President Obama speech Defense

The below article was a comment placed on Tom Ricks' blog, The Best Defense, which took Ricks to task for his misunderstood and unappreciative review of the President's speech. I can only hope I'd been able to respond as well as kunino.

Hard to believe Ricks saw the speech

by kunino on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 3:06pm

I suggest, Mr Ricks, you take another quick look at the Obama speech -- it's there at whitehouse.gov -- and withdraw your careless remark that "[i]t was addressed to those who, like him, really didn't want to send more troops to Afghanistan". The president was looking into the eyes of a hallful of young men and women in the nation's uniform, some of whom will be sent to Afghanistan in the next year or two. Such are the ambitions of young officer cadets, we can be satisfied that many in that hall were eager to get out their in the field in Afghanistan. Do you suggest the president didn't know that?

You don't seem to have taken the president seriously. Evidently, the cadets did. Although this part of the event wasn't televised, the president mingled post-speech with some of those cadets, and answered their questions.

What WAS missing from this particular presidential war speech was the recently familiar Bush-era prancing of bemedaled heads of the military services, men too old and too senior to go to war, leaping to their feet and applauding enthusiastically, and it was all the better for that.

I also challenge your remark that the president's speech "was an ode to ambivalence, an aria of ambiguity, a rasher of reluctance". In my view,it was a sensible account of what can reasonably be expected to achieve in Afghanistan. None of the smirking, vague Bush rhetoric. Whether you respect Obama or do not, you have to admit that he's no blowhard. Makes a nice change. And his pointing to the importance of the financial cost of war was an honorable part of the history of martial understanding that goes all the way back to Sun Tzu. The Bush line seems to have been spend to the last dollar, protect the rich from taxes needed to pay for this, and fight on the borrowed Chinese dime.

Afghanistan "War" Perspective

I hope that everyone has an opinion on our adventure in Afghanistan, but that it is an opinion based on factual knowledge, sound reasoning, and through a thoughtful process. Here is what I believe.

I'll call our adventure in Afghanistan a "conflict" for easy reference because I believe "wars" are between nations; neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban are nations. In Afghanistan (and Pakistan) we are pursuing international criminals who have, and still are, committing crimes against humanity. We need to continue this conflict and enhance/increase our efforts toward the annihilation of Al Qaeda and the demise of the Taliban.

We, with our allies, must continue the pursuit of Al Qaeda-Taliban (AQ-T) until there is no longer an AQ-T or it is no longer a presence of consequence. If that requires us going into Pakistan to "acquire" AQ-T then so be it. Certainly, Pakistan's agreement and assistance in acquiring AQ-T is highly desirable--but not absolutely necessary; we must be rid of AQ-T.

How will we know when AQ-T is no longer a presence of consequence? Obviously there is no objective way to know this (a certain period of time without an incident is not absolute evidence of none or a reduced presence of AQ-T) but a strong subjective human intelligence of empirical evidence of demise or deminishment would or could lead to a positive assessment.

President Obama has laid out a strong plan, a firm enabling policy, to end our Afghanistan presence. This plan is essentially a continuance of President Bush's surge initiative but with the addition of a plan segment to increase Afghan security through the training of increased numbers military and police. When the Afghan are prepared to defend their country and protect the continuance of the Afghan government then we should, and must, leave.