Obama's Kyber Pass
Sep 27, 2008 19:51 Filed in: Politics
Obama, in my opinion, came off as far more presidential than McCain, and therefore Obama won the debate. He held his own against a snarky and condescending veteran senator whose only real points were his Hanoi Hilton stay, Obama’s relative inexperience, and the fact that he received military briefings when he visited Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and therefore is an expert on the middle east.
What a candidate promises in a debate, however, can come back to haunt him years later, and Obama’s emphasis on capturing bin Laden and pacifying Afghanistan has exactly that kind of potential. The idea that our military forces should be doing in Afghanistan what they have been doing in Iraq, that is, propping up a corrupt and unpopular regime in the middle of even more difficult terrain, against some of the world’s toughest fighters in their own homeland halfway around the world, is precisely what the voters are rejecting.
Just as Sun Tzu predicted—that fighting a remote war impoverishes the people—we have already been watching the wealth of this nation squandered in an illegal foreign war. Only those profiting from war and a few out-and-out wingnuts want this nation to engage in needless combat. No citizen who loves his country wants to see its blood and wealth wasted on a war that can be avoided or that has no compelling cause, which is why the population must be manipulated by lies and propaganda into supporting military adventurism.
Sinking further military resources into Afghanistan is a trap that could sink Obama’s presidency, much as it did Lyndon Johnson’s. Obama has already stepped into the trap but its jaws have not quite closed around him. Let us hope that he does not doom his presidency even before he takes office.
The Kyber Pass
Photo by John Burke 1878. From the Wikimedia Commons.
What a candidate promises in a debate, however, can come back to haunt him years later, and Obama’s emphasis on capturing bin Laden and pacifying Afghanistan has exactly that kind of potential. The idea that our military forces should be doing in Afghanistan what they have been doing in Iraq, that is, propping up a corrupt and unpopular regime in the middle of even more difficult terrain, against some of the world’s toughest fighters in their own homeland halfway around the world, is precisely what the voters are rejecting.
Just as Sun Tzu predicted—that fighting a remote war impoverishes the people—we have already been watching the wealth of this nation squandered in an illegal foreign war. Only those profiting from war and a few out-and-out wingnuts want this nation to engage in needless combat. No citizen who loves his country wants to see its blood and wealth wasted on a war that can be avoided or that has no compelling cause, which is why the population must be manipulated by lies and propaganda into supporting military adventurism.
Sinking further military resources into Afghanistan is a trap that could sink Obama’s presidency, much as it did Lyndon Johnson’s. Obama has already stepped into the trap but its jaws have not quite closed around him. Let us hope that he does not doom his presidency even before he takes office.
The Kyber Pass
Photo by John Burke 1878. From the Wikimedia Commons.
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