On the Contrary

Word out of the White House is that President Obama rejected the four plans the military were offering for our way forward in Afghanistan.  And we got that on top of the news that the Ambassador to that backward nation, Karl W. Eikenberry, said don’t send more troops basically because the government is dysfunctional (New York Times).  Now Ambassadors could be considered effete Yale or Harvard snobs, but this one was the general in charge in Afghanistan prior to becoming Ambassador.  It might also be said that the four plans were simply four different troop level increases.  That is real change isn’t it?

Maybe President Obama is showing some backbone on this subject.  If the way forward is a commitment of more troops and no light at the end of the tunnel, why do it?  The Republicans, of course, say do whatever your generals want.  Remember President Lincoln and General McClellan?  Had Lincoln listened to that moron, the Civil War would still be going on and we would still have the Union Army in the Virginia peninsula awaiting more troops.  I never can figure out why people think generals have some special way of understanding a situation that should be given more consideration than others.  These guys have careers that are about winning (mission accomplishment).  There is no other strategy.  It is mission accomplishment or retire as a light Colonel.  Cost benefit ratios are for the weak minded.  McChrystal was given a mission and it is not in his DNA to give up on a mission no matter what the cost.  There won’t be any failures in their record.  Are the fighting the Vietnam war again to in their mind right the record (John McCain)?  Do I hear the strains of “Charge of the Light Brigade”?

Here is the real issue that I think our President is wrestling with:  With a government that is corrupt and dysfunctional, and a war that will take at least 10 years or more to even begin to make progress, is this really in our national interest?  Republicans think in simple rather childish ways, so they will attack the President on “not supporting the troops”.  But like Vietnam, we may look back after the death of almost 60,000 and wonder why.  Oh I know, the fate of Pakistan and Al Qaeda will get conflated with the fate of Afghanistan, but remember the domino effect in Vietnam, or the conflation of 9/11 of Iraq.  It is the same hysterical, irrational thinking.

So what President Obama wants to see is a plan that gets us out of there, and what he is getting is more open-ended commitments.  That is the reality of the situation.  If you demand a win and you define winning as a stable democracy, well we are in for a 20-50 year war.  But if reality is allowed to creep in, then our real strategic interests in Afghanistan are minor.  A plan to let Afghanistan continue their civil war, let the chips fall where they may, and just control any incursion of Al Qaeda or any real threats to our national interests, is probably what we should be doing.  I don’t know if the military mind can wrap their mind around that.  It would mean abandoning grand plans for victory and a fifth star.  But a victory at what cost?  Not their problem.

But it is our President’s problem and with the real challenges that face us, the money could so much be better spent returning us to a prosperous nation.  And that’s not the real issue.  Go gaze on the Wall in Washington where almost 60,000, some of them my friends, are listed.  What is left of their lives is some letters engraved into hard cold granite.  And for what?  This is not an argument about winning.  This is an argument about waste, hubris, ego, and understanding real strategic interests.  A never-ending war in Afghanistan is futile and is all about the former and nothing about the later.  President Obama is starting to show a glimmer of political backbone.  We can hope.

For once Chris Mathews actually said something insightful.  After listening to both Democrats and Republicans on what we should do in Afghanistan he said, “Well I guess they have held those opinions for about 40 years.”  In other words nothing new since Vietnam and neither side is being really informed about the nature of Afghanistan.  We think in patterns that repeat.

My favorite was the argument that we need to support the commander on the ground.  The commander on the ground always wants more troops.  Generals want to win.  They didn’t get to be generals by being realistic about possibilities.  They got to be generals because they always had a “can do” attitude.  They can climb any mountain.  The guy who stood around asking, “but should we do it and is it worth the cost” is a retired Lt. Col.   John McCain has said we need to get on with giving General McChrystal want he wants.  But this is from the guy who thinks we could have won in Vietnam.  He still doesn’t get what that war was about and will fight it over and over again in present day wars.

I guess what is most frightening to me is to listen to the debate that is full of trite phrases:  “Americans will not abandon Afghans; we will not abandon the fight against Al Qaeda (they are turning the front on Al Qaeda into Afghanistan); we just need to protect the people.  Sadly what we are seeing is that our political leaders are one, not very bright, and two, have no clue about the realities of Afghanistan or its real strategic importance.  General Jones has estimated that there are about 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan.  Now I see why we need 40,000 more troops:  That would be 400 Americans for every Al Qaeda operative.  And we still don’t have Bin Laden.

The real war there is with the Taliban.  The Taliban are not Al Qaeda, one being a international group of terrorists without a country that wants to destroy us and the other being an indigenous Afghan movement, albeit a distasteful one, that just wants us out of their country.  Do we really want to be in a civil war?  The reality was best described by Rory Stewart (Bill Moyers Journal):

“…..but if you’re an Afghan villager, you sit in your village, maybe in Southern Afghanistan, and one day the Taliban turn up. And you probably don’t like them very much, because they’re young, fanatical men, banging on about religion. But you might give them a cup of tea, they go away. Next day, maybe some Canadian soldiers turn up. Maybe they search your house. That makes you a little bit uncomfortable, but you give them a cup of tea, they go away. The next day, the Afghan police turn up. They may not be wearing uniforms, they’re waving guns around, they may be rude to your daughter. You give them a cup of tea, they go away. Basically, you want these people, by and large, to go away. Most Afghan villagers are finding themselves trapped in a very, very unpleasant battle between forces that they barely understand.”

So the debate that Washington is having is in general nonsensical.  What are our real strategic interests in Afghanistan?  What threat does it pose and how can we control it with a failing government and corrupt police force?  What can we really accomplish with a broken budget and waning public support?  My answer is not much unless we are willing to be there for 50 years and are you willing to send your child?  Looking at the recent death of eight American soldiers whose outpost was almost overrun by the Taliban, one has to wonder what the hell we are doing there.  This sounds so much like Vietnam it is ridiculous.  The Taliban occupy the neighboring towns and villages and to root them out we destroy the buildings and alienate the people.  This is just going swimmingly isn’t it?

Did it ever occur to anyone that the Taliban’s worst enemy is the Taliban?  These guys are great fighters but when they gain control of the country, they couldn’t do any better than the corrupt government that was in power that they displaced and they alienated most of the population.  If the Taliban wins, it is because the Afghans didn’t fight them and quite frankly, it is their war.  So let them have them and see how long they last.  We can always control the Al Qaeda problem as we did before and think about this:  If we are successful here Al-Qaeda will just move from Pakistan to say Somalia.  During this debate try to keep this in mind:  The Taliban are not Al Qaeda just like the Sunnis were not Al Qaeda.  Meanwhile the debate in Washington goes on as a rerun of Vietnam and the Iraq debates with no connection with the reality of Afghanistan.

This weekend’s round of Sunday talk shows was like a never ending recycling of the same old issues.  There is the health care muddle, the Afghanistan debate, the Iran nuclear program, cap and trade being watered down, and least I forget, Glenn Beck getting the key to some city in Washington that I never want to go to.  Banking reform is going nowhere with all the usual suspects.

On the President’s rethinking the Afghanistan war and a troop increase, there was Senator Kyle for Arizona saying what hawkish Republicans have been saying since time began.  We leave and the enemy will see this as a great weakness and they would fill the vacuum.  It will be our downfall.  It must really be comforting to have such a simple world view of every conflict where wagging our…..well you get the point.  What I find simply fascinating is there is no consideration of the cultural or historical record of this country or trying to understand this conflict in terms of what can really be accomplished with more blood and money.

On “60 Minutes”, there was a nice piece about General McChrystal and how dedicated he was to changing the way the war was fought.  He definitely is an admirable man, but that doesn’t make his approach any more appealing.  He is a fine general but this war is not about fighting, it is about minds and we still think like Western white men instead of Afghans (Note: after working on many projects in Afghanistan, Afghans are the people, Afghani is the currency).

I am sure his approach is the only way forward for “winning” the war, if we had 20 years and unlimited funds.  Or would that be 50 years?  Remember we have been there eight and things have gone from bad to worse. The real issue is can we afford it and is it really that high on our national priorities?  If we spent that money here at home making us a stronger economy, would that greatly increase the security of the average American?  I think it is time to quit being terrified of Al-Qaeda.  If the Afghans won’t fight the Taliban, let them live under them for a while and see how they like it.  Maybe it is a problem they have to work out for themselves.

Then there was the arrest of Roman Polanski in Switzerland for having sex with a minor fourteen years ago.  Note that the child, now an adult, wants the charges dropped, but since Polanski was convicted before he ran, apparently California authorities just can’t let it go.  Why do I say that?  This is a horrible crime.  Maybe, but California is broke.  They have a population in prison that is breaking the bank, and they release roughly 120,000 inmates a year.  Many of these are truly dangerous sex offenders that we now no longer have the resources to track and monitor.  So we spend our precious dollars to see that the letter of the law is followed, while we drain the resources from those who could prevent truly heinous crimes.  Sooner or later we need people in government who can prioritize societies needs, not pursue some personal quest at the expense of everyone else’s safety.

The level of stupidity and inaction is reaching intolerable levels, while those in Washington continue to have debates about issues that most of us moved beyond years ago.  Of course banks and Wall Street need to be regulated and the tougher, the better.  If it is too tough, adjust it later.  The evidence for global warming is not just abundant, it is accelerating at an exponential rate (the evidence and the global warming), and yet Washington does nothing except wrangle about protecting vested interests as though disaster is not on the horizon.  Our addiction to oil is being facilitated by low gas prices and yet we know the other shoe is going to drop.  If you don’t buy the global warming thing (you are moron), then look at the transfer of our wealth to the Middle East.  The answer is clean, green energy both for our addiction and for our economy, and yet we do nothing.  Then there is health care.  Oh why bother.  The answer is obvious.

What we seem to be really good at today is denial.  We now have a whole party whose total platform is a denial that that platform has bankrupted us.  If we have health care today that we think is fine, there is no pressure for change because we can’t seem to grasp that health care costs are out of control and today’s satisfaction is tomorrow’s sticker price shock.  Wall Street seems to be coming back so why fix anything?  I don’t see no stinking global warming, and cap and trade will hurt some of my biggest contributors.  Did it ever occur to anyone that we have become a country that can’t?

A real analysis of Afghanistan is that it is a civil war.  The players are Afghans who want to move forward, and the Taliban who want to move backward, with pot stirring by Al Qaeda.  I want you to think hard here.  Vietnam was the same problem with those who wanted a free Vietnam (mostly different warlords who had control of different areas), and those who saw Ho Chi Minh as the national leader, with the Viet Cong stirring the pot.  And of course, they didn’t like us very much.  But here is the part I want you to focus on:  We had 500,000 troops in the country to pacify the country and we failed.  Ask yourself how could 500,000 Americans and the whole South Vietnam military  not defeat the North Vietnamese?  Hint:  The answer is not in military strategy.

It is that we poorly understood the real motivations of the culture and we tried to superimpose our ideas about their future on them.  I could go into some deep analysis of different cultures and their xenophobia, but think instead about trying to tell your teenager how to live his/her life.  Your advice is good and wise, and yet they totally reject it.  They reject it because it is their life and they have to find their own way.  It is critical to their own identity of who they are.  Do you see the analogy here?  We are making the same mistake in Afghanistan that we made in Vietnam.  Its their destiny and as much as we think we know the right path for them, they are going to have to work it out for themselves, as painful as that may be.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Just a few more troops and we will pacify the countryside and then democracy will flourish.  We just need the right leader and things would be different.  These are the rationalizations of the Vietnam war and we are seeing it all over again. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal warned in a confidential assessment that he needed additional troops by next year or the conflict “will likely result in failure.”  I wonder if it occurred to him that even with more troops it will likely result in failure also?

General McChrystal, or those who support this war in the military, leaked this report because they didn’t like the fact that President Obama may actually be asking the right questions.  He has said that he will not commit more troops unless he thought we really had a plan that would work.  Apparently they haven’t convinced him yet.  What I see is a repeat of the military thinking that failed us so disastrously in Vietnam.  These guys are good Americans and they want to solve a problem.  But they have a one-dimensional view of the problem.  The only light at the end of tunnel is one that is held by Afghans, not Americans.

So what is the way forward?  Are Pakistan and Afghanistan intimately linked?  If Afghanistan becomes a Taliban stronghold will it be the home of terrorism?  Is it that simple?  I don’t think so.  We have an arrogance that makes us think we can control another country’s destiny.  We actually think we know what is best for them and we can control it.  Should I remind you again of the teenager analogy?  The last time we went down this road it cost 58,000 lives and now we recognize that there was no national strategic interest there.  We are only at 4000 and counting now.  Will it take another 54,000 before we get the message?  I hope not.

Sometimes I watch the news and then I just have to turn it off.  I walk outside and into a world far removed from Washington, partisan politics, and strife in general.  I live on about 22 acres in the Sierra Nevada forest, three of which has been cleared and I have planted grapes.  The view from my patio is spectacular as I sit on the top of a hill and overlook most of the valley.  It is deadly quiet up here so you can, in fact, hear yourself think.  And that is my saving grace.  I like to think it gives me perspective on much of the political dialogue taking place.  Instead of getting caught up in it, I can remove myself from it and really think about it.  It is funny, but when you are removed from the constant bickering and strife, things can become fairly simple and clear.

So without any further long-winded pontification on my brilliance, here are what I think are no-duh revelations about current events:

• The Gates affair is much a do about nothing except that people do and say stupid things sometimes when we let our emotions get the best of us.  I am sure the officer involved probably wishes that he could have defused the situation better and I am sure the Professor wishes he wouldn’t have over reacted to the situation.  But we are colored by our backgrounds and we are human and sometimes we don’t do the smart thing.  I bet the President wishes he hadn’t characterize a situation he knew little about.  But he is human too and his own experiences colored his view.  Maybe we can all learn something here instead of trying to turn this into some major racial incident.  Maybe we all just need to take a breath.

• We are going nowhere with health care.  The Senate is full of old, fat, white men who simply are out of touch.  The health care issue is relatively simple, unlike what you hear from these dinosaurs.  The present system is unsustainable and for profit medicine has no workable model in the world.  The profit motive is simply unsuited for providing medical care.  Insurance companies make money by not providing care.  It is as simple as that.  They do it by denying claims or enrolling only healthy people.   See Paul Krugman’s blog for a more in depth analysis.  The only thing that is going to work is a single payer system that WE ALL PAY FOR and endowing that system with the incentives to minimize costs, not pile them on with fee for procedures plans.   And yes there will be rationing.  You can’t have everything and I hate to break to you, but it already exists.  But the reality is that they will pass something token and the truth of the above analysis will finally dawn on the rest of you when the system finally collapses.

• In Afghanistan, we have good intentions, but it is time for the Muslim world to save themselves.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are helping many people, especially women from being victim to 5th century thought.  But the investment necessary to really make a difference would be better spent on our own disasters at home.  Bringing a tribal society into the 20th century is a noble undertaking, but so is providing health care for all our citizens.  My own view is that the Muslim religion and its adherents, except for a very few, live in a world that demeans women and is designed to maintain the status quo of male superiority.  Yeah, Yeah, I know.  You can find verses in the Koran that show women to be equal.  The Koran is much like the Bible in that you can pretty much find whatever you need to justify anything.  The reality is that until they modernize themselves and fight their own battles, we are tilting at windmills.  Governments run by the Taliban have repeatedly failed and are extremely unpopular.  If they harbor Al Qaeda we can do what we did before and set free a few cruise missiles.  Fly away little missiles, fly away.  It is time to take care of our own problems.

• Sadly the economy is not getting better because we have not done anything about the structural problems that are the root of our problem.  Surges in the market are simply a reflection of people wanting to get back to business as usual.  But what was driving our economy before was bundling and selling debt.  Much of that debt is still out there and you have to keep asking yourself, what are we going to bundle and sell to the rest of the world now?  Until that question is answered and we start down that road, what will happen is that the incentives that led to the greed and excessive profit taking are still in place and we will simply repeat our blunders, only bigger.  The issue in this country is unemployment and when we figure how to gainfully employ our nation, all the rest will fall into place.  Green energy anybody?

• Sarah Palin and other like-minded Republicans are intellectually bereft.   Even if you hate “govment”, you have to ask yourself when they babble their fear the government, market place will solve all pabulum, okay, but what is your plan and how will that help?  Even on health care, the Republicans have presented no alternative plan on an obviously failed system and on the economy, they have offered to do nothing as the way forward.  Many Republicans view the Bush Administration as an aberration from Republican governance.  It was anything but.  I look on the Republicans much like I do the Taliban.  Put them back in power and that will be their final undoing.

• Finally compromise among the Democrats on a way forward may be worse than doing nothing.  If by compromise, and I hold as evidence the economic stimulus plan, they mean producing a plan that is so watered down as to be ineffective, they are putting the nails in their own coffin.  It would seem that they have no confidence in their progressive agenda and are doing everything to thwart it.

Okay I will now turn the TV back on and wonder why they can’t see these obvious truths.  I think I am destined to take these ‘truths’ to my grave.

I think it is time for a reality check.  In America we only seem to remember the last problem as long as it personally affects us and then it is forgotten to come back and bite us another day.  Take ex-Vice President Cheney.  Here is the guy who had the memos and intelligence to prove WMD and an Al-Qaeda connection in Iraq and now we are listening to him on the efficacy of torture?  Oh well what can I say?  More importantly have we missed the lessons of our latest problems as things seem to be abating and we have changed nothing,  Here are some things that I think are patently obvious or as one of my math professors used to say, glaringly obvious to the casual observer, but totally being ignored by the mainstream, media or otherwise:
•    Economy – On Tuesday there was an article in the New York Times that the economy might be getting better (Markets Rise on Consumer Optimism).  Simon Johnson in his Baseline Scenario blog noted that “…among the people I talk with on Capitol Hill, there is a very real sense that business is returning to usual; certainly, the lobbyists are out in force, they want what they always want, and it’s hard to see many of them as seriously weakened.”  If this is correct then nothing has really changed and we still have a fundamentally flawed market and banking system.  But I don’t think they have it right.  I think the worst is yet to come.  Those on Wall Street are all patting themselves on the back because the banks haven’t failed, but the U.S. is up to its eyeballs in debt bailing them out and they have not been restructured.  They are still too big to fail which is how we got here in the first place.  Almost every state is facing cutbacks and layoffs.  More and more mortgages are defaulting as people lose their jobs.  I think what we have is that the middle class and working people are continuing to suffer and that suffering is getting worse, while the investment class has been saved from feeling the effects by the bailouts.  As more states tighten their belts and more people get laid off, there is going to be anger like we haven’t seen in a long, long time.  There is a real disconnection between working men and women and our upper classes.  We have corrected nothing and restoring the status quo is a recipe for disaster.
•    Iraq – The reality here is that it is going to get bloody and there is nothing we can or should do.  The “Awakening” is over and the results for the Sunnis were not what was hoped for.  Now we will see a great deal of violence as each party jostles for position in the coming power grab.  This is inevitable and the Iraqis will have to sort this out among themselves if they are ever going to stand on their own two feet.  Delaying our withdrawal will simply delay the inevitable and get us caught up in the middle of their local power politics.  Al-Qaeda will be a minor player and should be of little concern as Iraqis dual for power and control, use Al-Qaeda if it suits their means, and then abandon them when they secure power.
•    Afghanistan – The reality here is this will also get a lot bloodier.  As we step up our efforts to eradicate drugs and empower a very corrupt government, we are going to be in the middle of tribal warfare.  I have mixed emotions here as I see that if we are willing to fight the hard fight, the fight that should have been fought seven years ago (thank you Dick and George), it is going to be another 10-15 years before Afghanistan is stable.  I really wonder if it is worth it.  I guess I would have to say no since if I don’t want to sacrifice my own son for this endeavor, then I cannot justify sacrificing anyone else’s.
•    Health Care – This one is a no-brainer.  Without a single payer, government option, nothing is going to get accomplished.  I have written at length about the business model of health care insurers and nothing is going to fundamentally change that until you take profit out of health insurance (See Health Care Wars and Scare Tactics and Reinventing the Wheel – Universal Health Care).  We need a pared down Medicare plan for everyone as a choice with the ability to add additional services and benefits by piggybacking private insurance.  That really is their only role and the only place where profit makes sense in health care.
•    Energy – I don’t think we are getting anywhere fast on a real energy policy that will change our country in a fundamental way.  As soon as gas prices dropped, our eye was off the ball and the forces of the status quo swiftly reasserted them selves in our choices.  But the reality here is that this is the lull in the storm, but in the meantime we are losing precious time.  The cap and trade bill to reduce our dependence on polluting fuel sources is being watered down by special interests invested in the status quo.  If you are not even going to make a dent, why bother.
•    Infrastructure – On the infrastructure side, there may still be hope if I am right about the economy.  If I am, and the economy will stagnate further and a massive infusion of money this time actually focused on rebuilding our infrastructure is our only hope.  It provides good jobs in the short term, and is a long-term investment in a viable economy in the future.  I am not the only one who sees this no brainer.  See Bob Herbert’s column in the New York Times on Tuesday (Our Crumbling Foundation).

I don’t know about the rest of you, but it seems like we are being lulled asleep again and we are failing to make the big changes that are necessary to really change our direction.  I almost feel like we have lost our momentum for change and the Republicans will be allowed to obstruct any real progress as we lose our sense of urgency.  I hope I am wrong.

This Sunday with the visit of Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, and Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, to the White House, it was predictable that they would appear on Meet the Press.   What was also predictable with these two leaders is that we are in a world of hurt.  First and foremost these two guys are ultimate politicians and that is exactly what a nation does not need when it is facing critical choices.  As in our own country the choices are big and scary.  If you are trying to stay in power by mollifying the greatest number of your constitutes, the choices you make are going to be less than the change needed.  When facing real crisis, leadership needs to be bold and these guys are quietly treading water in a flood of trouble.  Take the Swat valley compromise that has totally collapsed as the reality of the Taliban rule is finally dawning on the Pakistanis.  But considering that this hoped for peaceful compromise threw the rights of the Swat valley occupants at the mercy of the Taliban, we can see how desperate and morally bankrupt the Pakistani leadership is.   In Afghanistan, President Karzai cannot seem to admit any error in his leadership while the real problem is government incompetence and corruption leading to a Taliban resurrection.  We are in deep doo-doo.

George Stephanolopous on ABC’s This Week was interviewing John McCain and once again I thank my lucky stars he is not the president.  John faults Obama with not coming out with a full plan to close Guantanamo before announcing the closure.  With thoughts like these we would have had nothing happen under a McCain Presidency.  Had President Obama laid out the reality of closing Guantanamo (charging those that can be charged, releasing the rest, and some in the U.S.) it would have been too big a pill for most Americans to swallow.  Set a date, work out the details through comprise and debate.  McCain pointed out that 10% of releasees have returned to the battlefield, but George, as usual, failed to challenge this number and have McCain name names.  The reality is one or two have.  Considering the recidivism of our own prisons, either way this is a great number.

John still thinks the Republican Party is a big tent organization that can attract new members if it just hews to its basic principles.  John still cannot face that his basic principles are exactly what are being rejected by most Americans as they see their country in disarray.  The round table discussion was sad, because these are all journalists of yesterday.  There was not one iota of an original thought, except maybe from Robert Reich when he question how our economy was going to recover since we can’t go back to wild lending.  They couldn’t stop interrupting each other as they pressed old solutions to old problems or in the case of George Will, trying to make some non sequitur conservative point.   Please, I am begging you.  Find some young blood that sees the world as it is, not as it was.

Fox News Sunday had Newt Gingrich on and his ability to dissemble always amazes me.  What he cleverly does is lay out a premise (all detainees at Guantanamo are criminal terrorists) and then lays out a solution that is imminently rational if you buy the premise.  The premise however is fatally flawed.  He wants to investigate Clinton lawyers and was shocked, shocked, shocked that attorneys that had represented terrorists (his pejorative term) in private firms were asked to work in the government under Obama.  Gee, I guess Newt will decide for us which people are entitled to due process and anyone who does not agree with him is unpatriotic and should be barred from government service.  There were so many over simplifications and outright misrepresentation of events in this interview that went unchallenged that it is hard to call this a real interview.  Enough of Newt Gingrich.  Anybody who thinks he brings anything new to the table does not understand a political egomaniac.

On CNN’s GPS (Fareed Zacharia) the Dali Lama was interviewed, but I got nothing earth shaking other than soon people will figure out that violence is not the way.  Well we humans have been around for about 40,000 years now and maybe it will just be a little longer.  Probably more revealing was the debate between an American, a Pakistani, and an Indian which allowed you to start to understand the complex web of distrust between India and Pakistan that paralyzes action on both their parts to solve the Taliban problem.  They are continually posturing themselves for the best position when America does withdraw and they see every move as how to gain an advantage over one another instead of mutually supporting each others stability as the best way for peace.  Maybe the Dali Lama was right.

The  final interview was on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer with Darth Vader.  But i will write a whole blog about that one because it was just too rich.  Another Sunday I should have spent wine tasting.  Oh well. 

President Obama promised to be out of Iraq in 16 months and he said we probably need to shift our emphasis to Afghanistan.  In the interim he is listening to the generals and today redirected about 12,000 troops headed for Iraq to Afghanistan.  On the question of Iraq, Tom Ricks, author of The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, wrote in Sunday’s Washington Post that his view is that the war isn’t anywhere near over, the civil war is still waiting to happen, and we will probably need to stay there another six or seven years.  “The war in Iraq isn’t over. The main events may not even have happened yet.”  It was an honest assessment without the political baggage. Washington Post

In Afghanistan, recent studies have found the government totally corrupt, nation building failed, the violence rising, with some Afghans saying the Russians were better occupiers than we were, some, like women’s groups begging us to stay, and others wishing we would just go away.  Needless to say that the rising Taliban influence deep in the heart of Kabul accentuates the need for more troops to quell the situation.  Many have wondered if Afghanistan will be President Obama’s Viet Nam and are we setting ourselves up to be bogged down their for many years to come?

So we have two very different countries and one has to ask not only what we should do, but what can we afford to do.  I am somewhat concerned if President Obama is listening too much to the generals.  They are good Americans, but sometimes the short term situation becomes their focus over the long term outcome.  So that raises the obvious question, just what is possible in those two countries and are those outcomes worth spending the small national treasury we have left.

My starting point for evaluating what should be done is some sage advise given by Edwin O. Reischauer, I think in his book, Beyond Vietnam: The United States and Asia, which I was reading on a flight to Thailand and the Vietnam War.  His advice on foreign wars is to never get involved in a country’s internal affairs/wars and help them militarily unless they could win the war without us.  I think this applies today.  In Iraq who are we fighting?  Mostly Iraqis.  So if the government can’t stand on its own, why not?  Is the civil war inevitable and if so what are we doing there?  Many analysts actually think that the real threat is Iran and once we are out of the area, the thorn in all Muslim’s sides just might be removed.  So exactly what are we doing in Iraq?  I think that the answer here is set the date certain and 16 months seems reasonable and then they are on their own.  If in that time they cannot internally generate enough common ground to prevent a war, so be it.  We can’t go on being their policeman forever and they have to shoulder their own destiny.  If it gets messy we will work with the region to resolve it.

We have been in Afghanistan for almost eight years.  Before us, with much larger forces were the Russians.  So what are we thinking?  Do we think a basically tribal society is going to ever come together as a unified nation?  Again we are fighting the Taliban, who by definition are Afghans.  Why, if the Taliban is so bad, can’t the Afghans build a force sufficient to provide their own security?  What the hell has gone on for the last eight years?  Well there are complex answers to all these questions, but as in the Iraqi case, sooner or later, it is their destiny to work out.  The critical question for President Obama is how much longer do we want to prop up a failed government before we force the Afghans, like the Iraqis, to sort out their own problems.  My guess would be two years at the most.  But for now I don’t see any plan except to commit more troops, but what is the end game?  In my mind the term from economics keeps popping up — moral hazard.  In both Iraq and Afghanistan, if they think we are going to save them, they will leave the heavy lifting to us.

It is time to quit kicking the can down the road on these two failed beachheads of democracy.  We have invested much time, effort, cash, and blood, and we have nothing to show for it.  Give each an endpoint, provide them with as much support and help as possible, but when it’s over, its over.  We have other priorities.  Its radical, its tough, and we have never tried it except in Viet Nam and it took time, but is working.  Maybe it is about time we do the same in the Middle East.  Otherwise we are going to be there forever.

Every now and then it pays us great dividends to stop, think, and evaluate and examine some of our preconceived ideas.  As I am totally absorbed by the economic crisis, on this Monday morning in our rush to fix the problem, maybe it is time to slow down and think, not just about the economy, but some of our other assumptions especially with the upcoming debate.  So here goes:

• The conventional wisdom is we need to act fast to save our economy.  My simple mind understands the economic rescue plan as an attempt by the Fed to buy up bad credit instruments to restore liquidity and capital for borrowing so necessary to the function of our economy.  But the first thing that crosses my mind is that this Republican Administration that touts small government, low regulation government is expanding government and its supreme control over the economy in ways that tower over anything we have ever known.  From an administration that rails at the mention of a government controlled medical system we get a government controlled economy.  Second thought is will it work?  Why should we be bailing out these businesses if the $700b could be used to simulate the economy in other ways?  Exactly who controls this money and what assets will secure these outlays?  Who are the winners and losers in this thing and what is the impact on our ability to rebuild our infrastructure and make investments in alternate energy that are also critical to our financial survival?  If our economy impacts the world economy, why aren’t they offering to help in the bailout as we have helped them in the past?  The people who are structuring this plan are the ones that presided over this debacle, so why are we giving them the benefit of the doubt?  I think it is time for some calm debate about what our choices are instead of being rushed into a 3 page plan for $700b hatched in a backroom and rushed to Congress for a rubber stamp.
• The conventional wisdom is that the surge has worked in Iraq and this works in the favor of John McCain.  This claim and belief is based upon the fact that the violence has been reduced during the surge, ergo, the surge is working.  But this ignores the fact that the policy of paying Sunnis (the Awakening) came into play and full fruition about this time and that as the surge started the segregation of the population into sectarian groups was just completing.  There are an estimated four million displaced Iraqis, half of which left the country and the other half in sectarian enclaves to protect themselves.  So we put more cops on the beat and street thugism is down, but are we not still sitting on a seething caldron of unresolved hate?  Add to that as the Shiites take control of the country, they are not incorporating the Sunnis into the military or police in any meaningful way.  Meanwhile the Kurds are solidifying their control of oil rich areas.   I think we are sitting on a ticking time bomb which has little to do with al-Qaeda.  One might ask John McCain what his definition of winning is and just how much longer can we be responsible for holding the lid on this thing.
• The conventional wisdom in Afghanistan is that this is where the real war is, we had almost won it, and now we need to recommit to it with more troops and strong investment in the soft forms of power (read economy and nation building).  In a highly informative and basically non-partisan discussion, five previous Secretaries of State on CNN’s “The Next President: A World of Challenges” reflected this view.  But in an equally informative interview on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS, the 85 year-old wise ex-Prime Minister of Singapore gave this advice on Afghanistan:

“You’re going to bring democracy to Afghanistan? They have been warring with each other for hundreds of years. They enjoy warring with each other. Thirty-plus years ago they killed a king who was nominally holding the country together, and it’s been shattered ever since.

How do you restore the writ of Kabul? By some 30,000 NATO troops, ISAF, and a few more brigades of Marines or special forces?

The Russians had 140,000 boots on the ground with tanks, helicopters and the lot. And they left.

I think nation-building is not doable. I mean, are you going to do nation-building in Pakistan? If you can’t get Pakistan right, you will never get Afghanistan right.

That Durand Line was arbitrarily drawn by the British between the Northwest Frontier Provinces and Afghanistan. They are the same tribes, brothers, cousins — porous borders. They’re in and out.

Now you’ve not only got Talibans, you’ve got Pakistanis joining the Talibans — or that’s the latest intelligence that I’ve been reading.

It can go on for decades. Do we want to be in Afghanistan for decades?”

So the bottom line here is we are starting down the same road we went down in Iraq.  I think we ought to have a real debate on what is doable and what we can afford.  We may have to weigh whether improving our security through improving our economic strength and position in the world is a better investment that occupying countries in the 7th century who are still engaged in tribal warfare.

Just some idle thoughts of a Contrarian as we move toward the debates and understand that every question asked comes with hidden assumptions that may not stand up to the test of reality.  Thus the answer may be the answer to the wrong question.

I once heard a Republican in the Bush Administration say Republicans will define reality.  They may be right.  I found a web page by a Republican, Dick Bush, who said, “We Republicans need to remember our morals make us right.”   Apparently they really believe it because the Republican Convention was about an America that doesn’t exist and facts that weren’t facts.  It would appear that the truth doesn’t make any difference anymore*.  Just get your story out there, the 24/7 press will repeat it over and over, and by the time the truth is known, nobody cares anymore.  You have convinced whom you need to convince.  That was the Republican approach at their convention with most of speeches full of outright misrepresentations to lies.  They invented the liberal eastern establishment that has caused all of our problems even though they have been ruling the roost for 12 years.  The K Street project, a scheme by Republicans to force all lobbyists to be Republican, wasn’t a Democratic scheme.  Then they brought out Sarah Palin with a whole biography that is not holding up to examination.  But my point is it may not matter.  They made their point, although a fabrication, the mainstream press gave it a full airing without vetting, and now it is going to stick even when reality testing shows it doesn’t pass the test.  This is how they won the last two elections and it just may work again. Why do you think she won’t face the press?  The downside is what they propose for our future has not worked in the past.

I don’t think there is any point in going over Sarah Palin’s resumé, the touted one or the real one.  It will come out in the next several weeks from the librarian she tried to fired for not being compliant enough in banning books, to her lack of credentials as a fiscal conservative and how she has lied about her accomplishments (the plane did not sell on ebay and it was at a loss, etc., but it sounded good).  The corrections will probably not matter with a public that only listens to what they want to hear.  What is really important is the politics she could potentially bring to the White House and how John McCain has compromised all of the beliefs we use to admire him for in standing up to the Republican Party in an attempt to win the White House.  The Republican’s strategy will be that with the pick of Sarah Palin, she is real change.  Well here is what we do know about her and her politics so far and I am not sure it is a change we can survive:

• We know she tried to have a librarian fired and that she had approached the woman about the potential for banning some books in the library.  Are they related?  You be the judge.  I would just tell you that anyone who thinks that they can judge what the rest of us can read is not a democrat (small “d”).  Note she also fired the police chief for purportedly not supporting her re-election.  First thing you have to think about is how many librarians do you ever see fired and second, can she work in a government that doesn’t agree with her on every issue?
• We know that she thinks creationism should be taught in the schools albeit along side evolution.  What this tells me is that she does not understand the appropriate separation of church and state, nor does she understand the difference between science and religion.  This mixing of religion and science simply dumbs us down and brings faith and dissention back into the classroom.  By the way, if we should teach creationism, what other religious beliefs about the origin ought to be given equal time?  From her view there is only one true view and that should worry you shouldn’t it?
• We know that she is being investigated for firing the Alaskan public safety commissioner as an abuse of power.  We don’t know if it is true or not but it does smack of good old boy politics which is what Alaska is all about.  So at the lowest level, this raises the specter of same old politics in Washington.  K Street project come to mind?
• She believes that life should be defined as beginning at conception and as a result of this believes all abortions should be banned period.  Joe Bidden also believes this but he understands that this belief is based upon his faith and he cannot and should not legislate his faith on others.  What does Sarah think?  We won’t know until she finally faces the press, which may never happen if they can’t rehearse her enough.  Does this make you nervous?
• She has said she supports a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage.  The California Supreme court overturned the ban on gay marriage in California as being inherently unequal.  You have to wonder who would modify our Constitution to enforce inequality on some of our citizens because of their religion.  Certainly that wouldn’t be the Party of Lincoln would it?

More will come out about her claimed fiscal conservative approach in Alaska and the reality that Alaska is an oil welfare state that has received more federal aid than their population will justify ($4000/citizen in earmarks in her little town).  But one has to wonder why John McCain, the supposed maverick, would pick such a person who is so opposite to his original views on these issues and would bring the religious right back into government.  There are two highly probable answers here that should give you pause.  The first one is that it was not his choice.  And from that conclusion you should realize that he does not have the free reign to implement change and reach across the aisle as he claims and someone else may be pulling the strings.  The second answer is that it distracts the voters from the real issues and we are going to waste our time on all of the above identified cultural wars we thought we had put behind us.

And where are John McCain and Sarah Palin campaigning?  In the hinterlands in Middle America where people really do cling to their religion and guns.  Yes I know it was Barack’s impolitic remark, but that doesn’t make it not true.  These are the voters responsible for our last eight years of misery with their “small town values.”  It is easy to distract these voters with these cultural wars where the real issues of our economy, the mortgage crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, our energy crisis, the climate crisis, Russia’s new found thugism, are all ignored or addressed with sound bites to dismiss them because all these crises happened under the Republican’s watch as part and parcel of Republican policies.  It’s smart politics, but it may be disastrous for our country.  It may even win an election, but will not move the nation in the direction we need to go.   I think on the issues, the real issues, the Republicans lose, but it remains to be seen if we will ever get to discuss them.

* There may be another reason that facts don’t inform reality for conservatives:  If you followed my blog, How Conservatives Think, then you will understand that they view the nation state and authority through the strict father family model.  Work hard, be obedient to the strict father (Authority), you will develop discipline, be successful, and most importantly moral.  Conservatives cannot believe that their philosophy (the rules) could be a problem which is why they truly believe that there is a liberal eastern establishment the wrecked their time in power and is painting a false picture of them.  If you just have discipline, be obedient to authority, and follow the conservative rules, success and morality are guaranteed.  In conservative’s eyes this is what Sarah Palin represents.  She is a conservative Republican therefore by definition she is moral, she is disciplined, followed the rules (in this case the religious right’s rules), and is proof their morality gets rewarded (her success and meteoric rise in politics), therefore she is the incarnate and embodiment of what they believe about truth and justice in the world.  In other words they are emotionally invested in her story and her success.  Facts that discredit that perception of her must be disregarded as untrue or in their mind are untrue.  Like I said it is very similar to religion where when reality denies their faith, it has no impact on their belief.

One note:  On the issues and one we all care about, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Fareed Zakaria had an interview with Rory Stewart, a Farsi-speaking British diplomat on his show Sunday (CNN GPS) who was appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq; who spent the next eleven months negotiating hostage releases, holding elections, and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure for a population of millions teetering on the brink of civil war.  Here is a man who knows the reality of that part of the world and his discussion was about what is possible over there.  Our political discussion has been about whether the surge worked, who said we should put more troops into Afghanistan first, but not about a realistic endgame.  Whether the surge worked or not, and whether things in Afghanistan are deteriorating, the real issue is what is possible and what should we do.  Neither candidate has addressed our end game strategy and what we can afford or realistically accomplish.  This interview sheds a great deal of light on this subject and oh how I wish the candidates were discussing it.