In today’s New York Times we find articles that all seem to be centered around the notion that the citizenry in the USA is slowly but irrevocably changing its positions and expectations about politics and how it relates to American life. We have been uninterested and uninvolved as a people for much too long and we want change and the media writers seem to be sensing that.
We are expecting something to happen soon relative to a course change in public mood and ultimate national direction in government philosophy. But what? That is not clear yet. These stories reflect that national search for a new spirit, a new direction, a better sense of what we should be doing in the world as Americans.
The first story entitled Obama’s Speech on Afghanistan to Envision Exit seems to say that (1) on Tuesday night the President is going to announce that he is sending 30,000 more troopers to Afghanistan and that (2) he has an exit plan that entails turning responsibility for this ever churning stew of chaos over to the Afghan government.
The problem is that the Afghan "government", after over eight years of Western (mostly American) death, maiming and injuring of both themselves and the Afghanis controls Kabul and not much more territory. That is the sad truth.
And these are the people we are expecting to carry the fight to the "Taliban", whoever they may actually be? We don’t seem to know and all kinds of scattered, rag-tag and fundamentalist groups claim that name. They all want the same thing, they want us out of their country.
It is important to remember that Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, whoever they may actually be. There is some murmurings among experts that the organization existed on the same plane of reality as CHAOS of "Get Smart" fame or perhaps The League of Super Villains from the Super Man comics.
It seems to have been largely made up and then enlarged by Western intelligence agencies as a convenient bogey-man. It turns out it may actually be a sort of ‘catch-all’ phrase for Osama Bin Laden connected Wahabists who hate us. That would be all of them.
Al Qaeda may not actually exist in any real way other than as a name for an accounting entity that exists for funds distributed by wild-eyed Wahabists all over the world to finance our destruction.
The "Taliban" on the other hand are Qaeda supporters only because both ‘groups’ appear to be super fundamentalists but the Taliban did not attack us. You must always remember this as we discuss Afghanistan.
The Taliban is at best a proxy for Al Qaeda which in turn may not really exist other than in Islamist folklore. Are you confused now? So is everybody else who is trying to make sense of these so called "groups".
We are largely fighting a ghost wrapped inside a myth of our own creation with very little evidence that "The Taliban" are responsible for anything more than providing supposed military training to other super fundamentalist Muslims who see the world as an enemy. That is a big slice of the world’s Muslim population.
The problem with this theory that we have ginned up is that as far as we can tell, there are Islamist ‘Taliban’ training camps all over the Middle East. They are everywhere.
Sheesh! The National Rifle Association more or less does the same thing and has a similar world view relative to the Right to Bear Arms.
The NRA trains people to use weapons all over the U.S. because "it is the American Way". I hope nobody is going to invade us to wipe out the NRA. Those dangerous desert dwelling, fundamentalist "rifle-ists" who live among us are everywhere and virtually anyone can claim to be one if he joins the group and pays his dues.
It seems to be along the same lines with the Taliban.
What a mess! And we continue to try and claim that we have things under control? You have got to be kidding me!
We don’t even understand the political and philosophical landscape that we have stumbled into and then attempted to manipulate. We are lost and we are trying to "soldier" our way out of this mess.
And into this confusion the President is going to announce a $70 billion dollar increase in military spending for this war while sending 30,000 more troopers and marines into combat in order to…..in order to….in order to….do exactly what? I am not sure.
Take care of Pakistan and her security needs?
No matter what the President says, the Democratic Party will be splintered. That is a given.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will have to ask Democrats in the House for more billions again after she promised them solidly last July that she would not come back again for war money. This is going to cause a tsunami of discontent in the House among Democrats. This will be a major split in the Democratic Party ranks because even the conservative wing of the Democratic Party does not want to give more money for war.
This is a mess waiting to happen on the House floor on Wednesday morning of this week. I cannot wait. This will be better than Sponge Bob on television that morning, that is for sure!
In a related story Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of Great Britain gave a news conference at a meeting of the Commonwealth Nations yesterday in which he said that he expects Pakistan and Afghanistan to match the efforts of the West to stabilize there countries.
Gordon buddy, if they could do that, the West would not be there. That story is entitled Britain Presses Pakistan and Afghanistan on Militants .
In a fine article concerning whether or not real change is even possible in Washington entitled Vital Tests for Obama on Mandate for Change , Jeff Zelleny argues that this is a big week to find out what Obama can actually do, and not do, relative to legislation and national leadership.
This seems to be a make or break week for his Administration to lead…or not.
And in a related Op Ed piece by Ross Douthat entitled A Generation in the Balance we read that economic downturns may very well create Democrats for life.
Here is an excerpt:
"Do downturns create Democrats? The Great Depression certainly did: The generation that came of age in the 1930s has cleaved to the Democratic Party like no population before or since. And it makes intuitive sense that experiencing a recession at a formative age could inspire lifelong sympathy for the party of the welfare state and lifelong suspicion toward the party of free markets.
In a recent paper, "Growing Up In a Recession," Paola Giuliano, an assistant professor of economics at U.C.L.A., and Antonio Spilimbergo, an economist at the International Monetary Fund, offer statistics to back this intuition up. Looking at over 40 years of survey data, the authors report that Americans who experienced "macroeconomic shocks" between the ages of 18 and 25 were more worried about poverty and inequality across their voting lives, and more skeptical about the wisdom of the market."
Hmm! I did not need a study to tell me that! My own childhood experiences in my own working class neighborhood reflect that attitude. It took a Ph.D. to come up with this?
And finally in our perusal of the New York Times today we see in this article entitled Enlarging NATO, Expanding Confusion we read that the Russians thought and continue to think that they had veto power on the enlargement of NATO among their former satellites. Odd, eh?!
That explains a lot about the tensions between Russia and the rest of the West since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
From the Wallet Pop blog this morning we read an important little blurb called Why Dubai should matter to you: U.S. real estate could take big hit .
It seems that Middle Eastern sheikdoms that are now perilously close to default on their billions of dollars of debt to the West could sink the U.S. commercial real estate market since they own so many buildings and other real estate here. This is the danger of being an open market like we are in this country.
The Associated Press this morning released a story that appears on AOL News concerning why it has taken so long to find the remains of LCDR Michael Speicher who was shot down over Iraq during the Gulf War.
The story is called Why Hunt For Missing Pilot Took So Long . It is a chilling reminder of how rose colored glasses affects everything we see when we do not want to see what is actually in front of us all the time as a nation at war.
In the Washington Post today a telling article entitled A party both united and divided, has a subtitle which explains it all, Opposition to Obama is strong, but Republicans are split on GOP’s direction and leaders, we see that things are not rosy in GOP-land. Hmmm!
They might be rosier after tomorrow night.
In this final article for our review today entitled U.S. offers new role for Pakistan, it seems that our President has sent a two page letter to Pakistan’s government offering more support and more money if they get their act together and stop using insurgent groups for foreign policy goals.
Yes, you read that right. Pakistan is using "Taliban" and other allied Islamist groups for their foreign policy goals. Could get this mess get any more twisted?
What is very interesting to me is this paragraph:
"The offer, including an effort to help reduce tensions between Pakistan and India, was contained in a two-page letter delivered to President Asif Ali Zardari this month by Obama national security adviser James L. Jones. It was accompanied by assurances from Jones that the United States will increase its military and civilian efforts in Afghanistan and that it plans no early withdrawal."
So, in the end, our involvement in Afghanistan is about the security of Pakistan?
How quaint.
It took over eight years of brutal combat borne by working class kids for the truth to come out?
When were we going to be told this? And the National Security Advisor to the President tells the Pakistanis that we will be in Afghanistan for some time to come? That sounds like an imperial decision to me.
Are we the Roman Empire now? The Patrician class decides for the Plebians who will be maimed, who will fight and who will die for Patrician goals? Do I have this figured right?
When were the American people going to get a say in this?
When were we going to be able to decide whether or not we wanted our neighborhood kids killed in Afghanistan so that Pakistan’s allies among the Taliban would not be used as a prod to push Pakistan’s foreign policy goals forward using terrorist tactics?
The subterfuge gets so tiring, doesn’t it? And it is all coming from our government!
Get informed and stay informed. An informed veteran is a comfort to his friends and a danger to his adversaries.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
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