Trump Becomes Obama on Afghanistan: Proves Establishment still Rules

For sixteen long years, the United States military has occupied Afghanistan in its quest to ensure that no government will ever again take root there that would provide comfort and aid to a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda. After more than 2,400 lost lives and nearly a trillion dollars — with some estimates running over $2 trillion — the American people elected a man to the presidency who unreservedly declared: “We are getting out of the nation-building business.”

This promise galvanized millions of traditional conservatives who long ago realized the Military-Industrial establishment had conned them by playing to their patriotism and desire to protect their country. That Military-Industrial establishment led them on a weapons-of-mass-destruction goose chase in Iraq and a colonial-lite occupation of Afghanistan with no end in sight.

However, on August 21, President Donald Trump, in what was a clear about-face on his original policy of pulling out of Afghanistan, caved to the wishes of his trusted advisers and pledged continued U.S. commitment to “winning the war.” This, he did while giving little hint of the number of troops it would require, or the duration of the continued occupation, all in the name of not alerting the enemy to nation’s plans.

Retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor summed up the expectations of many shortly before Trump gave his speech, saying, “I think we’re going to watch Donald Trump transform in real-time on television into Barack Obama. He’s going to essentially do what Obama did several years ago: capitulate to what the generals want and what the Washington establishment prefers, which is to continue the long war.”

Trump did not disappoint.

For twenty-six minutes, the president tried to make the same case that Obama tried and failed for eight years to make to the American people. The only thing Trump added that Obama would likely have omitted was the claim that “we are not nation-building again” but rather killing terrorists. That might have been a real bell-ringer to the Gen Xers of the 2000s who were still scared of the big, bad, Muslim boogeymen who “hate our freedoms.” But in 2017, most Millennials aren’t buying it.

Trump then proceeded to contradict himself with the following:

Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat arising in that country. But, strategically applied force aims to create the conditions for a political process to achieve a lasting peace.

If that doesn’t smell of nation-building, what does?

Trump’s admonition that the country seeks first an “honorable and enduring outcome worthy of the tremendous sacrifices that have been made” rings eerily familiar to Nixon’s urge for “peace with honor” approach to Vietnam. Likewise, National Security adviser, General H. R. McMaster recently told radio talks show host Hugh Hewitt that the outcome in Afghanistan must be “worthy of the sacrifices that our servicemen and women are making.”

It is interesting to note that McMaster used a 1970s photo of three women in short skirts to convince Trump that Afghanistan had at one time adopted Western values before the Taliban suppression of the 1990s. The idea is that there is yet hope of Westernizing the country if only a few thousand more American troops risk their lives for a few more years. Who knows, maybe the peace with “honor” that the U.S. buys with additional lives and treasure will bring Kabul its own Bourbon Street with a few strip clubs.

Perhaps, Trump should have thought more carefully before allowing his speechwriter to include the line about not dictating “to the Afghan people how to live, or how to govern their own complex society.”

Trump certainly inherited a mess in Afghanistan. When Obama entered office, he had promised to end the war in Iraq to focus on the country that made possible the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He followed through on that promise, but even with a renewed focus on Afghanistan and plans to draw down in 2014; like his Republican predecessor, Obama too failed to bring the occupation to a complete end.

Trump entered with the expectation that he would form a speedy exit strategy for all American combat troops without leaving a situation in which ISIS or another extremist organization could gain an easy foothold.

His closest generals, like McMaster, however, advised him to stay the course (see Einstein’s definition of insanity) despite opposition for withdrawal from his political base, which has always focused more on problems directly affecting American citizens.

History does not bode well for Trump’s decision to continue a strategy that hasn’t worked for more than two and a half decades. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq only delayed ISIS from rising from the ashes that the U.S. left behind when American troops finally did leave.

The same holds true for the thousands of Americans who gave their lives in Southeast Asia during the Nixon years. Nixon could have pulled American troops out at the start of his presidency, saved the lives of his fellow countrymen, and the outcome would have been the same — the complete crushing of South Vietnam.

But, in the 1960s, Republicans — and a great many Democrats — refused to accept the idea that American blood may have been spilled for nothing and determined to continue the course, even if they felt deep down that the country should have never embarked on that course, to begin with.

But another reason was that most middle-class American voters opposed the anti-war hippies on moral and cultural grounds and could not bring themselves to admit that perhaps people with bad hairdos, funky clothes, and foul mouths could make sense on anything.

The rise of ISIS in Iraq shows that U.S. advisers cannot simply abandon Afghanistan entirely — at least not yet. The U.S. must continue the thankless task of training Afghan security forces, facilitating negotiations among the various factions (including the Taliban), and providing a steady hand (occasionally air support) in the background to stabilize the country.

The proposal that Blackwater founder Erik Prince and others put to Trump’s administration provided the soundest formula to ensuring that more Afghans would see their own government as an ally and friend. Under this proposal, the U.S. would have a few thousand mercenaries that would train and equip the Afghans to secure their own country and root out remaining extremist cells. Such a proposal would have saved tens of billions of dollars and the lives of American servicemen and women. Furthermore, the government would have the option of firing a company and replacing it with the half dozen or more private contractors that would gladly take its place if Blackwater wasted taxpayers’ money.

As it stands, the U.S. spends almost as much per year on occupying Afghanistan as the United Kingdom spends on its entire defense budget. But, thanks to the president’s preference for the judgment of his generals over the desire of the American people, his address to the nation on August 21 was simply Obama 2.0 with The Donald’s spin.

At this point, no one knows how many additional thousands of American servicemen and women the government will ask to risk their lives to secure a country whose people hate their guts, or how many additional billions of dollars the government will squeeze out of taxpayers to continue funding the debacle. But, more importantly, Trump gave no guarantee that his successor will not have to give the same Obama/Trump speech on Afghanistan four or eight years in the future.

As it is apparent that the American voter has little say in his country’s foreign policy, one can only hope that Trump is doing this out of pure political motivations and will bring the troops home after they’ve killed a few hundred more jihadis, so he can claim to have achieved his “peace for our time” … with honor.