Last night I listened to his speech very closely and I am convinced that there’s a hidden objective in Obama’s plan. That objective is to be obtained by diversion, indirection, subterfuge, and surprise. Let me tell you why this must be so!
Surely the 18-month deployment of 30,000 more soldiers to the vast and unconquerable deserts and mountains of the region called Afghanistan, is a feint deigned to draw attention away from the real thrust of Obama’s plan. No informed observer could actually believe that the varied tribes of Afghanistan can be brought to heel under some fanciful national military constituted and led by Kabul’s latest warlord, Mr. Karsi. This hasn’t come to pass in thousands of years and it will not be brought about in decades, much less 18 months. At best, Kabul can become the capital of Kabul.
Nor could anyone take seriously, the idea that an occupying force of 100,000 American cowboys can hope to seize and secure territory in a region where cities and and borders are no more than punctuation marks in the vast and ancient narratives of the essentially nomadic-warrior peoples of Afghanistan. Yankee go home! Now you see them. Now you don’t.
OMG! At face value, Obama’s announced “plan” is just too silly to be taken seriously by any informed observer.
Being an ardent Obama admirer, I have concluded that he has committed even more national wealth and more young lives to a hopeless diversionary battle because he and his advisors have a hidden plan. I have figured it out.
Now keep this to yourself. We don’t want to blow the secret plan.
The real plan is to ensconce a small force of diggers into the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These diggers will use the 18-months provided by the above-ground diversionary action to construct a tunnel to Islamabad. Led by a Tom Cruise-like mission impossible guy, the “impossible” team will locate Pakistan’s underground nuclear arsenal and neutralize their atomic bombs, so that when the Pakistani government falls before a temporarily constituted coalition of Taliban fighters, the weapons will be entirely impotent. Once Pakistan is defanged, we can bring home our soldiers who have not been killed and get back to fighting over important matters such as healthcare in America.
Way to go, Obama!
Please, tell me I’ve got this right!
I think the plan may be a little more complicated than that. That’s what concerns me. There will be a lot of balls in the air and keeping them all in play may be impossible.
But I agree with you that no serious thinker can assume that 30,000 troops will have much affect on the future of Afghanistan, but it is my view (apparently a minority view) that the future of Afghanistan is not why the troops are being sent.
I suppose it comes down to how much one feels that neutralizing the Taliban in Afghanistant will accomplish toward stabilizing the very shaky government of Pakistan.