The War in Afghanistan, 2

 
 
 
 

Vocabulary

 

design	careful	sovereign
use	disrupt	operation (2)
base	promote	bring/brought/brought
threat	forever	build/built/built
pursue	accurate	medium-term
troops	Cold War	overreach
region	camp (2)	long-term
remain	mistake	particularly
liberty	contrast	based upon
stark	ideology	peripheral
thug	breed (2)	administration (2)
policy	withdraw	characterization
threat	force (3)	lend/lent/lent
axis (2)	suddenly	all of the sudden
evil	distract	mission (2)
forces	coalition	lend itself to
disarm	stage (2)	make/made/made
rare	free (2)	ground (2)
invade	decision	support (2)
shift	deal (2)	expectation
govern	destroy	think/thought/thought (2)
inherit	realistic	short-term
failure	capacity	responsible
equal	target (2)	partnership
regime	sum it up	begin/began/begun
tend	murder	insurgency
surge	conduct	win/won/won
dictate	goal (2)	virtually (2)
indeed	vision (2)	run/ran/run
create	eliminate	think/thought/thought (2)
still (2)	succinct	negotiation
sum	so-called	feel/felt/felt (2)
rapid	deadline	leave/left/left
adhere	shape (2)	the buck stops here
deploy	ancient	human rights
tribe	endless	counter (2)
try	path (2)	execution (2)
chaos	get out	get/got/got-gotten
ensue	buck (2)	know/knew/known
hope	security	chapter (3)
way (2)	element	pressure (2)
follow		look across (2)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Video

 

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Four US presidents and Afghanistan

George W. Bush, US President, 2001 to 2009: “These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations.”

Barack Obama, US President, 2009 to 2017: “And in Afghanistan, we’re increasing our troops.”

Donald Trump, US President, 2017 to 2021: “Military power alone will not bring peace to Afghanistan or stop the terrorist threat.”

Joe Biden, US President, 2021: “And it’s time to end the forever war.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Nation Building (2001 – 2009

George W. Bush, US President, 2001 to 2009: “We’re pursuing long-term victory in this war by promoting democracy in the Middle East so that the nations of that region no longer breed hatred and terror.”

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “It remained America’s view after the Cold War particularly if there were going to be countries that were not Western democracies that were going to be breeding grounds for terrorism after 9-11.

George W Bush moved into that camp.”

George W. Bush, US President, 2001 to 2009: “But we’ve also got an ideology based upon liberty which stands in stark contrast to the ideology of the thugs and murderers called the Taliban.”

Barbary Perry, Presidential Historian: “The danger with the Bush Administration’s foreign policy and their characterization of the threat as regime-based is that it lends itself to overreach.

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “All of a sudden you have an Axis of Evil in North Korea and Syria and Iraq and Iran. And that distracts from the central mission in Afghanistan.”

George W. Bush, US President, 2001 to 2009: “American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq to free its people.”

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “Presidents very rarely after their presidency say I made lots of mistakes. He still supports his decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Shifting Expectations (2009 – 2017

Barack Obama, US President, 2009 to 2017: “Our goal is to destroy Al Qaeda, and we are on a path to do exactly that.”

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “I think Barack Obama’s was much more realistic and it was much more accurate about the capacity for the United States.”

Barrack Obama, US President, 2009 to 2017: “Afghans are responsible for the security of their nation. And we build an equal partnership between two sovereign states, a future in which war ends and new chapter begins.”

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “Afghanistan is far more peripheral as a national security issue, particularly after the death of Osama bin Laden.”

Barrack Obama, US President, 2009 to 2017: “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.”

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “The mistake was in the surge decision, the theory of counterinsurgency and how we were going to win the war changed.”

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Planning Withdrawal (2017 – 2021

Donald Trump, US President, 2017 to 2021: “We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live or how to govern their own complex society.

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “Because he had virtually no political experience except for running for president, I don’t think that he had a vision for Afghanistan.

The view of Donald trump was to eliminate American forces, and indeed he started so-called peace talks with the Taliban.”

Donald Trump, US President, 2017 to 2021: “There hasn’t been a moment like this: we’ve had very successful negotiations. We think they’ll be successful in the end.”

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “And I think the Trump Administration and those negotiating that deal felt a lot of that same pressure, that they wanted to get a deal before they left office.

The human rights element, which had been so central to U.S. foreign policy, was not important to those in power.”

Donald Trump, US President, 2017 to 2021: “We are not nation building again; we are killing terrorists.

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

Rapid Execution (2021 — )

Joe Biden, US President, 2021: “I made the decision. The buck stops with me.”

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “Biden is interesting because he’s very much shaped by personal experience.”

Joe Biden, US President, 2021: “I carry that burden every day, just as I did when I was vice president. My son was deployed to Iraq for a year.”

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “And the view was that we were not really going to be able to create a democratic republic in a culture, in a society with ancient, tribal and religious differences.”

Joe Biden, US President, 2021: “I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in another country’s civil war.”

Carrie A. Lee, Truman National Security Project: “The Biden Administration was trying to adhere to a deadline that it inherited and that it didn’t want to change.”

Joe Biden, US President, 2021: “The idea that somehow there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens.”

Barbara Perry, Presidential Historian: “I would hope that it would have shaped all four of the presidents the way Vietnam tended to shape presidents. If I look across the four presidencies I would sum it up succinctly by saying it was a success followed by a failure.”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

 

Questions

President, Prime Minister. US Presidents always need congressional approval in military matters. Only the US Congress can make important military decisions. True or false?

Cabinet. According to President George W. Bush, is the US primarily interested in gaining access and control over oil reserves? Is the ulterior motive of the US to secure access to foreign oil?

Vice-President. Did Bush believe that only America was good and the rest of the world was evil?

Secretary of State, Foreign Minister. The presidential historian believed that Bush “overreached”. What did she mean by that?

Press Secretary. Does former president Bush regret invading Iraq and Afghanistan?

Secretary of Defense, Minister of Defense. What were President Barack Obama’s main victory and failure?

Secretary of Treasury, Minister of Finance. Was President Donald Trump an expert on geopolitics, diplomacy, history and warfare?

Attorney General. Trump’s goal was to make Afghanistan a US colony. Is this right or wrong?

Surgeon General. Is President Joe Biden a warmonger? Is he a jingoist?

Secretary of Interior. Have all US military engagements (wars) been victorious? Has the US military always won?
 
 
 
Secretary of Agriculture. My country has been involved with Afghanistan. Is this correct or incorrect? Does your country have trade relations or partnerships with Afghanistan?

Secretary of Commerce. Why did the US “lose” the war in Afghanistan? Why did the Taliban or Afghan insurgents “won”?

Secretary of Transportation. Can you compare the Afghan War with other conflicts in history? Can you make references from history when talking about Afghanistan?

Secretary of Education. What could or should the US, the UK and EU done?

Secretary of Energy. What might happen in the future?

Secretary of Labor. What could or should Afghans and other countries do?