Obama on Afghanistan

I caught the last half of President Obama's speech on Afghanistan. I'm glad the decision has been made and there will be no more discussion of "dithering." I'm not all that thrilled with sending another 30,000 troops, but I am reluctantly supportive. Part of my rationale is that I trust Obama has thought this through thoroughly, and has weighed all of the options carefully. The other part of my rationale is that I basically agree with him, much as I don't want to.

There have been many comparisons of Afghanistan with Vietnam. Newsweek looked at the question of whether or not Vietnam was winnable. I don't think that's the right question. I think there are two questions about Vietnam that I haven't seen discussed much: 1) how was it related to WWII, and 2) So we lost - so what?

First, on the WWII question. American armies have a reputation for "fighting the last war," and supposedly that's what we did in Vietnam. But thinking about WWII also sheds some light on why we were there in the first place.

From the perspective of 40 years, it seems ridiculous that we were even in Vietnam. It's a small country thousands of miles away from us - what was the threat? Even the domino theory seems strange and absurd. I understood Vietnam when someone once explained something about California politics in the 1950's. California was conservative in the 50's because people were worried about war with China. That sounds absurd today - China is a large country, but it's also technologically years behind us. It's also across the Pacific ocean.

But so was Japan. In the 1950's, the idea of waging war across the Pacific was very plausible and scary. China was allied with Russia, which had a large military presence in Europe. A sea war in the Pacific, a land war in Europe - in the 1950's, that scenario was strongly reminiscent of WWII, except that Russia and China are both much larger than Germany and Japan. In that context, going to war in Vietnam makes more sense.

Which leads to the second question. We lost, but so what? We now have diplomatic relations with Vietnam. Cambodia went Communist, but no other countries in southeast Asia did. We lost the war in Vietnam, but, in retrospect, we didn't have to fight it at all. We won the ideological war. Of course, we didn't know that in the 1960's, but it's useful, I think, to realize that we won even though we lost.

I am confident that we will win the war against Islamic extremism, just like we won the war against communism. But while fighting in Vietnam was a result of thinking about a WWII-like scenario, Afghanistan is the mirror image of Vietnam. We know that al Queda is, in fact, a direct threat to us. As Obama pointed out in his speech, we are not fighting a nationalist insurgency. Even the geography is radically different: arid mountains vs. jungles.

The key difference between Vietnam and Afghanistan is that, while Vietnam was mostly self-contained, the war in Afghanistan has potential repercussions for its neighbors. Al Queda is in Pakistan, which, unlike Iraq, does have nuclear weapons. Pakistan also has an ongoing, unresolved border conflict with India. India has its own history of sectarian violence and terrorist attacks. India also borders China, and has differences with that country. To the west, Afghanistan borders Iran, quite the hotbed these days. Iran, of course, is developing nuclear weapons, is threatening Israel, and borders Iraq.

The war in Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan, or even the "war on terror." It could very easily spill into another country. It is already spilling into Pakistan.

But there are also positive developments. We are getting along much better with Russia these days. Turkey is a stable country with increasing influence in key areas, particularly Kurdistan. There may be a change of regime in Iran in the near future. If that happens, many things could change quickly, hopefully for the better. Saudi Arabia is very worried about all of this, and might make a dramatic move. We might capture Osama bin Laden. Gitmo will hopefully be closed soon.

We won the Cold War despite making a lot of incredibly stupid mistakes, like fighting in Vietnam. We have, are, and will continue to make many mistakes fighting Islamic terrorism. I don't think Obama's decision to send another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan is one of them. At least I hope not.

Skateboarding in Afghanistan

Every once in a great while, you read something that is both heartwarming and surreal. This is a story about an Australian who brought skateboarding to Afghanistan. Regardless of what you think of globalization, the war on terror, Western cultural imperialism, or even skateboarders, this is simply amazing. In a country with not-really-modern attitudes towards women, girls are finding something new to do.

It was the sight of girls spinning across the concrete, their scarves billowing, that caught the eye of Kenny Reed, a skater from upstate New York. "You know," he said, "I think this is the first time I've ever seen little girls skating anywhere."

It's called Skateistan. I'll never look at skateboarding the same way again.

Obama in Iraq

President Obama went to Iraq on Tuesday, at the end of his trip overseas. Good for him! Love the picture of him in the Times article. Looks like the troops support him! Earlier, in Istanbul, he answered a question about why he is taking longer than he promised during the campaign to get out of Iraq.

“I have a responsibility to make sure that as we bring troops out, that we do so in a careful enough way that we don’t see a complete collapse into violence,” Mr. Obama said. “So some people might say, wait, I thought you were opposed to the war, why don’t you just get them all out right away? Well, just because I was opposed at the outset, it doesn’t’ mean that I don’t have now responsibilities to make sure that we do things in a responsible fashion.”

Obama said during the campaign that he would try to get troops out at a rate of one brigade a month, which he estimated would take 16 months. But he also made it clear that he might change his mind, and articulated this principle: we will be more careful getting out than we were going in.

One thing that many people do not appreciate about Obama is that he is doing many things that will reinforce each other, but which are now separate and disparate. He gave a great speech in Turkey that was very well received. He has made noises about working closely with the Russians and the Iranians. All of those things are interconnected. Turkey is a majority-Muslim country, but it's also part of Europe. Turkey is in a great position to help out with the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which it has done in the past. Iran borders both Iraq and Afghanistan - working with Iran at all will hopefully have a positive impact on both wars.

Right now, the best that Obama can do is start laying groundwork for all these initiatives. None of them will bear fruit immediately. But as good things start to happen in small doses, they will accumulate. Obama is taking many small steps. But there are many, many more steps to take.

Obama on Afghanistan: TPMtv's 100 Seconds

Talking Points Memo has a great feature called "The Day in 100 Seconds." They condense the news of the day into 100 seconds of video clips. I could post it several times a week if I wanted to, but I don't want to be that lazy. This one, though, is too good to pass up. This is mostly Obama on his plan for Afghanistan:

Photos of the Fallen

The Pentagon has reversed its policy of prohibiting the taking of photographs of coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not surprising; the debate over the propriety of allowing photographs to be taken was reopened when Obama took office. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that he was "never comfortable" with the ban. The decision whether or not to allow photographs of individual coffins will be made in consultation with the families, who will have veto power. That's entirely appropriate.

I'm in favor of this change in policy. If I were in one of those coffins, I would want my sacrifice recorded for posterity.

David Brooks, advocate for activism

David Brooks, the conservative who occasionally thinks like the liberal he once was, writes about the changes in strategy in the war in Afghanistan. He explains Condi Rice's transformation:

In this new world, [Condi] continued, it is impossible to draw neat lines between security, democratization and development efforts. She called for a transformational diplomacy, in which State Department employees would do less negotiating and communiqué-writing. Instead, they’d be out in towns and villages doing broad campaign planning with military colleagues, strengthening local governments and implementing development projects.

Apparently this realization was a ground-up thing: the guys on the ground, the lieutenants and captains actually fighting the war, were the first to realize that the application of force was not enough; they needed to win over the hearts and minds of the people on the ground to prevent the Taliban from taking over.

This makes perfect sense to me, I just hope that our troops actually can implement this kind of change and make it stick.

It also reminds me of something. Let's see, belief in government's ability to improve the lives of citizens, requiring a dedicated commitment to developing the ability to deliver competent, professional governance.

What does that sound like?

Oh, yeah, LIBERALISM.

Thanks for the help, Mr. Brooks.

Obama in Afghanistan

This was something of a surprise, which it actually should have been: Barack Obama went to Afghanistan. It should be a surprise because of security reasons. Good for him. I think that's a positive.

There's one bit of conventional wisdom about this trip that bothers me. The NY Times sums up the political implications of Obama going overseas:

While the trip carries political risk, particularly if Mr. Obama makes a mistake — the three broadcast network news anchors will be along for the latter parts of the trip — or is seen as the preferred candidate of Europe and other parts of the world, his advisers believe it offers a significant opportunity for him to be seen as a leader who can improve America’s image.

That part about Obama being "the preferred candidate of Europe" is annoying. It plays into the stereotype of many Americans as anti-foreigner, or anti-European. But what about the Americans who have positive experiences of foreign countries? Every large American corporation - most of which are run by white men - has operations in other countries. I think we can assume that the people running Ford, GM, IBM, Coke, Microsoft, Apple, Disney, and McDonalds, among others, would be thrilled to see an American politician score points with Europeans. Not only do they want to do business there, they want to encourage people from other countries to come here - to study, to go on vacation, and even to work!

Can we please move beyond the idea that the most important voters in this country are automatically conservative white people who are viscerally opposed to basic liberal ideals?

Cell phones in Afghanistan

I'm one of those liberals who supported the war in Afghanistan. I thot that was a proper response to 9/11. I also have a second cousin in the Army who served there. Every now and then I am reminded of the fact that it is the forgotten war, the one that we should have won long ago, and one that we still might lose. But this is an encouraging sign: there is something of a backlash against the Taliban because they have recently been targeting cell phone towers. I had no idea there were even cell phone towers in Afghanistan. And they're wildly popular: 5.4 million people, one in six Afghans, has one. NATO forces have been targeting insurgents by tracking their cell phones, so the Taliban started taking down the towers. Which led to a backlash against the Taliban. How bizarre is this.

I am also one of those people who is sure that we will eventually win the war against Islamic terrorism, despite George Bush. The advance of civilization is just too powerful of a force. Francis Bacon realized centuries ago that knowledge is power. As is the ability to connect with other people. Once attained, certain freedoms are very, very hard to take away.