Fish Fear Me

Odds and Ends

I'll echo Rob and for now simply express my condolences to the people of Norway regarding Friday's terrible events. There will be time to analyze and argue in a few days after the police establish more facts about what happened and Norway has had its time of grief and mourning. 

The Long Recall has turned out to not be all that long after all. They are pulling the plug just after the 150th anniversary of the first major engagement. Obviously a lot of effort was going into what they were putting out each day and apparently it was too much. I'm very disappointed, but it's their call to make. I appreciated everything that they did post and I'll look for other sources and go from there.

Congratulations to Bert Blyleven on his induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame today. I was just a little boy the first time he pitched for the Twins, and I guess from today's perspective, so was he at the age of 19. Bert's mouth and ego have got him into trouble over the years and I didn't like the guy by the time he was traded in 1976. But he came back and was part of the 1987 World Champions and that means most Twins fans will always have a soft spot for him. Way to go, Bert.

The Twins are only seven games out of first in the American League Central, but today I'm going to officially say stick a fork in them for this year. The first reason is they are 22-17 within the Central, but 1-7 now against the division leading Tigers after a 1-3 home stand against them. They just can't hang with the Tigers this year. On top of that is their 8-19 record against the AL East. Even if by some miracle they win the division they will go nowhere in the playoffs again. Nowhere.

The Taliban once again show their true face:

An 8 year-old boy was hanged by militants in Afghanistan's Helmand province after the boy's father -- a police officer in the southern city of Gereshk -- refused to comply with militants' demands to provide them with a police vehicle, officials said.

Can you imagine negotiating a truce with such people and then expecting them to leave you in peace afterward? I can't.

This is going to take its own post, oh yes: What will it take to get Americans to change our eating habits? 

Reality

The real world has made appearances the last two days.

Iraq:

The United States is open to the idea of keeping troops in Iraq past a deadline to leave next year if Iraq asks for it, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.

"We'll stand by," Gates said. "We're ready to have that discussion if and when they want to raise it with us."

Gates urged Iraq's squabbling political groups to reconcile after eight months of deadlock. Any request to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq would have to come from a functioning Iraqi government. It would amend the current agreement under which U.S. troops must leave by the end of 2011.

Afghanistan:

The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.

At the end of the Iraq story there is this paragraph:

Although the 2011 deadline was a point of pride for Iraq after years of U.S. military occupation, it does not leave much time for the U.S. to train Iraq's fledgling air force. Iraq also wants more U.S. help to protect its borders.

That first sentence is a joke. Much time? Try no time, and it has been known for years that Iraq would need training, support, and America's protective umbrella for maybe a decade to come. Not just because of the Iraqi Air Force either, though that is by far the component with the longest time frame.

This is a good thing so long as Iraqis continue to handle internal security and remain committed to democracy. Strong defense ties and a strategic relationship with Iraq will cement stability between Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia and counter the natural influence that Iran has in Iraq. Yes, Iraqis are struggling to form a government again, but be wary of those who moan about Iranian influence while ignoring the ethnic and nationalist sentiments among Iraqis. Those are significant limiters as is American influence as Iraq's partner and protector.  

On Afghanistan, I said last year after the surge there was announced that Obama made the right decision but then botched it with his half-assed withdrawal time line. It was the triumph of the wishful thinking of Obama's academic mind over the practical reality that the people of the region would read his words through their own goals and fears. It was a massive fuckup and if President Obama is finally realizing it, that's good. What he needs to do next is fire every last advisor who thought it would be a good idea. I understood back then the need to pressure Karzai, but it was obvious that using a time line to do that was a cure worse than the disease.

Speaking of Karzai, what good has the withdrawal time line done in that regard? Nothing. I think the blame for that part resides almost entirely with the civilian side of the US government effort. Karzai is absolutely a very difficult and problematic partner, but guess what? That's a very difficult and problematic part of the world. The culture of the US military is that failure is not an option. I don't see that same attitude coming from the US State Department or US aid organizations. I'm sure there are individuals who are performing heroically, but overall the civilian side is failing. That's reality. President Obama needs to use the upcoming review to reinvigorate the civilian side of the US effort and if necessary, clean house. 

The Last Patrol

It's a bit of a long read, but here's an intense, if not brutal, embedded report from Afghanistan about the last patrol a group of US soldiers took to finish familiarizing their replacements with the battlespace.

I don't know anything about the writer so I'm not vouching that the report is fair, or not. If you won't or can't read it all, do read the end where an update on the replacements is given.

Just Saying

R. Emmett Tyrell puts in writing what has been in the back of my mind since December:

President Barack Obama's rows with Afghan President Hamid Karzai may not put you in mind of de Gaulle or the passing of the British Empire, but there is a troubling analogy, to wit, the Kennedys' treatment of the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem. It did not end prettily. In the early days of the Vietnam conflict, President John F. Kennedy was increasingly critical of Diem for his apparent ineptitude, corruption and brutality. Our ambassador to Saigon, Henry Cabot Lodge, snubbed the South Vietnamese president. When word reached Washington that officers in the South Vietnamese army were going to overthrow Diem, the Kennedys pointedly looked the other way. The coup took place, and to the administration's embarrassment, President Diem was not left an exile, but a well-photographed corpse. His was to be the last stable South Vietnamese government. Sometimes foreigners know more about the governance of their own countries than Americans do.

I would like to think that President Obama is too smart to engineer or encourage a coup against Karzai, but he and some in his administration have that "Best and Brightest" arrogance that does seem reminiscent of the Kennedy and Johnson era. If I were in Karzai's shoes, I'd be a little nervous right now.

Monday Notes

Only his hairdresser knows for sure: I was happy to hear that Pakistan had captured Adam Gadahn, but I've learned to take any news from that murky part of the world with a grain of salt. Too many supposedly dead or captured Taliban have later shown up very much alive and free. Bill Roggio is the go to guy on this sort of stuff as he is very careful to confirm any news with his own sources before buying into the latest claims.

Who knew?:

A bill sponsored by Democratic Sen. Tarryl Clark of St. Cloud could prohibit spending public dollars at in-state hotels or meeting facilities that provide their customers with pornographic materials that link sex with violence. Nonviolent adult movies would be OK.

I haven't stayed in hotels much lately and I'm not up on porn industry trends, but is this really an issue? What other types of movies should the state pressure hotels not to show? How about prohibiting state money from going to hotels that show movies that glorify motorcycle-riding, murderous, communist scumbags? I'm not defending violent porn, I'm not even sure exactly what they are talking about, but what business does the state have trying to censor through other means what is apparently legal behavior by adults?

Line of the Day. NFL free agency is making my head spin, so this one hit home:

These free agent rules are harder to figure out than a Lady Gaga song.

Always look on the dark side of life. Peter Beinart thinks that US troops will need to stay to keep Iraq from falling into civil war. Just look at all of the fundamental issues that have not been addressed! Well, there's truth there, and the formation of the next government will likely be fraught with drama and frustration. However, beware those who say that because of that messy process it means Iraq is falling apart. There is and has been a huge center mass of Iraqis that goes across sectarian and ethnic lines and that does not want to see that happen, and they will rise up against those who go down that path. As the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth commences in the media, have faith in those Iraqis and be patient. I think we're staying, but not because we are needed to deal with any internal threats.

Interesting. The link is to a blog/vlog of two USAF journalists who are traveling across Afghanistan and visiting every Regional Command in 30 days. They are almost done, but you can go back to the first entries and follow along. I'm doing that now. It's a perspective from two US military guys who support the mission, but it looks pretty straightforward to me and not just propaganda. It seems like a genuine effort to help people understand what is going on there and just how complex Afghanistan really is. 

Walkback

Fred Hiatt tries to weave similarities between how Bush announced his surge in Iraq in 2007 and how Obama announced his surge for Afghanistan last week:

No wonder conservatives are unhappy with the president. Imagine undermining an announced escalation of troops by simultaneously laying out a schedule for them to step back -- and suggesting that the mission will end if the government that America is trying to help doesn't shape up.

But wait -- it wasn't only President Obama who did those things but also President George W. Bush, in announcing his Iraq surge in January 2007. Those who say that Obama doomed his Afghan strategy with his promise to begin withdrawing in 18 months -- and who remember Bush's strategy as nothing but a clarion call for unambiguous victory -- should go back and read the speech.

By all means, go back and read Bush's speech. The tone was somber compared to Obama's pissed off, petulant, and petty attitude. It was also remarkable in its specificity and consistency compared to the sometimes contradictory generalities that President Obama gave us last week. But you don't need a detailed comparison to comprehend the differences in the way that Bush and Obama presented their surge strategies. All you need to do is look at the different effects.

After President Bush spoke in 2007, the Sunni and Shiite extremists blustered and took hope from Bush's domestic political opponents, but friend and foe alike in Iraq understood the President's resolve. After President Obama spoke, we got this:

The announcement of the July 2011 benchmark was also greeted with concern during private conversations among American officials and their counterparts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and administration officials in recent days have acknowledged that they were surprised by the intensity of the anxiety among Afghan and Pakistani officials that the United States would beat a hasty retreat from the region.

In response, the last week has seen a major attempt to reemphasize the "conditions" that Obama briefly mentioned in his speech and we will see more of that this week. Which pretty much confirms the foolishness of setting a date in the first place. President Bush faced much of the same recalcitrance and corruption with Maliki that President Obama is seeing with Karzai, but he deftly managed to put pressure on Maliki through subtle public language and most likely very strong private language and behind the scenes engagement.

President Obama and his team, in their arrogance, had a model they could have worked with but they tossed it aside. Now they are scrambling to repair the damage that anybody not blinded by BDS would have avoided in the first place. Hiatt and friends do Obama no favors by trying to hide this incompetence, they simply enable more of the same.

It's going to be a long and painful 3 years if Obama doesn't get his shit together and people like Hiatt keep spinning his failures.

More: Perhaps Steve Den Beste has the explanation. That would account for Obama's cluelessness when it comes to the economy also. I buy it.

Hmmmm

Something that Thomas Friedman notes in his latest column on Afghanistan has me wondering how well Afghan President Hamid Karzai knows American history. Friedman recalls this exchange between President Kennedy and Walter Cronkite on Sept. 2, 1963:

Cronkite: “Mr. President, the only hot war we’ve got running at the moment is, of course, the one in Vietnam, and we have our difficulties there.”

Kennedy: “I don’t think that unless a greater effort is made by the [Vietnamese] government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them; we can give them equipment; we can send our men out there as advisers. But they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don’t think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort and, in my opinion, in the last two months, the [Vietnamese] government has gotten out of touch with the people. ...”

Cronkite: “Do you think this government still has time to regain the support of the people?”

Kennedy: “I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel I think it can. If it doesn’t make those changes, the chances of winning it would not be very good.”

Unknown to Cronkite at the time, and unremarked on by Friedman in his column today, is that "cable 243" had been sent out a week earlier and had already set in motion what would eventually be the overthrow and murder of the then-President of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem(Kennedy absolutely was aware of it though). That cable in part read:

....US would find it impossible to continue support GVN militarily and economically unless above steps are taken immediately which we recognize requires removal of Nhus from the scene. We wish give Diem reasonable opportunity to remove Nhus, but if he remains obdurate, then we are prepared to accept the obvious implication that we can no longer support Diem. You may also tell appropriate military commanders we will give them direct support in any interim period of breakdown central government mechanism.

Exactly two months after that interview, Diem lay dead in the back of a rebel APC. Fast forward 46 years and we once again have the United States, with a young president in office, involved in a war and grumbling about corruption and incompetence in the government it is supporting. And note the coincidence that the Nhu(Nhus?) referenced above was Diem's brother and that Karzai's own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been sharply criticized recently for ties to the drug trade.

The parallel is certainly not perfect or exact and times have changed; administrations don't have the same ability to do things quietly that they once had. I just think it's interesting that Friedman used that example today when we have an administration openly griping about corruption and incompetence in Afghanistan.

I mean, it would take a particularly arrogant and inexperienced administration to attempt to pull off a coup in Afghanistan, right?

Hope I'm Wrong

To put it bluntly, President Obama picked the right strategy and then so badly botched the announcement that perhaps a surge in Afghanistan is now the wrong thing to do. A moment that called for firmness and resolve and a renewed commitment to doing the right thing in Afghanistan was instead completely muddled by including a deadline to begin withdrawing. I fear that everything we accomplish over the next 18 months will all be for naught, just a waste of time and lives.

The administration continued to jumble up the issue yesterday with the Obama team expressing flexibility to Congress about the deadline and the president himself then telling Robert Gibbs that it is "locked in":

It was a point of contention at the White House briefing today – I asked White House spokesman Robert Gibbs if senators were incorrect calling the date a "target."

After the briefing, Gibbs went to the president for clarification. Gibbs then called me to his office to relate what the president said. The president told him it IS locked in – there is no flexibility. Troops WILL start coming home in July 2011. Period. It's etched in stone. Gibbs said he even had the chisel.

This is fucking amateur hour at the White House. Nobody in Afghanistan or Pakistan with half a brain is going to trust our commitment to seeing things through in the region. Afghans are going to hedge their bets to be best positioned for survival after we leave instead of fully supporting the government of Afghanistan. Pakistan will continue their dual track policy of attacking those Taliban elements that threaten Pakistan while reaching an accommodation with those who support the Afghan Taliban.

The signal that Obama is sending is that the US will help the current Afghan government gain some breathing room and then they are on their own. We will kick some Taliban ass over the next year and a half, create enough space for us to leave, sort of a modern day "Peace with honor",  and then we're out of there. If the Karzai government isn't ready to stand on its own, well, tough shit. By 2013, the Taliban will once again be in control of vast parts of Afghanistan and al Qaeda will operate with impunity. It will be a strategic disaster for the US and a massive human rights disaster for millions of Afghans.

I think Generals Petraeus and McChrystal are betting that they can make enough progress in the next year and a half that President Obama will not want or be able to abandon Afghanistan and waste the lives and treasure that have been spent there. They will be wrong. Democrats have done it before, imagine Saigon-1975/Kabul 2013.

I hope I'm wrong about that, but my gut tells me otherwise.

Afghanistan: Decision

So tonight President Obama will deliver his address on the strategy and resources for Afghanistan going forward. Unless there's been some disinformation going around, he will commit 30,000 more troops fairly quickly and announce a July 2011 target to begin withdrawing from there. I wish I could say that months of study could allow me to firmly pronounce whether I thought all of this is right or wrong, but while I'm inclined to say that this decision falls into the right move possibilities, really who knows? Here are a few thoughts though:

• I'm not convinced that the gains the Taliban have made are the result of failure in military strategy. I think they are as much or likely more the result of failure on the civilian side to deliver the diplomatic/reconstruction goals and prod the national government of Afghanistan into enough reforms to deliver services to the provinces and districts.
• At this point though, the security situation is such that more troops will be required to hold and recapture areas so they are safe for the PRTs and other aid workers.
• I feel pretty certain that the vast majority of Afghans would prefer a reasonably functional non-Taliban national government over the Taliban. Much of the territory the Taliban holds has been captured through coercion and murder. Don't try to tell me that the population likes that any more than Iraqis liked the intimidation and terror tactics of al Qaeda or the Special Groups of the Mahdi Army in Iraq. Nobody wants to live that way.
• By dropping the number of troops from the requested 40,000, President Obama assumes a certain amount of political risk if it turns out to be not enough or if company level American forces are decimated or overrun because of a lack of spare quick reaction forces. There will be parts of Afghanistan that American forces will not go to now because the risk of being too far beyond assistance will be too great.
• Setting a withdrawal date is a bad idea. Any benefits now that he accrues domestically will become an albatross if conditions on the ground in just 18 months are such that a drawdown will lead to defeat. He'll be faced with breaking his promise or going down in history as the president(and party) who "lost Afghanistan." President Obama needs to be very careful how he words this tonight to avoid encouraging the Taliban, discouraging Aghan allies, and actually killing any hopes of success in the cradle. I'm skeptical that attaching a date to begin withdrawing will be anything other than a Taliban propaganda win and a disaster in the long run.
• 18 months is a very aggressive timeline to say that Afghan military and civilian capabilities will be good enough to begin withdrawing. It took four years to field Iraqi security forces capable of winning a fight, and that was only with American logistical support and force multpliers. I just don't see it happening in 18 months in Aghanistan. I just don't.
• The only way out of Aghanistan is through victory or a reasonable facsimile. Otherwise, how do we get out intact? You don't just teleport thousands of troops in a blink. If conditions are not sustainable and the president orders a withdrawal anyway there is a good possibility that a tipping point will be reached with a substantial number of brigades still in country. How do you get them out?
• He'll be on soon now. Bumping Charlie Brown? No biggie to me, but I'm thinking that could have been better timed.

Afghanistan: Some Links

Here are some links if you are looking for more info on Afghanistan and, like me, trying to figure out what the next step should be.

Here are two reports by Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional Research Service. Both are in pdf form and are not quick reads, but they have some very good background information on the people, politics, and history of Afghanistan.

• "Afghanistan: Post-War Governance,Security, and U.S. Policy" (July, 2008)
• "Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance" (August, 2009)

Steve Coll has a reasonable column in The New Yorker on the need for heavy lifting on the political side of the war.

• "War and Politics"

Elise Jordan in The Daily Beast on the messaging war.

• "Why Afghans Are Turning on America"

At Stratfor, George Friedman and Reva Bhalla analyze the McChrystal strategy and point out areas where it may fail.

• "The U.S. Challenge in Afghanistan"

I think McChrystal's strategy can succeed, but only with US civilian and political commitments just as deep as the military's. If the US cannot deliver the horsepower to improve the performance of the Afghan government at all levels, not to perfect, but to good enough for the people, it's not going to work. If President Obama and the international community do not make a real commitment that they will stay with it even when we experience setbacks and our own people grow weary, it's not going to work.

I have yet to see the State Department equivalent of McChrystal's assessment and overall strategy. That still makes me a little queasy about this whole thing. I know people want to see Obama commit to the McChrystal plan, but if the civilian side, both Afghan and US, cannot be accomplished we will be wasting the lives of hundreds if not thousands of US troops for nothing. Where is State's plan? If anyone has seen it, for heaven's sake, let me know.