Americans overwhelmingly against a troop surge on eve of speech

The Washington Post may run a biased, pro-war op-ed page, but it can't hide damning poll numbers. A survey published on the eve of President Obama's speech reveal that only 24% of Americans support the McChrystal troop surge, versus 45% who want to decrease the number of troops in Afghanistan, with most of the remainder supporting keeping troop levels the same. Obama's support is collapsing among the people who worked their asses off to get him elected, with fewer than 20% of Democrats supporting the surge. But us liberals are not alone. A bare majority, 51% of all adults, say "the war is not worth fighting", up from 41% in March, when Obama's first troop surge began. In fact, 41% of Americans are "strongly opposed" to the continuation of the war. Hopefully some of them will step out of the woodwork and join us in the streets.
Let us be clear- if a poll showed these kind of numbers on any other issue, the media would be aglow with stories of "Americans rejecting" the policy. But because this is war, the media has presented this as Americans "being concerned", or having "reservations." Somehow, the American people haven't had enough evidence after eight plus years of war to decide for themselves.

Pro-War Bias from New York Times and Washington Post

The New York Times and Washington Post have saturated their opinion pages with pro-war articles, according to the a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, whose findings were discussed on Democracy Now. The study evaluated the so-called "liberal" institutions from January through October of 2010, and found that of the 100 op-eds published, the number favoring the continuation of the war in Afghanistan outnumbered op-eds advocating a partial or immediate withdrawal at the New York Times by 5-1, and at the Washington Post by 10-1. In fact, nearly all of the anti-war op-eds at the New York Times were published by Bob Herbert, with virtually no guest op-eds opposing the war. Instead, the debate focused on whether we should fight with more boots on the ground or more planes in the sky. Democracy in America.

A Little Rant Before the Big Speech

The theme of Karzai as an corrupt and ineffective leader promises to be highlighted in President Obama's address tomorrow. The line the White House is floating tonight is, "The era of the blank check for President Karzai is over." That is simply untrue, the first steps across a politically impossible tightrope. Tomorrow Obama will be making the case that this is a war of military necessity, with dire national security at stake. I disagree with him of course, but that's his pitch. He will then also try to warn Karzai that he needs to reform "or else." The real question, columnist David Corn asks, is "or else what?" If Obama is suggesting that he will withdraw troops, cut off funding for training Afghans or stop spending money on Afghan infrastructure, then the war can't possibly be as serious or necessary as he says it is, because Obama cannot stabilize Afghanistan while he does those things. That is why Obama is painting himself into such a dangerous corner.

Let's play this one out. It is December of 2011. Karzai has made little to no headway on the anti-corruption front. Every last member of Al-Qaeda is in the mountains of Pakistan. The Taliban have largely been routed by NATO troops, but in limited skirmishes the Afghan National Army seems unable to handle them without NATO support. Both supporters and opponents of the war can agree that this is a fairly plausible set of outcomes. Does that mean we can leave?

If we start drawing down, the Taliban will start fighting back. Maybe they'll take a few villages here and there, maybe mount an unsuccessful assault on a major city. Al-Qaeda hangs out on the Afghan-Pakistan border, depending on which side is being more aggressive. People still hate Karzai. His brother is still the biggest opium dealer in the country. A suicide bomb periodically blows up a Kabul market square. Do we keep drawing down? Do we re-surge? Do we keep troop levels the same? Where do we get these troops in the first place? Now it's 2012 and Republicans are running on the platform that Obama has lost Afghanistan.

You see, the situation in Afghanistan has always been fucked. It is a country where multiple generations have come of age knowing nothing but war and corruption. It is also a country with almost no infrastructure, limited roads, and a brutal winter that shuts large swaths of the country down for months. It is a country where we prop an anti-democratic corrupt figurehead surrounded by brutal warlords so that the country isn't overtaken by ruthless fundamentalist ruthless warlords. And we are in this country because it might potentially serve as a haven for a bunch of men in caves plotting terrorist strikes against the United States. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the leaders of Al Qaeda could not find another place in South Asia, the Middle East or Africa to sit on rugs and conjure up plots, if we were somehow able to make an impassible mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan more inhospitable for them than it is now (And while we're at it, let's please stop with the nonsense that Pakistan may become so destabilized by these fundamentalist hicks that they will lose control of their nuclear weapons, which will then be launched against the United States, or India, or Israel).

So what do I think we should do? I think we should get out, leaving behind some residual force in Kabul. We should keep funding local programs to develop Afghan infrastructure. We should continue intelligence operations and drone attacks against members of Al Qaeda in the mountains, however regretful due to the resulting civilian casualties. Instead of believing that any single political entity will ever control Afghanistan, we should cut deals with a series of regional governors and warlords rewarding them for cooperation against Al Qaeda. If the Taliban start to overrun the Karzai government, we should make it clear that any indication that they have allowed for Al Qaeda to reestablish themselves within Afghan borders will lead to a reprise of 2001's Operation Infinite Justice. Sure, it would be exhausting and expensive for us to pull that off, but having been driven from power once, do you think the Taliban will risk their power a second time to protect some Saudis and Egyptians who have brought them nothing but trouble this decade?

Of course, tomorrow night Obama will announce precisely the opposite of what I just suggested. He will use well worn cliches from the Bush administration, comforting Americans who don't want to think too deeply about this war. And to the 50% of Americans who oppose escalation, he will offer us the following, charming bit of reassurance:
"My fellow Americans, we will set certain benchmarks for 2011/2012, and then, having achieved them, we will withdraw."
The problem is, we won't meet them then, just like we've failed to meet almost every benchmark we've ever set in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then we'll be back here in two years, to hear President Obama once again call for patience, while Republicans gloat about what a failure he is, and what a better job they would have done sending more of our overburdened, exhausted, stressed out troops for a fifth and sixth deployments.

Scary times, folks. I'll be in Times Square at 6pm on Wednesday for the protest. See you there.

Holbrooke pushes for a SUPER envoy

It seems like October's explosive scandal, in which U.N Deputy Ambassador, American Peter Gailbraith essentially accused his boss, Kai Eide, of collusion with the corrupt Karzai government, has not fully played itself out yet. U.S Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke, who has no love lost for President Karzai himself, is pushing for the appointment of a high-level foreign official to serve as "super-envoy" alongside Karzai. Basically a glorified babysitter to make sure Karzai is keeping honest on his pledge to crack down on corruption. Holbrooke is advocating such a strategy both because of its success in Bosnia, where he was one of the top brokers, and because he "believes the UN mission is ineffectual and soft on the Afghan government's alarming record of corruption." This has caused a fissure among NATO allies, with Canada and some European seeing this as a slight against Kai Eide, and Holbrooke responding, 'Yeah, dude, exactly.'
Meanwhile, Karzai is likely terrified of an American or Brit actually observing his corrupt government in action, but hopeful deep down that he could spin any such appointment as imperialistic meddling.

War Notes: November 29, 2009

Afghanistan's lack of infrastructure will slow the implementation of President Obama's surge, and troops will be phased in over 12-18 months. Following Obama's Tuesday speech at West Point, 9,000 Marines will deploy to Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where most of the action is taking place. They will be followed by 1,000 U.S Army trainers that will work with the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police. The remaining 20-25,000 troops will deploy over the course of 2010 and early 2011.
............................................................
Any hope for Representative David Obey's "war surtax" seemed to be dashed by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) today.
"There should have been, as far as I'm concerned, tax increases for upper bracket folks who did so well during the Bush years - that's where the tax increases should have taken place. But that should have happened some time ago. But in the middle of this recession, I don't think you're going to be able successfully or fairly to add a tax burden to middle-income people. I think you could tax the upper brackets, $250,000 or more, but I don't think middle income America is in a position now where they could pay additional taxes because the economic stress is so great here."
Levin generally falls within the liberal half of the Democratic Party, so his reservations are not a good indicator of the bills likelihood. A surtax solely on the wealthy, while more politically feasible, would not cover the increased costs of the Obama troop surge. Raising taxes is an anathema to most politicians, especially in the Senate, where a number of Democrats will be facing competitive races in 2010.
............................................................................
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has laid out five benchmarks that NATO will ask the Karzai government to meet at an upcoming conference:

■ Within three months Kabul must identify additional troops to send to Helmand province for training.

■ Within six months there must be clear plans for police training.

■ Within nine months President Hamid Karzai must have appointed almost 400 provincial and district governors.

■ Within 12 months 5,000 additional Afghan troops will be trained by Britain in Helmand and thousands more in other parts of the country.

■ By the end of 2010 Afghan security forces must be taking the lead in five out of the country's 34 provinces. Control in one or two districts in Helmand will also be handed over.

While these benchmarks will probably not be met (I'd venture it won't even be close), it is worth documenting them. The ever-changing benchmarks and demands for patience are part of what made the war in Iraq under President Bush so infuriating.

War Notes: November 28, 2009

Washington Post columnist Colbert King asks a perfectly reasonable question:
But what happens if, in the face of an U.S. escalation in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda moves its terrorist network to Pakistan or beyond? Will U.S. forces follow?

I suppose the short answer is that Blackwater is already there, and U.S intelligence is undoubtedly working with the Pakistani military. The question is whether our soon to be 100,000 troops will be fighting a single Al Qaeda operative six months from now. Some would call that a reason to claim victory and go home. If we get bogged down fighting the Taliban, along with related and completely unrelated insurgents, however, that war could last a lot longer.
..............................................................
Quickly reviewing all major post World War II wars in the process, the New Yorker's Henrik Hertzberg also asks a series of tough questions he would like the president to answer on Tuesday:

Does it make sense, for example, to spend lives and treasure trying to eradicate “safe havens” in Afghanistan when Al Qaeda has so many other—well, options, from Sudan to Hamburg? Will a bigger, longer, and presumably bloodier occupation advance or retard the ultimate aim of discouraging Islamist terrorism? Will adding American troops—at a million dollars a year per soldier—encourage Afghans to fight for themselves or prompt them to leave the fighting to us? Can Afghanistan’s nominal government, with its President elected by fraud and its recent rating as the second most corrupt on earth, be finessed or somehow remade?

The sum we are already spending annually on Afghanistan is greater than its gross domestic product. Are there nonmilitary ways we could deploy that sum which would advance our goals as efficaciously? Would even forty thousand additional troops suffice for anything resembling the ambitious nation-building program that General Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander in Afghanistan, has proposed? (Counterinsurgency theory suggests that it would take more than ten times that many; would forty—or ten, or twenty—thousand be only a first installment?) Any counterinsurgency campaign, we’re told, requires a very long commitment. Is the voluntary association of democracies called NATO, organized to deter war more than to wage it, capable of sustaining a twenty or thirty years’ war? For that matter, does the United States—a decentralized populist democracy struggling with economic decline and political gridlock—have that capacity? And what about Pakistan?

........................................................

A graphic from the National Post, a Canadian paper, highlights the geographic hotspots where NATO forces have suffered their casualties. The Helmand and Kandahar provinces in southwestern Afghanistan lead the way, with 342 and 210 fatalities respectively. The charts also provide some visually jarring data of the increase in NATO deaths and deaths from IEDs from the relatively tranquil days of 2005 to the present.
.......................................................
Reuters runs a speculative article quoting administration sources that believe the U.S will begin drawing down troops from Afghanistan beginning in 2013. Their logic is that by then the U.S will have concluded its training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan police, such that they can help themselves. Other officials scoffed at the notion, calling it unrealistic. One truth we can be assured of is vague 'future withdrawal' rhetoric from the Obama administration, whether from his lips or in the form of 'secret leaks' to the press. This will be done to damper down opposition to the war. Rank and file Democrats will say, "I don't approve of this war, but I guess it will be over soon." We all know how this will go down. And yet we watch...

War Notes: November 27, 2009

"No nation has ever benefited from a prolonged war."
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The political fallout in Germany continues following the revelation that the German military forces in Afghanistan covered up the death of civilians in an airstrike called by German generals on September 4th. The U.S air strikes ultimately killed over 140 people, at least 40 of whom were later found to be civilians. The German cover up went as far as up as the their top commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Georg Klein, and their Defense Minister, Franz Jung. Though this incident is likely to increase national opposition to the war, Chancellor Merkel is expected to continue Germany's commitment to the war. She is expected to 120 troop to the 4,300 already serving their, the third highest total behind the United States and Britain.

Canadians allowed the torture of captured Afghan insurgents, according to Canadian Senior Diplomat Richard Colvin, who was based in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007. Colvin's testimony before the Canadian House of Commons that Canadian forces handed over captives to local Afghans knowing that they were going to be brutally tortured has led to a series of attacks on Colvin's character from government officials, rather than any proper investigation. Apparently the Canucks have learned well from their brothers to the south.

The Governor of Kandahar survived an assassination attempt yesterday when a bomb targeted his motorcade. Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan after Kabul, and will be the destination for many of the Surgin' Americans. Shapoor Khan was not so lucky; the anti-Taliban leader victim to an assassination attempt this morning. Khan was a major tribal leader in northwest Pakistan who had been working with Pakistani authorities against the Taliban. His predecessor was killed by a suicide bomber last year. One hopes that an experienced Pakistani military will ultimately be able to prevail over the Taliban in their clashes along the border, but much of the Pakistani military training prepares soldiers for conventional war with India, rather than guerrilla warfare with insurgents.

War Notes: Thanksgiving Edition

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs has given all Americans something to be thankful for: An American military withdrawal from Afghanistan before 2017:
"We are in year nine of our efforts in Afghanistan. We are not going to be there another eight or nine years," Gibbs told reporters.
Gibbs added that the war was "very, very, very expensive", costing the U.S $6.7 billion in the month of June alone.

Family of suicide victims are seeking letters of condolences from the White House for their fallen children. While soldiers who commit suicide do receive the same death benefits as those who die in combat, it has been a policy since at least the Clinton administration not to send presidential letters of condolences. The families explain that the letters would be an important symbolic gesture from the president and the military that mental health problems are real, and need to be seriously addressed to prevent needless deaths.

McClatchy writer Steven Thomma points out that the Rep. Obey's war surtax is not without precedent. War surtaxes were levied by President Lincoln during the Civil War, President Roosevelt during World War II and President Johnson during the Vietnam War. The Obey tax would increase federal income tax by 1% on those making less than $150,000 and significantly more on those making over $150,000 a year.

This Thanksgiving, it is important to remember that 922 soldiers have died fighting in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom was the second name, after the President Bush's first choice, Operation Infinite Justice, sounded too much like a throw back to the crusades.

War Notes: November 25, 2009

President Obama will announce his latest greatest war plan at West Point on Tuesday night. The man who spoke of having the courage to tell auto makers to reform their ways in Detroit will make his troop escalation speech in front of a crowd professionally obligated to support the decision's of their Commander in Chief. Obama assured the press, "I feel very confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive."
I wholeheartedly agree- if Obama can somehow explain these basic premises for the first time, I'll be sold too.

British PM Gordon Brown has promised that Obama will not being going it alone- pledging that NATO allies will add 5,000 troops, in addition to the 500 new British soldiers. Of course, Brown isn't sure where these troops will be coming from, though he posits there may be some troops from Slovakia, Georgia and maybe South Korea. Either way, NATO spokesman James Appathurai cautioned, "Nobody should expect that the day after President Obama makes his announcement that there will be a total troop figure added up ... by the other allies." Appathurai said a more realistic appraisal would be forthcoming after a January conference of NATO allies.

The Associated Press's Kathy Gannon paints a bleak picture of life and death in Kandahar. At 800,000 residents, it is Afghanistan's second largest city, and fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban for the city is fierce, with the local population often caught in the cross fire. There is an expectation that some of Obama's new troops will be sent there.

Unlikely War Tax Attracting Attention

The media has surprisingly picked up on calls from Congressman David Obey (D-Wisconsin) to institute a "war surtax", particularly targeting the wealthy, in order to pay for the increased costs of the war in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is because as Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Obey has a chance of putting a real bill out there.

Similar sentiments have been echoed from other prominent House Democrats like Barney Frank, John Murtha and Charlie Rangel. Murtha, Rangel and Cong. John Larson have proposed the "Share the Sacrifice Act", which would levy 1% income tax inceases on the middle class and higher tax increases on the wealthy. That would be a non-starter for President Obama and Senator Reid.
Some may recall Congressman Rangel's proposal to reinstate the draft during the early years of the war in Iraq, which was voted down something like 430-5.

Politicians in this country don't really believe in shared sacrifice, they believe in kicking the can down the road and burdening the middle class with subtlety and misdirection. At lease you can't doubt Obey's sincerity:
I went through the Vietnam years when the cost of that damn war drained away the ability to do anything else. I chair the committee that has to say no to effort after effort to rebuild economy.

Unlike Rangel, who is more a showhorse on an issue like this, Obey may actually pursue a war tax. It'll be an interesting story to pursue, because if he can actually get it to a hard vote, then he will put Republican hypocrisy formally on the line. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats cannot claim to stand for low taxes, an expensive war, and a balanced budget, and hopefully, Obey will make them choose, ending their intellectual dishonesty.