Surprise!

Well, here's some interesting news. It seems that Afghanistan has some natural resources that the US has just discovered.

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

Of course, the Russians knew about the reserves back when they were mired in Afghanistan. The US knew about the reserves since at least 2007, although a dollar figure wasn't assigned until just recently. That said, it's still difficult for me to believe that the US was totally in the dark about the extensive mineral wealth that war-torn nation is sitting on until just recently. Certain decisions, among them the ramping up of US forces in Afghanistan, could clearly be explained by the knowledge of the rainbow future of that small nation.

Of course, the good news for Afghanistan is that its economy can move from dependence on poppies and international handouts to mining and manufacturing. The bad news for Afghanistan is that its economy will be moving from dependence on agriculture to international mining interests blowing its mountain tops off and polluting its water. And the US is already assisting the Afghans in making that transition.

Watching how this plays out is going to be interesting, but one thing is clear: our troops won't be coming home from Afghanistan any time soon.

War Is No Tea Party

If the Tea Partiers are really so concerned about taxes this April 15th, they might want to consider supporting those of us who want to reduce the Pentagon's budget and who want to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're spending billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives in our war making, and there isn't any end in sight. Somehow I don't expect to see any rhetoric along those lines coming from those rallies this tax day, which is certainly a shame.

And the cost of those two wars is only going to get higher, according to the Los Angeles Times:

The Pentagon has increased its use of the military's most elite special operations teams in Afghanistan, more than doubling the number of the highly trained teams assigned to hunt down Taliban leaders, according to senior officials.

The secretive buildup reflects the view of the Obama administration and senior military leaders that the U.S. has only a limited amount of time to degrade the capabilities of the Taliban. U.S. forces are in the midst of an overall increase that will add 30,000 troops this year and plan to begin reducing the force in mid-2011. [Emphasis added]

That certainly is an interesting timeline, one that coincides with the kickoff of the 2012 presidential campaign season. It's also just about the time the American public will finally notice the real cost of war as more and more American soldiers are shipped home dead or maimed after fighting what President Obama told us was the "Good War" when he was running for office.

And to accomplish this political callousness, the Pentagon has called in more Special Ops units, those ever-efficient men with their own special language for what it is they do:

With such an abbreviated timeline, the elite manhunt teams are the most effective weapon for disrupting the insurgent leadership, senior officials said. The officials contend that stepped-up operations by teams inserted in recent months already have eroded the Taliban leadership. Defense officials specifically single out the work of special operations forces in eliminating mid-level Taliban leaders before the February offensive in the Helmand province town of Marja. They say the forces have begun similar operations in nearby Kandahar province.

"You can't kill your way out of these things, but you can remove a lot of the negative influences," said a senior Defense official. "A significant portion of the leadership has fled over the border, been captured or removed from the equation." [Emphasis added]


Now that's euphemistic acrobatics at its finest. It kind of takes the sting out of the word killing, and wallpapers over the increasing civilian deaths which will also occur, if the past year or so is any indication.

What a waste of money and of lives.

An Overlooked Anniversary

I found it quite odd that the American media let pass the anniversary of the commencement of the misbegotten and illegal war in Iraq this past week. We're now in the eighth year of the mess, American troops are still there, Americans and Iraqis are still dying, and yet almost nothing to note the anniversary came across my admittedly aging radar screen.

During my weekly visit to Watching America I noticed that most of the rest of the world had ignored the ignominious date as well, most, but not all. Egypt's Addostour was a provided a very interesting and quite honest (perhaps dangerously so) analysis.

And so, the alleged “democratic example” of Iraq is brought about on the skulls of more than one million Iraqis, the total victims over the invasion’s seven years according to statistics.

Strangely enough, the elections of Sunday, March 7th, 2010 are deemed as a real victory for the American scheme in Iraq and an example to be followed by countries of the region. Yet, we need to know which victory is meant here and what this democratic project can be, considering most U.S. regional allies have military inclinations. Why does the U.S. not exert any type of pressure on her allies, even on a formal basis, to force them to adopt democracy? Can democracy be falsely built on the corpses, wounds, culture, security, integrity, and oppression of Iraqi people as well as on the usurpation of their country’s wealth, history and civilization, present and future? I do not know how minds and consciences can be convinced with these lies to the extent of propagating them!

...Accordingly, the American plan goes as follows: the U.S. is to paint her Iraqi example as “legitimate” because Iraqis allegedly took part in making it. Then, “dissident allies” will be told that they shall be replaced by this example, already regarded as legitimate by American people, since the dissidents are illegitimate rulers who faked their victory and assumed power via the military coup d’états America backed or overlooked. In other words, the American rule will be “either to do what you are told or we will repeat the Iraqi example whenever and wherever we like!”

...If the U.S. wants to have democratic regimes in the region, all it has to do is to ask her allies of “timeworn” Arab tyrant rulers to let their people live freely and choose their regimes. Thus, these people should understand that their freedom cannot be secured by America or anyone else. They exclusively have the ability and will to restore their freedom; otherwise, they will eternally live under the illusions of American democracy. [Emphasis added]

That certainly does sound like the America that has evolved over the past century, doesn't it? It also sounds like the American "allies" in that area of the world: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and, yes, Egypt. Brave man, that op-ed writer.

I am still concerned that the Iraq War has fallen into the rabbit hole, however. We hear plenty about the War in Afghanistan (President Obama's "Good War", as if there were such a thing), but very, very little about Iraq. Like the period after the invasion of Iraq when the war in Afghanistan became invisible, nobody much cares about Iraq, nobody but the families of American soldiers stuck there or the Iraqis providing various degrees of hospitality seem to be interested. It's as if the American media and the American public can only concentrate on one war at a time, and then only for brief periods of time until the next shiny key is dangled before them. Right now the key is health care reform. How ironic.

In a comment at Eschaton this morning, the Kenosha Kid provided yet another reason why the press has gone silent on Iraq. He linked to a very intelligent article in the Nation written by Matthew Duss on the Cheney family's open historical revisionism being supported by the media. I haven't checked out the list of guests for tomorrow's bobbleheads, but if neither Liz nor Dick Cheney is listed, I will be surprised.

Here's just a snippet of that article (which you should read, seriously):

It turns out, however, that being disastrously wrong on the most significant foreign policy questions of the era is no barrier to continued influence in American politics. Even though their bong-hit theories about transforming the Middle East at the point of an American gun retain about as much popular appeal as E. coli, the neocons continue to impact US foreign policy debates through an entrenched network of think tanks (the American Enterprise Institute, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the Hudson Institute), publications (The Weekly Standard, Commentary, National Review), supportive editorial boards (the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal) and, of course, Fox News.

But, of course, we are too dumb, or too busy trying to put food on the table and providing a roof over our heads for that table to appreciate just what's going on.

Aren't we?

Locking The Barn Door, Belatedly

We've been at war in Afghanistan for over eight years, and we are no closer to "winning" that war than we were a year ago when President Obama took office and declared that this war was the good one and he intended to prosecute it vigorously. Gen. McChrystal, the man in charge in Afghanistan, has found his job more difficult, primarily because he isn't exactly "in charge" of all the forces.

From the NY Times:

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field. ...

Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules.

Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the chief spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said that General McChrystal had told Afghan officials he was taking the action because of concern that some American units were not following his orders to make limiting civilian casualties a paramount objective. ...

General McChrystal has made reducing civilian casualties a cornerstone of his new counterinsurgency strategy, and his campaign has had some success: last year, civilian deaths attributed to the United States military were cut by 28 percent, although there were 596 civilian deaths attributed to coalition forces, according to United Nations figures. Afghan and United Nations officials blame Special Operations troops for most of those deaths. [Emphasis added]

The article described three horrific operations which, because of the outrage among the Afghans, prompted Gen. McChrystal's decision. Still, it's not like the general wasn't aware of the fact that the Special Operations troops have been running amok. His last job was commanding those forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had to have known the way they operate.

Will forcing those troops to report directly to him change things? Will this bring the notion of accountability to them? Probably not.

And this is the "Good War."

A Bit Of A Surprise

I rarely am shocked by the stuff I find at Watching America, but I must admit I blinked a couple of times yesterday. I just didn't expect to find an opinion piece in the English-language version of Al Jazeera co-authored by a US Congressman. The piece, a well-written essay on what the US really needs to do in Afghanistan, was written by Hekmat Karzai (the director of the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies based in Kabul, Afghanistan) and US Congressman Michael Honda (D-CA) (Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus's Afghanistan Taskforce). Their advice is right on the money, in my opinion.

Here are a couple of their points:

The precedent of pursuing solely military solutions in a country where insecurity runs rampant across political, economic and social spectrums is being rethought and revamped. This is a good thing.

What must also remain front and centre in all decision-making, however, is the constant query for what Afghans want and how to move operations quickly towards Afghan ownership. Most policies fall far short of these two goals.

A failure to win the hearts and minds of Afghans is a failure to win the security the US is seeking at home and abroad. On three critical fronts - security, governance and development - these shortcomings are evident.

Security, arguably the Afghan and foreign governments' primary objective, is seriously struggling, but not for the reasons that one is led to believe. ...

A primary reason why the security sector is struggling is because the attrition rate is dangerously high due to poor wages, soaring casualty rates, insufficient training, and the fact that the soldiers and police are deployed away from their homes to other provinces where they are viewed as outsiders.

The low recruitment rates for Pashtuns in the south and southeast hardly helps either.

Additionally, some 2,000 US trainer positions for the Afghan army and police have remained unfilled for the second year running. ...

Lastly, the development agenda needs rethinking as Afghans see a foreign disinterest in the building of their country's capacity. ...

Afghan alternatives - like the government’s Community Development Councils, which fund locally elected councils to design and manage their own projects - should be the focus instead.

In order to build Afghan ownership and capacity, contractors may need to forego the actual building and instead redistribute the funds into Afghan institutions and initiatives like the CDCs as foreign affiliation with the CDCs will put council members at immediate risk. [Emphasis added]

What Mr. Karzai and Congressman Honda are urging is that the US actually listen to the people of Afghanistan and tailor our plans accordingly. This war cannot be won militarily: the Soviets learned this the hard way, as did the British before them. The most we can hope for is the rebuilding of the country in ways that are acceptable and even desired by the people of that country. And then we should go home.

I am both pleased with and proud that Congressman Honda has shown the courage to provide this essay to Al Jazeera. He will clearly be a target by every conservative on both sides of the aisle for his efforts. He did the right thing, however. His advice is not radical, it is commonsensical.

From your lips, Mr. Honda, to the president's ear.

Suffer, Little Children

It's hard to start the day after reading an article such as this one from the Washington Post. It concerns the treatment of two young men (children, really, at age 17 and 16) by Americans at the Bagram prison.

The two teenagers -- Issa Mohammad, 17, and Abdul Rashid, who said he is younger than 16 -- said in interviews this week that they were punched and slapped in the face by their captors during their time at Bagram air base, where they were held in individual cells. Rashid said his interrogator forced him to look at pornography alongside a photograph of his mother.

The holding center described by the teenagers appeared to have been a facility run by U.S. Special Operations forces that is separate from the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, the main American-run prison, which holds about 700 detainees. The teenagers' descriptions of a holding area on a different part of the Bagram base are consistent with the accounts of two other former detainees, who say they endured similar mistreatment, but not beatings, while being held last year at what Afghans call Bagram's "black" prison.

The boys, in addition to being punched by their captors, were also given a healthy dose of sleep deprivation along with some psycho-sexual humiliation when they were forced to strip naked for a "medical exam" performed in front of a dozen or so American soldiers who mocked and laughed at them. Any teenage boy would be scarred by such treatment, but in a culture which holds nakedness in front of others as deeply shameful, the actions of their captors must have been devastating.

Defense officials' only response was that there is no inhumane treatment going on at Bagram. At this point in history, I am inclined to call bullshit on any such assertion. Too much has happened the last nine years.

Here's the disturbing part, however. Because the "black" prison is not run by the US Army, but rather by the "U.S. Special Operations forces," that activity can and probably does continue.

There have been reports about the existence of an interrogation facility at Bagram that is run by Special Operations forces, but little has been disclosed about living conditions or interrogation methods there. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross have not been permitted access to the detainees at this facility. The site has continued to operate under the terms of an executive order that Obama signed soon after taking office, which forced the closure of secret prisons run by the CIA but not those run by Special Operations forces. [Emphasis added]

And so teenagers and tribal elders in Afghanistan, perhaps even women (Aafia Siddiqui, for example), are still at risk of inhumane treatment which is forbidden by international law.

Not much change there, eh?

Monsters.

For What Purpose?

I made my weekly foray to Watching America and was absolutely astounded and delighted to find one of the most cogent summaries of the dilemma President Obama faces with respect to the war in Afghanistan I have seen yet.

The article is from Pakistan's Dawn and is written by Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research & Training in Peshawar. Mr. Aziz was more concerned with Pakistan's role in the conflict, and understandably so, but he did point out some of the reasons why President Obama's decision is going to be so difficult.

The first reason Mr. Aziz offered is that the president is being offered widely divergent opinions that cannot be easily reconciled:

When President Barack Obama took office he commissioned an inter-agency review of US policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. The recommendations emerging from this review were issued in a white paper.

The paper reflected opinions held by disparate groups in the highly saturated think-tank world of Washington, yet it lacked consistency and proposed contradictory policies, thus leading to more confusion rather than bringing clarity to the policy debate. After the publication of the white paper, US policy in the region is in disarray.

In other words, depending on political ideology and the closeness of the next election, your mileage may vary. Adding to the problem is that President Obama made it clear during his election campaign that he supported the war in Afghanistan because it was the good war, one that we were entitled to wage because that nation harbored the villain of 9/11. However, in the eight years that followed 9/11, the Bush administration decided to leverage the attack from Afghanistan to one on Iraq, and it thereafter ignored Afghanistan, prolonging what I believe to have been a stupid move to begin with. That means we have lost ground, disastrously so.

But back to the disarray Mr. Aziz has found. His position is that until the Obama White House finally decides just what the goal is for this war, the US will be bogged down and thousands of people will die needlessly:

The issue of Afghanistan has been confounded due to the existence of contradictory policy prescriptions. Thus to clear the mess the first step that President Obama must take is to simplify the argument and ask himself what the core goal of the US is in Afghanistan. Is it nation-building or is it to win the war against Al Qaeda to prevent a threat to the US mainland?

Both options call for a different approach and their mixing in the short term adds to the confusion and makes building a successful strategy impossible. Thus President Obama must find answers to some basic questions before a clear path can emerge in the policy quagmire of Afghanistan.

Mr Obama’s problems began with the publication of the white paper because it advocated contradictory prescriptions as objectives. For instance, its first recommendation was to disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This meant undertaking counter-terrorism operations against the Taliban. However in the context of Afghanistan, where the state and the army are weak, the US has so far relied on indigenous strongmen or warlords. ...

Yet one of the core requirements of a successful counter-insurgency strategy calls for establishing the credibility and legitimacy of government operations. If the government’s security forces are the vassals of drug barons how can they compete successfully against the Taliban, who base their appeal on the rectitude of their leaders?

It appears that winning the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan is out of the question. If nation-building in Afghanistan is not possible then the only option left for the US would be to undertake a counter-terrorism strategy till other options become available. Such a decision will entail the deployment of US forces at strategic points like Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west, Kunduz in the north and Jalalabad and Kunar in the east.

To be fair, President Obama inherited not only the war but also the proponents and prosecutors of that war, including General McChrystal. The cry from that side is that more troops will turn the tide, just as it did in Iraq with "The Surge" (yeah, right...). As the number of US casualties climb, as they have and surely will continue to do so, he will not have the luxury of pointing back to his predecessors.

At this point, according to Mr. Aziz, the best the president can hope for is Pakistani assistance, but only if the US goes back to the original causus belli for the war: the elimination of Al Qaeda from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. For him to do so, however, will require that the US admit that it cannot rebuild Afghanistan as a Western style democracy as long as it supports the war/drug lords. And that means he will have to repudiate the strategy and tactics of not only the military, but also the CIA.

Whether President Obama has the courage to make that the central basis of his decision is open for question, and, frankly, at this point, I am not optimistic.

Left Hand, Meet Right Hand

A couple of days ago, the NY Times published an article that caused all sorts of raised heart rates and blood pressures among the younger members of the lefty cause.

ZOMG! The CIA is paying a drug dealer in Afghanistan for help and he just happens to be the brother of the current Afghan President!

Here's the lede from the article:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

Oh, please.

This has been going on for at least the five decades I've been following the news. And it's not just the CIA protecting and serving American interests. If past history (especially in Latin America) is any measure, members of the CIA have made a tidy profit from the drug trade, and don't think the rest of the world hasn't noticed. A brief trip to Watching America made that clear. This article showed just how pervasive the CIA is with respect to drug distribution. It's from Germany's Junge Welt.

Here's what that article had to say:

“There’s no significant drug trafficking anywhere in the world in which the CIA isn’t involved.” This truism has again been confirmed by a report in the New York Times. While in the past it was limited to hanky-panky with drug lords in Latin America or Southeast Asia, this time the agency, according to the New York Times article, is actually part of an organized crime operation in the Hindu Kush war zone. Active and former U.S. intelligence personnel claim that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is a known key player in the Afghan drug world but has nonetheless been on the CIA payroll for the past eight years. It is therefore absurd that U.S. politicians and the American media are condemning President Karzai for not prosecuting his brother. ...

The CIA helped President Karzai’s brother by ridding him of two bothersome competitors: Matiullah Qati, Police Chief of Kandahar province, was “accidentally” shot to death by a CIA special operations unit, and Karzai also inherited drug baron Hajji Bashir Noorzai’s business after Noorzai, with Ahmed’s help, fell into an American trap, was arrested, later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The New York Times reached either the pinnacle of naïveté or was playing administration apologist by saying, “CIA practices in Afghanistan suggest that the United States isn’t doing everything in its power to eradicate the lucrative narcotics trade in Afghanistan.”

Of course the US isn't doing "everything in its power" to stop the illicit drug trade in Afghanistan. That would cut off some serious bucks to people that apparently even the Obama administration fears angering or there would have been some immediate action, something I haven't seen in this administration or any other administration in the past 30 years. What is especially noxious about this connection between the CIA and the drug trade is that it is going on while American and allied troops are fighting a war in the middle of it. I think an argument can be made that the CIA is making it harder for those US soldiers to do their jobs so they can come home.

President Obama is currently facing a decision on increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. He still labors under the delusion that this war, the "good one" can be won. If he really wants to win, then he ought to be considering a few options besides sending more soldiers into Afghanistan.

It's clear that the Taliban are using the opium trade to finance their war. Opium is not just the source for "illegal" drugs, it is also a source for a legitimate medical anodyne. We could invite the United Nations or some other respected international organization to step in and to negotiate with Afghan opium farmers for their crops for that drug. Giving the Taliban some competition for the crops would allow the Afghan farmers to continue growing what they seem bent on growing without worrying about recrimination which comes in the form of bombs from both sides of the war.

With a reasonable expectation of income, Afghan farmers and citizens might get the message that being conquered is not the intent of the rest of the world. I think that might make a difference.

That would cut out not only the Taliban, but also such "organizations" as the CIA from the loop, and that just might give the US a way to rein in an agency which has members who've turned rogue, and who've been allowed to do so under the cover of protecting America. Come on, folks, all those agents have done is protect their bank accounts and their power. They could care less about the nation or the world.

That suggests the second move President Obama could make, although perhaps not on Prime Time television. He could make it clear that the easy flow of money to the CIA and its operatives was over. A super investigator general would be appointed to oversee the CIA when it comes to these kinds of operations and expenditures and that investigator would be given prosecutorial powers. That might get a little attention.

All of which is to say that the US doesn't need to send more troops. It needs to send more intelligence, real intelligence, the kind that sees the whole picture, not just the cropped corner of the photograph that has dollar signs attached to it.

And the US needs to put the choke chain on such organizations as the CIA and yank it. Hard.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

As I expected, the most current articles posted at Watching America reflect the world's response to President Obama's selection as this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Most of those articles indicated the surprise I felt on reading the news of the award, and most suggested what I did yesterday: that the award seemed to express more of a hope than a reward. President Obama himself indicated that he believed the award was a "call to action" more than anything else.

Well, that call will soon be an insistent one, as this article from Germany's Financial Times-Deutschland makes clear. The opinion piece was published October 4, 2009, well before the Nobel Committee's announcement, and certainly showcases the dilemma President Obama faces with respect to the war in Afghanistan.

What happens next in Afghanistan is entirely dependent on Barack Obama’s decision, and he is considering the big picture. His military commanders on the ground are asking for more troops for a counter-insurgency strategy like the one successfully employed in Iraq: instead of hunkering down on large installations from which troops emerge to pursue the Taliban, smaller units are to live among the people in order to protect them. In this way, trust can be built among the population and regions made safer.

But the price for such a strategy is high: more troops who – at least in the beginning – will be exposed to far greater risk. ...

If, on the other hand, Obama decides to continue on with his ineffectual policy of muddling through, a course based solely on future withdrawal, then Germany needs to begin reducing its participation now. Nothing significant can be accomplished; there is no reason to commit the German army to fighting a protracted and bloody rear guard action.

Although the decision must be made by President Obama, that decision affects more than US troops and US foreign policy. Our NATO allies also have a stake in the "Good War," the war Mr. Obama stated was a noble one and one that should be won during his campaign. Now, even our closest allies have their doubts on the war, especially the way it has been fought the past eight years.

Consequently, after the Nobel award, President Obama finds himself between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully he recognizes that and, in concert with our allies, begins the difficult task of winding down the war in ways other than bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan back to the Middle Ages. If he truly believes that the Nobel Peace Prize was a call to action, he will find a way to end our disgraceful involvement and will negotiate a peace with the Taliban and every other element in Afghanistan under the aegis of the United Nations.

If, on the other hand, he gives into those in the military who want an increase in troops and an increase in violence, then he will have sullied that prestigious award and, given the American public's growing discontent with ongoing war status, diminished his chance for a second term.

It's a tough call, Mr. President, but you promised you could handle tough decisions. Get to it.

The Elephants In The Room

James Carroll's column in today's Boston Globe deftly points out a key reason why President Obama's plan for reforming health care is in such trouble. And that reason, rarely noted by any other voices in the media or in government, is one that this president shares with one of his predecessors.

...Indeed, today’s health care reform takes as its starting point LBJ’s success in establishing Medicare and Medicaid. Obama is often compared to John F. Kennedy, but Johnson may be the more apt analogy - if not yet because of shared legislative accomplishments (in winning appropriations for Head Start, Vista, Model Cities, and the Job Corps, Johnson erected actual pillars of the Great Society), then because Obama’s opportunity for historic social transformation is also about to be squandered by a misbegotten war.

Or rather, two wars. The elephants in the congressional chamber last week were not the scowling Republicans, but Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which was mentioned. In both places, American wars are quite clearly spinning toward catastrophe. ...

The scale of President Obama’s military mistake is becoming clear exactly as the moment of his greatest opportunity to improve American life has arrived. The tragedy, as with Lyndon Johnson, will be the destruction of his proposed social transformation by his simultaneous opting for war, as his core supporters among liberals and Democrats feel bound to oppose him. ... [Emphasis added]

Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have been complaining for months that such a dramatic overhaul of the nation's health care system is simply not feasible. We cannot afford it, not in these times with the economy still swirling around the commode and millions of Americans out of work. One of the reasons for our failed economy, never mentioned in the past eight years, is that the US has been pouring hundreds of billions of dollars, most of it off-budget, into the "misbegotten" wars George W. Bush so brazenly pushed us into. While Iraq is allegedly winding-down (American troops continue to die there, along with even more Iraqis), President Obama will soon be pushing for more troops in Afghanistan, a push that will be met with a stiff wall of resistance from even Democrats such as Carl Levin.

We can't afford a public option (much less the far saner single payer system), the argument goes, but one of the reasons we can't is that the current president will insist on billions of dollars more for what can only be seen now as "Obama's War." Trimming those expenditures and making them available for real reform in health care access would remove the main excuse being used by the GOP and the Blue Dogs (urged on by their health care corporation funders) to stop it.

It's not likely to happen, as I am sure Mr. Carroll knows, but at least one pundit has noticed the connection and pointed out the nakedness of the emperor.

The Audacity Of Imperialism

President Obama has worked hard the past eight months to reassure the rest of the world that his administration would return to traditional diplomacy as the cornerstone of US foreign policy, rather than relying solely on guns and bombs to get our way. He continues to search for ways to engage North Korea and Iran in talks on their respective nuclear weapon ambitions and he has worked with other nations to assist the US in getting these two countries to the table. His State Department, led by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has worked diligently to repair ties with Asia, Africa, and Latin America, ties frayed by disuse or abuse by the Bush administration.

As welcome and as laudable as all of these efforts are, however, they are being offset by the continuation of the sabre rattling which was the hallmark George W. Bush. The latest incident involves some threats by Admiral Mike Mullin, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, directed toward Pakistan. Needless to say, Admiral Mullin's comments were not well-received by Pakistan.

From an editorial in Pakistan's The Nation:

WHILE the warning by US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that the US would conduct unilateral strikes inside Pakistan to pursue those who had attacked US citizens is an attempt to mount pressure on Pakistan to expand its military operation from Malakand to Waziristan, it also shows erratic swings in the US policy towards Pakistan. What is more, he exuded confidence in saying that the Pakistan government had no objection to such strikes.

What he means is that the US in the event of some attack either on its citizens or homeland would be launching a ground attack on Pakistan's soil, a strategy that is based on US's perception of Pakistan as a militant safe haven. This, in addition to the predator strikes, makes for a deadly combination that will greatly destabilize the country. The last time the US launched a ground offensive against Pakistan was in 2008 in Angoor Ada, a village close to the Pak-Afghan international border that claimed a number of innocent lives. Admiral Mullen fails to notice a key point that adventurism of this sort constitutes a gross violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Repercussions of such a move at a time when a political government holds office would be grave. Keeping in view the ordinary Pakistanis who will hardly ever tolerate presence of US forces, the storm of popular protests and the chaos that would follow it would greatly undermine a nascent democracy and its attempts to take root. ... [Emphasis added]

Yes, Pakistan has a very leaky border with Afghanistan mostly because of the rugged geography of the area, and, yes, the Taliban have been using that porousness to great advantage. Still, even assuming the US has the right to continue the war in Afghanistan (and I clearly do not so assume), the US has no right to unilaterally invade Pakistan with drones, special operatives, or troops. Admiral Mullin claims that the US has the permission of Pakistan for such actions, but I don't think an after-the-fact "By the way, we hit one of your villages a few hours ago," qualifies as permission.

What is so maddening about this sabre rattling is that Pakistan has finally moved out from under the military rule of the past decades and have in place a civilian government which was duly elected. The Pakistani military still wields considerable power and the current government is weak by comparison, but destabilizing that civilian government by what the people of Pakistan see as further US imperialism does us no good whatsoever, and certainly doesn't help the people of Pakistan.

Continuing the Bush tradition in this area of the world also belies all of the other diplomatic efforts of the Obama White House. The war in Afghanistan is now Mr. Obama's war, and it appears to be as open-ended as Bush's war in Iraq. Both wars were ill-advised, both have no real reason to continue. Congress and the American people need to step in and to reign in the president on this madness.

All In, Indeed

A conservative with a sharp sense of satire and a consummate grasp of snark: who knew such a creature existed? I surely didn't, but this glaring hole in my education was rectified this morning after reading Professor Andrew J Bacevich's op-ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times. Professor Bacevich (Boston University) is a self-described "conservative Catholic", a graduate of West Point, and the author of several books and many opinion pieces. Make no mistake, the man is a conservative, but not the kind of conservative we are being treated to this summer. He opposed the war in Iraq even before the tragic death of his son there. He has made it clear that militarism is not ever an appropriate form of foreign policy. In this essay, he takes on President Obama's direction of the war in Afghanistan and what he must do.

The military, after hearing Candidate Obama promise to make Afghanistan a winnable war, have made Afghanistan a priority. President Obama is now receiving plenty of advice on what it would take to "win" without ever defining just what "victory" would consist of (sound familiar?). Military leaders want more boots on the ground, but, as far as I can tell, have not yet presented a viable strategy with an end point.

Meanwhile, members of Congress, including Democrats, are not so certain another prolonged war can be sustained. The American public has also made it clear that it is war-weary as well. So, what does President Obama have to do in light of his campaign rhetoric?

Professor Bacevich suggests two possibilities, and it is the first one that really knocked my socks off in its sheer brilliance:

So the president faces a real challenge if he intends to make the case for starting from scratch in Afghanistan. To persuade the American people to buy in, he will have to reassure them on five points:

* Afghanistan constitutes a vital national security interest -- victory in this primitive, impoverished, landlocked and distant country will contribute materially to driving a stake through the heart of violent jihadism.

* Armed nation-building -- securing the Afghan population, developing the economy, building legitimate institutions, eliminating corruption and drug trafficking -- provides the most realistic and effective way to satisfy those interests.

* The failure of past efforts by other great powers to impose their will on Afghanistan is beside the point -- history has no relevant lessons to teach.

* The United States possesses the money, troops, expertise and will to get the job done -- notwithstanding the recession, the mushrooming deficit, the diminishing enthusiasm of our allies, the stress and strain already endured by U.S. forces and the uneven performance of government agencies in the analogous U.S. effort to "fix" Iraq.

* No other priorities, foreign or domestic, exist that outrank Afghanistan and should have first call on the resources that years of additional war will consume -- several hundred billion dollars and several hundred additional American lives by a conservative estimate.

Or...he can behave as a leader should: recast the terms of the debate and demand reasonable alternatives from his advisers, military and civilian:

As difficult as it is to do so at a time when war has become a seemingly perpetual condition, when it comes to Afghanistan, the really urgent need is to recast the debate. Official Washington obsesses over the question: How do we win? Yet perhaps a different question merits presidential consideration: What alternatives other than open-ended war might enable the United States to achieve its limited interests in Afghanistan?

At this pivotal moment in his presidency, if Obama is going to demonstrate his ability to lead, he will direct his subordinates to identify those alternatives.


Exactly so. Mr. Bacevich, you and I may disagree on any number of issues, but on this one we agree. Nicely done. And thank you.

Worst Case Scenario: We Haz It

There's an absolutely stunning, even though predictable, article in the NY Times. It describes a study just released which deals with the mental health care problems our current war veterans are walking around with.

A new study has found that more than one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who enrolled in the veterans health system after 2001 received a diagnosis of a mental health problem, most often post-traumatic stress syndrome or depression.

The numbers are staggering.

The study, released Thursday, was based on the department health records of 289,328 veterans involved in the two wars who used the veterans health system for the first time from April 1, 2002, to April 1, 2008.

The researchers found that 37 percent of those people received mental health diagnoses. Of those, the diagnosis for 22 percent was post-traumatic stress syndrome, or PTSD, for 17 percent it was depression and for 7 percent it was alcohol abuse. One-third of the people with mental health diagnoses had three or more problems, the study found.

The increase in diagnoses accelerated after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the researchers found. Among the group of veterans who enrolled in veterans health services during the first three months of 2004, 14.6 percent received mental health diagnoses after one year. But after four years, the number had nearly doubled, to 27.5 percent.

Keep in mind that these numbers are somewhat limited insofar as they deal only with veterans who use the VA system. It does not take into account those who have access to and have used private health insurance programs, so the authors of the study themselves have acknowledged that extrapolation to the entire body of returning veterans cannot scientifically be made at this time. While I respect the cautious professionalism of the scientific inquirers, I have a lay person's gut feeling that those numbers will pretty closely hold true for all veterans since the beginning of the two wars. I also believe that as more returning vets find themselves laid off and cut off from affordable health insurance, many will turn to the Veterans Administration for care, so that the numbers will be more in tune with the actualities in fairly short order.

What is just as significant as the numbers, however, are the conclusions drawn by the researchers:

The study’s principal author, Dr. Karen H. Seal, attributed the rising number of diagnoses to several factors: repeat deployments; the perilous and confusing nature of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, where there are no defined front lines; growing public awareness of PTSD; unsteady public support for the wars; and reduced troop morale. ...

The new report joins a growing body of research showing that the prolonged conflicts, where many troops experience long and repeat deployments, are taking an accumulating psychological toll. ...

“The study provides more insight as to just how stressed our force and families are after years of war and multiple deployments,” said René A. Campos, deputy director of government relations for the Military Officers Association of America. “Our troops and families need more time at home — more dwell time, fewer and less frequent deployments.” [Emphasis added]

To which I say (please forgive the DFH in me), "Well, DUH!"

War is always the last worst option in any situation, but these wars were instigated and run by the most venal and incompetent bunch of blind ideologues of modern history. If the advice given by experienced and thoughtful military leaders didn't match the fantasy based scenario envisioned by the Bush White House and its Neocon vanguard, the advice was ignored and the military leaders so marginalized that they were forced to retire. As a result, our military was broken, and, of course, our national defense weakened dramatically.

Here's the hard part now, however. While President Obama appears to be following through on his promise to reduce troop levels in Iraq, he has also carried through his promise to increase US troop levels in Afghanistan, the "good war" (as if there were such a thing). That means that the multiple deployments will continue, that the various branches of the military will continue to be stressed and stretched when it comes to recruitment and training, and our National Guard continuously called away from their homes and their states, even during times of local emergencies for which those men and women are uniquely qualified.

We will continue to have our already weakened economy driven by off-budget "emergency" appropriations to carry on these immoral wars, and the cost of treating and caring for the soldiers who are trying their best to serve will skyrocket.

This needs to stop. We need to have some real change.

Really.

[Note: For the abstract of the study published in the American Journal of Public Health, go here. You can find the link to the entire study in pdf on that page.]

They're Back ...

Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz have an excellent opinion piece in today's Los Angeles Times reminding us of the true cost of war, especially one that is fought "off-budget" as the war in Iraq has been and now the one in Afghanistan apparently will be if the $80 billion "emergency" supplemental appropriations measure recently rammed through Congress is any indication.

...the U.S. has barely begun to face the enormous financial bill for the war. By our accounting, the U.S. has already spent $1 trillion on operations and related defense spending, with more to come -- and it will cost perhaps $2 trillion more to repay the war debt, replenish military equipment and provide care and treatment for U.S. veterans back home. Many of the wounded will require indefinite care for brain and spinal injuries. Disability payments are ramping up and will grow higher for decades. The stress of extended, multiple tours to Iraq means that a whole generation of U.S. military men and women may now be suffering from long-term mental health issues. The suicide rate in the Army is at its highest level since record-keeping began.

This wartime spending has undoubtedly been a major contributor to our present economic collapse. The U.S. has waged an expensive war as if it required little or no economic sacrifice, funding the conflict by massive borrowing. As we've observed in the past, you can't spend $3 trillion on a reckless foreign war and not feel the pain at home. ...

Early this year, President Obama committed 20,000 troops to a "surge" in Afghanistan. That, combined with a large, ongoing presence in Iraq and continued reliance on private contractors for virtually every aspect of military support, remains a recipe for staggering out-of-control expenditures -- now and in the future. Surely we can draw some lessons from the Iraq debacle and set aside money to care for our veterans, crack down on fraud and profiteering, and account for the true costs of the war in the budget so the American taxpayer can see what we are paying for. [Emphasis added]

At a time when our congressional leaders keep telling us that we can't have true universal health care access because it would be too expensive (OMG! a trillion dollars!), the White House and Congress continue to shovel money in the direction of the war machine with no real oversight of how it is spent. Because these "emergency" supplemental appropriations don't go through the normal budgetary process which requires that the figures be carefully examined in relation to other necessary budgetary items, members of Congress (and their constituents) can't possibly know if the money requested is either reasonable or necessary. As a result, for example, private contractors gouging the Pentagon can safely continue to do so because the office that is supposed to keep track of their bills is woefully underfunded and understaffed. That office has its funds determined by the usual process.

There are all sorts of reasons that this process stinks, but right now the strongest odor comes from the fact that after eight years, it's considered "business as usual."

That's not the kind of change we were promised.

Sadly, Unsurprising: Update

Yesterday, I posted on the shootings at Camp Liberty in Iraq. The initial reports I saw did have one fact wrong: the soldier who was responsible for the killings did not turn the gun on himself. He shot five other US soldiers and wounded three. He is now in custody.

More details are now emerging. The shootings took place in a clinic for soldiers suffering from stress. The irony of that fact makes the episode even more shocking. According to the NY Times article, soldiers not in the field are required to remove the ammunition from the weapons. How the soldier in question managed to avoid that requirement is currently under investigation.

To the Army's credit, spokesmen are not whitewashing the incident and are openly acknowledging the impact of the stress soldiers are facing in Iraq because of multiple tours there without enough time between assignments:

At a Pentagon news conference on Monday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the shootings occurred “in a place where individuals were seeking help” for combat stress.

The violence, he said, was a tragic reminder of the need for greater “concern in terms of dealing with the stress” and also “speaks to the issue of multiple deployments” as well the need for finding ways of “increasing dwell time,” so that military personnel spend more months at home between deployments.

Two things occurred to me after reading Admiral Mullen's statement. The first is that while it is good the military now realizes the stress related illnesses are indeed battlefield injuries which must be treated, there is still within the military culture a sense that such psychological damage is unmanly and a sign of character weakness. Why else would the military deny the Purple Heart to those who suffer from that kind of injury?

The second goes to the issue of the multiple deployments and the lack of reasonable downtime between those deployments. Yes, due to the malfeasance of the last administration and the arrogance of the Pentagon, the US willingly took on two wars, both wrong from their inception in the minds of the neocons running the government, thereby stretching the military to its limits and beyond. This administration, however, seems to be determined to stay locked into the mindset of the last.

While President Obama will be withdrawing troops from Iraq under the time frame established with that country, he is going to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. Troops will simply be rotated from one war to the other. It's hard to imagine the Army being able to increase "dwell time" for those soldiers being rotated, much less provide adequate treatment for the combat stress many (if not most) of those soldiers are suffering.

The results, sadly, will no doubt mean that there will be more episodes such as the one that happened at Camp Liberty. It also means that many soldiers will remain untreated and will suffer long after they return home to their families.

That's what happens in wars. That it is happening in wars that should never have been initiated makes it all the more horrendous.

Obama's War(s)

I don't think it unfair to tag Afghanistan as Obama's War. He made it clear during the presidential campaign that this was the "good" war, the one that he would do everything possible to win in order to stamp out Al Qaeda, and, presumably, the Taliban. He hasn't changed his mind since being inaugurated and has concurred with the Pentagon leaders who think an Iraq-like surge will be needed.

I found several articles at Watching America which took a look at the Obama policies with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan. One, an op-ed piece in Germany's Die Zeit, suggests that Obama's plan is not really a plan at all, just a lot of hope backed up by military might.

While the recent joint visit of Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari made it clear that President Obama at least acknowledges the war actually involves two countries, not just one, the results of the meetings are murky at best. The rather vague press conference which followed the meetings led the author of the op-ed piece to come to some very understandable conclusions:

Basically, Washington doesn’t have a clue, despite its new plan. They don’t know whether they can depend on Karzai and Zardari, nor do they know whether Karzai and Zardari even trust each other. One could only shake one’s head at their statements; they live in the same region and share the same problems, but in the final analysis, they have little to do with one another, at least on the diplomatic level.

Clinton wants to change that as quickly as possible; she dreams of bilateral border control, of new trade routes and cooperative sharing of water resources. But she's at a loss to explain how and when that will take place in the middle of a war. “We need patience, a great deal of patience,” she says. But according to the latest surveys, Americans want to get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

That’s why Obama says the main objective is security and a victory over the terrorists. The Afghan and Pakistani leaders nodded obediently, but at the same time it was evident they had different definitions of what constituted terrorism. Everybody’s against al-Qaeda, but they part ways when it comes to the Taliban. Are the Taliban really bomb throwers and allies of al-Qaeda, or are they insurgents who want a role in making policy for their nation, a group that cannot be suppressed, but must somehow be included?

As Obama entered the White House reception room with his two guests and announced a breakthrough, one got the uncomfortable feeling that America could easily drift into a new war beyond Afghanistan’s borders

I think an argument can be made that the "new war beyond Afghanistan's borders" has already begun. US drones have been active in the Pakistani tribal areas that give shelter to the Taliban for months, a policy that President Obama continued after he took office. I think it reasonable to assume that US troops of various types have also made incursions across the border in quiet, unpublicized raids.

The danger is not just that we would be asking our military to fight a war on two fronts, the danger is also that such a war would have the effect of destabilizing two countries further, one of which has nuclear weapons. President Karzai, hand-picked by the Bush administration, is nothing more than the Mayor of Kabul. President Asif Ali Zardari has proved to be nearly as weak a leader with apparently not much control over his own military, which is quite used to running the nation.

We saw how effective occupying Iraq was. It will not be any more effective in Afghanistan, and would be impossible in Pakistan. Nothing we've seen so far has shown that the Obama administration has a clue when it comes to prosecuting this war successfully, even though history has shown that military might just doesn't work.

For a lengthy, complex, and very cogent exposition on just why the current policy for "AFPAK" won't work, go read Pepe Escobar's erudite essay in Hong Kong's Asia Times. What he has designated as "the Pentagon's Long War" makes it clear that the US still doesn't take into consideration the historical and cultural realities of the two nations. In that respect, the Obama administration is no different than the Bush administration.

And that is scary.

Meanwhile, We're Still At War

President Obama has had two very good trips abroad, successfully demonstrating that with the new administration comes a new foreign policy. While that may be true with respect to Latin America, it certainly is not all that true with respect to the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Obama is hedging on troop pullouts in the first country and is openly ratcheting up the troop count in the second. Two wars in the same region: not much change there.

Today's Los Angeles Times contains an important op-ed column on the issue. Written by Eugene McCarthy, former Democratic Senator from South Dakota and a candidate for President in 1972, the column makes it clear that Mr. McCarthy is as concerned about the administration's stance on Iraq and Afghanistan as a lot of us are.

He points to the fact that by 2006, a majority of the country wanted that madness to end, and to end quickly. That view was given tangible expression in the 2006 elections which gave the Democrats control of Congress. In 2008, not only did the Democrats increase their numbers in Congress, they won the White House. Yet here we are, still recording deaths in Iraq and building up for a surge in Afghanistan, guaranteeing more deaths there.

Mr. McGovern asks a series of important questions, questions that the White House should be forced to address.

Are we now going to ignore for another three years the public mandate of 2006 against this costly, preemptive war based on deceit? And how can we justify putting thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan? We have already exhausted our treasury. We are also close to exhausting our soldiers.

Can there be any doubt that the enormous war cost has contributed to the financial crisis here at home? The expense of waging two Middle East wars, plus the loss of revenue caused by the previous administration's tax cuts, have skyrocketed the national debt to a record high. Do we ever consider what the interest alone is on our $10-trillion national debt -- much of it paid to China? ...

Our policymakers in Washington contend that we must maintain U.S. troops in the Middle East to curb terrorism. I strongly believe that it is our military presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East that is driving terrorism against the United States. No country that longs for national sovereignty wants a foreign army in its midst. We taught that lesson to the British Empire in 1776 when George Washington and his ragtag guerrilla army drove the British military from our shores.

Those misbegotten wars and the current state of our economy are, as Sen. McCarthy has pointed out, inextricably linked. If President Obama is serious about restoring our economy and our standing in the world to where both should be, he needs to recognize that fact. He needs to listen to honorable men such as Sen. McCarthy and to the millions of Americans who agree with him on this issue.

We need some real change.

Out of the Harem

Yesterday there were meaningful protests, without props and artifice from wingnut radio hosts. Women in Afghanistan took heart and turned out to show that they are not willing to accept law embodying their status as property.

Afghanistan lawmakers have produced a law applied to Shiite Muslim women that declares that they are husbands' chattels and must get permission to work or attend courses, and every four days they have to give sex whether they want to or not. No corresponding law applies to husbands' earning the right to make demands or deny privileges.

The Taliban which promoted these laws is Sunni, so is embodying caste prejudice in law. Under U.S. invasion tactics, a weak government has used capitulation to Taliban demands to shore up its failing reign.

About 300 women protested Wednesday in Kabul against a new Afghan law that restricts their freedom, including the right to deny their husbands sex.

During a two-mile march to the parliament building, the demonstrators were heckled by an angry crowd of men, The New York Times reported. One group of women, encountering men yelling at them and calling them "whores," quickly climbed back on their bus.

Police kept the hecklers away from the marchers.

The law applies only to Shiite Muslims, a minority in Afghanistan. It was passed by parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai, effectively giving Shiite clerics legal authority to enforce religious beliefs.

The most controversial provisions are those that allow husbands sex on demand, that require women to get permission from their husbands to work or attend school and that turn women into lawbreakers if they do not dress attractively for their husbands.

"Whenever a man wants sex, we cannot refuse," Fatima Hussein, a 26-year-old protester, told the Times. "It means a woman is a kind of property, to be used by the man in any way that he wants."

While the Taliban enforced similar laws when it was in power, the group is Sunni and persecuted the Shiites.

If this country supports the Afghan government with our funds, it should refuse to condone these hateful laws. There are sanctions available to us, and our efforts to rebuild wartorn facilities should be directed toward those that are not party to the recidivism of groups acting to refuse women rights. Shoring up a failing government has only enabled the operative forces like Taliban to make insupportable laws against women part of its working agreement with Karzai.

The wingers like to insist that liberal thinking does not acknowledge gains made by women under western military dominance. This is another example that nothing of the sort has occurred. When we leave the societies of the middle east to develop without our invading forces, they will search out what works best for their societies.

If women's rights are ever to come out of this morass, it will not be achieved by force from the western world. For a functioning society, it is past time for us to end the negative effects of force, and let the best interests of their own people work toward equal status for all of its members.

The courage of Afghan women, who know they will suffer for insisting on their rights, reassures me that they are ready for that struggle - one we are still involved in here in the west.

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Horrible rape and murder tactics being used in Darfur by Sudan's government should be denied any rewards. Change.org is asking you to sign a petition to corporations doing business with Sudan to bring a pressure that even that barbaric government will have to acknowledge and make the concession of decency.

What Are They Thinking?

In a time when public outcry has pushed congressional representatives to stand up to financial community executives, it's beginning to come to public attention that we have a voice and can use it.

The recent publicity given to proposed Sharia law with respect to women in Afghanistan has met with as much public outcry as conduct of officials receiving monetary support from U.S. taxpayers. Seemingly, that outcry has also had an effect that we can be impressed with.

A controversial law condoning marital rape and reintroducing Taleban-era rules for Afghan women has been shelved after an outcry in the West.

The Afghan Foreign Ministry said that the law had not been enacted, while Justice Ministry officials said that its contents might be reconsidered. The legislation was put on hold pending a review.

“The Justice Ministry is reviewing the law to make sure it is in line with the Afghan Government’s commitment to human rights and women rights conventions,” Sultan Ahmad Baheen, a spokesman for the ministry in Kabul, said.

The British Government expressed alarm at the law, which applies to the 15 per cent of the Afghan population that is Shia Muslim. President Obama called the law “abhorrent” at the Nato summit in Strasbourg last week.

The Afghan Government is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines equality in dignity and rights regardless of religion or sex. Article 22 of the Afghan Constitution also explicitly reiterates the equality of men and women before the law.

Human rights activists cited a large number of provisions in the law that appeared to disregard those commitments in a draft leaked to The Times.

One of the most controversial articles stipulates that the wife “is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires”.

Later the law explicitly sanctions marital rape. “As long as the husband is not travelling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,” Article 132 says. “Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”

Article 133 reintroduces the Taleban restrictions on women’s movements outside their homes, stating: “A wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband” unless in a medical or other emergency.

Article 27 endorses child marriage with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate.

The law also withholds from the woman the right to inherit her husband’s wealth.
(snip)
Reaction to the law among Shia women was largely supportive, Ruqiya Nayel, a Shia woman MP from Ghor province, said.

“This law clearly violates our rights,” she told The Times. “Unfortunately most of the women I represent welcome this law because 98 per cent of women are uneducated and do not know their rights. A very few educated women are very sad about it.”

Well, halfway there anyway. While it's hard for me to comprehend supporting rights for men to rape their wives, I am at least pleased that they are now aware that the west thinks it's dreadful. Benighted we may be in some ways, but at least Western women are aware that we have the right to determine our own sexual behavior without force. For some ladies in the Middle East, hopefully this is at least an enlightenment.

While it's hard to understand, legislators in Afghanistan have had a bit of sensitizing on women's rights themselves. I do hope they didn't go home and beat their wives. And if any did, I hope the lady will consider letting his nibs know he isn't going to do that, or she's getting out of there.

Getting Afghanistan Right

Today another blog where I post is presenting a collection of commentary about Afghanistan. I recommend a visit there, but for those of you who don't know The Seminal, here is an excerpt from one of the posts, by Alex Thurston.

Presidents can’t just snap their fingers and make policy - they maneuver within constraints. So even though I was disappointed by the strategy review on Afghanistan, I don’t blame Barack Obama.

I blame the “experts” - some of them from our side - who not only give the President bad advice, but also reduce the space he has to make tough choices about a conflict with no military solution.

We need to break the silence on Afghanistan - and that includes shining a spotlight on some of the players in the current “debate.”

On the right, we see some familiar characters. John McCain and Joe Lieberman recently called Afghanistan “our must-win war” and urged an open-ended counterinsurgency campaign there. With McCain as their ringleader, neocons at AEI, the brand new Foreign Policy Initiative (better known as PNAC 2.0), and Max Boot also urge escalation.

I’m sure all those right-wingers have President Obama’s - and America’s - best interests at heart.

The post goes on with stands taken by left leaning bloggers, and gives a good rundown of many approaches to solving our problem of getting Afghanistan righted. Of course, Alex gives cites there that you might find it useful to follow for background.