James Fallows

The abuse of "filibuster threats" over the past six years has inured us all to the power -- and legitimacy -- of a "real" filibuster.

I am no fan of the way routine minority obstructionism has made 60 votes, rather than the constitutional requirement of a simple majority of 51, the standard for getting anything whatsoever through the Senate. But I have to respect the way the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, took the floor for 13 hours yesterday to mount a genuine filibuster to the nomination of John Brennan as CIA director*, and to raise questions about the unchecked life-and-death power President Obama has asserted in the open-ended "war on terror."

For more on the substance of Rand Paul's filibuster, see Conor Friedersdorf's summary. Even more important, in my view (since it affects a broader range of public business), is the potential of Paul's demonstration to shame Kentucky's senior senator and his colleagues who have indulged the lazy and destructive practice of fake filibusters. As Dave Weigel reported last night in Slate:

"If a person's going to make a stand on a nomination, this is the way to do it--the way Sen. Paul is doing it," [Oregon senator Jeff] Merkley said. "The American people can watch this and weigh in on whether he's a hero or a bum. That's reasonable. That honors the traditions of the Senate."

Merkley contrasted that with the filibuster that happened right before Paul's speech, one that got perfunctory media attention. For the third time, Democrats tried to advance the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. For the third time she got a majority of "aye" votes but couldn't break the 60-vote cloture threshold.

"That took no time or energy from any member," Merkley said. "It had no impact on the American people. It had no accountability. From the time that leadership struck its deal on the filibuster, they talked about the need for comity. And what we've seen since then is a 100 percent, all-out effort to paralyze this body.

This is the way to do it. In the less than 12 hours since Paul finished his filibuster, this may already have become a banal point, but it's worth re-stating: We've had a reminder of what's wrong with the way the Senate usually does its business, or avoids doing so. A good moment for Rand Paul.

(Photo from last fall, source here.)

My wife and I have spent the past several nights at a hotel in Beijing, and we've just arrived at one in Shanghai. Both of the hotels are very nice and welcoming, and on check-in each of them provided a special notice about communication problems guests might encounter during their stay. Here are the notices side-by-side. You probably can't read the tiny print, but there is an explanation below.



It's fun to be back in Shanghai. And if you're at the M on the Bund Shanghai Literary Festival tomorrow (Friday), please be sure to see Deborah Fallows at noon. I'll be there on Sunday.

No real-world human being brings to the U.S. presidency the range of attributes necessary for full success in the job. In principle a president should be great at: formal oratory before vast audiences; informal persuasiveness in small groups; high-speed fact-absorption and analytical intelligence; slow-paced,  unhurried deliberation; understanding both the past and the future; exercising both IQ and EQ; delegating duties; maintaining physical and emotional stamina; knowing and managing his or her own impulses; and on through a nearly infinite list. No one has all these skills. Therefore the best we can expect from the real people who hold the job is that they recognize their limits and try to address or offset them.

Yesterday I argued that George W. Bush's combination of traits was particularly unfortunate for the choices he had to make in the 18 months between the 9/11 attacks and the invasion of Iraq. Joseph Britt of Wisconsin, who has worked as an aide to a Republican U.S. senator, writes about one of the attributes I mentioned -- Bush's apparent desire to be decisive even in areas about which he was not deeply informed:

Per your observations on G. W. Bush's decisiveness, I wonder if you have ever noted an interesting contradiction in the Bush administration's record.

No American President, with the possible exceptions of those who faced civil (Lincoln) or global (Franklin Roosevelt) war, ever made claims for Presidential authority and prerogatives as sweeping as the last President Bush did.  Yet in practice, Bush yielded more Presidential authority to selected subordinates than any President since Wilson had his stroke.

The war on terrorism was effectively run by Vice President Cheney after 9/11.  Both Bush's Secretaries of Defense were left all but unsupervised with respect to war policy -- apart from the Bremer period in Iraq, when Bush gave the former ambassador a free hand to make decisions no one else wanted to make.  Perhaps most striking of all was Bush's unqualified delegation of executive power to his Treasury Secretary at the end of his tenure.  We might with justice refer to most of 2008 as the time of the Paulson administration.

For all the airs he put on as "The Decider," Bush was in many respects an extraordinarily weak President.  The ignorance and intellectual laziness you spoke of often drove his decisiveness toward finding someone else to make decisions.

Context for this discussion and some upcoming items in the queue: not Bush himself, who has been admirably low-profile since leaving office, but our general understanding of the wars America launched 10 years ago this month.

Two days ago I mentioned the venerable and Onion-esque Chinese media practice of featuring various "beautiful journalists" who are covering the big-deal political conferences underway now in Beijing. A sample from this year's installment in People's Daily:


Of course he's right. I'll have to get back in the game.

Following this post on the impending tenth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, and this argument from a "liberal hawk" on why he had been proud to support the war, a few reader reactions. I am behind on this for the usual reasons but also because of the cumbersomeness of Internet connections in Beijing. Here we go with a sampling of response.

Threats aren't always inflated. Many people wrote to make a point similar to this one:

The only example of threat deflation I can think of was George W. Bush pre-9/11.

Further on the G.W. Bush record, from a veteran of Republican politics now in the Midwest:

I have all sorts of thoughts about the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, for another time.  I'm probably not the first reader of yours, though, to note that you set the bar for honorable conduct pretty low with your reference yesterday to former President Bush.

Bush was the one person most responsible for the disaster Iraq became; he has never either apologized or accepted responsibility for his mistakes, and has devoted the years since he left office to presiding over his ghostwritten insta-memoirs and giving lavishly compensated speeches to closed audiences.  If you think Bush deserves credit for not criticizing how President Obama has tried to repair the damage Bush caused, you have a more charitable soul than I do.

My capsule view of Bush: I believe that the temperamental combination he brought to the presidency was lethal. I think of the big three elements of this mix as ignorance, incuriosity, and decisiveness.

• Ignorance was his low level of pre-existing knowledge of the complexities of the world.
• "Incuriosity" was his apparent lack of passion about learning what he didn't know.
• Decisiveness was his desire, nonetheless, to make big, sweeping choices quickly -- for instance, ten years ago that it made sense to invade Iraq.

In these matters of temperament, completely apart from political beliefs, you can see Bush as the opposite of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and also of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson. I argued nine years ago that even if George W. Bush served only one term as president, his legacy would be large and disastrous. Still, since leaving office he has been an honorable contrast to other members of his team, notably his vice president and first secretary of defense.

I said that Al Gore deserved credit for an early anti-war stand. A reader in Maryland writes:

You forgot Robert Byrd:

Before: "If the United States leads the charge to war in the Persian Gulf, we may get lucky and achieve a rapid victory. But then we will face a second war: a war to win the peace in Iraq. This war will last many years and will surely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. In light of this enormous task, it would be a great mistake to expect that this will be a replay of the 1991 war. The stakes are much higher in this conflict."

During: Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination. (March 19, 2003)

After: Of the more than 18,000 votes he cast as a senator, Byrd said he was proudest of his vote against the Iraq war resolution.  (June 12, 2006)

Back to the Bush family. The message I quoted from a liberal supporter of the war said that one honorable reason to invade Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had tried to assassinate the first President Bush. A reader replies:

I was struck, though, by this quotation from your "liberal hawk" and "avowed leftist":

I think just the assassination attempt on Bush 41 is plenty all by itself--what kind of country are we if we let another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?

One trouble with this is that the assassination attempt on Bush 41 was always dubious and has been pretty thoroughly discredited by now.  Another is that the US has attempted, sometimes successfully, to assassinate leaders of other countries -- notably Castro, whom the US tried to assassinate many times.  Would [this hawk] agree, I wonder, that Cuba would be justified in invading the US in retaliation?  If not, kind of country is Cuba if it lets another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?  Obviously that is a rhetorical question, whose answer is "a small, weak, and thoroughly menaced country that knows it couldn't bring the invasion off."  But morally, by this standard, a Cuban invasion of the US would be completely justified....

Which reminds me: Obama's opposition to the war, mentioned by your reader CJ, is highly disputable. I was always criticial, myself, of the whole 'quagmire' argument directed by many American liberals against the Iraq war: it'll cost (us) too much, it'll last too long, it'll cost too many (American) lives.  Imagine a Soviet politician who'd argued against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on those grounds; or a Japanese who'd argued against the attack on Pearl Harbor, or against Japan's imperial conquests in Asia, on the grounds that it would last too long and cost too much, and Japan would become stuck in a quagmire.  What American would hail such people for their great wisdom and insight into world affairs?  Usually we condemn the USSR and Japan for their aggression against other countries, but only "hippies" would condemn the US for aggression.

In the run-up to both Iraq wars I knew some opponents and protesters who argued that, contrary to the promises of our leaders, these wars would not be cakewalks and would last longer and be bloodier and more expensive than we were being told.  I told them that I hoped they were wrong, because they were effectively hoping for a long, bloody, costly war.  I preferred that as few people died or were hurt as possible, and that there were other better reasons to oppose those wars.  When they thought about it, they tended to agree with me.

Having myself made a "quagmire"-style argument before the war, I naturally think that such a perspective was a useful reason to oppose the war. Let's spell it out. Much of the stated case for war was in two parts: (1) Saddam Hussein is evil and dangerous, and (2) there is a quick and feasible answer to that question. I was saying about part (2): No, there is not a quick and feasible answer. In cases of life-or-death imminent existential threat or emergencies like Pearl Harbor, questions of practicality don't matter. But they sure do in a "preventive" war of choice -- which I hoped we would not launch.

One more for now:

I was puzzled at the time, and remain puzzled, by the fact that people who accepted the basically humanitarian argument for war (Saddam is dreadful, and the Iraqis would be better off if we deposed him) did not think: if we depose Saddam for these reasons, a lot depends on how we handle the aftermath. Luckily, we do not have to speculate about this: we already have an aftermath carried out by the Bush administration ready to hand, in Afghanistan. How's that going?

It wasn't as clear then as it is now how badly Bush and Cheney blew that one, but it was clear enough for me to think, at the time: the people in the Bush administration are not interested in any sort of serious investment in making the countries they invade better, more governable, whatever. Rumsfeld will try to prove his theories about how you can do everything with next to no footprint, Bush and Cheney will go haring off after the next big thing, etc. So if someone thought that invading Iraq would be justified IF we were willing to undertake some sort of serious effort to make Iraq a better place, then she ought also to think: what are the odds of that? and then: given the available evidence, not that good.

I did not accept the humanitarian justification for invasion myself. (Not that I doubted Saddam's awfulness -- I was on the Turkish side of their border with Iraq during one of the last bits of the Anfal campaign -- but I didn't think that necessarily meant that invasion would be a good idea.) But I really never understood why the people who did accept it were so apparently uninterested in the evidence of our competence at nation-building provided by our conduct in Afghanistan after the Taliban were defeated.

And, why not, here is one more (from a large harvest). Soon I will be in Shanghai, where the Chinese government's foot-on-the-neck of the Internet is usually lighter than in Beijing, and I should be able to catch up on a range of arguments:

The [liberal hawk] reader comments that Iraqis are surely better off now than they were under Saddam's power....

First, he, and you and I are really in no place to say what makes Iraqis 'better off'. That is a question for actual Iraqis living in Iraq. But from what we can say as outsiders:  Iraq under Saddam was no paradise, but the infrastructure of the country was completely obliterated during the war, leaving people who previously had electricity, running water, general physical safety and comfort with none of those. Second, a huge number of Iraqis died as a result of the war. Huge. Well over a hundred thousand. We should keep them in mind when making throwaway claims about life being 'better' for Iraqis, when the invasion coalition killed so many of them. I had an Iraqi roommate for a time who had lost so many friends in the war he had lost count.

Basically, I just want to acknowledge that there is no straightforward way to measure whether lives are 'better off' as a result of any traumatic event like a war, and that any discussion of such has to include mention of the unspeakable damage that this war has done to a generation of Iraqis. And any discussion of possible future military adventures for the US should too.

From a reader in Seattle, the front page of the Seattle Times on Saturday:

In response to a post yesterday, arguing that it's time for another look at the fateful decision ten years ago to invade Iraq, these reader messages.

1. Threat inflation. I said that nearly all the major official "threats" of the modern era proved in retrospect to have been hyped. Missile gap, Tonkin Gulf, WMD, etc. Reader JA immediately replied, "You left out terrorism." And reader AS wrote:

It's true that we came close to nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. But according to a well documented article in the Atlantic [plus others],  the missiles themselves were an inflated threat, i.e., according to US generals at the time did not materially hurt US security and could easily be traded, as they eventually secretly were, for US missiles in Turkey.

Again, reflect on this. Virtually all of the danger-to-the-nation warnings we've received in modern history prove to have been false, or overblown and hyped. Also, from MM in Massachusetts:

We're in heated agreement about the danger of threat inflation  and the Cuban Missile crisis in particular. Building on that notion, Able Archer 83 was another incident not in the public discussion (as much) but was a terrifying moment in history: a moment where two nuclear giants almost had it out over little more than a lack of communication.

2. The 'bomb Iran' resolution. I mentioned the efforts of Senators Lindsey Graham, Robert Menendez, et al to promote a Congressional resolution backing the government of Israel on whatever it decides to do about Iran. YR and others pointed me to the text of the resolution, which includes this sentence:

Nothing in this resolution shall be construed as an authorization for the use of force or a declaration of war.

Noted. On the other hand, and for the record, here is what the parts of the resolution just before that say:

Congress ... (7) declares that the United States has a vital national interest in, and unshakeable unbreakable commitment to, ensuring the existence, survival, and security of the State of Israel, and reaffirms United States support for Israel's right to self-defense; and
(8) urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence.

3. Liberal hawks. On accountability for people's views ten years ago, I said that unlike the architects of Vietnam, those who urged the U.S. toward war in Iraq had largely escaped reckonings about their views. A reader in Nebraska writes:

I might argue that Tony Blair has been held more accountable than most U.S. politicians - at least in his home country.

From reader DG in Texas:

At the time, the propaganda machine made anyone opposed to the war "unpatriotic" - unfortunate way to limit free speech.  It is now too hard to even discuss because of the damage to our young generation - remembering how we treated Viet Nam Vets.  The whole thing is just too sad to think about.

And from CJ :

One suggestion (not exactly original to me -- I believe Timothy Noah of Slate made this point previously [JF note: for instance here] re: accountability: not only are the people who got Iraq wrong treated as wise men, but those who got Iraq right (with the highly notable exception of President Obama) remain marginalized as too radical or (as Paul Krugman said today) as "hippies". Why aren't people like former Senator Graham [Robert Graham of Florida] called upon more in the places where public opinion is shaped?

Good question. Finally, from Alan Thomas, who says he is proud to be known as a liberal hawk:

Ten years ago I was profiled in a WaPo piece, by Linton Weeks, on ordinary Americans who supported the war; I filled the role of token leftist:

An avowed leftist, Alan Thomas, 33, doesn't like Bush, but he believes in the war. "I don't support the president. I'm skeptical about his sincerity in wanting democracy in Iraq. But I feel he's committed to it," Thomas says.

Thomas works the night shift in a group home for mainstreamed developmentally disabled adults in Kirksville, Mo. He's the son of college professors. He and his wife, Kate, 27, live in an apartment and drive a 1989 Chevrolet van. They have two mutts rescued from the humane society. They also run a small shop that sells things they think are cool, such as bumper stickers that read "Bush/Cheney: America's Second Choice."

"I'm sympathetic with the plight of the Kurds and the Iraqi people," Thomas says. "And I'm disappointed in, and embarrassed by, the left."

Asked if he voted for Bush, he laughs. "No, no way. Never."

Though Thomas enthusiastically supports the war, he says he'll reevaluate his position after the regime change. "If Bush tries to install a puppet dictator or if there are human rights violations, I'll be decrying it as loudly as anyone else on the left," he says...

The United States, Thomas says, "should clean up the world. We have the power.  I'm kind of a weirdo. It's wrong for us to sit on our hands and not do anything."

I for one still stand by everything I said.  But then, I never advocated for the war based on the WMD argument anyway, and acknowledged at the time (though Weeks didn't use those quotes) that it was a thin pretext used to sell it to the public and the U.N.  Honestly, although my personal motive had to do with human rights (and notice that Weeks did print my caveat that anticipated the possibility of something like Abu Ghraib), I think just the assassination attempt on Bush 41 is plenty all by itself--what kind of country are we if we let another country's leader pull something like that with impunity?

I have trouble understanding why you think it's so obvious now that the liberal hawks were wrong.  Maybe circa 2006 it looked that way, but aren't Iraqis better off today than they would be if Saddam (or his sons) still had a grip on power?

To answer the questions in the final paragraph: let's assume that many Iraqis may indeed be better off. For Americans that's not the relevant fact. After all, many people in Cuba, North Korea, etc might be better off if the U.S. invaded there too.

The question I am asking is whether this was a sane investment of American lives, money, national focus and attention, and international reputation. I argued before the war and soon after that it wasn't, and I think time has strengthened rather than weakened that case. Still, I respect an "idealistic hawk" willing to speak up for his views -- rather than, like many who were making similar points ten years ago, pretending this never really occurred.

Someone now working for an executive-branch department writes:

As a government employee who will almost certainly be furloughed in the coming months, I have followed the sequester with a sort of horrid fascination.  Not that it is any more or less horridly fascinating than any of our other "crises" in recent times, but the sequester hammers a few points home very well.

First, our public policy discussion has become too wonkish, by being entirely focused on measurable outcomes at the expense of all others.  (Another example: the health care debate, the vast majority of which was about costs instead of the moral imperative of universal health care).  Yes, the sequester will have an economic cost and is a dumb way to reduce the deficit, but the government is not just a contributor to our GDP or a balance sheet.  On the contrary, many of the government's functions -- like keeping us safe, providing justice (hopefully), and researching disease -- cannot be encapsulated by economic impact.  I'm sure the Democrats are emphasizing the economic impact of the sequester in order to make all Americans feel like they have a stake in its outcome.  But that is not what the government, perhaps the sole major institution in this country whose only mission is to serve the public, is about.

Second, the media could cure us of political polarization and instantly bring about bipartisanship if they stopped playing the false equivalence game.  If the GOP's refusal to compromise was labeled as it actually is, they might pay a political price and be willing to cut a deal.  But by blaming both sides equally even though President Obama is offering a balanced solution, the media have severely curtailed whatever political incentive there is for cutting a deal.  After all, if the Democrats are blamed for not compromising even when they have made all the concessions, why on earth should the Republicans ever concede anything?

Blaming both sides for lack of compromise when one side has refused to make any concessions is like punishing all athletes when only some take steroids.  If everyone is getting punished no matter what, why not break the rules and hit some home runs?

I don't agree that a different media tone would "instantly bring about bipartisanship," and probably the writer doesn't even think that himself. But it's certainly true that the current media approach effectively rewards stone-walling, filibustering, brinkmanship, and so on, by not calling them out as pernicious and destructive techniques. 

I may try flying a board. I have to say that this looks extremely dangerous but even more extremely fun.I will try to get a few dispatches composed en route. If you're going to either the Beijing or the Shanghai literary festivals this next week, see you there. 

Uinta Brewing Company (UBC) became 100% wind powered in 2001. The first company to be 100% wind powered in the State of Utah, Uinta has worked cooperatively as a Visionary with Pacificor's Blue Sky Program to promote the use of wind power to commercial and residential users throughout the state. Blue Sky Pilsner was named in honor of wind power. In 2011, Uinta installed solar-electric paneling on the brewery's roof, allowing up to 30KW of electrical power to be generated for Uinta's beer production--roughly 15% of the brewery's power usage. Uinta is currently 15% Solar and 85% Wind Powered.

In response the three-part series on Afghanistan by William R. Polk -- parts one, two, and three --  a reader who served as a U.S. military officer during the Iraq-Afghanistan era sends this complaint:

The end of that was ... sort of disappointing.  It's not that I disagree with anything Mr. Polk wrote, it's just that it's not clear to me he's very far from consensus opinion and, damn, this stuff is harder to do than I think his essay implies.  I mean, I guess I'd like to hear Mr. Polk flesh out how to do Taliban inclusion if he'd care to. 

My major objections to what he's saying is that as far as I can tell, the administration has been trying through all kinds of back channels to quietly negotiate with the Taliban.  They're coy about it, but that's to be expected, no?  That's so they can always tell the Taliban, hey man, we could walk away (even if we couldn't).  But it seems like negotiation with the Taliban has been going on on a back burner at varying levels of intensity back even into the end of the Bush administration.

It also seems like there's a hell of a problem coming from the fact that we just don't know a lot about internal command-and-control of the Taliban (understandably or else we might do better at whuppin' em).  That's why, as I recall, we got strung along by a Taliban "negotiator" who wasn't empowered to negotiate.  I don't think the Taliban care to give us a lot of insight into their organization, either.  Maybe Karzai or someone can get that, if we're not at the table?  I'd like to hear how Mr. Polk wants to identify a partner who's empowered to do anything and how to ensure that there's "Taliban" consensus for whatever we negotiate.

Lastly I think there's a damn hard regional problem, of course, that really ought to be in those last two sections of Mr. Polk's, but it isn't there.  Look, the Taliban in Pakistan have happily launched two really nasty attacks on Pakistani Army installations, and so the Pakistani Army isn't really happy with those guys at all, except for those parts of that Army which think there's somehow a discrete Afghan Taliban which functions as a cat's paw.  One way or another there's another powerful force at the table trying to position the Talibs and they haven't settled on their objectives yet (weirdly, "Pakistan" shows up nowhere in that whole second installment.)  That matters! 

When we negotiate with the Taliban and Pakistan isn't at the table, Pakistan makes trouble.  When Pakistan is at the table, Karzai makes trouble.  Omitted from Mr. Polk's list of objectives is that we need to quiet cross-border mischief (in both directions), no?  So I think this problem becomes a lot more, "look here, let me explain it all clearly to you" when you neglect the regional issues, and it gets pretty much intractable when you remember them.  But I'd like to hear his try at it.

I sent this note to Polk, at his home in France. It is not every day that you hear views on current policy from people who can say, "as I suggested to Walt Rostow about Vietnam..." But for the record here is his response:

I am grateful to  [this reader] for his thoughtful remarks on my draft policy paper and will here reply to a few of the points he makes.
 
The first and perhaps most significant issue is how to get the Taliban "to the table,"  that is to negotiate.
 
In my experience in negotiating ceasefires, I have found several common characteristics of the process.   The first is evaluation of what the other side offers.
 
I am not privy to what may have been communicated to the Taliban privately, but what appears to have reached them surely falls far short of what they would virtually have to demand.  At the low end, it is to surrender and accept what they would regard as a humiliating outcome of their insurgency; at the upper end, it would be to accept a fragile and largely ceremonial position in a government dominated by the current regime.  If I were a Talib, I would certainly not regard either the low end or the high end as acceptable.  To accept would almost certainly fracture their already-diffuse movement and probably lead to the assassination of the current leaders.
 
The second characteristic is that each side is constantly evaluating the other.  So the "window of opportunity" is shifting.  What was possible a few years ago is likely to be much more difficult today.

Again, if I were a Talib, I would doubt that the Karzai regime would or even could deliver on a deal to end the war.  Put simply, too much money is being made for anyone from Karzai on down to stop.    

More »

For anyone with the slightest interest in modern politics, the full two-minutes-plus of this clip from The War Room will be an irresistibly rewarding glimpse back at life two decades ago. But the 20-second soliloquy by James Carville that starts around time 1:40 shows the bright thread of false-equivalence thinking that runs from that time to our own.

A previous reader said:

"I often feel that the true expression is:

    "Democrats: 1+1 = 4

    "Republicans: 1+1 = 12

    "Press: 1+1= 10, probably, though some experts disagree."

In this case, the press is correct. They are just using "sophisticated' language to prove their superiority.

"There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

False equivalence. My heart sinks, as does yours, at the mere sight of these words. But just when I was ready to post a picture of a great new beer -- from Utah! -- plus some interesting/alarming Chinese news, I made the mistake of reading the lead editorial in the Washington Post today. Oh boy. I realize it would be false equivalence of its own rococo triple-backflip variety to avoid mentioning the most classic case yet. I'll try to move through it quickly.

Most Republicans in Congress have been utterly irresponsible in this debate. They pretend that they could balance the budget without more revenue, an arithmetical impossibility, and they have failed to put forward realistic, near-term entitlement reforms. But we take little comfort in Mr. Obama's being less irresponsible. [!!!!] He is the president; his party colleagues are increasingly intransigent on entitlement reform; and it will be his -- and their -- progressive goals that suffer most if the nation continues on its current path.

From a reader in Manhattan:

I often feel that the true expression is:

Democrats: 1+1 = 4
Republicans: 1+1 = 12
Press: 1+1= 10, probably, though some experts disagree.

And from another reader:

Democrats: 1 + 1 = 3 (multiplier effect)
Republicans: 1 - 1 = 3 (trickle down)
Media: 1 = 0

__

William R. Polk's first installment in this series, about the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, is here; the second, about Afghan realities constraining U.S. options, is here. This is the third and last for now, an analysis of the least-bad way for the U.S. to manage its extrication from Afghanistan. For completeness, his 1958 article on "Lessons of Iraq" is here. The points below follow "Point I. Basic Facts" from earlier today:

By William R. Polk

II. The Essential Objectives of the Afghan People and The World Community:

The fundamental objective shared by the Afghans and foreigners is a peaceful and secure country, able and willing to manage its own affairs and to act as an independent member of the world community;

This objective is brought into sharp focus by the insistence of the member nations of the NATO alliance that Afghanistan, under any government, prohibit the use of its territory or other facilities for acts of terrorism or subversion in member countries and their allies.  This, after all, was the justification for the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2003.  This is the second objective;

The third objective is particularly important for, but not necessarily understood by,  Americans.  It is not only to eliminate or cut down on the vast expenditures of money (much of it borrowed) and human resources (much of it wasted in battle or used in unproductive ways) but also to avoid a "blowback" by the warping or degradation of their institutions, comity and laws caused by fear, apparent necessity for drastic action and excessive concern with "security;"

The fourth objective of the member nations of the NATO alliance and particularly of the United States is to end or at least diminish the costs to them of the war. Member nations of the NATO alliance are already acting to accomplish for themselves this objective.   Afghans generally do not share it:  the Taliban movement, fractured though it may be, is determined regardless of  cost to induce the foreigners to leave and to reestablish something like the regime that was destroyed by the American invasion.  The Karzai government wavers between the NATO/ American and the Taliban objectives.  In principle, it seeks total independence but its power brokers (aided and abetted by influential outside participants) are making vast amounts of money off the occupation and are in no hurry to end it.   That is to say, there is a small but significant area of agreement on the objectives but not on timing, on the means to achieve them and on whom will control the action.


III. Objectives Desired By The Afghan People and The World Community:

Although, in current conditions they have not uniformly or vigorously articulated it, we may assume that a desired objective of all the Afghan people is a more adequate standard of living with both an improved diet and an enhanced level of health as well as a level of education that will enable to achieve and sustain a strong economy;

Both the majority of the Afghan people and concerned foreign powers desire a level of stability sufficient to prevent civil strife and invite further foreign intervention;

Member countries of the NATO alliance as well as China and Russia would like for Afghanistan to take a place suitable to its capacities in legal world trade.  Specifically, they would like to profit from Afghanistan's mineral resources, to make use of its routes of trade and to get its help in interdicting the drug trade;

Since some aspects of Afghan society, notably the position and role of women, appear to outsiders as ugly and "medieval," they would like to foster the "evolution" of the society along contemporary Western lines.  This objective is not widely shared in the country today although, briefly in the 1960s and 1970s, it was the policy of the then Afghan government and was approved by a wide swath of urban society.  Under conditions of peace and independence, especially if these are brought about through negotiations, it is likely gradually to re-emerge.

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William R. Polk is a long-time scholar and analyst of U.S. foreign policy who published an Atlantic article called "The Lessons of Iraq" back in 1958. Two days ago, I posted the first part of his long assessment of the options now available for the United States in Afghanistan. That part dealt with the Soviet failure in Afghanistan and what lessons it might hold.

In parts two and three, Polk turns to American policy options. This installment, number two, sets out some of the basic but often-forgotten realities of Afghanistan. In the final part, which will be ready later today, Polk examines the trade-offs for America and Afghanistan and recommends a course of action.
 

Toward a Feasible Afghan  Policy
By William R. Polk

    Too much of what we read in reports and analyses on Afghanistan is based on wishful thinking. It is late, but not too late, to move toward an affordable and sustainable policy.  To arrive at such a policy, we must begin by considering historical, geographical, ethnic and economic realities on the ground rather than merely focusing on what the Afghans, the Americans and other nations desire.   

I The Basic Facts

Afghanistan has a surface area of 6.5 thousand square kilometers (about the size of Texas or the combination of France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Denmark) of which 85% to 90% is mountainous and/or desert.  The central massif, broken by deep valleys, rises to a maximum height of nearly 8 thousand meters and much of the south and west is sand, rock or salty marsh. Thus, the economically "usable" Afghanistan is comparable to just Florida or the combination of Belgium and The Netherlands. The country has few known natural resources. Energy has been particularly lacking.  Water power is hampered by erosion, causing generators to disintegrate and storage lakes to fill with sediment.  Both oil and coal have been found but have only begun to be developed.  Timber is in very short supply, with forests covering less than 5% of the surface; much of the earlier forest areas have been denuded (destroyed by war or cut for fuel).   Ground water almost everywhere, except in the far north,  is unavailable while rain falls heavily and creates often devastating floods  in March-April.  Other floods come when snow melts in mid summer.  These times are inappropriate for most agriculture; so Afghanistan cannot feed itself.  The  reality is that Afghanistan is and will remain a poor country.

The population has risen over the last half century, from perhaps 10 million in 1962, when I first went there, to 31-33 million in 2012.  Today,  over half of the Afghanis are below the age of 18, so a major upsurge of population can be anticipated in the years ahead.  Before the Soviet invasion and occupation, the population was at least 80% rural:  most Afghans were settled peasant farmers, living in some 22,000 villages, but perhaps 1 in each 8 or 9 was a nomad.  Religiously, about 5-6 people in each 10 are Sunni Muslims and somewhat more than 3-4 in 10 are Shia Muslims.  Ethnically, the population is divided into at least two dozen communities of which the Pushtuns (aka Pathans) (4 in each 10), the Tajiks (3 in each 10) and the Hazaras (1-2 in each 10) are the largest.  These groups speak off-shoots of the Indo-European family of languages, mainly Dari, a dialect of Farsi (Persian).  Smaller Turkish and Mongol groups speak languages in the Ural-Altaic (or East Asian) family while other, even smaller,  communities speak languages in the Semitic family of languages.  Thus, Afghanistan is culturally, socially and politically diverse.

While, the diversity of the country is evident, it is important not to exaggerate its effects.  The inhabitants of the cities, towns and villages share shaping influences of means of earning their livings, religious belief and practice and historical experience.   The best known traditional code of life is the Pushtunwali of the Pushtuns,  but similar "social contracts" are  echoed in the other communities;  Islam in Afghanistan, like Christianity in Europe and America, is divided, but overall there is an intense loyalty to it;  and the experience of nearly all Afghans, shaped by generations of warfare, set them apart, they fervently believe, from all foreigners.  At minimum, the Afghans have a unity in their difference from others.


 
source:

Throughout history, central governments have functioned only intermittently and in sharply limited spheres except in the few cities.  Effective government is traditionally primarily a function of village communities: each village runs its own affairs under its own leaders; its inhabitants were economically virtually autarkic, making most of their clothing and tools and eating their own produce. 

 This lack of national cohesion thwarted the Russians during their occupation: they won almost every battle and occupied at one time or another virtually every inch of the country, and through their civic action programs they actually pacified many of the villages, but they could never find or create an organization with which to make peace. Baldly put, no one could surrender the rest. Thus, over the decade of their involvement, the Russians lost about 15,000 soldiers - and the war. When they gave up and left, the Afghans resumed their traditional way of life, what might be called "the Afghan way."

"The Afghan way" is today manifested in three aspects of government:

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From the inbox -- actually, my wife's email inbox. Fortunately we live in a community-property state.

From: <datdave@centurylink.net>
Date: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:38 AM
Subject: MGH
To: Dxxx

The Microsoft is glad to pronounce you as the lucky winner of Eight crores Thirty Four lahks and Thirty Two Thousand INR,send us the following details for claims.

Sex:
Full Address:
Full Name:
Age:
Telephone Number:

Thank you.
Dave Robinson.

To be precise, we live in a taxation-without-representation District rather than a state of any sort, and here the marital-property principle is called "equitable distribution" rather than community property. Either way, I'm looking forward to my share of the loot, knowing that one crore is equal to ten million rupees, which in turn is worth about $200,000. 

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This is nicely done.To anticipate 99 percent of incoming hostile mail and online trollery: the point of this distillation is not what it says about the two political parties. You can reverse them if you want -- although in the struggle over "the sequester," I think it's right as is. The real point is what this says about the predicament and habits of the press. 

William R. Polk's first appearance as an Atlantic author came 55 years ago. While Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, while Americans were absorbing the impact of the launch of Sputnik, while the showdown over integrating Little Rock Central High School continued, he wrote an article for us in 1958 called [yes] "The Lessons of Iraq." You can read it here and note how much of the analysis still applies.

In the years since then Polk has been a scholar and diplomat concentrating mainly on Middle Eastern affairs. Three years ago he made a return visit here to report on his latest trip to Afghanistan.

Now he has written a two-part essay on what Americans should take from their past ten-plus years of combat in Afghanistan. Through all these decades, a central theme in Polk's writing has been the crucial importance of recognizing and learning from strategic mistakes -- but also the seeming impossibility of doing so. This first of his dispatches concentrates on the lessons of the Soviet Union's struggles in Afghanistan. This one is about 3500 words long, or the scale of a medium-sized Atlantic story. I turn the stage over to William R. Polk.
____

Introduction:
  President Obama intends to "wind down" the Afghan war over the next years and to leave only a training mission there.   He inherited from President Bush and has continued, even enlarged, the American expenditures -- thousands of casualties, hundreds of thousands of wounded and a trillion dollars.   The experience has been, or should have been, as Kipling wrote of another war, "no end of a lesson."  Yet, I wonder, has it really been a lesson, and have we heeded it?  Might we do the same things again?

    As I have ruminated for years over these questions, which may be nearly vital for our country and our beliefs, I have reached the conclusion that we do not see or understand the similarities of events; rather we think of each venture as unique.  What happened in Vietnam has no relevance to what happened in Iraq.  After all, the  two countries are far apart, speak different languages and...well you know the rest....

    Fortunately, most of the current wars appear to be over even though they have left us with huge burdens.  But, as we survey what may be the prospect of new burdens, do our leaders connect the past to the present and the future?  I find little evidence to suggest that they do.

    Perhaps, I have thought, this is partly because of our rotation of leadership.  The new leaders are sure that they can do better what the former leaders did badly.  It is also, I think, because our memories are weak and our attention spans are short.    Perhaps we really don't care.  Or all the above.

    Here, I am trying to do two things, hence two papers I lay before you:  the one is that by looking not only at our involvement in the current war, Afghanistan, but also looking at what the Soviet Union did and tried to do there, I can single out a few things that should command attention even of our leaders.  The other, addressed in my second paper is,  given what we know and what we have experienced, what now makes sense for us to do.

________

What the Russians did in Afghanistan And What We Can Learn From It.
By William R. Polk

I have long been a student of Afghan affairs.  I first went there in 1962 when I was a Member of the Policy Planning Council.  During that visit, I made a 2,000 mile trip around the country during which I managed to talk with dozens of village elders, government officials and the diplomats and advisers from all the main states.  The result was a policy paper I presented to the Secretary of State's policy committee.

    The main argument in my paper was that the wisest policy for America was a modest and discrete involvement designed to help the Afghans manage their own affairs.  To accomplish this goal,  I proposed various ventures in education, health and infrastructure.  

    Above all, I proposed, America should avoid actions that were likely to restart the "Great Game,"  the competition for control of Afghanistan between Imperial Russia and the then British-dominated South Asia.  Neither we, nor the by-then Soviet Russians, nor the by-then independent South Asians - and certainly not the Afghans - would gain.   What the British called a "Forward Policy" had long since proven wasteful, sterile and self-defeating.  Its modern version, proclaimed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, was likely to repeat in Afghanistan what he and his brother Allan were already doing in Iran:  ultimately nullifying attempts, slow and weak as they were, toward increased national capacity and improvement of life.

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