End of the World Roundup
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For those who might have missed it last week we invaded Pakistan. Afterwards, the Pakistanis, led by their new President, Asaf Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower, cut off the Khyber pass to briefly stop our using it to resupply Afghanistan (aren't we happy that we got NATO to piss off the Russians, our only other options for resupplying Afghanistan? But, hey, we're all Georgians now (by which I mean governed by an increasingly authoritarian, incompetent government)):
But the move to stop tankers carrying fuel came after the new government expressed outrage over the killing of 20 people, including women and children, during a U.S. commando raid on a remote border village in Pakistani tribal lands on Sept. 3.
Gotta win those hearts and minds!
Today, however, Pakistan opened it back up. Not that any of this kept the U.S. from launching missiles that hit inside Pakistan.
And if you think life doesn't suck enough in Pakistan, it's economy is in the toilet thanks to a collapsed stock market, weak currency, and fuel and food prices. Not that that will sound familiar to anyone here.
And when you say the Iraq War is a disaster, you need to define for who, because it hasn't been a disaster for everybody.
(links come via Juan Cole and I'd highly recommend you read all of his stuff on Pakistan)
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Standard campaign tactics
for Republicans. Stir up the tension, create fear, world spinning out of control, need a steady hand at the tiller, better vote for the military guy who will stand up to the terrorists and the dictators and the Ruskies and his gun-totin' sharp-shooting sidekick; better not vote for that funny-looking uppity fellah, can't even be sure if he's an American.
In the moment, the nationalist fervor also serves the inetersts of the Russian oligarchy and Pakistani politics, so a win-win-win all around. Except for the dead of Georgia and Afghanistan and the tribes caught up in the big boy's meatgrinder, but they are all funny sounding people far, far away.
Can Code Orange be far behind?
Sure, BIO
But that doesn't mean this isn't still a mess. One that I don't think either party have a clue how to resolve. Do I trust Obama more than McCain? Probably, although I'm not sure I trust Biden more than McCain (they sound almost indistinguishable on Russia and Biden loved the Iraq War at the time, but then he'd been advocating for it since 1998). And NATO following the militants into Pakistan, which didn't make the Pakistanis happy and left an awful lot of people dead (hearts and minds!) is consistent with Obama's policy.
So, yes, Bush has fucked it up and is fucking it up more, maybe with the election in mind, maybe just because he's a fuck up. But that doesn't mean this all is going to go away after the election. Pakistan is a mess, it's unstable economically, politically, and militarily. That's not all just going to fix itself after November, I don't care who wins. Other countries have this nasty habit of thinking they have their own interests and their own goals. It's like they're made up of people or something. Yet, all of Washington seems to want is to double down in Afghanistan without anyone asking what we're really going to do. I'm not at all clear that the Pakistanis, Afghans or others think that's a good idea. Sure, we can coerce them into going along (to a point, as the recent Khyber Pass thing shows), but is that going to be good policy?
It's like the issue with South Ossentia and Georgia, we heard fuck all from any of our political leaders about what the people there might want and how that might drive the situation.
Here's a question, do you think an Obama administration will stop going after Afghan poppy? That would be a huge deal and a smart move. But will they do it? I would've said maybe, but that was before drug warrior Biden was selected as VP.
It just feels to me like this is one of those areas where even the good guys are wrong. They may more competently execute bad policy, but I think the general agreement in D.C. is bad policy. We can't pretend like it's 2002 in Afghanistan and all we need are more troops.
Afghanistan, big problem
RL calls. Another time, perhaps. All I wanted to point out is that this is all deliberate and structured, not a free-flowing consequence of the perfidity of the Ruskies or the Paks or anybody but BushCo. This mess s what it is and getting worse by the minute because of the deliberate policy decisions of the Republican VRWC cabal that McCain/Palin will perpetuate.
To answer your broader question, Obama and the Democrats will be better.
Not Sure Better Will Be Good Enough
which isn't a campaign endorsement either way. And if something in my post seemed to indicate that I didn't think this was the result of eight years of bad policy, I in no way intended to do so.
It's just that blaming it on Bush & Co. doesn't really solve the problem even though it's true. Just as saying Obama and the Democrats will be better, doesn't solve it either. Because while the election touches on this issue, my post isn't about the election. It's about the rising problem in the region and how difficult it's going to be to resolve it, even by people who want to. Whether anyone in D.C. wants to is another issue - and the two parties sound so similar these days on foreign policy that I think it's debatable whether we're talking a true difference or only one in degree - but even if you presume the Dems or whoever is elected want to resolve it in any way I would approve of (e.g. minimizes death and destruction), that doesn't mean they know how to or will have the ability to.
"The two parties sound so similar"?
We must be living on different planets. Or each of us has our input filters tuned to different frequencies. I hear nothing of the sort, and neither does the rest of the world.
All those big crowds overseas for Obama didn't show up to look at a black man; they have high-melanin people in Europe, too. All over the news there was a clear drawing of distinction between the Democrat's policies, and Obama's positions specifically, and that of the war-mongering Republicans. The response from both people in the street - as evidence by the huge crowds - and from other nation's leaders was warm, positive, supportive and hopeful.
The whole rest of the world wants the Republicans out and the Democrats in, not because of any American domestic issues but because they see - clearly - that the Democrat's international policies will start to bring rationality and positivity to dealing with the mess the Republicans have created.
The world is a huge mess, and BushCo are doing their hardest to make it worse. They benefit in the short term by helping McCain/Palin, and benefit in the long term by making things so screwed up that Obama will have an even bigger challenge trying to sort it out. None of that is reason to see the two parties as indistinguishable; that BushCo will leave a bigger mess to my mind only argues more strongly for election of the party that is talking about cleaning it up and against election of the party that wants to make it into even more of a disaster.
Sorry to drag in the election, much on my mind these days and IMHO absolutely the next key step in starting to end this nightmare. I don't know how to talk about anything right now outside of the context of the election and its consequences.
Sinking feeling
Gov. Tim Kaine on Matthews this evening raised the hair on the back of my neck by saying this:
Oh, man, are we about to walk back opposition to the war to just opposition to the way Bush conducted it? Matthews didn't appear to notice the "nuance" so didn't follow up on it, though I didn't hear the whole interview.
Somebody please tell me Kaine is off the reservation? Or that since the rest of the world would never have gone along with it, it's just another way of saying it was a bad idea altogether? Or something?
How They Sound Similar
- The surge was a success.
- Promises for more money to the military.
- Support for more troops in Afghanistan and supports those troops chasing al Qaeda into Pakistan if necessary.
- The over-the-top (IMO) reaction on Georgia's behalf to the fight it started with Russia (which is not to say the Russians are all kittens and puppies).
- Commitment to fighting an unending, and ill-defined, war on terror.
- Commitment to stoping Iran from getting nukes, no matter the costs, all options on the table.
Now maybe the Dems are just blowing smoke on some of this stuff. I don't, for example, believe Obama would nuke Iran to stop it from getting nuclear weapons while I would be much less sure about that from, say, Joe Lieberman. Generally, I think the Democrats will be more competent and/or less reckless, whichever you prefer. And they probably won't be crazy (although I do have some concerns about Biden's influence and Obama's willingness to do something stupid to show he's not weak, see Bay of Pigs). But besides the general belief that the Dems won't go make trouble (which I grant you isn't nothing and is what probably brought out those Euros to cheer Obama), I'm not sure they have any grasp on how to handle Afghanistan beyond send more troops and pressure Pakistan, two things that I'm not sure will work at this point. Might've worked in 2002, not sure it will work now. Of course, in 2002, Joe Biden was holding hearings on what a danger Iraq was instead of pointing out what a disastrous diversion it would be away from Pakistan/Afghanistan. (What can I say, his selection of VP undermines any hope I might have for Obama's foreign policy in this part of the world.)
But mainly I think we're fucked because the media has its own interests and they do not mesh with the interests of the United States. Nothing has changed from the run-up to Iraq. I have no confidence that any coverage of Afghanistan/Pakistan won't be just as wrong. Nor do I have any confidence that the Democrats won't base their decisions on that coverage. The Russia-Georgia coverage was not a good sign, IMO. The media couldn't have been more biased or simplistic (Russia = Bad, Georgia = Good) when the situation is complicated. Biden, presumably with Obama's blessing went along with that spin in his comments (see link above).
Sorry, BIO, it's not that I don't think Obama would be better in this area (2% less evil, crazy, etc.), it's just that I'm Cassandra these days and can't be convinced that we're anything but fucked for the foreseeable future.
Not on this one
I cannot see one reason why Obama and his team will be better on the Afghanistan/Pakistan situation (which is a clusterfuck independent of the US) and multiple reasons why they will not. The State department actually has competent people at their Pakistan desk and I presume they will continue to function in a McCain administration. The policies of an Obama administration will be fashioned by the Power/Rice/Lake group who have promoted the idea of using US military might to promote the "right" policies. By the time this group of the best and the brightest figure out the limits of military power another few hundred thousand people will be dead. The only reason not voting for McCain would sit on my conscience would be Pakistan.
As part of his Big Speech Against the Iraq Invasion, Obama made
clear he was against that military action, not every military action. That, iirc, stirred up some opposition within his own IL state senate district.
Since then, he has made a point of saying the "real war" is in Afghanistan and that he will pursue that war "properly." Some, among them Juan Cole, suggest strongly that the US take a long, cold, realistic look at Afghanistan and know what they are getting into there.
When we first went into Afthanistan, when BushCo said it was going to make that benighted country a shining example to the rest of the Third World of how a modern Marshall Program could improve life for everyone in that country, way back then perhaps we had a chance of success in doing good there. Now? So many dead, so many lies about the dead....
Will they ever forgive us?