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Taliban gatecrash into Obama’s birthday party
Taliban gatecrash into Obama’s birthday party
By M K Bhadrakumar – August 6, 2011
Taliban gatecrash into Obama’s birthday party - Indian Punchline
The stunning news from Afghanistan about the Taliban shooting down a NATO helicopter with 31 US special forces troopers and 7 Afghan commandos comes on a bad day for Barack Obama with Standard & Poor humbling America by lowering its AAA credit rating for the first time in history. Neither happening becomes a lethal blow for the US’s standing as superpower, but they would contribute to the pall of gloom descending on Washington. The fizz has certainly gone out of the Afghan ’surge’, and as Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in his weekend column, Obama’s dismal failure in fixing the economy stands out as a ‘truly terrible reality’.
The two ‘realities’ are in danger of coalescing and soon becoming one single reality — a growing opinion within the political class that for preserving the strength of the American economy in these hard times, US should tailor its foreign policy to “fit the cloth we have”, as Harvard professor and author Joseph Nye wrote in NYT this week. Put simply, Nye said, “such a strategy would avoid involvement of ground forces in major wars in Asia or in other poor countries.”
If so, Taliban have done mankind a favour. The Middle East, Africa and Asia can heave a sigh of relief, in that case, that the era of US imperialism is over. However, that is wishful thinking. If anything, the indications from the Middle East at the moment is that the US is hoping to keep 10000 troops in Iraq even after the withdrawal date, and that pressure on Syria and Iran is mounting. The big question is whether Obama can withstand a few more deathly blows by the Taliban, like today’s. Obama will be most vulnerable in the coming months if one or two major incidents take place down the line. For the present Taliban have gatecrashed into his 50th birthday party in Chicago.
Remember the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the slaughter of 241 US troops by a suicide bomber, which prompted Ronald Reagan to forthwith withdraw US troops from the Levant? My gut feeling is that something very big like the Lebanon attack is likely brewing in Afghanistan. There is an uneasy stillness in the air despite this being the peak of summer (’fighting season’), which is unnatural.
Some sort of a devastating Taliban blow killing a few dozen American troops cannot be ruled out. Today’s incident took place virtually on the outskirts of Kabul and it shows how consolidated the Taliban presence has become. I read a graphic account of Taliban having infiltrated even the impregnable Mazar-i-Sharif region. The US is out on a limb in the region with Pakistan and Iran on hostile terms with it and possibly coordinating their ‘resistance’ to the US military presence.
By M K Bhadrakumar – August 6, 2011
By M K Bhadrakumar – August 6, 2011
Taliban gatecrash into Obama’s birthday party - Indian Punchline
The stunning news from Afghanistan about the Taliban shooting down a NATO helicopter with 31 US special forces troopers and 7 Afghan commandos comes on a bad day for Barack Obama with Standard & Poor humbling America by lowering its AAA credit rating for the first time in history. Neither happening becomes a lethal blow for the US’s standing as superpower, but they would contribute to the pall of gloom descending on Washington. The fizz has certainly gone out of the Afghan ’surge’, and as Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wrote in his weekend column, Obama’s dismal failure in fixing the economy stands out as a ‘truly terrible reality’.
The two ‘realities’ are in danger of coalescing and soon becoming one single reality — a growing opinion within the political class that for preserving the strength of the American economy in these hard times, US should tailor its foreign policy to “fit the cloth we have”, as Harvard professor and author Joseph Nye wrote in NYT this week. Put simply, Nye said, “such a strategy would avoid involvement of ground forces in major wars in Asia or in other poor countries.”
If so, Taliban have done mankind a favour. The Middle East, Africa and Asia can heave a sigh of relief, in that case, that the era of US imperialism is over. However, that is wishful thinking. If anything, the indications from the Middle East at the moment is that the US is hoping to keep 10000 troops in Iraq even after the withdrawal date, and that pressure on Syria and Iran is mounting. The big question is whether Obama can withstand a few more deathly blows by the Taliban, like today’s. Obama will be most vulnerable in the coming months if one or two major incidents take place down the line. For the present Taliban have gatecrashed into his 50th birthday party in Chicago.
Remember the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut in October 1983 and the slaughter of 241 US troops by a suicide bomber, which prompted Ronald Reagan to forthwith withdraw US troops from the Levant? My gut feeling is that something very big like the Lebanon attack is likely brewing in Afghanistan. There is an uneasy stillness in the air despite this being the peak of summer (’fighting season’), which is unnatural.
Some sort of a devastating Taliban blow killing a few dozen American troops cannot be ruled out. Today’s incident took place virtually on the outskirts of Kabul and it shows how consolidated the Taliban presence has become. I read a graphic account of Taliban having infiltrated even the impregnable Mazar-i-Sharif region. The US is out on a limb in the region with Pakistan and Iran on hostile terms with it and possibly coordinating their ‘resistance’ to the US military presence.
By M K Bhadrakumar – August 6, 2011
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