The conflict in Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of concentrating on the critical mission of keeping Islamist terrorists on the defensive, we've mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be and cannot be transformed.
In the absence of a strategy, we're doubling our troop commitment, hoping to repeat the success we achieved in the profoundly different environment of Iraq. Unable to describe our ultimate goals with any clarity, we're substituting means for ends.
Expending blood and treasure blindly in Afghanistan, we do our best to shut our eyes to the worsening crisis next door in Pakistan, a radicalizing Muslim state with more than five times the population and a nuclear arsenal. We've turned the hose on the doghouse while letting the mansion burn.
Initially, Afghanistan wasn't a war of choice. We had to dislodge and decimate al-Qaeda, while punishing the Taliban and strengthening friendlier forces in the country. Our great mistake was to stay on in an attempt to build a modernized rule-of-law state in a feudal realm with no common identity.
We needed to smash our enemies and leave. Had it proved necessary, we could have returned later for another punitive mission. Instead, we fell into the great American fallacy of believing ourselves responsible for helping those who've harmed us. This practice was already fodder for mockery 50 years ago, when the novella and film The Mouse That Roared postulated that the best way for a poor country to get rich was to declare war on America then surrender.
Even if we achieved the impossible dream of creating a functioning, unified state in Afghanistan, it would have little effect on the layered crises in the Muslim world. Backward and isolated, Afghanistan is sui generis (only example of its kind). Political polarization in the U.S. precludes an honest assessment, but Iraq's the prize from which positive change might flow, while Afghanistan could never inspire neighbors who despise its backwardness.
Recalling failures of Vietnam
Echoing Vietnam, we're pouring wealth into Afghanistan, corrupting those we wish to rally; we're fighting with restrictions against an enemy who enjoys sanctuaries across international borders; and our core enemies are natives, not foreign parties (as al-Qaeda was in Iraq).
If the impending surge fails to pacify the country, will we send another increment of troops, then another, as we did in Southeast Asia? As the British learned the hard way, Afghanistan can be disciplined, but it can't be profitably occupied or liberalized. It's inconceivable to us, but many Afghans prefer their lives to the lives we envision for them. The lot of women is hideous, and the lives of nearly all the people are nasty, brutish and short. But the culture is theirs.
Even "our man in Kabul," President Hamid Karzai, put his self-interest above any greater cause. Reborn a populist, he backs every Taliban claim that the U.S. inflicts only civilian casualties in virtually every effort against terrorists. Karzai is convinced that we can't abandon him.
We should do just that. Instead of floundering in search of a strategy, we should consider removing the bulk, if not all, of our forces. The alternative is to hope blindly, waste more lives and resources, and, in the worst case, see our vulnerable supply route through Pakistan cut, forcing upon our troops the most ignominious retreat since Korea in 1950 (a massive air evacuation this time around, leaving a wealth of military gear).
Ranked from best to worst, here are our four basic options going forward:
Best. Instead of increasing the U.S. military "footprint," reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a "mother ship" at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.
Stop pretending Afghanistan's a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium. Kill the fanatics.
Good. Leave entirely. Strike terrorist targets from over the horizon and launch punitive raids when necessary. Instead of facing another Vietnam ourselves, let Afghanistan become a Vietnam for Iran and Pakistan. Rebuild our military at home, renewing our strategic capabilities.
Poor. Continue to muddle through as is, accepting that achieving any meaningful change in Afghanistan is a generational commitment. Surge troops for specific missions, but not permanently.
Worst. Augment our forces endlessly and increase aid in the absence of a strategy. Lie to ourselves that good things might just happen. Let U.S. troops and Afghans continue to die for empty rhetoric, while Pakistan decays into a vast terrorist refuge.
A reality check
In any event, Pakistan, not Afghanistan, will determine the future of Islamist extremism in the region. And Pakistan is nearly lost to us a fact we must accept. Our strategic future lies with India.
President Obama pitched Afghanistan as the good war during his campaign, while rejecting our efforts in Iraq as a sideshow. He got it exactly wrong. Now our new president either needs to lay out a coherent, detailed strategy with realistic goals, or accept that, by mid-2002, we had achieved all that conventional forces could manage in Afghanistan.
We don't need hope. We need the audacity of realism.
#3
Yeah, let's give back Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas to the Apache. It only took about twenty years of inconclusive and muddled strategy to try to make it work. /sarcasm off
#5
I see no reason to condemn our Afghan friends--and a lot of these people are our friends, make no mistake about it, they've put it on the line for the same cause we're engaged in because they don't want their daughters enslaved in burkas either--to feudalism. I do think we need to be realistic about how quickly the place will change, and let them work things out at their own pace. I do agree with Peters that we need to pay more attention to Pakistan.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/26/2009 12:03 Comments ||
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Iraq was the 'good' war, though not recognized as such. In my opinion we should have scaled our A'stan presence back to a couple of isolated and defensible airbases from which to base Predator strikes and Special Ops. And that was not too far from what we did do, initially. Until all the yakking that Iraq was wrong and Afghanistan was right. Iraq was winnable and worth winning. I doubt A'stan is either one.
#7
Karzai needs to wake up to a couple days without American security, security advisors, or anyone in the American military returning his calls.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2009 19:32 Comments ||
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g: In my opinion we should have scaled our A'stan presence back to a couple of isolated and defensible airbases from which to base Predator strikes and Special Ops.
My impression is that isolation and defensibility are mutually incompatible characteristics. Bases need supplies and fresh troops. Isolation means supplies and men have to run the gauntlet to get to the base. Isolation means bases are hard to reinforce and resupply in the event of enemy attack. Isolation means bases that are occasionally overrun with the entire base population KIA, in accordance with Taliban policy towards infidels. The small presence we have in a huge country like Afghanistan (50% larger than Iraq) is probably the minimum necessary to prevent such debacles.
ATTORNEY General Eric Holder toured Guantanamo Bay this week, a "fact finding" visit prompted by President Obama's "close Gitmo" order. One wonders if his eyes were open to the facts on the ground - given Holder's evident conflict of interest.
Holder's previous job, after all, was as a senior partner with Covington and Burling - a white-shoe DC law firm that devotes considerable pro bono time to defending the Gitmo detainees. The job paid $2 million a year, and he expects to collect a like amount this year as part of his separation package.
As a senior partner, he undoubtedly had significant input on what kind of charity cases his firm picked up. He surely knew that dozens of lawyers from from his firm were among the 500-plus civilian lawyers representing the 244 or so remaining detainees (on top of military-court-appointed defenders).
Even now, his Covington colleagues continue to allege rampant torture at Gitmo. They're fighting hard to have detainees tried through the US court system - essentially given the same rights as US citizens. And their arguments and plans hinge largely on having Holder issue a bad report card.
Recent polls indicate that at least half of Americans disagree with affording the detainees legal rights on US soil. Will they have the same access to Holder's ears as his former colleagues do?
Will the people that Holder recently called a "nation of cowards" on racial issues be prepared to handle the truth from Gitmo - that, aside from three isolated cases of abuse in fall 2002, treatment at Gitmo has been transparent and exemplary?
If he tells the truth, Holder will report back that detainees are treated far more humanely and safely than in most US prisons - and are accorded religious respect in the form of individual Korans, prayer beads and orange cones in hallways during prayer time to remind US guards to speak softly.
He'll tell the president that the amount of actionable intelligence information flowing from Guantanamo is significant, has thwarted attacks on America and broken up sleeper cells here and in Europe. And that such intelligence gives us the tools to intercept al Qaeda money-laundering and cash transfers, defeat improvised explosive devices and disrupt terrorist recruiting and organizing.
If he toured the hospital and dental facilities, he saw more modern equipment than is available to the soldiers and sailors who guard and treat the detainees. Perhaps he was impressed by the digital radiological equipment or the physical-therapy ward with prostheses for detainees of the same quality available to wounded US soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Did Holder have the courage to speak quietly with the brave men and women who walk the blocks daily, subject to constant verbal and physical attack by the detainees? If so, maybe he learned of the young female medic who, while treating a detainee, had her face smashed against the bars, requiring 16 plastic surgeries to repair the damage.
Or of the nurse who returned to treat a detainee who'd punched her viciously in the face. "Why?" he asked. "Because you are my patient," she replied - after listening to him shout for a change of clothing because "this infidel whore's blood has defiled me."
Or perhaps the fact that African-American medics and guards are constantly called the "N" word by detainees grabbed his attention.
The Holder visit gives Obama the chance to revise his policy of closing the facility within a year by taking credit for "fixing" Gitmo. An honest public report from the AG will let the president say, It was bad, but now it's better, thanks to me.
When it comes to national security, results are more important than credit. If Obama insists on reflexively criticizing his predecessor's policies but continues measures, such as keeping Gitmo open, that keep Americans safe, then we ought to be grateful. Even if with an asterisk.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2009 12:10 ||
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How the hell does a law firm make $2 mil doing "pro bono" work? Pro bono publico (in the public good) is supposed to be gratis. Also, using pro bono and gitmo detainees in the same sentence is an oxymoron.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
02/26/2009 13:04 Comments ||
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When you win a pro-bono case against the government you can bill the government for the legal expenses, and the government frequently will pay.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/26/2009 14:37 Comments ||
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the government frequently will pay be ordered to pay - by a sympathetic judge (who was once a fellow atty like the one's petitioning to be compensated) from the taxpaying pockets of the American people, who are not hale fellows and attorneys, by and large
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2009 19:36 Comments ||
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In yesterday's WaPo
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal - selected to deliver the Republicans' Fat Tuesday response to President Obama - might also be voted the man least likely to let the good times roll. Slight, earnest, deeply religious and supremely wonkish, Jindal resembles neither his flamboyant predecessors as governor nor his reveling, 30-something contemporaries on Bourbon Street. Somehow the hall-monitoring, library-inhabiting, science-fair-winning class president has seized control of the Big Easy. And his coup has been an inspiration to policy geeks everywhere.
At a recent meeting of conservative activists, Jindal had little to say about his traditional social views or compelling personal story. Instead, he uncorked a fluent, substantive rush of policy proposals and achievements, covering workforce development, biodiesel refineries, quality assurance centers, digital media, Medicare parts C and D, and state waivers to the CMS (whatever that is).
Some have compared Jindal to Obama, but the new president has always been more attracted to platitudes than to policy. Rush Limbaugh has anointed Jindal "the next Ronald Reagan." But Reagan enjoyed painting on a large ideological canvas. In person, Jindal's manner more closely resembles another recent president: Bill Clinton. Like Clinton (a fellow Rhodes scholar), Jindal has the ability to overwhelm any topic with facts and thoughtful arguments - displaying a mastery of detail that encourages confidence. Both speak of complex policy issues with the world-changing intensity of a late-night dorm room discussion.
In recent days, Jindal has displayed another leadership quality: ideological balance. He is highly critical of the economic theory of the stimulus package and turned down $98 million in temporary unemployment assistance to his state - benefits that would have mandated increased business taxes in Louisiana. But unlike some Republican governors who engaged in broad anti-government grandstanding, Jindal accepted transportation funding and other resources from the stimulus - displaying a program-by-program discrimination that will serve him well in public office. Jindal manages to hold to principle while seeing the angles. Not according to today's WaPo editorial.
While Clintonian in manner, knowledge and political sophistication, Jindal is not ideologically malleable. His high-pressure Asian-immigrant background has clearly taught him not to blend in but to stand out. He has tended to join small, beleaguered minorities - such as the College Republicans at Brown University. He converted to a traditionalist Catholicism, in a nation where anti-Catholicism has been called "the last acceptable prejudice." Jindal, sometimes accused of excessive assimilation, has actually shown a restless, countercultural, intellectual independence.
But this has earned him some unexpected enthusiasm. In Louisiana, Jindal is the darling of evangelical and charismatic churches, where he often tells his conversion story. One Louisiana Republican official has commented, "People think of Bobby Jindal as one of us." Consider that a moment. In some of the most conservative Protestant communities, in one of the most conservative states in America, Piyush "Bobby" Jindal, a strong Catholic with parents from Punjab, is considered "one of us."
This is a large political achievement. It is also an indication of what has been called the "ecumenism of the trenches" - the remarkable alliance between evangelicals and Catholics on moral issues such as abortion and family values against an aggressive secularism. Two or three hundred years ago, the Protestant/Catholic divide remained a source of violence. Two or three decades ago, many conservative Protestant churches questioned whether Catholics were properly to be considered Christians. If Jindal runs for president in three or seven years, he will be widely viewed as an evangelical choice.
Ultimately, however, Jindal is a problem-solving wonk, fond of explaining 31-point policy plans (his state ethics reform proposal actually had 31 points). This can have disadvantages -- a lack of human connection and organizing vision. But this approach also has advantages. Jindal is a genuine policy innovator. "His reforms," says Yuval Levin of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, "are the only constructive thing Republicans are doing on health care anywhere."
And Jindal's résumé, intellectual confidence and command of policy make him the anti-Palin. Fairly or unfairly, media and intellectual elites (including some conservative elites) regard Gov. Sarah Palin as an inhabitant of another cultural planet. Jindal, while also religious and conservative, speaks the language of the knowledge class and will not be easily caricatured or dismissed. To journalists, policy experts and Rhodes scholars, Jindal is also "one of us."
At this point in the election cycle, no Republican can be considered more than the flavor of the month. But this is an appealing one.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/26/2009 09:15 ||
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One suspects that he will be crucified by the media as a potential threat in much the same way that Palin attracted apoplectic opposition. It seems to be a new tactic to bring overwhelming criticism to a new conservative face before the public has a chance to make a judgement.
#3
"It seems to be a new tactic to bring overwhelming criticism to a new conservative face before the public has a chance to make a judgement."
This is Chicago style (mob style) politics. Nothing matters but winning and gaining more and more control. Obama is the proof case of this approach. He will do anything and everything to get his way.
WaPo House Editorial
THE RESPONSE by the loyal opposition to a sitting president's address to the nation is a prime opportunity on two fronts. It's a chance for the party to tell the country what it stands for and present concrete and innovative ideas that constructively challenge the administration in power. It's also an occasion to showcase emerging leaders. Under normal circumstances, the task is daunting. But it proved overwhelming Tuesday night for the man tapped to respond to President Obama, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R). Rather than offering new ideas, Mr. Jindal served up well-worn Republican mistrust of government and reliance on tax cuts.
Slamming the recently signed stimulus package, Mr. Jindal said, "Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money," Democratic leaders in Congress "passed the largest government spending bill in history." He argued that a better way to create jobs would be through income and business tax cuts, home-buyer tax credits and business incentives. Missing were Mr. Jindal's prescriptions for stemming the tsunami of housing foreclosures and unfreezing the credit markets. To bolster his argument that the stimulus package was a $1 trillion (with interest) boondoggle, Mr. Jindal criticized $140 million for volcano monitoring - as if watching volcanoes were different from, say, monitoring hurricanes or building levees.
That brings us to Mr. Jindal's frequent invocation of Hurricane Katrina, which laid waste to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans in 2005. "Some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us," he said. "Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina, we have our doubts." It's true that when the federally built levees broke in New Orleans, Americans saw an abject failure by the federal government to come to the rescue. That doesn't mean that when disaster strikes, citizens are wrong to look to their government for help. The people of the Crescent City and the Gulf Coast have shown incredible resilience thanks to private charity -- and $140.2 billion from Washington.
That Mr. Jindal continues to eschew a role for government in extraordinary cases like Katrina (or an economic meltdown) is evidence of an acute case of ideological rigidity. Or maybe that's only when he's speaking on national television. According to House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn's office, Mr. Jindal is pressing Congress for up to $6 billion in Gulf Coast recovery funding for housing assistance, case management, debris removal and other vital projects. If Mr. Jindal firmly believes that "the strength of America is not found in our government" and that "the way to strengthen our country is to restrain spending in Washington," he should lead by example by forgoing the funds he seeks. Oh, that was clever! Give it all up, you hypocrite!
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/26/2009 09:10 ||
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As I said.
<<<< Mr. Jindal served up well-worn Republican mistrust of government and reliance on tax cuts >>>
The last 8 years could reasonably be contrasted with the Gingrich 'contact with America'.
In any case, the first month of the new administration might provide support for the proposition that although the mistrust of government is "well-worn" it is also well placed.
Furthermore, the "well-worn" support for tax cuts is to by juxtaposed with the current "well-worn" liberal agenda of taxing the rich, appropriating from the producers to the consumers, extending the welfare rolls to create dependency on central government and generally attempting to legislate egalitarianism when it is actually anti-life.
After Tuesday night, no one should doubt Barack Obama's ambition. His silent dismissal of the efforts of his immediate predecessors - he mentioned none of them - is only one indication of the extent to which he intends to be a new president breaking new ground in a new era.
George W. Bush defined his presidency by his response to the terror attacks. Anybody remeber a theme prior to 9-11? Not me.
Obama didn't discuss Sept. 11. And by relegating foreign policy to the status of a virtual afterthought, Obama indicated that he doesn't think his presidency will rise or fall by the success or failure of his diplomatic or military endeavors. Bill Clinton told Congress in 1996 that the era of big government was over. Obama withdrew that concession to conservatives and conservatism. George H.W. Bush worried in 1989 that we have more will than wallet. Obama has no such worries.
Obama's speech reminds of Ronald Reagan's in 1981 in its intention to reshape the American political landscape. But of course Obama wishes to undo the Reagan agenda. "For decades," he claimed, we haven't addressed the challenges of energy, health care and education. We have lived through "an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity." Difficult decisions were put off. But now "that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here." The phrase "day of reckoning" may seem a little ominous coming from a candidate of hope and change. But it's appropriate, because it's certainly a day of reckoning for conservatives and Republicans.
For Obama's aim is not merely to "revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity." Obama outlined much of this new foundation in the most unabashedly liberal and big-government speech a president has delivered to Congress since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Obama intends to use his big three issues - energy, health care and education - to transform the role of the federal government as fundamentally as did the New Deal and the Great Society.
Conservatives and Republicans will disapprove of this effort. They will oppose it. Can they do so effectively?
Perhaps - if they can find reasons to obstruct and delay. They should do their best not to permit Obama to rush his agenda through this year. They can't allow Obama to make of 2009 what Franklin Roosevelt made of 1933 or Johnson of 1965. Slow down the policy train. Insist on a real and lengthy debate. Conservatives can't win politically right now. But they can raise doubts, they can point out other issues that we can't ignore (especially in national security and foreign policy), they can pick other fights - and they can try in any way possible to break Obama's momentum. Only if this happens will conservatives be able to get a hearing for their (compelling, in my view) arguments against big-government, liberal-nanny-state social engineering - and for their preferred alternatives.
Right now, Obama is in the driver's seat - a newly elected and popular president with comfortable Democratic congressional majorities and an adulatory mainstream news media. Still, Republicans do have advantages over their forebears in 1965 and 1933. There are more Republicans in Congress today, so they should be able to resist more effectively. There is much more of a record of liberal failures to look back on now than when the New Deal and the Great Society were being rushed through. Conservatism is more sophisticated than it was back then. So there is no reason to despair.
Still, conservatives and Republicans shouldn't minimize their tasks. Long term, they need fresh thinking in a host of areas of domestic policy, thinking that builds on previous conservative achievements but that deals with the new economic and social realities. In the short term, Republicans need to show a tactical agility and political toughness far greater than their predecessors did in the 1960s and the 1930s. "Else they will fall," to quote the great conservative Edmund Burke, "an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle," reduced to the unpleasant role of bystanders or the unattractive status of complainers, as Barack Obama makes history.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/26/2009 09:01 ||
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#1
Prior to 9/11, Bush's priorities were education (No Child Left Behind) and tax cuts. Both of which he achieved.
#2
No Child Left Behind was not something I would ever call an "achievement", though its co-sponsor, Ted Kennedy might. I lump it more with the Medicare Drug Benefit Bush gave us.
Aside from judges and the war on terror, there was little to like about Bush. Tax cuts were nice, but offset more than tenfold by runaway spending and Bush's unwillingness to veto anything.
#3
Sorry, but the GOP is going the way of the Whigs. Observe the pundit and inside the beltway self-anointed crowd feeding frenzy to "define" the party now that they're out of power. The aforementioned group hates Palin, Jindal and Joe the Plumber, and if they can't be "the deciders," they'll kill the GOP for not putting them in charge. Rank and file conservatives like me are well and truly fucked. At least the money I'm not sending the GOP will put a tiny dent in the huge tax increases we will all soon suffer because the GOP has no soul...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/26/2009 13:28 Comments ||
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#4
I'm not much of a republican either, but I will support them because they are right now the only group standing in the way of socialism. So save your money and give it up later in taxes to the machine. Both Senators and 3 of 4 reps. from my state are republicans and have voted correctly (no)in my view on all the insanity. They need my support.
#5
Both my Sens are lib-pinkos. My rep McCotter is pretty good but I was upset when he voted for the auto bailout - being from MI I knew 99% he would - that's his constituency even though being an absentee MI voter and having plenty of fam in the big-3 I still thought the auto industry needed to sink or swim on it's own.
I'll vote for anyone whose fiscally conservative, genuinely understands & supports the U.S. const as it was written, (therefore is pro-gun) & pro-mil - those are my personal pet rocks.
#7
No, DMFD. Our choices are between the war party and the surrender party. I don't know who I would've voted for the first time FDR was elected, but the second and third times I would definitely have voted for the warmonger.
H/T Michelle Malkin
From the left-leaning Seattle Weekly, which has long documented Locke's cronyism:
Of course, there was that memory loss and all those "I don't recall . . . I don't remember" statements to Congressional investigators in 1999, probing his gubernatorial campaign fund-raising efforts; the astonishing $3.2 billion tax break he gave to Boeing while never disclosing he paid $715,000 to - and relied on the advice of - Boeing's own private consultant and outside auditor for advice; and those favors for his brother-in-law (who lived in the governor's mansion), including a tax break for his relative's company, personal intervention in a company dispute, and Locke's signature on a federal loan application for the company.
#1
Wake up smell the coffee people. In the state of Washington, under Democrats, Republicans or wild eyed populists, Boeing is a core industry. It gets what it wants...and we want it to. Nobody here wants to kill the golden goose or turn Boeing into the next Chrysler. It brings a boatload of bucks into this state even if it were to pay no tax at all.
If you are interested in Locke you may want to read my comment in the other Locke posting in this section.
#3
Boeing has stopped investing in Washington state due to the high cost of doing business, although it does have large legacy factory and research operations there. It's headquarters are now in Illinois.
Given the downturn in the airline business, the problems of raising capital to buy aircraft, and Obama's upcoming slashing of defense procurement, the Seattle area is going to take a major hit that will be difficult to recover from.
#4
The eye popping tax breaks mentioned in the posting is this states deal with Boeing to keep the new Dreamliner aircraft production in Seattle and address "the high cost of doing business".
This amazing aircraft is in the last stages of production and will begin delivery in the near future. The investment for this has already happened. The order book is so full that the next recession will come and go before production ends. Payoff time is coming. It sucks to be Airbus.
#5
Michelle had a link to a previous article with even more detail from her days at the Seattle Times. It seems that Locke is fused at the hip to the Chinese. Not a problem to for a Dem.
#6
I call shenanigans on this.
All this stuff was completely and boringly investigated by the newspapers and the government at the time. No one in Washington state who owned a tv set could miss it. It goes nowhere. It's finished. Fines paid and no one in jail. Locke easily reelectable.
The idea that he is "fused at the hip to the Chinese" is laughable to anyone in WA. If we go there, we will be ridiculed. Accused of having some racist fantasy that he is a Fu Manchu. Look like fools. Please. Don't. Go. There.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/26/2009 19:44 Comments ||
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the astonishing $3.2 billion tax break he gave to Boeing
That's astonishing? Malkin is a little uninformed. Boeing is Washington state's biggest single employer. As it was, Boeing moved its corporate HQ to Illinois. Without that inducement, Boeing would have moved a lot more of its operations outside of WA.
A genuine negative is the fact that Locke is a member of the Committee of 100, an NAACP-type group. What the difference between the Committee of 100 and the NAACP? The NAACP doesn't advocate (much) for foreign countries. The Committee of 100 does.
Here is the most stunning prospective appointment of the Obama administration as yet. Not stunning as in "spectacular" or "distinguished" but stunning as in bigoted and completely out of synch with the deepest convictions of the American people. What's more, Charles "Chas" Freeman is a bought man, having been ambassador to Saudi Arabia and then having supped at its tables for almost two decades, supped quite literally . . .
That Chas, as he is so artfully called, also made himself a client of China and China a client of himself, is evidence that he has no humane or humanitarian scruples that underlay well, his unscrupulous political views, viz, his remonstrance to Beijing that it should have smashed the democracy protests as soon as they emerged on the streets...or before. I do not reproach Hillary Clinton for talking economics with China this time. But Freeman is predisposed also not to see the urgency of insurrectionary politics cropping up all over the vast Chinese empire.
Chas Freeman is actually a new psychological type for a Democratic administration. He has never displayed a liberal instinct and wants the United States to kow-tow to authoritarians and tyrants, in some measure just because they may seem able to keep the streets quiet. And frankly, Chas brings a bitter rancor to how he looks at Israel. No Arab country and no Arab movement--basically including Hezbollah and Hamas--poses a challenge to the kind of world order we Americans want to see. He is now very big on Hamas as the key to bringing peace to Gaza, when in fact it is the key to uproar and bloodletting, not just against Israel but against the Palestinian Authority that is the only group of Palestinians that has even given lip-service (and, to be fair, a bit more) to a settlement with Israel. . . .
But Freeman's real offense (and the president's if he were to appoint him) is that he has questioned the loyalty and patriotism of not only Zionists and other friends of Israel, the great swath of American Jews and their Christian countrymen, who believed that the protection of Zion is at the core of our religious and secular history, from the Pilgrim fathers through Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy. And how has he offended this tradition? By publishing and peddling the unabridged John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, with panegyric and hysteria. If Freeman believes that this book is the truth he can't be trusted by anyone, least of all Barack Obama. I can't believe that Obama wants to appoint someone who is quintessentially an insult to the patriotism of some many of his supporters, me included. One is very tempted to open up on Mr. Peretz with a full 72-gun time-on-target barrage of 155mm snark. Far from being a "new psychological type for a Democratic administration," Chas Freeman is firmly in the tradition of Jimmy Carter and Chris Dodd and John Kerry and Bill Clinton and Madeline Dimbulb Albright and Nancy Pelosi, all of whom have embraced various totalitarian goon-ocracies and worshipped at the feet of Brezhnev, Mao, Castro, Chavez, Kimmie, Arafat, Assad, and so on. Has Mr. Peretz not read the comments threads at Democratic underground and DailyKos which regularly question Jewish patriotism? Has he not noticed the anti-Semitic protest signs at the antiwar rallies?
I don't want to kick him too hard, though--just administer a few gentle tough-love taps with the clue-by-four. He's starting to get it. We should encourage him in his efforts to get it.
If you know someone who, like Mr. Peretz, is starting to get it, be a friend to them. Welcome them as you would any ally. Apply Luke 15:7 by analogy.
Posted by: Mike ||
02/26/2009 08:24 ||
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I think what Peretz means is that previous Democratic "types" were leftist goo-goo sorts who were more generally of the Maoist-lite "the third world is more authentic, oh horrors the wages of colonialism!" mindset, whereas he's characterizing this Freeman boggart as being more in the paleoconservative Arabist tradition, a reactionary enthusiast for absolutist monarchy and neanderthalic social & cultural attitudes.
Well, that and the English breed of genteel anti-Semitism, which is distinct from the coarse American-style anti-Semitism of a Nixon or Carter.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
02/26/2009 9:44 Comments ||
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Throughout the recent fighting in Gaza, the mainstream North African press was nearly unanimous in its support for the Palestinians and its condemnation of Israel. Some Amazigh (Berber) activist groups, though, made a point of distancing themselves from this mainstream view for which they were attacked by the Islamist press. While a number of conservative and left-wing Amazigh groups expressed support for the Palestinians, others expressed contrary views, to underline their non-Arab identity and their belief that North Africa should detach itself politically and culturally from the Middle East.
Following are excerpts from the Moroccan and Algerian press and electronic media on the dispute over Berber attitudes towards the Gaza war
February 23, 2009: The use of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device, a roadside, or suicide car bomb) in Iraq has moved to Afghanistan. So have the techniques U.S. troops developed to deal with these devices. The U.S. mobilized a multi-billion dollar effort to deal with IEDs, and that paid off. New technology (jammers, robots), tactics (predictive analysis and such), equipment (better armor for vehicles and troops) and a lot of determination did the job. In 2006, some five IEDs to cause one coalition casualty (11 percent fatal). A year later, it took four IEDs to cause one casualty (8 percent fatal) and by 2008 it took nine IEDs per casualty (12 percent fatal). The important thing was avoiding, detecting or defeating IEDs. In 2006, only 8 percent of IEDs put out there caused casualties. In 2007, it was nine percent. In 2008, it was less than five percent. The main objective of IEDs was to kill coalition troops, and at that, they were very ineffective. In 2006, you had use 48 to kill one soldier. In 2007, you needed 49 and by 2008, you needed 79. IEDs are doing worse in Afghanistan,
In Afghanistan, the enemy starts off at a disadvantage, because they don't have the expertise or the resources of the Iraqi IED specialists. In Iraq, the bombs were built and placed by one of several dozen independent gangs, each containing smaller groups of people with different skills. At the head of each gang was a guy called the money man. That tells you something about how all this works. Nearly all the people involved with IED gangs were Sunni Arabs, and most of them once worked for Saddam. The gangs hired themselves out to terrorist groups (some of them al Qaeda affiliated), but mainly to Baath Party or Sunni Arab groups that believed the Sunni Arabs should be running the country. You got the money, these gangs got the bombs.
The money man, naturally, called the shots. He hired, individually or as groups, the other specialists. These included scouts (who found the most effective locations to put the bombs), the bomb makers, the emplacers (who placed the bomb) and the trigger team, that actually set the bomb off, and often included an ambush team, to attack the damaged vehicles with AK-47s and RPGs. The trigger team also usually included a guy with a video camera, who recorded the operation. Attacks that fail, are also recorded, for later examination for things that could be improved.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The conflict in Afghanistan is the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Instead of concentrating on the critical mission of keeping Islamist terrorists on the defensive, we've mired ourselves by attempting to modernize a society that doesn't want to be and cannot be transformed.
