So what does our contemporary “charmer of change,” Barack Obama, propose regarding Afghanistan?

In mid-December 2006, a charter member of the U.S. defense intellectual establishment and enthusiast of precision bombing, Anthony Cordesman, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, advanced a set of proposals which would allegedly allow the U.S. to win the war in Afghanistan. The essence involves: far greater amounts of military and economic “aid’; the economic aid must be managed from the outside; the aid should focus upon projects like roads, water and to a lesser degree, schools and medical services; NATO allies especially slackers like France, Germany, Italy and Spain need to increase aid to Afghanistan; U.S. military forces are too small “to do the job” because of competing demands from Iraq and, hence, again those same NATO allies must provide larger, stronger and better-equipped forces to engage in combat (without political constraints); and as in Iraq, emphasis needs to be upon proper training of Afghan army and police forces. Cordesman wants the U.S. to furnish an additional $5.9 billion during the current fiscal year. In effect, Cordesman proposes nothing which has not long ago been suggested (even back in the days of Vietnam where the official clamor was for more “aid” and Vietnamizing the fighting).

Candidate Obama appears to have adopted wholesale what Cordesman was proposing about two year ago with one qualification: Obama recognizes that the U.S’s traditional European NATO allies will not provide large numbers of additional fighting forces, hence Obama proposes rotating three divisions or about 10,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq and into Afghanistan.

If we examine candidate Obama’s most important prepared foreign policy speech to-date, that given on July 14, 2008, we find the elements of what as president he might do in Afghanistan. He forthrightly casts his interest in Afghanistan purely in terms of “making America safer”:

I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

In other words, Obama is committed to “finishing the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” translated as the fight against “Muslim extremism.” Notwithstanding that this examplifies a worst case example of fallacious sunk-cost reasoning, George W. Bush and candidate McCain would not disagree. He continues

Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan, but I have argued for years that we lack the resources to finish the job because of our commitment to Iraq. That's what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said earlier this month. And that's why, as President, I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win…. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, and more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights. …Make no mistake: we can’t succeed in Afghanistan or secure our homeland unless we change our Pakistan policy. We must expect more of the Pakistani government, but we must offer more than a blank check to a General who has lost the confidence of his people.

Resources need to be focused upon Afghanistan because it “is the war we have to win.” In July 2008, the International Herald Tribune called it “the war of necessity against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.” Why? Candidate Obama points to Taliban controlling parts of Afghanistan and Al Qaeda possessing an “expanding base in Pakistan.” These are alleged to be spawning grounds of “another attack on our homeland.” George W. Bush and candidate McCain would concur in being in error.

Very solid reasons now exist why Al Qaeda is not interested in mounting Palestinian-style attacks in America. Any attack would have to be bigger than 9/11. As the ever-prescient Mike Scheuer writes,

Al-Qaeda does not want to fight the United States for any longer than is needed to drive it as far as possible out of the Middle East, and its doctrine for so doing has, in Osama bin Laden's formulation, three components: (a) bleed America to bankruptcy; (b) spread out U.S. forces to the greatest extent possible; and (c) promote Vietnam-era-like domestic disunity. Based on this doctrine, al-Qaeda leaders have decided that attacks in the United States are only worthwhile if they have maximum and simultaneous impact in three areas: high and enduring economic costs, severe casualties, and lasting negative psychological impact.

In fact, all three of bin Laden’s components have been realized – casualties, costs, and domestic disunity – all without a follow-up to the 9/11 attack.

And how will this victory over radical Islam be accomplished? Obama’s recipe for success involves:

o Sending 2-3 combat brigades (each of 3-5,000 troops) to Afghanistan;
o Pressure NATO allies to follow suit;
o More use of drones, aircraft, etc. ;
o Training Afghan “security” forces;
o Supporting an Afghan judiciary;
o Proposing an additional $1 billion in non-military assistance each year with safeguards to see no corruption and resources flowing to areas other than Kabul;
o Invest in alternative livelihoods to poppies;
o Pressure Pakistan to carry the fight into its tribal areas and reward it for so doing with military and non-military aid;
o Should Pakistan fail to act in the tribal areas, the United States under Obama would act unilaterally;

New? Change? President George W. Bush and candidate McCain have long signed on to exactly these policies. Certainly both would also see Afghanistan primarily through the lens of “making America safer.” George Bush Sr. did just that during 1988-1990 when America was presumed safer once the Soviets were out of Afghanistan. Then, he cut and ran.

Candidate Obama adopts the Pentagon’s military solution – defeating Al Qaeda and the Taliban – without paying much attention to either what gave rise to these groups or to the complexity of tribal society on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Even more importantly, he fails to acknowledge that the current bombing, night-time assaults upon villages, hooding and abducting suspects, kicking down doors and entering women’s quarters, etc. is forging an unlimited supply of recruits to the resistance. No, all we hear is “Our troops and our NATO allies are performing heroically in Afghanistan…” The complete failure to improve life for those living in rural southern, eastern and northeastern Afghanistan alongside unbridled corruption, profligiate wealth and Afghanistan’s current culture of official impunity further stokes the resistance. All we hear is a vague promise of $1 billion more aid per year.

As Patrick Buchanan points out candidate Obama has absolutely no exit strategy from Afghanistan, other than a presumed military victory. He utterly fails to understand the axoim of the guerrilla strategy: the guerrilla wins if he fails to lose. For the guerrilla it’s not about winning pitched battles, it’s about continuing the fight. The Taliban and associates have no difficulty with that: fighters from the Pashtun borderlands and monies from trhe Gulf States (and eslewhere).

Read the rest of Marc Herold's article at Counterpunch: www.counterpunch.org/herold08062008.html