As a superpower, what is America’s role in the complicated world?
Ted Sadler: President Obama announced his Bin Laden news during the Celebrity Apprentice Sunday night to get back at Donald Trump and because he didn’t want the nation seeing NeNe Leakes and Star Jones having a Black women catfight; Obama must be cheering “Hope” Dworaczyk because he is all about hope and her kid with basketball player Jason Kidd is like baby Obama. There are those who would believe that nonsense but U.S. Defense actions and Foreign Affairs are serious business. In another joking moment, Seth Myers said in front of the president at the Correspondents’ Dinner that he knew who could beat Obama in 2012…the answer was 2008 Obama.
2008 Obama was no joke and he promise foreign policy based on respect for others around the world and soft power (when bread and butter win goodwill rather than bullets.) In South Georgia, we make peanut butter and I can smell the roasters 24 hours a day. The cost of one missile could buy a lot of peanut butter and goodwill between the developing world and U.S. rural ag community.
Why does our military sometimes seem like nation builders rather than warriors? We must allow warriors to be warriors and leave nation building to H.U.D. or U.S.D.A’s Rural Development. From Vietnam, we learned that the Pentagon should have freedom to kick –ss and take names. But, Republican President Eisenhower warned about the growth of the Defense Industrial Complex, those who want to make war to make money. Our troops should have the best equipment and the mission to handle their business and get home ASAP.
Thanks to President Obama for using the CIA or a real version of “The Unit” to do what needed to be done. Come on now…let’s be honest…we know that Black Ops can handle some business that the politically liberal think is wrong and unfair. We don’t need to talk about unfair. Unfair is spending billions to build communities around the world while America’s infrastructure crumbles. Unfair is having thousands of troops in harm’s way for extended tours when a Seal Team could have….you know.
President George H.W. Bush told the truth about the first Gulf War: we were there because limiting our access to that region’s oil would cripple America. The average American does care about those people in the sand but they love cheaper fuel. I am about to contradict myself: as the only superpower we must be involved in everyone’s business or they will form alliances that we can’t control and it could be checkmate for us. The plantation nor the cowboy mentality works when part of the world has the oil and part holds our debt. They have the drop on us and they insist on being treated like adults rather than kids. Funny, that’s similar to our founding fathers’ attitude about the British crown.
While I appreciate my fiscally conservative friends concerned with the mounting debt of their unborn grandchildren’s financial burden, I know that a more pressing concern was Bin Laden and his ilk’s effort to acquire on the Black market a weapon that would erase an American city off the map. Our foreign policy needs military might, respectable right and broad sight because I am weary of our involvement and assistance to people who dislike us.
Project Logic Ga 
Counterinsurgency or nation-building was made successful by General Petraeus. It certainly has appeal in that its success will be more sustaining, however its application is very draining in terms of manpower and financial cost. Given the fiscal state of the U.S., this is a method that should be used only under certain conditions. While it worked in Iraq, I’m not so sure that it will work in Afghanistan.
Effective governance, culture diversity, and terrain all play a role in whether counterinsurgency will be effective. In the case of Iraq, it appears that they have superior governing systems and are better equipped in dealing with their cultural differences than Afghanistan. In particular, Afghanistan needs Karsai to be a stronger leader and minimize their corruption. Otherwise, it will be impossible to gain the trust of the populace. On the other hand, the Taliban have shown more ability in delivering services to their people, but their proclivity to al-Qaeda and terrorist groups make them unsavory to the U.S.
It looks like Obama has favored a combination of limited counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism. Even though their present efforts have gone well, I don’t think it will be sustaining due to Karsai’s influence. Even before the killing of Bin Laden, U.S. and coalition forces have reversed the momentum of the Taliban.
Remember Obama’s decision to compromise between the Pentagon’s request for 40,000 troops to implement insurgency and the Biden-led request of 20,000 toward counter-terrorism plus. As noted in Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, Obama broke the deadlock by designing a combination of both with 30,000 troops. With this option, Obama was hoping to reverse the Taliban momentum and limit the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. If he acquiesced to the military, the counterinsurgency plan would have been a commitment of 10 years and nearly a trillion dollars. That would have been a tough sell for Americans.
I recommend reading the Afghanistan Project at http://understandingwar.org, along with Brookings Afghanistan Index to see how much progress the U.S. is currently making. Having said that, I do doubt we have the resources to eventually bring stability to Afghanistan.
When looking at Obama’s decision to Afghanistan, it now looks good that he didn’t go along with the Pentagon because I actually see Yemen being a greater concern to the safety of the U.S. U.S. foreign policy still remains a primary concern because we have to do all we can to prevent a catastrophic attack on our borders. We might be relaxed now, but that can change at the blink of an eye, especially if we see a repeat of Mumbai, where terrorists handcuffed the India’s largest city for three days. Think about how expensive a successful attack could be on a U.S. financial center like NY and its potential damage. That could result in untold economic damage, thus it remains imperative that the U.S. continues to fight terror abroad. However, our efforts must be cost-effective and broad-based.
Mr. Johnson, that comment was more substantive than those given my actually candidates and officeholders in the past.