Obama's Nobel speech

From Obama's Nobel acceptance speech in Norway this week:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/80410.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121304855

First of all, it's probably a really bad sign when Sarah Palin praises your speech on war, peace, and realism vs. idealism.
http://www.twincities.com/politics/ci_13970425?source=rss

Commentary from Newsweek's chief political correspondent, Howard Fineman:

Well, I said in many ways that's true. Yes, the tone [of Obama's speech] was humble. Yes, it was philosophical. Yes, it was complex. He talked about negotiations and banning torture and so forth, the importance of diplomacy. But I was struck, as somebody who covered the Bush administration, by how fundamentally he accepted some of the premises of George W. Bush's view of the world - the existence of evil. The president used the word terrorism several times. That's a word he's avoided in some recent speeches. He said no jihad could ever be a just war. No holy war could ever be just, but he said that in essence the war in Afghanistan was. Those are all notes I think that George W. Bush might well have struck.

In his very long speech, Obama once again showed that he is really gifted in articulating what every high school freshman should vaguely and abstractly know about war, humanity, and morality. He never really communicated how America's current wars (that he is continuing instead of ending) will lead to more peace in the future, vs. other less violent security precautions. He spoke in absolutes like Bush - a pacifist world where dictators can push us around because they know we will appease, vs. the "real world" with ugly war. But of course America only fights when it's just and necessary (even though he and everyone else have already admitted that Iraq didn't qualify). The problem with his and Bush's "just war" argument is that even if a war's cause is just, its prosecution is always messy and fraught with abuses. War is too confusing and humans are too flawed to conduct a just war justly. That's why we must seriously try (and try harder than we are!) to avoid any war, no matter the moral spin. Sure even Palin would say that America hates when it must march to war, but our track record suggests otherwise.

Obama said that no holy war can ever be just, which is true. We already know about the crazy Crusaders and the crazy Muslim terrorists, but what about America's holy war of Manifest Destiny that helped the US become a world power? Wasn't it our divine right or White Man's Burden to put blacks to work for no pay and conquer the lands between the two oceans, by displacing, raping, or killing any natives or Spaniards in our way? Or how about the Monroe Doctrine that basically compels our government to militarily intervene in small conflicts in the Western Hemisphere any time foreign "colonialism" is suspected? How hypocritical to claim to combat colonialism with colonialism. What about "Remember the Maine" when we declared a vengeful war against Spain (just like Afghanistan) that was actually a territory grab (we got the Phillipines and Gitmo). We had to attack Spain to prevent them from attacking us again, right? And it wasn't even proven that Spain sank the Maine, just as we have very sketchy evidence linking the Taliban to 9/11.

Even the most just war of them all, WWII, ended with American bombs massacring over a million defenseless Japanese civilians who were not at Pearl Harbor and who meant us no future harm. Japan was already on its knees and possibly ready to capitulate, but we had to nuke them twice anyway, just to flex our muscles to the Soviets that East Asia is ours. Obama also claimed that the fall of the USSR signaled a great victory for freedom and self-determination, and of course our side won. No one misses the USSR, but how exactly did freedom win the day when American forces slaughtered millions (or backed dictators who did) in Korea, Southeast Asia, and Latin America in the process? How did those "just wars" lead to the Soviet collapse and help people win their freedom? And if the Cold War was all about freedom and human rights, then why after the wall came down did American businessmen penetrate the former Soviet satellites faster than US aid and diplomats?

To me, the worst war is not the horrible Jihadi actions of Osama, Zarqawi, and his kind (they are bad but not the worst), but instead the much bloodier and deceptive large-scale Western-perpetrated war wrapped in the flag of freedom and peacekeeping. If Obama understands this, he didn't articulate it during his many war-themed speeches this year, which is moral cowardice on his part. And no coward deserves the Nobel. As one of only 3 US presidents who have received this prize, I think Obama not only missed a precious chance, but also shirked his moral duty (and better judgment as a thinking man), to cut the crap about America always being the noble world savior, and come clean about our past abuses and ulterior/selfish motives for war that relate more to power than security. We're in the 21st Century now, and many world polls show that people think America is a bigger threat to world security than Russia or Iran. Obviously, the rhetoric only goes so far and even slick Obama won't be able to persuade others who can see the writing on the wall, even if we refuse to out of "patriotism". I think we would make more friends and marginalize our enemies better by coming clean rather than perpetuating the status quo. We are America, and we do err and sin too.

Obama gave token credit to peace figureheads MLK (Obama would not be president if it wasn't for MLK) and Gandhi, and excused himself from their tenets because he is a head of state and commander-in-chief, so he doesn't have the luxury of idealistic pacifism. Maybe that is true, but Gandhi was also a political leader in the newly-formed India (albeit not a very good politician - not a profession for a decent man). When Hindu-Muslim tension turned to street violence after independence, did Gandhi crack down on them in the name of national security? And did he side with his fellow Hindus against the outsider Muslims? No, he staged a hunger strike and prayed for both sides. That sent such a powerful message, and because of his great reputation, the warring groups took just 5 days to broker a ceasefire, because they loved Gandhi and his life meant more than their conflict. Gandhi didn't have to make a single threat or send a single young soldier to kill or be killed to restore peace. That is what leadership is all about. Plus, Gandhi was eventually killed by a Hindu radical, not a Muslim. He was betrayed by his own people, like Rabin. That should remind us that the greatest threats to the state are usually internal (like the lobbyist-Congress revolving door, and right wing radio nuts), not Taliban bogeymen hiding in caves. I know Obama fasting will not stop Al Qaeda from fighting us, but maybe if America acted more like Gandhi in the last 100 years, Al Qaeda would have never been created.

"America's commitment to global security will never waver," Obama said. I guess that's why we have done or continue to do next to nothing positive for the tense, unjust, and/or atrocious situations in Burma, Kampuchea, Rwanda, Congo, Korea, Iraq (when Saddam was killing Kurds), Sudan, Georgia, Israel/Palestine, and such? In fact, our pro-Israel actions in the UN have prolonged wars and suffering there. We fight when we want to increase our influence, and when our economic interests are at risk. Sure that may coincide with humanitarian concerns, but that is obviously not our chief priority. We're just like any other army or state (actually worse than most), and not anointed with some higher moral status. So cut the crap Obama, or you really are the foreign policy infant that the GOP and Hillary labeled you as during the campaign.

We're stuck with Afghanistan now because we can't change the past. But our role is really janitor instead of policeman. We are obligated to try to fix the mess we've caused (huge poppy production, Taliban resurgence, spillover to Pakistan, etc.), and then get the hell out.

More Afghanistan concerns (some already mentioned in the last email):

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/12/01/afghanistan_surge/index.html

Top Ten things that Could Derail Obama's Afghanistan Plan
1. Obama's plan depends heavily on training 100,000 new soldiers and 100,000 new policemen over the next three years. It has taken 8 years to train the first 100,000 soldiers fairly well, and the same period for the Europeans to train a similar number of police badly. Can the pace really be more than doubled and quality results still obtained?

2. Obama's plan assumes that there can be a truly national Afghan army. But the current one is disproportionately Tajik and signally lacks troops from the troubled Helmand and Qandahar provinces. Unless the ethnic tensions are eased, training a big army could well provoke an anti-Tajik backlash in Pashtun regions that feel occupied.

3. Obama's goal to "break the Taliban's momentum" may well fail. Only 20 percent of insurgencies in modern times are defeated in a decisive military manner.

4. The US counter-insurgency plan assumes that Pashtun villagers dislike and fear the Taliban, and just need to be protected from them so as to stop the politics of intimidation. But what if the villagers are cousins of the Taliban and would rather support their clansmen than white Christian foreigners?

5. Obama is demanding that Pakistan help destroy the Taliban movement, a historical ally of Pakistan in Afghanistan. While Pakistan now has good reason to attempt to wipe out the Pakistani Taliban Movement, which has committed a good deal of terrorism against the country, Islamabad has no reason to attack the Afghan guerrilla groups fighting Karzai. They are fellow Muslims, and are Pashtuns (as are 12 percent of Pakistanis), and dislike India. The Northern Alliance elements in the Karzai government, which have recently grown stronger, are pro-India. Obama is asking Pakistan to betray its national interests, which is not realistic in the absence of some much bigger carrot than a few billion dollars in foreign aid.

6. Obama asserts that although the Afghan presidential election was marked by fraud, the results (the victory of Hamid Karzai) are legitimate within the constitutional framework. But isn't it possible that Karzai has decisively lost legitimacy among broad sections of the Afghan public, wounding him as a partner in working for a recognition of the legitimacy of a greatly expanded foreign occupation army in the country?

7. Obama is demanding accountability from cabinet members in Afghanistan and offering agricultural and economic aid. But 15 present and former cabinet members are under investigation for massive embezzlement, and 7 key ministries were only able to spend 40% of their budget allocation last year. Isn't Obama counting on a culture of official probity and a governmental capacity that simply does not exist in Kabul? What happens when there is more cabinet-level corruption and when the Ministry of Agriculture once again just can't spend the money Obama gives it?

8. Obama assumes that the US is not fighting a broadbased insurgency in Afghanistan. This assumption is true in the sense that there is zero support for Taliban or Sunni extremists among Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and a majority of Pashtuns. But if we looked at the equivalent of counties in Helmand, Qandahar and some other Pashtun provinces, we might find substantial swathes of territory where the insurgency is in fact broadly based. Moreover, Pashtun guerrillas can count on a certain amount of sympathy from other Pashtuns in their struggle against foreign forces-- including the 20-some million Pashtuns of Pakistan. If the issue is not the "cancer" of extremist ideology, but a form of religious Pashtun anti-imperialism, then that could be the basis for a broadly based movement.

9. Obama maintains that the "Taliban" have in recent years made common cause with "al-Qaeda" in seeking to overturn the Karzai government. But although the Taliban control 10-15% of Afghanistan, there are no al-Qaeda operatives to speak of in Afghanistan. That does not sound like much of a common cause. By confusing the Taliban with al-Qaeda, and by confusing the Taliban with other Pashtun guerrilla groups such as Hikmatyar's Hizb-i Islami, Obama risks making the struggle a black and white one, whereas it has strong regional, ethnic and nationalist overtones (see 8 above). Black and white struggles are much more difficult to negotiate to a settlement.

10. The biggest threat of derailment comes from an American public facing 17 percent true unemployment and a collapsing economy who are being told we need to spend an extra $30 billion to fight less than 100 al-Qaeda guys in the mountains of Afghanistan, even after the National Security Adviser admitted that they are not a security threat to the US.