James Carroll on Republican Opposition to START

In the Boston Globe, James Carroll retraces the history of the US's attempts to regulate and reduce nuclear arms, and concludes:

Reagan would be ashamed of Senate Republicans. He would be appalled by the ignorance of men and women who regard nuclear arms as just another occasion for partisan advantage. He would shake his head, that Reagan mystification: What don’t you understand about this treaty’s historic urgency? How crazy are you?

Schizophrenia, as the word suggests, assumes a kind of split, disorder co-existing with health. But Republican nuclear madness now is total. Americans should be clear about what has happened. The Senate naysayers are drivers of trucks in a convoy whose cargo is the future of the planet. They are careening down a midnight mountain road, without headlights. And they are drunk.

McCain Shoots His Credibility in the Foot

Speaking with CNN (as reported in the WaPo),

 McCain compared his former running mate, Sarah Palin, to former President Ronald Reagan, noting that some viewed Reagan as divisive too. "I think that anybody who has the visibility that Sarah has is obviously going to have some divisiveness," McCain said. "I remember that a guy named Ronald Reagan used to be viewed by some as divisive. ... I think she had a positive impact on the last election, and I'm proud of her."

How sad, that a long-time Senator, former presidential candidate, and Vietnam War POW would stoop to such a low to cover his own ass for one of the grossest and most damaging mistakes ever made by a major politician.  Selecting her as his 2008 running mate doomed his candidacy, and was the single most enabling contribution to the emergence of one of the most under-qualified, polarizing, and potentially dangerous political figures of the current era.  I was - and am - no fan of Ronald Reagan -  a president whose economic policies and American-exceptionalist chauvinism lie at the heart of the US's current dilemmas.  (Was it not Dick Cheney who advised a former president that "Reagan showed that deficits don't matter?").  But for McCain to invoke his memory to try to legitimize Ms. Palin does Reagan a great disservice, and will likely win McCain the well-deserved disdain of moderate Republicans across the US.

BTW, in the same report, McCain chastises China as a not "responsible world power" for not doing more to rein in North Korea.  This, of course, in contrast to McCain's oh-so-responsible suggestion during the 2008 campaign that the US, as a putatively "responsible" world power, "bomb, bomb Iran," even after the Iraq invasion that had shown the world the US's dedication to global "responsibility" had by then destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Afghanistan: worse than Vietnam?

Very interesting essay from Robert Wright in the NY Times assesses the US's current adventure in Afghanistan as much  more damaging to the US than was the Vietnam War, at least in terms of its strategic consequences.  It's hard to dispute Wright's contentions that

• the Afghan war, besides being the longest in US history, is also costing the US hundreds of billions of dollars desperately needed to prepare America's domestic society for the future (which, as Wright notes, is what Bin Laden was hoping for from the outset); and
• the Afghan war is likely recruiting more enemies for the US than it's eliminating.

But something that really struck me was Wright's reference to a recent analysis that concludes:

A well tuned terrorism containment strategy — dubbed containment 2.0 by the foreign policy blogger Eric Martin — . . .  would mean convincing Americans that — sometimes, at least — we have to absorb terrorist attacks stoically, refraining from retaliation that brings large-scale blowback.

I have to concur.  Indeed, I've been thinking about this for awhile.  For all the horror of the 9-11 attacks, as we assess things more than nine years later, I believe one can make a strong case that the damage wrought by the US's response - both the damage we have done to the societies of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the damage the US has done to its prestige, its international standing, and its domestic tranquility and resources -  has been grossly disproportionate to, and incomparably more devastating than, the damage done by 9-11,

Sarah Palin Says Most Professors Don’t Believe in God

So she says, evidently, in her newest book (pity the pulp).  The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes a nice rejoinder that makes it quite clear that, according to a 2006 survey, she's incorrect (which ought to be no surprise, given her track record).

Unfortunately, lots of her true-believers read her malarkey, and accept it as gospel-truth.  That's a shame, because she's further entrenching a stereotype that has contributed so much to the anti-intellectualism - that disdain for those horrid "elites" - that the Becks/Limbaughs/Hannitys of the country have labored so diligently  to entrench in the American mind-set.  By dint of the tremendous educational opportunities that the "American way of life" has provided to so many of its young people, the United States possesses a wonderful - and vital - resource: thousands of highly educated, bright, dedicated educators and researchers, many of them of relatively humble origins and background, eager to contribute to the welfare of their fellow citizens by sharing their expertise or applying it to solving looming problems (like the effects of global warming) that will affect Americans and people across the planet.

But the Palins of the country dismiss them as godless elites, and encourage their fellow Americans to do so as well.

And Palin's message as well? Because academics are untrustworthy, academic and scientific expertise is similarly worthless, untrustworthy - and when possessed by individuals who might not share her triumphalist Christian version of monotheism, perhaps un-American, even a tool for the working of evil.

Leslie Gelb on Obama's Mideast Bribes

From The Daily Beast, Leslie Gelb writes on how Obama's "Mideast bribes" won't work (he's right), but says that success might come instead if Palestinian leaders Mahmud Abbas and Salam Fayyad have an Anwar al-Sadat come-to-the-Knesset moment and there promise their acceptance of a "Jewish state in Israel," and avow their desire for (here Gelb borrows Sadat's words) "permanent peace based on justice."

Sounds lovely, but in the eyes of international law and UN resolutions, justice for the Palestinians ought to entail the ability to

•  return to their lands - inside what is now Israel - from which they were dispossessed between 1947 and 1949;
• have Jewish settlements in the West Bank removed
• have completely equal citizenship, with full political rights and economic opportunity, in a bi-national state.  An Israel described and accepted as a specifically Jewish state (which is one of the things that Gelb would call upon them to accept) would not, it seems to me, afford them those rights and opportunity.

The Human Costs of War in Afghanistan

Absolutely a must-read is today's WaPo piece by Joshua Partlow about Afghan refugees from Helmand who are now congregating in pitiful conditions near Kabul.  The camp Partlow visits currently "shelters" about 1000 families, and is the largest of about 30 such "informal settlements" near Kabul.
Extrapolating from the statements of these unfortunate people, what's excruciatingly obvious is that thousands of Afghans have been simply swept up by, and caught in the middle of, the horrors of a down-and-dirty war that they did nothing to bring down upon themselves and of which they want no part.  Most of them seem to have no love for the Taliban; but at the same time, they've had more than they want of the presence of "infidels" in their land.

Ahunzada, a 35-year-old mullah, gets by on meager donations from other refugees, given to him as payment for teaching Islamic classes and leading the daily prayers in a low-ceilinged makeshift mosque built from mud. Two years ago, he left his opium fields in Sangin, one of the most violent parts of Helmand, which British troops recently handed over to U.S. Marines after taking casualties for four years.

"Every day, fighting is going on there. The more infidels who come to our country, the more Afghans die, and the less safe we become," he said.

Ahunzada has little affection for the Taliban. His father, Mohammad Gul Agha, and his brother, Abdul Zahir, both died when a fireball engulfed their car on the road to the provincial capital. The insurgents, he said, had planted the bomb to target a passing U.S. military convoy.

"We are not happy from either side, but I believe the British and American troops are more cruel than the Taliban," he said. "I have seen it happen: The Taliban come on motorbikes, they open fire, then they leave. Then the Americans just come and kill us, they bomb us, they open fire on us, they kill the children and innocent people.". . . .

Barigul and his family left Helmand last month. He said the decision was the culmination of long-running harassment from American troops and their insurgent enemies. He has been detained, he said, accused of planting bombs, searched at checkpoints, and slapped in the face by foreign troops. Outside the Musa Qala district center, where American troops are dominant, the Taliban patrol the villages, block children from attending school and kill Afghans accused of collaborating with foreigners.

"If we grew our beards, the Americans arrested us and put us in jail saying we were Taliban. If we shaved, the Taliban gave us a hard time," he said. "What are we supposed to do, shave half of our beard?"

While camp residents describe themselves as the war's collateral damage, caught between two rival forces, they also clearly want foreign troops to depart.

"Who are the Taliban? They are our brothers, our cousins, our relatives. The problem is the Americans," said Lala Jan, 25, also from Musa Qala. "If somebody attacks from one house, the Americans bomb the whole place. If the Taliban come inside, during the night the Americans come and raid the house. That's the problem."

Meanwhile, the Afghan "Surge" goes on, with the promise of "infidel" soldiers remaining on Afghan soil through at least 2014.  Whatever "good intentions" or "national interests" motivate the American occupation, the fact of the matter is that because of it, thousands more Afghans are going to die horrific, painful deaths  - like that suffered by one individual remembered by one of the refugees, who saw:

"a woman's hair entangled in the mulberry branches, her legs strewn far away in the dirt."

And please, let's hear no "that's war; war is hell" crap.  This entire enterprise will come to no good end - even if the John McCains and Lindsey Grahams among the American "leadership" do eventually declare victory and sing our military's praises as they waltz out.  No matter what happens from this point on, they will be leaving behind a shattered country and a legacy of ill will that will be seared into the collective memory of the people of Afghanistan, even as the McCains and Grahams - and the Obamas - will call upon all of us to remember it as a time of selfless heroism on the part of the United States.  

This is scary

OK, now this is scary.  No sooner had I posted my little piece on Frank Rich's essay about you know who than did this nonsensical "comment" hit my inbox:

Governor Palin is a courageous person, no doubt. In view of her massive following, SARAH PALIN CAN SAVE AMERICA WITH ONE SIMPLE ACT  if she would simply, briefly, tweet about the upcoming case before the US Supreme Court next week, it would change the course of American history. 

November 23, 2010 marks a fork in the road for the future of America of more than historic proportions — perhaps on par with events leading to the Civil War. To date, virtually all federal and state courts where actions have been brought seeking decision on the meaning of the Constitution’s Article 2 “natural born citizen” clause as a prerequisite for Barack Obama to be a lawful President and Commander in Chief of the United States (Mr. Obama having been born to a father of British/Kenyan nationality and father not a citizen of the United States), have been shut down, never getting beyond the issue of standing. To date, courts have very strategically (narrowly if not artfully) characterized and applied law and legal procedure steadfastly to prevent the question from ever rising to the merits — this on a host of different types and classes of plaintiffs, causes and defendants — admittedly under the most intensely implicit (if not more) pressure to do the same. 

The national media (some say our 4th branch of government) has aided and abetted the avoidance by mischaracterizing this as a “Hawaii birth” a/k/a “birther” issue which is nothing more than a “red herring” in that the issue for Article 2 “natural born citizen” is Mr. Obama’s father. Moreover, the legal community has aided and abetted the avoidance by mischaracterizing the 1898 Supreme Court Case, Wong Kim Arc, which dealt with the meaning of “citizenship”, not the meaning of “natural born citizen” under Article 2. 

November 23, 2010 may very well be the last chance for the Judicial Branch realistically to take up the issue, this on a case of legal standing solidly presented by Attorney Apuzzo and Commander Kerchner. If the Court finds no standing here, by a narrow interpretation of the same or otherwise, coming after all the rest of the “no standing” cases, it is doubtfull this important Constitutional issue can and will be resolved in any court of law. The question will nevertheless continue to fester, at tremendous national cost, never to abate, potentially to reach crisis stage, and in any event to undermine the structure of our Constitutional Republic. 

It is more than chilling and says volumes that NOT ONE member of Congress will publicly speak on this or, better yet, since the Congress of the United States has more than a vested interest, opine if not as a “friend of the court” at the Supreme Court, in the court of public opinion — BEFORE the Supreme Court convenes on November 23, 2010. 

The world is (should be) watching! 

Frank Rich on Palin's Prospective Presidential Run: Be Very Afraid

Frank Rich's essay is worth a read  - as are some of the comments, especially that of a commenter from Tucson, who notes:

With luck, she'll be eaten by a genuine progressive grizzly. But that may be too much to hope for.

I used to wonder how the European tyrants of the 1930s and '40s could have come to power.

What I'm seeing these days seems to be a slow-motion replay. Only this time, if the forces of darkness succeed in assuming power, there will be no democratic United States intervening to rescue the world. Instead this nation will be the threat, an irrational religious theocracy armed with thousands of nuclear weapons.

And Rich also reminds us that when the potential candidacy of George W. Bush was mentioned in the late 1990s, most observers dismissed him as an untraveled lightweight who stood no chance of being nominated, much less elected.

Be very afraid.

In Afghanistan, Your Tax Dollars at Work

Another notch in the gun of US public diplomacy?

It's a new TV show in Afghanistan, funded by American dollars, that's designed to boost public perceptions of Afghanistan's corruption-riddled police forces.  But as the NYT notes:

Unfortunately, life is still a long way from imitating art on Kabul’s mean streets.

The real unit most similar to Eagle Four in concept is probably the Sensitive Investigations Unit, which since summer has effectively had its hands tied by the Afghan government after it and another American-trained elite unit were involved in the arrest of a presidential aide.

On American Exceptionalism

Paul Woodward at War in Context has a nice piece about American exceptionalism, building on an essay by Matt Miller ("Ohhhh, America, you're so strong") in the WaPo.  Notes Woodward:

In as much as American exceptionalism is rooted in a belief in American supremacy, then the power ascribed to the nation is implicitly shared by every American. That this is make-believe power is evident in the frequency and loudness with which it is declared and the fact that those who profess their conviction in this power nevertheless clearly easily feel threatened — threatened by the government; by the rest of the world; by immigrants; and by other Americans who don’t share their views.

And Miller winds up his piece beautifully, and explains nicely some of the basis for Ms. Palin's appeal:

The conservative use of American exceptionalism as a political sword today is perversely revealing. There's something off when the first generation of Americans that is less educated than its parents feels a deep need to be told how unique it is. Or that a generation that's handing off epic debts and a chronically dysfunctional political process (among other woes) demands that its leaders keep toasting its fabulousness. Especially when other nations now offer more upward mobility, and a better blend of growth with equity, than we do - arguably the best measures of America's once-exceptional national performance.

Wouldn't it bolster Americans more to be told that we can meet the challenges of this moment? Wouldn't we be better off striving to be exceptional at solving our common problems?

Sarah Palin's focus on this theme proves she is shrewder than her critics acknowledge. I don't doubt that Palin's beliefs are sincere. But she's also tuned in to her audience: Millions of Americans who are anxious about America's trajectory and worried about their family's economic future. If you don't have real answers, soothing words are a start.

Oooh, you're so strong, baby, so handsome. Palin knows the country she is courting.

Counterinsurgency? It's Whatever Petraeus Wants it to be, including "Shock and Awe"

The WaPo's Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports that, for the first time, the US is deploying M1 Abrams heavy battle-tanks to Afghanistan, a move that, as he notes, "signals a further escalation in the aggressive tactics that have been employed by American forces this fall to attack the Taliban."  In other words, as one US spokesman put it, the gloves are off.

. . . except that the gloves have been off for awhile now, what with the ramped-up use of Special Ops night raids (which have been tri,pled over the last three months) the demolition of thousands of houses because it "was thought" that they might be booby-trapped, and the use of line-charges to clear minefields.  As for the tanks, as one US officer noted, ""The tanks bring awe, shock and firepower . . . . It's pretty significant."

Gosh, we remember how well the shock and awe used in 2003 eventually turned out, don't we?

And as for those tanks . . . as RC also notes, they bring a couple of downsides: they may suggest that the US is getting desperate, and they will remind the locals of the Soviet occupation of 1979-1989, which featured the employment of similarly frightful firepower.  And we all remember how well that turned out, don't we?  The Soviets killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans, but in the end, they had to leave, humiliated, their country's resources and prestige bled dry.

General Petraeus, however, is not about to have his "winning streak" snapped in Afghanistan, if he can help it.  Indeed, for me, this report produces a few particularly disgusting insights into the cynicism underlying the whole thing:

• in the eyes of his acolytes, Petraeus has not abandoned his be-nice-to-the locals COIN doctrine, but is only tweaking  it a little by adding shock and awe to its tool-kit.  In other words, COIN can be redefined however he likes.
• This very sudden ramping up of the pace of killing "Taliban" by Petraeus is as much a public-relations exercise as anything else.  NATO is meeting, even as I write, to discuss strategy in Afghanistan, and next month, Obama is engaging in a full-fledged review of the US's Afghan expedition.  Petraeus has indeed taken the gloves off in order to stack the deck as much as possible in his favor.
• The US military notes a nice up-side to dropping 2000-pound bombs, or using mine-clearing line-charges that destroy everything - trees, crops, houses - in their path: By devastating their homes and property, the US forces the locals to travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for compensation.  This, says a US military officer, is truly a good thing, because "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people."
  

It's one thing to be cynical.  But can that officer truly be that stupid?  This is the same government that - as all Afghans know - has been wallowing in corruption for years, which is one of the reasons why so many Afghans have turned to the Taliban as a force for stability.

Can we please be clear?  There will be no "winning" in Afghanistan, no "success."  The shock and awe of Abrams tanks will not bring victory; but they will cost the US thousands more of those Afghan hearts and minds that need to be won over if the US is to eventually depart that country with at least a little less ignominy.

On the Rise of Sarah Palin

If you care to know how Ms. Palin got her start, Jane Mayer's 2008 piece in The New Yorker (which I happened to serendipitously come across in my daily researches) is a good place to start.  The extent to which personal ambition (as opposed to principle) drives her is evident, especially in the way she pitched herself to the same media "elite" she claims to despise.  And Mayer's quote from former Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd says it well about John McCain: "He put the country at risk" by selecting her, and he would have to live with that.
Palin's sex-appeal-based popularity (her biggest single bloc of support seems to come from white males aged 40 or older) continues to put the US at risk, if only because the policy nonsense and leather-jacketed "star quality" she peddles (and Mr. Limbaugh promotes) in her quest for political super-stardom and big bucks hinder the country from coming together to address the huge, frightening problems it now faces both at home and abroad.  Twenty years from now, we will look back on this era as one of America's lowest, and Palin's rise  will epitomize it - as will the fact that a war hero and self-proclaimed patriot like John McCain would have stooped so low in his quest for power that he became her most useful "enabler."