Nation-Building

This is the text and word cloud of the speech by Sarah Palin while in Hong Kong on September 23rd, for the CLSA Pacific Markets Conference. Note the dominant topic (in the cloud) in her speech is obvious, and hardly a surprise given the context and locale of the speech.

You can call me a common-sense conservative. My approach to the issues facing my country and the world, issues that we'll discuss today, are rooted in this common-sense conservatism... Common sense conservatism deals with the reality of the world as it is. Complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful, we believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual.

We don't believe that human nature is perfectible; we're suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it's trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean that we're resigned to any negative destiny. Not at all. I believe in striving for the ideal, but in realistic confines of human nature...

The opposite of a common-sense conservative is a liberalism that holds that there is no human problem that government can't fix if only the right people are put in charge. Unfortunately, history and common sense are not on its side. We don't trust utopian promises; we deal with human nature as it is.

While we might be in the wilderness, conservatives need to defend the free market system and explain what really caused last year's collapse.

According to one version of the story, America's economic woes were caused by a lack of government intervention and regulation and therefore the only way to fix the problem - because, of course, every problem can be fixed by a politician - is for more bureaucracy to impose itself further, deeper, forcing itself deeper into the private sector.

I think that's simply wrong. We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place. The mortgage crisis that led to the collapse of the financial market, it was rooted in a good-natured, but wrongheaded, desire to increase home ownership among those who couldn't yet afford to own a home.

In so many cases, politicians on the right and the left, they wanted to take credit for an increase in home ownership among those with lower incomes. But the rules of the marketplace are not adaptable to the mere whims of politicians.

Lack of government wasn't the problem. Government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn't fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to.

The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who, as I say, couldn't afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks.

So - how can we discuss reform without addressing the government policies at the root of the problems? The root of the collapse? And how can we think that setting up the Fed as the monitor of systemic risk in the financial sector will result in meaningful reform?

The words "fox" and "hen house" come to mind. The Fed's decisions helped create the bubble. Look at the root cause of most asset bubbles, and you'll see the Fed somewhere in the background.

Common sense tells you that when you're in a hole, you have to stop digging! A common sense conservative looks to history to find solutions to the problems confronting us, and the good news is that history has shown us a way out of this, a way forward from recession.

Ronald Reagan, he was faced with an even worse recession, and he showed us how to get out of here.

If you want real job growth, you cut taxes! And you reduce marginal tax rates on all Americans. Cut payroll taxes, eliminate capital gain taxes and slay the death tax, once and for all. Get federal spending under control, and then you step back and you watch the U.S. economy roar back to life.

But it takes more courage for a politician to step back and let the free market correct itself than it does to push through panicky solutions or quick fixes...

I can't wait until we get that Reaganomics sense supplied again because we are going to survive, and we're going to thrive and expand and roar back to life. And as the world sees this, the world will be a healthier, more secure, safer and more prosperous place when this happens.

Yet it seems like some are looking to ever more ways that will actually destroy economic opportunities today. Take for example, Washington's cap-and-trade scheme. I call it the "cap-and-tax" scheme.

Right now we have the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, and it's still rising. And yet some in D.C. are pushing a cap-and-tax bill that could cripple our energy industry or energy market and dramatically increase the rates of the unemployed, and that's not just in the energy sector.

American jobs in every industry will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under this cap-and-tax plan. The cost of farming will certainly increase. That's going to drive up the cost of groceries and drive down farm incomes. The cost of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also rise. We are all going to feel the effects. The Americans hardest hit will be those who are already struggling to make ends meet today, much less with this new tax every month.

I am not indifferent to environmental concerns. Far from it. As governor, I created a sub-cabinet to study the impacts of climate change in my state. And I was the first governor to do so. It took us in a new direction.

I'm a supporter of nuclear power and renewables. We can develop these resources without destroying our economy. And we can help the environment and our economy through energy independence.

Now, I seem to have acquired notoriety in the national debate on health care. And all because of two words: "death panels." And it is a serious term. It was intended to sound a warning about the rationing that is sure to follow if big government tries to simultaneously increase health care coverage while also claiming to decrease costs.

Government has just got to be honest with the people about this.

As I said, it's just common sense to realize that government's attempts to solve large problems like the health-care challenges that we have, more often create new ones, and a top down one size fits all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for some one-fifth of our economy.

Common sense also tells us that passing a trillion dollar new retirement program is not the way to reduce health-care spending. Real health-care reform is market oriented, patient centered and result driven.

The ideal plan that I would have in mind would give all individuals the same tax benefits as those who get coverage through their employers. And give Medicare recipients vouchers so that they can buy their own coverage. And reform tort laws and change regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines.

Rather than another top down government plan, we should give Americans themselves control over their own health care with market friendly responsible ideas.

So far, I've given you the view from Main Street, USA. I'd like to share with you how a Common Sense Conservative sees the world at large.

Later this year, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall - an event that changed not just Europe but the entire world. In a matter of months, millions of people in formerly captive nations were freed to pursue their individual and national ambitions.

The competition that defined the post World War II era was suddenly over. What was once called "the free world" had so much to celebrate - the peaceful end to a great power rivalry and the liberation of so many from tyranny's grip.

Some, you could say, took the celebration too far. Many spoke of a "peace dividend," of the need to focus on domestic issues and spend less time, attention and money on endeavors overseas.

Many saw a peaceful future, where globalization would break down borders and lead to greater global prosperity. Some argued that state sovereignty would fade - like that was a good thing? - that new non-governmental actors and old international institutions would become dominant in the new world order.

As we all know, that did not happen. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of warning signs that the end of the Cold War did not mean the end of history or the end of conflict.

In Europe, the breakup of Yugoslavia resulted in brutal wars in the Balkans. In the Middle East, a war was waged to reverse Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. North Korea's nuclear program nearly led to military conflict. In Africa, U.S. embassies were bombed by a group called Al Qaeda.

Two weeks ago, America commemorated the 8th anniversary of the savagery of September 11, 2001. The vicious terrorist attacks of that day made clear that what happened in lands far distant from American shores directly affect our security. We came to learn, if we did not know before, that there were violent fanatics who sought not just to kill innocents, but to end our way of life. Their attacks have not been limited to the United States.

They attacked targets in Europe, North Africa and throughout the Middle East. Here in Asia, they killed more than 200 in a single attack in Bali. They bombed the Marriott Hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Last year in Mumbai, more than 170 were killed in coordinated attacks in the heart of India's financial capital.

In this struggle with radical Islamic extremists, no part of the world is safe from those who bomb, maim and kill in the service of their twisted vision.

This war - and that is what it is, a war - is not, as some have said, a clash of civilizations. We are not at war with Islam. This is a war within Islam, where a small minority of violent killers seeks to impose their view on the vast majority of Muslims who want the same things all of us want: economic opportunity, education, and the chance to build a better life for themselves and their families. The reality is that al Qaeda and its affiliates have killed scores of innocent Muslim men, women and children.

The reality is that Muslims from Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other countries are fighting Al Qaeda and their allies today. But this will be a long war, and it will require far more than just military power to prevail. Just as we did in the Cold War, we will need to use all the tools at our disposal - hard and soft power. Economic development, public diplomacy, educational exchanges, and foreign assistance will be just as important as the instruments of military power.

During the election campaign in the U.S. last year, you might have noticed we had some differences over Iraq.

John McCain and I believed in the strength of the surge strategy - and because of its success, Iraq is no longer the central front in the war on terrorism. Afghanistan is.

Afghanistan is where the 9/11 attacks were planned and if we are not successful in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will once again find safe haven there.

As a candidate and in office, President Obama called Afghanistan the "necessary war" and pledged to provide the resources needed to prevail. However, prominent voices in the Democratic Party are opposing the additional U.S. ground forces that are clearly needed.

Speaker of the House Pelosi, Defense Subcommittee Chairman Murtha, the Senate Armed Services Committee Chair, and many others, recently expressed doubts about sending additional forces! President Obama will face a decision soon when the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan requests additional forces to implement his new counterinsurgency strategy.

We can win in Afghanistan by helping the Afghans build a stable representative state able to defend itself. And we must do what it takes to prevail. The stakes are very high.

Last year, in the midst of the U.S. debate over what do to in Iraq, an important voice was heard - from Asia's Wise Man, former Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who wrote in the Washington Post about the cost of retreat in Iraq. In that article, he prophetically addressed the stakes in Afghanistan. He wrote:

"The Taliban is again gathering strength, and a Taliban victory in Afghanistan or Pakistan would reverberate throughout the Muslim world. It would influence the grand debate among Muslims on the future of Islam. A severely retrograde form of Islam would be seen to have defeated modernity twice: first the Soviet Union, then the United States. There would be profound consequences, especially in the campaign against terrorism."

That statesman's words remain every bit as true today. And Minister Lee knows, and I agree, that our success in Afghanistan will have consequences all over the world, including Asia. Our allies and our adversaries are watching to see if we have the staying power to protect our interests in Afghanistan.

That is why I recently joined a group of Americans in urging President Obama to devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan and pledged to support him if he made the right decision.

That is why, even during this time of financial distress we need to maintain a strong defense. All government spending should undergo serious scrutiny. No programs or agencies should be automatically immune from cuts.

We need to go back to fiscal discipline and unfortunately that has not been the view of the current Administration. They're spending everywhere and with disregard for deficits and debts and our future economic competitiveness.

Yet, though we are engaged in two wars and face a diverse array of threats, it is the defense budget that has seen significant program cuts and has actually been reduced from current levels!

First, the Defense Department received only ½ of 1 % of the nearly trillion dollar Stimulus Package funding - even though many military projects fit the definition of "shovel-ready."

In this Administration's first defense budget request for 2010, important programs were reduced or cancelled. As the threat of ballistic missiles from countries like North Korea and Iran grow, missile defense was slashed.

Despite the need to move men and material by air into theaters like Afghanistan, the Obama Administration sought to end production of our C-17s, the work horse of our ability to project long range power.

Despite the Air Force saying it would increase future risk, the Obama Administration successfully sought to end F-22 production - at a time when both Russia and China are acquiring large numbers of next generation fighter aircraft. It strikes me as odd that Defense Secretary Gates is the only member of the Cabinet to be tasked with tightening his belt.

Now in the region I want to emphasize today: The reason I speak about defense is because our strong defense posture in Asia has helped keep the region safe and allowed it to prosper.

Our Asian allies get nervous if they think we are weakening our security commitments. I worry about defense cuts not because I expect war but because I so badly want peace. And the region has enjoyed peace for so long because of our security commitment to our longstanding allies and partners.

Asia has been one of the world's great success stories. It is a region where America needs to assist with the right mix of hard and soft power. While I have so much hope for a bright future in Asia, in a region this dynamic, we must always be prepared for other contingencies. We must work at this - work with our allies to ensure the region's continued peace and prosperity.

I know that you all -- like all of Asia and indeed the whole world - have a keen interest in the emergence of "China as a great power."

Over the past few decades China's economic growth has been remarkable. So has the economic growth and political liberalization of all of our key allies in Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Asia's economic growth and political development, together with our forward military presence in the region and strong alliances, have allowed the region to prosper in peace for a long time.

We hope that Asia will continue to be an engine of world economic growth, will continue to democratize and will remain at peace.

Our future is now deeply linked to Asia's success. Our children's future. We must continue to strengthen our key alliance with Japan, a country going through its own democratic change. Together the U.S. and Japan built the security umbrella under which so many Asians prospered. While there is so much attention to China these days, we cannot forget the importance of Japan in helping to make this the "Pacific Century."

The recent elections in Japan demonstrated that voters wanted reform and an end to debt and stagnation. We have a substantial stake in Japan's success -- our alliance with must continue to be the linchpin of regional security.

With its open political system and vibrant democracy, South Korea wants to play a larger role on the international stage as well. Of course it wants us to work together toward a future where the peninsula is irreversibly denuclearized, and unified. But it also wants to play a global role. We need to work together with Japan, South Korea and our steadfast ally to the south, Australia, to make sure Asia remains peaceful and prosperous.

Australia rightly reminds us to keep our eye on Southeast Asia, where Indonesia has proved that Islam and democracy can co-exist. Indonesia has fought extremism inside its own border and is consolidating a multi-ethnic democracy that is home to hundreds of millions of Muslims.

Those who say Islam and democracy are incompatible insult our friends in Indonesia.

Our great democratic friend India is also "looking East", seeking a greater role in East Asia as well. Together with our allies we must help integrate India into Asia. If we do so we will have yet another strong democracy driving Asia's economy and working on shared problems such as proliferation and extremism.

And we must continue working with the region's most dynamic economy, China. We all hope that China's stated policy of a "Peaceful Rise" will be its future course.

You know better than most the enormous change that has taken place in China over the last thirty years. Hundreds of millions of Chinese have been pulled out of poverty as China has undertaken economic reforms that have resulted in unprecedented growth. Even today, China's economy is projected to grow by some 8%. It is helping to edge the world out of recession.

China has amassed huge financial reserves. Chinese diplomats are engaged on every continent and, through its vote on the United Nations Security Council, China has become critical in gaining UN support on multilateral issues from Darfur to Iran to North Korea.

Just four years ago, then-Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick urged China to become a "responsible stakeholder" in the international system. He observed the many benefits to China of a "benign international environment."

The peaceful regional environment that China has enjoyed was created through the hard work of Americans, Japanese, South Koreans and Australians. Secretary Zoellick urged China to step up and play its role too.

We are working with China to de-nuclearize North Korea. But to be a responsible member of the international community China should exert greater pressure on North Korea to denuclearize and undergo the fundamental reforms it needs. Zoellick urged China to play a greater role in stabilizing the international energy market by ceasing its support of dangerous regimes.

China could play a role in stabilizing its ally Pakistan, and working for peace in Afghanistan. There are many areas where the U.S. and China can work together. And, we would welcome a China that wanted to assume a more responsible and active role in international politics.

But Secretary Zoellick also noted that many of China's actions create risk and uncertainty. These uncertainties led nations to "hedge" their relations with China because, in Zoellick's words: "Many countries HOPE China will pursue a 'Peaceful Rise' but NONE will bet their future on it."

See: this is the heart of the issue with China: we engage with the hope Beijing becomes a responsible stakeholder, but we must takes steps in the event it does not. See?

We all hope to see a China that is stable, peaceful, prosperous and free. But we must also work with our allies in the region and the world in the event China goes in a direction that causes regional instability.

Asia is at its best when it is not dominated by a single power. In seeking Asia's continued peace and prosperity, we should seek, as we did in Europe, an Asia "whole and free" - free from domination by any one power, prospering in open and free markets, and settling political differences at ballot boxes and negotiating tables.

We can, must and should work with a "rising China" to address issues of mutual concern. But we also need to work with our allies in addressing the uncertainties created by China's rise. We simply CANNOT turn a blind eye to Chinese policies and actions that can undermine international peace and security.

China has some 1000 missiles aimed at Taiwan and no serious observer believes Taiwan poses a military threat to Beijing. Those same Chinese forces make our friends in Japan and Australia nervous.

China provides support for some of the world's most questionable regimes from Sudan to Burma to Zimbabwe.

China's military buildup raises concerns from Delhi to Tokyo because it has taken place in the absence of any discernable external threat.

China, along with Russia, has repeatedly undermined efforts to impose tougher sanctions on Iran for its defiance of the international community in pursuing its nuclear program.

The Chinese food and product safety record has raised alarms from East Asia and Europe to the United States. And, domestic incidents of unrest -- from the protests of Uighurs and Tibetans, to Chinese workers throughout the country rightfully make us nervous.

It is very much in our interest and the interest of regional stability that China work out its own contradictions - between a dynamic and entrepreneurial private sector on the one hand and a one party state unwilling or unable to adjust to its own society's growing needs and desires and demands, including a human being's innate desire for freedom.

I do not cite these issues out of any hostility toward China. Quite the contrary, I and all Americans of good faith hope for the Chinese people's success. We welcome the rise that can be so good for all mankind. We simply urge China to rise responsibly. I simply believe we cannot ignore areas of disagreement as we seek to move forward on areas of agreement. Believe me, China does not hesitate to tell us when it thinks we are in the wrong.

I mentioned China's internal contradictions. They should concern us all. We hear many Chinese voices throughout that great country calling out for more freedom, and for greater justice. Twenty years ago, many believed that as China liberalized its economy, greater political freedom would naturally follow. Unfortunately that has not come to pass.

In fact, it seems China has taken great pains to learn what it sees as "the lesson" of the fall on the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union: any easing of political constraints can inevitably spin out of control. But, in many ways, it is the essence of China's political system that leads to concerns about its rise.

Think about it. How many books and articles have been written about the dangers of India's rise? Almost as large as China - and soon to be more populous - virtually no one worries about the security implications of India becoming a great power - just as a century ago the then-preeminent power, Great Britain, worried little about the rise of America to great power status.

My point is that the more politically open and just China is, the more Chinese citizens of every ethnicity will settle disputes in courts rather than on the streets. The more open it is, the less we will be concerned about its military build-up and intentions. The more transparent China is, the more likely it is they we will find a true and lasting friendship based on shared values as well as interests.

I am not talking about some U.S.-led "democracy crusade." We cannot impose our values on other counties. Nor should we seek to. But the ideas of freedom, liberty and respect for human rights are not U.S. ideas, they are much more than that. They are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other international covenants and treaties.

They apply to citizens in Shanghai as much as they do to citizens in Johannesburg or Jakarta. And demands for liberty in China are Chinese, not American, demands. Just last year, many brave Chinese signed Charter 08, a Chinese document modeled on the great Czech statesman Vlacav Havel's Charter 77.

Charter 08 would not be unfamiliar to our Founding Fathers and was endorsed by Havel himself. No, we need not convince the Chinese people that they have inalienable rights. They are calling for those rights themselves. But we do have to worry about a China where the government suppresses the liberties its people hold dear.

Nothing of what I am saying should be seen as meaning conflict with China is inevitable. Quite the contrary. As I said, we welcome China's responsible rise. America and China stood together against fascism during World War II, before ravages took over in China - we were ready to stand together with China to shape international politics after World War II. Much has been accomplished since President Nixon's fateful visit. And again, we stand ready to work with what we hope will be a more open and responsible China on the challenges facing the 21st century.

All of you here know how deeply integrated the economies of the United States' and China's are. We rely on each other, sometimes unfortunately in unhealthy ways. America spends too much that we don't have, and then we go to China as a lender of first resort.

Our fiscal policy, lately, seems to be "tax, spend, borrow, tax some more, repeat" and then complain about how much debt China holds. America needs to gets its own fiscal house in order. That's a Common Sense Conservative perspective.

We can hardly complain that China holds so much of our debt when it's our over spending that created the debt.

But here's the reality. If in fact the United States does the "right" thing - if we spend less and save more - then China will also have to rebalance its economy. We need to export more to China - and we'd like China to consume more of our goods - just as we need to save and invest more. This vital process - so crucial to both countries - is impeded by problems of market access.

We must talk about these issues with more candor. If China adopts policies that keep our highest value products out of their markets, by manipulating technical standards or licensing requirements, our economic relationship suffers.

Our economic interdependence drives our relationship with China. I see a future of more trade with China and more American high-tech goods in China. But in order for that to happen, we need China to improve its rule of law and protect our intellectual property.

We need to avoid protectionism and China's flirtation with state-assisted "national champions." On our part, we should be more open to Chinese investment where our national security interests are not threatened. In the end, though, our economic relationship will truly thrive when Chinese citizens and foreign corporations can hold the Chinese government accountable when their actions are unjust.

I see a bright future for America in Asia. One based on the alliances that have gotten us this far, one based on free and open markets, one that integrates democratic India into East Asia's political life and one in which China decides to be a responsible member of the international community and gives its people the liberty - the freedom - they so desperately want.

Sadly, however, our largest free trade agreement ever in Asia, with South Korea, sits frozen in the Congress. In contrast, China is behaving wisely in negotiating free trade agreements throughout Asia. We want an Asia open to our goods and services. But if we do not get our free trade act together, we will be shut out by agreements Asians our making among themselves.

All of you here follow global financial markets and economic policy closely, so I know that it will come as no surprise to you that United States leadership on global trade and investment is being sorely tested at this moment.

We are struggling with a monumental debate on whether fiscal discipline, or massive government spending, will drive a sustained recovery. We are struggling to repair the excesses that grew in our own economy and served as a trigger to a catastrophic collapse in the global financial system.

And we are attempting to do so under the weight of a global imbalance of debt and trade deficits that are not only unbearable for the world's mightiest economy, but also unacceptable in that they foster tensions between global economic partners like the United States and China.

I am proud to be an American. As someone who has had the tremendous opportunity to travel throughout the United States and listen to the concerns of Americans in towns and cities across the country, I can tell you that there is a sense of despair and even crisis afoot in America that has the potential to shape our global investment and trade policies for years, and even decades to come.

Never has the leadership of our government ever been more critical to keeping my country, and the world, on a path to openness, growth and opportunity in global trade and investment.

It would of course be a mistake to put the entire burden of restoring the global economy on the backs of America's leaders. There is plenty of work for all of us to do in this matter. Governments around the world must resist the siren call of trade protection to bring short term relief during a time of crisis.

Those who use currency policy or subsidies to promote their nation's exports should remain acutely aware that if there ever were a time in which such policies could be viewed as "tolerable," that time has now passed. All participants who seek to find benefit in the global trading system must also take the responsibility of playing by the rules.

The private sector has responsibilities as well. For instance, it should not be the responsibility of government to dictate the salaries of bankers or the ownership of companies. And yet, due of the excesses committed by some, this is exactly where we find ourselves now because government now owns substantial portions of the private economy - even, unbelievably, in the United States.

These are challenging times for everyone, but we in the United States must humbly recognize that if we are to lead and to set the direction for the rest of the world, it must be by our example and not merely our words. And we must tread lightly when imposing new burdens on the imports of other countries.

Well, CLSA: My country is definitely at a crossroad. Polling in the U.S. shows a majority of Americans no longer believe that their children will have a better future than they have had...that is a 1st.

When members of America's greatest generation - the World War II generation - lose their homes and their life savings because their retirement funds were wiped after the financial collapse, people feel a great anger.

There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just "throw the bums out" of Washington, D.C. - and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats.

Americans are suffering from pay cuts and job losses, and they want to know why their elected leaders are not tightening their belts. It's not lost on people that Congress voted to exempt themselves from the health care plan they are thrusting on the rest of the nation. There is a growing sense of frustration on Main Street. But even in the midst of crisis and despair, we see signs of hope.

In fact, it's a sea change in America, I believe. Recently, there have been protests by ordinary Americans who marched on Washington to demand their government stop spending away their future. Large numbers of ordinary, middle-class Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all over the country marching on Washington?! You know something's up!

These are the same people who flocked to the town halls this summer to face their elected officials who were home on hiatus from that distant capital and were now confronted with the people they represent. Big town hall meetings - video clips circulating coverage - people watching, feeling not so alone anymore.

The town halls and the Tea Party movement are both part of a growing grassroots consciousness among ordinary Americans who've decided that if they want real change, they must take the lead and not wait to be led. Real change - and, you know, you don't need a title to do it.

The "Tea Party Movement" is aptly named to remind people of the American Revolution - of colonial patriots who shook off the yoke of a distant government and declared their freedom from indifferent - elitist - rulers who limited their progress and showed them no respect. Today, Main Street Americans see Washington in similar terms.

When my country again achieves financial stability and economic growth - when we roar back to life as we shall do - it will be thanks in large part to the hard work and common sense of these ordinary Americans who are demanding that government spend less and tax less and allow the private sector to grow and prosper.

We're not interested in government fixes; we're interested in freedom! Freedom! Our vision is forward looking. People may be frustrated now, but we're very hopeful too.

And, after all, why shouldn't we be? We're Americans. We're always hopeful.

Thank you for letting me share some of that hope, and a view from Main Street with you. God Bless You.

(via)

Labels: conservatism, palin

Continue reading/discuss word cloud and transcript: Sarah Palin on common-sense conservatism ...

I admit to not having ever seen a Michael Moore movie, though from what I understand his film Roger and Me was probably his defining film, one that predated the Bush era and thus was more balanced in its critiques. Of course his latest effort, a rant against the horrors of unrestrained capitalism, is not going to make any converts. Still, I was intrigued by the positive review of Capitalism: A Love Story at AICN by their resident conservative critic Massawyrm (he lambasted the animated film Happy Feet for being a propaganda film against religion, intended to indoctrinate children, and proclaimed The Ant Bully to be a storybook version of The Communist Manifesto. I have to agree with the former, and haven't seen the latter.).

Massawyrm speaks of his admiration for the "old" Michael Moore, invoking Roger and Me, and then makes the claim that this new movie is the closest Moore has come to returning to those genuine speak-truth-to-power roots. And he puts it in context of conservative ideals, even though it's basically an argument for socialism:

Now, it is important to understand that I wholeheartedly disagree with Moore's final conclusions. I do not believe that the framework of a "second bill of rights" - as FDR referred to it - is the solution to the problem. BUT, Moore's argument is compelling and very, very important. He makes a solid, virtually unassailable case against deregulation and fiscal anarchy, showcasing how it has profoundly crushed the backbone of the country and left many of our citizenry looted, helpless and worst of all, holding the bag. And what frustrates me most about all this is that it is an argument those of us on the republican side of the aisle really need to hear right now.

You see, while it is easy to point at the crazed evangelical ultra-conservatives as the source of the Republican party's problems, the truth is they're just the easy target; the loud distraction while the crew cuts in three piece suits repeat over and over that we are a party about freedom (that's good) and freedom means keeping the government out of our daily life (that's really good) and keeping the government out of our daily life means letting the financial industry do what they want without oversight (that's BAD.) In truth, the fundamental core of what a large majority of Republicans believe in is very much rooted in what Moore is talking about. After all, I can name three guys off the top of my head that hated banking, speculation and usury. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Jesus. Not exactly the thinkers most often quoted at liberal cocktail parties. Here Moore refers to them all.

If that segment of the population would see this film and hear Moore's arguments - while they won't throw up their arms and embrace socialism - the argument could become just how to go about fixing [capitalism] again, rather than screaming SOCIALIST! FASCIST! at one another. But Moore commits one, serious, fatal error.

Emphasis mine. This is a remarkable argument and one that in many ways captures my own fascination with conservatism, a movement whose core principles are in many ways complementary to liberalism, not opposed.

The error to which he refers is that Moore doesn't level the same critique at Obama. He puts this in context of marketing, ie that the film will be seen as critical of GOP Presidents but deferential to The One, and thus dismissed by the very people he argues most need to see it. Thats probably a fair assessment, since Obama is a pro-Establishment politician and not a revolutionary. However the bulk of the bank bailouts were indeed the previous Administration, and the Obama stimulus was a much broader package that in no way was limited only to "fat cats". Also, it should be noted that Banks accepting stimulus money were forced to accept exactly the type of rigorous, anti-capitalist intrusive regulation that Moore is probably advocating for, which is why the Banks are trying to give the money back now that they are out of the woods.

At any rate, it's likely that the relevance of Moore's critique to Obama is going to fall along the usual partrisan lines. I don't think omission of the Obama era invalidates the thesis for the preceding Administrations, however.

Labels: economy

Continue reading/discuss Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story" ? ...

There's an alarmist poll out from Investors Business Daily that makes the shocking claim that almost half (46%) of America's doctors will quit under Obama's proposed health care reform plan. The implications of such a finding - which runs counter to the American Medical Association's own support of President Obama for reform - are that one result of reform would be that America's doctors would revolt. But does this poll make any sense?

It turns out that the poll was a mail-in questionaire, not the usual phone-based poll. This is important because of selection bias; doctors who are predisposed to feeling threatened by proposed health care legislation will be more likely to respond. Also, mail-in responses tend to be skewed towards older repsondents, who also are more likely to be skeptical, or at least more willing to retire.

The poll itself was terribly written; one of the questions read, "Do you believe the government can cover 47 million more people and it will cost less and the quality of care will be better?" which is really three questions, and heavily biased towards skepticism (indeed, 71% answered No). It's worth noting that the pollling outfit has a horrendous track record; polling demigod Nate Silver comments:

As we learned during the [Presidential] campaign -- when, among other things, they had John McCain winning the youth vote 74-22 -- the IBD/TIPP polling operation has literally no idea what they're doing. I mean, literally none. For example, I don't trust IBD/TIPP to have competently selected anything resembling a random panel, which is harder to do than you'd think.

Nate also notes that the poll hasn't released any details of methodology, and bizarrely also says "responses are still coming in." Responses are still coming in? Why would they release any results until all responses have come in? The percentages are utterly meaningless otherwise! Nate advises people to ignore the poll entirely; it's going to be taken up by right-wing idealogues of course, but that was its intended audience from the beginning.

So what do doctors actually think? It's worth re-stating up front that despite the misinformation dogma of the right, the proposed reform is in NO WAY a government "takeover" of healthcare. A govt-run health care system akin to Britain's NHS is one in which doctors are employees of the state and paid from the government, there is no such thing as a private practice. Our reform, in total contrast, is about health insurance, ie who pays the insurance companies for the premiums. For the most part, in the US, the answer is that the cost is shared between employers and employees, whereas the government pays premiums for elderly people via Medicare. Even the most radical reform of this system, a single-payer system which would essentially eliminate the private health insurance industry, woud not aount to a government takeover of health care per se. Of course, a single-payer system is off the table and the so-called "public option" would only apply to a tiny fraction of people who dont qualify for/are unable to obtain insurance through other means. And even that modest reform is likely not going to be in the final package.

All of this boils down to the fact that due to misinformation by the Republicans about health care reform being a "government takeover", it is likely that many people who oppose it think it will be something it isn't. In other words, the misinformation campaign ("death panels!") is working.

But tehre are polls of doctors out there that are reliable and not subject to the bias and error of the IBD poll. The latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the pre-eminent medical journals in the world, has results of a truly scientific poll whose methodology is indeed rigorous and public, which looked at physicians' views about the public option and expanding Medicare. Here is a summary of their findings:

Overall, a majority of physicians (62.9%) supported public and private options (see Panel A of graph, at right). Only 27.3% supported offering private options only. Respondents - across all demographic subgroups, specialties, practice locations, and practice types - showed majority support (>57.4%) for the inclusion of a public option (see Table 1, online). Primary care providers were the most likely to support a public option (65.2%); among the other specialty groups, the "other" physicians - those in fields that generally have less regular direct contact with patients, such as radiology, anesthesiology, and nuclear medicine - were the least likely to support a public option, though 57.4% did so. Physicians in every census region showed majority support for a public option, with percentages in favor ranging from 58.9% in the South to 69.7% in the Northeast. Practice owners were less likely than nonowners to support a public option (59.7% vs. 67.1%, P<0.001), but a majority still supported it. Finally, there was also majority support for a public option among AMA members (62.2%).

Overall, 58.3% of respondents supported an expansion of Medicare to Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 years (see Panel B of graph, online). This support was consistent across all four specialty groups, with proportions in favor ranging from 55.6% to 62.4% (P=0.08).

P-values! I swoon. This is a far more reliable study that can and should be taken seriously by policymakers. The full article at NEJM is worth a read, especially the discussion and conclusion, where they note that the support for a combined public/private solution even extends to physicians in the conservative south, physicians with a financial stake in their practice, and members of the AMA (which has historically opposed reform, but has supported the House legislation this time around).

The rationale for physician support for health insurance reform is intuitively obvious; by increasing the number of insured people, more patients are created who will make use of physician services. As the poll notes, support ranges across all physician specialties and practice types. Clearly, physicians as a group understand the difference between health care reform and "government takeover". Granted, opponents of health care reform who insist otherwise aren't exactly brain surgeons, though.

Related: Also see James Joyner's comments on the IBD poll and the discussion at LOG. Meanwhile, NPR has a story on the NEJM-published poll.

Labels: health care, healthcare

Continue reading/discuss Do doctors support health care reform? IBD says no, NEJM says yes ...

There's a new foreign policy group in town called the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, and they have written a letter to President Obama urging him to "focus US strategy more clearly on Al Qaeda" instead of explicit nation-building. The text of the letter follows:

Dear Mr. President:

During your campaign for the Presidency, Americans around the country appreciated your skepticism of the rationales for the Iraq war. In 2002, you had warned that such an endeavor would yield "a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, and with unintended consequences." You pointed out the dangers of fighting such a war "without a clear rationale and without strong international support." As scholars of international relations and U.S. foreign policy, many of us issued similar warnings before the war, unfortunately to little avail.

Today, we are concerned that the war in Afghanistan is growing increasingly detached from considerations of length, cost, and consequences. Its rationale is becoming murkier and both domestic and international support for it is waning. Respectfully, we urge you to focus U.S. strategy more clearly on al Qaeda instead of expanding the mission into an ambitious experiment in state building.

First, our objectives in that country have grown overly ambitious. The current strategy centers on assembling a viable, compliant, modern state in Afghanistan--something that has never before existed. The history of U.S. state-building endeavors is not encouraging, and Afghanistan poses particular challenges. Engaging in competitive governance with the Taliban is a counterproductive strategy, pushing the Taliban and al Qaeda together instead of driving them apart. If we cannot leave Afghanistan until we have created an effective central government, we are likely to be there for decades, with no guarantee of success.

Second, the rationale of expanding the mission in order to prevent "safe havens" for al Qaeda from emerging is appealing but flawed. Afghanistan, even excluding the non-Pashto areas, is a large, geographically imposing country where it is probably impossible to ensure that no safe havens could exist. Searching for certainty that there are not and will not be safe havens in Afghanistan is quixotic and likely to be extremely costly. Even if some massive effort in that country were somehow able to prevent a safe haven there, dozens of other countries could easily serve the same purpose. Even well-governed modern democracies like Germany have inadvertently provided staging grounds for terrorists. A better strategy would focus on negotiations with moderate Taliban elements, regional diplomacy, and disrupting any large-scale al Qaeda operations that may emerge. Those are achievable goals.

Third, an expanded mission fails a simple cost/benefit test. In order to markedly improve our chances of victory--which Ambassador Richard Holbrooke can only promise "we'll know it when we see it"--we would need to make a decades-long commitment to creating a state in Afghanistan, and even in that case, success would be far from certain. As with all foreign policies, this enormous effort must be weighed against the opportunity costs. Money, troops, and other resources would be poured into Afghanistan at the expense of other national priorities, both foreign and domestic.

Mr. President, there is serious disagreement among scholars and policy experts on the way forward in Afghanistan. Many of those urging you to deepen U.S. involvement in that country are the same people who promised we would encounter few difficulties in Iraq and that that war would solve our problems in the Middle East, neither of which proved to be the case. We urge your administration to refocus on al Qaeda and avoid an open-ended state-building mission in Afghanistan.

(see the article at Politico for the full list of signatories - including Andrew Bacevich, Doug Bandow, and Steven Clemons)

Do thes ekind of letters have any real influence on policy? In a nutshell, yes. It's worth pointing out that a letter to President Bush from the neocon thinktank Project for a New American Century formed the basic template for the War on Terror. The PNAC folks also had tried to goad President Clinton into action against Iraq - it's remarkable how similar their policy prescriptions were; literally, 9-11 changed nothing for these people apart from giving them the excuse they wanted to implement the policy they'd always advocated. The same folks also sent President Obama a letter advocating (surprise) a stay-the-course approach in Afghanistan.

Clearly, the Realistic Foreign Policy folks hope to influence Obama in much the same way the PNAC crew influenced Bush, though of course their policy prescription is essentially the opposite. What worries me is the word "realistic" - it echoes the old, amoral realpolitik far too closely for my taste. I'm more in favor of a pragmatic liberal interventionism, and personally do believe that nation-building is an essential aspect of our foreign policy, but like these CRFP folks I don't think that gigantic military expeditions (with imperial overtones) are the way to go about that.

As I mentioned in my previous post, 9-11 still tends to dominate most foreign policy thinking on terrorism, and the CRFP people are much the same as their ideological opponents at the PNAC in this regard. The focus should not exclusively be on Al Qaeda per se but also on nascent groups like Al Shabab as well, and how to prevent them from imposing (and exporting) their views. Still, the CRFP is doing something valuable here by ensuring that President Obama does hear their argument and is forced to consider it.

Labels: Afghanistan, PLI, VSP, withdrawal

Continue reading/discuss towards a "realist" foreign policy ...

I've been reading Tyler Cowen, Ezra Klein, and the League on the matter of the Baucus bill and am frankly bothered by the way in which progressives seem to be losing sight of the main goal of health care: to bring affordable coverage to 100% of all Americans. This is a goal that the vaunted public options does exactly zero to achieve, and it strikes me might actually be undermining these basic principles instead.

It should be noted, again, that the public option would only be available to a small fraction of citizens who are either ineligible or unable to afford private insurance. So the scope of the public option is limited to begin with, and certainly will be constrained so heavily that it will never, ever be the stealth road to single-payer that most of the progressives who are intent on making it a litmus test seem to think it will.

The problem is that the bipartisanship-obsessed reformers like Baucus are trying to trim the overall bill's cost below arbitrary limits as a guiding principle, rather than trying to craft the best policy to achieve the primary goals and then simply determining the cost. What difference does it really make if the final bill costs $800b or $1200b over the next decade? We just spent $800b on bank bailouts! But when it comes to blue-collar industries like the automobile workers, or something as critical as universal health care, suddenly we are being penny wise and pound foolish.

The foolishness is laid out quite starkly in this graph of the cost of the insurance mandate on lower-income middle class families:

Republicans are calling this a middle-class tax increase, and they are right. The solution is not to scrap the bill but to spend more money so that the impact on the middle class is ameliorated via subsidies. Inclusion of a public option would actually suck up even more of the reform budget and cause these effective tax burdens to increase; if progressives really want a progressive policy, then they should concentrate their energy on increasing the overall budget for the reform bill so that the main goals: universal and afffordable coverage, are met.

And let's not forget that Baucus only gets us to 97%. "Universal coverage" still leaves 3% - 9 million people - out in the cold.

Reform won't come cheaply. By trying to play the "cost savings" game, progressives are validating the conservative framing that for some reason, health care reform must be uniquely held to absolute fiscal standards, none of which were required for other reforms in other sectors of the economy (not coincidentally, the ones that cater to upper class and corporate interests). Liberals should be making a forceful argument for spending the money we need to get the job done, not mooning over a fanciful and frankly emasculated "single payer lite" pipe dream.

Not to say that fiscal responsibility isn't important. But instead of jumping through hoops to force the funding in, why not think outside the box for revenue? I am on record as supporting a VAT, coupled with a reduction in corporate income taxes. What if we further specified that all VAT revenue would first be applied to finding health care reform to make up the difference in case of cost overrun? Further, surplus from the VAT could be applied to pay into the Social Security trust fund, and after that pay down the national debt. There's a lot of ways we could tweak the details, but the point is, where are the forceful progressive voices advocating for some manner of VAT to help achieve the goal? Yes, VAT taxes are regressive, but that can be partly ameliorated via subsidies, and let's face it, paying a VAT will cost an individual less than having no insurance, especially if you are poor.

And one more thing - given that Baucus' plan would hurt Medicare Part D to the tune of $174 billion, liberals should also be making a forceful case for drug price negotiation, as well. These are the real lines in the sand. Or at least, where they should be.

Let me reiterate: liberals should be arguing for more spending on the reform bill, new taxes like a VAT (coupled with other measures to make it palatable), and drug pricing negotiation, so as to ensure that we reach the 100% coverage mark and we do not raise taxes on the middle class. Instead, they remain obsessed about the public option. It's a tragedy, and if and when reform dies and we are stuck with the status quo, the progressives' ideological purity won't mean a thing to the family who still doesn't have a way to pay their medical bills for Timmy's cancer.

UPDATE: 543 amendments to Baucus's bill by Democrats alone. Good.

Labels: health care, healthcare

Continue reading/discuss Baucus bill follies: the public option is anti-progressive ...

Earlier, I posted my thoughts about whether terrorism was still a threat, noting that in one sense the answer was obviously yes, but asking whether 9-11 was the outlier it seemed to be. My post was intended to provoke a discussion, and the best response was by Dave Schuler, reproduced here in full:

The question reminds me of the story of the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building. As he passed the 30th floor, someone yelled to him "How are you doing?" to which he responded "So far, so good."

Of course 9/11 is an outlier. Unfortunately, from a political standpoint that's irrelevant. Any resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will necessarily respond to such an event (my view is that President Gore would have done virtually everything that President George W. Bush did , including invading Iraq, but I seem to be an outlier in that belief).

Yes, terrorism is a threat. As I pointed out in my memorial post, we haven't really responded prudently to the threat yet. In my view there are only two prudent responses: interrupt one of the critical success factors for the attacks on 9/11 or decide we'd rather live with the risk.

"Guys with a grievance", the factor most frequently referred to including in this comment threat, isn't one of the critical success factors.

I don't disagree with Dave. However, I think the response "of course 9-11 is an outlier" is only true depending on how you define "outlier". I agree that 9-11 is an obvious outlier in terms of scale, but was that just luck? if any number of things in the 9-11 plot had gone awry, the best they might have achieved would be a multiple of Flight 93. As Dave notes, these amount to "critical success factors" but interupting them is easy in hindsight knowledge of the plot.

Its possible that there are other similar casualty-amplifying plots out there which also have critical success factors, but for which we lack the benefit of hindsight to interrupt. Ironically, the success of such future plots is probably much lower due to 9-11's success, since 9-11 being so "out of the box" has changed our own security approach to compensate. So 9-11 might well be a one-shot, as long as we continue to be proactive in imagining how our technology can be used against us. I agree there is always going to be some residual risk of a mass casualty attack on the same scale, using a method we havent yet predicted or are able to anticipate.

The trade-off between that residual risk, and our basic liberties, is one that polarizes our modern political discourse. I agree with Dave that President Gore might well have taken many of the same actions as President Bush (though it's certain he would have acted less unilaterally in invading Iraq). Had that been the case, perhaps it would be liberals who now advocate aggressive interrogations and unilateral executive authority, and conservatives defending the liberty side of the security vs liberty equation. As things stand today, however, conservatives betray their heritage by favoring less liberty and more security, rallying behind fmr Vice President Cheney's self-serving insistence that the Obama Administration is making the country less safe.

(for the record, Attorney General Holder's decision to launch a very limited, initial investigation into torture of detainees was an agonizing and painful one undertaken at Holder's own conscience, and actually in defiance of Obama's preference. Obama would rather "look forward" but the Attorney General has the freedom to act as he thinks best.)

But in terms of who carried out the attacks, their motivations, their grievances, etc whether or not 9-11 was an outlier is a different question. If 9-11 was indeed no outlier by these standards (as few would disagree), then why do we need an explicit "war on terror" at all? A combination of heightened security at sensitive points (mass transit, government buildings, landmarks) and good old-fashioned investigative police work and traditional (lawful) interrogation methods will be enough to disrupt plots on Western soil by would-be jihadis - of which all have been rather inept thus far in the post-9-11 era. Case in point: the liquid bomber plot, which finally has resulted in some convictions after three trials.

Conservative partisans of the Bush Administration will sneer at the phrase "post-9-11 approach to terrorism" but the truth is that an obsessive focus on preventing the next 9-11 - and using it to justify all manner of compromises of our basic liberties, embracing illegal methods of torture, and engaging in adventurous military expeditions to remake every possible home for Al Qaeda to take roost - will make us more vulnerable to the actual threat of terrorism, which has continued unabated on a scale far smaller than 9-11, but at a much higher frequency worldwide. Liberal partisans of the "anti-Bush" school will sneer at the phrase "nation-building", equating any military action by the US in a foreign land as imperialism redux, but ignoring the fact that terrorists are able to exploit failed states, and the very real correlation between medieval Islamic regimes and their hospitability to foreign jihadis, will ensure further attempted acts of mass-casualty terrorism, both on our soil and abroad.

And therein lies the problem. The discourse on both right and left remains dominated by 9-11, even as the right and left shout at each other across a widening rhetorical divide. To really make progress in reducing the threat of terrorism, to both the West and the muslim world alike, we need to be able to free ourselves of the 9-11 mindset and identify the true forces at work which drive these conflicts and grievances. In a nutshell, those forces are nationalism and a backlash against secularism, which has fostered nothing but corruption and autocracy in the muslim world in general and in the Middle East in particular. to put it bluntly, we can use that. The details are a topic for another post, however...

Labels: PLI, VSP

Continue reading/discuss 9-11 as an outlier ...

The obvious answer to the question is yes - and that goes for before as well as after 9-11. In many ways, 9-11 distorts the picture because it was the single largest casualty count of any terrorist attack in history (unless you start to factor in acts of state-sponsored terrorism during armed conflicts, but let's accept the conventional though arbitrary definition of terrorism as solely due to non-state actors).

The count of all major terrorist attacks resulting in 100 or more fatalities is an interesting one. There were 33 such attacks prior to 9-11, and a huge fraction of the post-9-11 attacks are in Iraq. I may be mistaken but the only attacks of any significant scale in the West after 9-11 have been in London and Madrid, though there have been numerous arrests of various Western muslims (mostly British) for various plots (mostly inept, like the ricin plot, the shoe bomber, and the liquid bombs).

So, what does that all mean?

If we exclude 9-11, then it looks like terrorism is a problem more relevant to the rest of the world, in response to nationalist and post-colonialist political turmoil. 9-11 seems to have been a major outlier. Hopefully that remains the case, though of course the idea that another 9-11-scale attack could recur is one that drives most of the debate here in the US about security, liberty, torture, etc. Some wll point to the lack of further 9-11 attacks as proof that the previous Administration's policies were justified; others will argue that security could have been bought for far less compromise on our basic principles of freedom, but either argument is essnetially impossible to prove.

I don't have any answers. But one thing is certain, that though 9-11 had a lasting impact on our nation's government and policy, it had much less of an impact on the American spirit. In that sense, at least, the terrorists can be said to have truly and utterly failed.

Related: my thoughts last year on the "silence libel" which still persists. 9-11 created a (gradually decreasing) distrust of Islam in the American psyche that the muslim-American community must simply accept exists, and overcome.

Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq, PLI, withdrawal

Continue reading/discuss 9-11 reflections: Is terrorism still a threat? ...

cross-posted from City of Brass

One of the major problems with the Bush Administration and its conservative Republican stalwarts regarding the Iraq War was the "stay the course" dogma which seemed immune to any attempt at an honest evaluation of the war's goals or purpose. There were no metrics for success, aside from a nebulous goal of "victory". Proponents of withdrawal were accused of defeatism and virtual treason. The bottom line was that "failure was not an option", which in the absence of a well-defined success meant perpetual war for its own sake.

President Obama promised a different approach, where success would be clearly defined and measured and the policy would be defined by the facts, not the other way around. The war in Afghanistan will put Obama's rhetoric to the test. Will he stay the course no matter the facts? Or will he be willing to adapt?

It should be noted that the opportunity for genuine and timely intervention in Afghanistan, as far as halting the spread of Al Qaeda beyond its borders, has passed, due to the colossal diversion of the Iraq war. Al Qaeda has now metastasized and infected numerous other places like Somalia and Sudan, not to mention generated sympathetic cells in Indonesia and even the UK. The horrific post-9-11 attacks on Bali and London drive the point home; the mission of containing Al Qaeda has failed. This is the new reality, which must be the guiding context for our policy in Afghanistan proper.

As far as the Afghanistan campaign itself goes, there's a great deal of information now that suggests that a revision of our policy is long overdue. Obama's appointment of Lt. Gen. McChrystal to oversee operations is a positive sign, given the latter's special forces experience and expertise. Along with his superior General Petraeus, known for his own counter-insurgency warfare doctrines, it's clear that the military leadership has the right attitude towards the mission - as McChrystal has pointed out, now one primarily of protection rather than of offense. The increase in troops authorized by President Obama (about 20,000, bringing the total to 60,000, plus 40,000 from NATO) are being put to good use:

[McChrystal's] much-anticipated assessment of the campaign does away with the counterproductive strategies of old, of bombing runs and door-kicking--"disruptive operations"--and emphasizes a sort of armed humanitarianism built upon strong relationships with the local populace. In large measure, the operation becomes a civil affairs mission, and focuses on the doctrine of Military Operations Other Than War. As McChrystal states in his recently issued ISAF Commander's Counterinsurgency Guide, "Earn the support of the people and the war is won, regardless of how many militants are killed or captured."

Infrastructure is just such a mechanism for change. McChrystal advocates a proliferation of projects across Afghanistan that puts Afghans to work and money in their pockets. Jobs, his assessment reportedly states, will solve sixty percent of the nation's problems. In addition to building a sustainable, self-sufficient nation on every level, from village schoolhouses to national highway systems, it will build local trust of the U.S. and ISAF soldiers working side-by-side with them.

A hospitable populace is key to McChrystal's goal of doubling the sizes of both the Afghan army and the police force. Any such plan leans heavily on the force-multiplying Green Berets (in conjunction with U.S. infantry and military police) to recruit and grow the Afghan army. McChrystal, himself a thirty-year Special Forces officer, intends to meet the ambitious target within three years. Any successful exit strategy from Afghanistan will depend on an effective security apparatus.

Not publicly stated, though certainly understood, is that large swaths of combat operations will fall under the domain of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. Ruthlessly efficient and surgical in its precision, JSOC operates in "the shadows," as former Vice President Cheney once described it. While under the command of General McChrystal, it was JSOC who captured Saddam Hussein, and JSOC who killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (Indeed, McChrystal personally identified the body.)

In June, President Obama tasked McChrystal with doing a comprehensive review of the war in Afghanistan, and his report has finally been submitted. It has not yet been released to the public, but the general gist is well-known - the war is not going well:

The review is expected to confirm that protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban must be the top priority. The document has not been published yet, and the severity of McChrystal's assessment was difficult to gauge. But at an event last week, according to the BBC, he likened the US military to a bull charging at the matador-like Taliban and slightly weakened with each "cut" it receives.

US officials have spoken openly about the failing war effort in Afghanistan and McChrystal's report will be a distillation of their strong misgivings. He says the aim should be for Afghan forces to take the lead, but that the Afghan army will not be ready for three years and the police will need longer.

Although the report does not mention increasing troop numbers, the implication is that more soldiers will be needed to turn around an unsuccessful strategy. Officers in Afghanistan consider much of the effort of the last eight years wasted, with too few troops deployed and many of them placed in the wrong regions and given the wrong orders.

And therein lies the conundrum. When was the last time a military problem was identified by the military as not needing more troops to solve? At some point, a request for more troops is inevitable, and that takes the decision from the realm of strategic to the realm of political.

There are already calls from all sides of the political spectrum to reduce our involvement in Afghanistan rather than to increase it. Conservative commentator George Will details a litany of challenges and obstacles to success in Afghanistan and concludes,

...forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

In this, he echoes the decidedly liberal Rory Stewart in the LRB, who makes a more detailed historical assessment, and concludes:

The best Afghan policy would be to reduce the number of foreign troops from the current level of 90,000 to far fewer - perhaps 20,000. In that case, two distinct objectives would remain for the international community: development and counter-terrorism. Neither would amount to the building of an Afghan state. If the West believed it essential to exclude al-Qaida from Afghanistan, then they could do it with special forces. (They have done it successfully since 2001 and could continue indefinitely, though the result has only been to move bin Laden across the border.) At the same time the West should provide generous development assistance - not only to keep consent for the counter-terrorism operations, but as an end in itself.

A reduction in troop numbers and a turn away from state-building should not mean total withdrawal: good projects could continue to be undertaken in electricity, water, irrigation, health, education, agriculture, rural development and in other areas favoured by development agencies. We should not control and cannot predict the future of Afghanistan. It may in the future become more violent, or find a decentralised equilibrium or a new national unity, but if its communities continue to want to work with us, we can, over 30 years, encourage the more positive trends in Afghan society and help to contain the more negative.

So here we are at a crossroads. One one hand, we "stay the course" - which actualy means more commitment, not less. The other is to back away, though not an outright abandonment of the Afghans to their fate. The concern I have, and the context in which I am still trying to assess where I stand on the issue, is that Afghanistan policy can not be considered in a vacuum, but in the broader strategy of containing Al Qaeda and violent extremism globally. And that is something that seems woefully absent from the debate.

The question has to be asked - how much can we do? If Somalia becomes another haven for Al Qaeda on the same scale as Afghanistan, with Al Shabab playing host rather than the Taliban, then are we obligated to replicate the Afghanistan campaign entirely there? Then what about Sudan? There's an argument for trying to do strategically less than more, not to eradicate, but to contain.

I am still working through my thoughts on this.

Labels: Afghanistan, News, Obama, PLI, politics, withdrawal, WOMBAT

Continue reading/discuss Losing Afghanistan: the McChrystal report ...