Obama, Right and Wrong

This blog is dedicated to the proposition that it makes a significant difference for human kind to get it right. What "right" means is something of a moving target, but it finds it home where a morality inspired by the values of freedom, equality, justice and peace meet the human reality created by governments, corporations and civil societies here and around the world.

President Obama's address to the nation this evening struck many "right" chords for the future of American foreign policy and was presented in a way that will make sense to many Americans. The decision he is obligated to make as President about a strategy to end the war in Afghanistan is one that was mandated by the mistakes of the past under the control of a foreign policy which did not get American or global interests "right".

President Obama is right that the war in Iraq was wrong and diverted valuable resources and caused a huge loss of life that was both unnecessary and not serving of U.S. nor global interests for security and peace. In fact, it created a world less secure and less peaceful, empowered other forces that could destabilize the whole nuclear weapon reality of our world and unleashed a series of consequences both here and around the world that still are causing problems for humankind.

President Obama is right to stake out the beginnings of a foreign policy that stresses the use of all the resources of this nation and its partners in the world to combat that which threatens not only our security, but the security of health network of common efforts by the global community to improve life on the planet. He is right to switch our approach to foreign policy to "right makes might", not "might makes right" as was the case in the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfield days. He is right that the focus in Afghanistan/Pakistan should be on disarticulating Al Quaeda and not on nation building in Afghanistan and he is right to set a plan and timetable for exiting Afghanistan.

Obama is also right that Al Quaeda and their associates are not a threat to Pakistan. And the reason for this is that we were wrong to make war in Afghanistan as consequence of this to all who gave war a second threat, would be to push the terrorists into neighborhing states, the consequence of which is that they would eventually see that they had to extend the reach of their terror into that neighborhing state in order to build a buffer that would protect themselves, i.e. the one sure way to keep the Pakistani army out of Al Quaeda safe haven area is to make the other parts of the country unsafe and in need of Pakistani army protection.

Unfortunately, he is wrong on some important interpretation of history and analysis that may put his current efforts to resolve the war in Afghanistan in a way favorable to the fight to restrict the reach of terrorism in our world.

Let us begin with history and its interpretation. The war in Afghanistan was wrong. It was wrong despite the facts of the overwhelming support (not really for war but for all and every action needed to combat Al Quaeda) given both by the Congress as well as by NATO and UN. It was wrong because it misinterpreted the enemy. The enemy is not, as Bush tried to persuade us, the nations that give space to groups like Al Quaeda. The enemy that attacked us was Al Quaeda and, behind them, a huge well of discontent among a certain portion of the Muslim community around the world. We did not wait long enough or try hard enough or use every other weapon at our disposal to disarticulate Al Quaeda before supporting a war effort in Afghanistan. We gave the Taliban just a short time to response to our request for help and we did not put any prolonged pressure on them. We had the possibility of many military actions short of war to convince Taliban Afghanistan to help us root our and up the Al Quaeda network. For instance, as the Taliban had no Air Force and no Navy, we could have used these two resources from the Gulf and through flyovers to monitor and even attack key sites of Al Quaeda while we worked diplomatically to build a larger coalition of peaceful partners to convince Taliban/Afghanistan to help us with our goal of disarticulating Al Quaeda. Al Quaeda would have ened as a prisoner in Afghanistan, under constant air and navy attack without any ability to fight back. As it was, we tried to kill a fly with a sledge hammer and the fly got away to fight another day. The war was wrong as a strategy and as policy. You cannot defeat terrorism with war because war is a form of terror and spreads terror in reaction.

The arguement that some object to increasing troops because Afghanistan is like Vietnam is a paper tiger which can easily be destroyed, as President Obama did in his speech. But, the reason not to increase troops or use a "surge" in Afghanistan is not that it is Vietnam, but because it is Afghanistan: a nation that is not a nation, in the middle of a region that has no desire for it to be a nation of any strength with a geography that defies containment or destruction of any and all forces who have access to financing. The Taliban can close one enclave on Monday and open another on Tuesday as they recently have in the north and Al Quaeda has a million friens and more than a 1000 miles of sparsely populated, absolutely desolate and difficult terrain just on the Pakistan border with Afghanistan.

So, the overarching ideas of the Obama approach to foreign policy are good, helpful, to be applauded, but the strategy may not work in Afghanistan, because it is Afghanistan. It is our attack on the Taliban which has led to the tactical alliance between the Taliban and Al Quaeda, Al Quaeda being another weapon in the arsenal to fight the "allies". We should leave the Taliban to the Afghanis and just go after Al Quaeda which would force the Taliban to rethink their tactical alliance as one that might take away weapons instead of adding them to their aresenal. As clearly as President Obama has outlines his limited project in Afghanistan, the project is flawed because it is not narrow enough.

The President is right to say that whatever we do of efforts around the world, these efforts should not go beyond our responsibility, our means and our interests. Unforteunately it could be the case that the current strategy, to the extent that it depends upon the Afghans and Pakistanis taking their responsibility puts the end result of a "win" outside our means.

Seven years ago, President Bush declared the war in Afghanistan to be "mission accomplished". President Obabam, tonight, should have declared the war in Afghanistan "mission impossible" and announced a plan to withdraw, as soon as possible from the war in Afghanistan to concentrate our current level of forces or a smaller on a far less ambition and more central mission of disarticulating Al Quaeda. This goal can be accomplished no matter what future the Afghans decide for themselves.

What's In a Name

We should not spend much time debating the various aspects of the new book, Going Rogue, by Sarah Palin. I only want to say that Palin makes the point of all those who believe she was not and is not qualified to be a high level political leader in the nation by the very title of the book. Who is is that wants a Vice President or a President, or even a Governor or Senator to "go rogue"? There are about 6,465 better images than this for someone who was nominated by what was a major political party for the office of president. Enough said and we should forget the whole thing as a bad moment in the life of the nation.

Ft. Hood Violence is No Surprise

There is and will be a raging debate about what lies behind the killings at Ft. Hood. Putting all the specific theories which might turn out to be true, aside – a man who needed therapy, a man converted to radical Islamic Jihad, a man made desperate by both the stories he heard and his own orders to report to duty in Afghanistan – the larger picture is more simple and more scary.

If you train hundreds of thousands of men and women to kill, it is not surprising that they do not always kill who you trained them to kill. Some will kill themselves, some will kill innocent bystanders, some will kill others of their own army. Add to this that these men and women, trained to kill, are asked to fight in wars based on lies or wars without any end in sight, or wars that have no apparent reason for being fought and the odds go up. Add to this that the wars in which these men and women who are trained to killed fight are of the kind that accentuate the normal desentization, alienation, trauma and outright craziness that is necessary to fight a war and to kill other men and women and the odds get even higher that these men and women will kill themselves, innocent bystanders and even their own comrades in arms.
The question is where the madness lies: within these men and women or within the society that invites and pays them to be trained to kill for reasons they do not understand and in wars that, even within what is the craziness of war, are more intense, dangerous and cruel than ever before.
Here is my point. The person who pulls the trigger is responsible for the killings and that point should never be lost because "responsibility" is also the reason not to kill. But, we are also to blame. We pay for, permit and sometimes even encourage our nation to make killers out of these men and women and put them in situations where the violence we have sanctioned has neither moral direction or makes political sense. Eventually, we become the victims of our own sanctioning of the killing. This is another lesson we have not learned from previous wars, the most excrutiating example of which was Vietnam where the damage done to soldiers and, in consequence, to our own society was immense. Thousands of persons destroyed physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually whose illnesses of mind or spirit then cause additional damage upon immediate loved ones and friends and the community at large.
This is the uncounted cost of war: thousands of traumatized persons whose training in violence cannot be controlled by superior officers or higher moralities but explodes against themselves or others with ripples of negative effects traveling out into the community in all cases.
This is not an argument to excuse the actions of Hassan, or to imply that we take less seriously the damage that can be done by religious or ideological fervor that sanctions violence against others. Hasan is responsible. The religious and ideologies that sanction violence are responsible. And, so are we until we tell our government, our leaders to quit condemning us to self destruction by fighting wars based on lies, without reason, without end, without any measurable benefit to human beings. Only Hasan will be held responsible and pay the price for his actions. We will exonerate ourselves, hoping that we can continue to find others to pay the price for our irresponsibility.

Tsunami Recovery

I think it is a sure bet that the way history will record these recent times in our nation and in the world is to say that the eight years of Bush/Cheney was something like an economic, social, political and military tsunami that put our nation, and the rest of the world in a big whole. Now we are digging out. In Iraq, despite the critics who said that a strategy for pulling out would not work, it seems we hare abouthalf dug out of a war tht did not need to be fought, accomplished nothing in the war on terror and empowered Iran for regional hegemony. In the economy it looks like we are about half dug out with unemployment close to peaking, economic indicators on the rise and the banking industry about half healthy. In addressing the pressing social questions within the United States, we have seen some progress on questions related to inclusion of gays and lesbians and we will likely have a health care legislation that will go about half way in solving our health care problem. On immigration we are far away from a solution, not because there is no solution but because all the reasonable ones are opposed by large interests on the right. In terms of restoring the integrity of both our relations with other nations and our integrity on questions of human rights and international treaties we are about half the way bqck from the disastrous last eight years and, the Nobel committee conisdered this such a significant digging out accomplishement that it gave is Peace Prize to President Obama.

As is the case of the war in Iraq, none of this progress is irreversible and, if left to the right wing of the country, it would all be reversed and we could go back into the hole. And there is still much to be done to get back to where we were some years ago in the economy, in the social health of the nation, in relations with other countries, in respecting human rights treaties and agreements, in addressing global warming, etc.

The one place where the hole has gotten deeper is Afghanistan. This should not be a surprise. Despite widespread support even among some who normally oppose military action, the war against Afghanista was the biggest mistake of the Bush/Cheney era which is saying something since Iraq wasa huge mistake. Afghanistan was a mistake because it was the wrong strategy for addressing 9/11, because it failed in both its objectives: disarticulate Al Quaeda and establish a non-Taliban state in Afghanistan. A smart strategy would have been to concentrate on disarticulating Al Quaeda and provide both carrot and stick reasons for the Taliban to help us; surround the country with intelligence and surgically accurate ability to attack Al Quaeda sites; work with Pakistan to remove (ahead of time) the western part of Pakistan as the hideout and safe ground for Al Quaeda and work slowly and surely to destroy the Al Quaeda infrastructure and disarticulate by police action, the organization. As it is, both the Taliban and Al Quaeda have not only survived, but, in the area, enjoy greater strength now than at the close of the offical war. And, cooridnated intelligence with European partners and others has resulted in a greater capacity in the Western world to interupt and avoid terrorist activities on the home ground.

Digging out of Afghanistan is the most difficult task left by Bush/Cheney for the Obama administration. Afghanistan is even less of a nation than Iraq, cobbled together from disparate geographies and tribes and warlord areas that met the criteria of falling, geographically between Pakistan and Iran. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, has been systematically destroyed in all aspects of life by decades of war with Russia and between its own factions. It has not existing health or educational or public utilities system as did and does Iraq. It has not national culture at all, or national pride and it has no oil, its one economic generator being a product that lucrative but declared unwanted by the rest of the world.

There is only one thing to do in Afghanistan - leave, while maintaining a regional capacity/partnership in addressing the threat of Al Quaeda not only to our security but to the security of the region. how many years does it take to do this? How many troops for how long does it take to do this? What agreements and partnerships with NATO, UN, Pakistan, Russia and Iran do we need to do this? None of the answers seem apparant.

The clearest aspect of answering these questions is that sending 40,000 more troops with the hopes that it will work like the surge in Iraq is not a good idea. What is needed is an exit strategy for the war against the Taliban, a realistic plan for rebuilding the country's infrastructure and health and education systems, and a plan for working with others to continue to monitor and slowly disarticulate the Al Quaeda terror network.

It would appear that the Obama Administration is working exactly in this direction, but, President Obama and the American people should not be surprised that even the best laid plans of mice and men will go awry in Afghanistan. This may be the hole out of which one cannot dig.

NOBEL OBAMA

Those who have expressed doubt about the naming of President Obama as the Nobel Peace Proze for this year have forgotten how dangerously close we came in the previous American administration to undoing the international network of agreements, networks, alliances and understandings that limit war and sometimes can make peace. Those who sit on the Nobel committees to make these decisions surely considered the basic question of who, or what organization made the largest, most important contribution to peacemaking in the past year. President Obama may have not been the only name of the list, but I think it can be argued that he deserved to be at the top of the list. Americans probably do not appreciate how much damage the Bush/Cheney years did to international cooperation and the climate for peace in the rest of the world. It is a symptom of the deep malaise in the right wing of our country that they complain the loudest about the decision to give President Obama the Nobel prize when it is exactly this right wing takeover of the foreign policy of the country that created the conditions in which an Obama could and should have emerged. They just do not get it. There is a huge, important and absolutely critical difference between an America bent on Empire and an America dedicated to leading an international community that pursues, to the extent that such a complicated network of nations, cultures and political interests can be expected to, a coordinated effort to reduce the use of violence to resolve conflicts in the world.

This does not mean that President Obama has done all that he could or will do to reduce the threat of war and the reality of war or to turn around the whole of the foriegn policy apparatus of the United States to a more reasonable and more effective commitment to real statesmanship and diplomacy. And, the Nobel has little ability to really influence the process of resolving the extremely difficult problems on the ground left by the last administration: Afghanistan, Middle East and Iran/North Korea. Nevertheless, the Nobel can give support to a President who seems committed to turning around our approach to the world in a way that benefits both our national interests and peace in the world and, for that, all Americans should be thankful.

Living With Stupidity

Political consultant and TV analyst James Carville hit the nail on the head with a recent comment in response to a CNN question about his thought on the controversy related to President Obama addressing school children. He began his thoughts by saying that the fact is that in America we have a large number of stupid people and we just have to accept that fact and work with it. He was kind enought not to make any analysis of why we have so many stupid people. Let me offer an explanation or explanations.

One reason is that we do not have any profound experience with the world outside America. Only about 11% of our citizens have Passports indicating a decided lack of experience outside our boundaries. We do not have enough experience outside our own to have a sense of the world as it is or to gain the knowledge that exists outside our reality. Another reason would be fear, mostly promoted by politically motivated actors chief of whom would be the radio talk show folks who make a living on spreading lies and generating fear and then anger.

Ideologies create stupidity because they invite those who are true believers to block out all data, reality and experience which does not fit the ideology. Fundamental religion does the same. We have plenty of both.

I think Carville's comments are almost indisputable and the rest of the world would line up behind him in support. Just ask people who have to receive the tourists we do send around the world. Most of the tourists will wise up with some experience and those who are stupid just do not go out again because they are offended that people in other nations do not recognize their inalienable right to consider themselves smarter and better than the rest of the world.

What is disturbing about Carville's comments is that he suggests that we have to begin to factor this stupidity into how we live, work for good government and pursue what is good for the nation. I wonder whay his strategies would be for doing this. Maybe we could go back to a poll tax that would eliminate the stupid people from voting or we could try to make a vaccine against stupidity since there seems to be an epidemic of it, especially since President Obama assumed the office of the presidency. i would suggest that if we could identify the gene that was responsible for people believing the creationist explanation of nature or develop a test that would expose social/political/religous tendencies that lead to such a belief we would have the basis for at least identifying who these stupid people are. But, I would suggest therapy and a good dose of whatever methods work against brainwashing rather then eliminating them from intervention in our political and social processes.

The problem is that there are so many of them. We are, after all, the nation that elected George Bush twice. I am not suggesting that everyone who disagrees with the President..or for that matter, with me...is stupid. Open, informed and critical debate demands that we have differing views and the assumption that none of us has all the wisdom available. We need this debate and we need each other to have the debate. Truth is, that one question can have several good answers. Stupidity of the kind Carville is talking about is exactly the lack of an open mind and and an inquiring spirit. Stupid people do not debate or go into dialogue. Rather, they want to quiet all other voices and suppress the free exchange of ideas. You cannot do this, anymore, by overtly arresting or imprisoning or otherwise physically restraining those who have opposing ideas, at least not, for the moment in our country. So, you just make sure that you don't hear anything - you shout or you pull your child out of school for those sessions which might be presided over by someone you know you don't agree with.

Back to reality, the question remains of what to do. It is a serious question because there is a danger and there is precedent for the fact that occassionally, these stupid people, although I hope they are not in the majority, take control of the country. Even more often they raise enough fuss to keep us from making wise decisions. In a democracy it is possible that the stupid people will control the balance of power to sway decisions or even actually run the country. As power is something of an aphrodisiac, someone will always think of how to put together a winner political coalition like united the stupid with the confused, the fearful and those who are just wrong and those who are mean. Or has somebody already done this?

Anyway, we need some suggestions from Carville on how to develop strategies to ensure that the stupid do not take over the country. I suppose one possible antidote would be to continue good, open, intelligent debate of issues although the current debate on health care in America does not seem to have achieved this goal.

The great American answer to all things is citizen action, so I would suppose that Carville has in mind that we all put a grain of sand on the seashore to build a beach (or a beachead against the debilitating effects of stupidty). For my part I will be producing bumper stickers that say: Combat Stupidity: Don't Send Your Children to School!!!

Have You Been to Europe Recently?

Yesterday, on NPR, I listened to another in the interminable interviews on the current Health Care debate. NPR was interviewing two Republican Congresspersons. I believe they were from Pennsylvania.

The final arguement of one of the Congresspersons against the current Health Care initiative supported by the President was that it intended to make us into European style countries. This, evidently would be something to loathe.

As only about 11% of Americans have passports, I am assuming that the Congressperson imagined that this arguement would hold water because people really have never experienced Europe and only have right wing radio commentators to inform them about life in Europe.

That the current health care reform could make us more like Europe would be something to be hoped for. The mainstay European countries - France, Germany, England, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austira, Switzerland, Netherlands all enjoy a quality of life, a style of living that is equal to ours, plus many have national health care systems that provide health care services to all citizens. In addition, all enjoy levels of freedom and choice equal or greater than our own.

So, what is the arguement? It is the same "fear" arguement that is always employed with positive change is proposed. To create fear, it is necessary to misrepresent not only the truth. So, there is a persistent campaign in the United States by some sectors to paint Europe as "socialist". It is it, then there is an arguement for Socialism. The Quality of Life, the per capita income, the degree of freedom is excellent in Europe: again, equal to or greater than our own.

In fact, what the current Health Care initiative is threatening to do is to ask the American People to live up to its own best reviews as a nation that cares. The primary purpose of the current legislative initiative is to extend health care insurance (and, therefore, health care itself) to the 45 million Americans who do not have it.

European countries have elections that alternatelly put left/center and then right/center and even further to the right governments in place. But, all of these governments agree that to deisturb the social system that provides health care to the majority of citizens would be to take step back from the quality of care and caring that exempifies the Western world.

We have yet to live up to the high level of social consciousness that the European societies exhibit.

he opponents of health care reform are inviting the nation to take the low road, to give in the worst of human tendencies to covet what we have and not care about what others need. We deserve better than this. If we wanted to live in an advanced society, that new how to care for all its citizens, we would have to move to Europe.

Health Care: Defining Moment for our Nation

It is entirely predictable that the Congressional break and the ensuing series of town hall meetings that have been in the news recently would provide opportunity for all the right wing fanatics to turn out in numbers to protest the fact that the country rejected their ideas, ideals and ideology in the last presidentlal election. This rejection of the fear based politics of the right wing and the accompanying meanness that is characteristic of their thinking was a wonderful and hopeful moment for the country.

But one election does not a nation define. The current debate over health care is a defining moment for our country. It would be the depth of shame and a moment of extreme sadness to allow the meanness of the right to define our national life, our national values and our way of life.

The ability or inability of the nation to pass and support comprehensive health care reform which gives every citizen access to good health care will define our nation for decaces to come. Either we are a nation with a soul that has matured to a new level of understanding of the need to pursue the common good or we are a nation whose soul has died, victim of the me-first, let them eat cake, Ayn Rand hatred of humanity’s highest values in favor of darwinian social systems.

There is a historic opportunity to rescue the nation from becoming a first class example of a rich nation that sold its birthright to a handful of mean ideologues who took over the air waves. It is time for the real silent majority – those who have some remaining sense of the moral obligation to create a society in which all have access to the basic needs of life – to stand up and be counted.

What is clear is that we cannot trust the Republicans even to dismiss or denounce the extreme element of their constituency who spread lies and hatred as part of the national debate over the most essential of all questions for a nation with extreme wealth.

There is one overriding concern in health care reform: making health care affordable for the 45 million Americans who do not have access to health insurance. If the private sector could have solved this national embarressment, it would have already. The government needs to ensure this access by offering a tax-based support for affordable health care insurance. There is no private sector effort that can solve it, first and foremost because the private sector does not care to solve it, has no interest in solving it and can see no profit in solving it.

The cost for health care for every one, versus, for instance, the cost of wars which have only endangered our national future and deepened our national debt, is minimal and the refusal to take an action to resolve the most essential issue for human well being because of this minimal cost will define the nation as one that has lost its soul for decades to come.

It is time that the nation stand up to the right wing, Republican meanness that has kept us captive and slowly killed the soul of the nation and pass comprehensive health care reform that extends real access to quality health care to all our citizens. Anything less is unacceptable for a nation whose soul rests upon the idea that we are all created equal and that democracy is the best political system to provide for the common good.

Learning the No Comment Rule

We can all applaud the commitments of the Obama Administration for greater transparancy and improved openness in communication with the public. However, this week, it was apparant that these commitments and practices have limits and that this administration needs to learn the "no comment rules." Of course, rule #1 is when lawyers tell you, for real, that you cannot make any comment because of possible legal jeopardy or interference with a legal process. But there are also other times when "no comment" or it's equivalent is the best response for the administratin and for the country.

One rule would be that "no comment" or its equivalent is the best response when any other response runs the risk of gratutiously damaging the national interest, creating a problem that did not exist before, exacerbating a problem that already does exist or that serves to take the nation's eyes off the agenda that the administration wishes to emphasize.

There are ample examples of violations of this rule from the Obama administration just in this last week, beginning with the President's initial remarks in regard to the arrest of Harvard Professor Gates. Then we have Vice President Joe Biden making remarks in Georgia that did not pleast Russia and then remarks in an interview with the Wall Street Journal upon his return from Georgia which strained botht the relation with Georgia and Russia. To add to the mix, Hilary Clinton characterized the attempt of Honduran President Zelaya to return to his country after being deposed by the army as "reckless."

None of the remarks mentioned above were necessary, helpful or enlighening. All of them served to exacerbate exiting problems, create new ones and take the nation's eyes off the agenda that the administration wishes to emphasize.

The "equivalent" of a "no comment" was demonstrated to perfection, on the other hand, by the administration's nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Sonya Sotomayor. There are numerous variations of themes which allow a person to give essentially a "no commnet" without saying those words. In Sotomayor's case it varied from saying the question raised a "hypothetical", to the fact that she might have to rule on a similar case involved in the question, or that she didn't have enough information about the state law that would apply...and on and on and on.

The "equivalents" of "no comment" need to be practiced and held always just a tip of the tongue away so that they can be quickly spit out even though one's mind is formulating what one really would want to say if they were not a member of the President's cabinet or staff.

It is still early in the Obama Adminstration and I am confident that the President himself, the Secretary of State and the Vice President will learn that in a week where the President was trying to keep himself and the nationa and the Congress focused on the dire need of the nation for a national health care plan it is not good to blow up incidents beyond proportion, needlesssly antagonize friends, increase the number of phone calls the President needs to make to repair damages or, in pursuit of building up democracy, to change the paradigm of "reckless" to apply to a harmless political stunt instead of a military coup.

Personally, I would be pleased to become the White House Consultant on when to invoke the "no comment" rule including training for all staff on the various acceptable forms of the "no comment equivalent." If the position is not contemplated, perhaps stimulus money could be found to crate just one more job.

Petraeus Confirms Failure of Iraq War

General Petraeus, in an interview with a CNN correspondent in Baghdad, confirmed the failure of the war in Iraq when he stated that one of the remaining goals of the US presence is to ensure that the Iraqi forces have the capability of keeping Al Quaeda in check. Despite Bush and company's justification of the war on the basis of ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda, we know that these ties did not exist. Now, after several years of war and occupation, Al Quaeda is firmly established. We can thank the Bush administration for this incredible failure. I am sorry, it is more than a failure! It constitutes a positive help to Al Quaeda. We gave them the opportunity. It might also be worth mentioning that the Afghanistan war not only did not eliminate Al Quaeda, it gave them the opportunity to become an important force in Pakistan. In other words, two wars in the Middle East have done nothing to reduce Al Quaeda, but they have provided opportunity for Al Quaeda to expand its presence and influence in the area. To quote a Quaker bumpersticker: "War is Not the Answer."

Afghanistan: Obama’s Achilles Heel

President Bush and eight years of Republican rule left a huge list of problems for the nation to solve. Cleaning up the mess is a huge job considering that in addition to the mess of the economy, the mess in Iraq and the mess in Afghanistan there is also a long list of unresolved national questions and other foreign policy issues that have been badly managed and need a new start. So, how is President Obama doing on cleaning up the mess, addressing the unresolved issues and starting over on a host of foreign policy questions?
I think he is doing very well. The economy is starting to and will come around, the question is how long it will take, but I predict the Dow Jones will end the year over 9000 and, actually be closer to 9500. Iraq is going as well as could be expected although no one should hope that the pull out of troops will be without problems. The primary political challenges of putting together a nation still remain to be settled in Iraq and there could be a very big increase in national violence and, eventually something like a civil war, especially considering that the Kurdish question has not even been touched.
The starting over on foreign policy in the Middle East, China, North Korea, Russia, Iran and even Europre is also in pretty good shape. Although major question remain unresolved, the Obama/Clinton approach to developing a foreign policy and international relations has put the United States in good position to play a positive role in resolving these questions short of starting another inadvisable military action.
And, on the domestic issues it looks like both health care and immigration policy have a chance at renewal or repair within the next year if the Democrats can keep their house together for the fight against the special interests and the Republicans.
The Achilles heal of the Obama efforts to clean up, address unresolved national questions and start over is Afghanistan. Somebody should spend a good deal of time letting this administration know three things: Afghanistan is not our country, Afghanistan is not really a country, and Afghanistan has a 1600 mile border with Pakistan.
Let me repear what I have stated from the beginning and several times in this blog: The war in Afghanist was a mistake. It was a mistake because war was the wrong response to 9/11. Limited military and police action along with increase effectiveness in intelligence was the correct response. There is some hope that the Obama administration does really understand that we cannot win the war in Afghanistan. The question is whether the American people expect to win and if so, what they think winning means. For the moment we can achieve a limited victory in Helmand province to the west of Kahndahar where we have our tradtion stronghold in the south, but we cannot hold Helmand province for long, or inflict a major defeat on the Taliban. To think that Pakistan will do anything more than provide occassional efforts that look like they are making headway against Taliban and Al Quaeda strongholds in the border region is unrealistic. Pakistan will do well to achieve that the Taliban and Al Quaeda do not make military and political gains within their own country. Just remember that Paklistan has no interest in a stong and united Afghanistan. They already have a strong enemy to the east and do not want anything more than a buffer zone with Iran on the West. Then there is the 1600 mile border, most of which is sparsely populated mountain regions that provide no possibiliti4es for constant monitoring by Pakistan troops and, thus, provide ample opportunities for the rear guards of both the Taliban and Al Quaeda to rest, recuperate, train and replenish their numbers and their power.
In other words, we will be in Afghanistan for decades if the idea is to build an Afghanistan able to resist the efforts of the Taliban to destabalize the central government and to control key areas outside of Kabul. We need allies which is the reason that the Russian agreement to allow us to use their air space was a very important gain for the Obama adminsitration. The Russians, if they so desired, could dreate havoc in Afghanistan and Pakistan if they cose to, by just refusing to do certain things and provide clandestine aid to the Taliban and Al Quaeda as we did to the same folks when the Russians were occupying Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, even having allies will not win the day for us, as none of these alies will agree to send more troops since they all believe they should not have to pay dearly for our mistakes.
The Taliban are not our enemy nor should they be our target of operations in Afghanistan. This is why the operation in Helmand province is ill advised and has no possibility for long term gain. Our enemy is Al Quaeda as long as they remian a radical, fundamental group with the goal of destroying our society. Our goal is, therefore, to defuse this threat to our security or at leats to so interupt their normal operations that they remain a limited and controlled factor in the workd of terrorists.
The military/police/intelligence strategy that we need to initiate would not include sending our troops out to take large tracts of land and destroy poppy fields. The end result of this strategy is to increase our military vulnerability and raise the price of heroin without affecting the income provided to our enemies by these crops or inflicting significant damage on their military capability.
Therefore, talking with the Taliban and Al Quaeda is a good strategy, although making a deal with one, the other or both is a dangerious proposition. Neverheless, if there can be an accomosation which serves to stabilize the region and increase our national security concern related to terrorism directed at us, then it will pay good dividends. The degree to which we can assist Afghanistan gain a more effective central governent either by military action or foreign aid should be determined solely on the basis fo what serves the strategy to contrain Al Quaeda. Sorry about that, Afghanistan. I can only say that when you made the deal with Bush to help you overthrow the Taliban, you made a bad deal with a bad dealer. In fact the US never had the ability or the commitment to follow through on its promises. It is a mess, but a mess that needs to be cleaned up not by following through on misguided policies and promises, but on rewriting the policy and limiting the promises to what we actually are capable of doing and limiting the promises to those areas where fulfilling the promise also advances our primary goal of restricting the ability of Al Quaeda to traing and implement terrorism in that region and around the world.
Achilles heel injuries can take an otherwise healthy athlete out for a season even thoug h the rest of the body is fully capable of functioning at a high level. Afghanistan could be just this Achilles heel for the Obama administration. Special attention should be paid to making sure we do not suffer this injury.

Run, Sarah, Run

NPR reports today that they were contacted by someone from out in Alaska who stated that the Eastern Establishment just doesn't understand the way that Sarah Palin thinks and, therefore, they will always get the analysis wrong about why she decided to resign as governor with 16 months left to serve. One remedy to this situation would have been that Sarah Palin would have given a clear reason for the decision. One clear reason could have been that she is going to make a run for the Republican nomination for the Presidency and she did not want to spend state time and money campaigning for the nomination. This is a clear and understandable reason with which her constituents can agree or disagree. But, this, evidently, is not the way that Sarah Palin thinks.

The Democrats would, of course, welcome the prospect of Palin as the Republican candidate. Democrats who want President Obama to continue for a second term ought to be encouraging Sarah Palin to campaign for the Republican nomination, hope that she gets the nomination and thank God every day that she will be the Republican Presidential nominee for the next Presidential election. The debate can be over how long Palin will serve as President, if elected. Will it be 2 years before she decides that her own agenda is more important than what the voters elected her to do. Or, maybe she will even get as far as 3 years into her term before she calls a press conference on the south lawn to announce that she thinks she can push her agenda for reform better from outside the Whitehouse than inside. There could be "resignation watches" established and a national lottery to place bets on how many days into her term she would resign.

Normally, when public officials give confusing rasons for decisions, there is something to hide. For the moment, this looks like someone running away from responsibility and giving multiple reasons in the hope someone will believe one of them. What she is running from could be something as simple as the responsibility of having to govern or it could be the ethics probes. If this is not the case and she really is resigning early from elected office in order to run for a higher elected office, then Sarah has only managed to revive the idea that Alaska has more than its share of village idiots and is capable of electing them to public office.

Honduras: Conundrum for the Obama Administration

On the face of it, the current crisis in Honduras is a simple problem of restoring democratic rule. The simple solution is for the OAS and the United Nations to find a way to return Manuel Zelaya to the presidency for the remaining months of his term.

But underneath this simple problem lies a difficult and perilous reality for the Obama Administration as it tries to figure out what it's policies will be in Central America, indeed, in Latin America.

In Honduras there are two major political parties: Liberal and Conservative. Over history they have traded the presidency back and forth with neither having too much room to manuever given the overwhelming poverty of the country, the lack of real natural resources and the presence of a powerful military establishment which has been aligned with the business and social elite. All the presidents, from either party, have ties to the ruling elite.

Manuel Zelaya is from the Liberal party which just held its internal elections to name a Presidential candidate for the next elections to be held later this year. The candidate they chose was Elvin Ernesto Santos, the CEO of a large construction firm and, until his being named as the Presidential candidate, the Vice-President of Honduras. Upon being named the Liberal Presidential candidate, Santos resigned the Vice-Presidency. His biggest competitor in the race for the nomination was Roberto Micheletti, the head of the Congress and, now, the newly installed president of the Country. In other words, Zelaya is either a little bit too stupid or a true megalmaniac to think that he can defy the army, his own party and the elite who control all the parties by trying to establish himself as a President who rules above and beyond the influence of the traditional centers of power.

Still, you can be president and be stupid. For this reason, the majority of the Central American countries have one term limits on the presidency. And, even if you are stupid and subject to bouts of meglamania, the regional stability of democracies will be the basis by which the UN and the OAS take their positions with a vested interest in keeping the rule of law and the overt and covert power of the military establishments in check. So, for the army, even if mandated by the Supreme Court to do so, to pull off a coup is also a self-defeating and disempowering action. Other military establishments in the region manage to continue to have power and control without resorting to coups. It is doubtful that any other miliatry establishment in Central America would support the Honduran Military in this action. To the contrary, this action serves to ruin the tacit agreements within the neighboring countries as to how the military can exercise its power without resorting to coups which, for their destabilizing nature, no one likes.

The problem for the US is that these stupidities could have been avoided if Central American and US Military policy for the region were clear. The two Honduran Generals who had the most to do with the coup - Army General Romeo Vasquez and Air Force General Luis Suazo are both graduates of the US Army School of the Americas and the US has a rather significant military contingent in Honduras as part of the Southern Command on the grounds of a Honduran Air Base called Soto Cano about sixty miles from the capital. The combination of the military presence, the size of US Aid to Honduras and the fact the US is the leading trading partner of Honduras gives the US more power than to just "work to see that the coup would not have happened" as the reports are saying. The US had the power to stop the coup.

One question to be raised for the US public is to know why we did no use this power to its fullest and/or if there are major conflicts within the US administration between the military and state department on policy in Central/Latin America. That the US did not stop the coup is a sign that it does not yet have a firm grip on the policy or the pulse of Latin America because stopping the coup could hae avoided what now presents a series of difficulties that threaten to diminish the bright star that the Obama administration brought with it when assuming the US presidency.

Newly installed Micheletti has proven why his own party would not name his to be the presidential candidate with a series of statements the content of which is nothing more than bravado. Micheletti claims the military is ready to repulse any military intervention. The Honduran military is powerful within the politics of Honduras, but it is not an effective fighting force. It would crumble before any effective military action and the US controls the Honduran Air Force.

Of all the Central American presidents, only Daniel Ortega, his own star significantly diminished by a long history of disappointing personal and political decisions, has been vocal, above the crowd, in denouncing the coup. Hopefully this is the result of these presidents, mostly from the left of the political spectrum, recognizing that the rhetoric of Venezuelan's Chavez and Nicaragua's Ortega does nothing to further their strength for governing nor their party's ability to continue to win elections. In fact, Zelaya, by going the strongman route, only diminished the left's political power in the region by stirring up suspicions that all the leftist presidents are really strongmen looking to become hegemonic leaders instead of party leaders and social leaders of their countries for a better economic life for the people.

so the Honduran military has alienated not only the political elite of the region, but also the military elite. Micheletti has further divided his own party and alienated all of the other Latin American countries and Zelaya has destroyed his party's chances for the next election and has only Chavez and Ortega as true friends.

It is a conundrum because returning Zelaya to power does not resolve the underlying problems. Returning Zelaya is necessary if the OAS and UN are to continue as important players in the region. And, returning Zelaya is necessary for the Obama Administration to demonstrate that it has turned the corner on previous interventionist foreign policy. But, when Zelaya is returned to power, Honduras is still in turmoil and Chavez and Ortega are srengthened which is not good for serious leaders of politically leftist parties in Latin America.

The refusal to withdraw the US Ambassador to Honduras and the decision not to immediately suspend aid may be a continuation of President Obama's tendency toward dialogue and including everybody in and thinking long and hard before taking dramatic action, but it only serves to create doubt in Latin America's mind as to whether the US has really turned the corner on its interventionist past and allows a situation that could be resolved quickly to be drawn out with each continuing day of crisis allowing the conundrums to deepen.

President Obama missed an opportunity to strengthen the multi-national approach to foreign policy by lagging behind others in taking dramatic action and, at the same time, allowed a bad situation to fester and destabilize the area, allowing Chavez and Ortega the space to raise their rhetoric and, eventually, claim a victory for the same.

At best, the Obama Administration will need to learn, from this incident, that prevention is a hundred times better than reaction. And, we have not yet heard from the Republicans as to how they will use this incident to detain whatever initiatives President Obama could have in mind to further the opening up of space for normalizing relations with Cuba.

Everything in Latin America is a conundrum to begin with. Clear, decisive and preventative action in favor the values shared by the OAS should be defining criteria for the current US Administration in all its relationships with the countries who share the continent with us. And, it might be good to rethink whether we really need a military base in Honduras.

Iran Is a Landmine, Obama is Right to Tread Easy

The Republicans never got it right in the Middle and still do not get it. President Obama is well advised not to listen to the current criticisms from the Republicans that he ought to come out stronger in support of the opposition in Iran. Start with this principle: Iran is not our country. Second principle: the enemy of our enemy is not our friend. Third principles: The worst way to get burned is to choose sides in a struggle that it not ours.

The Republican idea of supporting the opposition comes out of along line of thinking than has led us to support almost every faction of the Middle East at one time or another from Saddaam Hussein to Osama Bin Laden and, in the end, have no real friends in the area.

What President Obama has shown, by his moderate talk with a clear emphasis on supporting the right to dissent and opposing the use of violence to quell protest that he understands that what we want in the region are democratic processes to grow, not just that who we might conisder to be a friend wins all the battles. And, any strategic interest that we want to pursue in the region demand that we have the ability to be in dialogue with all the leaders, not just the ones who seem to please us. So, we need to be able to talk to President Ahmadinejad and we need to be able to be in dialogue with opposition leader Mousavi. We do not need any new enemies and we have no permanent friends. We do not know all there is to know about Mousavi and what he stands for. He is likely more friendly toward the US, but, in the end, may pursue the same goals in relationships to Nuclear Arms, Israel, Iraq as the current government.

The solid ground is to stand up for democratic process, nonviolence, respect for human rights. This seems to be the ground that President Obama is staking out. It would be mistake to "try to get tough" as the Republicans insist he ought to, unless it is on this ground that toughness is based.

Iran, like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Pakistan is a landmine for the US and will be for decades to come. These are not our countries. We do not understand, appreciate or respect their history, their culture, their aspirations, their internal conflicts, their way of doing things. We do not need to support one poitical group over another.

And, by the way, the probable truth is that Ahmadinejad does have the majority of the population on his side at this time, though Mousavi certainly is the most significant opposition to develop to the Ahmadinejad regime and the Islamic Fundamentalists who make up part of the current ruling coalition. And, it is also probably true that these last elections were the best in recent history.

It serves our security and the development of democracy in that region for the US to stay out of the political fray and stay focused on the human rights, protection of liberties and promotion of democratic processes.

The Republicans have proven themselves completely capable of tossing out the long term strategies that might produce a more stable and democratic region for support of factions that please their political purpose in the moment. This might be, in the veiw of the neanderthal leaders of the Republicans, a good current strategy to gain political points in the US, but is not good foreign policy and certainly not the kind of behaviour that will give us a larger, more positive voice in that region in the future. Stay the course Barrack!

What Economy Do We Want to Recover?

The Economic recovery that the whole world awaits, begs a question that we should, in this time of travail, try to answer wisely for our future. The question is whether we want to recover the economy we had or build a new economy that is better for all of us.

It is widely assumed that the current recession began with the housing crisis about the time that the holders of sub-prime began to realize that, in fact, they did not qualify for a loan. This was about the time their mortgage payments began to go up and up and up because of the increasing interest.

They did not qualify for a loan because our economy cannot build a home for a price that many of us can pay. In poor communities like the one I work in, there is a huge differential between the number of homeowners and the number of renters, because the renters cannot afford to buy a home at the market price. The only new home builders in the poor communities are non-profits who receive government funds to build "affordable" housing for lower and middle income buyters. Typically the non-profit builders will spend about $125,000- 135,000 to build a home that they sell for $100,000.00. But, these government subsidies are limited so that while the purchase of this house at $100,000 requires a loan, there is not enough subsidy out there to help the mortgage industry. HUD provides subsidized rental housing for millions in the nation. All of which is to say that we had an economy that excluded about 30% or more of all people from buying homes either because they did not make enough income to qualify to buy a home with a enough space for their family or, to put it another way, we could not figure out a way to build a home for a price that these buyers could afford. The truth is both: we have an economy that pays about 30% of the population a salary that is too low for them to afford to buy and maintain a home and we cannot build homes for a price that they can pay. Is that the economy that we want to recover?

if you asked me, I would say NO! We do not need to recover this economy. That is the economy that led to the current recession. We need an economy where more people make enough money to buy a home and where homes can be built for a price that working men and women can afford. What the current economy tried to do was to qualify more people to buy homes without increasing wages ( a typical Republican solution to problems). in fact, the problem of reduced consumption does not have to do with the prices of what can be bought but with the lack of disposable income with which to pay.

We need a new economy in which providing a livable wages is a primary goal. This will only help the economy because it is a true economic stimulus, not a temporary one, not a paper created one. Workers spend money if they have it. They buy cars and homes and all other kinds of things that business needs to sell. We do not need to redistribute the wealth by government programs, but by creating an economy that pays higher wages to more people instead of creating higher profits for fewer people.

Until we find a way to increase wages, especially at the lower end, we are doomed to a boom and bust economy. The Europeans got it right on this one, not us.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Recent decisions by President Barrack Obama and continuing revelations about former President Dick Cheney strengthen the argument that we need a US Truth Commission to cleanse the national soul and pave the way for freedom to be restored.

"The truth shall set you free" is not an injunction that is tied to any "religious" insight into life, but a maxim whose legitimacy is established by simple logic, the most basic moral values for the good life and the need for periodic or continual cleansing of sins/mistakes that inhibit future possibilities for right actions that promote human freedom and the protection of human rights.

President Obama's backtracking on the decision to release photos of detainees requested by the ACLU under the Freedom Of Information Act, the similar backtracking on the terrorism tribunals at Guantanamo and the revelation of Dick Cheney's direct involvement in ordering torture not for national security concerns but to support his own policy decisions provides the latest evidence that a comprehensive Truth Commission to determine possible US involvement in human rights violations is necessary because the official and unofficial centers of power will not allow it to happen according to law or by means of their own policital will.

This is not a matter of whether or not the truth will come out. Frank Rich, in a recent New York Times editorial, notes that Obama's decision, supposedly to protect US troops from increasing anti-American sentiment across the globe, is a "fools errand" becuase the photos will eventually come out. So, Rich argues, it is better for the President and the nation to get on the side of truth and transparency from the beginning. The same is true about a Truth Commission. It is not that the Truth Commission will have to uncover the truth; the truth will be uncovered. The Truth Commission would serve to put our people, our nation, our country on the side of truth and human rights instead of on the side of the Cheney crowd who denies the importance of human rights and covers up all the dirtly tricks to violate them. President Obama is not one who, as far as we know, could be subject to the investigations of the Truth Commission, but he makes himself complicit in the cover up with these recent decisions. Cheney, on the other hand, plays both sides to his advantage, asking for release of memos when he thinks they will support him, but having a perfect record as Vice-President in denying all request for information that could unveil the truth.

The trouble with the Cheney record and the Obama decisions is that while politicians are protected and the troops are seemingly supported, the country is damaged and we, the people, are denied knowledge of what is being done in our name around the world. And, since National Security is always cited as the reason for violations of human rights, the Truth Commission could help us redefine this term in a way that actually protects our security instead of protecting those who violate it. The agreement of the world on the international treaties for Human Rights is based upon a sound assumption: there is nothing more important for national or human security than respect for human rights. Every known national leader who violated human rights from Idi Aman to Pol Pot argued that national security trumped human rights. In the end it was never National Security that motivated these leaders, but personal power and hiding the truth.

If the United States stands for freedom, the place to begin to earn that reputation is to honor the age-old wisdom that "the truth shall set you free." The fear that a Truth Commmision would damage our reputation is exactly the kind of logic that leads to slavery. If we fear the truth, then slavery is our destiny.

Cheney Didn't, Doesn't and Won't Get It

According to TV commentators on CNN, former Vice-President Cheney criticized the decision of the Obama administration to release the memos on torture arguing, ironically, that more should be released on this same subject; specifically, the memos that show how much information was acquired through the torture methods.

At the same time, Presdient Obama was explaining to CIA personell his reasons for releasing the memos and banning torture as a method of gaining intellingence.

Cheney did not get it. Cheney believes, evidently. that a nation can act immorally if it gets what it wants from this immorral action. Such immorality has no negative cost.

President Obama, on the other hand, did not make the argument to discontinue torture based on intelligence gathering criteria, although such an arguement could have been made. Rather, he made the arguement from the Scriptures: "What does it profit a man (nation) if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul." Obama said that respect for the law and human rights is foundational to what America should be and that to lose this part of our soul puts the whole nation at risk.

This is the first time in a long time that a President has actually honored the age old Judeo-Christian values on morality, despite the fact that they all have said that they are profoundly religious. Just to be clear about it, the reason to be in sinc with Judeo-Christian valus on this issue is not to demonstrate some kind of faithfulness to ancient values of the faiths, but rather, because history has proven the prophetic version of truth to be reliable: that a nation or a society that violates what it knows are basic moral principles is a nation that is doomed to failure, and, no matter what the strength of their armies or, we might say, the effectiveness of their intelligence in producing informaiton, will eventually suffer because of this immorality.

In addition to the absolute hypocrisy of wanting more disclosure, considering Cheney's unfaltering defense of secrecy during his time in the White House, the arguement that knowing how much information we might get from prisoners by using torture might persuade us to join the ranks of the most brutal and immoral nations on the earth for the sake of gaining this information is an arguement that will, so to speak, send our nationa straight to hell. On the other hand, a person who does not mind lying to the nation and the world about the reasons to go to war, has already demonstrated that they have the requisite lack of morality necessary for destroying the soul of the nation, not to mention sending us all into economic tailspin and national bankruptcy.

WHAT?

The decision of the US not to attend the Durban Conference on Racism seems strangely at odds with the Obama Administration's new openness to the world and, at the same time, will only increase the impression of the world that Israel drives our foreign policy, not ourselves. The African Amercian community will certainly have a hard time understanding this decision.

Of course, we have not seen the language of the document to be submitted to the conference for approval. The Obama Administration says that the one to be submitted is improved from the original. The explanation given by the administration does not seem to justify such a stark departure from the rather persistent and, up until now, consistent stance of openness to all conversation, meetings, encounters, dialogues. We can talk with Iran, but we cannot go to a UN sponsored conference on Racism.

In fact, it does beg the question. Is our foreign policy driven by Israel and not by ourselves?

Hard CAll, Wrong Call

To prosecute or not to prosecute, that is the question when it comes to now well documented violations of the law primarily by those at the highest levels who signed off on various forms of torture to be used by the CIA. It is a hard call because there is hardly any precedent and it might seem to some that it is just plain political revenge by a Democratic administration against a previous Republican one. President Obama decided to release the incriminating records, but decided not to prosecute any of the possible offenders. Hard call, true, but the wrong call. A soldier just got life in prison for killing Iraquis because it is against the law. What makes the CIA different? Wouldn't the CIA's reputation go up with all of us if it even collaborated in strategic legal actions against the intellectual authors of policy that violate nationa and international law. Wouldn't that be a "new day" that current CIA director Panetta talks about even as he promises that the CIA will defend any agent against which legal actions are brought for involvement in torture.

"Impunity" is a very bad word for a society that claims to be a society committed to the rule of law. Panetta says the lesson is learned, but I don't think you could find a legitimate psychologist or social analyst anywhere who thinks that releasing papers documenting crimes while promising not to bring any of the criminals to justice is any kind of lesson other than that "impunity" continues for the intelligence community. The "torture" in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places during this last fit of rage we call the "War on Terror" is not the worst of violations of law, national and international, or of basic morality that the CIA has committed during its years of existence. President Obama just missed a historic opportunity for cleansing what is one of the dirtiest agencies of government whose gross violations of human rights in Latin America, for instance, justified on national security grounds, have done nothing for improving national security but have managed to give our nation a bad reputation around the globe.

Navy Adm. Dennis Blair gets it even more wrong when he intimates that any lebal action against Bush administration officials or CIA operatives would be a disrespect for the military primarily because the war in Iraq was unpopular. Excuse me, but whatever happened to the "we are defending the freedom of America" schtick. Is that freedom not predicated on respect for law? What should be more unpopular than the war is letting criminals go free.

Sorry, President Obama, for whom I voted, but you are making the mistake of so many presidents, Democrats and Republicans, in protecting the military and intelligence community from the most basic of all elements that could produce responsible behaviour - the law. It might have been a hard call, but it was a wrong call...and worse, it was a bad call.

US UNDER OBAMA BEGINS TO GROW UP

Was President Obama "successful" or not in his trip to the G20 meeting in London. This is a typical American question. "Successful" is what we want and it is always interpreted in the sense of whether we got the world to do as we want them to do. Good for us and the world, Obama was not successful in this sense. What Obama did was to help the US grow up, mature, begin to understand the world the way it is. Along the way, he got about as much as anyone could get from the Europeans and others by taking the mature approach to relationships in which the other is actually respected.

There is a good reason that Europeans do not agree to more stimulus. They do not need it the way we need it because they have not starved their states the way we have and the basic needs of citizens are met, to a larger degree than those of Americans are, by state programs of support for education and health care. The Europeans may not be as dynamic, economically speaking, but they are more mature in their approach to spending and taxes; their wealth is greater and more shared among the classes than in the US. China's situation is entirely different from the US and European problems. They do not lack for cosummers or demand internally. What the Chinese face is the drop in world wide demand for their goods...so it is exactly in their interest for the US to stimulate while they do not need to as their internal markets still outstrip their ability to produce goods for domestic use. Where they make money is in the trade with others. In fact, it was the Anglo (US/British) banking system and approach to economy that has led the world into the current depression and the rest of the world is absolutely committed to not paying for what we created.

The same is true on Afghanistan. The Europeans have a different view of the world that does not divide it into we and them in some kind of eternal battle between good and evil, so they can measure the threat versus the cost of containing it in a very different way than we have. The Europeans know that Afghanistan is a black hole, and, more importantly, that military action has a very limited role to play in any attempts to build a representative and effective state. And, they have decided that preventive measure at home is the way to address the terrorist threat combined with strategic alliances and intelligence work in the Muslim nations. it is a more relaxed approach to the terrorist threat that has a more realistic estimate of the threat that terrorism poses to the Western world.

We should be thankful that President Obama is beginning to understand, for us, that the world is made up of a variety of legitimate interests and approaches to solving problems from which we could learn a great deal, just as othes might learn some things from us. Stimulus is the way we have to go because we have starved the state and regulation is more important to European states whose economic stability is more secure than ours and thus, needs, for banks and financial institutions to act in a way that maximizes steady growth, not huge and temporary profit.

So, just to be American and measure success, we can say that Obama probably got almost 100% of what was possible to get from a world that has different needs and share a different level of responsibility for the current crisis in economy and war. Plus, he helped America begin to grow up, mature as a part of the global family, something that we and the world sorely need to happen.

Newt Gingrich Reemerges, Thank God

Newt Gingrich is reemerging as a conservative leader. We should Thank God for this. It will be an ongoing reminder of why we should reject traditional conservative politics of unregulated capitalism and unquestioning support for military action. This is exactly how we got here, but Republicans in the Congress understand that they cannot get reelected by standing by the conservative platform as Gingrich proposes. This muddles the public debate on issues related to core values, so Gingrich, with his threat to participate in promoting a third party of "real" conservative values should be welcomed as a clarifying factor in the political landscape. Of course, this will serve to split the conservative vote and this is also good. It's just good all around and even better if Gingirich can spark a new party. Then maybe the Christian right can form another party in protest of the Republican lack of backbone in promoting the "Christian social agenda" and not wanting to associate itself with Gingrich's party due to his unsavory record on the family issues. This would be another blessing on America and would clearly identify those who do not have a clue as to who Jesus is. I do have one question that continues to bother me as a result of observing the Gingrich phenomena. I am just wondering how you can make a successful career of being publicly wrong, mean and immoral. Evidently it is a niche worthy of appearing on all the media outlets as an expert, but I am not sure if it is as expert in being wrong, mean or immoral or all three. Can somebody enlighten me?

The Real Quagmire

That Iraq is a quagmire is certain, That Afghanistan is even more of a quagmire, is even more certain. These days, however, I get the feeling that the real quagmire we are experiencing is right here in the good ole USA. We have the met the quagmire and the quagmire is us.

The TV News: At the time, it seemed like a good idea - the 24 hour news channel. In fact, what it has turned out to be is a business looking to create a market for itself. There is very little news and a lot of opinion and the opinion is not necessarily thoughtful, it is commercial, and therefore, not as thoughtful, because thoughtful does not sell like radical, angst and anger producing, out of somebody's gut expressions that parade as opinions but really are just self commercials, trying to sell oneself to the public so that your ratings go up and your salary gets more ridiculous. So, what we get is concentration on one or two stories at a time; depending upon which story can produce the best ratings.

Who can really say that the AIG salary bonuses is the most important story of the last week. Really, in the big mix of things that we need to understand, address and resolve, the bonuses don't make much of a difference, but the majority of "news" time has been spent on the AIG story. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs is tearing down most of the institutions in the nationa, Hannity is yelling who knows what (we all know what - it comes down to about two things normally - the democrats are wrong and gays and lesbians are subverting the country), and Nancy Grace is overscrutinizing every bizarre legal and police matter she can get her hands on. It's a quagmire because none of it nits on the matters about reality and the making of history that are helpful to constructing some kind of better society or even just understanding the world in which we live.

The Congress: Instead of looking into many matters that need to see some light and resolving a lot of national problems which go chronically unsolved, the Congress is engaged in posturing for the next election. So, we also get AIG and other sideline issues as the major meal served up by our representatives. Instead, we ought to have a full out debate on how to stimulate the alternative energy sector of the economy. This would be helpful. This might actually solve a real problem.

The President: I have to admit that the President seems like the only one who is actually focuses on the real job - solving the vast problems which plague our society. Almost every day or every other day, we get a new action out of the White House or some aspect of the executive branck of government. The Obama Administration may be wrong on some of the solutions, but they are actually working on solutions, not on trying to win an aelection, sell a commercial on the news channel or posture for looking good in front of the public. But the president faces the Congress/Media Quagmire.

The Private Sector: These area bunch of cry babies from the financial/banking sector to the major manufacturers. They all made millions and then when their decisions of greed led to economic recession, they want a bailout. The small businsess may be the exception as they need to actually perform a real service or make a real product that somebody needs to survice. But the big ones are just personal ATMs for the rich and greedy. The private sectors opposes everything that could help the public because it means taxes, yet they get more tax relief than the poor - just take medicare, for instance, which, in fact, is a get rich quick scheme for the pharmaceutical companies and the medical industry. If we didn't have medicare, they all would have 30% less clients. Since Jimmy Carter we knew that we needed a better, more fuel efficient car or an alternative energy car. Nobody got to work on it despite a huge amount of profit since that time. Where was it invested? The Private sector is a quagmire because it has come to believe that the nation exists to serve them, not them to serve the national interest.

The Churches: I really should not put the church close in category to the above as they have so little influence anymore. The reasons for this are many and increasing each day. Mostly they are caused by the quagmire the church created for itself when it decided to be "successful" instead of "faithful". But is it noteworthy, at least, that the self described "most Christian" nation on earth, heres littel or nothing from the churches on the most important issues of the day, except the usual banter of the Christian Right on its pet issues. The church has become obsolete because it does not speak up on the issues that any simple persons can see should be the issues that bother Christians (people who have some connection to Jesus) like poverty, abuse of children, war, discrimination and the issues of justice that have to do with providing access to those who have been marginated by our society. The churches do not speak up because it would damage their image of themselves as "successful". Instead, what we get from the churches is a steady diet of scandals where the church and God are being used to deceive the public, manipulate believers and abuse those who come to the church for healing. Oh, wait a minute, the churches have united recently to oppose anything the President might want to do to reduce the charitable donation deduction for the very rich. now there is an issue worthy of the church's attention!!!

The people of the US: I will get in trouble on this one. First, the disclaimer: there are many fine, upstanding, beautiful, intelligent people in the United States. Nevertheless, as a group, we lack focus and understanding that would lead us to take actions that would ensure a "good" life for us. We let Bush lead us into trillions of debt and tow wars not worthy winning. We still insist that all our politicians tell us that we are the "best, last hope of humankind", "the greatest nation on the earth" when these are not only arrogant, egotistical lies, but also absolutely meaningless in tersm of the struggle for a "good" life. These are things that "brain dead" nations like to hear. Instead, the "people" shoudl want to get to the bottom on things - like why we can go the moon and beyond, but we cannot produce a solar cell that makes solar energy economically viable, or why we don't use the vast millions of acres of land we have for building solar or wind energy plants that would essentially guarantee us energy self sufficiency for as long as we can see into the future and produce a less contaminated air to breath and water to drink. Instead, we sit around saying it is impossible to go much faster on the development of clean energy. We put up with a system of health care that denies 40 million people health care insurance. We accept that if doctors cannot be absolutely richer than 95% of the population then health care would decline. In short, we are part of the quagmire because we are complacent dupes of a system that uses our indifference and our fear of losing all we have to manipulate our opinion and repress what would be a normal tendency to protest and to demand better from our leaders.

We have clear goals to achieve: get the economy moving; develop clean and renewable energy sources, find a way to live in peace; quality health care for all. These are not huge problems for a creative and resourceful people, but they require that for a moment we give our attention to actually developing solutions instead of watching "reality" TV which has nothing to do with reality and of finding sources of informationa and analysis which actually are objective instead of calculated to make a profit or a name for someone.

Until that time when the American people demand information that is realiable, news that actually helps us understand the world around us and solutions from the private, goverment and public sectors, we will continue to be dragged down by the quagmire because the quagmire is us.

HURRAH! AND SHAME ON US!

The victory of the FMLN candidate for president, Mauricio Funes, in Sunday's election marks a huge step forward in the democratic processes that have been developing since the end of the civil war in 1993. It is also part of a continent-wide phenomena of the public abandoning their faith in the conservative, free-market, trickle down ideologies which have guided the Americas for the last decades and reaching out to the social democratic ideas of a state that has at least as much concern for providing education and health care to the public as it does for protecting the interests of capital.

At the same time, it should not be forgotten that this victory for the people and for democracy came at heavy expense, not only in El Salvador but throughout the continent. But, El Salvador will serve just fine as an example. More than 30 years ago, the labor unions, students and emerging middle class of El Salvador asked for democratic reform in their country. The response of the ruling elite was repression and when the protests against the ruling elite's intransigence did not let up, repression became full out war against its own people. This would not have been possible except for the support of the United States in dollars, military aid and military advisors placed in the country to train up a brutal military and police force responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of thousands of refugees to neighborhing countries. In the end, the government of El Salvador and the United States, under pressure from the international community had to sign a peace agreement which essentially guaranteed the reform that was originally demanded two decades prior.

The end result, in El Salvador, is a liberal alternative to the heavy handed, one-sided rule of the conservative elites which will have to prove its ability to govern the same way that governments around the world in democratic countries do - by producing good results for the public. The cost was tremendous because of the shameful support given by our country to those who resisted the inevitable.

The FMLN victory does not ensure the left with a free hand in El Salvador, it only guarantees them some possibility to demonstrate their ability to govern. What the victory should teach the United States and all others who are watching is that using violence to repress laudable human aspirations does not serve to detain these aspirations from being realized, it only destroys lives. El Salvador should be a reminder that war is not an answer to the legitimate aspirations and demands of a people who want only to exercise their rights and have their dignity respected.

It can be hoped that the Obama administration will do all that it can to encourage these govenments of El Salvador to remain true to their political platforms instead of continuing the Bush administration's policies of opposing those governments that do not bow down to US desires. It will make a huge difference for Latin America, for us and for the world if we get it right this time.

Afghanistan, More Than a Quagmire

THE QUAGMIRE IN AFGHANISTAN IS MORAL…..AND POLITICAL……AND MILITARY….AND NATIONAL!!

Some would argue that in war and politics there is no morality, only winners and losers. But, at least officially, on paper and enjoying international or global accpeptance, there are some moral standards that we agree on that prevents humanity from slipping totally into the deep abyss of human immorality: treaties, conventions, protocols, statements, understandings – a network of morally based agreements that build a quilt work of commitments that normally operate in the protection not only of speciific populations who, in war and politics, are unprotected, but also of all of us so that wars do not just become one huge crime against humanities instead of conflicts in which there are crimes against humanity committed.

The Old Testament teaches that if the nation acts unjustly in its dealings with the neighbors, the nation will suffer negative consequences and that to renew their ability to take actions which are just and, thus, favor the nation, repentance is needed. Otherwise, the quagmire deepens and hope for actually escaping the ultimate consequences are lessened. Even if you are not a person who gives much credibility to Scriptures, you have to admit that history could be interpreted to teach us the same lesson.

The quagmire that awaits President Obama in Afghanistan is extreme because he is entering a conflict which was wrong from the beginning. It was morally wrong, it was politically wrong and it was militarily wrong. And, then we did it again in Iraq…I belive that is six wrongs, which definitely do not make a right.

Afghanistan and Iraq were both wrong morally because neither nation attacked us. The argument that the Taliban sponsored Osama Bin Laden is spurious. The United States gave more material aid to Osama Bin Laden than the Taliban ever did. The Taliban beat out Al Quaeda for control of Afghanistan and then made a deal to let them stay so as to keep the peace.

Afghanistan and Iraq were both politically wrong because neither country is a strategic threat to our national security. They are the kind of nations that can cause problems, but not big ones for us. They dod not have nuclear weapons nor any way to strategically attack our country. So, going to war in both countries was a diversion from real national interest. This is due in part because we overestimated the threat of Al Quaeda to us in reaction to 9/11 and forgot about who really could harm us.

Militarily it was a mistake because we did not win either war and did not achieve any strategic goals for our national security or out long term interests. What we did incurr was huge debt, a destabilized Middle East, the empowerment of Iran and thousands of soldiers who wil. Suffer cosniderable physical and psychological trauma for an undetermined amount of time into the future.

In Iraq there only three major groups to deal with and we have paid them all off so that we can have the appearances necessary to leave the country as though we accomplished something there. In Afghanistan there are innumerable tribes, war lords most of whom have more money that we have from the opium trade. Exactly what would be the advantage for any of them to arrange a deal with us? In Iraq the incentive was provided by the fact that our presence was overwhelming. So the quid pro quid was that while we cannot defeat you, you cannot fight each other for control of the country while we are here. So, it is in the interest of the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds to allow us the face-saving ability to leave so that they can get on with the inevitable internal conflict that comes when the international community insists that three countries become one. In Afghanistan thre is nothing to fight over like oil and except for some skirmishes over boundaries on the edges of each war lord’s territory, no need to get us out there for them to continue their way of being. We are not a major factor in their life, so making a deal to get us to leave is just not worth it.

So, as we never admitted to the moral mistake, we cannot think clearly or talk transparantly about the others and, therefore, get trapped into making mistkes that make the quagmire deeper, like deciding to expand our troop presence in Afghanistan.

As we are not likely to admit the moral mistake and we will continue to debate the political mistake and the military mistakes among all the “I know it all” experets in the think tanks and the Congress, we need a face saving way to get out of the country and that, is why, I would assume that the current administration is floating the idea that we might talk with the Taliban. The Taliban, it turns out are the only ones who need something from us and, therefore, might be able to give us the face saving measures we need to leave the country.

The Taliban are not insurgents although they can fight like insurgents. The Taliban’s goal is to govern and they have a program for doing, however, misguided it is. And they have base in Afghanistan, expciall in the south, where, if the US?NATO forces were not there, they would easily take control of without any siginificant opposition from the central governement which is holed up in the capital and the Northern Alliance which defeated them with US strategic help is now disarticulated for fighting purposes as they have made their peace with the central government in return for the central government not bothering them and their exercise of power in their respective kingdoms.

You can see the face saving already going on in the quotes in the NY Times from Daniel Markey, former expert (sic) on South Asia in the Bush administration “If by talking, you can divide your enemies, talk. But if by talking, you’re just giving your enemies breathing space, then don’t talk.” Come on, we need to talk to the Taliban so we have a breathing space.” If the talks had taken place with any real seriousness before the war started, we may have never gone into Afghanistan, but like with Iraq, the Bush administration had not time for talking, so they set an insulting deadline and when the Taliban didn’t meet it, launched the Northern Alliance attack, compelte with US special forces and air support. The Taliban did what the Iraqis did – retreated to the hills, first of Afghanistan and then Pakstan so as to survive and fight another day. Time is not a problem for the Taliban as it is for Bush and many Americans. They have been fighting for decades, sometimes winning and tometimes losing, but always surviving.

It is billed as an attempt to split the Taliban and therfore decrease the violence or even that someone will deliver up Osama Bin Laden which, I don’t think, would be against the Taliban conscience if the price is right.

So, let us hope that we still have enough left to give the Taliban that they will help leave with dignity.

That will solve one problem but the not the larger one – the lack of repentance. The last time we made the moral mistake, complicated by the poitical and military was Vietnam and what the lack of clearly admitting our mistakes cost us was that we did it again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Getting out of Afghanistan is good for the nation, but it does not get us out of the quagmire. That would involve a neogiation with ourselves to see if we really want to come clean and get smart.

A Taxing Matter

Taxing the rich brings down the economy. This is the constant litany of the Republicans and the reason, according to them, that the Democrats always fail at managing the economy (which is another lie). Are we living in the same world, the majority of us and the Republicans? Go to any website that has data on rich nations, nations with best quality of life, etc. The US is always somewhere in the mix for the top ten or 15, but there are always at least two countries, no matter what the measure of wealth or quality of life, that are ahead of us: Switzerland and Luxembourg. Both these countries have higher tax rates that we do. And, whenever there are other countries ahead of us, they also have higher tax rates than we do.

In fact. Paying taxes has a better return in benefit than does the alternative that the Republicans suggest. What they suggest is that lower taxes gives the rich the ability to develop and invest capital in the private sector which improves the economy and creates job and prosperity. So, they would suggest you give your money to any of the strongest companies on Wall Street. Recently, let me see, how many new jobs has that created, what great economic boom that has supported, what stability that has created for the average citizen of the world, how many people have been able to retire because Citicorp, GM, AIG and Bank of America have been producing capital for reinvestment in the economy to creat more jobs, more prosperity?

Let's say that the stimulus bill only creates 3 million jobs, not 4 and that these folks who are working make an average of $40,000 a year. These folks will spend all they have for home, care, food, clothing, education, vacation amounting to a $120 billion dollar investment in the economy which when turned over, locally, will create even more jobs, more investment in the economy, not to mention that education will improve, health care will get cheaper and more peopel with access to it, and the nation will get a new growth industry - altermative energy. Meanwhile, AIG lost $60 billion in just the last three months aned Gm is in the midst of laying off thousands. Where do you want to invest?

In fact, when President Obama was arguing, for the sake of attracting the Republican vote, that most of the stimulus would go to the private sector, it frightened me. Who wants to invest in the private sector, isn't that what is killing us. You can't rely on the market. Who wants a market. I want a job. And, I want my pension fund back. The government didn't take it away, the private sector did.

Paying taxes is the best investment around!!!!

Human Rights Hypocrisy

The annual US State Department Report on Human Rights has just been made public. It is too early to know if this, like many previous reports is tainted by ideological or national security concerns, criticizing those who are our political enemies and going light over the faults of those who are our friends and allies. In one sense, it coes not matter. The question of truthfulness is certainly not determined by US State Department dictamens. There are many good, honest independent groups who can do this. The question if "credibility." And it is on that point that that the US reports is, has always been and will continue to be in the category of "hypocritical", not "credible."

The Washington Times report on the State Department findings wants to use it as a way to criticize Hillary Clinton's recent statements in China about human rights not interfering with other developing agendas. So the Times quotes an Amnesty International source to make their point: "The United States is one of the only countries that can meaningfully stand up to China on human rights issues," said T. Kumar, Amnesty International's advocacy director for Asia and the Pacific. "But by commenting that human rights will not interfere with other priorities, Secretary Clinton damages future U.S. initiatives to protect those rights in China."

I am not sure what role T. Kumas plays with Amnesty International, assuming the Times correctly quotes and identifies him, but his statement does his organization no good service by tying its credibility to the credibility of the US.

Clinton, by the way, maintains that human rights is very important to her personally and to the US State Department under her leadership.

The guy from Amnesty is wrong. What meaningful and credible stand can a country like the US which has not even signed many of the most crucial and significant UN Human Rights treaties make to any country in the world? I will not even mention that many independent human rights groups are currently making assessments of who in the previous US government to bring to international courts on charges of violations of human rights and even crimes against humanity. Then add Guantanamo. But, really, even before the Bush administration decided that the only human right that mattered was their right to do unto others before they do unto us, the credibility of the US has always been in question because of its lack of commitment to basic human rights witnessed by the lack of its signature on many of the treaties. this may also explain why the report of the US State Department has always been more reflective of political concerns rather than objective monitoring and evaluation based on human rights criteria.

I guess I am old fashioned or out of tune with reality, but I had the impression that first you had to demonstrate your commitment to human rights (by signing basic traties accepted by considerable number of other states in the world) and, then, demonstrate that you actually respect them before you go around pronoucing on how others respect human rights.

I am confident that human rights violations are growing in China (many credible sources have documented this fact). I am not confident at all that whatever the US State Department says about Human Rights has much more reach in the world other than that, in times of economic trouble, it creates and supports some number of jobs in order to create the report.

If Clinton and the Washington Times (sic) are really concerned about human rights they can begin by joining together in a campaign to get the Congress to sign, let's see, there are so many, but lets begin with the UN Treaty of the Rights of The Child (President Clinton signed it but the Congress did not ratify). That would be a first step back toward credibility.