Taliban, Iraqi Sunnis – Apples, Oranges

What I’m reading about President Barack Obama’s latest pronouncements on turning the tide in the war in Afghanistan makes me uneasy.

There is no doubt that U.S. and NATO fortunes have backslid in Afghanistan, through no fault of our troops on the ground – there just haven’t been enough to pursue any of a number of strategies effectively.  We also know that in many respects the “surge” in Iraq worked to some effect in that war.  The surge was not just about troops, it was also about effective counterinsurgency policy and tactics.  One of those tactics was to co-opt Sunni tribal elders and their followers who had fallen in line with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Now, as if Afghanistan is just like Iraq, we’re going to surge there as well.  More troops makes sense if those troops are protecting civilians and not leaving them prey to the Taliban.  More troops make sense if we are capturing or killing Taliban.  Paying off Taliban in the way we worked with Sunni leaders in Iraq is a suckers bet, however.

Too many Americans view the Islamic world through a single lens ground from the images of 9/11 and the Bush war on terror.  In this view all muslims are sixth century throwbacks who routinely take to the streets and chant death to America.

The truth is that most muslims want the same things most of us want – peace, prosperity, liberty.  Another part of the truth is that there is a very vocal, in your face segment of Islam, who are grounded in a medieval view of the world.  They are inherently evil.  Their most apparent incarnation is in the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

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Transcript: Obama Interview with New York Times Aboard Air Force One – May Negotiate with Taliban

(Source: New York Times)

President Obama spoke in a 35-minute interview aboard Air Force One on Friday afternoon as he traveled from Columbus, Ohio to Andrews Air Force Base. This is an edited transcript, as recorded by The New York Times.

Q. You said it’s going to take a long time to get out of this economic crisis. Can you assure the American people that the economy will be growing by the summer, the fall or the end of the year?

A. I don’t think that anybody has that kind of crystal ball. We are going through a wrenching process of de-leveraging in the financial sectors – not just here in the United States, but all around the world – that have profound consequences for Main Street. What started off as problems with the banks, led to a contraction of lending, which led in turn to both declining demand on the part of consumers, but also declining demand on the part of business. So it is going to take some time to work itself through.

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Transcript: President Barack Obama, First Press Conference, February 9, 2009

(Source: CNN)

President Obama: Good evening, everybody. Please be seated.

Before I take your questions tonight, I’d like to speak briefly about the state of our economy and why I believe we need to put this recovery plan in motion as soon as possible.

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AfPakanistan – What Has Barack Obama Inherited

U.S. Marine under fire in Afghanistan, Spring 2008, Reuters

U.S. Military Surge in Afghanistan Can It Work?

U.S. Ally Pakistan – Working Next Door at Cross Purpose

If you’re at all interested in the future of the “War on Terror” and the current version of the Great Game being played out Afghanistan and Pakistan you need to read two stories from the Sunday New York Times:

• Fearing another Quagmire in Afghanistan
• In Pakistan, radio amplifies terror

What a mess.

No question about it, we didn’t finish the job in Afghanistan.  We pulled personnel and resources from the fight and sent it all to Iraq.  Six or seven years later, the Taliban controls swaths of territory, they use the Afghan-Pak border like a revolving door and they still terrorize those who don’t bend to their Dark Ages world view.

I’ve read that President Barack Obama is sending anywhere from 7,000 to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in order to deal with a resurgent Taliban, drug lords and assorted other characters from Earth’s version of Tatooine’s Cantina.  He might listen to former Secy of State Colin Powell:

Think Iraq was hard? Afghanistan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell argues, will be “much, much harder.”

“Iraq had a middle class,” Mr. Powell pointed out on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” a couple of hours before Mr. Obama was sworn in last Tuesday. “It was a fairly advanced country before Saddam Hussein drove it in the ground.” Afghanistan, on the other hand, “is still basically a tribal society, a lot of corruption; drugs are going to destroy that country if something isn’t done about it.”

Remember the post-Soviet era in Afghanistan? Forget about all the great powers that have had their militaries ground down in the mountain redoubts of the country, just think back to when the Soviets left.

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Saucy Jack Letter Was Debunked Long Ago

Regular readers know that one of my pet peeves is chain emails, or the emails that aren’t true but purport to be someone’s heart-tugging story or tale of modern-day patriotism.  Well, I got another one the other day and held on to it until I had time to look into the matter.  I’m not the debunker here, I’m just trying to use the Internets to amplify the debunking.

Thanks once again to Snopes.com.  You can read the original, expletive laden letter at Snopes and the full story as far as they know it behind the “Saucy Jack Letter.”  This has apparently been in circulation in one form or another since November 2001.  The version I received was G-Rated without the swearing.

An excerpt from Snopes’ overview of the letter:

Is the story at least believable? Not really – the narrative is rife with errors and inconsistencies: for example, Ab Gach, the panhandle, and the Hindu Kush mountains are all in the northeast portion of Afghanistan, not the northwest; scorpion antivenin is injected, not drunk; and a true “Recon Marine” wouldn’t be broadcasting specifics about his position and mission to the world at large. If this really was the work of a serviceman in Afghanistan, he was deliberately trying to be misleading or funny, not to convey an account of real events.

The “Saucy Jack” letter is as popular as it is because it purports to give insight into the day-to-day reality of a soldier in the field that CNN fails to provide. News emerging from the war in Afghanistan seems rigidly controlled, and the people back home are hungry for information that is not forthcoming. A missive such as this one thus falls on highly receptive ears.

DICK Cheney and State Sponsored Torture

VP DICK Cheney appeared on CBS’ Face the Nation this morning.  This interview wasn’t substantively different from any of the others he’s done in the past month:

Cheney also urged the Obama administration to continue the Bush administration’s interrogation policies.

“I would hope [Obama] would avoid doing what others have done in the past, which is letting the campaign rhetoric guide his judgment in this absolutely crucial area,” Cheney said. “We were very careful, we did everything by the book, and in fact we produced very significant results.”

So many problems with that statement, DICK.  There are a great many smart people, including former members of the Bush Administration who warned you and David Addington about getting too carried away with agressive interrogation techniques.  Chief among their concerns was something we patriots like to call the U.S. Constitution.  There’s also this other little concern known as the Geneva Convention.  You can argue all you want that our foes in the war on terror are not lawful combatants, but the rest of the world needs to somewhat agree, or, it looks like selective application of an international human rights treaty.  And, what about the old bromide that we’re not going to stoop to their level.  There’s so much more than campaign rhetoric behind the criticisms of the Bush Administration’s endorsement of torture.

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U.S. Sunday Papers | December 21

Los Angeles Times

• ‘Lethal Warriors’ in Iraq, linked to string of crimes back home
• Obama ups the ante on economic stimulus
• Op-Ed, Doyle McManus: Obama must spend wisely

New York Times

• Obama expands recovery plans
• Economy tests Obama’s vision of energy efficient auto industry
• White House philosophy stoked mortgage bonfire
• Russian push on treason raises fears
• Canada agrees to its own auto bailout
• Ambush raises unsettling questions in Afghanistan
• Op-Ed, Alan Blinder: Missing the Mark with $700 Billion
• Op-Ed, Tom Friedman: China to the Rescue? Not!
• Op-Ed, Olivier Roy & Justin Vaisse: Winning Islam Over

Washington Post

• Obama expands stimulus goals
• Extradition of terror suspects founders
• Tiny state, huge pain
• U.S. might double Afghanistan force
• Will executive pay packages get slashed?
• Op-Ed, Leonard Downie Jr.: Could we uncover Watergate today?
• Op-Ed, George Will: Executive powerplay makes Congress moot
  

What the Islamic Terrorists May Really Want: Strike the Match on Pakistan’s Tinderbox

One encouraging sign of potentially avoiding a violent dispute between Pakistan and India in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks was the planned visit to India by the leader of Pakistan’s sometimes rogue intelligence agency.

Known as ISI which stands for Inter Services Intelligence, the agency is ostensibly an arm of the Pakistani Army.  ISI is chiefly known for being the main conduit between the United States and the Afghani mujahadeen groups who fought Soviet occupation.  When the Soviets left Afghanistan, ISI threw in its lot with the Taliban.  The Taliban in turn eventually welcomed Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda back into the country and the roots of the current worldwide war on terror took hold.

So, to have the chief of ISI interacting with the Indian government would be a good sign.  Only the ISI chief essentially told Pakistani President Asif Zardari, “No.”  He didn’t make the trip. Read more

Video: Obama’s National Security Team, Face the Nation, Woodward, Zakaria, Mayer, Dyson | November 30

The following 16 minute video is well worth watching – insightful talk with Bob Woodward, Fareed Zakaria, Jane Mayer and Michael Eric Dyson regarding President-elect Barack Obama’s announcement tomorrow unveiling his national security team.  One interesting comment from Woodward:

SCHIEFFER: …the president, if all goes as expected, at 10:50 Eastern time tomorrow will
announce his new national security team, to be headed by Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of
state.

Mr. WOODWARD: She never goes away, she and her husband. It’s an amazing national security team that Obama appears to have selected. It’s kind of like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

You’ve got too cool, which might be–or at least appropriately cool, General Jones as the national security adviser; Gates is kind of just right, in the middle; and Hillary Clinton, hot. This is going to be a whole new center of gravity for the news media, for the whole world. My assessment without having any knowledge, really, is that the economists and the economic team around Obama convinced him that the economic crisis is so deep and going to require to much time, go ahead and give Hillary and Bill the world.

Yikes.  I’m not sure that’s what I voted for, Bob.