To surge or not to surge: Obamlet II
In a recent Charles Krauthammer piece, he compares Obama’s dithering on Afghanistan to the wavering of Shakespeare’s Hamlet:
…[Obama in his role as] commander in chief, young Hamlet, frets, demurs, agonizes. His domestic advisers, led by Rahm Emanuel, tell him if he goes for victory, he’ll become LBJ, the domestic visionary destroyed by a foreign war. His vice president holds out the chimera of painless counterterrorism success.
Against Emanuel and Biden stand Gen. David Petraeus, the world’s foremost expert on counterinsurgency (he saved Iraq with it), and Stanley McChrystal, the world’s foremost expert on counterterrorism. Whose recommendation on how to fight would you rely on?
I don’t suggest that Afghanistan represents an easy decision. But anyone who runs for the presidency (as Obama most assuredly did) must realize that, once in office, he/she will inevitably face a great many difficult choices. Either Obama thought Afghanistan would be simple to deal with (dare I say “a cakewalk?”), or else he figured he’d finesse it with his trademark charm, his usual oratory gifts, and his favored technique of blaming the opposition—as he’d readily dispatched almost every other crisis in his rather short political life.
But that may not work for him any more, as Krauthammer points out. Presidents (as opposed to Nobel Peace Prize winners) must actually do something.
The comparision of Obama to Hamlet is not a new one; I made it myself back in March, as did writer Sam Schulman. These observations have only become more relevant over time, not less, especially in regard to Afghanistan.
And so I now offer up Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, rewritten to fit Obamlet’s Afghan dilemma. You may note that it had to undergo surprisingly few changes in order to fit the current situation rather well:
To surge, or not to surge: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous battles,
Or put down arms against a sea of troubles,
And by withdrawing end them? To retreat: to fight
No more; and by retreat to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To retreat, to leave;
To leave: perchance to lose: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that leaving, what defeat may come
When we have shuffled off this Afghan soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of a long war;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of polls,
The oppressor’s wrong, the talking head’s contumely,
The pangs of pacifists, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his swift exit make
With a curt order? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary war,
But that the dread that some would cry “defeat,”
That vicious accusation from whose bourn
No politician returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. – Soft you now!
The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons
Be all my sins forgotten.
Great reworking, Neo! When it comes to the Obama bunch, Shelley, too, and his impact on Yeats, also come to mind:
******************************
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man’s estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
I would say that Obama is not like Hamlet. Hamlet was feigning crazy to stay alive and out of the assasination game. though ultimately it didnt work out to well.
no… i would say that given times as they are, our illustrious leader represents a different character from theater. Pippin. however i doubt that our living version could learn as well as pippin ended up learning (in the play at least).
Pippin (musical)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pippin_(musical)
enter Rohm and the others….
The play begins with a leading player of a troupe and the actors in various costume pieces of several different time periods.
they and everyone on stage introduces us to this new person
The Leading Player invites the audience to join them in a story about a boy prince searching for fulfillment (“Magic to Do”). They reveal that the boy who is to play the title character is a new actor.
the lyrics kind of fit the libs… all these invisable hands making things happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADeU6qz37B4
Join us…….. Leave your fields to flower
Join us…….. Leave your cheese to sour
Join us…….. Come and waste an hour or two
Doo-dle-ee-do
Journey……. Journey to a spot ex-
citing, mystic and exotic
Journey…….. Through our anecdotic revue
We’ve got magic to do…….. Just for you
We’ve got miracle plays to play
We’ve got parts to perform…. Hearts to warm
Kings and things to take by storm
As we go along our way
of course, we have to hear the whys frmo our own dreamer pippin himself.
Pippin tells the scholars of the time about his dreams (“Corner of the Sky”), and they happily applaud Pippin on his ambitious quest for an extraordinary life.
…So many men seem destined
To settle for something small
But I won’t rest until I know I’ll have it all
So don’t ask where I’m going
Just listen when I’m gone
And far away you’ll hear me singing
Softly to the dawn
and simlar kind of theme of the childhood of an educated boy and others around him.
Charles and Pippin don’t get a chance to communicate often, as they are interrupted by nobles, soldiers, and couriers vying for Charles’ attention (“Welcome Home”), and Charles is clearly uncomfortable speaking with his educated son or expressing any loving emotions.
yes, unloved childhood is familiar from the autobiography. and the clintons are there too.
Pippin also meets up with his stepmother Fastrada, and her dim-witted son Lewis. Charles and Lewis are planning on going into battle against the Visigoths soon, and Pippin begs Charles to take him along so as to prove himself. Charles reluctantly agrees and proceeds to explain a battle plan to his men (“War is a Science”).
and his afghanistan soon to be farce… he has much of the same education as to what war is.
WAR IS A SCIENCE
WITH RULES TO BE APPLIED
WHICH GOOD SOLDIERS APPRECIATE
RECALL AND RECAPITULATE
BEFORE THEY GO TO DECIMATE THE OTHER SIDE
Now, gentlemen, this is the plan for tomorrow’s skirmish.
THE ARMY OF THE ENEMY IS STATIONED ON THE HILL
SO WE’VE GOT TO GET THEM DOWN HERE, AND THIS IS HOW WE WILL
OUR MEN IN THE RAVINE (THAT’S THIS AREA IN GREEN)
WILL MOVE ACROSS THE VALLEY WHERE THEY PLAINLY CAN BE SEEN
AND THE ENEMY IN BLUE WILL UNDOUBTEDLY PURSUE
FOR THAT’S WHAT YOU DEPEND UPON AN ENEMY TO DO
THEN TO GUARANTEE THEIR FOLLY
WE’LL BRING BOWMEN INTO PLAY
WHO WILL FIRE JUST ONE VOLLEY
AND RETIRE TO POINT “A”.
AND THEN, AND THEN,
AND GENTLEMEN, AND THEN…
PIPPIN
AND THEN THE MEN GO MARCHING OUT INTO THE FRAY
CONQUERING THE ENEMY AND CARRYING THE DAY
HARK! THE BLOOD IS POUNDING IN OUR EARS
JUBILATIONS! WE CAN HEAR A GRATEFUL NATION’S
CHEERS!
CHARLES
Pippin, sit down immediately.
PIPPIN
I’m sorry, Father. I just got carried away.
not understanding, he bumps into jennings in drag as his grandmother berthe.. and explains that the problem is that there isnt enough time spent having sex while you can.
Once in battle, the Leading Player re-enters to lead the troupe in a mock battle using top hats, canes, and fancy jazz as to glorify warfare and violence (“Glory”). This charade of war does not appeal to Pippin, and the boy flees into the countryside. The Leading Player tells the audience of Pippin’s travel through the country, until he stops at his exiled grandmother’s estate (“Simple Joys”).
wrapped up in the simple truths of life, the trap is sprung… and the message that one has to party and have fun till healthcare comes to get you..
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
All decisions are binary.
Baraq is “present”.
But time and tide wait for no man to decide.
Principles = decisions
Clinton and Barack = dither
I miss GWB
Well done, Neo. This is a keeper. In fact this is a “forwarder” [with al due attribution. Thanks.
Bill
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“What would the neighbors think?” is much of what Nobama will be pondering. Unfortunately, he doesn’t consider me and thee to be his neighbors.
I agree, a fine rewording of Hamlet’s soliloquy.
Krauthammer however is a bit behind the curve, as Obama is no longer ‘dithering’ on Afghanistan.
Obama’s Afghanistan ’strategy’ is now clear:
“aides stress that while the president’s final decision on any changes is still at least two weeks away, the emerging thinking suggests that he would be very unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal…
Obama’s developing strategy on the Taliban will “not tolerate their return to power,” the senior official said in an interview with The Associated Press. But the U.S. would fight only to keep the Taliban from retaking control of Afghanistan’s central government – something it is now far from being capable of – and from giving renewed sanctuary in Afghanistan to al-Qaida, the official said…
Bowing to the reality that the Taliban is too ingrained in Afghanistan’s culture to be entirely defeated, the administration is prepared, as it has been for some time, to accept some Taliban role in parts of Afghanistan, the official said. That could mean paving the way for Taliban members willing to renounce violence to participate in a central government – though there has been little receptiveness to this among the Taliban. It might even mean ceding some regions of the country to the Taliban…
Obama kept returning to one question for his advisers: Who is our adversary? the official said.”
As ALLAHPUNDIT states: “In other words, rather than eat crap by forthrightly admitting he’s prepared to abandon huge swaths of the country to Islamist fascists, rather than invest another 40,000 troops, he’s going to create an artificial distinction between the Taliban and Al Qaeda to let him save face by claiming he’s focused on “the real enemy.”
Much like how he was focused during the campaign on “the good war” in Afghanistan rather than “the bad war” in Iraq.
I wonder how long it’ll be before he decides that not everyone who’s in Al Qaeda is an enemy either – or, better yet, that AQ’s been “substantially defeated” or something, which has been the unstated thrust of all those WH-leaked pieces in the press lately about how weak Bin Laden’s gang has become.
Why, I’ll bet in a year or so we’ll be told that they’re so weak that we can start pulling out of Afghanistan altogether. Things sure have improved over there since Bush was president, huh?”
For in depth analysis, see: Al Qaeda is the tip of the Jihadist spear
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/10/analysis_al_qaeda_is.php
I would only add that regarding the assertion that “the Taliban cannot retake control of Afghanistan’s central government, something it is now far from being capable of…”
The Taliban just successfully attacked Pakistan’s Military Intelligence Headquarters and took hostages…
When, not if, they take over Pakistan, Afghanistan will fall into their laps.
Norm: The place is surging with girls.
John: Please, sir, sir, can I have one to surge with, sir, please, sir?
Norm: No, you can’t!
— A Hard Day’s Night
Gringo, exactly. Obama is intensely loyal to part of America. The rest, not so much.
[Obama] would be very unlikely to favor a large military increase of the kind being advocated by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal…
Geoffrey Britain: That’s my reading, and a dreadful prospect it is, since it is the worst choice in the long run.
I suspect Krauthammer knows this too but has to play along with the narrative that Obama is still in the process of deciding.
Geoffrey Britain: Interesting (albeit not a soothing) analysis. There are two spoilers in this scenario that have yet to be heard from, in my estimation.
First is that McChrystal could well retire if Obama takes the action you suggest. I am reminded of LBJ’s comment about people opposing his policies: “it’s better to have them inside the tent peeing out than outside the tent peeing in.” I suspect Obama would rather have McChrystal in uniform and following orders than retired and criticizing.
Second is Code Pink. They’re a fundamental part of the left wing, yet they are making noises about women suffering under Taliban rule. And that’s a real problem. If the Taliban come back into the Afghan government and are able to re-institute many of the old Afghan policies that are so hard on women, Code Pink will not sit quietly by.
Methinks Obama is still weighing various options and not liking what he’s seeing. I’ll bet he’s wishing he could vote “present” on this one. F
“Geoffrey Britain Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 3:36 pm”
Great commentary and link, detailing comprehensively the nature of this truly ominous “black hole”. I have to wonder if even McChrystal’s proposal amounts to so much as a drop in the bucket relative to (and reiterating from the linked article), first of all, in comparison, the vast pool of logistically available foot soldiers which the jihad can cheaply and easily garner from the surrounding region; second the support they have from such state players as Pakistan’s ISI, Iran and others (note the article details). We presume that American firepower is potentially the great equalizer, and it may be in some respects, but to underestimate the profound advantage the jihad has in time and numbers is pure naivete, or something more insidious. Obama would have us believe this is one of the over-riding themes justifying his go-slow decision making process. However, to reiterate from my earlier comments; in nine months now, Obama has, in reality, made the Afghan war, specifically, a very low priority in his administration. The fact that up until the last few weeks or so, he had not spent so much as one hour meeting with McChrystal personally speaks volumes about the situation. Combine that with the administration’s policies on Iran, South America (esp. Honduras), Israel, etc., and even in compromising “Homeland” security (see the latest budget cuts in radiological equipment for NYC)… I’ll cut to the quick with my contribution to the peanut gallery today. This man, his administration, the entire Democratic Party, and the MSM have done everything possible during the last nine months to buy time for the enemy. The idea that so-called global warming, in any way, should be a higher immediate priority than America’s wars, is so preposterous it smacks of treason.
Neo, that was truly brilliant!
“….Soft you now!/The fair Nobel Committee! Wimps, in thy orisons/Be all my sins forgotten.”
I think Shakespeare himself would have applauded that line.
Those of us who read Michael Yon and Bill Roggio regularly knew, even during the campaign, that Afghanistan was ultimately going to be a longer more difficult slog than Iraq. Maybe not as bloody, but the logistics, the low level of education/modernity among the Afghanis, and the terrain were going to make it a much longer term problem to solve.
With that in mind I knew that Obama, when faced with the realities of the situation, would opt for some kind of low road out of the country, which he would describe as a realist’s approach if not some sort of moral victory.
He warned the Congress last week that McChrystle’s plan meant $50 billion more per year in costs and told them they would have to vote for the funds in the face of our deficits. Never mind that $50 billion is pocket change when you are talking about a trillion dollar budget.
To go along with some of the other offerings here, there is this:
“Homage to A Government”
Next year we are to bring all the soldiers home
For lack of money, and it is all right.
Places they guarded, or kept orderly,
We want the money for ourselves at home
Instead of working. And this is all right.
It’s hard to say who wanted it to happen,
But now it’s been decided nobody minds.
The places are a long way off, not here,
Which is all right, and from what we hear
The soldiers there only made trouble happen.
Next year we shall be easier in our minds.
Next year we shall be living in a country
That brought its soldiers home for lack of money.
The statues will be standing in the same
Tree-muffled squares, and look nearly the same.
Our children will not know it’s a different country.
All we can hope to leave them now is money.
By Philip Larkin 1969
Incidentally, continuing the theme of “priorities”; specifically “surging” in Afghanistan vs “surging” against so-called global warming, and from a little bit of a surprising source, the BBC (perhaps the British are starting to tire of endless state incompetence, as well as tiring of the enemy in their very midst, and paying for it to boot):
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/10/11/the-2010-to-yuma/#more-6318
Do you think maybe Mr. Obama is being influenced by his “adviser on Muslim affairs”?
Another lunatic advising the President
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6274387/Obama-adviser-says-Sharia-Law-is-misunderstood.html
Those pesky Muslims are just misunderstood.
I’d hate like hell to be any kind of XX chromosome Afghan in a Taliban Controlled area.
I’m sure he figures if it was good enough for his mom to get beaten by muslim guys, it’s fine for Afghan girls too….
Do you think the MSM will report what happens in those Obama Taliban Controlled areas?
F no!
Surging for the enemy…
http://www.newmajority.com/obama-wont-support-iran-sanctions-backed-by-three-quarters-of-congress
http://www.newmajority.com/obama-hanging-with-the-wrong-crowd
That was wonderful.
I uploaded a video on Nobel Prize
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aROxYxRCP3I
Obama’s highest priority, getting re-elected:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091013/D9BA5KQO0.html
A very good reconstitution, Neo.