Just Bad Politics
My understanding of politics is that it is basically the art of negotiating in order to achieve some outcome. In most cases these days, it’s to obtain votes or support for something. There are both good and bad forms of politics in general, with my interpretation of good being a negotiation where both, or all, parties involve come out better off with the agreement than the situation prior to it allowed – a win-win if you will. Unfortunately, this form of politics is seldom seen or heard from, with the majority of political negotiation being in an attempt to win at the cost or grief of someone else, or bad politics.
Just about any policy that has been signed into law over the last few years has involved someone winning out at the expense of someone else. That’s not to say that good intentions aren’t involved or that all policy is developed in spite of someone else, however, it’s pretty easy to find the winners and losers once completed. It’s either one business or industry taking the hit so that another may prosper, or one group of people taking the hit so that others may receive benefits. Someone is always sacrificing for someone else, and usually not with the consent of the sacrificing party.
With all of that said, the worst type of politics is anything that involves the potential or actual loss of life, in particularly related to the use or abuse of our armed forces. Our men and women in uniform deserve to be managed without the influence of political agenda. The sacrifice they have made, along with the sacrifices of their family, warrant their deployment and use to be absent of decisions related to a political agenda. in other words, their lives are worth more than the business of political back scratching. Whether it be for oil, votes, or the spread of democracy, the lives of service men and women should not be sacrificed unless there’s actually a need to protect US security, and not to make someone in some other part of the world feel a little bit more fuzzy about US diplomacy.
The current situation in Afghanistan is a great example of the worst kind of politics. A few years ago, the US pretty much turned over the protection of the country to the UN and have since focused our efforts to the events in Iraq (no better a situation overall), even though US troops were left behind to help. As with most situations related to UN peacekeeping, the peace is no longer kept and the Taliban has made a comeback.
With the latest increase in hostilities, the ranking military general, hand picked by the President himself, asked for 40,000 more troops to be sent to Afghanistan or risk the possibility of losing the war in that arena. After many days of consideration, four options were presented to the President with ranging troop increases from 10,000 to 40,000, only to have him reject all of them for further contemplation on how to proceed. This my friends, is bad politics.
When I say that it is bad politics, it’s not because I’m convinced there needs to be more troops or that we need to pull out altogether, it’s because we have military men and women putting their lives on the line everyday with absolutely no idea of what their ultimate fate will be due to a President who can’t seem to make up his mind on what to do. In other words, he’s dragging his feet at a cost of human life – the worst kind of politics.
This is the same President who in his first 10 months in office has communicated the urgent need to act quickly when it comes to his political agenda for the economy, health care, and alternative energy, none of which have immediate loss of life in the balance. Trillions of US dollars have been, or will be spent, in an effort to deliver his agenda, but his commitment to limiting the number of immediate lives lost in Afghanistan can wait a few days, weeks, or months before making a final decision.
Personally, I think there are only two options for us. We either send in 3 times the number of troops needed to complete the job and get it done ASAP, or we pull up everything and get out now. Either one would limit the loss of life our men and women in uniform would have to endure. To me, any other decisions will make for more loss of life, and for what cause? What is so important that these precious lives cannot be dealt with right now? I can’t imagine anything more important, but obviously the President can.
This is also a topic that the President campaigned heavily on last year leading up to his election. He vowed that the Afghan arena was the only one we needed to be involved in and was one we could not afford to lose, but his campaign talk is not being backed up with correlating executive actions.
I’m sure I don’t know the whole story and there’s likely a lot of politics involved in making this decision, but no matter what the politics are, the fact that military lives are involved should eliminate their lobby and steer him to make a commanding decision. Instead, the most devoted and selfless men and women in the world, the bravest men and women in the world, are left hanging out to dry. I hope whatever deal the President is trying to strike is a good one.
Just bad politics.
