Afghanistan has returned to the headlines. General McChrystal has come forward and told the president with little ambiguity that without additional resources, our armies will be unable to hold onto that country. Almost immediately analysts on both sides started coming down for either withdrawal, or for a major revision of strategy and tactics - neither of which would involve stabilizing Afghanistan. Of course, missing from these debates are serious considerations of either the future of American foreign policy or the future of the Afghan people. For the sake of all parties, we cannot simply return home. Like it or not, our short attention span and proclivity for war fever have indeed tied our fate to that of unhappy Afghanistan. What is needed in a dramatic shift in our perception of the conflict to one that fits the conditions of the country and our relationship to it.
However, there are a couple of claims that needs to be dealt with to understand why we are misreading the nature of this conflict. The first that deserves some attention is the idea that Afghanistan will somehow turn out just like Vietnam. The Vietnamese, so it goes, also unconquerable, withstood the might of American military force and fought us to a virtual standstill while driving public opinion over the precipice and against any further involvement. Afghanistan, it is popularly believed, has a great deal in common with Vietnam. Of course - Vietnam is not Afghanistan. Vietnam, a country with a long and proud tradition of ethnic and national identity was a nation accustomed to centralized government. They possessed cultural traditions that made easy room for a system of organized rule that could be translated into a nation state.
The problem in Vietnam was never that the “borders were too porous” or “the people to tribal to be ruled.” If that were the case, the communists never would have commanded such broad support. The Vietminh were a nationalist movement attempting to to secure an independent future for their country. The Vietnam War was never a question of how much force, or how best to secure public support; it was a question of how to disassociate ourselves from the legacy of colonialism while fighting an anti-colonial movement; an effectively impossible task. The war was initiated under false pretenses against an enemy that we shouldn’t have been fighting in the first place - we misread the nature of the Vietnamese communist movement. The war in Vietnam turned into a campaign to reassert western dominance in a region trying to break free from such things. We should not have been supporting the French in the first place, and would have done better to foster a more peaceful transition to independence. Hindsight, of course, is 20-20.
Afghanistan is a wholly different sort of war. There is not now, nor has there ever really been, an Afghan state to speak of. The tribal coalitions function in a swirling mass of shifting alignments and temporary unions while different factions fight for control of opium money. The Taliban never really controlled Afghanistan - they lived in Kabul, collected revenue from local farmers, which they kept in a box, and used to buy old soviet weaponry. They ruled only through the approval of local warlords who controlled most of the country, which limited any real power they might have possessed. More like an anarchistic feudalism.
If fact, I have very real doubts as to whether or not the group we are fighting today in Afghanistan can rightly be called the Taliban, or if they are simply a collection of semi-organized, neo-feudal and islamic interests that will go back to killing each other as soon as we leave. Needless to say, pretending that we are working against an enemy with much of a centralized command structure or even a set of rational unifying principals is probably unhelpful (though I will grant that there is increasing evidence that they may be developing both of these as the conflict continues).
Regardelss, lumping all concerned under the name “Taliban” is useful only in newspapers, and doesn’t make it true. Even assuming that they are the same group who once claimed to rule, those who advocate withdrawal or draw down want to suggest that the Taliban has learned its lesson; that they would never allow a group like al Qaeda to re-establish itself in Afghanistan. However, even if the Taliban was able to stabilize the country, and even if they didn’t share al Qaeda’s political and social agenda, would certainly be unable to keep them out or under control. However, we cannot pretend that 8 years of exile to the wild borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan have helped the remnants of the Taliban learn to respect the power of the Americans and the importance of good government. Moreover, one cannot simply hand the reigns of leadership over to anyone, and expect everything to be suddenly fine. Afghanistan is better understood as a sea of anarchy with islands of enforced calm.
No, we should be looking at other examples of conquest to understand how best to deal with Afghanistan. I use the word conquest deliberately of course. Nation states are created - typically through conflict or at least in that context. Any monopoly on law, order, and the use of force is earned, not granted by US or UN fiat. Our objective in Afghanistan must be to establish a monopoly on political power so that it can be relinquished to the Afghan people in a timely and orderly fashion. This means co-opting local leaders, eliminating resistance, and setting up the institutions of centralized government. The example to be examined is the one set by the British in India when they successfully established a centralized government over a number of minor kingdoms and unified the territory under a small and lightweight colonial administration.
The catch of course, is that he process will likely take decades, and America will have to be willing to cede power once the Afghans are ready to take it. At least one generation of Afghan children will need to grow up under relative stability before any sort of democratic civil society can be created, and the international community will need to pour in billions of aid and assistance. The US, as the leader of this coalition and de-facto leader of the UN, needs to take charge and stop trying to pass the buck if the Afghans are to have a future.
Nation building is not a quick and easy processes. The institutions that make for stable government evolve over many years, and cannot simply be imposed. No person is born with an innate love or desire for democracy, but they can learn to have one, once they see the benefits. Democracy must be actively desired. It is not a passive creed. For the Americans, we must decide if our great nation, with all of its power and wealth, can actually make the world a better place, help others to gain the benefits of freedom as we know them, and stand for something other that the simple glorification of our own names. It is up to our leaders to act responsibly and help the public understand that.
As the healthcare debate rages on, it seems more and more evident that the president, the once idealistic and capable darling of the progressive movement, is succumbing to the regressive trends of governing the United States. I have, of course, been following developments in the health-care debate with some interest. The most recent wave-making exchange to make headlines is over the loudmouthed Republican Congressman from South Carolina who yelled “you lie!” during Obama’s speech to the two houses of congress.
The trouble isn’t the heckling. Wilson is probably a racist (after all, he did sponsor a bill to let the confederate flag fly of the the South Carolinian capitol alongside the stars and stripes), but I don’t believe that he was trying to put the “uppity black man back in his place.” Whatever racism he is guilty of just freed him of the restraints that might have helped a non-bigot observe decorum. Moreover, he didn’t even believe that the president was actually lying about the illegal provisions. He later qualified his statement by saying that he felt the provisions in the bill “lack enforcement.” Apparently, its not enough to ban illegals from participating; we need to place a special provision in the bill to euthanize any who happen to show up at hospitals. No, Wilson and Wilsonians like him are driven by corporate graft, are lacking in reason, and in emotional self-control.
Nevertheless, people like Congressman Wilson are the reason why the president is “going soft” on the public option, and it’s tragic. These men in our own government who are willing to take gross liberties with the facts in exchange for a few seconds of fame, or toss out decorum and civility to win the hearts of extremists who already favor their party.
So what is Wilson’s intellectual position? It’s revealed by where he gets his information. Wilson gave an interview in which he claimed that healthcare reform would kill 1.6 million jobs, according to the National Federation for Independent Business - one of the largest business lobbies in the country, and an organization that represents the interests of the healthcare industry. Now we know who will be is underwriting Congressman Wilson’s campaigns in the future. Moreover Congressman Wilson is part of this cabal of American Rightists who seek to stop Obama lest he force their idiot children to get an education that doesn’t involve the rapture as a solution to global warming. So armed with this corporate-taylored statistical wizardry and his some anti-intellectual, evangelical street cred, Wilson is able to lie with a unique combination of false credibility and ignorance of his own falsehoods. Everyone is satisfied with the outcome, and Wilson didn’t actually have to learn anything about government!
The fact is the public option has survived despite its lack of financial support from big business because it is a good idea. All you need though, is a few rednecks, a national media that loves the show, and enough people that don’t have the strength of character to stand up for the future to make something that has genuine public support look undesirable. This unholy alliance between big business and the fundamentalist anti-intellectual movement is ruining the country. I don’t say that to be over the top - I say it because it’s true. Men like congressman Wilson don’t know what socialism is - they’ve never read Marx or Goldman; but they can use this language to comfortably pander to a base that is, frankly, insane. Moreover, they can make a huge fortune in corporate kickbacks (in the name of free speech) and the promise of a think-tank job, writing policy for them when he’s finished in Congress.
Wilson is not alone. He is just one man who is a symptom of a much wider disease. Men and women who refuse to believe that there is any need to fix anything in the US - not because there is nothing to fix, but because they can’t look facts in the face, and would rather scream stories about Obama’s vote gathering SS or make fake Kenyan birth certificates. Including these people in a serious public debate is frankly insane.
So yes, I am angry with the democratic party and with Obama for pandering to these people. Treating them seriously is a mistake. They have nothing constructive to add to the debate. They don’t even understand the need for the debate. They are dangerous because the majority of thoughtful people in the United States are allowing them to distract us from the things that really matter. It’s time to get back on track and fix this country before it collapses under the burden of our own foolishness.
The United States government finally passed a set of comprehensive environmental laws today. In them, the nation will be forced to lower it’s emissions by 17 percent by the year 2020 and over 80 percent by the year 2050. While I applaud the government for finally taking issue on a problem that scientific minds have been aware of for almost 40 years, I find the timidity of the bill not only appalling, but a sure-fire way to scuttle the effectiveness of this legislation.
Of course, I’m not the only one who views this as a “too little, too late” offering. In the past year, two independent reports - one in the EU, and another in the United States - have suggested tat the damage to the atmosphere is now so great, the the coming decade promises to be something of a reckoning. Worse, they also suggested that even if we were able to magically eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, the level of buildup already in the atmosphere is so great that our dangerous downhill slide would be set to continue into the foreseeable future.
None of this should not serve as an excuse for people to do nothing. We have a very serious responsibility to get to work on the creation of alternative energy sources, shifting habits as to reduce emissions and waste, and a duty to our children to ensure that the planet remain livable for a little while. These things can be done, but we must accept that the future isn’t looking too bright just yet. We will have to suffer through a continuing shift in climactic patterns that will continue to affect every facet of our existence, and need to start making allowances for that as well.
So the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough. I can only hope that the effect of the various incentives and punishments within it will serve to accelerate the legislation’s effect. Perhaps, once the initial push has been made, we will find that the process moves faster than the bill requires. After all, the Obama administration recently allowed states to set their own emissions benchmarks if the national requirements were seen as to low for them. If individual states decide to start beating the federal quota, it could be that this becomes the sort of low-pressure magic bullet needed to rebuild America’s dirty and outdated infrastructure.
Unfortunately, what bothers me the most about the recent US bill is not that it is less ambitious that what the world’s climate scientists would like. It is the continuing pattern of willful ignorance on the part of our political establishment to address the problem seriously. Instead of planning for the contingencies that climate change will bring and pushing for deep and meaningful reversal of pollution trends, they have offered up the minimum that could be called action. All of this comes on the coattails of eight years that were completely lost in terms of social, scientific, and environmental public policy. Today the problem is twice as serious as it was in 2000, and we are still far behind the curve when it comes to dealing with it.
Our lawmakers refuse to understand the problem. On both side of the aisle, they are relying on that most devastating of all Reganesque political instincts - their guts. When you rely on your gut instead of your head, you make stupid decisions. Gut decisions are what inform drunk drivers that they did not, in fact, have one too many. Our lawmakers should be basing important judgements on facts - not what they think might be right. The should be reading books and journals - not imitating John Wayne. This hyperreal politics of the intestines is getting us deeper and deeper into trouble. It produced Iran-Contra, the Iraq War, Creationism in classrooms, Vietnam, the collapse of the great North American fisheries, and a veritable legion of major tragedies that could have been easily averted by someone looking at the facts on the ground. Unless we really start demanding Reason from our leaders, we are going to, as Al Gore so elegantly pointed out, boil ourselves in a beaker.
There are moments when history seems to unfold very quickly, and it seems like the wrong decision will poison the well of the future for not just ourselves, but for our children. Today, one of these moments is unfolding in Iran. A new generation is beginning to rally in the streets of Iran’s major cities. These young people are crying out for acknowledgement and for freedom. They are rallying against a system of electoral politics that is rotten to the core, and need the help of the international community if they are to succeed. They are struggling against their government’s ruling clique, and trying to bring change - on some level - to their homeland. We in the United States can only watch, for fear that our meddling might again poison the well of our peoples’ futures.
No one would never dare suggest that there is anything fair and free about the election that just took place in Iran. The better candidate may have been cheated, but let there be no illusions in your mind - Mr. Moussavi was chosen by Iran’s ruling council as an acceptably safe opposition candidate. He would not have changed, nor had the ability to change anything in Iran’s theocratic dictatorship. It is no small shock then, that such a blatant piece of electoral fraud within this political pantomime unleashed nothing short of an overflowing well of revolutionary spirit.
In Iranian politics, everything is fixed by the ruling council of Mullahs. They discussed the election, the candidates, the potential turnout, the opinion polls that all dictatorships periodically run, and took a gamble. However they didn’t plan the protests that have swept the country. They didn’t plan on Mr. Moussavi taking to the streets and encouraging his supporters to organize against the government. No, in an political climate like Iran’s, what we are looking at is a power struggle - two distinct factions are fighting over control of the country.
Many thinkers in foreign policy are debating what the response of the United States should be. While one might be temped to say that Obama has been somewhat timid on this issue, the bitter history between Iran and the United States leaves the bigger question of what CAN the United States do? In 1953, out of a combination of misguided neo-imperialism and anti-communism, American agents with the CIA helped to overthrow the corrupt, but popularly elected Mossadeq government in Iran. This was the moment that defined the future of relations between the two countries. Through this act, the Americans helped to bring to life such virulent, fundamentalist, and nationalistic feelings, that when the 1979 revolution broke out, one could argue that it was not domestic at all. Instead, it was a revolution against America and the world we were trying to create vis a vis the Soviets. It was anger over stolen freedoms. It was the wounded pride of a great people.
Because of the importance of this event, the government of Iran identifies itself in part through its staunch opposition to the west. If the United States were to offer official support to the revolutionary faction, the established powers in the Iranian military and civil society would suddenly be given a powerful impetus to resist the formation of a new government. It would only serve to strengthen the crackdown. Because of the poisoned well of Iran and America’s shared history, we can offer nothing to these young patriots that wouldn’t hurt them in the end by empowering reactionaries within Iran. This is why I believe Obama has been so tight lipped about these incredible events.
The government that the US so thoughtlessly brought down in 1953 was one of the first indigenous democratic regimes in the Middle East. It may have been imperfect, but a terrible injustice was done when the American government colluded in its downfall. However, it shows us that there is a spirit of freedom alive in the souls of the Iranian people. Once again, the people of Iran are taking to the street. And once again, the beauty of the Iranian movement of 2009 is that it is wholly indigenous. This moment belongs to the Iranian people.
Know that we’re with you in spirit.
Consider this an apology for having not written anything in so long.Following the election I have been feeling something like Beckett’s Estragon.However, the recent explosion of violence in the Middle East should serve as a reminder to us all that the task confronting the incoming Obama administration is a daunting one.I realize that this is a rather obvious statement to make, but I point it out because I, like many people, have felt as though I am living in at state of political limbo.Waiting for Obama has trumped my attention as much as the election drama that preceded it.Never mind that I have been kinda busy.
Regardless of all these distractions, I would like to talk a little about the latest confrontation in the Middle East, and about modern warfare in general, and more specifically about civilian deaths.Civilians die in wars – whether or not they asked to be involved.This has been true since the beginning of time, and as long as men have committed themselves to the act of killing.Modern warfare is different though, because of two relatively recent phenomena.The first of these is obvious: the tremendous destructive potential of modern weaponry.The second involves the increasing concentration of populations into cities.
When Napoleon launched his assault on Europe which so horrified men of his age, the principal actions that affected civilians were assaults upon fortress cities and the scavenging of foodstuffs in the areas that the armies marched through.While these effects were tragic, the damage to the populations were surprisingly negligible when one considers the scale of the conflict.Here was a war that engulfed every European empire and raged across the whole of the continent.Armies met one another in massive set piece battles involving hundreds of thousands of men on both sides, and the death rates were catastrophic; death rates of soldiers that is.
Civilian deaths during the Napoleonic War are difficult to estimate, and the data is far more reliable for the soldiers.The best guess seems to be right around a million people killed throughout the continent and in the various overseas colonies.Compare that number to the estimated 2.5 million military dead and you start to understand that in Napoleon’s day, war was fought by soldiers locked in an effort to kill each other for the honor and aims of their leadership.Today the leaders remain, but the targets have changed.
The trend begins its slide in WW1:9.7 million military deaths vs. 6.8 million civilian.It is WWII wherein the density of cities and the military power to attack them finally shows us the beginnings of a new trend: 25 million military casualties vs. 41.7 million civilians.
When we move into the era of brush wars – beginning with US actions in Korea, its seems that the operational decision was that the wars of the future will ultimately be against people, and not their states.This was true on both sides of the conflict, but nothing illustrates this operational change more than the waging of unrestrained aerial warfare against population centers in order to not just undo the industrial base, but to cripple food production, medical services, and potential reinforcements.This was total mechanized warfare waged entirely against civilian centers; the latest way of attacking supply lines.In Korea, this tactic was so effective, that reliable numbers for civilian deaths don’t seem to actually exist, but the number of US deaths was right around 36,500.
These wildly unbalanced statistics only get more extreme as the century plodded onwards.In Vietnam, most research suggest that while 58,000 US troops dies, some 4 million Vietnamese civilians were killed.During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Soviet losses stand at about 14,000 with an estimated 1.1 million Afghan civilians killed.In Iraq, a military force of some 150,000 has lost about 4,200 men and overseen some 95,000 civilian dead – a figure with doesn’t include injuries (which might be worse in some ways).In light of the death ratio, Iraq has been one of the worst wars for an invading army in modern history.
None of this is new information.While war is inefficient and wasteful, it remains an important element of statecraft and a means by which a nation’s leadership pursues its political objectives.However, modern warfare simply doesn’t work.It ultimately amounts to the mass slaughter of civilians, and increasingly disproportionate responses by countries capable of projecting their might.This is turn helps to even further blur line between regular and so-called irregular fighting.
What is needed is a titanic shift in the way that warfare is conducted:A new Blitzkrieg model; a way to leverage military resources without the massive and needless slaughter of civilian populations.It’s a hard road and it requires making some sacrifices – first and foremost the relative ease with those who are capable of deciding to go to war.
Until September 11th, the United States did not believe that irregular fighters were capable of projecting their might to our shores – despite the repeated experiences of countries around the world.We could confidently fight them with ease at home and assume that they wouldn’t come here.We have since learned that this is not the case, and that there is no military solution to this question – at least not one that is acceptable for any civilized person with even the slightest sense of human decency.So when Israel moves a massive retaliatory force against the Gaza strip, no matter how justified its cause may be; the thousands of people, who are simply trying to live their lives, are still dead.Neither they, nor us can win the fight against extremism this way.They will not love you for killing their families and children – nor will they forget as quickly as you the broken houses and ruined playgrounds.Wars will be better when all sides really understand what is at stake.