First of all, thanks to the
Rachel Maddow Show for the catchy title. I think it pretty much sums up the irony of
President Obama's surge speech at West Point Tuesday night.
Some on the liberal left are trying to rationalize Obama's escalation as a smaller piece of a more "progressive narrative" of U.S. foreign policy.
Sorry. I see it in less high-falutin' terms.: once in place, this latest deployment will mean that Obama will have tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
I'm not buying it.
I'm willing to concede all the difficult points. It's easier to start a war than it is to end one. It's a nice idea but not very practical (nor even logistically possible) to suddenly yank tens of thousands of troops from a remote battlefield and create a whooshing vacuum. Further, a close reading of the text of the speech and a deeper understanding of what Obama's policy stances have been d0, indeed, suggest he is trying to put some dimensions and handles on what has been a sprawling mess of a war and that his primary focus is to eventually pull back.
But the even more difficult point to concede, from the other side of this argument, is that we all know with absolute certainty (at least I do) that 5-10-15 years from now, whenever this is really "over," there will be an Islamist government in Kabul. Or, at the very least, a Pashtun-dominated regime antagonistic to the U.S. And that's without even daring to speculate what Pakistan -- with 75 nukes-- will look like by then.
Here's the irony. While the war in Afghanistan was originally much more justifiable if not downright necessary than the war in Iraq, the latter --pointless-- conflict today has a somewhat more visible endpoint than the former! One can imagine, with a gradual U.S. drawdown, the emergence of some sort of governing consensus forming between Shiites and Sunnis, with the former dominating and leaning toward Iran (the real winner in the Iraqi war).
But in Afghanistan? It's a completely different chessboard --one that defies all of our schema. It's a country of literal tribes who think in terms of this or that valley, not in national terms. The Afghans have been at war now for 30 years --with no poblem, thank you-- and anyone who thinks that that another 30 or 40 of combat against foreign troops would make much of a difference to them is kidding themselves.
We said we went into Afghanistan to dismantle
Al Qaeda. Obama's own national security adviser estimates that there are currently, maybe, a grand total of 100 or so Al Qaeda fighters left there. Game over. Declare victory and leave. In any case, it's an open secret that the Bin Laden leadership moved next door to Pakistan and is shielded by a sector of the same military to whom we give billions per year.
No question that an escalation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan will make it possible for those troops to more easily "take, clear and hold" larger patches of contested territory. But to whom are we going to turn over these "liberated" zones? To the barely breathing but totally corrupt Karzai "government" that lords over 25 square blocks in Kabul?
I appreciate the fact that Obama took three months to ponder his choices. I mean that. I retain a strong measure of faith in his intelligence and in his intentions. But he clearly consulted with the wrong folks. If he wanted some sound advice about Afghanistan, he should have spent a weekend at Camp David with the
Mikhail Gorbachev who knew when the game was up and withdrew his occupation troops.
The Soviet invasion began in 1979 with 70 Russian troops and peaked at about 118,000 six years later, a tad more than Obama's contingent. The Soviets also built up their allied regime's army to more than 300,000. And they still lost. The U.S. has entered its 9th year in Afghanistan. The Soviets were defeated before their tenth year.
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First of all, thanks to the Rachel Maddow Show for the catchy title. I think it pretty much sums up the irony of President Obama's surge speech at West Point Tuesday night. Some on the liberal left are trying to rationalize Obama's escalation as a smaller piece of a more "progressive narrative" of U.S. foreign policy.
Sorry. I see it in less high-falutin' terms.: once in place, this latest deployment will mean that Obama will have tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
I'm not buying it. 
December 1st, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I always look forward to your analysis and interpretation. My heart was broken by Obama tonight. Against all odds, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt until he started reciting the Bush doctrine. It feels like an entire generation has been lost. Nice way to boost morale, Obama.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 am
Fine, the USSR lost. But the USA is BETTER than the USSR could have ever been! American exceptionalism, don’t forget it.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:57 am
Looks to me like the least worst option available.
By setting an exit date, he gives the Karzai administration one last chance to show it’s at least less greedy and more organized than the Taliban. He also underscores that the U.S. doesn’t have imperial ambitions in the country, or at least that it doesn’t intend to pursue them the old fashioned way — by direct military force.
“You can only do so much, but that much, you must do, even if you don’t know how much it is” — Garrison Keillor
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:22 am
I liked the part at the end where he introduced Lee Greenwood.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 am
I agree bb – as much as I’m pessimistic about the outcome. And Bob Williams reminds us why we’re better off not having a stumbling, reckless, disingenuous, cheap-symbol-mongering moron making these decisions.
I found it interesting that Rachel Maddow seemed fully prepared to look at this decison with a level of seriousness that surprised me. I expected her to turn on Obama, a la Arianna (who I can’t help but remember as Newt Gingrich’s former BFF.) It’ll be interesting on the left, but Obama campaigned on the seriousness of his committment to Afghanistan and folks who voted for him need to remind themselves that this isn’t coming out of nowhere. Disagree if you must, but extreme drama (“a generation has been lost”) means the GOP has you just where they want you. And the notion that this is just what Bush would have done is bizarre, considering that John McCain was campaigning on “muddling through” and against a troop increase back in the day, because Obama’s position on Afghanistan – a consistent position, mind you – has been too much of an indictment of the perfidy and dishonesty of the Iraq hawks and their insane obsession.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:14 am
Journos conversation with Obama yesterday, from Atlantic “Politics”:
“I would prefer not having to deal with two wars right now. We’ve got a lot other business that we’ve got to do with our long-term security prosperity. In fact if your economy doesn’t thrive over the next couple of decades, that will have a direct impact on our military and our ability to project power around the world.”
“I believe that it is very important for us to define the mission in a way that speaks to the very real security interests that we have in keeping the pressure on Al Qaeda but to do so in a way that avoids mission creep and takes on a nation-building committment in Afghanistan. To steal Tom [Friedman]‘s line, I’m interested in nation building here in the United States right now.”
He gestured at Friedman, the New York Times columnist, who was seated to his left.
Later in the hour, Obama supposed that Americans’ economic anxiety was linked to their assessment of the war.
Here’s his explanantion: “The American people are having a really tough time right now, in their own lives. We’ve got the highest unemployment rate since the early 80s, people are deleveraging from massive amounts of debt, there’s a lot of anxiety out there about losing your health care, losing their house, losing your job, not being able to finance your kid’s college’s education and so one speech is not going to suddenly persuade them that investing a lot more blood and treasure in an Afghanistan is an attractive proposition. My goal in the speech tonight is to explain to the American people why we have to finish the job and why the strategy I’m putting forward is not only the best possible strategy for our national security and has the best prospect of stabilizing Afghanistan but also has the best prospect of getting our troops home in some realistic timeframe.”
At one point in the session, Obama gave a thumbnail sketch of the three basic arguments he’s heard about escalation.
“One argument is that this is Vietnam and we should just abandon the field completely. I don’t know anybody who has looked at this very carefully who thinks that we are going to be as effective as we need to be in targeting Al Qaeda and other extremists if we simply allow Afghanistan to collapse. The other argument is that we can sort of stand pat, whether it’s at 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000, you have some platform there, you’re basically pulled back and hunkered down but you’re able to prevent Kabul from being overrun; you can still project some counterterrorism operations in the region. The problem there is whether that level is 50 or 60 ot 70, you have sort of a flatline, where there is no inflection point, there’s no point at which, we can say conditions have changed conditionally sufficiently so that we can start bringing our troops home. The strategy that I’m pursuing is designed to say let’s see if we can change the conditions on the ground in a time certain period. There are risks associated with that, but in the absence of that push, we are in a situation that doesn’t change, and there are big costs associated to troop presence, to casualties, to a slowly deteriorating situation over a course of years that are at least comparable and probably worse than us going ahead and making this big push now.”
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:56 am
What is the Obama mission in Afghanistan?
We know what the mission used to be — to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and destroy his al-Qaeda command. Bush muffed that goal, but now the mission morphed into nation building effort to support the corrupt, illegitimate Karzai government.
Afghanistan has never had a strong central government. It has been governed for thousands of years by local and regional tribal coalitions, which Matthew Hoh coined as Valley-ism.
This war in Afghanistan, President Obama has pledged 100,000 men to fight and win has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the “Taliban”
These ragtag bands are funded by opium profits and led by assorted religious extremists and druglords, many of whom have safe havens in Pakistan or within the neighborhood we are protecting.
Obama talked about Training?
But what do the trainers say –”You sit them in a room and try to teach them about police procedures — they start gabbing and knocking about. You talk to them about the rights of women, and they just laugh. The recruits are illiterate; they’ve had no experience at learning and they often can’t even count.”
Frustration?
We can’t even go after the leadership of the Taliban, even though they operate openly in the Pakistani city of Quetta, just across the border.
We also can’t go after the drug trade that funds the insurgency, because the proceeds are also skimmed by the friends, officials and family members of President Hamid Karzai.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
Eric Massa, (D) New York, on the Ed Show after Maddow last night ripped Obama a new asshole on the subject.
( I think it was Massa– he also voted no along with Kucinich on the health care bill)
Refreshing to hear someone talk straight.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:22 am
“Refreshing to hear someone talk straight.”
More refreshing to hear someone think straight.
Obama’s thinking won the peoples confidence Anna, in a democratic election. You and Kucinich’s, et al, jive-talking hardly turned a head……and still doesn’t.
Why is that Anna? What makes your left-wing logic so unappealing to the folks? Could it be for the same reason the right-wing logic is rejected? Could it be you are as big a pain-in-the-ass as Woody?
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022009.html
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/12/the-morning-after.html#more
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
At the end of the day in 2011 when we leave, Pakistan will support the Taliban to keep Indian interests out of Afghanistan.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Two liberals quoting two conservatives. Says something about the general state of liberalism in this country doesn’t it?
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Jim, your logic is non existent. I won’t bore everyone here with all the examples from history of those who were rejected for their heretical ideas because they were RIGHT…except to mention Jesus Christ….par example.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:59 am
There is still a frightening degree of ‘wishful thinking’ Bush and now Obama are forced to endure with regards to Pakistan. The ISI, or some offshoot of it, that secures the al Qaeda leadership (and possibly OBL) no longer has the master front man they had in Pervez Musharraf. That there is a ‘hot war’ in the Swat Valley directly going after AQ and the Pakistan Taliban is the wedge forcing the security apparatus’ to have to choose sides. The escalation by Obama – and points outlined in his speech last night – gives the Pakistan secular, non-Islamist reformers some momentum that could help tip the balance of governmental power in the direction of the reformers. If these points are acted upon by both the U.S. and Pakistan. The Army in Pakistan still ‘owns’ that country but it could become harder to maintain this. The democratic reforms always hinted at by Musharraf but never acted upon will have a much better set of advocates. Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani, and perhaps even President Asif Ali Zardari in tandem with President Obama is a substantial improvement over the Musharraf – Bush combo.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:04 am
From the Paul Craig Roberts ( former assistant Sec of Treas under Reagan) article in that Counterpunch link:
“Indeed, for decades now the federal government has been funding its wars and military budgets with the surplus revenues collected by the Social Security tax on labor.”
Interesting a guy who worked under Reagan is now a raving lefty getting his licks in via Counterpunch.
Rob Groch., do you read Strat For? What are you basing your analysis on?
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:07 am
Also, Rob, your analysis is full of the fantasy of nation building. The US isn’t going there to create a “much better set of advocates” except to secure access for oil exploration.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:40 am
Paul Craig Roberts is hardly a “raging lefty” – unless being a 9/11 conspiracy theorist makes you “left.” He’s more like a Lew Rockwell ultra-rightist who is so far to the margins (including contributions to the white nationalist V-Dare site) that he meets Cockburn coming from the other direction as they both go around the bend. You’ve got the “raving” part right, though. Doesn’t mean every sentence he writes is wrong, but the guy isn’t part of any political discourse I can possibly respect.
As for Andrew Sullivan, I consider him a conservative in the Burkian sense, but so is Obama to a large extent. That doesn’t mean he supports what are currently being sold as “conservative” policies by neo-cons, fundies and Bachmanesque cranks. Sullivan has done some pretty honest penance for his hysterical support of the neo-cons during Bush’s first term and is one of the more interesting commenters out there IMHO for the simple reason that he’s spent the last several years trying to find some new foundations for himself and isn’t just thinking but re-thinking.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Great, so NOW Reg plays the Newt card against Arianna.
He didn’t mind all her dirty fighting against Clinton, but
here we can at long last finally give Marc Cooper credit
for straying from Obama love. As Joan Walsh points out,
we can’t say Obama is breaking any campaign promise,
as he has done on health care.
Reg has hunkered down with his Kool Aid, and
alas, we are stuck with him. How a country that is
in massive debt can continue to fight expensive wars
with highly dubious goals on borrowed money and
NOT court utter disaster is the real question.
Well I remember Coop’s buddy Hitchens in
his Nazi bully boy drag arguing for his Muslim
Purges during the Iraq build up. “And if you say
“Military Industrial Complex”, I’ll laugh in your
face” sneered the gin soaked pimp. That is
what this is all about, and the laugh is indeed
on us.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
I will add that my own “left-liberalism” in terms of a policy agenda has a lot in common with the concerns of Edmund Burke. In many ways, since the Reagan strategy to roll back liberalism by hobble the federal government by racking up vast increases in the federal deficit – which was an open agenda of radical rightists during the Reagan years and largely succeeded – liberals attempting to rescue and re-invent the broad outlines of the New Deal social compact might well be considered America’s new conservatives. So-called “Conservatives” today – at least of the FOX/Palin/Bachmann stripe -have more in common strategically and emotionally with the raving paranoiacs, aggressive know-nothings and embittered lunatics of the ANSWER Coalition than any coherent or socially stabilizing public policy.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:53 am
I was was trying to make a counterpoint to Mr. Sideshow above.
Strat For? Never saw it before. No, I copied and read a transcript of Obama’s speech. There’s a fairly heady portion of his address last night devoted to Pakistan. Ahmed Rashid & Steve Coll were most recent books I’ve read…Their writing keeps stirring in the ol’ noggin…
Don’t play the ‘it’s all about oil’ card too quickly.
I think it is quite obvious that the new President and Prime Minister in Pakistan is an improvement over of Musharraf. Musharraf always promised the Pakistani people that his coup then dictatorship would lead to democratic reforms. Never acted upon. This is no secret. There is some reason to believe that ‘change’ can happen in Pakistan. We’ll see.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 am
3rd-Rock – go fuck yourself. Hillary lost. That paragon of integrity Mark “Mr Clean” Penn, Lanny Davis and the rest of them couldn’t get the job done. Get over it. And I’ve never, ever taken Arianna very seriously as a political commentator. Frankly, nobody has had a longer straw in a larger glass of Kool-Aid here than you, with your incessant defense of all things Clinton.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:10 am
Obama campaigned on the seriousness of his committment to Afghanistan and folks who voted for him need to remind themselves that this isn’t coming out of nowhere…. Obama’s position on Afghanistan – a consistent position, mind you …
Yep. It’s good to see that Marc isn’t joining the gaggle of buffoons whining about how Obama is a war hawk in liberal clothing who has betrayed all those voters to whom he offered hope and change …
“Those 30,000 troops could have also been in Afghanistan during this time, and we might have done a much better job of going after al-Qaeda and the Taliban and stabilizing the situation there than we are right now.” — Barack Obama, July 24, 2008
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:14 am
Pokey – I read the Joe Klein piece written almost exactly a year ago from which you quoted that trainer. The fact is that Obama has dealt directly – if you actually listened to his speech and understood it – with the worrisome issues raised back then in that Klein article, which was when Cheney was still in charge incidentally.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 am
Regarding nation building (this is a troublesome phrase, no?) I found this filed next to the stately letters of Chester A Arthur…
http://usa.usembassy.de/gemeinsam/bush041702.htm
(the money part)
“And we help the Afghan people recover from the Taliban rule. And as we do so, we find mounting horror, evidence of horror. In the Hazarajat region, the Red Cross has found signs of massacres committed by the Taliban last year, victims who lie in mass graves. This is the legacy of the first regime to fall in the war against terror. These mass graves are a reminder of the kind of enemy we have fought and have defeated. And they are the kind of evil we continue to fight.
By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall. (Applause.) Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings.
After 1945, the United States of America was the only nation in the world strong enough to help rebuild a Europe and a Japan that had been decimated by World War II. Today, our former enemies are our friends. And Europe and Japan are strong partners in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
This transformation is a powerful testimony to the success of Marshall’s vision, and a beacon to light the path that we, too, must follow.”
____
Obviously, follow through was not his strong suit, but that was GWB, on April 17, 2002 @ VMI. Apparently allowed to think for himself, maybe he really did have some in ‘compassionate conservativism’. Apparently, Rumsfeld and Cheney beat it out of him.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:43 am
Reg, the same most surely to you, and the situational ethics
you rode in on. Rest assured, Hillary bears big time blame for
the political mess the hawkish Dems create for everyone else-and
if She were in office pulling this nonsense I’d be all over her
like the cheapest of shirts. You can parrot “Mark Penn” all
you want, strut like a big political winner, but I’d love to sit
down with you and David Geffen, play the tapes of Obama
lying through his teeth about his Health Care Plans, and see
if either of you feel like calling Mrs. Clinton a fibber.
None of which has anything to do with this folly,
but remember this day well when we are swearing in
President Palin.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Oh, play me the tapes…
You’re totally full of shit.
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Good post, Marc. I have a very hard time evaluating the potential for success of this strategy. The military tactics are complicated, the local politics are abstruse, and the track record of such approaches is unclear. I feel more certain saying the amount of blood and treasure so far lost has dwarfed the security gains for the US. With this latest attempt we are once again spending far too much for very little gain. Whether troops really start leaving (or merely return to current levels) in 2011 is going to be very big in the way I judge this.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Rob G, I have repeatedly stressed that what should have been implemented was a kind of Marshall Plan. But we aren’t planning to go in there and do the right thing. And Obama has never alluded to doing any such thing despite the advice of Hoh and the Pentagon’s keen interest in Mortensen. Morally, since Charlie Wilson’s war provided the funding that unleashed the inner fundamentalist into the region compounded by our recent invasion we should put money into infrastructure working WITH the people. HA! When hell freezes over. Which may come sooner than we think.
And now you are an apologist for puppet boy…saying it was Cheney and Rumsfeld made him do it? Thats like FLip Wilson’s ‘ The devil made me do it’. Bush was never the president, number 1. Number 2, Cheney and Rumsfeld were always running the show.
Hair raisingly interesting to know Bush invoked St. Marshall.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:15 pm
reg, thanks for the uptick on Roberts. He sounded wonky to me…a Reaganite raving on COunterpunch. I didn’t quote any of his other stuff cause he started off all ideological and strident.
Rob G: Strat For ( I think its what its called) is a rather interesting site one has to pay for. Its on the ground intelligence for usually the business community. Keeps the money boys au fait with what is really happening that will impact their bottom lines. WHo knows..maybe the guy you were quoting was getting his info from them. It had that ring to it. And it would be the sort of site journos might also go to.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Ah…found it. Didnt look in though so who knows what they are hooting about these days:
#
STRATFOR – Geopolitical intelligence, economic, political, and …
Other Highlights. Weekly Intelligence That Drives Our Analysis … U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy for “concluding” the war in Afghanistan includes …
http://www.stratfor.com/ – Similar
#
STRATFOR
Member-only website. Sign-Up » Intelligence & Analysis … follows is U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation on the new strategy . … issues using STRATFOR’s signature combination of tactical and strategic intelligence. …
http://www.stratfor.com/tour/
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091201_obamas_plan_and_key_battleground
That was a freebie from Strat For on just the topic at hand. See what y’all think…
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 pm
For those who can’t be bothered the Strat For rubber hits the road analysis of what the plan actually means is we send a bunch of troops in there to risk their lives to provide a “stop gap” that will then reverse the tide of the Taliban just enough to let the Afghans take over…the article then goes on to analyze the Afghan military.
So much for Chester Arthur’s nobel sentiments.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Anna — perhaps it’s your need to have clever rhetorical flourishes getting in the way of understanding what others say in these threads, I dunno. But you’ve got it 180 degrees backward in re what I posted 11:37 am. It wasn’t Cheney and Rumsfeld that made GWB say those things contained in the speech @ VMI (actually it was GWB being ‘coached’ by Colin Powell that produced that speech.) Cheney, and especially Rumsfeld, were the ones that under-cut even the most minimalist ‘nation building.’ OMG! I just realized you and GWB have at least once held the same opinion on some matter!! (“I have repeatedly stressed that what should have been implemented was a kind of Marshall Plan”). Universe to explode in T-minus….
And yes, I did find the site for STATFOR. Thank you. Yes, there’s some interesting stuff…
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Reg, do I understand you to say that you find
Obama’s actions on health care consistent with his
promises on the issue during the campaign?
Yes?
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
3rd Rock – are you in third grade ?
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Rob G I didnt say it was Cheney who made Bush say the conciliatory humane things. I said he, essentially, was the president and was always pulling the strings.
You said– –that perhaps Bush had a heart but Cheney and Rumsfeld cut it out of him. I am saying that sounded like you actually believed BUsh ever made policy and did anything independently…that he was ever anything more than a mouthpiece.
And its you who needs to make the rhetorical flourishes suggesting OMG Bush and I both invoked the Marshall Plan in relation to Afghanistan. Har Har.
C’mon, Rob what are you a 13 year old girl?
You seem to need to go all adolescent/Fox News no matter what I post when I am posting nothing out of order.
Strat For and that type of analysis beats the hell out of a bunch of talking head non military types who are nothing more than columnists blabbleling about what they think this or that means and just going up their own asses with pseudo Machievellian horse shit.
THe topic is a military increase in troops. I find it more instructive to actually understand that might mean in REALITY not some ass wipe NY TImes columnists point of view trying to second guess what it will mean for the Democrats at the mid term elections.
December 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
oops …understand WHAT that might mean….
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Jeremy Scahill just came on Ed Show discussing the fact that there is to be a continuation of the use of Blackwater in Pakistan aslongside special forces continuing their slaughter of civilians meaning its not 100 thousand troops but will be 200k including contractors to the tune of 100 billion a year. He said the Taliban/Al Queda “media” was thanking Obama for his speech saying it was a great recruiting tool.
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Aren’t you lefties more concerned about the fallout over Adam Lambert’s queer performance?
December 2nd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
reg – “regarding Training”
I heard the same basic assessment from Matthew Hoh on an NPR or KPFK interview who said that, “many were un-trainable”, as Police in a short time, because of their lack of any education. Hoh went on to say that, ”many could not even count!”, — which almost seems impossible to believe. He also noted that teaching them to fill out reports or take notes is problematic for the same reason.
– Regarding Training from Matthew How –
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:02 pm
queer performance?
I found it amusing that NBC decided to fuzz out the kiss, which raised a hissy fit from the GLBT crowd.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Marc,
I had published an analysis in August ’09 (Daily News and Ventura County Star) that connected our problems to Pakistan’s existential dilemmas. I could not include all the pertinent historical information due to op-ed space constraints, and, some arguments ended up sounded too simplistic. In any case, I will post the article here for your readers to review:
Pakistan’s jihadi politics rooted in India partition
By Sunil Dutta
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Even though Pakistan marked the 62nd anniversary of its founding last month, it remains mired in existential conflicts. We are often perplexed at how the Pakistan government can engage in state-sponsored terrorism and harboring of Jihadi militants while claiming partnership with us in the fight against terrorism.
For those familiar with colonial history of British India, Pakistan’s emergence as a dangerous and destabilizing force was inevitable. The seeds were sown in 1940 by those who exploited Islam to gain political power and eventually secured Pakistan from the British Empire in 1947.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the champion of Pakistan and the supreme leader of the Indian Muslim League, could hardly be called a Muslim in any sense. Famous for his expensively tailored Savile Row suits, educated at Lincoln Inn, he was a highly successful and extremely wealthy lawyer. He ate pork, drank alcohol and could barely speak Urdu, the language of pride for Indian Muslims.
In 1937, the Muslim League had failed miserably in pre-colonial Indian provincial elections. The results demonstrated that the party claiming to represent Muslims did not speak for Muslims — it received 4.8 percent of the Muslim vote even with separate electorates for Muslims and Hindus instituted by British colonialists. The Nationalist Congress party, dominated by Hindus but still largely secular in nature, swept the elections. Jinnah became marginalized.
For political survival, Jinnah began blatant use of religion to gain support of Muslim masses with highly incendiary slogans, frightening the masses that Hindus were going to destroy the Muslims after the British left India. Jinnah propounded his deceitful theory of Hindus and Muslims being “two separate nations” that could not live together and asked for creation of Pakistan, a land for Muslims, by division of India.
His party’s incendiary slogan of “Islam in danger” created a tremendous rift in divided Indian society; cities and towns burned with communal violence. The violence was instigated by Muslim League with tacit support of its national leaders through their paramilitary League National Guard goons and resulted in massive Hindu retaliation. Thousands were butchered and tens of thousands made homeless. Once unleashed, the bloody monster of religious hatred was on its unimpeded march.
Jinnah’s chauvinistic propaganda and contrived ethnic conflict so effectively mobilized the Muslim population that, in a short period of seven years, the Muslim League went from winning less than 5 percent to more than 75 percent of the Muslim vote in provincial elections of 1945. It took only two more years for the country to be divided on the basis of religious hatred and massive violence.
Jinnah’s pathological politics resulted in a horrendous bloodbath. The Partition resulted in one of the most brutal and bloody forced migrations in history, in which Sikhs and Hindus were chased from newly created Pakistan and Muslims from India.
The ensuing violence resulted in the massacre of some 2 million Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and expulsion of approximately 17 million people from their homes.
The Machiavellian policies of Pakistan are the legacy of the holocaust accompanying the Partition. We are still reaping the bitter fruit of poisonous seeds Jinnah and the Muslim League planted in 1940s. At the dawn of the 21st century, the world stands on the brink due to two nuclear powers perpetually in conflict. There have been four major wars between India and Pakistan and the two nations have come perilously close to nuclear war after Pakistani-sponsored terrorists attacked the Indian parliament in 2001.
Nascent Pakistan was insecure and fearful of its larger neighbor India and immediately adopted three basic constructs as her reason for existence: India as the enemy, Partition as unfinished business, and search for allies.This misdirected focus resulted in authoritarian, centralized rule, lack of rapprochement with India and a perpetual state of militarization and war.
The never-ending search for allies against India resulted in Pakistani dictators and autocratic leaders making Machiavellian deals that further radicalized religious fanatics and later resulted in unholy alliances with al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Since Pakistan felt it had been shortchanged in Partition (deprived of Kashmir, a state with a Muslim majority), and it was militarily weak, it engaged in a war of attrition in Kashmir by supporting jihadi terrorists through Pakistan military. The shacklehold of Pakistan military on domestic and foreign policy ensured that peace would remain elusive between India and Pakistan.
Additionally, Pakistan sought to destabilize and control Afghanistan utilizing militant Islamists, accepted money from the fundamentalist Saudi Arabia regime for militant religious schools, developed nuclear weapons to counter Indian military superiority and sold her services to the larger military powers with the eventual goal of countering and destabilizing India. While Pakistan is being riven by the Taliban and Islamic militants, the ruling elite still consider India as her primary enemy!
Fundamentalists in the Pakistani military created the Taliban, supported and harbored al-Qaida, and possibly made nuclear weapon technology deals with North Korea. Pakistani political vision has been frozen in 1947 and remains stunted due to Pakistan’s fixation over Kashmir. As a result, 62 years after her independence, Pakistan stands as a state perpetually at war with herself and with her own citizens.
Machiavellian policies that used Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir have begun their blowback as terrorists blow people up in Lahore and Islamabad, jihadis train killers to launch attacks in Mumbai and elsewhere, and the Taliban expands its control and continues its march within Pakistan. Besides fighting the Taliban in Swat, the Pakistan military battles nationalists and separatists in Balochistan and the Northwestern Province. Pakistan continues to struggle to imagine itself as a nation, to find a coherent self.
As Pakistan celebrated her independence Aug. 14, it is instructional to focus on U.S. soldiers fighting the Pakistani-trained and sheltered Taliban in Afghanistan. While our military bombs militants in western Pakistan and we line the pockets of the Pakistani establishment in return, the weak government of President Asif Ali Zardari vacillates between serving its U.S. financers and homegrown jihadi ideologues obsessed with Kashmir and control of Afghanistan.
Nothing good can come of this.
Pakistan may be hopelessly corrupt, lawless, drug-ridden and inherently unstable, but it is here to stay. Despite being brainwashed by their rulers, Pakistani people have time and again rejected Islamic fundamentalists and remain remarkably open and tolerant. It is time for their leaders to step out of their insecure cocoons and focus on development of Pakistan. If the rulers of Pakistan will not detach themselves from their poisonous origin, we can expect continual wars by proxies, jihadi politics and perpetual suffering in south Asia for years to come.
— Sunil Dutta, Ph.D., is a Lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department.
December 2nd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I forgot to add in my last post: fighting in Afghanistan or elsewhere, WHILE knowing the true source of the problem, is the epitome of being drunk with wine of ignorance or engaging in brazen audacious deception.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Sunil Dutta
Thanks for the posts. This is very interesting, and very sobering. Q: Isn’t it the case that President Asif Ali Zardari currently occupies the same post that Mushrarraf used to hold as President? Traditionally, isn’t it the case that the Presidency ‘stands in’ as an executive on behalf of the military? Under the current constitution, the President can literately eliminate the position of Pakistani Prime Minister, no? Syed Yousaf Raza Gillani is the current PM which is sorta like being “majority leader”? Do I have this right?
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Mr Obama is going to find just how slippery the Afgan slopes can be…
I did hear him stress that some 43 nations will have a presence in the mission; a statement which is uttered but not believed by anyone when that ‘presence’ is taken in proportion to the American effort. This gang of 43 must have been inviggled to have signed on and are mere tokens.
Therein lies the fear of the Vietnam quagmire: twisting arms to gain symbolic support in order to make an announcement which no one believes.
Cooper justly questions what the region will look like in 15 years and what hue of despotism will hold sway. In Washington, they don’t care as there will be permanent military bases throughout Iraq and Afganistan. The next generation of despots will take power subject to that fact.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Aren’t you lefties more concerned about the fallout over Adam Lambert’s queer performance?
It certainly seems as if you are.
The latency rolls on . . .
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Rob G.
Regarding your question about President Zardari’s position and status, it is a complex topic. Initially, the prime minister of Pakistan was the executive with the president as a figurehead. However, that power balance has shifted numerous times due to continual upheavals and government changes by the military and various dictators in last several decades.
Zardari does occupy the same position that Musharraf had. And you are correct that in effect, the president can dismiss the government (although, theoretically, this power is subject to the supreme court’s approval…) at will, and, historically, the presidents (and also the popularly elected parliament leaders) have bended to the will of the military. And Gillani is the “majority leader,” although everyone knows that he is the powerless figurehead.
This entrenched military power in Pakistan’s society goes back over 5 decades.
Please let me know if I answered your question.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Dear Sunil,
Thank you for the illumination. Whew.
Your reality bite should be given oxygen in all the talking head blather that focuses more on the chess moves within American politics rather than the reality of the geopolitical landscape.
I am wondering what the fine line is between the inherent hatred and rivalry with India causing unending problems and the interesting point you make that essentially Pakistanis reject fundamentalism.
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Sunil, I just discovered your astonishing curriculum vitae. I am always awestruck by the perspective that is brought to so many disciplines by those who come from an Indian background. You seem to be a Renaissance man. Given your association with Bly would I be right in assuming that the work of Jung informs some of what you do? Tho so much of Jung was informed by certain Indian traditions so my question may be silly!
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Sunil,
Yes, and thanks again.
No doubt, this is why it’s said that countries have armies, but in Pakistan the military has a state.
Conversely, it must make it incredibly difficult for any meaningful civilian governance to take hold.
I think the historical back drop you mentioned regarding the partition of Kashmir and the continuing paranoia over that dispute fills in a lot of details which explain the tensions about how Pakistan and India enter the ‘Afghan Question’.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
When the administration calls me and asks what I think they should do, I’m going to tell them:
Set aside $2 billion to purchase every single opium plant grown in Afghanistan at 10 percent better than market prices. Then conduct a televised bonfire of every last stalk. Then next year, do the same thing.
Heroin prices will skyrocket as all the established opium producers take the risk-free route of selling to the U.S. government, leaving only a smattering of rogue growers to supply the rapidly dwindling number of addicts as smack becomes too expensive for all but the wealthiest users.
Meanwhile, the criminal infrastructure and kleptocracy that thrives on smuggling opium and heroin out of Afghanistan will shrivel and die.
Without that infrastructure and with heroin demand in steep decline and with Afghan farmers getting used to the benefits of legality, it becomes much easier to sell them on the idea that they’re better off selling pomagranates or somesuch…
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Rob, Anna,
Thanks for your kind words.
Anna, regarding your question:
“I am wondering what the fine line is between the inherent hatred and rivalry with India causing unending problems and the interesting point you make that essentially Pakistanis reject fundamentalism.”
I believe Herman Goering explained it best in his statement:
“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Secondly, as you remember, nine out of ten Americans were against the putative war in Iraq before Bush et al. put the fear of alleged WMD in people’s mind. Pakistani people are similarly brain-washed by their military rulers. And, yet, wonder of wonders, a vast majority of Pakistanis has not and does not support Islamic militants…
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Great contributions from Sunil who has so elevated the discourse here. Now, if only he could arrest Thirdcharmer and a few others!
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Goering was only half right on that. A certain percentage of the population anywhere, including farmers and including the “underclass”, will take virtually any opportunity to engage in sanctioned violence that offers itself.
I’m not among those who believes hyper-violent films and TV cause people to be violent, but I do believe the popularity of simulated mayhem as entertainment — K1 fighting anyone? — does reflect sustained, if often sublimated, desires to kill and destroy. These desires may be stoked by government propaganda, to an extent, but they aren’t created that way.
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Thanks, Sunil. Understood.
I had a very interesting experience at the time of 9-11 working with a young Sunni/Pakistani woman (from Birmingham) who had recently graduated from Sussex U with a degree in Internation Relations. Turns out her mother was very radical; the uncle had/was involved in some pretty hair raising stuff and the girl’s reaction to the event and teasing fawning admiration of OBL quite mad. I was also shown the adolescent texts with the quickly created jokes about it all being sent round her network of friends. Shortly after she was telling me (during lunch and break in UK reading the paper is what everyone does so the constant updates on the aftermath on everyone’s minds and lips) how she knew several of her university grad Pakistani friends were running off to “join”.
It was quite startling. Now she, despite being very Westernized, was still very much in the fold of the Birmingham community and of course her parents wishes and was soon to capitulate to the traditions…arranged marriage etc etc.
Of course, she was only ONE example and not representative of the majority. But in amazing contrast at that same time an Indian young couple had come to work in the company…Hindus and their point of view completely the opposite. Yet the girl had struck up a friendship with them feeling a commonality and had confided some of the extreme ideas and her family history to them.
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Hi Sunil,
Would like to add that my take on the issue of fundamentalism and religious expression seems to be wholly dependent on the context i.e. the sociological and cultural milieu.
Cultural “pathologies” if you like often seem to have a huge influence on how a particular religion will be expressed. A Muslim in Yeman or Pakistan or Iran or Indonesia or Saudi Arabia is often going to be subject to the political and social realities of the culture and that will also influence how one practices one’s religion. The same with Christianity, Judaism etc etc. I mean in America we have people who associate being ‘Christian’ with eating only junk food and drinking Coke.
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
correction: …religious expression {is that it seems}…
December 4th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Let me echo what Marc, Rob and Anna said about your contributions, Sunil: refreshingly long on light and short on heat.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:23 am
Thanks to Randy, Marc, Anna, and Rob for their kind words.
Regarding the example by Anna of the young Pakistani woman – if you put people from Pakistan and India in a room, you can not distinguish between them, especially if the Indian folks are from the northern parts. They have the same food, culture, language (many times I have talked to folks from Pakistan and they would congratulate me on my chaste “Urdu,” and then I would tell them that I was speaking Punjabi and NOT Urdu…)
The bifurcation/division of colonial India was artificial and resulted in a major catastrophe for which we are all paying for (but, when you consider the colonial history, we are paying for many, many artificial divisions…)
Maybe some day the concept of artificial borders and dividing lines will fade and the commonality between us humans will express itself; it might happen in geological times though. I believe Ghalib expressed the idea in his great short poem:
In this world of infinite possibilities
I look for the second step of desire
All I see is ONE footprint…
December 5th, 2009 at 9:14 am
Hi Sunil,
Yes! the issue of artificial borders/ensuing ethnic rivalries created by colonialism has, I think, been one of the biggest evils and the most catastrophic result is what is being played out in Africa.
September 6th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
nice post jigga
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