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The Spectacle Blog
Last night Greta Van Sustren had a brief yet insightful interview with Henry Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger gave a measured dose of approbation for the President’s speech with a few caveats. The entire interview is just a few minutes and worth watching.
Dr. Kissinger emphasized that this should be a counterinsurgency battle, focused on local regions, in the hope of securing local tribes and communities now — the goal that at some future point, a centralized governance will be possible. The main reason for the Soviets’ defeat in Afghanistan, Dr. Kissinger states, was their failure to recognize the futility of trying to impose a centralized government on a region that has never been unified. Eventually, Russia, China, and India will also need to be brought into the political process in an effort to recognize their interest in a secure and stable Afghanistan. This will require diplomacy and this will require time.
Which leads to the essential concern in Obama’s new strategy. A full-blown commitment becomes impotent given an arbitrary or illogical timeline. If we are to see success in that region, rooting out and neutralizing the Taliban, time-lines need to kneel to tenacity. Additional troops are only one part of the Afghanistan solution. Time is the other.
As Dr. Kissinger implied, a commitment to withdraw troops after 18 months is disconcerting; at best, it should only be seen as aspirational — it should be seen as “a hope rather than a commitment.”
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More Blog Posts by Robert P. Kirchhoefer
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/12/02/kissinger-on-obama-speech
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Pingback| 12.2.09 @ 12:44PM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Kissinger on Obama Spee links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Liberal Reader| 12.2.09 @ 2:16PM
"Dr." Kissinger is a fatuous war-mongering creep who probably deserves prison time for his role in Nixon's war crimes in Viet Nam.
Foreign adventurism endangers democracy at HOME. It corrupts government; it drains our treasury; it spreads senseless hatred and violence abroad; it needlessly ends the lives of young men; it handicaps and traumatizes tens of thousands.
Al Quaeda, as lethal and evil as it is, is essentially an organized crime outfit. In fact, in recent years we've learned that organized crime and terrorists are becoming fellow-travelers.
"Conservatives" like to say we're at "war" with terrorism, but this is either a mistake or a not very creative metaphor. Surely terrorists need to be tracked down and killed, or captured. Surely the FBI's way of doing this is insufficient, and it requires the military and intelligence agencies.
But the "war" on terrorism is not like what you all thrill to when you watch 24.
It's basically about ordinary police work; it's not much different than anything detectives in your local police station are doing right now.
War in Iraq was an absurd and catastrophic error; the world sees that now.
I think too we will come to realize war in Afghanistan was an error as well.
Al Adab| 12.2.09 @ 3:48PM
Sorry Toddard,
Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Le Duc Tho for his role in ending the Vietnam war. You can't contunally try to have it both ways. That was the year AFTER the Nobel Committee refused to award the Prize as Pres. Nixon was a nominee. Either the prize ala Carter, Arafat, Obama means something or it doesn't. You decide, I'll report.
Rank and File| 12.2.09 @ 2:52PM
LR: you're upset, I can tell. Don't let it clog up your vision.
Nixon's war crimes in Viet Nam? You embarrass yourself, sir. Fortunately those of us on the better side of history are unaffected by you and your chosen moniker ("Liberal Reader") which exposes a mind full of the wrong ideology. You mean the Viet Nam started by Kennedy's bungling of French colonization? The Viet Nam worsened by LBJ and his lies about strategy, casualties, and the US's intentions? Say what you want about Nixon, he's an easy target, but lend your articulation some credibility by speaking truth to the matter, friend. Nixon, finally, pulled out of the war that Kennedy and LBJ began.
Foreign adventurism? What foreign adventurism did Americans do (more than any other) that necessitated 9/11? What exactly did Americans do to bring that Al Quaedic police action to our shores? Where do you get this stuff? Drains the treasury? You want to talk about spending? No, you don't. Trust me. Ill-advised "Stimuli" and free-market meddling drains the economy. The "world sees" the error of our ways now, does it? I wonder if you've noticed but as Americans, our first duty is not to the world, but to this Country. Neither Bush nor Obama were elected by the world. Their accountability is to this Country first, the rest of the world second. The world looks a pretty frightening place -- despite our Presidents penchant for do-goodery and obsequious bowing (See, N.Korea, Iran, C. America, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, and Venezuela for comfort). I'm still hoping for change. The President has the House and the Senate, and by huge margins -- filibuster proof, even. When is this big hope and change going to take shape/form? What's the hold up?
Liberal Reader| 12.2.09 @ 3:02PM
Rank --
Nixon prolonged that war for political reasons; the bombing of the north was a cynical and pointless slaughter of civilians that did us no good. And pull out he did, having lost.
American "defense" spending now equals the military spending of all the world combined. Our invasion and occupation in Iraq will have cost TWO TRILLION dollars by the end of next year; for Afghanistan, add another trillion or so.
Now --
Your central defense of our recent militarism is that it was "necessitated" by 9.11.
I know you've HEARD that endlessly repeated and repeated and repeated. But slow down here a minute. Back up. Explain it to me. HOW did 9.11 necessitate our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the occupation of the same?
Rank and File| 12.2.09 @ 4:06PM
LR:
Nixon . . . Who? What? LBJ and Kennedy. Viet Nam starts and stops with LBJ and Kennedy. Sorry, you can't escape that. Nixon pulled out. He didn't lose. Liberals lost the war for America. Thanks for that.
On defense spending: why compare our defense spending to another country? Just compare it to the proposed legislation for Health Care reform, Cap and Trade and the initial Stimulus in our own country. Now you're into the many, many trillions of dollars. And are you saying there is a limit to how much money a military campaign should cost? Is $50 too much? Maybe WWII was too expensive? As for the defense spending of third and other worlds; I agree with you, they and the modernized, Western World should spend more on their own defense and less on ill-conceived social policies. I hold Marx to blame for that one. Western Europe has had the luxury of massive social spending while we pick up the Military tab. That is breaking and bankrupting them and it needs to end.
No, I didn't say that 9/11 necessitated our invasion (maybe it did, maybe it didn't) but was suggesting you feel that the 9/11 attackers were justified in their police action (is that what you would call it?) against the United States. Did we deserve 9/11?
Margie| 12.2.09 @ 10:48PM
Great posts.
Tim| 12.2.09 @ 3:12PM
Afghanistan is a good candidate for a UN Peacekeeping mission ( with military and civillian components. Would be nice if the President could pull that rabbit out of his hat for 2011.
Lazy Jack | 12.2.09 @ 5:17PM
Last november I, as ususal, was ranting in pursuit of the facts. It seems that in the end, Nixon and Kissenger were hired to get us out of the war in Vietnam.
Here is a portion of that note from November 2008:
Now, understanding that facts are irrelevant in modern journalism I won’t bore you with too many. First, though, I must reiterate my agreement that the Republicans are to blame for both the atrocity of war and for the miserable financial condition of our country. Since 1932 the republicans have controlled the House of Representatives for all of fourteen years and the Senate for twenty. That’s 18% of the time in control of the budget and the right to declare war. It is clearly all their fault. Well, at least two trillion of the eleven trillion in debt is theirs for the blaming, as are the 4,200 dead and 31,000 wounded in Iraq. All the other wars declared under the Democrats’ watch since 1932 only killed 506,000 U.S. soldiers and wounded 927,000 others. But let’s face it, all that is old news and has nothing to do with the CHANGE about to take place.
It seems one side of the aisle doth protest too much about its pacifist nature. Until 9-11, the Democrats always threw the first punch. Or am I reading the figures wrong?
Lazy Jack
Lazy jack | 12.2.09 @ 5:43PM
Sorry, overlooked Gulf War 1.0. After which we left occupied Iraq to its own leader, sans airspace.
Lazy Jack
Pingback| 12.3.09 @ 8:48AM
The American Spectator : AmSpecBlog : Kissinger on Obama Speech Law just to Me links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
P. Politicus | 12.3.09 @ 5:14PM
So, let me get this straight, Liberal Reader:
The FBI (i.e., law enforcement) is "insufficient" to deal with terrorism, which you claim is essentially crime, not acts of war. But terrorism "requires the military and intelligence agencies," and furthermore, "terrorists need to be tracked down and killed." So, how, my friend, does all this not add up to war?
If it's just about calling it something else because the word war is just plain icky, then okay: We can call it "playing freeze tag."
Sure, Liberal Reader -- and what's more, if all we need to do is rename stuff so you can sleep at night, let's call capital punishment a "permanent time-out"; and the prison system, "the red zone," like on the playground, or maybe a "long-term slumber party." Maybe we can call ending welfare "playing house," too.
Let me know your thoughts.
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