Maggie's Farm

One of my oldest and, deservedly ten times over, most respected friends, a combat veteran, a journalist, a frontline refugee aid worker, a man of the cloth, a professor, major scholar, a mentor and example to generations, wrote me this email below.  He offers insights based on real experience that is lacking in mere scribblers in media and blogs who haven't ever been on the front-lines of life, death, and hope and effort despite odds due to undefeatable faith.

My friend's email, to all of you:

From a column by David Ignatius:

"When I asked Obama if the Taliban wouldn't simply wait us out, he was dismissive: "This is an argument that I don't give a lot of credence to, because if you follow the logic of this argument, then you would never leave. Right? Essentially you'd be signing on to have Afghanistan as a protectorate of the United States indefinitely."

Are Germany, Italy, South Korea, Philippines, and the horn of Africa protectorates of the United States? Maybe he thinks so. Maybe this explains his treatment of the Poles and the Czechs on missile defense.

As for never leaving: Well, we would "never leave" if (a) it is impossible to defeat the Taliban, or (b) we shouldn't even try to defeat them because we never should have been there in the first place, the Taliban will eventually be the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, and this is just a face-saving way for us to leave.

I think Obama believes in and has opted for (b). It's David Ignatius, not Obama, who refers to the Taliban. Obama in his speech never mentioned the Taliban as the enemy we were fighting. Only Al Qaeda. In fact, he spoke of certain Taliban participating in the government. Remember a few months ago when the White House was leaking hints that we could live with the Taliban back in power? They have convinced themselves that there is a significant difference between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and this whole strategy is designed not to turn it around, as the surge did in Iraq, but simply to get us out and shift the blame. And if the Taliban return? Who cares? Their problem. We can live with what the Iranian government does to its people, why not the Taliban?

This is all just a distraction from health-care and cap and trade. If the Taliban do come back Kabul will be too dangerous for anyone other than Frank Rich to visit, so we won't know what's going on, and what we don't know can't bother us.

He says in the speech that we are not patrons but partners, and then he speaks of the Pakistan and Afghan governments in an utterly dismissive tone, as if he were speaking to ADHD children. The Karzai government is corrupt and inefficient? Compared to what? Najibullah or Mullah Omar, Kharzai's predecessors? Is the Afghan government more corrupt than the governments of Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, NYC, Illinois, Massachusetts, Louisiana, or the District of Columbia? Wait, I almost forgot. The last Minnesota election for US senator should be included. Is the Kharzai government less accountable than our own and it's 18 million dollar website tracking the stimulus funds?

Obama says Afghanistan is different from Vietnam because in Afghanistan we are not facing "a broad-based popular insurgency." So it was the "broad-based insurgency" that finally won in Vietnam? Why are there so many Vietnamese in this country? Why did South Vietnam become a gulag for twenty years after 1975? (I went back for the first time in 1995, and it was one of the most oppressive societies I have ever experienced.) Where did the soldiers in the South Vietnamese army come from? If North Korea were to overtake South Korea tomorrow, would it be the result of a broad-based insurgency? The entire North Vietnamese army--after we had withdrawn all support from the South--overran the country. Not the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese Army. Some South Vietnamese units fought to the last man. Some were still fighting a rear guard action in the central highlands for five years after the fall of Saigon.

However, if the Afghans, as Obama suggests, don't want a return of the Taliban, why are we about to facilitate their return? Obama's whole plan sounds like just enough to keep his generals from resigning, but not enough to defeat the Taliban. An upfront capitulation and retreat would actually be better. That would say we don't want to win but would leave open the question of whether we could have won if we wanted to. But the result we'll get will say we couldn't have won in any case, that American arms simply couldn't prevail. Notice that he said nothing about why he's sending 2 brigades less than his commander asked for. It probably polls better that way.
But Obama doesn't believe that any war can ever be legitimate. Read his speeches from Cairo, Normandy, or Berlin. He has talked about the progress of American blacks from slavery to his presidency, without ever mentioning the civil war. It just didn't happen. It was like the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was no military involved, no "cold war," people just "came together" and the wall fell.

He plans to "end" both wars--no matter the consequences--before the 2012 campaign season begins. This will aid his reelection and help him "earn" his Nobel. I'm beginning to wonder if I can in good conscience encourage a student to remain in or enter ROTC with a commander-in-chief as unprincipled and feckless as this one--and an Army chief of staff as stupid as Gen. Casey. I've always encouraged our students to at least consider military service. I never thought this would be a question for me. But it is becoming one now.

My friend is a bit discouraged tonight, to say the least.  Neither you nor I nor he need worry that he will remain that way.  His life is one of striving with all his being and integrity to overcome evil and to contribute good to the world.  He will keep on, as must we, as Obama too shall pass, and be replaced with a better.

P.S.: My friend saw this and a private email comment to him that "spirit demands fiber". He replies

Yes, of course you're right. You'll know I've despaired if I give up teaching before I have to. I was thinking today that Obama's--and Axelrod's and Emanuel's--incredible ingnorance of history show how harmful it is when colleges get rid of core requirements.

Obama graduated from Columbia and he knows absolutely nothing about US and World history. Nothing! Listening to him reminds me being in a coffee shop in the late 60s, trying to make my move on a beautiful girl, but as the 4th international idiocies tumbled out of her mouth, the beauty slowly vanished, and chastity became easy--at least with her. Four things can kill sexual desire: hunger, exhaustion, fear, and listening to an idiot. That's why in Ranger school, all I could think of was a good meal. On a LRRP patrol in Vietnam, just getting safely back to base. In the coffee shop in Minneapolis, just getting the hell out of there. Wonder why these memories came back as I listened to Commander Zero's speech tonight?

BTW, Related:  Read this op-ed, by another friend, of course a former Marine, and much more: Counterinsurgency Incoherence

And, Related: Ralph Peters gets to the point.