Many
commentators have noted eerie resemblances to the war on Viet Nam, but I think
there is much more at stake than an LBJ moment. Afghanistan, already a
quagmire, is not just another one. Since 1945, the year Europeans decided
to give up war and work at peace, the US has been involved in armed conflict,
overtly or covertly, almost without cessation, and often--as now--in multiple
places at once.
We are now, by any measure, far and away the most militarized and warlike nation on the planet. The US has become the country President (formerly General) Eisenhower warned us about when he said: "God help us when someone sits in this [president's] chair who doesn't know as much about the military as I do." The question before us is: Are we so firmly in the grip of the military-industrial-congressional complex that we cannot change course? (Obama, you will recall, is the president who promised change.)
Many
Afghans have come to believe that, despite the fine talk of democracy, the US
intended all along to occupy Afghanistan indefinitely as a strategic base for
military operations in the region. This widespread Afghan opinion
anticipates Pentagon plans for "the long war" of fifty years or more,
an imperial enterprise that we have only just begun.
Looking to the future, not the past, the op-ed piece everyone should read can be found in the Boston Globe, October 11, 2009. Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, and former colonel in the United States Army, writes: "As the fighting drags on from one year to the next, the engagement of US forces in armed nation-building projects in distant lands will become the new normalcy. Americans of all ages will come to accept war as a perpetual condition, as young Americans already do."
When I spoke recently to a college audience, an eighteen-year old boy said to me: "Altruism is dead. We have to think only of our national interest." That would seem to be war. So I would second Andrew Bacevich when he writes: "This is a pivotal moment in US history. Americans owe it to themselves to be clear about what is at issue. That issue relates only tangentially to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or the well-being of the Afghan people. The real question is whether 'change' remains possible."
A great question. Let's pause here. When we return,
Ann will talk about how Afghan women are faring since the American invasion,
foreign aid, and more. I hope you'll join us.
***
Part Two of my interview with Ann
Ann's post-speech analysis for NPR, December 1, 2009: Obama's Still Wrong, But 'Winning' Is Everything. On Commentary: 'Obama's Wrong: It's Time To Walk Away From War'
Observers: Plight Of Afghan Women Often Overlooked, Interview on NPR, November 3, 2009
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