Obama and Afghanistan

First, from Lynch:

The July 2011 date should be understood as an inflection point, not as the end of the American military mission. There is no “mission accomplished” here. The American commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue. The pace and location of withdrawals will be dictated by conditions on the ground and, indeed, the date itself was carefully chosen based on the military’s best calculations of improved security and political conditions. It was not drawn from a hat, or determined by the domestic political calendar.

The deadline is essential politically because it will provide the necessary urgency for Afghans to make the institutional reforms that will ensure their own survival. An open-ended commitment creates a terrible moral hazard in which Afghan leaders, assuming American troops will always be there to protect them, may make risky or counterproductive decisions. A limited, conditional commitment creates the leverage needed to generate the institutional transformation necessary to cement any gains made by the military.

I'm mostly going to take Prof. Lynch's word on this, mostly because it sounds reasonable, I'm ignorant, and I think that getting all of the info for such a decision would get me arrested, but I did want to make an additional point in response to views like this one about his Nobel Speech:

In accepting the award, Obama eloquently apologized for America's past failures — going back to Woodrow Wilson — and credited himself with "banning torture" and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. In a brief "presser" afterwards, he once again took pains to emphasize his arbitrary and unprecedented July, 2011 withdrawal schedule for the troops he just ordered to combat. [...] Would a "war president" devote 92 percent of his public commentary, speeches, lectures, media appearances over the past 10 months to everything but the war? His "economic stimulus plan," TARP, the government takeover of the auto industry, the plan for government-run health insurance, global climate change and "carbon limits" have each generated more presidential words than "the war."

Talk about spin; let's looking at what Obama actually said:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth:  We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.  There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago:  "Violence never brings permanent peace.  It solves no social problem:  it merely creates new and more complicated ones."  As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.  I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone.  I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.  For make no mistake:  Evil does exist in the world.  A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.  Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.  To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause.  And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world's sole military superpower.

But the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions -- not just treaties and declarations -- that brought stability to a post-World War II world.  Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this:  The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.  The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.  We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will.  We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

Col. North description of the above as an "apology for past failures" falls flat on its face. Obama made himself appear as a war President in front of the world, and he had the guts (or rudeness, I suppose) to do so while receiving the Nobel. He defended the American use of force, and did so while acknoleging King and Gandhi. This sort of move embraces complexity, something I admire, and it makes me trust his abilities to represent America all the more. He's given the military the tools it asked for to accomplish an Afghanistan mission, instead of firing those who suggest his policies are wrong-headed. I certainly hope it's the right course, though I imagine the US will claim victory if everything within a day's walk of Kabul is stable, and there aren't regular large-scale bombings.

And regardless of political affiliation, we can all agree on this: his war decision angered the left and the right, so he must be headed in the right direction, right?