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Steve Clemons: Thankful That Obama Has Helped Make Dissent And Debate Patriotic And Safe Again

2009-11-26T13:29:45Z

Arianna Huffington asked me (and a sizable gaggle of her other pals) to write something up for Thanksgiving. What am I thankful for? What moves me on Thanksgiving?

My significant other lets me know regularly how lucky we are to have our health, a couple of nice homes, jobs that pay reasonably well, friends and dogs who love us, family that we seem closer to each year, and causes that we are passionate about.

But he tells me this because I'm not often thinking about how great or not things are close to home. I know that there are many on the jobless rolls right now -- and I think about them a lot. I know there are folks losing their homes and it really frustrates me to read in contrast about Wall Street's recent huge rebound. I know there are lonely people -- with no connections to their communities, families, and without friends. I know a lot of sick people with marginal or no health care.

I can't stop thinking about these down trends from the American good life -- and I worry about the macro challenges facing the country, our political system, and our new and fascinating President.

I am grateful that we have Barack Obama in the White House -- because he has changed the face of the nation - and altered forever the horizon of what is possible for Americans who don't have the Anglo-Saxon cosmetic veneer that every U.S. president before Barack Obama possessed.

I also am grateful for Obama's invitation for debate and fair-minded criticism. His decision to bring in policy practitioners who have divergent views from one another, his embrace of heterodoxy, and the manner in which these conflicts come right up to his desk reflect a profound self-confidence in our young president.

Obama's embrace of debate and political diversity can be both strength and weakness -- but in the long run, it's better to have debate than not in a time when the world is at a major punctuation point in history and when things tomorrow will be quite different than they were yesterday.

There are many things I'm not happy about.

I'm not happy about the policy choices of Obama's economic team that have produced a Wall street bailout while banks still dither in their loans and small businesses still find an economic noose around their necks as they try to secure financing. I don't like how the administration has underperformed on job creation. I'm not happy that the tens of thousands of gay and lesbian soldiers in the Armed Forces and National Reserve still have to live a lie as they put themselves on the line for the security and welfare of all Americans of every brand and stripe. The failure of the administration to secure a strategic leap out of the mess the Bush administration left in the Middle East and with Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Afghanistan is very worrisome.

But what a change in a few years.

It's "safe" again to pose uncomfortable questions to the president of the United States and his team. It is actually "patriotic". Barack Obama embraces this patriotism of those who challenge him and dissent from his core policy positions and decisions. This is a stunning difference with the political world America has left behind.

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, who has become the co-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board and who was awarded two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam, is someone who during the George W. Bush administration had his patriotism questioned. Vice President Cheney blasted Hagel for asking key questions about the solvency of thinking about the Iraq War and challenged his loyalty to President Bush, the Republican Party, and the nation.

This was outrageous -- and indicated how deeply a climate of fear and vindictiveness had taken hold in and poisoned Washington as legislators on all sides of an issue fought over the course of public policy.

That is over. There are ferocious debates today over health care, climate change, education policy, the budget and America's long term fiscal position, over Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Iran, China, and economic policy.

But these debates are raging in a climate in which it is OK and safe to engage in civil debate.

In the Bush years, the efforts at thought control were so severe that spear-carriers like Tom DeLay sought to get those of a different political make-up fired from private sector jobs. Former Oklahoma Congressman Dave McCurdy, now head of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, was one of DeLay's targets. Funders cut off think tanks that opposed the Iraq War. Hate mail campaigns were launched against those who expressed views independent of the Bush/Cheney machine.

I have a lot of criticism that I direct at the Obama White House -- but I try to be civil and fair-minded, inspired by the President and how his team mostly operates (the Greg Craig situation being a major and disappointing exception).

But this White House embraces differences, rivals, and debate. This is extraordinarily important, and of all things this Thanksgiving -- I'm thankful that challenging the government's course and trying to put better ideas on the table are unabashedly patriotic again.

Have a good, old fashioned policy debate with someone you don't necessarily see eye to eye with this weekend -- and feel good about it. Shake hands when it's over, and agree to disagree if things end up that way.

That is what we have back again -- and that's something to celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note'

Read more HuffPost Thanksgiving coverage and commentary

Obama Calls 10 US Service Members On Thanksgiving (PHOTO)

2009-11-26T12:50:25Z

WASHINGTON -- On his first Thanksgiving in the White House, President Barack Obama has telephoned 10 U.S. servicemen and women stationed in war zones to thank them for their service.

The White House says Obama called two service members each in the Army, Navy, Air Force, the Marines and the Coast Guard. The service members are stationed in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Gulf.

Obama was enjoying a quiet holiday at the White House with family and friends. The president next Tuesday is expected to announce a new battle plan for Afghanistan, including an increase in U.S. forces.

The White House released a photo of Obama making the calls:

U.S. Seeks 10,000 Troops From Its Allies In Afghanistan

2009-11-26T10:32:36Z

The United States is scrambling to coax NATO allies to send 10,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as part of President Obama's strategy for the region. Those countries appear willing to provide fewer than half that number, American and allied officials said Wednesday.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan, German Military Chief, Resigns Over Afghan Raid

2009-11-26T10:21:58Z

BERLIN — The German military's top official was removed Thursday for failing to properly pass on information to political leaders about a September airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians.

The new defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, told parliament that the military's inspector general, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan – the equivalent of chief of staff – had asked to be relieved of his duties.

Jon Soltz: Thanks... Again And Again And Again

2009-11-26T08:22:36Z

This Thanksgiving, the thing that will stick the most with me is while watching football, we'll surely see the thanks to and from the troops videos just before commercial breaks. You know, the ones that have a young Army Sergeant in Iraq saying hi to his wife and kids, and another where a public figure thanks the troops for their service. This is the eighth year in a row we'll see these videos here at home.

At the same time, I can't help but think that some young grunt is watching these videos for maybe the fourth or fifth time from a TV that the USO set up in the warzone. And, while he'll strap on his rifle and go whenever called, part of him is thinking "How many more Thanksgivings am I going to have to watch these videos from over here? If you want to thank me, let me eat some turkey at home. Let me see my girlfriend and parents and friends for more than just short stints at home. Don't you have someone who can rotate in here for me so I can stop doing these tours for a while?"

Thanks to President Obama, some troops will see a bit of relief. By ending the Stop Loss policy, and supporting giving troops "dwell time" (as much time at home as deployed), our troops will get rest.

But, unfortunately, given the op-tempo of the wars we're in, added to rumors that we'll be sending an increase of troops to Afghanistan, there are no guarantees that troops might not see their sixth or even seventh Thanksgiving at war over the course of the next several years.

As Spencer Ackerman correctly notes, the reported decision to increase of troops to Afghanistan means our force will once again be at a breaking point. Now, we'll have to wait to see how President Obama addresses this point, but without a speedier withdrawal from Iraq, or a concerted efforts to grow the size of the Armed Forces at a more rapid pace than we've seen, we're going to be left with very few troops in the bank, so to speak. That means sending the same troops back out there again and again and again as soon as their dwell time is up.

Don't get me wrong, troops appreciate all the thank you messages, and getting a piece of home while watching football in the USO tent is maybe the absolute best feeling in the world when you're in Iraq or Afghanistan. But at a certain point, for those there for yet another holiday, the thanks start to ring a bit more hollow.

So this Thanksgiving, when you see those videos during the game, take a moment to think about that young grunt watching these videos from war yet again, and others like him. Put yourself in his boots. Carry that feeling with you through the rest of the year, and let it affect how you view all the news from the warzone, and decisions we make about the wars here at home.

Crossposted at VetVoice.com

Huff TV: Arianna Discusses Obama's Afghanistan Decision On The Charlie Rose Show (VIDEO)

2009-11-26T01:15:50Z

If you were traveling on Thanksgiving Eve, you might have missed Arianna on The Charlie Rose Show. She was there to discuss President Obama's forthcoming decision on US troop levels in Afghanistan. Joining Arianna were Yale English Professor David Bromwich, Council On Foreign Relations President Emeritus and Board Senior Fellow Leslie Gelb, Politico Editor-In-Chief John Harris, and New Yorker Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg.

It has been reported that the president will send 34,000 more US troops for duty in Afghanistan, just 6,000 shy of the full 40,000 requsted by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Arianna argued that Obama's reported decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan calls into question his whole leadership. He stood before the country during the Democratic National Convention in 2008 and told voters that the greatest risk for the U.S. in Afghanistan would be to do the same old thing, play the same old politics, with the same old players and then expect different results. And yet here he is, Arianna explained, poised to do just that.

WATCH:

Life, Death And The Taliban

2009-11-25T22:10:02Z

Life, death and the Taliban seeks to enhance America's understanding of Taliban history in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this crucial time in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban, Charlie Sennott recaps the group's rise to power and looks at current political and counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. Photographer Seamus Murphy, who has long chronicled the shifts of power in Afghanistan, accompanied Sennott to Kabul for this report.

Read more: Taliban, Afghanistan, World News

The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give, But Won't

2009-11-25T21:05:47Z

Sure, the quote in the over-title is only my fantasy. No one in Washington -- no less President Obama -- ever said, "This administration ended, rather than extended, two wars," and right now, it looks as if no one in an official capacity is likely to do so any time soon. It's common knowledge that a president -- but above all a Democratic president -- who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat.

This everyday bit of engrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record. We do, however, know something about what could happen to a president who escalated a counterinsurgency war: Lyndon Johnson comes to mind for expanding his inherited war in Vietnam out of fear that he would be labeled the president who "lost" that country to the communists (as Harry Truman had supposedly "lost" China). And then there was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who -- incapable of rejecting Johnson's war policy -- lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, a candidate pushing a fraudulent "peace with honor" formula for downsizing the war.

Andy Ostroy: Is Obama About to Make a Huge Mistake Over Afghanistan Troop Surge?

2009-11-25T18:38:54Z

President Obama announced this week that he'll be unveiling his war strategy for Afghanistan next Tuesday and in particular his decision on the September request made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal for an additional 40,000 troops. White House sources report that Obama will authorize just 30,000 which, if true, may be a huge political miscalculation.

Any additional troop authorization under the requested 40,000 is going to create a feeding-frenzy of Republicans rhetoric accusing the president of failing to listen to the generals; for being weak militarily; and for placating liberals. At a time when Obama's popularity is waning and he's facing uphill battles domestically on health care and the economy, the last thing he and Democrats need is to have the GOP attacking the administration on the war. So the obvious question is, if Obama's gonna up the ante to 30,000 troops, why not just give the general the 40,000 he asked for, albeit it with stringent progress demands, measurable benchmarks and realistic timetables for "mission accomplished" and a successful exit? In this explosively charged political climate, why feed right into the duplicitous hands of the "Obama doesn't support the troops" crowd?

Also, sending additionally troops--any additional amount--poses a huge political risk for the president among his supporters as well. A Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama sounding the anti-war alarm while escalating the operation sends a very mixed, confusing message to those who voted for him and expected a troop draw-down rather than a build-up.

To be sure, the 'correct amount' of additional troops needed for the Afghanistan "surge" is an absolutely arbitrary number, with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gen. McChrystal and countless others in disagreement over how many should be sent to complete the mission, whatever that is. So, why not defer to the leading commander in the region and give him what he sees in his McChrystal-ball rather than over-analyze the situation (as Obama's perhaps done for the past two months...only to come up with essentially the same conclusion), picking another number out of thin air which may or may not be the right one, and which allows your enemies to bash the crap out of you? Wouldn't it be more pragmatic and politically expedient to give the general the benefit of the doubt and shut down the engine of the right-wing attack-machine in the process? It just seems like Obama's regrettably setting the propaganda table for his ravenous GOP dinner guests.

Now on the other hand, instead of trying to play the "let's try to make everybody happy and ultimately make no one happy" game again, Obama could do what many believe he truly wants to, and what voters elected him to do: end the war, period. But this would mean acting on his true convictions. Now that would be novel, wouldn't it?

Battle Between David Broder And Harry Reid Heats Up: Broder Comments 'Mind-Boggling'

2009-11-25T17:19:43Z

David Broder simply doesn't understand the way that today's Senate operates, Jim Manley concluded on Wednesday. Manley, the senior communications adviser for Majority Leader Harry Reid, said that the longtime Washington Post columnist's charge that Reid pales in comparison to former Senate leaders misunderstands the way the contemporary Senate works.

"It's all fine and dandy to pine for the golden days of yesteryear, when politics was practiced differently, but that's not the reality we're dealing with," Manley told HuffPost. "What David fails to understand is that Republican leadership in both the House and the Senate are being pulled along by the so-called birthers, the Tea Party movement and other far right fringe groups that are completely at odds with the views David claims to hold."

Manley said that Broder's failure to see the GOP for what it is today is common among Washington-based pundits.

"David might be one of the worst examples, but he highlights a myopic, inside-the-belt phenomenon that is at odds with the views of many Americans," said Manley. There's even a term for such thinking: Broderism.

The Broder-Reid spat broke into the open on Saturday night when Reid dismissed him as "a man who has been retired for many years and writes a column once in a while." (Broder has taken a buy-out from the Post but continues to write two columns a week on a contract basis.) Reid was peeved at a column Broder had written accusing the Senate bill of not cutting costs adequately.

It may seem petty, but the Reid-Broder battle is a proxy fight between two competing approaches to politics. Reid, by attacking Broder, puts himself on the side of those attacking the Washington politico-media establishment.

"Maybe I have an idealized view of what a Senate leader ought to be," Broder told Politico Wednesday for a story headlined: "David Broder: Harry Reid's no Mike Mansfield." "But I've seen the Senate when a leader could lift it to those heights...I wish it had that kind of leadership now."

That's not possible, said Manley, because Mansfield and Lyndon Johnson, revered Senate leaders, had a Republican Party willing to work across the aisle.

"LBJ had Robert Taft [R-Ohio], William Knowland [R-Calif.] and Everett Dirksen [R-Ill.]. Mike Mansfield had Dirksen and Hugh Scott [R-Pa.]. What David fails to acknowledge is that the current Repub leadership is betting on the president to fail," said Manley.

"Why he can't understand that is mind-boggling."

"That's an interesting argument and certainly there are differences between the people now and the people then and the environment that was there," Broder told HuffPost. "But if that's their effort to explain why Senator Reid has chosen the tactics that he's chosen, that doesn't strike me as an adequate explanation."

Broder disputed Manley's contention that the GOP blocks everything. "It is not a fact that the Republicans have refused everything. At least we don't have much evidence of that so far. If he's talking about a specific reaction to the pieces of the Obama agenda that have come up so far, then he's in effect saying Obama is so frustrated that he's about to abandon everything. I don't suspect it's the case. When the first measure relating to Afghanistan comes to the floor that generalization will collapse."

Broder is probably right that the GOP will back Obama in his effort to expand the war in Afghanistan, but Manley was arguing more on the domestic policy front.

He references the fight to pass an unemployment insurance extension, which the GOP eventually supported but slowed down for several weeks.

"How David can make this kind of comment after UI bill is beyond me. It took more than four weeks to pass a bill in the senate that it took the House an hour to pass on the suspension calendar," said Manley.

Broder acknowledged the unemployment point. "It's a good argument as it implies to the unemployment extension. There have been many occasions where I have been very critical of the Republican stance."

"It is a different Senate now and if I were writing on that topic -- Mansfield, Baker, LBJ and so on -- we might very well agree. But that was not the subject of that column and in my mind, that is not a particularly powerful or relevant rebuttal to the subject I was talking about, which is whether or not the potential savings everybody knows are needed are there in the bill Senator Reid brought to the Senate floor."

Manley had specific gripes about Broder's health care column, in which he cited deficit hawks to make the case that the Democratic Senate bill might not reduce costs.

Manley said that Broder's column was discussed by "puzzled" Democrats in the Senate cloakroom. "No one could understand it," said Manley. "We had the self-described gold standard of analysis - the CBO - highlighting that the bill reduces the deficit. And David utterly failed to acknowledge that was the case."

Broder often refers to the Congressional Budget Office with the highest praise, but relied mostly in his column on "experts" who proclaim themselves "bipartisan" but whose goals are to dismantle Social Security, Medicare and other vestiges of the New Deal.

Broder's argument was dismissed by his colleague at the Post, Ezra Klein. Broder, however, said he didn't have to look far to find people who agreed with him - which is, in fact, one of the biggest problems the blogosphere has with his type of writing and thinking. "It was hardly a unique viewpoint," Broder said accurately.

If Broder thinks that the GOP is genuinely willing to work with Democrats, the only centrist position between he and Reid might be in agreeing to disagree. "We have a Republic leadership betting on the president to fail," said Manley. "David's problem is he thinks this is all on the up and up."

David Sirota: The Party Of Death: GOP Says Stop Effort To Halt Health Care Deaths, But Escalate War

2009-11-25T12:01:40Z

Well-known fringe freak show Rammesh Ponnuru published a childish screed in 2006 attacking Democrats as "The Party of Death." It was a (deliberately) provocative title -- and we should thank him, because it's a perfect moniker for these troubling times. Only not for Democrats, but for Republicans.

Indeed, in the simultaneous health care and Afghanistan debates, Republicans are really going on record as being objectively pro-death -- and frankly, the message is even more blatantly pro-death than even Rep. Alan Grayson (courageously) made it out to be.

Think about it: On health care, Republicans are arguing that Democrats are "rushing" legislation through Congress -- legislation that would bring down the astronomical number of deaths that occur thanks to our broken health care system. At the same time, they are attacking President Obama for not more quickly escalating the Afghanistan War -- an escalation that would likely result in a large number of American and Afghan deaths.

Clearly, it's mathematically absurd to insist that Democrats are moving too fast on a universal health care initiative that's been debated for 50 years* but too slow on a 2-month-old plan for an Afghanistan escalation. But that discrepancy is not nearly as important a point as Republicans' very clear message: They want to block the effort to stop 45,000 Americans from dying every year for lack of health care, and move forward a plan that would potentially result in 40,000 more American soldiers dying in Afghanistan.

And so, I'll just say it again: The Republican Party has turned into the Party of Death -- a party that is, in sum, advocating a twin health care and war agenda that would almost certainly result in more American deaths. Indeed, if, as the GOP wants, health care does not pass, and the Afghanistan War is escalated, the number of American deaths will almost certainly rise in the short term, and probably continue rising in the long term.That's not an interpretation of speculation -- and I defy anyone to try to make an argument to the contrary.

* Or, even the most conservative estimate, for 16 years since the Clinton health care initiative.

Bob Franken: The State Dinner and Afghanistan: Stepping Up to the Plate

2009-11-25T11:10:00Z

Unlike the wide coverage given to the tedious sessions President Obama has held about Afghanistan, the planning for the White House State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was conducted in complete secrecy. No leaks whatsoever.

It's a pity. First of all, the President himself also convened these discussions and held meeting after meeting after meeting. Instead of a War Council, he assembled a Kitchen Cabinet.

Actually, Michelle Obama sat at the head of this table, but it's fair to say that Barack was the power behind her throne. As a result, the gatherings featured interminable debates between advocates of a full commitment of the social staff and those who argued for a much more limited option.

Particularly valuable, as one might imagine, was the input from Hillary Rodham Clinton. She brought a unique combination of experiences to the process. Not only could she share her perspectives as Secretary of State and former First Lady, she had also spent those many years as Governor's wife in Arkansas, so her knowledge of "Country Come to Town" society events was unmatched.

And that was the crux of this internal debate. Should this be the usual highfalutin' formal affair, which Secretary/Mrs. Clinton favored, or should it be closer to what Vice President Joe Biden was advocating, where the President would invite everyone "to the White House for a beer". Hey, it had worked once before.

Should they use paper plates or real ones, considering India's sensitivity about China? Should it be a strictly vegetarian menu, given Mr. Singh's diet or should the selections include red meat to satisfy the Republican guests? Should they invite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who might wonder aloud who should pay for this?

Should it be a sit down dinner or maybe a buffet? How about really breaking with formal tradition and instead of holding it in the ornate State Dining Room, how about throwing a tent up in the backyard?

Well we now know the result of all this dinner-dithering. The President finally decided on both tent and china. The consensus approach apparently worked and everyone was pleased everyone happy.

Don't be surprised, though, if the one coming up on Afghanistan next week, has the totally opposite reaction...the reaction more typical of a compromise, where no one is happy.

Jeff Cohen: Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance

2009-11-25T10:39:46Z

With President Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest legislative "triumph" -- NAFTA -- thanks to an alliance with Republicans that overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.

It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the Democratic majority leader and majority whip.

To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.

"Deather" conspiracists are not new to the Grand Old Party. Clinton engendered a similar loathing on the right despite his centrist, corporate-friendly policies. When conservative Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey delivered to Clinton (and corporate elites) the NAFTA victory, it didn't slow down right-wing operatives who circulated wacky videos accusing Clinton death squads of murdering reporters and others.

For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA. It should set off alarm bells for us today on Afghanistan.

NAFTA was quickly followed by the debacle of Clinton health care "reform" largely drafted by giant insurance companies, which was followed by a stunning election defeat for Congressional Democrats in November 1994, as progressive and labor activists were lethargic while right-wing activists in overdrive put Gingrich into the Speaker's chair.

A year later, advised by his chief political strategist Dick Morris (yes, the Obama-basher now at Fox), Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over." In the coming years, Clinton proved that the era of big business was far from over -- working with Republican leaders to grant corporate welfare to media conglomerates (1996 Telecom Act) and investment banks (1999 abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act).

Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to health care, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke.

As he glides from retreats on civil liberties to health reform that appeases corporate interests to his Bush-like pledge this week to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, an Obama reliance on Congressional Republicans to fund his troop escalation could be the final straw in disorienting and demobilizing the progressive activists who elected him a year ago.

Throughout the centuries, no foreign power has been able to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, but President Obama thinks he's a tough enough Commander-in-Chief to do it. Too bad he hasn't demonstrated such toughness in the face of obstructionist Republicans and corporate lobbyists. For them, it's been more like "compromiser-in-chief."

When you start in the center (on, say, health care or Afghanistan) and readily move rightward several steps to appease right-wing politicians or lobbyists or generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.

It's been a gradual descent from the elation and hope for real change many Americans felt on election night, November 2008. For some of us who'd scrutinized the Clinton White House in the early 1990s, the buzz was killed days after Obama's election when he chose his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton strategist and architect of the alliance that pushed NAFTA through Congress.

If Obama stands tough on more troops to Afghanistan (as Clinton fought ferociously for NAFTA), only an unprecedented mobilization of progressives -- including many who worked tirelessly to elect Obama -- will be able to stop him. Trust me: The Republicans who yell and scream about Obama budget deficits when they're obstructing public health care will become deficit doves in spending the estimated $1 million per year per new soldier (not to mention private contractors) headed off to Asia.

The only good news I can see: Maybe it will take a White House/GOP alliance over Afghanistan to wake up the base of liberal groups (like MoveOn) to take a closer and more critical look at President Obama's policies.

Jeff Cohen is an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America.

Christopher Lydon: David Bromwich On Obama: Looking At Words Closely

2009-11-25T10:22:55Z

It's a measure of the change in the discourse that David Bromwich, Yale's Sterling Professor of English who used to write op-ed in the New York Times, now keeps a sort of Times Watch in the Huffington Post, the New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books. "I don't have a particular grievance, or have it in for the Times," Professor Bromwich says to me in conversation, "but they are an important mainstream paper, and the way they bent towards the war in Iraq, I think, was all-important in legitimating that war. So they bear watching, and when no one else is minding that watch, I do it." He was the only writer I saw who broke through the "de mortuis" sentimentalism around the Times' late language meister William Safire to nail the propagandist and congenital war-monger: "the true Safire touch -- clever, punchy, alliterative, demagogic." In a more consequential "close reading" of the Times through five days of late October, Bromwich wrote: "the conclusion draws itself. The New York Times wants a large escalation in Afghanistan."

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David Bromwich seems to me better yet at Obama-watching than at press criticism. He can write with penetration of Barack Obama as an American almost-literary invention, and he can make you feel you're reading Nabokov on Don Quixote or Harold Bloom on Hamlet. In our gab, Bromwich's essentially sympathetic but distressed view is that Obama "is a capitive of the inertia of the use of American power that he inherits." To my taste, Bromwich does what the magisterial columnists of old like James Reston and Walter Lippman (the people I wanted to be when I grew up) used to do: pull the threads of news and impression and gossip and deep reading into a "mood of Washington" and some sense of where we're going. Sitting in New Haven, Bromwich comes at it with the training primarily of the literary man, a biographer of the critic William Hazlitt and prolific interpreter of Rousseau, Burke, Lincoln and Mill. He adopted the old liberal prejudices when they were uncontested -- in favor of peace, against torture; for civil liberties without cavil; for the republican virtues and constitutional standards. Bromwich's finished work has an often chilling clarity and eloquence I find nowhere else these days:

Afghanistan is the largest and the most difficult crisis Obama confronts away from home. And here the trap was fashioned largely by himself. He said, all through the presidential campaign, that Iraq was the wrong war but Afghanistan was the right one. It was 'a war of necessity', he said this summer. And he has implied that he would accept his generals' definition of the proper scale of such a war. Now it appears that Afghanistan is being lost, indeed that it cannot be controlled with fewer than half a million troops on the ground for a decade or more. The generals are for adding troops, as in Vietnam, in increments of tens of thousands. Their current request was leaked to Bob Woodward, who published it in the Washington Post on 21 September, after Obama asked that it be kept from the public for a longer interval while he deliberated. The leak was an act of military politics if not insubordination; its aim was to show the president the cost of resisting the generals.

The political establishment has lined up on their side: the addition of troops is said to be the most telling way Obama can show resoluteness abroad. This verdict of the Wall Street Journal, the Post and (with more circumspection) the New York Times was taken up by John McCain and Condoleezza Rice. If Obama declined at last to oppose Netanyahu on the settlement freeze, he will be far more wary of opposing General Petraeus, the commander of Centcom. Obama is sufficiently humane and sufficiently undeceived to take no pleasure in sending soldiers to their deaths for a futile cause. He will have to convince himself that, in some way still to be defined, the mission is urgent after all. Afghanistan will become a necessary war even if we do not know what marks the necessity. Robert Dole, an elder of the Republican Party, has said he would like to see Petraeus as the Republican candidate in 2012. Better to keep him in the field (this must be at least one of Obama's thoughts) than to have him to run against.

For Obama to do the courageous thing and withdraw would mean having deployed against him the unlimited wrath of the mainstream media, the oil interest, the Israel lobby, the weapons and security industries, all those who have reasons both avowed and unavowed for the perpetuation of American force projection in the Middle East. If he fails to satisfy the request from General McChrystal - the specialist in 'black ops' who now controls American forces in Afghanistan - the war brokers will fall on Obama with as finely co-ordinated a barrage as if they had met and concerted their response. Beside that prospect, the calls of betrayal from the antiwar base that gave Obama his first victories in 2008 must seem a small price to pay. The best imaginable result just now, given the tightness of the trap, may be ostensible co-operation with the generals, accompanied by a set of questions that lays the groundwork for refusal of the next escalation. But in wars there is always a deep beneath the lowest deep, and the ambushes and accidents tend towards savagery much more than conciliation.

David Bromwich, "Obama's Delusion," in the London Review of Books, 22 October 2009. Read it all here.

Cross-posted from Open Source With Christopher Lydon

Mullah Omar, Taliban Leader, Issues Eid Holiday Message, Rules Out Talks With Karzai

2009-11-25T10:11:07Z

KABUL — A helicopter belonging to an international military contractor has gone missing in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

The helicopter for Supreme Global Service Solutions has been missing since late Tuesday, said NATO spokesman Maj. Steven Coll. A Kabul representative for the Virginia-based company declined to comment and press officers elsewhere could not be immediately reached. Supreme supplies food and logistics services military bases across Afghanistan.

Kandahar, Afghanistan's Second Largest City, Will Be Key Focus For Troops

2009-11-25T10:03:36Z

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — A wedding was called off because international troops killed the groom. A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a police patrol. An old woman was beaten by the Taliban after she tried to stop them from taking her son.

And all of this happened in just two weeks in the same place – Kandahar.

Jon Temin: Why Sudan Matters

2009-11-24T18:04:55Z

Foreign policy realists sometimes ask how much seemingly marginal states such as Sudan really matter. The answer is that Sudan matters for many reasons, none more important than the millions dead and displaced due to decades of unnecessary internal violence. Sudan matters now more than ever because two seminal events are quickly approaching -- elections in 2010 and a referendum on the unity of the country in 2011 -- and the international community is increasingly concerned that they will lead to new and renewed violence and displacement. With the recent release of its long-awaited Sudan policy, Sudan matters to the Obama Administration and its efforts to transform the president's popularity abroad into tangible achievements.

But Sudan also matters because what is happening right now in Sudan, and what will happen in the next two years, has important implications for Africa and efforts to address state fragility globally for at least three reasons.

First, Sudan may test the inviolability of Africa's borders. Many of Africa's current borders were drawn almost blindly by European rulers at a conference in Berlin in 1885. They tend to be arbitrary and often awkward, splitting kin groups across different countries while placing adversarial groups within the same borders. But with few exceptions (the carving of Eritrea out of Ethiopia being the most notable), Africa's borders have remained static. Until now, African leaders and citizens have accepted the geographic hand they were dealt.

But in 2011, southern Sudanese are scheduled to vote in a referendum on whether to remain part of Sudan or secede. The referendum is the culmination of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between Sudan's north and south that ended decades of civil war which cost roughly two million lives. Every indication is that southerners will vote for secession - the president of the Government of Southern Sudan recently predicted that remaining in a united Sudan would render southerners "second-class citizens." Secession would mean the division of Africa's physically largest country, with the south comprising approximately a quarter of Sudan's land. This could be deeply traumatic for Sudan, but may not affect Sudan alone.

If Africa's largest country can be divided through referendum, what does this imply for an unwieldy, arguably ungovernable country like the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Or Nigeria, which, not unlike Sudan, is deeply divided along ethnic and religious lines? How many of Africa's borders may be up for debate? Southern Sudan's right to self-determination should be unassailable, but the precedent set by secession would be felt well beyond Sudan -- something surely on the minds of leaders and disgruntled populations elsewhere.

Second, Sudan presents a stern test of the "African solutions to African problems" mantra. There are few durable African solutions to boast of, especially with Zimbabwe and Kenya backsliding. Particularly concerning Sudan's Darfur crisis, Africa is on the hook: the Darfur peacekeeping mission is a joint enterprise between the African Union and United Nations, includes troops only from Africa, and, until their recent departures, was led by a diplomat from Congo-Brazzaville and a general from Nigeria. The lead mediator for Darfur is from Burkina Faso. The African Union Panel on Darfur, which investigated issues of peace, justice and reconciliation, recently released its findings and was led by former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki. African Union gatherings have debated Darfur and passed resolutions -- including one condemning the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Despite this depth of African engagement, there are few results to show. The scale of the killing has diminished, but millions remain displaced. UNAMID is intensely unpopular among many of the displaced and remains significantly short of its mandated capacity of 26,000 troops. There is no political solution in sight, with factionalized rebel groups struggling to unite and the most influential rebel leader, Abdel Wahid al-Nur, refusing to engage in negotiations. An African solution to this problem does not seem imminent. This is by no means solely Africa's fault, as the United States, China and others bring substantially greater leverage to the situation than any African state. But it does raise the question: if so much African engagement does not bring progress, can there be African solutions to Africa's most intractable problems?

Third, following in the footsteps of Afghanistan's highly flawed election, Sudan offers another test of whether elections in volatile environments are a good idea. The CPA called for nationwide elections mid-way through the six-year "interim period." Those elections have endured several delays, and are now scheduled for April 2010, with the CPA expiring in 2011. Preparations are underway, with voter registration commencing, in haphazard fashion, at the beginning of November. But substantial flaws in the process are already emerging: the Carter Center recently noted concerns including "slow implementation of electoral preparations...unresolved operational decisions related to voter registration activities...delays in the finalization of national, regional, and state geographic constituencies; and continued harassment of political party and civil society activity across Sudan." There are also real risks of elections triggering new or renewed violence, especially in the volatile areas of the country on both sides of the north-south border.

Many Sudanese, especially in the south, profess little interest in the elections. They are skeptical of the election process and those organizing it, and, in the south, are instead counting the days until the 2011 referendum on unity or secession. During the CPA negotiations neither the northerners nor southerners were especially keen to see elections be part of the deal; it was the international community, led by the United States, which insisted that elections come first, ostensibly to legitimize the referendum. But that insistence may be backfiring, with the international community pouring substantial funds into a process that could ultimately be perceived as illegitimate and may result in the confirmation of an unhappy and unstable status quo. If that is the outcome, little will have changed, except that precious time, effort and funds will have been devoted to elections rather than to meeting mounting humanitarian needs and preparing for the referendum and what comes after it. Should this be the result, valid questions will again be asked about elections in fragile states and whether they should be a priority. It is unlikely to be the last time such questions arise.

Steve Cobble: Mr. President, Review Bill Moyers' Show

2009-11-24T18:02:56Z

Dear Mr. President--Since you were in Asia, you may have missed Bill Moyers' show last Friday night, about LBJ's radio clips as he reluctantly escalated in Vietnam (Moyers was an aide at the time).

LBJ's decision to escalate was a disaster. For America. For the Vietnamese people. For the long-term success of Johnson's Great Society.

Before you decide anything, do yourself a favor. Watch the tape.

Then please call Bill Moyers and talk to him about it. Thanks.

Robert Baer: What We're Up Against In Afghanistan Is A "War Of National Resistance"

2009-11-24T17:39:22Z

In the latest video from the Brave New Foundation's "Rethink Afghanistan" project, former CIA agent Robert Bear says that what the U.S. faces when it comes to the Afghan insurgency isn't terrorism, but a war of national resistance.

"The people that want their country liberated from the West have nothing to do with Al Qaeda," Baer says. "They simply want us gone because we're foreigners, and they're rallying behind the Taliban because the Taliban are experienced, effective fighters."

Because these insurgents see the U.S. as a colonial force, Baer says, they are unlikely to ever rally around the Afghan national army the U.S. is looking to establish. "This is an occupying force," explains Matthew Hoh, a former U.S. official in Afghanistan who resigned last month over the war. "The Afghan National Army is led by Tajiks and Uzbeks and urban Pashtuns, and it is occupying the rural Pashtun South."

This is why the U.S. should ask itself, Hoh says, "do we want to support one side in a civil war?"

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Taylor Marsh: Obama-Singh Signal Deeper Ties

2009-11-24T17:21:52Z

Obama began with "Namaste," which came at the start of a remarkable press conference that revealed serious new growth in Indian - US relations. The chandelier pictured below gives you the ambiance infusing the state visit by Prime Minister Singh.

The backdrop to this is more speculation about troop increases in Afghanistan, with McClatchy having the latest, set at 34,000 troops. Obama will now have to convince the American people.

The view from inside the East Room of the White House foreshadowed the importance of what is taking place today. As I watched President Obama and PM Singh, it was clear that what was being signaled from the administration is a sincere effort to stress the "deepening cooperation" between our two countries that means something different than what has transpired in the past. Obama said the U.S. - India relationship would be a "defining partnership of the 21st century."

And if you're wondering where Obama is heading on Afghanistan, all you have to do is listen to his words today. "Our core goal is to achieve peace and security for all peoples of the region."

Regional security is clearly seen as a strategic goal of Obama, who also said today that "It is my intent to finish the job."

Mark Knoller of CBS got the first question, which played out rather humorously. "I suspect you don't want my colleagues and I to rely on leaks until next week." Obama smiled, then said, "Why stop now?" McClatchy blew that one out of the water.

Obama emphasized on Afghanistan that it's important "not just to the United States, but it's important to the world."

Prime Minister Singh nodded in agreement.

These two things taken together tell you all you need to know about what Obama was telegraphing today. Saying his words should be "sufficient preview until after Thanksgiving," also giving the impression that a formal address to the nation is coming next week. Everyone is betting Tuesday.

Seeing the solidarity between Obama and Singh today, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride in how Obama interacts with leaders that had little connection to the previous administration or the rabble that is criticizing his every foreign policy move.

And all you had to do was listen to the two leaders today as they talked about their nuclear commitment to see Obama's goals extend toward the future.

"As nuclear powers, we can be full partners in preventing the spread of the world's most deadly weapons, securing loose nuclear materials from terrorists, and pursuing our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons." - Obama

Obama acknowledged the horrific Mumbai attacks of one year ago, joining "our Indian friends in remembering the horrific attacks in Mumbai year ago."

When the first state dinner of his term was announced, I was curious to see what message was being sent. It's clear that even as Obama talks about China, the importance of our relationship with India is clearer than ever.

Taylor Marsh, with podcasts available on iTunes.