If I was more deeply cynical, I'd believe that the timing of President Obama's Afghan War surge announcement was conveniently related to the sputtering Senate health care reform debate..
After all, Obama's Afghan War will cost at least $30 billion more yearly, in addition to $3.6 billion monthly now spent in Afghanistan.
What better face-saving excuse is there for President Obama to "reluctantly" embrace scaled down health care reform... without a public option... than fiscal pressures caused by pouring requisite billions into a war in "our vital national interest" involving the "security of the United States and the safety of the American people." (Quotes from Obama's Afghan War speech).
As acerbic Rep. David Obey (D-WI), a 40-year House member and chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, astutely drolled in The Economist, "There ain't going to be money for nothing if we put it all into Afghanistan."
It's the perfect, victim-based rationale for the Obama administration's highly possible failure to deliver effective health care reform after a year of intense debate and negotiations, and two years of candidate Obama's solemn promises to "make available a new national health plan to all Americans... to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress."
Just last week, despite record-level unemployment across the nation, President Obama said he has no money for jobs creation programs... and yet he apparently has plenty to fund 30,000 more soldiers for more nation-building in the Middle East. Could health care reform suddenly be the next program for which he has "no money?"
Yes, if I was more deeply cynical about the Obama administration, I could just hear it coming: I really do want genuine health care reform, including a public option to drive down costs for everyone, but, because the American people are in grave danger, we can't afford it right now.
Senate debate of health care reform is going badly, and negotiations for genuine reform appear to be next to nil.
And as of now, President Obama doesn't seem to have the gutsy appetite to boldly pass the Senate's "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," H.R. 3590, with only 51 votes via the reconcilation process.
Besides, boldly pushing health care reform legislation advocated by liberals would likely lose all those independents and conservatives who may give President Obama a second look now that he's decided to join George W. Bush in lavish spending on hapless, aimless, corporate-enriching wars in the Middle East.
Yes, if I was more cynical about the timing of President Obama's fear mongering-laced epiphany to surge U.S. involvement in the eight-year long Afghan War, I might find these sentiments quite believable.
Instead, I choose to believe this Democratic president who was elected to the White House by a liberal groundswell, when he said in his contradictory speech this week, "... the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own."
One thing, though: I confess to continuing puzzlement over Obama's inclusion of a quote from Republican President Dwight Eisenhower that "Each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs."
He couldn't mean that because he HAS to send 30,000 more troops to nation-build in Afghanistan, he might not be able to afford comprehensive health care reform... could he?
- Related Food for Thought
- Obama's Afghan War "Plan" Leaves Many Unanswered Questions
- Obama Endangers Presidency, Lets Down Troops By Sending More To Afghanistan
(Photo taken on Dec 3, 2009: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Comments
“The Surge”
“The Surge”
The war in Afghanistan is also a continuation and expansion of the corporate welfare policy of the Bush administration, which interestingly is not only wholly accepted by President Obama, but is raised to a higher level (surge). The more private contractors sent to Afghanistan, the better for the bottom line (surge) (profit). The more the merrier. Bush or Obama, as always, the interest of the corporate elite is paramount.
The decrease in violence in Iraq was not a result of President Bush’s strategy of sending 30,000 more troops to Iraq (surge), that President Obama is so desperately trying to duplicate, but it was mainly a result of the U.S. government’s payment of about $10 a day to about 70,000 Sunni insurgents.
During his speech to the nation explaining his reasons for the Afghanistan “surge”, the president said:
“So, no, I do not make this decision lightly. I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. … In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. And this danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.”
I thought I was listening to President Bush. Word for word the same message, but, a different messenger, one who is more articulate. He also used Bush’s tactic of scaring the American public, the danger to America “is no idle danger, no hypothetical threat”. The only thing missing from his speech was that, he didn’t use the threat level colors. It is too early in his presidency; we might still see him use the threat levels in the future.
The president’s troop” surge” in the Afghanistan war has made his Conservative Republican friends temporarily happy, but members of his own political party and the American citizens at large are not supportive of his so-called “surge”. While America is facing a massive unemployment, millions of citizens without health insurance, the country burdened with cumbersome and chocking growing debt, to say the least, the president’s choice of the Afghanistan “surge” at this particular moment, seems to be unwise.
Professor Mekonen Haddis.