Stu Bykofsky: Af-Pak speech: Both sides now
PLYMOUTH MEETING's John Grant supported and voted for Barack Obama, but it was "no sale" Tuesday night after the president outlined his plans for expanding the war and our chances for success in Afghanistan - which Grant sees as entering a fruitless, budget-busting quagmire.
PLYMOUTH MEETING's John Grant supported and voted for Barack Obama, but it was "no sale" Tuesday night after the president outlined his plans for expanding the war and our chances for success in Afghanistan - which Grant sees as entering a fruitless, budget-busting quagmire.
Some of you may know Grant from his frequent Op-ed pieces that take issue with various American policies. A member of Veterans for Peace, the 62-year-old Vietnam vet is a self-described dope-smoking socialist, although he admits that he enjoys being a provocateur.
I invited Grant to watch the president's speech with me because I knew how he felt - he was against entering Afghanistan in the first place - but I didn't know precisely how I felt.
At the end, Grant disagreed with sending more troops, while I favored it, but it was not because of Obama's persuasiveness.
His arguments had the flavor of leftovers, a meal we had eaten before. His speech came more from the head than the heart and lacked passion.
With that said, we now have an American president from the left after an American president from the right reaching the same conclusion: America's safety and security are threatened by the swamp that is Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Are they both wrong? Are they both stupid? Are they both evil? Is it possible that both presidents saw things in the daily threat assessment that they cannot share?
Obama may be wrong, but when he says that our safety and security are entwined with Af-Pak, do I dismiss that?
Grant would say yes, because "the military-industrial complex has this guy by the balls." Grant even grumped over Obama's selection of West Point as the launchpad for his policy.
Several times during our conversation Grant described himself as a "radical" and, after the speech, when I asked him what the U.S. should do now, he returned to mistakes made after 9/11 because radicals are interested in root causes, he said.
When I pressed him to support a "radical" solution - pull all our troops out now, immediately, at once - he demurred, saying that he was a realist and that it would result in chaos. He would garrison our current troops behind the safety of walls.
For how long? When would we withdraw? How quickly? Grant said he didn't have those answers and felt that I was trying to corner him.
In his speech, Obama said that maintaining the status quo - Grant's plan - would lead to deterioration of the effort.
Grant said that if we escalate the war, al Qaeda and the Taliban might do the same. Fair point, they might. They also might retreat into the mountains, go quiet for 18 months and re-emerge as U.S. troops begin to leave, now that we've provided their military planners with our timetable.
We have no good options in Af-Pak.
Anyone who is certain that a strategy will succeed is a polemicist or a propagandist. There is no sure path. Oddly, what happens if we stay in is more certain than what happens if we quickly depart. If we stay in, more American deaths. If we exit, will the Taliban be satisfied to "own" Afghanistan again or will it offer a platform from which al Qaeda and radical Islam can attack Pakistan and other countries?
As an example of how complicated the situation is, one of Obama's goals is to support the fragile democracy that is Pakistan.
That government is allied with us, but the majority of conspiracy-prone Pakistanis, according to polls, think that the U.S. is the greatest threat to world peace, and that bombs going off in Pakistani cities are planted by the CIA, Blackwater or Israel's Mossad. With friends like these . . .
Obama didn't mention "victory," or the brutality and viciousness of the Taliban toward women. He avoided emotional appeals, yet it's the same old "fear, fear, fear, the bogeyman, just like George Bush," said Grant.
"I do not trust my government," said Grant, even with Obama and the Democrats in control.
I won't go that far, but I will trust Obama, now that he is an unwilling "war president," to make the least bad of the miserable choices in front of him.
He could be wrong and so could I.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns: