On the Contrary

The news this week has provided ample ammunition for some pondering and edification.  To wit:

• The Senate defeated the bill to allow bankruptcy judges to adjust mortgage rates (USA Today).   All the Republicans voted against it along with 12 Democrats.  President Obama did not fight for it.  Apparently Banks rule in Washington.  I wonder when the interest of the general public will finally overcome the interest of the rich?  Makes you wonder if we will be able to do the right thing in identifying and taking over banks in the Bank Recapitalization Plan.
• Arlen Specter has changed sides and everyone thinks that is just peachy.  I don’t.  He would have lost to Attila the Hun in the Pennsylvania primary and then we would have probably gotten a real progressive in the general election.  As of now we are saddled with Senator Arlen, “big ego” Specter who is just too big to fail.
• The Republicans are heading out on a road trip to reinvigorate their party’s ideas and looking for “outside” Washington thinking (Fox News).   Let’s see, that would be John McCain, Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Haley Barbour, and they are thinking about asking Sarah Palin.  So we are looking for new thinking with the kings of conventional Republican wisdom and our first stop is Arlington Virginia?   The George Washington bridge is a mighty thing to conquer when you are on a quest not to learn anything new, but to reinforce old thinking.
• In California and Oregon, the Federal government released $53 million to help the salmon industry that has been hurt by the collapse of the salmon population.  Now I happen to think this is a good idea because these are hard working Americans, and through very little fault of their own, lost an important industry that just might come back.  But if I had my conservative, banker glasses on, I might see this as a government handout to an industry that we ought to let die.  I guess it all depends on your perspective about who should get corporate welfare.
• The media is making a big deal about Joe Biden’s gaff when he honestly told us that he had advised his own family members to restrict their travel in confined spaces while the flu bug is out and about.  Now I understand that a public official is suppose to also support the economy and keep dollars flowing, but I cannot help thinking about the mayor in the movie Jaws who kept telling everyone that it was safe to go back in the water.  I actually found Joe’s honesty refreshing and it is the same advice I would give my loved ones until we understand the true nature of this bug.  Sadly he is one of the few politicians who some people think is a loose cannon because he actually tells us what he thinks and believes.  Thank you for being you Joe.
• There is a rise in the violence in Iraq and some are wondering if we need to rethink our withdrawal plan.  Talk about ultimate denial.  Iraq is going to become a very violent place, but the violence is going to be a civil war that has always been festering and it is not our job to police the world.  Iraqis have to solve their own problems and not with our blood.
• It is interesting to watch the torture debate.  Many, myself included, are calling for a full investigation including whether it worked.  President Obama has avoided this like a plague and the media interpretation is that he wants to look forward (he has said that himself) and avoid a political food fight that might endanger his agenda.  I thought this meant he did not understand that we could not heal and reconnect with our basic values without a full airing of the facts and was taking the easy route out.  I may be wrong.  He may understand that a partisan food fight would be bad, but if he just stays back and continues to let the facts dribble out, the swell of public opinion might force the issue and he could stay out of the partisan rancor.  I wonder if he is really that smart and calculating?
• “A North Carolina congresswoman said Thursday she chose her words poorly when she called claims that a Wyoming college student was murdered because he was gay a “hoax.” Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx said during debate in the House that Matthew Shepard’s 1998 death wasn’t a hate crime and shouldn’t be invoked by supporters of a bill to expand the definition of such crimes to include violence motivated by sexual orientation.” (Associated Press) I am amazed at the level of stupidity we elected to represent us in our government.  Then I am struck by the even more fearful thought that they are representative of the level of stupidity in the electorate.  I would blame this on the South, but when I look at my own California fruitloops, especially the Republicans, I have to relent on the South.

All and all, another fine week.

During Meet the Press I watched as Tom Brokaw asked questions of Joe Bidden which were basically the talking points of the Republican Party. That’s okay for some if you assume he is going to ask Sarah Palin the talking points from the Democratic Party (assuming she would agree to show up) but it misses the more important issues.   These questions ranged from Joe’s stance on abortion (aren’t you glad this one is back?), his relationship with party switching Joe Lieberman, Hillary questions, and of course my favorite, isn’t the surge working.  Joe handled them all well, but none of the questions were important for our future.  None of them were really relevant to who we ought to be choosing for the next President.  That is why they are talking points for the Republican Party.  Brokaw thinks he is presenting the “issues” and instead he is a tool of partisan politics and it works both ways.  But on one question, the surge, Joe gave an answer that should have pushed Brokaw in the right direction.

Brokaw was trying to make a Republican point that the surge has worked, Joe countered that the violence is down, but there is no political resolution, we are still spending $10 billion a month and we have 140,000 troops tied up there with no end in sight.  Then he made the really insightful observation that we need to quit arguing about the success of the surge, it’s over.  We need to start talking about where we go from here in the whole region.

Bingo!  That is the issue that matters and neither candidate have given an adequate answer.  What we know from John McCain is that we will stay till we win, whatever that means, and Barack would set a time line and get out.  On the other hand both would send more troops to Afghanistan and the argument seems to be whose idea was that first.  Nobody is asking whether that will really help, and more importantly, what is the end game?  Is this going to be another Iraq?  What is the long-term strategy for success in Afghanistan?

Well there was a bright and shinning light in the world of media balanced reporting by partisan mud fights and that was Fareed Zakaria’s (CNN’s GPS) interview with Rory Stewart that shed some light on this question and gave us all some basis for a rational discussion of one of our most important issues facing us in the future, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  What made this interview so important and enlightening was first and foremost, Mr. Stewart knows his subject.  Secondly he had no partisan points to score, who was right, who was wrong, only an assessment of the region and a realistic look at what are possible outcomes and what is really achievable there.   This interview is so important for our discussion of policies for this region that I will provide a summary, but I really recommend you read the transcript in its entirety (Stewart Interview).

By way of introduction, Mr. Stewart is a Scotsman and British diplomat, and as Fareed Zakaria described him, part diplomat, part human rights worker, who was appointed a provincial official in Iraq,  has walked across Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India, and has set up a charitable foundation to try to save Afghan culture.  Mr. Stewart unlike most of our diplomats is fluent in Farsi.  Here is my summary of his salient points:

• Would not send more troops to Afghanistan because the Afghans are feeling increasingly resentful of foreign troops after little progress in six-and-a-half years and at best would do nothing to change the situation and at worst would make it worse
• The question in his mind is not what we can do, but what we ought to do that will work and putting in 20,000 more troops will probably not help
• Afghanistan is a much more difficult country than Iraq to control from its landscape to its borders with Pakistan
• He simply doesn’t believe we have the will or the resources to occupy Afghanistan for the foreseeable future
• There is no solution in Afghanistan without a solution to Pakistan and the Taliban’s safe haven
• Would like to see a creditable plan about what we would do with Pakistan instead of just putting more troops into Afghanistan
• These people (Iraq and Afghanistan) are highly nationalistic and resent our presence there regardless of the good we have done
• The solution in Afghanistan has to come from the Afghan’s government and the Afghan people, we will just be resented there
• There is no silver bullet out there for a solution; we have to work with the best we can find because they are the people who have the legitimacy.  If we start rampaging around trying to implement our own aggressive military policies, or even very independent political policies, we’ll stir up huge resentment

Here is what I got out of this interview:  If we continue on our present course, we could be tied down there for McCain’s purported 100 years.  The lesson of Viet Nam, and the lesson that is starting emerge from Iraq is that these wars are mostly internal matters that are very complicated and must work themselves out through their own people.  It is going to be messy and it is going to take a long, long time.  Our best approach is to support those in power where we can and provide aid and training, but our focus on large occupying forces is counter-productive.  But working with the locals means we have to work with some fundamentalists.  In the words of Mr. Stewart:

“But essentially you find the people who are powerful, effective, representative, and you try to work with the best of them.  What you can’t do is try to remodel a whole society and imagine those people don’t exist.”

Interestingly he found that our working with the Sunnis and the conventional wisdom that we should have done this much sooner might have been disastrous. Also interestingly al-Qaida never came up.  Maybe they aren’t the focus there, you think?

Probably one of his most insightful comments was to an answer to Fareed’s question, “Do you think Senator Obama is right to want a rather expeditious timetable for withdrawal?”

“Yes I do believe he’s correct.  I think there’s a real limit to how long we can remain.  The problem for Senator Obama is he’s a politician.  He’s not me.  He can’t say, “I don’t really know what’s going to happen when we leave.  Things could get worse.  Things could get better.  Nevertheless we still have to leave.”  He has to claim that he’s confident that things are going to go better.  Nobody can be confident of that.”

So maybe it is time to have an adult debate about what is realistically achievable in that region, what can we afford, and what is a long-term strategy for the whole area.  It is a very complex problem and simple solutions of more troops is just eye wash that may just make things worse.

Note that Roger Cohen in “Real Wars and the U.S. Cultural War” in his op-ed piece on Monday in the New York Times makes a similar argument if my small opinion doesn’t sway you.