With Afghanistan, Now it’s a Critical
Moment of Opportunity for Obama

The president has gained the moral and political capital
to responsibly end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By Tom Hayden 
Beaver County Peace Links via Los Angles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0505-hayden-troops-20110505,0,6373006.story

May 5, 2011 - President Obama has now gained the moral and
political capital to responsibly end the U.S. military
interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. With an average of
30 to 50 Americans being killed each month in Afghanistan,
the total will be well over 1,000 on Obama's watch if
nothing is done. In addition to saving lives, removing
60,000 troops from Afghanistan in 2011-12 would also save
about $70 billion a year in tax dollars.

The targeted killing of Osama bin Laden is powerful
evidence that terrorist threats, both real and
hypothetical, can be more effectively suppressed by
special forces operations than by deploying hundreds of
thousands of American soldiers on the ground.

The Bin Laden operation proves that a counterterrorism
strategy focusing on intelligence, airstrikes and special
forces units, as advocated by people such as Vice
President Joe Biden and conservative columnist George
Will, would be an effective deterrent against any new
clandestine cells seeking to launch attacks against the
United States.

If we are not sending ground troops into European cities
like Berlin or London, where terrorist plots are also
being conceived, why are there 150,000 American troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq? By the strange logic of
intervention, shouldn't NATO be occupying Europe?

If the answer in Afghanistan is to fight the Taliban
insurgency, that's not a national security threat by any
definition. And if the Taliban, for some reason, should
wish to host a revived Al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence and
special forces would be able to handle the problem.

In Iraq, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, already the largest
in the world, is expected to double its staff over the
next year to 16,000, not counting a small army of private
contractors. In 2003, a supposed threat in Iraq against
the United States was trumped up to justify the U.S.
invasion. But such a threat is remote and does not require
keeping troops in the country as unwelcome occupiers.

Pakistan is another matter. Critics of intervention like
myself believe the U.S. only inflames anti-American
sentiment, kills innocent civilians and feeds the
insurgents by escalating drone strikes there. (Obama,
interestingly, rejected such an aerial attack option to
get Bin Laden). But it is impossible politically for Obama
to pull back from Pakistan now that so much public and
congressional opinion is inflamed against that country's
possible protection of Bin Laden. Ending the long and
secret war in Pakistan will take further public debate,
but it could begin with power-sharing talks over
Afghanistan.

There is no excuse for not beginning to end these wars one
at a time, at vast savings in lives and billions in tax
dollars. This is Obama's moment of opportunity. Let the
hawks in the Pentagon and the Republican Party call for
endless war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama can campaign on
ending two quagmires, and on breaking the momentum of the
long war on terrorism that some propose. Indeed, the
Democratic National Committee, even before the weekend
mission against Bin Laden, passed without dissent a
resolution by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) calling for a
significant withdrawal from Afghanistan starting this
summer.

The president must announce two pivotal decisions quickly.
First, he has to decide whether to say no to those
clamoring for just a token withdrawal from Afghanistan
starting in July. He should say yes to the peace bloc of
Americans who strongly support the phased withdrawal of
50,000 to 70,000 troops from Afghanistan starting in July
and ending more rapidly than the president's hazy goal of
2014.

Second, he has to face down those pushing for the Iraqi
government to request that our troops stay past the
December deadline. The president should say no to this
Iraq lobby, knowing that a residual force of Americans
would provoke a new cycle of anti-Americanism in the
streets and in Iraq's parliament, and threaten Prime
Minister Nouri Maliki's fragile regime.

This is a unique moment for rank-and-file and
congressional antiwar forces to seize every opportunity to
prevail on the president to make the right decision.

Tom Hayden has taught courses at Scripps College on "the
long war on terrorism," counterinsurgency, Al Qaeda and
Osama bin Laden. He is the author of "The Long Sixties:
From 1960 to Barack Obama."

___________________________________________

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