http://americandigest.org/mt-archive..._failure_t.php
From where I sit I see many people underestimating President Obama because they cannot get their heads around who and what this man actually is and what he portends. Instead, historical or metaphoric analysis prevails making Obama like “Lincoln” or “Stalin,” like an "angel" or a "devil." Regardless of the comparisons evoked they all fail because Obama is none of these. He is "None of the above." He is not "That what came before." He is all of "What shall come after."
Politically and personally, Obama is a genetic sport, a Chimera; a now not-so-mythical being composed of multiple parts but functioning a a whole. Neither America nor the world has seen his like before. Attempts to analyze him that appeal to history fail because there is no historical precedent. That was, you will recall, part of his mystic allure. As a result many ascribe motives to the president that cannot be accurate; motives that run counter to the blunt evidence of the senses, to the maxim: “Watch what he does, not what he says.”
Interpretations of Obama, either in worship or in condemnation, will always be wistfully Prufrockian and up for "decisions and revisions which a minute can reverse" to the extent they fail to look at man's actions. Everything else is "blue smoke and mirrors."
Case in point: Afghanistan.
In the months long soap-opera of 'deciding' about Afghanistan, it was yesterday revealed that Obama abruptly rejected all the previous Afghan war options. The “reason” given was because, wait for it, "The President seeks clarity on turnover to Afghan government." Reaction to this cold reboot of the “Afghanistan Decision Process” was as swift as it was muddled. From the right or the left or the center the reaction could be headlined in all the newspapers and Drudgesque websites of the world in one modern acronym, “WTF!?”
In somewhat softer tones Legal Insurrection on "Eikenberry An Excuse For Obama's Dawdling" sums up the two poles of the response to the Afghan-Oval-Office-Quagmire saying:
Of course, Obama and Eikenberry are being hailed in the left-wing blogosphere as supremely rational and thoughtful beings. The right-wing blogosphere (including me) and even much of the mainstream media are seeing Obama's dawdling as a sign, 10 months into his term, that Obama doesn't have a clue what to do and cannot make a hard decision. [Emphasis added]
In somewhat more detail the always astute neo-neocon in "Hamlet-in-Chief: Obama loses the name of action" explains the Commander-in-Chief's active inaction as:
Either Obama is (a) constitutionally incapable of making a decision (or perhaps even understanding that this is what presidents have to do); or he is (b) incapable of making a decision that will offend a large group of people either way it goes. In the meantime, he is causing the demoralization of our troops in Afghanistan by showing an abysmal lack of leadership on the war there, after cynically and disingenuously making it one of the centerpieces of his campaign. [Emphasis added]
Much as I admire these two commentators on the passing political scene, I’d suggest that they and many others have it precisely wrong because they are not looking at the blunt fact of the matter. That fact is that Obama’s Afghanistan decision was made, in the privacy of his own chimeric mind, long ago. Obama’s decision was and is,
“I WILL DECIDE NOTHING ABOUT AFGHANISTAN FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE AND THEN FIND WAYS TO DEFER THE DECISION LONGER STILL. MY ACTION WILL BE INACTION.”
Many of Obama’s supporters continue to believe, in spite of constantly mounting evidence to the contrary, that his motives and desires are to better the lot of America, humanity, and Mother Earth. Many of Obama’s detractors continue to believe, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary, that Obama is, although malign, a “rational actor;” that his decisions, even though they disagree with them, are arrived at through known and understood political and diplomatic processes.
I submit that neither of these are the case with this particular Chimera and that we have not begun to understand a President for whom there is no precedent. I submit that Obama is proceeding according to a plan, but that is is his plan and his alone; a plan so personal that even his wife may not be a party to it. I submit that the plan is the one that the poet Yeats understood as “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”
And for playing with “mere anarchy” you can’t find a better Petri dish than Afghanistan / Pakistan.
Doing “something” in Afghanistan has no possible benefit for either anarchy or Obama. Anything that is “done” – be it sending in more troops or bringing troops out – only increases order and reduces entropy. Decisions, one way or another, direct management solutions. In Afghanistan as it is in America these days increased and directed management of problems decreases chaos and uncertainty. It is not an accident that all of Obama's domestic agenda involves replacing private sector management with government czars and bureaucracies.
If your inner goal is the destruction of established systems of governance you will seek in increase chaos and uncertainty at every turn. This is exactly what we see in Obama’s personal style of what passes for “governance.” We do not have to intuit this. We need only observe and not deny the evidence of our senses.
Veterans of dysfunctional corporations will recognize the Obama style as the one in which upper management is fond of giving middle management “All the responsibility, none of the authority, and zero resources.” It’s a time-tested recipe for failure and demoralization while maintaining an aloof, "concerned," and above the fray posture on the part of the CEO. It is what is being done to the US military, day in and day out, in Afghanistan and, as such, works to Obama’s favor as long as it can be done slowly and without alarm.
There are two benefits to Obama’s decision not to decide in Afghanistan:
1) It increases the instability of Pakistan and makes the likelihood of a radical Muslim coup in that country greater. This would, in one day, bring the control of nuclear weapons into radical Muslim hands. No waiting for Iran to get its act together. It also means that a vast sector of the world, from India to England falls under the spectre of a nuclear holocaust on a hair trigger. If you believe that great creation arises from great destruction, this is to your benefit.
2) It lowers the morale and effectiveness of the US military from the Joint Chiefs of Staff down to Private Grunt on patrol in Kandahar. Since the ultimate check to a politician’s power is always found in the military, anything that decreases that element is always to the politician’s benefit. If you can reduce the budget for the military at the same time you increase its responsibilities, so much the better.
None of this makes much sense if your goal is the improvement of the nation you are sworn to protect and defend. If, however, your goal is to enter history at the level of an Alexander or a Caesar deciding not to decide is a decision you will implement for as long as possible. In this entropy is your friend especially if you know that "for destruction ice / Is also great." You will be given a lot of time to decide not to decide as long as people on all sides of the poltical world continue to see you not as the political mutation you are but as the president you are not.
Until they do you can just "go back Jack do it again, (Wheel turnin' 'round and 'round....)"
Linear Mode
