When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.Gee, I sure hope not, given that Former President Numbskull encountered protests when he visited the Philippines in 2003 (here), protests when he visited Santiago, Chile in 2004 (here), New Delhi in 2006 (here), and Edmonton, Alberta (Canada, for the geographically impaired) last month (here).
Would it have been better for Obama to come back with some kind of agreement, understanding on an initiative, mutual declaration or understanding or whatever? Yes. But it’s not as if the guy has been exactly “sitting on his hands” all this time either (here).
I for one am very grateful that we have an intelligent adult as our head of state once more. Even when I disagree with him, I at least believe that he will give me the consideration and basic respect of acknowledging my point of view.
And I’m glad that, while our leader has not achieved the plaudits of a long-term president (Obama has still served less than a year after all), at least the man isn’t almost universally despised.
However, Klein also told us this, one of the snottiest pundit remarks I've heard in awhile (and that's saying something, people)…
“If the public honestly wants the Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan and increase the risk of an Islamist military coup in Pakistan, then its views should be honored.”And now, from the reality point of view, I give you the following (here)…
It seems that one way or the other, and at some time or the other, the Taliban will form part of the governing structures in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai has been talking about this for a long time. The British have been advocating it and now the Americans too are quite willing, and perhaps anxious, to open a dialogue with the Taliban; in fact, it would be safe to assume that they might be already talking to it directly or indirectly. Underlying this willingness to deal with the Taliban is an implicit acceptance of the fact that it cannot be defeated. Indeed, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has acknowledged that the insurgents are getting more sophisticated, that there is at least a loose coordination among the different groups of insurgents and that time is not necessarily on the side of the coalition forces.The Taliban isn’t going anywhere, people. And as much as we don’t like their presence, it’s about time we all started acting like adults and realized that we don’t have the resources to defeat them (I got into this earlier here), at least not without thoroughly bankrupting this country and, more importantly, wasting the lives of many more thousands of our fine men and women in the military.
The Taliban, for its part, knows that it can win by not losing and the coalition loses by not winning. Now, the Taliban has added a new weapon to its arsenal, diplomacy. In a statement on October 8, to coincide with the eighth anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban has declared that it has had no intention of attacking any western country. “We had and have no plan of harming countries of the world, including those in Europe ... Our goal is the independence of the country and the building of an Islamic state. Still, if you [the U.S and NATO troops] want to colonise the country of proud and pious Afghans under the pretext of a war on terror, then you should know that our patience will only increase and that we are ready for a long war.”
In a situation like this, intelligent adults do their best to reach an accommodation with them. After all, this is about al Qaeda, of which there are only about 100 in the country to begin with.
And as far as Pakistan is concerned, it’s quite possible that the “Islamist coup” that Klein fears is already underway, as Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker (here)…
The rise in militancy is a sensitive subject, and many inside Pakistan insist that American fears, and the implied threat to the nuclear arsenal, are overwrought. Amélie Blom, a political sociologist at Lahore University of Management Sciences, noted that the Army continues to support an unpopular President. “The survival of the coalition government shows that the present Army leadership has an interest in making it work,” she said in an e-mail.Lovely; by the way, what comes through loud and clear when you read Hersh’s piece is, basically, that Pakistan really can’t be trusted (though we are by no means innocent ourselves either, of course). There is a pathological mistrust of our country’s relationship with India, with the rampant belief that, were Pakistan to communicate even the minutest details of their nuclear program to us, that information would be communicated to New Delhi in no time.
Others are less sure. “Nuclear weapons are only as safe as the people who handle them,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, an eminent nuclear physicist in Pakistan, said in a talk last summer at a Nation and Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy forum in New York. For more than two decades, Hoodbhoy said, “the Pakistan Army has been recruiting on the basis of faithfulness to Islam. As a consequence, there is now a different character present among Army officers and ordinary soldiers. There are half a dozen scenarios that one can imagine.” There was no proof either that the most dire scenarios would be realized or that the arsenal was safe, he said.
The current offensive in South Waziristan marked a significant success for the Obama Administration, which had urged Zardari to take greater control of the tribal areas. There was a risk, too—that the fighting would further radicalize Pakistan. Last week, another Pakistan Army general was the victim of a drive-by assassination attempt, as he was leaving his home in Islamabad. Since the Waziristan operation was announced, more than three hundred people have been killed in a dozen terrorist attacks. “If we push too hard there, we could trigger a social revolution,” the Special Forces adviser said. “We are playing into Al Qaeda’s deep game here. If we blow it, Al Qaeda could come in and scoop up a nuke or two.” He added, “The Pakistani military knows that if there’s any kind of instability there will be a traffic jam to seize their nukes.” More escalation in Pakistan, he said, “will take us to the brink.”
During my stay in Pakistan—my first in five years—there were undeniable signs that militancy and the influence of fundamentalist Islam had grown. In the past, military officers, politicians, and journalists routinely served Johnnie Walker Black during our talks, and drank it themselves. This time, even the most senior retired Army generals offered only juice or tea, even in their own homes. Officials and journalists said that soldiers and middle-level officers were increasingly attracted to the preaching of Zaid Hamid, who joined the mujahideen and fought for nine years in Afghanistan. On CDs and on television, Hamid exhorts soldiers to think of themselves as Muslims first and Pakistanis second. He claims that terrorist attacks in Mumbai last year were staged by India and Western Zionists, aided by the Mossad. Another proselytizer, Dr. Israr Ahmed, writes a column in the Urdu press in which he depicts the Holocaust as “divine punishment,” and advocates the extermination of the Jews. He, too, is said to be popular with the officer corps.
A senior Obama Administration official brought up Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Sunni organization whose goal is to establish the Caliphate. “They’ve penetrated the Pakistani military and now have cells in the Army,” he said. (The Pakistan Army denies this.) In one case, according to the official, Hizb ut-Tahrir had recruited members of a junior officer group, from the most élite Pakistani military academy, who had been sent to England for additional training.
“Where do these guys get socialized and exposed to Islamic evangelism and the fundamentalism narrative?” the Obama Administration official asked. “In services every Friday for Army officers, and at corps and unit meetings where they are addressed by senior commanders and clerics.”
Our presence in the region only destabilizes it, just as our presence has done to Iraq.
To imply that I, for one, wants to destabilize the region because I want our people to come home is insulting (tell me again how this doesn’t parallel Vietnam in that regard, Joe).
I guess Klein is lamenting the fact that he misses the whole “shoot first and never ask questions, because questions are for wimps” approach of Obama’s predecessor on display here (with Joe appropriately fawning over the horrendous “Mission Accomplished” moment).
Given this, do you think it would be too much trouble for a U.S. film distributor to support this movie?
Envy is a form of flattery, but don’t tell MSNBC “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann.First of all, the clinics were sponsored by the National Association of Free Clinics, not Keith Olbermann. Second, he helped to raise $1.2 million for the clinics, and as nearly as I can determine, all the funds came from viewers of “Countdown” (so much for the “Astroturf-ish” lie – both are noted here).
Olbermann, on his Nov. 23 broadcast, didn’t stray from his usual shtick of character assaults and name-calling for his “Worst Person in the World” segment. But he did hint his feelings were hurt after he named Fox News host Glenn Beck the third place recipient in this “Worst Person” contest.
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Olbermann noted the amount of media coverage Beck’s announced intentions got, and it’s hard to miss considering Beck draws huge numbers. But the problem – they didn’t cover Olbermann’s Astroturf-ish free health care clinics that occurred in Little Rock, Ark. over the weekend. Though even former Democratic President Bill Clinton turned his nose up at for being overly politicized (which Olbermann himself had admitted had a purpose to sway the vote of certain U.S. senators, including Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark, pictured.)
Third, if President Clinton chose to avoid the clinics because he thought they were “politicized,” that’s his business. But as far as “swaying” the vote of Blanche Lincoln, among other Dems sitting on the proverbial fence here, all I know is that Lincoln eventually voted to begin debate on the bill.
If that qualifies as “politicizing” a vote, then let’s see more of that instead of less.
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