By Patrick J. Buchanan
While America was consumed this summer with quarrels over town-hall radicals, “death panels”, the “public option” and racism’s role in the plunging polls of Barack, what happens to health care is not going to change the history of the world.
What happens in Afghanistan might.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal has done his duty. He has bluntly told his commander in chief what he must have in added combat troops and warned that if he does not get them, America faces “mission failure.”
Translation: a Taliban victory and U.S. defeat—as in Saigon 1975.
Not only does President Obama face the most critical decision of his young presidency, this country is facing a moment of truth. Obama, now the Decider, has four options.
- There is the Biden option of drawing down troops, drawing away from Hamid Karzai, and focusing McChrystal’s men on what they do best—running down and killing al-Qaida, be they in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
- Second is the option of indecision—holding off on more troops until the 68,000 already committed have arrived by December, and seeing how McChrystal does with them until spring.
- The third option is to give McChrystal some but not all the tens of thousands he says he needs.
- Final option: Give Gen. McChrystal the blank check George W. Bush gave Gen. David Petraeus, with the surge of 2007 in Iraq, which radically reduced the violence and set the stage for U.S. withdrawal beginning in 2010.
If Obama meets some or all of McChrystal’s request, America will stave off defeat in the short term. But the cost will be hundreds and perhaps thousands more U.S. dead, tens of billions more sunk, growing divisions in our country and more innocent Afghan victims.
And the surge may simply push a U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover a few years off into the future.
This assumes that Afghanistan is unwinnable, that America does not have the perseverance or will to send the hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops for the decade needed to crush the Taliban and create a government and army able to stand on their own when we depart.
If, however, Obama comes to believe the cost of “victory” in blood, money and years is not worth it, or the American people, already against the war and adding more troops, will not sustain it, or the war is unwinnable, then we need to look defeat in the face.
For that is what McChrystal says we are risking, if Obama dithers or draws down troops.
Russia’s withdrawal of 1988-89 led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire. What would a U.S. withdrawal do to the American Empire?
A Taliban triumph would mean the Afghans who sided with us in this war would face the same retribution as our allies in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Western aid workers would have to flee the country.
Under Taliban control, Afghanistan would be a sanctuary for the Pakistani Taliban, which would be emboldened to settle scores with the Islamabad politicians who had sided with the United States.
Taliban allies in the Pakistan army and intelligence services would be seen as on the wise and winning side, while those who sided with America would be seen as losers. The odds would rise that Pakistan would face a revived insurgency and acts of terror against the regime. The odds on the survival of a pro-American regime in a country already marinated in anti-Americanism would fall.
Among Islamists worldwide, news that the Afghan Sunni Taliban had defeated and driven the United States out, as their fathers had the Soviet Empire, would be electrifying. Muslim governments aligned with America would be shaken and perhaps imperiled.
Al-Qaida, thwarted by U.S. security services and ravaged by U.S. Predator and Special Forces strikes, would be seen as having helped inflict a defeat on America unseen since Vietnam.
Osama bin Laden would be a candidate for Man of the Decade.
With his 9-11 attack, he had fired a shot heard ’round the Islamic world, sucked America into two wars that bled, divided and helped to bankrupt her, and seen the last superpower off in Afghanistan.
Osama’s ultimate goal from the start—the removal of all U.S. troops from sacred Saudi soil and expulsion of all Crusaders from the Islamic world—would no longer be an impossible dream.
For America, loss of Afghanistan would poison U.S. politics as did the loss of China and of Vietnam. It would discredit nation-building for decades and ring down the curtain on Wilsonian interventionism for a generation. And it could bring about the defeat of Barack Obama as the liberal who lost the war al-Qaida began on 9-11.
Whether Obama cuts U.S. forces and advances the day of a Taliban victory, or doubles-down and sends the tens of thousands of U.S. troops Gen. McChrystal demands, Afghanistan has claimed another hubristic imperial power.
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Rome took three wars over 80 years to defeat Carthage. So war can be intermittent. The U.S. took 30 years to defeat Geronimo, so war can be protracted. USMC generals advocated an "enclave" strategy in the 70s which might have won in Vietnam. A low intensity war over 10 years or so may give American technology time to defeat the IED, the tactic which enabled the Tailiban comeback.
And Rome still collapsed inthe end. Viet Nam was not worth wining. We set up a corrupt government more people were willing to die against than for. Afgahnistan is the graveyard of Empires. The sooner we bury our evil empire, the better.
Well, if the consequences our defeat in Afghanistan are anything like the the consequences our "defeat" in Vietnam, Afghanistan in 30 years will be the world center for Christian pacifism.
Brilliant, balanced, powerful, succinct. Buchanan at his best.
What exactly is defeat? The Taliban patrolling our streets forcing us all to bow Towards Mecca? This has nothing to do with our "Freedom" It is now a case of national pride. If we leave, they will be empowered. Of course they will! We are the invaders, we deserve to be repelled.
Defeat is relative. For a superpower like the US to pull out of Afghanistan would be a major blow to American image around the world since US made so much noise about bringing the torch of freedom and progress to that part of the world. No, the Taliban cannot defeat the US like the Soviets defeated Germany. But, we can be defeated in terms of pride and honor. But sometimes, what seems like defeat can turn into victory of sorts. US lost in Vietnam but the commies did such a horrible job that we came to look good in the end. And even commies turned away from communism eventually. We lost the war, won the peace. I think in Afghanistan, we can lose both the war and the peace.
This much is true, for the "medicine" of freedom is more powerful than any "surgical strike" itself.
Let's look at history well, that once our country started becoming involved in international affairs our national pride and honor has nose-dived. We became busybodies, telling other countries how to run their own people. This causes those people to detest foreign intervention. It will be used as political fodder, which in turn, will light even more fires of anti-Americanism.
So, we can fail in Afghanistan but also gain in America: a lesson that being hypocrites doesn't do the nation good, it just breeds more hate. After we learn this, and hopefully not repeat this international intervention "push", the USA can concentrate on what really matters — rebuilding what has been rotting for decades…our schools, our way of life, our own identity.
There is nothing to win in Afgahnistan. The world doesnt want our version of freedom which leads to drugs, gangs, preganat teens, and other depravities. Nation pride is not a reason to send more men to die.
Dump the empire.
Western civilization has sought to contain expansionist Islam since 800 A.D. We can defeat the idea of imposing submission to this curious religion if we are patient and wise. There are forces of toleration in Islam. America excels, like no other country, in the production of pornography. If you were an Islamist, which would you rather do, die blowing up buildings in New York, or watch Paris Hilton on your DVD?
Pat, you're so ignorant of what's going on today, you're irrelevant. Here's a newsflash for ya: Bin Laden was (is) a CIA asset; he had nothing to with 911. He agreed to take the blame in exchange for safety for the remainder of his natural life. 911 was executed by the same people who have systematically taken over the world — and it ain't the clueless US Government that administrates and provides military support for them. Wake the hell up, will you!
Shadow, pull your head out of your shadowy conspiracy-minded ass.
Andrea, I would not be so quick to diss Shadow 92, please read on this site
http://buchanan.org/blog/brad-blog-exclusive-upco...
This paragraph
"Edmonds further details what she had briefly discussed with me on air in June, during an interview I did with her [22] while guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show, in which she had said she was aware of the “intimate relationship with Bin Laden and the Taliban … all the way up to September 11,” 2001 by certain forces in the U.S. Whatever the operations were with bin Laden — actually “‘bin Ladens’ plural” as she clarifies to Giraldi — Edmonds notes that “Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent” and that the U.S. was “100 percent” aware of the deal. “From Turkey,” she says, “they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.”
The Saudi's were very willing to get rid of a SECULAR neo Stalinist regime, it was a threat to their Wahabi Muslim dominance, especially as Iraq had a higher percentage of engineers per capita than the US did.
We sold Iraq to the Muslim extremists for oil, and as for 3 building coming down in their own footprint in a couple of hours. There is only one way with shaped charges and split second charges..a knowledge the military gained in Europe after WW2 to bring down the thousands of bombed buildings.
The reason Cheney, Bush et al could lie, was that they knew they would not be challenged by the media, by Congress by anyone, because this was on the books for years… as part of an attempt to secure the dwindling oil resources of the ME, in Iraq 13 bases are being built, Afghanistan has oil and natural gas resorces, similar to the countries it borders… this is not about the Taliban it is about American economic interests. as China nmoves into Africa, so will we… just watch…
The rest of this is smoke and mirrors..
The country is run by foreigners and traitors, don't you know. People are starting to get this. Big business knows no boundaries or country. Politicians are selected (by them) for their talent either for BS or their stupidity: in Obama's case its his talent for BS and radical socialism; in "W" Bush's case for his stupidity and inculcation to the "new world order" championed by his father. In either case, they do what they're told, but not by us, the People.
Why do you think we're overrun with Mexican hobbits? Why does the greatest port in the hemisphere and its greatest land route (Texas corridor under construction) serve Mexico? Because transport and labor is cheaper. Bypass the unions, which means more profit for the mega-corporations. That's all it is. More money for them, less money and jobs for Americans.
The clandestine operators — the Fed, for instance — have put the squeeze on Americans for almost 100 years now, and they've mangaed to bankrupt us, rob us, infest us with foreign indigents sucking off us, and now lord it over our sovereignty, constitution and Bill of Rights. Now its time for the people to put the squeeze on them and see how they like it. The Fed will be exposed for what it is, after all these years. The road to recovery depends on it.