Hurry, hurry. There's no time for thinking; it's time to act. Washington's permanent war lobby has worked itself into a veritable lather. The proper Pentagon press leaks have been made, Op-Eds written, talk show commandos deployed.
No less influential a military mind than the Washington Post's David Broder declares that even a bad decision about Afghanistan would be better than a postponed decision. Conceding that "a flood of leaks" has shown that "the perfect course of action does not exist," Broder nevertheless counsels haste. "[T]he urgent necessity," he writes, "is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right."
Read that again. Better to do something stupid, the man says, than for President Obama to ask too many tough questions.
Not even about such seemingly consequential matters, according to White House counter-leaks, as the Afghan government's epic corruption, whether or not Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency plan includes an exit strategy, and how the United States can sustain a troop "surge" in Afghanistan estimated to cost $1 million, per soldier, per year.
There's another sentence to read twice. One million tax dollars to support each American soldier in Afghanistan, every year. A substantial proportion, alas, spent flying coffins home to Dover Air Force Base.
Almost every time you turn on the television, somebody's carrying on about the projected trillion-dollar cost of Democratic health-insurance reforms -- derived by multiplying the $100 billion yearly cost by 10, and often by ignoring the projected $11 billion yearly savings to the U.S. budget deficit.
Pentagon spending this year alone, however, columnist David Sirota points out, is projected at $673 billion, for a 10-year total of $6.73 trillion. That's assuming costs don't rise. (Fat chance.) Giving McChrystal the soldiers he wants, along with training and equipping an Afghan army of dubious loyalty, is projected to cost an additional $40 billion to $50 billion each year. Yet nobody's supposed to ask how anything that happens in that remote land could possibly justify the costs.
Time was when Republican politicians sneered at "nation-building" -- particularly in remote places like Afghanistan that aren't nations to begin with. Today, however, to think is to "dither." Virtually every pundit in Washington appears to have accepted former Vice President Dick Cheney's formulation. Never mind Cheney's own eight-year record in Afghanistan: The time for action is now.
But why? Are the barbarians at the gates? Hardly. There are no battlefronts, no standing armies, and no immediate military threat to the United States. U.S. intelligence estimates that maybe 100 ragtag al-Qaida fighters remain scattered across the Afghan outback.
For all its brutality, the Taliban rebellion is mainly a localized, nationalist effort to expel foreigners -- one reason Gen. McChrystal hopes to be able to pacify them, as his mentor Gen. David Petraeus bought off Iraqi insurgents. With winter approaching, Taliban fighters will soon be forced into semi-hibernation. Any U.S. buildup will take at least a year to complete.
The big rush, in other words, has less to do with military necessity than with Washington political theater: specifically, the war lobby's ability to force President Obama's hand. Actually, "war industry" might be more apt. It's both more concise than the "military-industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned against and it takes into account the "privatization" of military jobs once done by soldiers -- such as driving supply convoys (Halliburton), guarding embassies and other U.S. facilities (Blackwater) and training Afghan soldiers (DynCorp International).
One needn't accept World War I-era radical Randolph Bourne's formulation that "war is the health of the state," to worry about the connection between corporate warfare and corporate welfare: corporations that donate to political campaigns, hire ex-politicians (such as Cheney) and generals (too many to count) as executives and board members, not to mention as lobbyists, publicists, etc. Sometimes over the table and sometimes under.
Only last week, we learned that yet another big Washington hawk had a secret piece of the action. According to the New York Times, following on research by Norwegian journalists, Peter Galbraith, the Clinton administration's ambassador to Croatia and a leading Democratic voice urging the U.S. invasion of Iraq, stands to gain "perhaps a hundred million or more dollars" from a previously undisclosed stake in Iraq's oil industry. The son of the late economist J.K. Galbraith, in March 2009 he was made the U.N.'s second-in-command in Afghanistan at the insistence of the Obama White House.
Remember when only leftist crackpots and Arab conspiracy theorists said invading Iraq was more about oil than democracy?
Following upon David Barstow's 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times exposé about blatant conflicts of interest among Pentagon-coached retired generals posing as disinterested "military analysts" on every TV news network you can think of, Americans can no longer afford to be blasé about the war industry.
They're selling us endless war the way they sell cellphones and Viagra.
The question is: How much is President Obama buying?
© 2009, Gene Lyons. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association
Back in early December, I suggested that the Obama "surge" in Afghanistan might not be exactly what it seemed -- and, in fact, that the president may seek a negotiated settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban, if he expects to meet his early deadline for withdrawal of American troops. Along the same line I noted that Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s own report on the situation in Afghanistan had acknowledged, in passing, that the likeliest outcome of counterinsurgent warfare is negotiation and reconciliation rather than total victory.
No doubt such a settlement would mandate amnesty for Mullah Omar, the Taliban boss who escaped justice in 2001 along with Osama bin Laden, thanks to the incompetence of the Bush war cabinet. That is hardly a pleasing prospect. But the deeper question for American policymakers is whether the Taliban would agree to the U.S. bottom line: the expulsion of al-Qaida from Afghanistan and the renunciation of all ties with bin Laden.
Today, Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service reports on a team of four former high-ranking Taliban officials, who have served as intermediaries between the government and the rebels, and who believe such an agreement is not only possible but likely. The team includes the deposed regime’s former foreign minister and its former ambassador to Pakistan.
"The four Taliban mediators have been encouraging both Karzai and the Taliban leadership to begin with steps toward military de-escalation and confidence-building before proceeding to the central political-military issues that must be negotiated," writes Porter, who interviewed Arsullah Rahmani, a member of the mediation team who is also an elected member of the Afghan parliament, at his home in Kabul.
Rahmani said that President Hamid Karzai personally asked the four ex-Taliban officials to assist in launching peace talks. Porter, an American historian and journalist, also talked with Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former foreign minister, who is another member of the team, who told him that the Taliban "are going to accept some of our suggestions."
These mediators and other observers in the region believe that the al-Qaida issue will not be difficult to resolve. Rahmani pointed to a statement released by the Taliban in early December, which offered to negotiate "legal guarantees" against "meddling" beyond Afghanistan's borders. Instead, the mediators say their main worry is a fluctuating American attitude toward talks with the enemy that reflects divisions within the administration.
"I don't understand U.S. policy," Rahmani told Porter. "Sometimes they say 'we will negotiate with the Taliban, and sometimes they say 'we must destroy them.'"
Whatever you make of David Lynch's eerie, visionary films or his numerous extracurricular projects — from his 20,000-mile road trip across America interviewing ordinary citizens to his enthusiastic support of Transcendental Meditation — you can count on the director of "Blue Velvet" and "Mulholland Drive" to avoid the conventional and the predictable.
We're delighted to host the result of Lynch's latest fascinations, his collaboration with singer Ariana Delawari. Born in Los Angeles to Afghan immigrants who fled the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, Delawari returned to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban to record with Afghan musicians on her debut album, "Lion of Panjshir." Says Lynch: "Ariana writes great songs. They are filled with feelings and thoughts from her life — her life in Hollywood and life in Afghanistan, where her roots are. Ancient and modern flow together here. This mixture of cultures and her melodies and lyrics conjure a great unique feeling in people."
Lynch produced one of the tracks on "Lion of Panjshir," and is distributing the album on his record label, David Lynch MC. Here's the video Lynch directed to promote Delawari's release — as veteran Lynchophiles will note, it specifically recalls the Black Lodge from Lynch's TV series "Twin Peaks," and also may suggest the Club Silencio sequence from "Mulholland Drive."
For more on Delawari's life and music, and her collaboration with David Lynch (yes, she's also a T.M. practitioner), go here.
At the Afghanistan conference in London, you -- as well as other participants -- spoke of reconciliation with the Taliban. Could you envision receiving Mullah Omar on the red carpet at the presidential palace in Kabul?
Mullah Omar is first and foremost an Afghan, and we want all Afghans to return. Afghanistan is a democratic country, but it is also an Islamic country and the Taliban know that. If they accept our constitution, it will be their constitution, too. We welcome all Afghans back to their country with this little bracket of not being part of al-Qaida or the terrorist networks.
Is the renunciation of al-Qaida a prerequisite for reconciliation or is that something that can come as a result of talks?
The rejection of al-Qaida and terrorist networks is an absolute prerequisite.
You have suggested that Taliban leaders should be removed from United Nations terrorist lists in order to allow the initiation of talks with them. But why should the international community allow the same people back into Afghanistan who they sent soldiers into the country to get rid of?
Because they didn't get rid of them. There has to be peace now! It's a process that the UN must see through. And we will see as to how to involve the UN. We have requested that the UN take some people off the list. They have done that and we are grateful. We will also request that they remove more, and we feel that is good for the peace process.
What is needed for a successful reconciliation program?
It must have two main components: Reintegration and reconciliation. The reintegration is for the thousands of Taliban soldiers and village boys in our country who have been driven out of their homes -- either by fair means or by intimidation, by bad behavior on the part of NATO forces or by bad behavior from Afghan forces -- and who do not stand ideologically against the Afghan people or the international community. They must be persuaded by all means to return.
And who does the second group comprise of?
Then there is the political structure of the Taliban, which has its own environment of relations with the rest of the world and the question of al-Qaida and the terrorist networks. Our neighbors and the international community will be involved in this. That's going to take a lot more effort.
How can you trust a Talib who agrees to abandon his alliance with al-Qaida?
I think it is a small fraction of the Taliban who are actually in contact with al-Qaida. But within the mainstream, the whole of the movement -- and even at the higher levels of their command structure -- there are people who don't know al-Qaida, there are people who have never seen Osama bin Laden and who don't even understand what al-Qaida is up to.
The reconciliation program has already existed for years, but it has failed so far. Why do you suddenly expect it to be successful now?
The new thing is that the international community now understands how important (the reconciliation program is). New is that the United States, Europe and Japan are willing to contribute to it, and we have the support of our brothers in Saudi Arabia. We hope that King Abdullah will personally assume a prominent role in leading and supporting the peace process.
The international community, especially your most powerful protectors, the Americans, have lodged serious allegations against you. At issue are bad governance, corruption and nepotism. Have these persistent allegations changed your relationship to the West?
Some political and media circles in America and Britain were clearly very keen to have me replaced by mostly unfair means, but the Afghan people decided differently. This didn't change our relationship, but it did make me wiser.
Do you still even have control over your country?
There are regions that are under the control of the Taliban. But where we are, we are strong. We deliver services and issue instructions. And I can dismiss or appoint anybody I want. The same Western press that called me the "Mayor of Kabul" without reach in the country, overnight began calling me an all-powerful president who caused fraud in the votes, had cheated in the votes and had people in government working for him all across Afghanistan to rig an election.
Which image did you prefer -- that of Mayor of Kabul or election-rigger?
None of it was true -- neither the Mayor of Kabul, nor the fraudulent elections. We are a legitimate government. We are a Third World country. We have poverty, war and poor education opportunities. We have a lack of capacity and a lack of money. So how we function is in accordance with the environment which we have. And that's the better description.
The U.S. has since acknowledged your re-election, and even your best-known American critic, Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, now says he is looking forward to working with the new government. Do you still trust him?
When the war began in 2001, the Afghan people had tremendous expectations. Back then, they really believed the arrival of America and its allies would bring peace to Afghanistan. And they cooperated with them, and the Taliban were driven away in only two months. That is the perspective from which we must view the situation today. What has happened to cause the Afghan people in the south to allow the Taliban to return to their villages? Something must have gone wrong. But who allowed things to go wrong? Was this entirely the fault of the Afghan government and the Afghan leadership? Or was this also the fault of our partners?
What has changed since Barack Obama took office?
With President (George W.) Bush it was a very engaging relationship. We had regular contact, we spoke about the problems, we had frank conversations and discussed civilian casualties and all other issues. My ministers participated with me in the video conferences we held together with the Bush administration.
It sounds as if you miss President Bush.
President Obama is the new American president, and he has announced a new strategy. We backed the strategy to the extent that it would bring security to Afghanistan. Now, the American people have given Afghanistan a lot of resources, for which we are grateful. But there are issues that we have that we hope will be resolved as we move forward.
In his speech at West Point two months ago, President Obama announced that he wants to start pulling American troops out of Afghanistan beginning next year. Is this one of the issues you are concerned about?
We must be realistic. We know that we will not be entirely ready for that date and that we will require help for some more years to come -- and that realism is something that we have conveyed to our partners. But we are also happy about the announcement by the US president because it creates pressure for us to work hard to sustain ourselves with our own resources and abilities.
Is the new strategy the right one?
General McChrystal is a good soldier, his strategy focus is on protecting Afghan civilians, and this is the key factor here. If we adhere to that and respect it, we will succeed. If we don't, failure is certain. Terror does not originate in the Afghan villages. That's why the war on terror is directed at the sanctuaries, the training grounds and the financial support. Had our allies recognized that eight years ago, we would have a lot better story to tell in Afghanistan today.
You appear to be referring to Pakistan, which is believed to be the operating ground of the Taliban leadership. You speak frequently with Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, and his top security people. Will the day ever come when Pakistan is prepared to expel top Taliban leaders from its soil?
I hope that, in the peace process, we will begin to cooperate on all these questions and that reconciliation will become reality at the highest level of the Taliban movement and others. And we will do that with the help of Pakistan.
Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s performance record after he blew the whistle on what he said was dangerously inept management of care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence, obtained by Salon, also includes an order to delete earlier records praising the work of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired last September after lodging his complaints.
Now top Navy officials are tangled up in the blackball campaign. Soon after Manion was fired, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., asked the Pentagon about Manion’s concerns about healthcare at Camp Lejeune. In a Dec. 17 letter to Jones, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus panned Manion’s ethics and professionalism, presumably based on information Mabus received about Manion from Camp Lejeune.
But Salon has obtained internal Navy documents and correspondence that suggest officials at Camp Lejeune altered Manion’s favorable personnel records after he went public with his concerns, adding new, derogatory remarks similar to some of the information in Mabus’ letter to Jones.
As Salon reported in November, Manion warned superiors, on multiple occasions and in writing, that mental healthcare at Camp Lejeune was overwhelmed with Marines suffering psychological injuries from combat. It was a toxic environment, Manion argued, that would only contribute to a rapidly escalating suicide epidemic in the military.
Manion also warned the situation at Camp Lejeune threatened to provoke a Fort Hood-style explosion of violence, or one like the acts allegedly carried out by Sgt. John Russell, who the Army says last May executed five fellow soldiers at a military mental health facility in Baghdad. Manion also claimed that troubled Marines sometimes experienced harassment from superiors for seeking help.
In one instance last April, for example, Manion warned Cmdr. Robert O'Byrne, head of mental health at the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital, of "immediate concerns of physical safety" due to mistreated Marines teetering on the edge of violence. “There was -- and continues to be -- no means of discussion of high-intensity/dangerous cases,” he wrote. Later that month, Manion quoted to O’Byrne some Marine superiors who were calling troubled Marines “worthless pieces of shit” if they sought help.
Frustrated by what he said was little reaction from O’Byrne and other superiors, on Aug. 30 Manion notified a series of military inspectors general about the risk of “immediate threat of loss of life and/or harm to service members’ selves or others.”
Manion worked as a contractor for Spectrum Healthcare Resources, a subcontractor for NiteLines Kuhana. The contractor told Salon that the Navy ordered Manion fired on Sept. 3, four days after Manion wrote the inspectors general. "The treatment facility at Camp Lejeune notified [NiteLines] that Dr. Manion did not meet the Government's requirements in accordance with the contract, and they directed he be removed from the schedule," it reads. His termination dated that day notice provides no explanation.
Manion saw a case of retaliation. He has hired a lawyer. Manion also appealed to his congressional representative, Jones. That is when Jones asked for an explanation from the Pentagon last year.
Jones’ inquiry prompted the Dec. 17 response from Navy Secretary Mabus. That letter includes some stinging allegations about Manion. “Dr. Manion alleged he was improperly terminated from his job due to the complaints he raised concerning patient care,” Mabus wrote Jones. Not true, Mabus said. “A review of the record revealed that Dr. Manion was removed from the contract due to a sustained pattern of non-compliance with numerous contract stipulations,” he wrote, including absenteeism, disrespect and unprofessional conduct. Mabus added that Manion had been “counseled on multiple occasions but with little effect.”
While Manion’s activism likely chafed some Navy officers, he was never counseled for poor performance, he insists. “Nobody counseled me, ever,” he said. Referring to Mabus’ letter, Manion added, “That was the first I had heard of it.”
Jones told Salon he worried that Manion might have been slandered. “We continue to monitor this issue because we are concerned that Dr. Manion has not been treated like a professional,” said Jones. “We intend to get to the bottom of this because integrity does matter.”
The paper trail suggests Jones is right.
Manion was fired on Sept. 3. A lieutenant commander filled out Manion’s final performance review, called an “exit PAR,” and signed it on Nov. 10, 2009. The document, obtained by Salon, evaluates Manion as “satisfactory” in every applicable performance category, including his judgment, ethical conduct and ability to work with peers.
On Nov. 14, Salon published the first article chronicling Manion’s concerns about the management of mental health care at Camp Lejeune. The article included his allegation that he was fired for blowing the whistle.
On Nov. 24, O’Byrne, the head of mental health, e-mailed that lieutenant commander about the exit evaluation. “I pulled it back,” O’Byrne wrote. “We need to redo.”
O’Byrne sent the evaluation back to the lieutenant commander on Nov. 30. “Please see section VIII and XII of the attached specifically for comments I think capture the essence of what we discussed last week,” O’Byrne wrote.
In section VIII of this new evaluation, Manion’s professional judgment, ethical conduct and ability to work with peers had been changed from “satisfactory” to “unsatisfactory.” A new paragraph, labeled XII, now included, “Dr. Manion demonstrated poor ethical conduct and professional judgment.” It added that Manion had “disruptive relationships with his superiors and peers that had a negative impact on patient care and clinic process.”
In a Dec. 3 email, O’Byrne orders the previous, flattering version of Manion’s review destroyed. “Due to the sensitive nature of issue [sic]” O’Byrne wrote, “please immediately delete all copies of this PAR.”
The lieutenant commander who filled out the original evaluation seems to have stuck to his guns, insisting that Manion performed his job well. He wrote a Camp Lejeune attorney on Dec. 16 that despite O’Byrne’s changes to Manion’s records, “Kernan Manion was considered clinically competent to practice general psychiatry,” he wrote. “I had no specific concerns about his judgment or ethical conduct.”
In that exchange, the lieutenant commander described O’Byrne’s changes to Manion’s evaluation as “drastic.” He added that he was “instructed to sign” the new evaluation.
O’Byrne declined an interview request from Salon. “The allegations in question are completely unfounded and untrue,” Camp Lejeune hospital spokesman Lt. j.g. Mark Jean-Pierre said in a statement to Salon. (Despite numerous requests, Jean-Pierre would not say which allegations are unfounded and untrue.) He went on to suggest that Manion, or perhaps Salon, was irresponsible. “The fact that such accusations are being made against a senior naval officer with an impeccable service record is not only wrong, but irresponsible,” the statement says. It adds, “Officers are held to the highest standards and any behaviors that contradict the naval core values are not tolerated.”
Salon asked the Navy two questions: 1) What is the basis for the derogatory information about Manion in Mabus’ letter? And, 2) What is Mabus’ basis for believing that information is accurate?
The Navy did not answer either question. Instead, a Navy spokesman sent Salon a statement saying the Navy had already investigated Manion’s original concerns about healthcare at Camp Lejeune. “The allegations made by Dr. Manion concerning mental health services being provided at Camp Lejeune were thoroughly reviewed in a recently completed quality assurance investigation,” Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole said in a statement to Salon. Cole also added that Navy would not share the results of that investigation. “The results of the quality assurance investigation, to include its findings and recommendations, are not releasable.” Cole insisted, however, that Navy officials were taking unspecified “action” in response to the results of that investigation.
The contractor that hired and fired Manion did not respond to a request for comment on the changes to Manion's Navy personnel records.
Manion insists he never heard a word about his allegedly poor performance until he reviewed the documents obtained by Salon through multiple sources. Indeed, after his termination by the contractor back in September, Manion wrote the Navy Medical Logistics Command arguing that his otherwise-clean record provided further evidence that he was fired in retribution for blowing the whistle. “Given that I have received no allegations of wrongdoing by any party throughout the course of my employment and given that this termination occurred in the immediate context of my having filed an emergency complaint with the inspector general’s office,” Manion wrote Sept. 30, “I am concerned that your office may not have been aware of such an action having been taken.”
Now that this new paper trail has emerged, Manion has responded by firing off a series of letters to Camp Lejeune officials, including O’Byrne and Manion’s former contractor employer, requesting access to his own personnel files. “I think it is both fair and important that I have the immediate opportunity to review my full personnel assessment, particularly that which pertains to…blatantly false characterizations, so that I may respond in detail to it.” Manion says he recently received a response from the hospital commander at Camp Lejeune, Capt. Gerard Cox, saying Camp Lejeune would process his request through the Freedom of Information Act.
Eugene Fidell, a professor at Yale and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said it is unclear whether tinkering with Manion’s performance record could result in judicial punishment. It is possible it might violate any number of complex military regulations governing performance evaluations.
Wasting time smearing Manion, however, also seems like a misplaced priority for Navy mental health officials battling an unprecedented military suicide epidemic during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2008, for example, 42 Marines committed suicide and 146 tried to do so. During the recent Pentagon's second annual Suicide Prevention Conference, the military announced that 52 Marines committed suicide in 2009, surpassing the national average.
Manion agreed. “That’s precisely what I was trying to address,” Manion said. “It is a crisis of suicides.”
U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan cleric as he drove Thursday with his young son near an American base on the eastern edge of Kabul, underscoring the dangers facing civilians despite NATO efforts to minimize casualties.
The shooting occurred as Mohammad Yunus, 36, approached a four-lane highway with one of his sons, according to police and witnesses.
Yunus was struck by four bullets fired at his Toyota Corolla and died on the way to the Wazir Akbar Hospital, according to his son-in-law, Abdul Qadir. His son was not injured. Yunus left two wives and 10 children, Abdul-Qadir said.
NATO said the troops fired at "what appeared to be a threatening vehicle" near Camp Phoenix, an area where suicide attacks are not uncommon, but later described the incident as "regrettable" and promised an investigation.
A shopkeeper who witnessed the shooting said a military convoy was traveling from Kabul toward the eastern city of Jalalabad when the gunner in the lead vehicle opened fire as Yunus pulled onto the same highway.
The 25-year-old shopkeeper, who identified himself only as Aymal, said he heard no warning shots.
NATO said an investigation was under way and appropriate action would be taken to ensure troops complied with policies aimed at protecting civilians. It said Yunus' family would be compensated in accordance with local customs.
In London, President Hamid Karzai called on NATO-led forces to do more to prevent innocent Afghans from being killed and wounded.
"Ladies and gentlemen, regrettably, civilian casualties continue to be a great concern for the people of Afghanistan," he told an international conference on Afghanistan. "We should put the protection of people's lives and property at the top of our agenda."
NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay said despite measures in place to protect Afghans, "regrettable incidents such as this one can occur."
"On behalf of (NATO), I express my sincere regrets for this loss of life and convey my deepest condolences to his family," he said.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Camp Phoenix to protest the killing. They dispersed after police promised the Americans would discuss the death with local elders, according to district police chief Col. Rohullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.
The cleric's brother, Mohammad Youssef Ajami, said no compensation could make up for the loss of a life.
"It is totally cruel. Mr. Karzai sitting on his throne has no control over the foreign forces," he said in a telephone interview after the funeral in Laghman province. "They should try these soldiers who shot my brother, who had done nothing wrong and was on a major road in a safe part of Kabul."
A recent U.N. report showed that the number of civilians killed by NATO-led forces has dropped after U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, imposed limits on the use of airstrikes and other measures to protect the population. It said civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban have increased.
But that hasn't dimmed public outrage as such incidents continue to occur among a population weary of the presence of foreign forces and more than eight years of war.
Also Thursday, a U.S. service member was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. The death brings to at least 26 the number of American deaths in Afghanistan this month, nearly double the 14 killed in all of January last year.
An Afghan policeman also was shot to death by two militants on a motorcycle in the southern city of Kandahar, provincial police chief Gen. Sardar Mohammad Zazai said.
NATO also confirmed as many as 20 suspected militants were killed Wednesday in fighting in northern Afghanistan.
Provincial police said Wednesday 11 insurgents, including two senior commanders, were killed in a joint air-and-ground assault targeting a Taliban compound west of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province.
Joint forces called in air support after coming under fire from a large number of insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades, NATO said in a statement issued Thursday. It said attack aircraft "bombed and strafed insurgents in a tree line," killing 12 to 20 of them.
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Associated Press writer Noor Khan in Kandahar contributed to this report.
Understandably, President Obama concentrated on domestic issues, especially job creation, in his State of the Union address. But there were a few paragraphs toward the end about foreign affairs that I want to talk about. While I thought the speech generally strong, and the flash polls suggest that the public did, as well, I felt that there were significant problems with the foreign policy passages that signal trouble ahead.
In Afghanistan, we are increasing our troops and training Afghan Security Forces so they can begin to take the lead in July of 2011, and our troops can begin to come home. We will reward good governance, reduce corruption, and support the rights of all Afghans -- men and women alike. We are joined by allies and partners who have increased their own commitment, and who will come together tomorrow in London to reaffirm our common purpose. There will be difficult days ahead. But I am confident we will succeed.
This passage was one of the few lauded by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Republican response. But it is among the weaker parts of the speech.
Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin, a Ph.D. and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, summarized the problems with training the Afghan army:
a. The U.S. has already spent more than $17 billion since 2001 building the Afghanistan National Army, but without much success.
b. Although the government of President Hamid Karzai claims that the army numbers 100,000 now, in fact some battalions are at half strength and not combat ready. The chance that the ANA can be expanded to 240,000 effective soldiers for another $16 billion in a year or two is slim to none.
c. If a new Afghan army can be built at all, it will take at least 4 years, and it is not plausible that U.S. troops will withdraw beginning in 2011. Moreover, memos of U.S. ambassador Karl Eikenberry in Kabul insist that President Hamid Karzai is unreliable and refuses to try to take command of the country, so that he is not deploying the army he already has. The profound divisions within the Obama camp, among the most experienced Afghan hands, make it anything but certain that the counter-insurgency strategy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to which Obama committed himself, can succeed.
d. Veteran NBC war correspondent Richard Engel maintains that staff officers work short hours and are corrupt. Only some of the small companies of troops deployed in the countryside can effectively be said to be at war. Even these are 90 percent illiterate, and some have received only two weeks of "show and tell" training. Drug use is rampant among troops, and some 25 percent go AWOL. See Engel on the Rachel Maddow show:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
As is often the case, in this paragraph Obama was attempting to please both right and left, with a troop escalation advertised as a mere prelude to withdrawal. But the task, of training an effective 240,000-man Afghanistan National Army is an enormous one and cannot be even partially completed by summer 2011.
He then turned, more sure-footedly, to Iraq.
As we take the fight to al Qaeda, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as President. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August. We will support the Iraqi government as they hold elections, and continue to partner with the Iraqi people to promote regional peace and prosperity. But make no mistake: this war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home
Obama sees the Iraq War as irrelevant to the war on terrorism, and is putting all his military eggs in the Afghanistan basket. He is quite clear that the U.S. military is departing Iraq on the timetable worked out with the Iraqi parliament, virtually no matter what. I've noted his determination and consistency on the Iraq withdrawal elsewhere. This passage is the strongest on foreign policy, and he sent an unmistakeable message that he in my view has too seldom discussed with the American public.
Obama goes on to pledge to work on nuclear disarmament and maintains that such negotiations (mainly with Russia) will enhance U.S. credibility with the international community in dealing with North Korea and Iran
Doesn't actually sound very likely to me.
These diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of these weapons. That is why North Korea now faces increased isolation, and stronger sanctions -- sanctions that are being vigorously enforced. That is why the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated. And as Iran's leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: they, too, will face growing consequences.
Sanctions won't work on Iran to produce regme change. They can keep a country weak and harm civilians, as we saw in iraq. But they cannot dislodge a ruling elite in an oil country, because oil is too easily smuggled and converted into cash, which can then be squirreled away by the ruling party. Congress's infatuation with sanctions on Iran is highly unlikely to be productive, especially since China declines to go along with them.
Moreover, Washington's tightening of sanctions may make it harder for Obama to engage the regime in serious negotiations, as he had earlier pledged to do. This speech is essentially a capitulation to Neoconservative themes on Iran, rather than retaining Obama's central plank of keeping negotiating lines open to Tehran.
That is the leadership that we are providing – engagement that advances the common security and prosperity of all people. We are working through the G-20 to sustain a lasting global recovery. We are working with Muslim communities around the world to promote science, education and innovation.
I'm not sure what this last part, about promoting education and innovation in the Muslim world, even means, and cannot think of any practical change in U.S. development policy with regard to the Muslim world in the past year. The big steps toward education and science are being undertaken by Qatar's government in its Education City and the new Saudi King Abdulaziz University of Science and Technology. It may be that Obama is referring to the planned $7.5 billion in aid pledged to Pakistan, some of which would go toward education.
In any case, Obama's reference to relations with the Muslim world was essentially a soft throw-away line. What would improve U.S. relations with Muslims would be a swift movement toward a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine and an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza's children. A frank acknowledgment that the U.S. has been powerless to make headway on this essential issue would have been welcome. So too would be an acknowledgment by the president of the justice of the letter calling on Israel to desist from its blockade of Gaza circulated by 54 Democratic members of the House of Representatives, in a rare act of defiance toward the powerful Israel lobbies.
This is the final relevant paragraph:
As we have for over sixty years, America takes these actions because our destiny is connected to those beyond our shores. But we also do it because it is right. That is why, as we meet here tonight, over 10,000 Americans are working with many nations to help the people of Haiti recover and rebuild. That is why we stand with the girl who yearns to go to school in Afghanistan; we support the human rights of the women marching through the streets of Iran; and we advocate for the young man denied a job by corruption in Guinea. For America must always stand on the side of freedom and human dignity.
The attempt to position the U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan and the saber-rattling and threatened sanctions against Iran as somehow beneficial to women in those countries is a continuation of Bush administration rhetoric that is unworthy of Obama. These themes may appeal to the Mavis Leno faction of American feminists, but are unconnected to Afghan and Iranian women's lived reality. The position of women in Afghanistan is better now than under the Taliban, but the new Afghanistan is still an Islamic republic, and president Karzai pandered for votes among the Shiite Hazaras by allowing Shiite law to operate among them on personal status issues, rather than national law. One implication of this step is that Hazara women are now liable to marital rape. So this is the liberation the Obama administration is bringing Afghan women? Moreover, Obama's escalation of the war will have a negative impact on women and families caught in the crossfire. It is a foolish argument to make because so easily disproven.
Moreover, many of the female protesters in Iran have been traditionalists in full veil, who support the ideals of the regime but were disappointed that Ahmadinejad stole the election. The idea that the Iranian opposition is made up of people just like Obama and his supporters is an American myth.
These few paragraphs on foreign policy in the speech were among its weakest. The plans for Afghanistan and nuclear disarmament seemed thin and utopian. The threats launched against Iran seemed empty. The use of a kind of "imperial feminism" to justify Obama's escalation of the Afghanistan war seemed just pandering to some of his constituency without holding much promise of genuine change for Afghan women. As for Iran, further economic sanctions will harm women and families most of all. Only in his express determination to withdraw from Iraq on schedule did Obama achieve the fire and conviction characteristic of much of the rest of the speech.
While it now seems as though the domestic economy and job creation are far more important than these foreign policy issues, the issues of Afghanistan, Pakistan (not mentioned), Iran and Palestine will likely generate among the more important crises in Obama's presidency, and he needs desperately to get a better handle on them and take control of policy, or his opponents will maneuever him into playing either Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter. Just because he says he would be satisfied with a single term is no reason to let the hawks impose one on him.
Holy Rifle Scopes!
Obama Report Card: "Needs to kick some serious ass!!"
Mexico: True or False?
Utter crap from Politico: The Rahm-is-leaving rumor