On August 1st, Barack Obama stated “I will not hesitate to use military force to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to America.” He added “As President, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to re-enforce our counter-terrorism operations.” (source)
I’m not buying that. He don’t seem to really understand who wants to vote for him and why: war-weary people who want a fresh face and no bullshit, who want desperately to trust and believe again in American government. I’m not troubled by the media’s accusations that he lacks experience, because—to paraphrase Barack—experience doesn’t necessarily mean good judgment. “We try to remind people, nobody had a longer résumé than Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and that hasn’t worked out so well.” (source) I’m troubled because, at least here, Barack has judged so poorly.
The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. (&hellip) If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will. (BBC)
No! Hell no! Say it with me: you can’t “fight” terrorists with a conventional military! This isn’t World War II. You can’t fight terrorists by invading countries; you can’t bomb, blast, or blow-up a completely liquid, ideologically-based enemy. That just makes them stronger while completely pissing off whatever country they happen to be in. Attack the terrorists and the terrorists win.
We’re looking at a fundamental paradigm shift in how our enemies attack and how they’re to be fought. In the short term, we must address our methods of engagement: America now is like Britain in the Revolutionary War, lining up in bright red suits and firing in orderly succession, all the meanwhile being massacred by colonial rebels hiding in the brush and sharpshooting from behind trees. Our tactics are outdated, geared for assaulting proper armies with proper bases and proper governments behind them. We need to understand that, as far as fighting terrorism is concerned, force is obsolete: fighting terrorism involves small elite squads backed up by incredible support teams and impeccable, exhaustive military intelligence. In short, the near opposite of today’s immense, lumbering, largely useless military-industrial complex.
In the long term, we need to understand that the 21st century isn’t the 20th century: foreign and military policy needs to be more nuanced, more sensitive, and more holistic. The only way to really, truly stop terrorism to any degree is to understand why people become terrorists and why they hate America and the West so very damn much. We need to admit that yes, they have several excellent reasons to be extremely pissed and we need address those. The time for doing as we please is over, because they now know how to fight back.
And it’s clear that this is exactly what Barack doesn’t completely realize, let alone something as simple as we don’t want another Iraq, ever. Yes, there are those in America who think guns-blazing dick-wagging military might is still the answer, but they aren’t Barack’s supporters and they never will be; meanwhile, he’s losing those who believed he would think twice (or at least once) before rolling out the military machine.
On the upside, I still largely believe Barack’s a smart guy with great potential, someone caught playing a political game he’s obviously not the best at. His conditions for giving Pakistan more aid and, ah, not invading are that Pakistan acts to close terrorist training camps, evict foreign fighters, and prevent the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area. That suggests that’s only reaching for the “blow up now” button on the second or third round instead of the first, and that perhaps he was going in the right direction before violently pulling the policy wagon back around.
But those of us who are pro-Barack, we need to realize that we like Barack largely because he’s so damn likeable, and that we’re largely betting based more on his personality than his actions and words. Personality worked for JFK, but do we really want it to work for Barack?
Continue reading ‘Oh Obama, or, don’t fight today’s enemies with yesterday’s government’
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