about which I should be writing. But the truth is that the uncertainty about Murray's fate completely eclipses health care and Afghanistan in my mind. I suppose one explanation for this distorted sense of priorities is that while there is absolutely nothing I can do that will make a discernible difference to either the health care bill or Afghanistan, what I do will make all the difference to Murray's future.

Murray, by the way, is name after the dog on the old Paul Rieser/Helen Hunt television comedy, "Mad About You."

MORE BAD METAPHORS

Now that the elections are behind us, my grandchildren's pictures have been posted, and other such matters have been blogged about, it is necessary to return to the really important issue that pends: the situation in Afghanistan. There are reports from unnamed sources [as always] that Obama is considering changing the mission to the training of Afghan security forces and sending ten to fifteen thousand additional troops in pursuit of that mission.

This is madness, folly, a terrible waste of lives and resources. If he chooses this course of action, I would be willing to bet my entire modest savings that the following sequence of events will unfold: First, the troops will be sent and the mission will be changed. Then the Taliban [or other parties] will mount attacks on the training bases, and U.S. service men and women will lose their lives. In response, the generals in the field will state [publicly, since the tradition of civilian control of the military seems to have died away] that they need more troops to protect those engaged in the training. Obama, having chosen to send those trainers, will believe that he has no choice but to comply. How can he not give the troops he has sent in harm's way whatever they need to be protected while they do the job he sent them to do? A year from now, very little will have changed in Afghanistan, despite much brave talk about "benchmarks" and "metrics" of "success." But there will be 100,000 American troops there, not 68,000. And from then on, no matter what he says or hopes or dreams, Obama's presidency will be about Afghanistan.

This training mission is repeatedly described as "giving the Afghan forces the tools they need to maintain security." Think for a moment about that metaphor -- "the tools they need." We are to suppose that the Afghans are trying to clear a forest with axes, which is very difficult, so we will send them chain saws, which will make things go better. Or, they are communicating with one another by dixie cups attached to strings, and we will give them field radios, which will improve their ability to talk to oneanother.

Now the people the Afghan government forces are supposed to fight have a good deal less in the way of sophisticated equipment, and they have had the benefit of little or no formal training. Yet they regularly defeat the government forces, even when those forces are supported by U.S. air power and artillary ["tools" that the Taliban totally lack.] How can that be? Put this way, the question virtually answers itself. The Taliban [or the Iraqi militants, or the American Colonials, for that matter] have chosen to fight, and they have got their hands on enough weapons to do great harm. The Afghan forces are hired guns, not terribly enthusiastic about getting killed in the service of a corrupt government and an occupying great power. All the traning manuals written by American generals with Ph. D.'s cannot change these facts.

Now, it is no doubt true that with sufficient force, America can rule Afghanistan, either directly, or through a puppet government in Kabul. But experience teaches that to accomplish this dubious end, we would have to: (a) commit vastly more troops, (b) stay for as long as we want Afghanistan to be ruled, and (c) be willing to kill as many Afghan men, women, and children as it takes to oppress them successfully.

I know that Obama did not have a typical African-American upbringing, but surely he is familiar with the story about Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby.