Pop quiz: Can you list some specific, concrete military objectives we're trying to accomplish in Afghanistan? If so, please write them in the space provided below:
If you felt you could fill out this form, here's part two of the quiz: Now write a speech uniting the nation around your objectives. Explain that they've been achieved successfully enough to begin bringing troops home, but not successfully enough to bring them home very quickly.
Finally, convince your fellow citizens that spending billions each month to meet these objectives is more important than investing in jobs, growth, education, or a crumbling national infrastructure.
A Tough Assignment
If you thought this quiz was hard, you have a pretty good idea why the President gave himself a tough assignment for last night's speech. A nation in the midst of a prolonged recession is increasingly impatient with a war that's approaching its 10-year anniversary. A poll conducted over the last week showed that nearly one-third of all Americans want an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a majority want to see us out in the next couple of years.
The President withdrew approximately 100,000 troops from Iraq, to widespread public approval and with no apparent political blowback. That was the right move. But troop levels in Afghanistan have risen dramatically under his command. With Al Qaeda on the move, Bin Laden dead, and no clear goals on the ground, he set out an impossible task for himself in this speech: He needed to explain why it's a good idea to withdraw some troops, while also trying to prop up support for not withdrawing most of the others for the foreseeable future.
We were told that 10,000 troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, with the rest of President Obama's troop "surge" (another 23,000) to be withdrawn by September of 2012. But that still leaves 68,000 troops in place. There were less that number in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2008.
Some people will agree with Tom Hayden that the President's withdrawal announcement is a victory for the peace movement. Others will see it as a manipulative attempt to prolong an unpopular war. Either belief calls for the same response: continued political pressure for a prompt withdrawal.
Guns and Butter
The human price of our Afghan venture in military and civilian deaths and injuries has been sadly invisible to the American people, at least most of the time. But they're acutely aware of their own financial situation with every passing day, and that's fueling a growing sense of unease about this long and costly war.
The country's in a state of economic gloom. Almost everyone's close to a household touched by unemployment or foreclosure. Those fortunate enough to have jobs are fearful, too. Nine out of ten expect their income to fall behind inflation next year, according to a recent poll, and 70% expect to cut back their purchases to cover only necessities.
Pessimism's bad for the economy. It also creates a hostile political climate for a combined war effort that costs more than ten billion dollars every month. "Why spend the money over there," goes the refrain, "when we need it over here?" While that question may ignore the political reality of a Republican Congress ready to veto any and all common-sense domestic spending measures, it helps to illustrate the political hypocrisy behind Washington's new "austerity economics" craze.
It also explains why the National Conference of US Mayors, which includes mayors from across the political spectrum, just adopted a resolution asking the President and Congress "to end the wars as soon as strategically possible and bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable,sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt."
These mayors deal with brutal economic realities every day. As their report says, "75 (metropolitan areas) will have double-digit unemployment rates, and 193 (53%) will have rates higher than 8%. At the end of 2012, 311 (metropolitan areas) will have unemployment rates above 6%; 173 will have rates above 8%; and 69 above 10%."
"Mission Creep"? We should be so lucky.
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