A good (but depressing) interview about Pakistan and Afghanistan

http://www.worldaffairs.org/events/event/1422#.VQgPGmaEr9k

I didn't listen to the whole thing, but the guest had a lot of no-BS, compelling comments about the dire situation in that region. She also stressed the economic and foreign policy angles of the conflict (often ignored by the MSM), such as:

• How do we expect the current Afghan gov't to survive when the US set it up in such a bloated model that it can only afford to pay 25% of its staff (and a regime that can't pay its people will surely collapse)? To make matters worse, global donors are reneging on their aid promises (understandably). Plus there's the lingering handicap of exceptional corruption.
• Why are we not asking China and India to get more involved in Afghanistan, as they have huge interests at stake and could serve as a check against Pakistan and Islamists? Instead we support/enable Pakistan, whose interests are pretty much diametrically opposed to ours?
• The Afghan national police and army are basically warlords and militias in uniform. When NATO leaves and things start to devolve, those fighters will pretty much fragment and return to the pre-2001 invasion state.

Michael Scheuer on Osama and the Mideast

This was one of the most refreshing foreign policy interviews I've heard in a while, from Prof. Michael Scheuer of G'Town who used to head up the CIA's Bin Laden group (nicknamed "The Manson Family" for how fanatically they performed their jobs). I guess you might think he was a failure for that, but he informed the Pentagon of OBL's precise location on 8 occasions (of course no way to know if they were right), and the Clinton admin. declined to give the green light for their own reasons. In 2007, Osama himself said that the two Americans who understood him the most were Noam Chomsky and Scheuer (make of that what you will).

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201102231000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scheuer

Scheuer said that as early as 1997, Osama's grand strategy was to foment political discord in the US and alienate us from our allies over our foreign policy, stretch our military-intel apparatus thin trying to chase Al Qaeda, and bankrupt us in foreign quagmires. If that is true, then the self-proclaimed greatest nation in history strutted into a major bear trap set by a guy hiding in a cave. We're not on our last legs yet, but we're not winning either (especially when you consider the price we've paid so far for minor gains). He also said that Osama is more of a smart, dedicated "worthy enemy" like Robert E. Lee than a delusional lunatic like Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately the former is a lot harder to defeat.

Osama's top enemies are/were the non-Islamic dictators in the Mideast (especially the House of Saud, Saddam, Mubarak, and Qaddafi, so this has been a great month for him) and Israel. The US and the West are indirect enemies due to our support for said enemies. But one wonders whether our choice of allies could have prevented Osama from becoming militant. After all, he did fight with us at one time, so we must not have been such intolerable infidels. Just as our "trusted Iraqi sources" told the neo-cons exactly what they wanted to hear, that Iraq had WMD for their own interests, Israel and our dictator buddies in the Mideast (who view grassroots Islamic movements as their top threats to power) have fed us crap for years that Al Qaeda hates us because of our values, and won't stop until we're dead or converted. Well if that's the case then it's personal; we better hate them back and wage an endless, amorphous war against them. Good vs. evil, our civilization is at stake, yadda yadda.

Yes Al Qaeda may want a global caliphate, because that is what Muhammad instructed Muslims to do (not necessarily through violence). I want a new job, and even if I try very hard to get one there's no telling if and when it will happen. Some US evangelicals hope to bring about the conditions that unleash Armageddon - not just prepare for the return of the lord, but actively make it happen. Then the US and all nations will be destroyed, and everyone but the true believers die horrible deaths (including the Jews they profess to support). So should we imprison the evangelicals for conspiracy against the US, and send them to Gitmo as religious fanatics? There is no point fearing and defending against every extreme religious endgame. But hey, it makes for a great bogeyman for people like Bush and Beck to peddle on the ignorant and fearful.

All this masks the truths that are politically inconvenient for our leaders, and hinders their propaganda efforts inspiring us to sacrifice for this righteous conflict. We and our allies created Al Qaeda and Osama. Instead of diffusing the causes of their grievances, we have chosen to fight them head on, and on their terms. And we have taken this problematic path because we care more about propping up dictators in order to keep the Israelis happy, Muslims down, and oil exports up (an industry whose profits go to only a small subset of people), rather than forging true partnerships, cultural understanding, political reforms, and economic development. The region is still affected by the legacies of colonialism; they need a Marshall Plan, not Rendition and sanctions. If we took the higher path, maybe Exxon and Lockheed's coffers would be smaller, but the people over there would have a better quality of life and viable political channels of redress (precluding the need to embrace violent Islam), which ensures greater stability and security for our interests in the end.

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Scheuer also made pretty good comments about our precarious support of Israel. Any nation founded on the premise that a deity granted a chosen tribe exclusive rights to a patch of land in an unbreakable, eternal covenant (and much of their government is populated by leaders who espouse this belief) is probably not a great partner for rational, 21st Century diplomacy. The US supposedly trusts in god, but no one except Palin types would claim that god cares whether the US is around or not. Scheuer was the first person I've heard to say that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, contrary to most public statements. He of course believes that Israel has the right to defend itself from threats, but no nation has a "right" to exist, and that is an important distinction. It must be true, otherwise the USSR would still be around, and we couldn't have forced Nazi Germany to surrender. Nations exist as long as they can, but if they grow weak or piss off other nations enough, they're going down. That is the way of the world, so why the double-standard for Israel? Because god said so? And we call the Muslims crazy? This is important because it's much harder to think clearly when existential sentiments are always clouding one's judgment.

Regarding Libya, it's amazing that Obama hasn't publicly condemned Qaddafi's violence against his people and called for him to step down (the Arab League already has). Clinton spoke out a bit, and also previously called on the Iranian people to rise up against their murderous regime. That's easy for her to say 10,000 miles away in safety and comfort, but these are not light decisions for the people on the ground. If they want to revolt, they have to go all the way or it's their death and doom for their loved ones. Despots stay in power by paying for loyalty and crushing opponents, especially those who dare to speak out. There's no turning back, and if we realize that we should really salute the courageous young people who risked everything to defy the odds and topple dictators backed by thousands of gunmen and billions of petro-dollars. The typical American can't even be bothered to drive down the street and vote once a year. It's a real shame that decades of our foreign policy blunders have rendered us nearly impotent during this critical time in Mideast history.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/too_little_not_yet_too_late

Why has the US put more heat on Mubarak, when he was responsible for far less bloodshed (at least Mubarak didn't send warplanes to bomb unarmed people in his own cities)? Libya cut a deal with Bush and others in the West to get UN sanctions lifted and to get off the terror blacklist. Qaddafi supposedly agreed to cease his WMD programs, pay reparations to the victims of the Pan Am bombing, and release some Western captives. He must have got a lot in return, including diplomatic cover. And when the EU buys 85% of Libya's substantial oil exports, that's a lot of capital to cash in during a crisis. That shows you how our foreign energy dependence can cripple our diplomatic options and stifle our principles. It's clear that Qaddafi is done; it just matters how much he will kill and destroy in the process. It's better for us and the region to limit Qaddafi's damage now. We enforced no-fly zones over Serbia and Iraq, why not with Libya? Our fleet is already over there. Many Libyan pilots bravely defected and refused to carry out missions to bomb protesters. But at least the US/NATO can embargo incoming shipments of resources and mercenaries from Qaddafi's African allies.

Why do Muslims hate us? Not because of our democracy, shopping malls, and women's rights (well not primarily). It's because we choose to befriend homicidal klepto-sociopaths over the millions of honest, poor people languishing under their boots. It's not just Obama but a long tradition.

Egypt unrest: does America stand up for the cause of liberty or not?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110127/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_protest

In the recent SoU speech, Obama did offer token support to the Tunisian reform movement (as if 30% of Americans could even find Tunisia on a map), and he delivered that famous address in Cairo trying to repair relations with the Muslim world and encourage democratic changes in repressive Mideast regimes. But now that the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt is at its weakest state in decades, Washington is deathly silent. Heck even this AP article barely explains why Egyptians are protesting to begin with (tired of decades of martial law, repressed expression, huge wealth gap and unemployment, etc.), I suppose feeding more misunderstanding and the stereotype of the angry Arab. Mubarak is a former military officer who has been president since 1981, miraculously winning numerous landslide re-elections similar to the ousted Tunisian despot (and now Mubarak is grooming his son to take over as head of state, yeah very democratic). Maybe part of that is due to his thugs beating down opposition parties, even the deceptively named Muslim Brotherhood, which is mostly non-violent, advocates many Western-friendly reforms, and has nothing to do with extremist Islam. Mubarak outlaws public demonstrations and speaking out against the government too. Yet US leaders have supported this man for years, even selling him weapons and such. Well, after some deal-making Carter got Egypt to recognize Israel, and they do control the Suez Canal after all, so we have to buddy up to them, no matter what type of ruler they have.

America claims that it opposes tyranny, and we supposedly stood by the Iranian anti-government protests a few years ago, which is pretty much the same situation as Egypt except that their government is Islamic and pursuing nukes. We supported Kosovo against Serbia, and Bush even recognized Kosovo's independence a few years ago, much to the dismay of Serbia and Russia - diplomatic ties with those nations are much more critical than with Kosovo/Albania. Then recently a European report concluded that the current Kosovo regime is led by criminals. So we go out of our way to bomb and kill hundreds of Serbs to ostensibly defend the human rights of Kosovar Albanians, then legitimized the state of Kosovo, only to watch as a criminal regime develops. And yet we also tolerate regimes in Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Egypt that routinely commit abuses? How can we expect anyone to take our foreign policy seriously?

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More on Egypt: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2011/01/on_egypt_white_house_is_ignore.html

"If there is a democratic revolution, US-Egyptian relationships are in for a world of trouble... There will be some anti-US sentiment among the protesters because they believe the US has been trying to prop up the regime until the last moment."

Or is the US (irrationally) scared "that democracy would 'open up the flood gates' to Islamic revolution"?

-BBC

From Nobel laureate and Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed El-Baradei:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-26/mohamed-elbaradei-the-return-of-the-challenger/

"If you would like to know why the United States does not have credibility in the Middle East, [our handling of Egypt over the years] is precisely the answer... You reaffirmed their belief that you are applying a double standard for your friends, and siding with an authoritarian regime just because you think it represents your interests. We are staring at social disintegration, economic stagnation, political repression, and we do not hear anything from you, the Americans, or for that matter from the Europeans.

Of course, you in the West have been sold the idea that the only options in the Arab world are between authoritarian regimes and Islamic jihadists. That’s obviously bogus. If we are talking about Egypt, there is a whole rainbow variety of people who are secular, liberal, market-oriented, and if you give them a chance they will organize themselves to elect a government that is modern and moderate."

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I boycott most cable news, but part of me was curious as to how FOX may spin the events in Egypt into their worldview. I shouldn't have wondered. Warning: if you click the link to the Glenn Beck footage on YouTube, it's like "The Ring" and you will die in 3 days from a stroke (the brain can only handle so much idiocy), unless you show it to someone else first (pick someone you don't like).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH7GPPpsw6g

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12199_glennbecksegyptfreakouthowtheuprisingsplitsusconservatives;_ylt=Ahl6zEsNcBy8S9ddBSa8g3Fg.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTRtOWhxZDE0BGFzc2V0Ay9zL2RhaWx5YmVhc3QvMTIxOTlfZ2xlbm5iZWNrc2VneXB0ZnJlYWtvdXRob3d0aGV1cHJpc2luZ3NwbGl0c3VzY29uc2VydmF0aXZlcwRjY29kZQNtcF9lY184XzEwBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3RoZXJpZ2h0c2VneQ--

Since the war in Iraq, it seems, Beck, like others on the right, has changed his mind about the desirability of Middle Eastern democracy. It was only a few years ago, you'll remember, that conservatives were crowing about a new birth of freedom in the Muslim world.

You couldn't make this stuff up: "We've shown you tonight that Hamas, Code Pink"—the feminist anti-war group—"and the Muslim Brotherhood are all linked together." With the future bleak, Beck called on his viewers to pray for "our way of life" and for Israel.

"The whole world starts to implode... This is coordinated."

It must be hilarious to watch Beck play Risk. So it's fine when a bunch of Anglo-Saxon slave-owning farmers demand independence from the tax-and-spend British Empire, but when brown-skinned Muslims take to the streets, tired of their president-for-life and 30% unemployment, it's a radical fundamentalist-progressive conspiracy (if you could get those two camps to conspire together, you would be a master negotiator). All his paranoid talk about the Islamist insurrection spreading across the Mideast and even penetrating Europe is basically McCarthyism 2.0. We later found out that Cold War commies had a really tough time getting along, much less unite and overthrow the capitalist pigs. Does Beck really think that a unified Muslim caliphate will suddenly form across dozens of nations, ethnic groups, sects, etc. in order to destroy us? Even the Muslims in tiny Palestine can't get along. Yes when you dare to let people determine their own destinies, sometimes the results are not to your liking. But that doesn't mean that the worst-case scenario will occur every damn time. This is not an easy situation for the US and other Western powers, and maybe inaction is better than intervention (even on the side of "liberty") and possible backlash from our perceived meddling.

I think El Baradei ruffled a lot of feathers at FOX when he compared the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in Egyptian politics to that of the Evangelicals in the US. I'd probably go further and say that the Evangelicals are more of a threat to Western democracy.

But it is interesting how the Egypt situation is creating a rift among conservatives:

It was never entirely clear how the right's support for political freedom in the Muslim world meshed with its overwhelming contempt for Muslim people... an interesting divide is opening up on the right. On one side are those who actually took all that democracy stuff seriously. On the other are those who see the Muslim world only as an enemy to be crushed and controlled. With a Republican primary approaching, it remains to be seen which view of Middle Eastern policy will triumph among conservatives. 


Not surprisingly, the politicians closest to the religious right have been the quickest to side with Mubarak... At least some neoconservatives, meanwhile, have shown an admirable consistency, urging support for Egypt's demonstrators. Michael Rubin of the AEI, for example, wrote a piece for Forbes.com headlined "The U.S. Should Not Fear Regime Change." 


This highlights an interesting difference of opinion between neoconservatives and conservative Israelis, who are often thought to move in lockstep. "Israelis aren't on board on the democracy game," says Rubin. "They'd much rather rely on aging dictators to keep things quiet. They're perfectly happy selling out Lebanon to Syria, and perfectly happy selling out the Egyptian people to Hosni Mubarak."

- Michelle Goldberg