Andrew Bacevich is a sober critic of American militarism, and I respect his writing, but this brief essay betrays a troubling--and typical--analytical failure:
The Afghanistan war forms part of that complicated inheritance where good choices are hard to come by. Much as Iraq was Bush’s war, Afghanistan has become Obama’s war. Yet the president clearly wants nothing more than to rid himself of his war. Obama has prolonged and escalated a conflict in which he himself manifestly does not believe. When after months of deliberation (or delay) he unveiled his Afghan “surge” in December 2009, the presidential trumpet blew charge and recall simultaneously. Even as Obama ordered more troops into combat, he announced their planned withdrawal “because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own.”Why don't we subject this all to a little bit of the old what did he say?/what did he do? analysis. What did Obama say? That he wanted to bring the boys home and end the war and work on building America. Yeah, but what did he do?
It's hard to understand how Bacevich makes such an elementary error, especially in an article where he describes Obama as calculating. There is no evidence that Obama "wants nothing more than to rid himself of his war." There's no evidence that he wants to rid himself of his war at all. And, by the way, we should properly refer to his wars in the plural. His "drawdown" in Iraq leaves several tens of thousands of troops at least to "pursue terrorists" in "non-combat" operations. He is fighting a clandestine war in Pakistan. He has engaged military operations in Yemen. US forces operate directly or through proxies throughout Muslim Africa. And so on.
I think it's curious that Bacevich can conceive of America acting as an aggressively militant, imperial global hegemon and at the same time believe that the principal administrator of that empire must be telling the truth when he regrets the unfortunate necessity of its wars. The only thing that's manifest is that when Obama talks about his desire to conclude the Afghan conflict, he's lying. Near the end of the essay, Bacevich doubles down on his bad hand:
Obama doesn’t want to be in Afghanistan any more than Benjamin Netanyahu wants to be in the West Bank. Yet like the Israeli prime minister, the president lacks the guts to get out. It’s all so complicated. There are risks involved. Things might go wrong. There’s an election to think about.Bibi doesn't want to be in the West Bank? You could have fucking fooled me. But, if by Obama doesn't want to be in Afghanistan any more than Bibi wants to be in the West Bank, Bacevich means that Obama is committed to a perpetual American presence in Afghanistan just as fully as Bibi is committed to a perpetual Israeli presence in the West Bank, then sure, yeah, I agree.
18 comments:
What did Obama say? That he wanted to bring the boys home and end the war and work on building America. Yeah, but what did he do?
He didn't even say it. He campaigned on expanding the war in Afghanistan.
and that was a great "strategic" move. Now, go get yer shine box.
Etz chaim he, Dude, as the ex used to say.
You forgot Obama's Central and South American escalations.
I think this pretty much explains "why"...
Andrew J. Bacevich, Sr. (born 1947 in Normal, Illinois) is a professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired career officer in the United States Army. He is a former director of Boston University's Center for International Relations (from 1998 to 2005), and author of several books, including American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy (2002), The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War (2005) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008). He has been "a persistent, vocal critic of the US occupation of Iraq, calling the conflict a catastrophic failure." In March 2007, he described George W. Bush's endorsement of such "preventive wars" as "immoral, illicit, and imprudent." His son, also an Army officer, died fighting in the Iraq War in May 2007.
It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
These aren't bugs, they're features. If his (presumably only) son getting killed didn't change his priorities and make him go all Cindy Sheehan, you can pretty much assume he's internalized the whole system, particularly since his "criticism" is toes the established lines of our discourse.
But in other news, Nick Jonas is appearing in a West End production of Les Miserables.
'There’s an election to think about." Think of the children!
It's easy for non-voters (I suppose I can only speak for myself, but it "seems" prevalent enough) to see Obama for who he is.
The voters, the progs, however, are understandably struggling with the disillusionment of actively campaigning and voting for a warmonger: but, but, but, he doesn't want to wage war, he's totally pro-gay, he wants single payer... and he's such an eloquent speaker — just like me.
The main difference in policy between the US in Afghanistan and Israel in Occupied Palestine is that Israel seeks to annex everything and complete the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and the US wants merely to have a permanent protectorate.
Yah, but Bacevitch's sobriety always struck me as being a bit of the most-lucid-drunk-at-the-party kind. There is plenty of space in the Received Discourse for the "realist" view. It goes sort of like, "we're an empire, and we kill lots of folks for bad reasons, but history and human nature means you have to suck it up and do that sometimes." Can't say it around the proles; more like a way for the Inner Party to tell a little truth and then recommit to the imperial project.
tl;dr: Bacevitch is our Emmanuel Goldstein.
@2:46
Most of you know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 lie there, or if 1,000 lie there. To have gone through this, and at the same time, apart from exceptions caused by human weaknesses, to have remained decent, that has made us hard.
Heinrich. H., SS-Reichsfuhrer
Plus ca change, bitchez!
It's all about the druthers.
Obama probably would have preferred an Iraq War #1 type war crime to an Afghanistan escalation. It was just an easier war for an emperor. So in a way Bacevich may or may not have intended (I don't read him), you could say Obama didn't want Afghanistan, even if the sum of his actions indicate that he generally is willing to kill innocents if it furthers his cause, that being Obama.
There's a distinction to be made between what one would do in a contraint-free (druther-rich) world and what one does in a tightly constrained set of circumstances. People who work at McDonald's perform the act of working at McDonald's without, obviously, wanting to work at McDonald's. Of course, of course, Obama had a great freedom of choice in becoming emperor, but once there, his choices were limited and he may well have preferred an easier (less bloody, bloodier, who cares?) path to triumphant Obamation.
Bacevich has become a VERY vocal critic of these endless wars since his own son was killed in Iraq.
I wouldn't misread this as excusing Obama or even especially giving him the benefit of the doubt. Just that Obama isn't the "believer" Bush was, which in a way makes his actions that much more inexcusable.
Anon 11:08 again
Bacevich infers intentional states from words, IOZ infers intentional states from actions. While the latter is preferable, in order to do either, you have to know the full spectrum of choices available, among other things. The episteme is weak. Any talk of what Obama "wants" should be recognized as being speculative. Isn't it enough to say that Obama does bad shit? Who cares what he wants?
America wants to stay in Afghanistan for the same reason Al-Qaida does. It's so fucked up, they can. The perfect place for a Base. That does call their earnest wishes for the health of the Afghan state into a wee bit of question.
America wants to stay in Afghanistan for the same reason Al-Qaida does. It's so fucked up, they can. The perfect place for a Base. That does call their earnest wishes for the health of the Afghan state into a wee bit of question.
Obama latched onto the "respectable" Democratic view of the wars: Iraq bad, Afghanistan good. It was always just a way to pretend to oppose Iraq (to please the dem proles) while signalling adequate hawkishness (obedience to MIC imperatives).
Read "Western involvement in terrorism inside Pakistan" on DG ISI, Ahmed Shuja Pasha's Wikipedia page.....i guarantee that you will find it very interesting
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