The Lure

The first thing that inspired me about Barack Obama, other than the fact that he's the best American orator in at least 70 years, was his incisive, pragmatic, moral, and eloquently articulated opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

The invasion of Afghanistan, of course, has a different moral calculus. Opponents of invading Iraq were not hard to find (even if few people were concerned finding or listening to them) but you have to dig deep to find the equivalent for Afghanistan. The American war against Afghanistan was the most broadly accepted war since the war on Japan.

American action in Afghanistan was indeed just, BUT (and everyone has a big but, in the immortal words of Pee-Wee Herman) a just cause does not excuse a flawed policy.

Afghanistan was a legitimate target because the 9/11 hijackers were trained at camps in Afghanistan by a group whose leaders were still there in the wake of 9/11. But what did we do?

We sent but a handful of soldiers. Those soldiers were tasked with overthrowing the government of Afghanistan, rather than capturing or killing the members of the organization that had attacked us. THAT job, the job that I can say without pomposity or delusional grandeur that I would have given my life to, THAT job was left to local warlords.

So, we overthrew the government of Afghanistan and, accordingly, had to assume all the responsibilities for that country. But the guilty parties of 9/11? They melted away.

So for the past 8 years, America has been bleeding blood and wealth in Afghanistan in the "cause" of building a "stable Afghan government", which is akin to spending countless lives and dollars in the "cause" of building a solar-powered flashlight.

Instead of using the best-trained and best-equipped warriors in the world to hunt down the people who murdered 3,000 Americans, our military is being used to do something that has proven impossible over the last 3,000 years: governing Afghanistan.

And President Obama, despite his eloquence and sobriety vis a vis Iraq, is prepared to take the lure. The lure taken by Alexander the Great, the lure taken by the King of England, the lure taken by the Kremlin, and the lure taken by George W. Bush.

Obama is prepared to nearly double our troop commitment in Afghanistan. Obama aims to double down under the premise that flooding an insurgency-riddled, rubble-strewn, third-world country will work in Afghanistan despite the fact that Obama was one of the very few "wise men" who understood precisely that this was fantasy when applied to Iraq.

So what makes Afghanistan different than Iraq? or Vietnam? Because our cause in Afghanistan is more just than it was in the others? That seems to be the assumption of President Obama, but to believe that is to give into the lure of mistaking passion with common sense. And realist as I am, I am disappointed that my President is being seduced by this lure.

The mission in Afghanistan now is not to catch the guilty; it is a narcissistic and naive and know-nothing attempt to kill people who might someday BE guilty.

It goes like this: since bin Laden and Mullah Omar are LONG fucking gone, we have to hunt SOMEONE, right? So, we patrol. And we get shot at. Why? Did the guy that just shot at us have something to do with 9/11? No. He shot at us because he doesn't want us in his country. Okay. We better kill him them, because if he doesn't like us, then he doesn't like democracy. And if he doesn't like democracy, then he might try another 9/11.

This is a self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating and self-imposed hell that we are marching into. What is it, what is the allure, what is the lure, about the poorest country in the world that deceives everyone from Alexander the Great to Barack Hussein Obama into thinking that they can govern it?

I suppose everyone wants what they can't have, even if it isn't worth anything.