reflectivepundit

What Does It Take to Win in Afghanistan?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Recently, when former Vice President Richard Cheney attacked President Barack Obama for “dithering” over a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, he urged him to “do what it takes to win.”

The problem is that nobody can be sure “what it takes to win” in Afghanistan. Worse yet, nobody seems sure what “winning” and “succeeding” means in this context. Neutralizing Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders that hide in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal areas—not in Afghanistan? Installing a non-corrupt government in Kabul that wins over leaders in the fragmented country?

There are no encouraging answers as long as the U.S. and NATO are dealing President Hamid Karzai’s regime or a similarly unreliable and corrupt one and as long as the CIA continues to have Ahmed Karzai, the president's brother and a suspected player in the country’s booming opium trade, on its pay-roll as it has had since the beginning of the war eight years ago.

No wonder that Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent writes, “At this point, everything about the U.S. policy toward the Afghan drug trade — from tolerance to eradication during the Bush administration to an evolving approach to cultivating alternatives — now ought to be questioned….CIA money funds a politically connected drug dealer. Opium funds the Taliban. We are in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. How much CIA money has indirectly funded the Taliban?”

And then there is the news that the defense bill President Obama signed into law this week contains the authorization to pay Taliban fighters to renounce and quit the insurgency.

The record on buying the support of Afghan war lords and their fighters did not work well at the beginning of the war shortly after 9/11. While open to the dollar bonanza at the time and seemingly helpful to American forces, when push came to shove the leading  Al-Qaeda and Taliban figures managed to flee into Pakistan—hardly without the assistance of some of those war lords.

On today’s “Morning Joe” show, Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC analyst who is more knowledgeable and thoughtful than most of television’s talking heads, made a remarkably candid statement with respect to Afghanistan. “I don’t know what to do next,” he said. And O’Donnell, for sure, is familiar with the various options that President Obama and his national security advisers are considering.

The White House--a Bastion of Jocks? And What About Gender Bias in Sports Reporting?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Has President Barack Obama committed an unforgivable offense against gender equality by playing hoops with male members of the administration and congress only?

Two weeks after ABC News reported on an all-male game of basketball on the White House court and comedian Jay Leno enlisted Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services and a former college basketball player, to poke fun at the president for excluding women, the New York Times revisited the president’s alleged faux pas and its larger meaning in today’s edition.

According to reporter Mark Leibovich, the issue transcends that one particular all-male basketball game in that the “technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’ club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.”

And not enough with Obama’s preference to play hoops with the guys, the Times mentions also that according to “Mark Knoller of CBS, the president has played 23 rounds of golf since taking office, none of which have included women…”

Is it true or a figment of media hype that at a time of pressing foreign and domestic policy  problems and issues—just think Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, health care reform, economic woes, etc., etc.--, the people in the White House are concerned about this so-called gender issue?

In spite of Hillary Clinton at State, Valerie Jarrett as the closest Obama adviser in the White House, Sonia Sotomayor as pick to join the Supreme Court, and a number of influential women in White House and cabinet, were are told that Obama’s White House is a bastion of male power and according to the Times “rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities…” 

While I am not sure that female members of the administration and congress would want to play basketball with the guys, there are probably enough female golfers who would love to give the president and the guys a run for their money.

Since the lack of female participants in the president’s relaxation time on basketball courts and golf courses is deemed evidence enough for the political correctness guardians to weigh in, the Times should be the last one to dwell on this.

Deceptive Propaganda and Health Care Reform

By Brigitte L. Nacos
The images of mostly old Americans in chaotic townhall meetings this fall are unforgettable as are the untrue arguments against meaningful health care reform made in those gatherings. Although enjoying the benefits of their government-run Medicare entitlements, the elderly in particular ranted and raved against a public alternative to private health insurance.

The deceptive propaganda campaigns (just think of death panels) by conservative ideologues and a greedy insurance industry have misled rather than educate certain segments of society. Thus the outcry against the alleged horror of government bureaucrats making decisions about health care needs—although bureaucrats in insurance companies decide day-in and day-out what medical treatments will be paid for--or not.

When a propaganda of fear warns of socialism and communism taking hold and replacing good, old capitalism, such nonsense tends to scare the hell out of those who fear to be the losers of reforms.

It is a disgrace that a rapidly growing number of Americans do not have any health insurance. But not only Republicans but also several Democrats in the U.S. Senate do not embrace meaningful health care reform that must include a public option. Therefore, MSNBC’s talk show hosts Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow called for setting up temporary free clinics for the uninsured to shame those conservative Democrats--Lincoln and Mark Pryor (both D-Ark.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.)—into joining the majority of Democrats and prevent a filibuster against health care reform in the Senate.
 
Until last night, when I happened to look at Larry King Live, I had never heard of “The Dr. Oz Show” and its host Dr. Mehmet Oz. But this physician’s account of his involvement in such a clinic in Houston drove home the plight of many, many millions of men, women, and children without health insurance.

There was the gripping account of a little girl that was recently examined in one of those temporary clinics in Houston. Although working, her mother has not been able to afford health insurance. As it turned out, the little girl had a hole in her heart. One wonders how many treatable health problems are not discovered for lack of insurance.

And that in the United States—not some third world country!

When Generals Go Public in Policy Debates: McChrystal and MacArthur

By Brigitte L. Nacos
I wonder whether General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has forgotten the one chapter in the annals of history that deals with the firing of General Douglas McArthur by President Harry Truman in 1951. Although MacArthur was one of the best-known and admired military leaders of World War II, he lost his position for repeatedly going public to voice his disagreement with the president’s Korea and China policy.

In public appearances of his choice, McChrystal has forcefully lobbied and pressured the White House and Defense Department to embrace his new strategy for winning in Afghanistan without time consuming deliberation. Obviously, the timely leak of his 66-page assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and the request for significantly more troops were part of his public offensive.

To be sure, generals should speak their mind, when it comes to the conduct of war or other military questions and issues. But they should do so within the military chain of command and in private meetings with both military and civilian leaders in Washington.

More recently, top military leaders have been criticized for not standing up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team during the planning of the Iraq invasion and for not insisting on far more troops for the post-invasion phase in their dealings with the civilian leaders in the Pentagon and White House. The only one who did speak out, General Eric Shinseki, the Army Chief of Staff, was eventually forced into retirement. But unlike McChrystal now, Shinseki did not leak his written assessments on Iraq War planning or lobbied in favor of his position in public appearances of his choice. On one occasion, he answered questions during his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. That was the beginning of the end of his military career.

Had McChrystal simply given his strong views during a Senate hearing and in response to Senators’ questions, there would not be any reason to criticize him. But in view of his going public approach, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was right, when he said that both civilian and military leaders must "provide our best advice to the president candidly, but privately.” And emphasizing that he was speaking for the Department of Defense, Gates said, “once the commander in chief makes his decisions, we will salute and execute those decisions faithfully and to the best of our ability.”

That is the way it must be in this democracy.