{"id":312994,"date":"2017-06-15T20:42:57","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T19:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/william-j-astore-on-trump-and-the-afghan-war\/"},"modified":"2017-06-15T20:42:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-15T19:42:57","slug":"william-j-astore-on-trump-and-the-afghan-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/william-j-astore-on-trump-and-the-afghan-war\/","title":{"rendered":"William J. Astore on Trump and the Afghan\u00a0War"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A concept that you learn quickly in the military is that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. The buck stops with the guy or gal in charge, and when it\u2019s policy at the national level, that guy is the commander-in-chief, currently Donald Trump. Yet when it comes to the Afghan war, it appears Trump may be seeking to evade responsibility even as he delegates the specifics of strategy and troop levels to his \u201ccivilian\u201d Secretary of Defense, retired General James Mattis.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the news out of Washington: that Trump has delegated<\/a> to Mattis the decision as to how many additional U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, and what strategy they should employ in a war that Mattis admits the US military is \u201cnot winning<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Think about that. After nearly 16 years and a trillion dollars spent, the US is \u201cnot winning\u201d in Afghanistan, which is, to put it honestly, an admission of defeat. \u201cNot winning\u201d means we\u2019re losing, yet how likely is it that the US military, effectively under the command of retired General Mattis, is going to shift gears completely and withdraw?<\/p>\n

Mattis testified to Congress that the Taliban \u201chad a good year last year\u201d and that \u201cwinning,\u201d which we\u2019re currently not doing, is a scenario in which US forces, working with Afghan forces, are able to provide local security after several years of \u201cfrequent skirmishing\u201d with the Taliban and other insurgent forces.<\/p>\n

Yes \u2014 that\u2019s the definition of \u201cwinning.\u201d A long-term US commitment of more troops and more money with continued internecine warfare in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

In the near-term, Mattis will likely send more troops (\u201ctrainers\u201d and \u201cadvisers\u201d) and more money, promising that this time American training and methods will work, that this time corruption will be curtailed, that this time the Taliban will be neutralized (I doubt Mattis is foolish enough to promise \u201cvictory\u201d). Trump will rubber-stamp Mattis\u2019s decision, which gives him the ability to blame his generals if and when the Afghan war takes yet another turn that is contrary to US imperatives. (Recall how Trump blamed his generals<\/a> for losing the Navy SEAL in the bungled raid on Yemen.)<\/p>\n

As a candidate, Trump deplored the waste of America\u2019s wars and suggested he would try to end them. As president, Trump is kowtowing to the Pentagon, ensuring these wars will continue. Worst of all, even as he delegates authority, he is evading responsibility.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a recipe for incessant warfare, yet more suffering, and the continued erosion<\/a> of democracy in America.<\/p>\n

An Afterthought<\/strong>: Let\u2019s suppose for a moment that Trump actually wanted to end the Afghan war. It would require considerable political capital to take on the national security state \u2014 capital that Trump currently doesn\u2019t have, embroiled as he is in controversy (lawsuits!) and ongoing investigations. This is hardly ever remarked upon in the media: the fact that Trump, who ran on a platform that was often quite critical of…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A concept that you learn quickly in the military is that you can delegate authority but not responsibility. The buck stops with the guy or gal in charge, and when it\u2019s policy at the national level, that guy is the commander-in-chief, currently Donald Trump. Yet when it comes to the Afghan war, it appears Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-312994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}