Book of the Month

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Review of Obama's Wars, By Bob Woodward

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 2:50 am |

Bob Woodward is the Thomas Pynchon of political reporting. Woodward was doing in Dick Nixon early in his career, while Pynchon's early career zenith was Gravity's Rainbow. Both men are paid handsomely for more eagerly awaited work that generally falls short of the genius of their youth. Obama's Wars, even for those like myself who disliked the Bush at War series and view Later-Career Woodward as a stenographer to the powerful, is an important book. It contains the usual Woodward trademarks of dishy, jaw-dropping quotes (celeb General David Petraeus on the White House supposedly not making him look loyal enough, absurdly commenting "They're fucking with the wrong guy."), stories galore of turf wars, and interjections by Woodward of himself into the story (publishing McChrystal's 66 page draft Afghan military plan apparently obtained on background, piously opining that no one meant to leak it, but then serving as the stenographer to the interest group that leaked it). Yet the book is also compelling, not just from Woodward's narrative pace, but for what it reveals about how foreign policy sausage is made, what it reveals about Barack Obama, and what it reveals about the deep split between our military and civilian leadership.

The book lays bare two worldviews, which are fairly divisible into the world of limited engagement, and the world of permanent war. Obama, a figure who says little early in the book, bulks larger as he works over months with his military and civilian advisers to forge a consensually acceptable plan for prosecution of the Afghan war. (No one in the book ever considers or speaks up for leaving Afghanistan.) Over 300 pages in, Obama is the only person in leadership who is bringing up the need to balance military spending with domestic spending priorities, which he does repeatedly, invoking Eisenhower on the "need to maintain balance in and among national programs" and dragging budgeteer Peter Orszag into a final Afghan policy review meeting. Obama does not appear to consider the Afghan war winnable. Ultimately, he seeks and obtains assent from the generals and advisers involved to a 30,000 troop surge, and to beginning drawdown by July 2011 if not sooner. He rejects McChrystal's proposal to ramp up Afghan security forces as neither necessary nor doable, telling the general his proposal "strain[ed] credulity." Obama's timetable, Obama says, is to force "our military to think not in terms of infinite time and infinite resources."

The world of permanent war is starkly articulated by celebrity General David Petraeus, who says "I don't think you win this war [in Afghanistan.]" Where Obama sees a need to set a date to stop, to limit resources, Petraeus refers to Iraq -- something Petraeus does with great frequency -- and says "[t]his is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives." The book showcases the Pentagon skimping on budget requests in 2006 for armored vehicles that will protect troops from IEDs so the military can fund projects to be used in the wars of 2015 and 2020. The permanent warfare is prejudged to be necessary, and the military adapts to anticipate and justify and envision it. As a document of how these two worldviews played out in a grueling review of what to do in Afghanistan, Woodward's book is a real drama, and one with an unresolved ending, for the Administration has not yet come to the point where the military asks, as it will for more time and manpower and materiel, and the policy choice holds firm. We will see.

A key insight of the book, and one that will not please progressives who read it, is that Obama appears to have made the calculation that the ship of the Afghan war is so heavy that it can only be turned slowly. Obama appears very self-consciously to be accommodating the military as an interest group, securing buy-in and keeping what continuity he can in leadership (Gates, Petraeus, McChrystal before he wanted to see his smiling face on the cover of the Rolling Stone), in return for an agreement that the conflict needs to be drawn to a close. Where John Kerry asks how one can ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake, it is fair to ask, necessary even, to ask how one can ask someone to be the last person to die for what is deemed to be a necessary accommodation of the military as an interest group. The public may approve of the handling of this war 48-34 most recently, but the savage human toll of war on our soldiers, their families, and those civilians necessarily killed or injured no matter how focused our engagement is on the Taliban or al Qaeda targets calls this question. Just as no one in the book thinks or talks about leaving Afghanistan any time soon, so it is that no one appears concerned about the detriment priced in to this decision to turn the ship of state slowly and consensually. (Indeed, both Hillary and Obama raise the humanitarian concern of lost social progress for Afghan women were the U.S. to leave, as if the argument really ran the other way.) Ignoring this question is what is properly meant by Woodward being a stenographer. He gets 75 minutes to interview the President on July 10, but he asks how Obama would start a movie about himself deciding what to do in Afghanistan. External critique has not been Woodward's forte since he and Tom Pynchon were young.

Curiously, though the book mostly focuses on Afghanistan and the strategy review, it tells us more about the administration's foreign policy in what it says briefly about Pakistan. The Administration rightfully views Pakistan's nuclear weapons, and its ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) agency that clandestinely aids the Taliban. The ISI, Woodward tells us, actively participated in the planning of the Mumbai terrorist attacks that greatly heightened concern among the American military and intelligence communities over the likelihood of a similar attack on American soil. Where Obama is slow and deliberative on Afghanistan, he readily authorizes increases in Predator strikes at perceived al Qaeda targets in Pakistan and elsewhere. Obama is acutely concerned with the responsibility he feels to try to mitigate the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack on American cities or soil. Thus, he and our foreign policy appear focused on drone strikes and ramped up intelligence in and cooperation with Pakistan, and anticipatorily striking at al Qaeda elements wherever they can be identified by intelligence on the ground. Given the general realization by the book's many characters -- our defense and intelligence leaders -- that degrading al Qaeda by such efforts is tactical and not strategic, the question recurs: limited engagement or permanent war? Granting the claims of significantly reducing the function of al Qaeda through drone strikes (one that seems well-founded to me), the same question arises on this front as in Afghanistan -- what's our exit strategy? Woodward shows where we are going, and the strongly felt motives of our President, but he does not probe, and we are left ignorant of where Obama, Biden, Clinton, and the gang are, on the question of what our exit strategy is for the Global War on Terrorism, however currently named.

But the best part of the book for me is its recursion to the phrase Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. President Obama's National Security Advisor, Gen. James Jones, uses the phrase (militarese for WTF) to explain to a military audience at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan the President's likely reaction to being asked time and again for more troops, even before the efficacy of the last infusion of troops is clear. One wishes for the clarity Jones then imposes throughout the book. That someone was there to say: no one is questioning our continued nearly indefinite presence in Afghanistan -- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. That no one asks what we will do after indefinite years of degrading al Qaeda, however successfully -- Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Ultimately, in answering Woodward's idiotic question about how he'd make a movie about the force escalation he approved, President Obama refers back, as many of us who support him on so many other issues do, to his 2002 speech against the coming Iraq War. It was a good speech, and his 2008 campaign rhetoric and drawdown of force has been roughly consistent with the views he then expressed. The 2002 speech, though, is not a talisman for what do next, which is all that matters. As Joe Biden points out, when you win in one place in the GWOT, the instability moves to open spots on the map, like Yemen or Somalia. And we cannot eradicate all hatred of Americanism, surely not by Predator drone strikes. So what to do next? Woodward the stenographer offers no answers, and doesn't really ask these important questions. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot indeed.

Hmmmm . . .

The sales pitches seemed so much simpler coming out of the swamp back in the old days.

Talk about your "Whiskey Foxtrot Tango". ? .

Thanks for the critique. How true the stenographer label.

~OGD~

by OldenGoldenDecoy 10/6/2010 - 12:05 pm

I always thought that was one of the more intelligent things Rumsfeld ever said.

by EmmaZahn 10/6/2010 - 1:16 pm (re: OldenGoldenDecoy)

Surely, it's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, A-man. WTF!

by acanuck 10/6/2010 - 3:43 am

Hah. That's what I read the title to be!

by Orlando 10/6/2010 - 8:06 am (re: acanuck)

That's what I get for blogging so late. I guess it proves either than I'm dyslexic, or that I don't speak militarese.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 9:12 am (re: Orlando)

I recently posted the following on we are stardust's blog "War Everlasting" which seems apropos to the ending of your blog:

How do I put this?....Yet the questions lingers: What next? How do we articulate a politically viable alternative to the current situation? By politically viable I mean one which acknowledges the legitimacy of national interests as all nations would claim. By political viable I mean an articulation that acknowledges that while threats have been manipulated to amp up the fear for political and other agenda, there are in fact threats. By politically viable I mean one which does not depend on America ignoring increasing political instability in significant regions of the world.

by Another Trope 10/6/2010 - 4:01 am

Your comment is a spot on riposte to someone content merely to critique the idea of permanent war.

My piece toward the end kind of iterates that discussion. If Obama's approach is to be any different from Petraeus' -- and it is presented both to the left and within the book as such -- then the pertinent question seems to be what our long-term objective is other than permanent asymmetric warfare with al Qaeda. That seems to me to be the right question, because even folks like McChrystal and Jones regard the Predator strikes as tactical (taking out AQ personnel) and not strategic (effecting a stable change).

So while I don't think the question is unanswerable, I think the far more important question that "how'd we get to that surge" or even "can one employ Predator strikes under any circumstances" is "ok, what is the endstate we're trying to get to, and what are we doing overall to get there?"

In a sense, my question is the mirror of yours, you're asking the critics of permanent war for their positive agenda, my question asks the foreign policy pragmatists of or who support the Administration the same thing.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 9:19 am (re: Another Trope)

You and trope, IMO, are not asking the same questions; his sound defeatist going in.

I'd wondered if you might have stayed up late writing this after seeing my blog was up. Not having read the book, just the excerpts in WaPo, you know more about what was reported. I did watch part of his interview on Charlie Rose last night. (It's not up on Charlie's site yet.) I'd love to hear from people what their take on it was, you too, of course. It blew me back, and I'm trying to figure out exactly why.

I don't agree with your theme that critics have to know solutions ahead of time, although some solutions can be suggested in discussions of critiques. Naming a problem or trend is often the first step, IMO; it's not just empty bitching.

I can't see your polling numbers from this Reply Page, but I think you mentioned a majority of Americans believing that the wars are being prosecuted well; that's a whole different question than "Are the wars worth it" or the others they've asked in the past. (The answer, in majority, was "No.") Americans turning from the wars will be key, though not a solution; we don't always get our way, do we?

That the White House endorses and has no quibbles with Woodward's book should be of interest to us. Hearing Woodward last night made me wonder if Obama was glad to be painted as hating war, worried about the costs derailing investments domestically, and being shown as a victim of the Military/Intelligence world. The last troubles me, but moving past that...

Artie's blog discusse in part, how well intelligence and good police work disrupted 'potential terrorist plots' against Europe and the US. (I'm still uncomfortable about the degree of fear and assumptions made in that sort of security environment, but again, moving on...) It looks as though handling threats as law enforcement issues globally works; civilian court works. Obama knows this, but chooses the other way too often, IMO.

Long term, he must know that drone kills make us more enemies; yet according to Woodward, he's betting on short-term assassinations to disrupt possible plots. Is this mainly because he doesn't want one happening on his watch? Why couldn't the Bad Plotters be arrested; surely someone in charge in Pakistan would help that. Is Zardari even back? There are other ministers there to deal with.

In the meantime, the US lost its best strategy to help with Pakistan: massive aid after the flood. In the breach left by the disaster has come militias and those would further destabilize the area; a very bad thing that might have been averted.

Well, that's a start. Might be back.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 10:09 am (re: Articleman)

I'm not a defeatist. I believe that if the left can articulate an an overall approach / strategy that seems to provide a solution to legitimate foreign policy concerns, then we can get a sizeable portion of the American people to follow. But right now they're clinging to the only solution that has been articulated, so that drone attacks become viable because it is better than nothing in their eyes. Because there are enough wealthy interests aligned in favor of perpetual war, we need to have a sizeable chunk of Americans aligned against it.

I don't have that articulation. But I think we have a well-established argument as to why the current approach is not sustainable nor productive. Now we need to come up with the alternative. I think we can do it.

by Another Trope 10/6/2010 - 10:19 am (re: we are stardust)

I admit I've read what I see as your defeatism on other threads, not so much here. Sorry.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 10:45 am (re: Another Trope)

Yeah lets wait for A-Trope's magic pony. Smells like victory to me...

by Obey 10/6/2010 - 12:06 pm (re: we are stardust)

Lollipops and rainbows work for me...LOL! I knew I had too many crabapples on my Wheaties this morning; damn!

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 12:11 pm (re: Obey)

But how do we create a politically viable magic pony, Obey? Don't you understand that the mere addition of those two words - "politically", and then "viable" - to anything turns it into a deep, meaningful, question, one which we should probably take years to answer, or not answer, as we will, while we discuss, and ponder, and such.

And the people, the American people, Obey, don't you understand that they're clinging - yea, clinging as though their very lives depended on it - to those drone strikes, because they see no other way forward? And have no alternative. And won't give peace a chance. Without an articulated alternative vision from the Left. That's politically viable.

And the American people need this politically viable alternative to be a marked improvement over the present brilliant strategy of hating on Muslims worldwide, fighting them where they ain't, and then... losing.

Let's all pause now for a brief candy-break, before we begin discussion of Part 74 of our Conference, "Would Nelson Mandela support Predator Drone Strikes, and if Not, what if they were Politically Viable Predator Drone Strikes, and if not Then, then what about if He Got Candy? Personally?"

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 12:48 pm (re: Obey)

You just completely summed up everything I have to come to despise about hearing the phrases "politically possible" and "politically viable."

by DF 10/6/2010 - 1:08 pm (re: quinn esq)

Ah; don't be so hard on the lad. He got me looking up 'politicallyviable' (I thought i was one more big word about whose meaning I was (once again) ignorant.. PLUS: On my thread, (I think it was; I'm getting confused with all these threadie thingies this morning) he came up with the best solution, and I emphatically signed onto it as altogetherpoliticallyviable: "We could just kill everyone who doesn't agree with us..."

Now that was one Third Party I can buy into! Bravo, I say; Bravo. Bring it on!

So leave the lad alone, I say; he even had me lookin' up Trope.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 1:14 pm (re: quinn esq)

Personally I am lost with out my thefreedictionary.com. Too much life in the on-coming lane I suppose.

But I don't mind the fistacuffs. I'm in a dark mood, and being a libra that means I'm in (obnoxious?) contrarian mood.

So how's this:

Quite frankly the magic pony in the room is that somehow if the US just ignored the world, peace would suddenly break out, that all the threats out there are just fictional creations of Rove, Fox, the Military-Industrial Complex and the Neo-Cons. Of course this allows folks to just stand around and go "bad, drone, bad" and feel they have done their righteous job for the day.

by Another Trope 10/6/2010 - 4:13 pm (re: we are stardust)

Dude. You speak as though you're lecturing retarded children. Look:

"Quite frankly the magic pony in the room is that somehow if the US just ignored the world, peace would suddenly break out...."

Gee, thanks. You're right. That WAS the magic pony in the room, and I couldn't quite decipher the name. I guess all of us here really thought that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Or maybe try this. Stop handing out Grade 6 "Thought Experiments" to all of us here, and I'll bet your black mood lightens a little.

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 4:47 pm (re: Another Trope)

Gee, quinn, I guess dagblog has given the sole right to throw out stuff like this:

But how do we create a politically viable magic pony, Obey?....Let's all pause now for a brief candy-break, before we begin discussion of Part 74 of our Conference, "Would Nelson Mandela support Predator Drone Strikes, and if Not, what if they were Politically Viable Predator Drone Strikes, and if not Then, then what about if He Got Candy? Personally?"

Or maybe you think it is only those who completely agree with you that can dribble out this kind of stuff?

Now if you could show me where I asked this question? I have brought up Nelson Mandela specifically on the issue of reconciliation, and given the atrocities that were committed by the governmnet forces of apartheid, I believe it is legitimate example to bring up when people continue to harp on the fact that Obama has not attempted to try those who conducted torture or ordered the torture during the Bush years.

Peace.

by Another Trope 10/7/2010 - 1:58 pm (re: quinn esq)

Here's the thing, A Trope.

- MANDELA was coming out of fighting a war of liberation in a country that was a long long way from having democracy, rule of law, etc.

- Whereas OBAMA was elected President, of a place called the United States, the world's longest free-standing pop art gallery, drive-through fries hut, and Democracy.

And Obama took an oath to do what? Yeah. To uphold that darned Constitution. And he was faced with predecessors who had broken dozens of laws, both domestic and international, who had used force/spying/spin/torture/executions on their enemies, and who had clearly broken that Constitution. His JOB was to do something. His JOB was to use that Constitution, those laws, to clean house a bit.

Now, I was actually quite early in arguing a defense of Obama and how he'd be limited on this front. This piece was up at TPM in June 2008.A piece about Immunity, Justice, Vengeance and Complicity.

http://quinntheeskimo.posterous.com/quinn-esqs-blog-talking-points-memo-...

I supported Obama then, and still do. But on the question of Justice, and cleaning up some really appalling sites of corruption, I believe he has done an appalling job.

Appalling.

I also believe you're wandering off into clouds of abstraction, far too distant from the real-world trade-offs being made, when you reach the point of Mandela defenses. Because you'll notice that not only did Bush & co. avoid court, they avoided any Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

My advice? Why thanks for asking!! You'll gonna bum yourself out worse if you extend your journey into cloudy defenses. I say this, having lived through Blair/Brown, Clinton/Carter, Chretien/Doer and many others. I also grew up in a hard Right jurisdiction, so yes, I know what it feels like (Nova Scotia) and oddly enough, last year they elected their first NDP (socialist) government ever. Things can change.

But forget straining in defense. Call 'em as you see them, say what you really think, and then vote for the bastards ANYWAY, even if they have failed in certain areas. I don't think you truly believe the Mandela defense, nor the politically viable bit applied to Afghanistan. So speak what you feel.

Peace to you as well.

by quinn esq 10/7/2010 - 3:34 pm (re: Another Trope)

I don't think you truly believe the Mandela defense, nor the politically viable bit applied to Afghanistan. So speak what you feel.

So when have you gotten into my head as to be able to say what I really believe.

I do believe the Mandala defense - of course there are differences between South Africa then and the US now, but there is a fundamental question of what was best interest of the country. I know there is the whole side of the issue where a sitting administration doesn't want the next admin to do them, since what with rendition etc, there is usually always a case to be made, etc etc. But I firmly believe had they gone those at the top it would have (a) not been successful, (b) interferred with the achievement of anything else on the agenda, (c) created even more of a bitter divide between the various camps, and (d) interferred with what little messaging progressives are able to get past all of the noise machines. It is my opinion that those who think that justice could have been served are the ones with their heads in the clouds of abstraction about how things work, just as I do with those who say had Obama really really tried, and done some more press conferences, we could have had a public option.

Do I want the public option, single-payer, Cheney behind bars? Yes. Do I think they could have been realities here in the US at the end of the decade of the 21st century? No. Would had going for it in the face of defeat in order to be able to stand principle been counter-productive in the long run to moving the progressive agenda forward? Yes.

And that is how I feel, thank you very much.

I do believe the Afghan defense - although I am not sure you understand what I am actually defending. I don't defend the current approach, but I agree with the overall objective of working in the region, namely with Pakistan to assist in maintaining stability. In part because the US can't come out and publically state this is why they're really sticking around, they have to keep up the front that it is about terrorists attacking the US which is something people buy into (not that they aren't while they're there trying to make a dent on that front). So if we want to get our troops home, then we have to come up with a plan that addresses the forces of instability in the region, such as Pakistan more actively rooting out the Taliban and other extremeist forces in eastern Pakistan, with assistance from U.S. and European special op forces. George W. created, with his bungling in Afghan, a new kind of Taliban, one that includes members that now are not content to just rule Afghan, but look beyond its borders in name of their ideology. And to think that an implose in Pakistan wouldn't cause a hellofalotmore death and carnage and suffering than what is going on right now - is to have one's head in the clouds of abstractions.

At the same time, I don't believe it does the liberals much good to be in the minority sitting on foreign policy approaches that might be on the side of the angels, but the majority of the country reject. So by politically viable I simply mean that the liberals need to come up with an articulation of foreign policy that realistically seems to protect the shores, so to say. Simply to criticize the current approach doesn't help when the other side is saying we're weak on terror. We can be strong on terror and align ourselves with the principles of the party, we just haven't found a way to articulate that agenda in a way that doesn't end up letting the other side into control to impose their agenda.

And that is how I feel about that, thank you very much.

by Another Trope 10/7/2010 - 4:58 pm (re: quinn esq)

I think those who have lost hope should get out of the Defending Obama business. It does him no favours.

Come back when you've got some real juice for it.

Peace out.

by quinn esq 10/7/2010 - 5:29 pm (re: Another Trope)

What is this "it" you speak of, that which I must have juice for but lack? It would seem you have unraveled into some abstraction of ambiguity for lack of anything of real substance to say. I'm not trying to do Obama favors nor deny him favors. I'm just saying as you say how I feel. And I have hope, but it is not the hope for some miracle that the implementation of an ideal progressive agenda is just around the corner if we just concentrate hard enough. It is a hope that we will tread our socio-political waters as we have always done, slowly (incremently?) moving toward the shore we cannot see.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 1:41 am (re: quinn esq)

It's not you, it's Quinn. He's been hitting the juice again, methinks.

by LisB 10/8/2010 - 3:01 am (re: Another Trope)

Just kidding, Quinn. I know you don't drink.

by LisB 10/8/2010 - 3:04 am (re: LisB)

You say that "It is a hope that we will tread our socio-political waters as we have always done, slowly (incremently?)...."

Well, I'm thrilled to learn that the Tories won the American Evolution, that Lincoln survived the Civil Discussion, and that FDR did so well with his Somewhat New Deal.

This makes as much sense to me as your claim that Obama's complete failure to pursue Justice, across numerous fields, makes him a Mandela.

As for my not being willing to add any further substance, let me say, I think you're too damned tired to bother to read. I gave you a whole blog on it, with links, trying to show that I understood the enormous scope for action on the Justice front that Obama faced, and accepted that he'd need to make some deals, and that he needed to perform triage by distinguishing amongst those who actively planned and led illegal activities, versus those that went along, but that after this winnowing process, he'd need to ensure that Justice was done, and seen to be done.

I think I'll let it stand as my sign-off on this discussion.

by quinn esq 10/8/2010 - 12:02 pm (re: Another Trope)

See my comment below - this being too thin.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 1:17 pm (re: quinn esq)

Another Trope: "It is my opinion that those who think that justice could have been served are the ones with their heads in the clouds of abstraction about how things work, just as I do with those who say had Obama really really tried, and done some more press conferences, we could have had a public option."

What makes you say no public option was a foregone conclusion? If you had the President's ear, knowing the present constellation of political forces lined up in opposition to a reform agenda, and knowing the history that you do about what has been necessary for reform initiatives to succeed in this country, what would you suggest to him as options to try to prevail over those forces?

I'm don't doubt that there were people close to FDR who might likewise have pooh poohed his efforts to reach out to the public and gain its trust as "doing some more press conferences"--if it hadn't produced results.

The Republicans in this era see the presidential bully pulpit as an advocacy tool, as a tool for advancing the agenda they believe in and want to pursue. Democratic presidents triangulate. That word gets used a lot. By it, I mean that they step back, look at the array of interest groups, conclude that it is not favorable, and try to cut the best deal they can with the forces of opposition. They don't make the case to the public for what they say they really want to do. What's wrong with this picture? If the chance you have, given the present interest group makeup, is to get the public on your side, isn't it self-shackling if not self-defeating to forego that option?

If the modern-day Republicans apparently believe you can define your own reality, too many Democrats operate as though they believe a difficult, unfavorable reality is set in stone. Somewhere in between lies the truth, I suspect: that the party in power can seek to change the reality, and can sometimes do so, within limits, of course. Isn't that part of what it means to wield power effectively to advance an agenda?

Believe me, I understand compromise is part of the political process from having worked on the inside. But if you believe you have a decent shot at winning the majority of the public over to your point of view--and, really, what business do you have running for President if you don't believe that?--and you don't do that, then haven't you ceded your best chance of getting better results? Haven't you already conceded a whole lot of ground right at the outset? And then you wonder why so many of the people who most believed in you are demoralized, angry, discouraged. They want to fight for you. But they don't see you fighting for what you say you believe in.

by AmericanDreamer 10/8/2010 - 11:20 am (re: Another Trope)

Just to anticipate blowback reaction I may get, I am very much in the game, as I've said elsewhere: http://dagblog.com/reader-blogs/my-adopted-progressive-7090 The conclusion I draw from the current reality is not that the frustrations I share with so many progressives mean I should or can allow myself to disengage. Not at all. I think that disengagement by progressives right now threatens catastrophic consequences. And the Democratic House under Pelosi has been pulling some serious weight, so they are the last institution that deserves to get whacked at the moment.

by AmericanDreamer 10/8/2010 - 11:34 am (re: AmericanDreamer)

Truth in the last sentence I see, as Yoda would say.

by Articleman 10/8/2010 - 12:52 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5yTYZskz58

by anna am 10/7/2010 - 7:51 am (re: we are stardust)

Maybe I worded that awkwardly because my point was that "they" the people on main street that continue to support such things a drones cling to these kind of strategies because an alternative strategy that achieves the outcomes of peace and security has not been offered.

Because the question is not whether we will continue to maintain a military or disband it, but what size of military. The question is not whether we will deploy our military globally into situations as a stabilizing force, but where, when, how and why we deploy our military into situations around the globe. The question is not whether there are threats against the United States, but how we determine what the threat are and how we choose to respond to them.

The vast majority of people expect to be protected and desire a stable global situation. After decades of BS and fear-mongering, we have a country full of people running scared from real and not real threats, believing in strategies that are effective and not effective.

In other words, we have a pissing about drones but not too many solutions as to how to deal with increasingly radicalized eastern Pakistan (and that is just one of the hot spots). I personally don't believe the US, Europe, and other countries should just go "let it be whatever it will be."

The Taliban of 2010 is not the same Taliban of 2001. The latest version still has some of those who just want to rule their neck of woods, but there are others, younger ones esp., radicalized by the war that see it as a regional struggle, and others who see it as a global struggle. Drones aren't the answer. But what is?

Personally I am like someone who sees a huge crack appear on a dam, a crack getting bigger, the infrastructure weakening, but I don't know how to fix. I just know somehow, the global community needs to find a way.

And if we can find that sustainable solution that facilitates peace rather than war, then it becomes - wait for it...wait for it...politically viable. Why? Because it works.

by Another Trope 10/6/2010 - 3:58 pm (re: quinn esq)

Napalm and ponies -- smells like the liberal blogosphere!

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 1:34 pm (re: Obey)

There are times that I am a defeatist. I've never been one to be able to sustain the kind of hope Vaclav Havel spoke of when he said:

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

I wish I was a better person. The burnout and the jadedness comes to easy.

by Another Trope 10/6/2010 - 4:21 pm (re: we are stardust)

I was working late last night and noticed your blog and skimmed it quickly, I was trying to write to get to bed by 2 am so I could run early this morning on the Chicago lakefront.

I am not asking Trope's question, nor do I have a theme that critics have to have the answers first. I certainly didn't call critiquing permanent war empty bitching, that's not a fair reading of anything I've said here. He's right that one needs to get toward a positive theory of what to do. I think that's a healthy and positive discussion all around. My post asks some questions I'd think you'd have sympathy with, so I think we're actually rowing somewhat parallel here.

Civilian law enforcement doesn't work in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia as a solution to eradicating terrorist training. That doesn't mean I'm riding a unicorn pony on a predator drone. It's just the truth, and we ought to factor that into what our theory is of what to do.

Pakistan's ISI apparently plotted or authorized in a barely deniable way the Mumbai attacks. There's your civilian law enforcement. The intersection of American political and social values with a dangerous third world that doesn't fit our paradigm is some part of this question.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 1:32 pm (re: we are stardust)

Pardon me, then. When I read this: "Your comment is a spot on riposte to someone content merely to critique the idea of permanent war." and this: "My piece toward the end kind of iterates that discussion" I think it caused me to not see you were taliking about 'mirrors' in you last graph.

Posting a blog for me is often offering a discussion; that's why all the links. And I think we can also agree that more American need to know what's at stake, which things aren't working for us, and how badly they're not working for us.

We used to have heated discussions over the tendency of military and intel 'experts' who would conflate Taliban and Al Qaeda; today Karzai announced again that he will hold another jirga to work out deals with the Taliban to end the war. Already he is beginning to disarm some of the private military, as he says the people abhor them as shakedown artists and bullies. The answers may come to us...

Pakistan? Dunno; that one has my hair on fire. But I haven't given up on a more law enforcement approach; more Americans prefer CIA knifing alleged Bad Guys in the back. I'm positive that even if I were to have a committed approach, it wouldn't matter a whit in the end.

But thanks for the good discussion.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 1:55 pm (re: Articleman)

I agree about more law enforcement, for sure. I went straight to the hard question of what about the gap where the preferred solutions don't get us there. No need for the pardon me, you're just saying and I'm just answering, it's all good.

When one discusses this without shorthanding ideas, which gasket pointed out I did in a piece last week, it's necessary to point out that the Taliban are associated with and sometimes facilitate AQ, but you're very right that conflating them is bad. There's lot of AQ activity that occurs in the world without the Taliban, and on the other hand, there's way more Taliban presence than AQ presence in AfPak.

Waging war on the Taliban is more like fighting an idea and a culture than is fighting AQ, which by contrast is a paramilitary terror organization, far smaller, far more focused, far more of a definable, targetable thing. Very important to keep facts straight to avoid being taken for a ride by someone else's BS.

Also, to underscore the welcomeness of your POV on this, I have put your stuff on the banner including last night and will continue to do so. Just because I don't see the world quite as you might on a point does not mean I or we don't wish to promote and air your work. Your post was very substantial and I really appreciate you putting it here. I like if we have Trope on one side, and Quinn on the other, and you're close to him on this, and I'm closer to Trope, I suspect. Blogs suck when everyone agrees.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 2:53 pm (re: we are stardust)

I'd like to say thanks for the bannerfying, Mr. Articleman, but as I haven't a clue what you mean, I'll just say, "Yes, you and I don't qite live in the same Political Neighborhood. But: the votes are in:

And I'm right!!!! LOL!

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 4:45 pm (re: Articleman)

Banner = headline of page. We keep putting your pieces up there to invite people to click on them.

by Articleman 10/7/2010 - 1:07 am (re: we are stardust)

Thank you, Articleman. You're a scholar and a gentleman; now, if we can just ratchet up your sense of humor.....! I seriously can't see what I'm typing. Those Control fixes don't do it.

All the best to you; hope Genghis was just joshing about your being inder the weather..

by we are stardust 10/8/2010 - 6:51 am (re: Articleman)

Thanks for this great review.

It's too bad the question of an outright withdrawal never comes up. It must seem practically, as opposed to politically, untenable to Obama. If it's not even coming up in the discussion it must mean some sort of dire consequence that everyone on all sides accepts as either inevitable or highly likely.

So what is it? Time magazine pretended to answer the question but didn't really. Indeed, everything that Time said would happen (a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan) is already happening while we're there. Our presence or absence seems to make little difference. I also doubt that what our planners are worried about is a humanitarian crisis in a far off land. There's something more to it than that. It's been suggested that it's Pakistan but it seems to me the way to contain Pakistan is to use India as a proxy and leave it at that.

But, I don't have any real answers here. We really should have made out motives for going to war clearer at the outset -- kill and capture members of Al-Qaeda and its allies. That should have been it. But that would mean Congress actually getting involved with the process of our wars.

by destor23 10/6/2010 - 9:52 am

That's the most depressing part I heard from Woodward on Charlie Rose last night: no one believes that success is possible in Afghanistan, and they know that Al Qaeda is no longer there. The corollary would be that if Obama tries to kill them all in Waziristan, they can go elsewhere; not a big deal to move on.

Obma's quick surge, quick out, plan is silly on the face of it; his counter-insurgency idea is even sillier. His plaintive cry that no one offered him Jones' solutions seems hollow, especially as it's somewhat similar to Biden's.

Obama must get that his advisors mean to stay in the area for at least half of forever; or else what is the massive amount of construction for? And who okayed a massive embassy in Pakistan? It's so counter-intuitive to me. They all know that the new 'plots' are revenge for drone strikes and our presence there.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 10:44 am (re: destor23)

So what's in it for us to stay, stardust? I might buy a resources argument but we seem to be ceding all of those mining and development rights to China. Is it just to have rapid response in a global hot spot? Are we purposefully making ourselves a target, as implied by the old Bush "fight them over there" rationale for Iraq?

by destor23 10/6/2010 - 11:11 am (re: we are stardust)

Guarding pipelines used to be the quick answer; A new Silk Road; mineral riches, protecting the women and children...., protecting sand...Americans like winning wars...

Articleman may know more, but Woodward said last night a bunch of words while he and Rose jousted, that left me with the impression that the Generals are still haunted by Viet Nam.

Time to get over that. Destor; I wish I knew; I wish I thought anyone really knows any more.

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 11:52 am (re: destor23)

I would suggest that "kill and capture members of Al-Qaeda and its allies" is not even a reason for war and that the real problem here is that we're fighting a tiny, internationally dilute insurgency with the largest military apparatus that any nation-state has ever wielded.

I recall once hearing Rowan Atkinson explain some of the fundamentals of physical comedy. One of the fundamental principles he espoused was that things are that oversized are funny - like a giant hat or telephone receiver. Our comically outsized efforts would be funny if they didn't stink like rotting corpses, but they should, at the very least, provide an oversized hint that we're doing it wrong.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 1:02 pm (re: destor23)

Obviosly, you ar a spineless, freedom-hateing, Islamofashist apeaser.

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 2:02 pm (re: DF)

Which, for effect, I read in the voice of Mr. Bean.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 2:25 pm (re: quinn esq)

I would suggest that "kill and capture members of Al-Qaeda and its allies" is not even a reason for war and that the real problem here is that we're fighting a tiny, internationally dilute insurgency with the largest military apparatus that any nation-state has ever wielded.

Yes, just so. It would be comical if it weren't so tragic. The proper, legitimate and necessary national security task at this time is intel and police actions, as collaboratively as possible (including with majority Muslim and Arab countries) with other nations, to combat AQ, wherever they are around the world.

Many other countries have a dog in that fight and it is a fight that holds up reasonably well in the court of world opinion, even with all that has transpired since 9/11. It is at least a comprehensible rationale to most Muslims around the world, even though we need to be doing other things as well if we are going to be successful in politically isolating AQ and getting expanding support for the effort to combat it.

All of the above literally has virtually nothing to do with our being in Afghanistan, at war (with whom, again, exactly?) right now. We have no national security interest in remaining there that is both important and doable, at any cost, let alone an affordable cost. We further cripple ourselves the longer we stay.

by AmericanDreamer 10/6/2010 - 4:20 pm (re: DF)

We're obviously not in AfPak for humanitarian reasons. It would be nice if we can ameliorate the effects of war to the greatest extent, but I dislike when people raise humanitarianism on the backside, as if Jimmy Carter would have brought us to this moment. Oy.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 1:25 pm (re: destor23)

For all his failings, ideally discussed elsewhere, as they would be an un-needed diversion here, when Colin Powell chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Powell Doctrine clearly had as its first principle having a clearly defined objective in committing troops to a combat mission.

Can anyone state a clear objective for what we are doing now in Afghanistan or Pakistan?

Note, please, that an objective is not "We're going after al-Quaeda." or any such operational phrases. What is it supposed to look like when we're done?

We lose sight of such things at our peril. If we don't know where we want to go, are we not condemned to endless wandering?

Serendipity is a crappy way to run a war.

by Austin Train 10/6/2010 - 9:58 am

The lack of an objective is one of the major questions and themes of the book, and is a great cautionary point. I'm going up with a piece soon comparing the war tactics lessons of Woody's book with Goldstein's Lessons in Disaster.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 1:33 pm (re: Austin Train)

I look forward to that. Goldstein's book was outstanding, I thought.

by AmericanDreamer 10/6/2010 - 4:01 pm (re: Articleman)

Great post, a-man. Depressing but persuasive.

by Doctor Cleveland 10/6/2010 - 10:17 am

They say a picture says a thousand words...

by Genghis 10/6/2010 - 11:35 am

Holy Movie Posters ... Batman!

That looks like an interesting twin bill down at the ol' Grand Lake Theater circa '71.

http://www.redkid.net/generator/marquee/newsign.php?line1=Blowing+Smoke&line2=Obama%27s+Wars&Showtime=Showtime

~OGD~

by OldenGoldenDecoy 10/6/2010 - 11:57 am (re: Genghis)

love it

by Genghis 10/6/2010 - 1:14 pm (re: OldenGoldenDecoy)

Izzat the local Porno Parlour?

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 2:00 pm (re: OldenGoldenDecoy)

ThumbsUp

by EmmaZahn 10/6/2010 - 1:34 pm (re: Genghis)

Genghis is the jam in a Barack Obama/Naomi Wolf sammich.

by Donal 10/6/2010 - 2:16 pm (re: Genghis)

I wonder if he ever gets Jam Fatigue?

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 2:50 pm (re: Donal)

That's Entertainment

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 2:54 pm (re: quinn esq)

Pynchon's later works are aging well. Mason & Dixon is the greatest 20th century novel.

by Rootman 10/6/2010 - 12:11 pm

I like Vineland better.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 1:23 pm (re: Rootman)

My favorite's V.

by anna am 10/7/2010 - 7:54 am (re: Articleman)

It's hard for me to read this without thinking of the recent slip by Daschle RE: deal-making with AHIP. With the insurance industry, with the financial industry and with the military and its industrial components, the theme seems to be that Obama would rather defer to them than force them to change. If Obama actually wishes to accomplish institutional change on a level that approaches his campaign rhetoric, it seems that he will have to shift from accomodation of to confrontation with these institutions at some point.

Treating all of these institutions as viable interest groups is problematic in all three cases. The purpose of insurance is to spread risk and create a viable, long-term financing method for healthcare - that is, the goal here is really getting to healthcare. But treating the insurance industry as an interest group, where the interest is profit margins, diminishes the real goal. The purpose of finance is to move capital to where it is most productive, but here again we see that this group is treated as having a viable interest unto itself - again, private profits. In both of these cases, the profits should be permitted in service of the primary goals, not despite them.

Perhaps the military example offers the most clarity as to how the accomodation approach re-orders priorities. In the prior two examples, people will argue about the free market and the rights of private entities to pursue profits. I think those arguments are wrong, in the sense that this is not the only or best interest, and should be opposed. The case of the military as interest group is just wrong on its face. Arguments about pursuing economic self-interest don't even float here. Our military is not supposed to have its own interest. It is supposed to be subordinate to the citizens of the nation under the command of our elected the leadership. This is precisely the importance of the oft-repeated but not-so-oft-understood "Commander-in-Chief" title.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 12:47 pm

This is a great comment, DF.

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 12:50 pm (re: DF)

Wow. Thanks? Is this a trick? No special fonts or colors or even a tangential reference to my innate, American obtuseness or silly hat? Dude - are you feeling alright?

Seriously, I am concerned.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 1:09 pm (re: quinn esq)

Oh, believe me, I thought about being an asshole. But (surprising, I know) it isn't my default position, so I thought I'd just go with what I straight up thought. Which was - great comment.

Why do I think so? Well, I agree that approaches built around deference and accommodation are problematic in these fields. In my work, I run into this problem, even on the liberal-Left, all the time. They assume that since there is an existing business occupying a field, then that is an "interest," that it's part of "the market," and that therefore it must be accommodated. e.g. By building these existing big boy voices into dominant positions in all stakeholder sessions, and by assuming that these existing businesses and interests must continue on into the future.

An example, the UK waste management business. The UK used to recycle 5% of its waste, the rest was landfilled or incinerated. The industry had heavy underworld links, and even on the public sector side, was deeply corrupt. As two examples, i) the industry smuggled radioactive waste into London from East Germany, and then secretly BURNED it in the largest incinerator in the country, spreading it all over London.... and, ii) Many London boroughs had entire "ghost fleets" and "ghost workers" who got purchased or paid for, but everyone knew did not actually exist.

The problem was that the UK was required - by EU law - to completely transform this industry, and begin to recycle/compost 50% of its waste. A big jump from 5%.

Naturally, the geniuses in New Labour decided that this meant massive stakeholder bodies - to be stocked by firms and unions from the old industry. Guys with hands like hams, absolutely crooked and violent thugs, sitting on the Board you wanted to transform things. The Government also set up various taxes and fees to raise enormous new funds for the changeover - to be doled out by these same firms. It meant conferences and meetings with Ministers and consultations and Parliamentary hearings that always, always, involved these same firms.

These decisions were taken on the basis that these guys were legitimate interests, and constituted a proper market. In fact, this reality in no way resembled a textbook "market." It bore no relation to the best interests of the people of the UK, or even to the wider economy, which suffered from these appallingly wasteful practices.

But these wider interests were ignored. The idea that a cleanly restructured industry, with clear new incentives, would bring new entrants, and produce innovators, and engage non-profit firms from the Third Sector, maybe even trigger on old firm or two to change course - all that sort of thing was put into speeches. But practically, it was all handed over to the old boys to introduce and implement.

It took an enormous amount of work, incredible ongoing organizing from the community up (what The Independent later called the "Cinderella Army"), plus special efforts to persuade new entrants/innovators to actually take a shot, plus all the Erin Brockowich-style work necessary to bring the worst scandals to the fore and shock and shame certain companies, a full decade's worth of work... and all the time, fighting against out own leaders, who thought that they were being "progressive" by accommodating the landfilling and waste-hauling interests.

The UK Waste industry is not far from the US Health Insurance industry. Or the (Multi-National) Military-Industrial complex. Or the (Global) Financial sector.

And so, to see so many soft headed accommodationists out there, on the 3 issues you list, once again doing the deference and accommodation thing, thinking that "we are the realists", well.... I get it. Believe me, I get it.

But your 3 paragraphs said what would take me 12 paragraphs and a lot of swearing to even come close to. Thus.... "great comment."

Though for the sake of appearances, maybe I should call you something nasty. Dawkinist, perhaps? ;-)

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 1:59 pm (re: DF)

Your comment about what constitutes a legitimate market gets at something that has come to drive me absolutely nuts, which is this notion of the "free market" that we always hear about. It implies some sort of perfect, natural, ideal state of economic being that has never actually existed in fact. In truth, markets, in any sense that we would recognize them contemporaneously, are always and everywhere contrived.

The other day one of my professors made a tangential comment to this effect. He had the phrase "free markets" on one of his slides and it seemed to almost knock him out of his train of thought when he came across it, at which point he said:

"The term 'free market' is misleading. Markets are not free. They're actually quite expensive when you consider everything it takes to make them competitive. However, when they do work they can be very powerful."

This is a much more nuanced and much weaker argument for markets than we usually hear. I would consider the failure to get this message out to be the fault of academic economists, but the trouble is that so very many of them say this stuff all of the time. They just don't have the backing of Cato, AEI, the WSJ, CNBC, etc. The most high-profile advocate for a non-ideological interpretation of economic theory is PK at the NYT.

But my point is really just that if this misconception weren't so prevalent, it wouldn't be possible to have this Darwinian view of markets and agents - that is that the ones who are there deserve to be there because they've really toughed it out in the meritocracy of the unfettered free market. This really is that old argument between conservatives and liberals about "equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity," but that whole frame is a ruse from the get-go. If you understand what the theories are actually saying, you know that systems are always and everywhere contrived and that certain systems do deliver certain outcomes.

See, I had to throw Darwin in there - just had to. Dawkinist though? Shouldn't that be Dawkinsist? I guess if that's what you call someone who doesn't fully buy into punctuated equilibrium, then I might resemble that label.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 2:23 pm (re: quinn esq)

"Markets... always and everywhere contrived."

That's it.

Some of my favourite studies (and then work) has involved digging into the history of particular market sectors, or of active involvement in changing them. And whereever you turn, you see these enormous "interventions" by the state. So much so that eventually, you realize these firms never lived in a magical pre-existing state of nature, their "free market" days.

As a test for my Conservative friends, I rhyme off sectors, and then we discuss the ways it's contrived. Energy... Heath Care... Housing... Agriculture... Autos... Aerospace... Sewer/Water... Waste... Education... Pretty soon, you see the vast majority of the economy disappear into the "contrived" column.

But the liberal-Left has lost any ability to discuss "markets." Any. Just as it lost its ability to discuss "free enterprise," and the "business community."

Better to talk in vague generalities, about "balance" and such, and collect our pay-offs on the way out of office.

by quinn esq 10/6/2010 - 2:48 pm (re: DF)

Great set of comments DF and Quinn!

by Obey 10/6/2010 - 4:29 pm (re: quinn esq)

Hey! That makes it seem like we're colluding, which is strictly prohibited by the Stanstead Accords.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 6:39 pm (re: Obey)

Amazing that someone who would say this:

"The UK Waste industry is not far from the US Health Insurance industry. Or the (Multi-National) Military-Industrial complex. Or the (Global) Financial sector,"

would have the gall to call others soft-headed.

by brewmn 10/7/2010 - 12:15 pm (re: quinn esq)

Another fab contribution from Brew! Just overflowing with substance, aren't we?

Gonna do the same as at TPM? Wander around and shout names at people?

Try to say something useful willya? Or piss off.

by quinn esq 10/7/2010 - 12:43 pm (re: brewmn)

"Try to say something useful willya?"

You first. After all, I'm not the one insulting people for failing to think that overturning the global military and security order will be as easy as some glorified NIMBY campaign. And I don't see a deus ex machina in the form of an EU mandate coming to our aid in this cause, either. The Euros seem happy to have America act as both sword and shield when it suits their interests, all the while milking their plausible deniability in military affairs for their own domestic political gain.

How about some indication of how the tactics used to get Brits to recycle can be applied to fundamentally changing the military-industrial complex paradigm, global in scope and involving trillions more dollars (at least)? Because from where I sit, they aren't remotely comparable, in scope or in readily available solutions. We've taken the first step; we have a president that gets that the permanent war posture is a problem. But, since you "realists" on the left have a better plan than the despicable half-measures and baby steps of which Obama is guilty, guilty, irredeemably guilty, let's hear it.

by brewmn 10/7/2010 - 4:26 pm (re: quinn esq)

I hope it's all right to intrude; the subject's of interest to me. You say: "We've taken the first step; we have a president that gets that the permanent war posture is a problem. But, since you "realists" on the left have a better plan than the despicable half-measures and baby steps of which Obama is guilty, guilty, irredeemably guilty, let's hear it."

You're apparently not 'on the left'. Good to know in the discussion. Please tell me how the President 'getting that the permanent war posture is a problem' is a baby step, or a step at all, given his actions and choices in Afghanistan.

I don't know how much Articleman transposed, but I had an inkling that his use of 'permanent war' might have referred to Gates' dire pronouncement that we'd be there through our lives' duration, maybe our kids'...or something close. The conversation then focused largely on Af/Pak, not the perpetual war as seen by authors like Chalmers and Bacevich: a bigger-picture global view of US interference, as seen, say, in the spiking number of bases and embassies being contructed anywhere we want to have influence, like the eight new ones being built in Colombia, for instance.

Back to the baby steps. I read this morning (and can't find it again) that the President is on record yesterday agreeing with Karzai that security can be handed over to the Afghans in 2014. And that Woodward is telling us (who knows what is true, what is not, but the White House has endorse his book, found no quibbles) that Biden, et.al. kept telling Obama that Al Qaeda had essentially left Afghanistan, and Pakistan was their new hideout.

Obama apparently bemoans the fact that the Generals won't present him with other options; it's tough for me to think, "Oh, the poor man!" He is, after all, the Commander and Chief; seems he could talk to the think tanks we were assured he was speaking with: as in every viewpoint, we were told. At least in the Woodward interview on Charlie Rose, Obama learned that the Generals wer lying when they told him they'd run the fewer-troops scenarios through war-game models, and they failed. Why then, wouldn't he search out other opinions? Why, when McChrystal announced (and Petraeus since) that the timeline was much fuzzier, and 'condition based' and further into 2013, 2014, did the President seem to concurr?

Woodward tries to portray the top brass as decidedly untrusting of Obama; that's hard, I'm sure, but every President who hasn't served has experienced it: you have to know that going in as President.

So we're watching the drone attacks ramping up in Pakistan by Presidential order; we're watching their relationship with the US become hair-raisingly dicey, with the Wall Street Journal calling for war there (based on some flimsy predicates, of course). We watched as the administration went cheap on aid after the floods, when anyone with a typewriter was saying that flooding in relief wold be the single best use of dollars to prevent insurgents from gaining more power and influence.

We're seeing an astounding amount of construction in Afghanistan, looking to most witnesses like more permanent occupation, and a doubling of the residential capacity at the Big Embassy in Iraq. If the President has no influence over any of this, then who does? That's what I'd like you to answer (besides the baby-step trope, of course.)

Signed,

A member of The Left

It would be good for Obama to hear this from Gerard Russel, viv FP Magazine:

"When that showdown between these clashing viewpoints comes, perhaps someone in the room should bring out Antonio Giustozzi's Empires of Mud. If Woodward's book is the view from Washington, then Giustozzi's is the opposite -- based on four years' worth of research on Afghan leadership and psychology. Without even looking so much at the war-torn south and east of Afghanistan, Giustozzi concludes that in our attempts to help, the international community has actually become a hindrance to the emergence of the leadership that Afghanistan needs. In one blunt sentence he concludes on his final page: "The author of this book doubts that strong national leadership will emerge in a context of external intervention in Afghanistan."

If this assessment is correct, then it means that genuine progress in Afghanistan won't be catalyzed by foreign troops fighting on the ground -- but by their withdrawal, and the adoption of a longer-term, more sustainable and less intrusive form of support for the Afghan government."

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/10/06/bob_woodwards_missing_afghan_perspective

by we are stardust 10/7/2010 - 5:53 pm (re: brewmn)

You're right. Nothing more could have been done. There was no room for maneuver. Anyone who wanted more clearly hadn't thought things through. No alternative path can be conceived. No examples from elsewhere are relevant. It's Congress' fault.

And on a more personal note, screw you, chickenshit. "Glorified NIMBY?" You can't even conceive that movements like the one in the UK involved people losing their livelihoods, their safety, and even their lives. I can't tell you how angry that cheap remark of yours made me.

I'm done.

by quinn esq 10/7/2010 - 5:58 pm (re: brewmn)

Brewmn, I was hoping to hear from you on these questions.

by we are stardust 10/7/2010 - 8:35 pm (re: brewmn)

Brewmn, I'd hoped to hear your answers on this comment I left you.

by we are stardust 10/8/2010 - 1:26 pm (re: brewmn)

I agree with quinn--(another) outstanding comment, DF (the 12:47 is the one I'm referring to).

by AmericanDreamer 10/6/2010 - 4:31 pm (re: quinn esq)

The purpose of insurance is to spread risk and create a viable, long-term financing method for healthcare...

The purpose of insurance is to generate investment capital, and only incidentally to spread risk or provide coverage.

by Austin Train 10/6/2010 - 1:01 pm (re: DF)

You couldn't be more wrong. The purpose of investment collectives, from the Dutch East India Company to Sequoia Capital, is to raise investment capital. Insurance is all about shifting risk. If the word risk is not in your definition of insurance, then you haven't got it.

by DF 10/6/2010 - 1:06 pm (re: Austin Train)

Not really a fan of Bob Woodward as reporter but have no problem at all with Bob Woodward as stenographer of history. Stenography is an excellent servant of history. So what if it requires a certain level of hagiography to get great persons to talk for the record. Any historian worth their degree can read between the lines as well as compare dueling dictations. It makes history much more interesting and far better than any interpretation by any contemporary reporter/author.

More stenography, please.

by EmmaZahn 10/6/2010 - 1:32 pm

Good point, Emma. Stenography is part of it. I was a history major, and my college thesis adviser was a Weimar Germany specialist. He hated Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which when I was little was my introduction to history. He was wrong precisely for the reason you are right. Facts and narrative are the building block before interpretation.

But Woodward is smart enough to ask better questions, and had 75 minutes with Obama to do so. I give him no pass for using the time to clean up information he already had. But if he asked harder, more journalistically searching questions early in the Bush at War process, the access goes away.

This is why ESPN.com does progressively crappier sports journalism, imo. When you have a monopoly on stenography, you tend not to probe your sources. You need to preserve that monopoly.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 3:06 pm (re: EmmaZahn)

In particular, although I can't imagine either this or any President in his situation answering it with full candor, I would have loved to hear Woodward ask him whether he believes he could survive politically if we withdraw from Afghanistan. (I haven't read the book yet, so I am admittedly that is an assumption on my part. If Woodward did ask the President that question, Articleman or others who have read it, what was the response?)

Then again, as you imply, Articleman, if Woodward did ask that question and print the answer he might not have access for the next part of this story, or whatever other insider story he wants to write about next.

Other journalists could do so, of course--at least ask the harder questions. Kind of a tag-team, good cop/bad cop approach from the journalistic community where the tacit agreement is to accept that Woodward is going to be Woodward, but that helps get out the first round of on-the-record accounts that are a major stepping-off point for finding out more facts, and for getting better-grounded analysis.

by AmericanDreamer 10/6/2010 - 4:29 pm (re: Articleman)

The book reaches the point of your question when it relates Panetta stating "No Democratic president can go against military advice, especially if he asked for it. So just do it. Do what they say."

by Articleman 10/7/2010 - 1:06 am (re: AmericanDreamer)

Wow. Was Panetta right that Obama "asked the military for advice"? I thought he asked them for options--and was "offered" several alternatives which he considered essentially the same.

by AmericanDreamer 10/7/2010 - 1:41 am (re: Articleman)

Yes, Panetta is referring to the review as military advice requested.

by Articleman 10/7/2010 - 1:42 am (re: AmericanDreamer)

Emma,

I would go even further than you do and say that those asking for more than stenography are asking for someone to put another laying of spin on things. Basically, they are asking for someone to tell them what to think about what someone said, to fit it into a narrative for them.

I know the arguments after I say that, getting into all the PoMo about how everything is spin, nothing is truth, they are looking for truth, etc.

But I think what many denounce as stenography really does easily become a clear preference to anyone who has actually done real archive work in history from orginial sources. There is a difference, there is a dviding line, between original input data, which includes the original spin of individual humans, and spin on top of that, and it's marked, and it actually messes up any search for truth, requiring a process of deconstructing.

I often tell people--so you're a real big fan on so-and-so's spin on things now (say a pundit like Maddow or a blogger or columnist,) but come back to me in a decade when you're look back on it, I'd be willing to bet you will be embarassed that you bought that spin and didn't know all the things you do on it now.

Yes of course no human can avoid spinning, and Woodward does it, and there's editing to spin with too, but the more they try to be a stenographer, the better, the longer that which is written and/or recorded will be valuable.

by artappraiser 10/6/2010 - 4:48 pm (re: EmmaZahn)

I hear you, aa, but you anticipate the correct and true response. Woodward's stenography cannot be mistaken for neutrality. ESPN won't bust wide open speculation about steroid use in major sports with which it has contracts, and won't do aggressively nasty personality journalism about horrible sports people. Woodward is kind of the Beltway equivalent. I get that the direct quotes are good stenography. The rest of the book requires a sophisticate's interpretive filter for maximum benefit. It's not a list of facts, it just acts like one.

by Articleman 10/6/2010 - 6:11 pm (re: artappraiser)

In other words, they have too much skin in the game to provide a 'fair and balanced' perspective? I agree and it is not just money or access. Their own celebrity and, at times, their own place in history are at stake as well.

Well, what can you expect from a culture where the highest aspirational values are fame and fortune -- in that order.

Who was it from an earlier era who deplored 'an excess of personality' creeping into things it didn't belong? That is what I think of every time I see Neil deGrasse Tyson on Nova Science Now. I much prefer my documentaries with unseen narrators. :)

by EmmaZahn 10/6/2010 - 7:58 pm (re: Articleman)

"Yes of course no human can avoid spinning, and Woodward does it, and there's editing to spin with too, but the more they try to be a stenographer, the better, the longer that which is written and/or recorded will be valuable."

Very true. Practically everything we know or think we know is second hand and so it is filtered and spun by everyone between us and the original source -- like the children's game Chinese whispers akd Telephone.

by EmmaZahn 10/6/2010 - 8:08 pm (re: artappraiser)

Don't forget the other spinner in the mix - ourselves, being caught in the prisonhouse of language as each of us are. The original source will always be once removed from us, direct access denied.

by Another Trope 10/7/2010 - 5:09 pm (re: EmmaZahn)

Did you watch Woodward talk about Army Sgt. Lance Herman Vogeler on The Charlie Rose show last night? Pretty impressive guy...

LINK

by Double Dutch Politics (not verified) 10/6/2010 - 5:54 pm

The Woodward interview on Charlie Rose is up now:

http://www.charlierose.com/

by we are stardust 10/6/2010 - 6:08 pm

quinn -

First off, the stumbling into the American Revolution and consequent emergence of the Constitution and U.S. of A. is one those rare moments in world history. It could have gone a lot of different ways, most of them not good. That it turned out as it did was a miracle of sorts. Even still only white landowning males were allowed to be full participants.

And the civil war, while it saved the union (which at this time seems like a bad idea, should have let the South go its own way) and ended slavery, the socio-economic system otherwise remained intact, lynchings, the rise of the KKK, etc., segregation and institutionalized racism, so that decades later a massive rising up had to occur over years and years so that we could finally nearly 100 years later get Congress to impose the civil rights act, which itself took years (not months) of arm twisting, and then this gave birth to the Southern strategy still in place today.

The New Deal for all that it did created no comprehensive system to provide a safety net for the poor, which would later be known by such names as Welfare Queens, made out to be villians out to undermine the very fabric of our society. Access to health care and education was still based primarily one's economic status. Pockets of real poverty existed, like Appalachia which decades after the wonderful New Deal still had almost nothing in way of government intervention, so that the Johnson administration had to create a program specifically designed to target this one region. And the urban centers like Watts would soon afterwards turn into battlegrounds as the African-Americans in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods finally had enough. But I guess they just didn't appreciate how comprehensive of change the Civil War and the New Deal brought.

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of Lincoln and FDR or the "founding fathers" rather to point out that the actual changes in many ways for society was, in the big scheme of things, minimal. That it has been over 200 years since we started this project (built atop the blood of the original inhabitants I might add) and today we still are fighting poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, lack of access to health care, lack of access to quality education, esp on post-secondary level, and a whole list of social injustices while trying to undo social paradigms that facilitate resistant to that change.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 1:48 pm

Another Trope (I'm a fan of Camus as well, BTW): Wow. This comment of yours reaches, dare I say, near-Seatonic levels in the extent of its dismalness.

by AmericanDreamer 10/8/2010 - 2:33 pm (re: Another Trope)

Sounds like Jew Fatigue, only worse. Humanity Fatigue?

Trope-dude - hope you have a good weekend.

by quinn esq 10/8/2010 - 3:01 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

I think big pictures seeing incrementalism are quite different from sky-is-falling "Seatonism,"and they are not dismalist; rather, they are just reality based. For one example, looking only inside the 10 short years of the French Revolution, makes for nice dramatic narrative pictures about change, but the big picture shows you that those years were followed by the Emporer Napoleon, then the restoration of Louis XIII and Charles X and then the monarchy of Louis Philippe. Twas 1848 when the change really got around to happening.

by artappraiser 10/8/2010 - 3:10 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

Another example: The current Canadian health care system is really a story of four decades of development.

by artappraiser 10/8/2010 - 3:35 pm (re: artappraiser)

To not understand the importance of seizing specific moments and opportunities, is to be a political innocent - or idiot. Any politician, any movement, any parent, any artist, understands the importance of the right moment, and making something happen at that point, e.g. of "spending their capital" at the right time. Timing.

No, those moments aren't "everything." And yes, Hollywood - and historians and politicians - make them out to be more than they are. But still, they are often "a lot." And without those moments, it becomes tough to see how things move forward at all.

For instance, if you don't understand that Saskatchewan forcing the issue, and facing a doctor's strike, backed by the AMA, and WINNING that battle was critical, then you live in some bizarre land where change is simply driven by the dead hand of time. If Saskatchewan HADN'T made their charge, and showed some courage, at that time, was there ANY guarantee at all that it would have been achieved? No, there isn't. And it is FOR that, that Tommy Douglas is known as the Greatest Canadian. You can argue it would have happened other ways, but you'd have to do one hell of a lot of twisting in ANY alternative reality, because there just weren't that many Canadian Socialist Provincial Governments you have to choose from over the 50's and 60's. (FYI, there was only the one.)

And yes, I'd like to throw that example - of the Little Fellow vs the AMA - up against what Obama - with HIS "social gospel" and Nobel Prize - did.

It seems to me that you both fail to grasp that Barack Obama NOT facing that fight - and other fights, such as with the banks and finance - means he may well have failed to get the movement that was historically possible, at this moment and in these circumstances. And that in so failing, we may well get rolled back much further than would have occurred if he'd fought for stronger change.

But you two are safe, seemingly protected by a theory that becomes the worst form of apology, whereby there's nothing Obama COULD do, or AVOID doing, or FAIL in doing, that would in any way change things. Your theory seems to be that everywhere and always he is doing the most that can be done, and that over decades, seemingly whatever people wish or do, things will change.

If anything and everything can be defined as a "first tweak," as Trope says about HCR, then basically, you're into a world where anything can be apologized for, and excused. It's ALL "first tweaks." But it then becomes a world in which the American and French Revolutions, the Hitlers and Stalins, Civil Wars and Hiroshimas, lose any particular import. None matter, all are washed away in the passage of decades, no one screws up or ducks a fight or misses their mark or falls short, and nobody really makes good.

It was like the other day, AA, when you were whaling on Seaton. I was entirely happy to whack him myself, for his prejudice. But you were going the extra yard, effectively arguing that America, and American pop culture, could not in any way be held responsible for cultural changes elsewhere in the world. Which - if you live in Canada or France, for instance - just seems nuts. These are enormously powerful, ugly, political fights, forcing the ability of American TV and film and copyright and music and the studios into these countries, and then, into unfettered pole position. In short, while you may fancy yourself "the realist" in the equation here, your comments amounted to the purest fantasy. "Pop culture" in the rest of the world has an enormous American content to it, and to think this simply happened because of its merits is simple nonsense.

by quinn esq 10/8/2010 - 5:53 pm (re: artappraiser)

I understand the importance of seizing specific moments and opportunities - and the argument basically is whether this was such a moment, to use HCR and Financial Reform as examples, that Obama could have through a force of will and creativity made into something more than it was. Each side has no way of proving the other is wrong, so it is really just academic fun, so to say.

But aside from some polls that indicate a majority of Americans, when asked by a pollster, whether they would prefer universal health care or the public option, I see little to indicate that this was such a moment. Maybe if we didn't have to pass the stimulus bill, HCR might have turned out differently, but that too is just academic speculation.

But when I look at that time at the make-up of the Senate, the unified Republican Party and the general lukewarm reaction by the general public to the HC debate, with many complaining that HCR should be put on the backburner so they could focus on jobs, jobs, jobs, and a generally uncooperative national media, I don't see it as one of the moments.

So in the end, you say "may well have failed to get the movement that was historically possible, at this moment and in these circumstances. And that in so failing, we may well get rolled back much further than would have occurred if he'd fought for stronger change." And I say that he may well begun to turn the ship in the right direction, a turning that is not one bill, like the Civil Rights Act, but a general realignment of how the general public relates to government.

One thing that cannot be denied is that there has been in this country a decline over decades in the trust of government. A lot of this is well-founded and one place that the far right activists and the far left activists can agree in general. What your side, the ones that seem to believe that Obama could in a few months time convince the public to trust the government to take control of both health care industry and financial institutions (did someone say nationalize?!) is in my humble opinion a bit far fetched.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 6:47 pm (re: quinn esq)

Trope, right now, the way you seem to be feeling about life, I rather doubt that you do see the importance of seizing the moment. I think you're pretty obviously depressed, or despairing or burnt out or whatever you'd call it, and so right now, nothing really looks like a "moment" to you. In fact, you've just given the most depressing description of the consequences of the winning the American Revolution, the Civil War, the New Deal and Health Care in Saskatchewan that I've ever read. ;-) So.... given that you're not in a place where you see these moments in the past, it's fairly likely you aren't going to see them now.

When this is part of a progression from reached (for me) its culmination in "for every Saskatchewan there's a Hillarycare" (really? is that how it works? like for every great banana I eat, someone picks on up that goes rotten?)... then I think I'm just gonna repeat, I don't agree, but rather than fight over it much more, I wish you a happy weekend, and a general improvement in the weather and life in general.

by quinn esq 10/8/2010 - 9:15 pm (re: Another Trope)

And may you have a happy weekend as well. Tomorrow morning I have to drive one of the cars for the nonprofit I work for in the local university's homecoming parade. The weather is suppose to be sunny and warm. And everybody loves a parade, eh. Peace Out and In and Everything in Between.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 9:22 pm (re: quinn esq)

We have a Godwin.

by Articleman 10/8/2010 - 6:55 pm (re: quinn esq)

Inevitable. But I also wanted to say, thanks for the great summary of the Woodward book. I feel like I can save the train fare, I've already had the ride.

by anna am 10/8/2010 - 8:00 pm (re: Articleman)

Thanks. Next up, a reading of Goldstein's Lessons in Disaster against it, to ask whether we've learned lessons from Vietnam and applied them in Afghanistan.

by Articleman 10/8/2010 - 8:06 pm (re: anna am)

Ding ding! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law (hadn't heard that one before) Yes, we are a little OT at this point, aren't we?

by AmericanDreamer 10/8/2010 - 8:03 pm (re: Articleman)

I do believe there is something called the It's a Silly Awful Place Theory which concludes that in any given thread there is an equal chance, with all things being equal, that the thread will evolve into either a reference to Monty Python's Holy Grail or Hitler and the Nazis.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 8:29 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

Aw, AT. And I was just about to post a link to the Philosopher's soccer game.

by anna am 10/8/2010 - 8:56 pm (re: Another Trope)

There are some who posit that the theory only holds up if one allows for the occassional Flying Circus, Life of Brian, and Meaning of Life reference to count.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79vdlEcWxvM

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 9:01 pm (re: anna am)

The thread's not dead yet. It's getting better --

by Articleman 10/8/2010 - 9:20 pm (re: Another Trope)

Subconsciously you wanted me to post this link. The thread says: "I'm getting better."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 9:28 pm (re: Articleman)

To get all serious (again) for a moment, A-man, that's not a Godwin.

I had to go back and read quinn's entire comment to find what you were referencing. As they say, sometimes a reference to Hitler is just a reference to Hitler. Quinn was not trying to score debating points by comparing his opponent to Hitler, or the stance he was defending to Naziism. He was talking about the sweep of human history, and using Hitler, Stalin and the French Rovolution as shorthand. Totally legitimate.

by acanuck 10/8/2010 - 10:58 pm (re: Articleman)

I don't want to leave the thread without thanking you for sparking another lively, thoughtful, heated but basically civil debate -- one that I'm sure we'll all come back to again in a slightly different form.

by acanuck 10/8/2010 - 11:09 pm (re: acanuck)

I wasn't saying Quinn's comment was "illegitimate" or such. I thought Godwin's Law was satisfied by reference to Nazism.

by Articleman 10/8/2010 - 11:18 pm (re: acanuck)

My definition is that it takes more than a reference. It takes a comparison of the thing being discussed, or the person doing the discussing, to Hitler, Goebbels, Nazis or Naziism. A perfect real-life example was the recent Glenn Beckism: "You know who else believed in separation of church and state? Hitler!" (I paraphrase, since I didn't actually hear him say it.)

Adolf Hitler was a really bad man, but that's precisely why we sometimes have to remind ourselves of his existence. Especially today. It's foolish to think that, having once been exposed to the disease, we're now immune.

by acanuck 10/8/2010 - 11:47 pm (re: Articleman)

The comment in question said the other commenter excusing HCR as a babystep is the same logic that fails, and leads to failing, to appropriately to condemn atrocities, which the comment lists as including Hitler, Stalin, and Hiroshima. By any definition, including yours, that's a Godwin, it's an implied comparison.

Now I'm going to leave Godwin-a-land.

by Articleman 10/9/2010 - 1:05 pm (re: acanuck)

Sorry A-man, but just for the record, that wasn't the reference. It was referring to the point Trope made about the American Revolution, American Civil War, New Deal etc. as not being "moments" of particular significance. Which had then been reinforced by AA, arguing the same on the French Revolution. While I'm a fan of arguments that look at the wider/longer view than just great men and great battles, I've come to the conclusion that there are political moments, and significant individuals acting within them, which carry their own weight, above and beyond longer-term historic processes. In that context, to erase the significance of the French Revolution and the US Civil War (which were fair old slaughterhouses in and of themselves) is not entirely dissimilar to erasing the importance of Stalin and Hitler, as particular actors.

Anyway, Godwin or no, the discussion needed to be put out of its misery. Thanks for the attempt, and apologies for way it chewed up a few miles of your blog. Will try (harder) to avoid doing so again. ;-)

by quinn esq 10/9/2010 - 1:46 pm (re: Articleman)

Chew all the miles you choose, that's why it's here.

Godwin.

by Articleman 10/9/2010 - 8:29 pm (re: quinn esq)

Godwin-a-land! Good one.

by acanuck 10/9/2010 - 1:59 pm (re: Articleman)

I would add that for every Saskatchewan there is a HillaryCare which sets the cause back. It really comes down to that sports analogy of the coach who goes for the TD on 4th and goal from the 1 rather than the field goal for the tie. If the team scores the winning touchdown, the coach is gutsy and a genius, and if they get stuffed, the coach is an blithering idiot who deserves to be tossed out on his kester.

Moreover, I am not saying everything is a tweak. It is just that sometimes going for the tweak (the field goal) in order to keep playing is better than going for the all or nothing stand (the touchdown) which puts it all on the line in one shot. If one thinks that if there was a failure to get something accomplished on health care would not have led to another wait of nearly two decades before Congress would tackle the issue again is either politically naive or, what is the word you used? or yeah an idiot.

And one last thing: the clean water act of 1972 is held up as one of the breakthrough environmental moments, but in actuality it was an admendments to existing legislation that were not strong enough. But if they had to create something from scratch in '72, it most likely would not have been as tough as it actually was. And if it wasn't tweaked later on, the Civil Rights Act wouldn't have had the impact that it has today.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 7:34 pm (re: quinn esq)

Good and fair points. I am susceptible to thinking (I like that inviting and modest phrase of yours) that you might have thought that changes that have actually happened historically would not happen. You may think that I think more is possible than actually is possible. Fair enough.

I'd like to add that my advocacy of better public outreach and more aggressive efforts to define several policy debates by this White House does not mean that I think that, if only, there would have been no need for compromise. I think compromise is unavoidable in our system, and is not at all always bad. But I'm inclined to think you get better compromises if you are more assertive and aggressive in setting forth what you want, and explaining as clearly as you can why, to the people you are trying to reach, than if you are less so. By a better compromise, I mean something closer to what you believe and what you would actually like to try.

by AmericanDreamer 10/8/2010 - 3:39 pm (re: artappraiser)

But I'm inclined to think you get better compromises if you are more assertive and aggressive in setting forth what you want, and explaining as clearly as you can why, to the people you are trying to reach, than if you are less so. By a better compromise, I mean something closer to what you believe and what you would actually like to try.

I agree with this basically. But one thing to keep in mind when it came to the HCR process, that we had the entire Clinton-Obama primary then the Obama-McCain general election where HCR was at the top of the conversation many times. So much so, when election day came around, I thought of it in large part as a referendum on HCR. I don't know really what more could have been said that would have reached people that weren't reached during that year and a half of election coverage.

When Obama turned it over to the legislators to do their legislating thang, I seriously thought there was already an understanding on where the country, from a majority point of view, stood. But apparently the Republicans and conservative Democrats didn't feel that this really reflected their constituency and balked. If Snowe and Collins had their phones ringing off the hook from Maine citizens demanding they get the public option, I think we would have had a different outcome.

So to reiterate, in this particular case, I just don't know what Obama could have said that hadn't already been said to inspire the Maine residents, if no one else, to rise up and demand universal health care, or heavens to Betsy, single payer.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 4:10 pm (re: AmericanDreamer)

You also might get better compromises without giving up certain things just 'to keep industry on board:

A close ally of President Barack Obama admitted Tuesday – before retracting the claim – that the White House negotiated away the public option to win over the support of insurers and hospitals early in last year’s health care debate.
"It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others," former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) told Igor Volsky of Think Progress.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/daschle-public-option/

Now I don't know if Daschle is an honest man or not, but I woulld like to think so...

by we are stardust 10/8/2010 - 5:11 pm (re: Another Trope)

I assume this is what happened. It was a calculated move. Given that the collective (tens of? hundreds of?) millions of advertising dollars that would have gone to torpedo any effort, do you think the country that had kinip fit over death panels would have not been affected beyond measure? Maybe it is humanity fatigue. Maybe its the Dancing with Stars I'm Outraged over the New Gap Logo Only 62% of Democrats know Joe Biden is VP America Fatigue.

by Another Trope 10/8/2010 - 7:52 pm (re: we are stardust)

There you go. Right now I'm trying to finish up my latest blog, which includes the story of the Lawrence Ferlinghetti 1957 trial over his attempt to sell the obscene Howl. Such a trial is unthinkable today. But the day after the judge handed down his not guilty verdict the United States didn't suddenly become a paradise of free speech. I am sure many of the people who wanted a guilty verdict still wanted a guility verdict. Even today we must struggle against the dark forces that would love the state to go arresting folks for publishing such things as Howl.

And this is why, even though I am not happy with, say. HCR as it is, I saw the need to make that first tweak. We weren't going to get a radical overturning of a system that had too many wealthy and powerful advocate behind it. That might make me overly cynical and jaded. But is a fine line between them and a realist.

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by luohaha 9/15/2011 - 6:12 am

I'm speechless. You just wouldn't see writing like this in the old days.

Dick needs to give this an award.

"ChuXiao again remind of the dream, she felt really from the high pinnacle fell down, fall to a place, the place and dark and cold. For a long time, and ChuXiaoCai turned to the man, she said: "in fact you don't have to do so well, is me drink hit your car, not your matter,Gianmarco Lorenz Bootsyou need not so responsible." The man said with a surprised: "you think I'm truck drivers?" "Are you?" Man leng leng, then shook his head with a smile with hot water out."

Man leng leng, indeed.

by Qnonymous (not verified) 9/15/2011 - 10:43 am (re: luohaha)

The automatic drupal spam filter obviously shares your opinion, since it let the comment pass.

Your reply, on the other hand, it blocked immediately.

by Genghis 9/15/2011 - 10:49 am (re: Qnonymous)

Then shook his head with a smile with hot water out.

by Qnonymous (not verified) 9/15/2011 - 10:53 am (re: Genghis)

I once composed a poem for a local writing group organized by an English professor. I put down some silly pap with references to trees and rivers and birds and flowers and change etc. I then ran in through Babblefish into a different language and then another one and then back to English. I edited it very slightly and read it to the group and got good applause and a complement from the professor, but she got pissed when she overheard me telling a real writer how I had done it.

by Anonymous 9/15/2011 - 11:13 am (re: Qnonymous)

If you've never had the pleasure, this might be the ultimate in computer-assisted drivel.

by DF 9/15/2011 - 12:14 pm (re: )

LOL. Makes me think of (apocryphal?) painters who mix up a bunch of randomly selected paints in, I don't know, a blender, splatter the concoction on a canvas over the course of a minute and 45 seconds with no particular thought put into how, and accept some six figure check at an auction for the result of their efforts. If they have the right connections, history, timing, aura, or whatever it is that accounts for how a few people seem able to pull that off.

If, say, Genghis could do that, it might take care of operating expenses for dag for at least a couple of decades.

by AmericanDreamer 9/15/2011 - 12:14 pm (re: )

In the News

For Native American Women, Scourge of Rape, Rare Justice
For Native American Women, Scourge of Rape, Rare Justice

submitted by flowerchild 1 hour ago

The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.

.......

“We should never have a woman come into the office saying, ‘I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,’ ” said Charon Asetoyer, a women’s health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. “That’s what’s so frightening — that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women.”

The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.

Read the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/us/native-americans-struggle-with-high-rate-of-rape.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share

Add new comment
Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Given Jail Term (for...
Doctor Who Helped Find Bin Laden Given Jail Term (for Treason,) Official Says

submitted by artappraiser 6 hours ago

By Ismail Kahn, New York Times, May 23/24, 2012

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.

A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region [....]

Read the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/world/asia/doctor-who-helped-find-bin-laden-given-jail-term-official-says.html?_r=1&hp

4 comments
Russia lawmakers advance bill on penalties for protesters
Russia lawmakers advance bill on penalties for protesters

submitted by artappraiser 20 hours ago

By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012

MOSCOW — Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.

The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.

The sanctions were approved on first reading by parliament's lower house, which is controlled by Putin's United Russia party. They mark a return by the Kremlin to a tough stance against critics after concessions during the recent election campaign [...]

Also see:

Russians back Putin, strong leadership
Washington Post, May 22, 2012

A Pew survey of 1,000 Russians found that President Vladimir Putin is well-liked by more than 70 percent of citizens, especially older adults.

Read the article at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-russia-protesters-20120523,0,7555231.story

Add new comment
In Cuba, Mystery Shrouds the Fate of an Undersea Internet...
In Cuba, Mystery Shrouds the Fate of an Undersea Internet Cable

submitted by artappraiser 20 hours ago

Associated Press, May 21, 2012

HAVANA — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.

More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.

Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project....

Read the article at In Cuba, Mystery Shrouds the Fate of an Undersea Internet Cable Read more: http://techland.time.com/2012/05/21/in-cuba-mystery-shrouds-the-fate-of-an-undersea-internet-cable/#ixzz1vf1ZxDqN

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Domestic violence is biggest threat to west Africa's...
Domestic violence is biggest threat to west Africa's women, IRC says

submitted by artappraiser 20 hours ago

By Tamasin Ford in Monrovia, Guardian.co.uk, May 22, 2012

Husbands, not strangers or men with guns, are now the biggest threat to women in post-conflict west Africa, according to a report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released on Tuesday.

The IRC report, Let Me Not Die Before My Time: Domestic Violence in West Africa, based on data collected over 10 years by the IRC in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, said domestic violence is the "most urgent, pervasive and significant protection issue for women in west Africa" [.....]

Read the article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/may/22/domestic-violence-west-africa-irc

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