Obama's speech before the world on Tuesday, December 1, 2009, committed the US to an increase of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
The speech, delivered at West Point Military Academy, was predictable. Indeed, prior to winning the office of president, Obama had expressed his belief that the war in Afghanistan was the "right" war to fight.
The long-awaited announcement of an increase was no surprise. Over the last few weeks, the media played into the idea that Obama was carefully considering the decision as it broadcast a variety of stories. From the president's visit to Arlington Cemetery on Veterans Day to his nighttime appearance at Dover, where the bodies of US soldiers arrive back home.
But this story of a decision making process was pure orchestration, designed to offer an image of a president wrestling with a momentous decision. So too was the choice of the location for Obama's speech. Pure theatrics. The only thing missing was the president wearing combat fatigues to complete the image of a sober, wartime president.
Obama's speech was chilling for a number of reasons. Not only has the US policy in Afghanistan been questioned sharply by many critics, but the very nature of his rhetoric was simply astonishing.
The peppering of the speech with a variety of Bush-era cliches was the least of Obama's problem. (In his words, the enemy operates in "shadowy networks;" the US soldiers are "heirs to a noble struggle;" the fight is against the "dark cloud of tyranny;" and the goal is to advance "the frontiers of human freedom.")
Cliches aside, Obama's carefully laid out plan for deployment, occupation, and withdrawal would be laughable if it were not so serious. Obama's laundry list of "things to do" in Afghanistan would easily be parodied if Bush had been making the speech: "Number One: Go to Afghanistan. Number Two: Get everyone to agree with us. Number Three: Leave Victorious."
Such a oversimplification of an occupation was in no way tempered by Obama's statement: "Let me be clear. None of this will be easy."
In fact, Obama's effort to present the plan for Afghanistan was undercut not only by his own rhetoric and his hyper-logical step-by-step description of an organized occupation.
The fact that the speech took place in "Eisenhower Hall" evoked the warning the former president had sounded upon leaving office in 1961.
Dwight David Eisenhower said:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
As Obama stood before the world on Tuesday night, the gears of that war machine continued to grind, away from the sights of a citizenry still dazzled by celebrity Obama; a citizenry still responding to the rhetoric of "freedom" whose origins lie somewhere long ago, in long ago fought world wars.
But Obama also evoked the Vietnam War--albeit in an effort to debunk the charges that Afghanistan would prove to be another quagmire. But the president's summoning up of that war proved to have another unintended consequence. It silently underscored his resemblance to another celebrity president.
When President Eisenhower left office, he handed over the reigns of power to a young, charismatic senator. A senator who would commit the United States to an undeclared war.
As the camera panned around the hall as Obama delivered his speech, there was yet another unintended effect. Those rows and rows of young soldiers. Somehow, through this viewer's eyes, the dark cloud of future occupation seemed to blur the present and the future. The past was new again. Eisenhower's warning echoed.
If there is one thing that historians can agree upon, it is that war is chaos; it is a force for the creation of unintended consequences. If the president stepped back and truly grappled with the momentous decision of war, he would see that even the most carefully orchestrated media event cannot hide the truth of our actions.
The speech, delivered at West Point Military Academy, was predictable. Indeed, prior to winning the office of president, Obama had expressed his belief that the war in Afghanistan was the "right" war to fight.
The long-awaited announcement of an increase was no surprise. Over the last few weeks, the media played into the idea that Obama was carefully considering the decision as it broadcast a variety of stories. From the president's visit to Arlington Cemetery on Veterans Day to his nighttime appearance at Dover, where the bodies of US soldiers arrive back home.
But this story of a decision making process was pure orchestration, designed to offer an image of a president wrestling with a momentous decision. So too was the choice of the location for Obama's speech. Pure theatrics. The only thing missing was the president wearing combat fatigues to complete the image of a sober, wartime president.
Obama's speech was chilling for a number of reasons. Not only has the US policy in Afghanistan been questioned sharply by many critics, but the very nature of his rhetoric was simply astonishing.
The peppering of the speech with a variety of Bush-era cliches was the least of Obama's problem. (In his words, the enemy operates in "shadowy networks;" the US soldiers are "heirs to a noble struggle;" the fight is against the "dark cloud of tyranny;" and the goal is to advance "the frontiers of human freedom.")
Cliches aside, Obama's carefully laid out plan for deployment, occupation, and withdrawal would be laughable if it were not so serious. Obama's laundry list of "things to do" in Afghanistan would easily be parodied if Bush had been making the speech: "Number One: Go to Afghanistan. Number Two: Get everyone to agree with us. Number Three: Leave Victorious."
Such a oversimplification of an occupation was in no way tempered by Obama's statement: "Let me be clear. None of this will be easy."
In fact, Obama's effort to present the plan for Afghanistan was undercut not only by his own rhetoric and his hyper-logical step-by-step description of an organized occupation.
The fact that the speech took place in "Eisenhower Hall" evoked the warning the former president had sounded upon leaving office in 1961.
Dwight David Eisenhower said:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
As Obama stood before the world on Tuesday night, the gears of that war machine continued to grind, away from the sights of a citizenry still dazzled by celebrity Obama; a citizenry still responding to the rhetoric of "freedom" whose origins lie somewhere long ago, in long ago fought world wars.
But Obama also evoked the Vietnam War--albeit in an effort to debunk the charges that Afghanistan would prove to be another quagmire. But the president's summoning up of that war proved to have another unintended consequence. It silently underscored his resemblance to another celebrity president.
When President Eisenhower left office, he handed over the reigns of power to a young, charismatic senator. A senator who would commit the United States to an undeclared war.
As the camera panned around the hall as Obama delivered his speech, there was yet another unintended effect. Those rows and rows of young soldiers. Somehow, through this viewer's eyes, the dark cloud of future occupation seemed to blur the present and the future. The past was new again. Eisenhower's warning echoed.
If there is one thing that historians can agree upon, it is that war is chaos; it is a force for the creation of unintended consequences. If the president stepped back and truly grappled with the momentous decision of war, he would see that even the most carefully orchestrated media event cannot hide the truth of our actions.