But the issue Paradox takes up is Obama's policy proposals for beefing up military operations in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, however, was one of the most dismaying, childish, foolish policy proposals of the Obama campaign that offends me on many levels. What, pray tell, is the mission of America in Afghanistan? It cannot be articulated, because there is none. Defeat the Taliban, perhaps? How? By inserting 10 more brigades and creating another occupied Iraq?
Afghanistan has turned the stupid imperial reaches of militaristic countries into hamburger for centuries. If any citizen thinks the American experience will be different they are delusional. The only successful policy option for Afghanistan is to get the hell out of there and turn whatever mission of the week they decide for it into a tiny, covert operations one.
Furthermore, the [emplacement] of more troops for Afghanistan represents a nauseating I’m Your Big Dick President endorsement to American politics that has been an utter disaster, way to go on the change there. Tightly weaved into this retro machismo is a frightening American nationalism of horrifying mass violence and tragic militarism, the only things we build truly well anymore are only good for killing other humans.
Jeff Huber too has recenetly remarked upon the idiocy of the present Afghanistan foreign policy, and offered his reservations about President-Elect Obama's stated strategies there:
The Bush administration celebrated Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election by blowing away another Afghan wedding party. The airstrike, which came within hours of the election, killed 40 civilians and wounded 28 others in Kandahar Province.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai held a press conference on Wednesday to congratulate Obama on his victory, and said that his first request of the new American president would be “to end the civilian casualties.” We've been bombing weddings in Afghanistan for over six years now, and the tactic clearly isn't working.
I'm rather hoping that Obama's foreign policy platform has room for an alternative to bombing weddings and other mainstays of the neocon tactics manual, but I'm not yet convinced that it does.
