Tuesday, May 12, 2009

God Help Us

So, the Obama Administration has finally taken control of the War in Afghanistan. Yesterday it was announced that the Secretary of Defense had fired the field commander there, Gen. David D. McKiernan. He is to be replaced with a new commanding officer and assistant who have a history in counter-insurgency warfare. Robert M. Gates said "fresh eyes were needed." One has to wonder whether it is a fresh American commitment that is needed?

After eight years we are no closer to winning this war than we were when Tommy Franks screwed it up so royally following the WTC attacks. Bin Laden and much of his foreign army was allowed to escape into Pakistan where, with minimal pressure from American or Pakistani military, he was allowed to rebuild and rearm. Today Pakistan is in turmoil. The Pakistani army is openly engaged in a war only miles from the capital. And just a few weeks ago Gen. David Petraeus, America's favorite general right now, predicted that if the Pakistanis did not do something, the country would fall to the Taliban in a matter of weeks.

I guess fresh eyes are needed, but so is a commitment by the American people. I don't see that happening. We are still content to let the few from an American underclass of rural men and women carry the burden of sacrifice in this war. You don't believe me? Then watch the News Hour on PBS every night. Periodically they flash the photos of the men who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan as a memorial. What you see are young faces fresh from small-town America staring into the camera so seriously.

The American military establishment lives in dread that it will have to fall back on the draft to fill its ranks. For years it has wasted its enlisted ranks, squandered its reservist ranks, and destroyed the National Guard's capacity to do much of anything. That fear of conscription by the military and Congress tells me this country still hasn't gotten over Vietnam.

So, Mr. Gates, what is our policy for Afghanistan now that you have fired a brave and honored commander? Did Obama see him as his McClellan? A general too prone to avoid the war-ending strategy of swift assault some see as so necessary? I hope you are right, for I fear we have stepped out on the slippery slope of defeat. We don't have the forces necessary to do the job that needs to be done, so we are opting instead for a strategy of snoop and poop, rope-a-dope, or whatever you might want to call it. Send in a few men to hit and run in a land where the indigenous forces are already the world's best at that.

God help us.