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Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Afghan Strategy 

President Obama unveiled his strategy for Afghanistan yesterday, promising more troops, more aid, and a growing realization that Pakistan will be key to Afghanistan's stability. On the surface, the strategy is promising, especially from the perspective that the US must win "hearts and minds" by improving the lives of the Afghan people in one of the world's poorest countries.

At the same time, the strategy isn't fundamentally different from the Bush strategy towards Afghanistan. The number of troops and amount of foreign aid may be higher, but the basic blueprint is the same. For those reasons, I don't expect the Obama strategy for Afghanistan to have much different results from the previous approach. As long as America's hands are tied when dealing with Pakistan, the Taliban and al Qaeda will maintain safe havens from which to mount offensives against the US and its dwindling number of NATO ally forces.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the approach endorsed by Michael Scheuer in his 2004 book Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing its War on Terror. The former head of the CIA's bin Laden Unit believed (and presumably still believes) that the Afghan people would quickly grow tired of American occupation and resist our attempts to nation-build. He suggested leaving the Taliban in power and instead waging an intense and focused campaign against al Qaeda and the terrorist who are directly involved in plots to attack America. Scheuer's ruthless and scorched-earth approach to counter-terrorism would presumably include offensives into the frontier areas of Pakistan, without the sanction of Pakistan's government. The Scheuer approach certainly has its problems, such as the question of what the Taliban would do to resist if the Americans suddenly showed up in Afghanistan to root out its al Qaeda backers. It also leaves unresolved the question of preventing al Qaeda's resurgence after the US declares victory and heads home.

The relative popularity of militant movements like al Qaeda in the Islamic world has roots in many cultural factors, including the belief in Sharia law's superiority over secular law, the rampant poverty that exists throughout much of the Islamic world, the failed autocrats who have mismanaged their countries, and feelings of victimization extending from the Crusades to the British protectorate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and ultimately to America's growing involvement in middle eastern affairs. These problems all need to be corrected, and a punitive expedition like the one advocated by Michael Scheuer will not fix them.

America and the rest of the world need to recognize that Afghanistan and Pakistan will remain multi-generational problems that cannot be solved during a single president's term. The Bush Administration got many things right in Afghanistan, particularly during the initial military operations which wrested the major cities from the Taliban. But it failed to recognize how much was needed of the non-military instruments of national power to prevent the Taliban's return. The Obama approach deserves a chance, and America's allies need to be more supportive with manpower, money, and the other resources required for nation-building.

If Afghanistan can be fixed at all, the difficulty of this challenge will make Iraq look like a cakewalk by comparison. But the world cannot forget the horrors of the 9/11 attacks of the past, and the carnage yet to come if we should fail.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Random Thoughts on a Drinking Holiday 

Before I spend the evening with my obligatory glass of Guinness and "The Boondock Saints," I needed to clear my head of some thoughts that have been rattling around. It's best that I commit them to the electronic medium now before I drink to forget them.

Payback, Obama-Style
President Obama is taking a lot of heat all-around based on the recent round of executive bonuses granted by AIG. Congressional Dems are already looking to recoup those bonuses through proposed taxes. And Americans are right to get angry about these "rewards for failure" being underwritten with taxpayer dollars. But that's the inherent problem with government bailouts of private industry. When the people are funding an institution, the people should have a say. Once the government start buying shares in the banks, it starts slip-sliding down the slope to, I daresay, socialism. In this case, a bank bailout is the first step towards possible nationalization of the banks. I would prefer that we not have to prop up zombie banks with taxpayer dollars at all. But the Great Depression's ghost still haunts us with the specter of too many bank collapses pushing us into an intractable economic morass.

Why address the problem when you can make fat jokes?
Conservative radio talker Laura Ingraham is taking on Meghan McCain (yes, John McCain's foxy daughter) and making snide comments about her weight. And it's all because Meghan McCain speaks the truth about the problems facing the Republican party. How dare somebody point out that Republicans have lost touch with younger voters, and failed to make the case that limited government can benefit them as much as it does all Americans? Heaven forbid that somebody remind Republicans that they need to make a concerted effort to use all organs of the "new media" (including You Tube, social networking sites, weblogs, and online fundraising) to get the message out and to mobilize Republican voters. Meghan McCain is not some leftist troll trying to destroy the Republicans. She criticizes out of a sense of "tough love" for the party. If anything, Meghan McCain has her finger on the pulse of young voters, and conservative Republicans would be wise to accept her criticism in a constructive fashion. If they lash out and denigrate her as Laura Ingraham recently did, they live in denial of the problems dragging the Grand Old Party down. Unless drastic changes are made during the next three years, Republicans can guarantee an Obama landslide in 2012 and the possibility of a Biden run in 2016.

"He Deserves His Silence"
Former president George W. Bush recently said that President Obama 'deserves silence' from his predecessor. The lack of criticism from our former commander-in-chief is refreshing. The old precedent was for preceding presidents to maintain a respectful silence towards the decisions of the man currently holding the highest office in the land. That all changed during the presidency of the oft-reviled GWB, when Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter felt no inhibitions towards undercutting the decisions made by the man holding their former position. And even President Ford had his criticisms which were made in private, although the media had no compunction about airing them publicly after the former president had passed away.

For a man reviled as "Chimpy McBush-Hitler," it's refreshing to see him honorably try to return to the old precedents and, in a dignified way, let the current president get on with his job. George W. Bush, for all his flaws, knows how difficult it is to be "the man in the arena" and take accountability for the tough decisions facing our nation.

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