Category Archives: American Politics

Afghanistan, American Politics, American Politics, Current events, International Politics, National Defence

Is it time to abandon Afghanistan?

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In his January 20th, 1961, inaugural address President Kennedy said, “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.” Over the years these words have rung hollow for our friends and allies. Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, and others, now Afghanistan.  A saying I heard long ago says, “Insurgents don’t have to win they only have to wait.” Today we once again see the truth of this statement. We have been in Afghanistan for 20 years and have in fact done good things. An entire generation of woman have grown up in a society that has allowed for growth. It is not complete, but we had a start. We are now hearing stories of girls being given to Taliban fighters as war prizes. The people know what is coming as evidenced by them hanging on the wheels of departing aircraft and handing their children over to waiting Marines, so they have a chance to escape. People are bring dragged out of their homes and executed. There will be more horror stories, but we will not hear them as we withdraw and there is no information or press coverage.

The new narrative is that most people wanted us out of Afghanistan but are opposed to the way it is being handled. I am willing to bet that most people did not know or care that we were still there. But we were and had set expectations of many Afghans. This went beyond the early mission of defeating Al Qaida and removing the Taliban from power. Was that the end of it? Where we expected to then just pack up and leave, as many have said? The question of whether we should have done nation building is now being asked and the answer is clearly yes. We had a moral obligation to replace what we broke, their government. What happened is, as is often the case with the west, we tried to impose western style democracy in a non-western culture.  

As we have seen in Iraq, tribal and regional loyalties out strip the concept of national identity. We had a good plan in place in Iraq that armed and trained the Sunni tribes call the Sons of Iraq. When the Shia dominated government pulled the plug on that we saw the rise of ISIS. Instead of trying to build a national army in Afghanistan, a country of little to no national identity, we should have trained and armed the tribes and worked on regional ethnic pride.

Was it time to leave Afghanistan, no it was time to reassess and change our tactics. Biden has said there was no longer a national security threat in Afghanistan, he is wrong. The Taliban control will give terrorist a safe area to grow and plot and attack the west. Make no mistake we will have to return in one way or another.  

Afghanistan, American Politics, American Politics, Current events, International Politics, Military, National Defence

Arms and influence, Trump and Biden

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1 THE DIPLOMACY OF VIOLENCE

The usual distinction between diplomacy and force is not merely in the instruments, words or bullets, but in the relation between adversaries—in the interplay of motives and the role of communication, understandings, compromise, and restraint. Diplomacy is bargaining; it seeks outcomes that, though not ideal for either party, are better for both than some of the alternatives. In diplomacy each party somewhat controls what the other wants, and can get more by compromise, exchange, or collaboration than by taking things in his own hands and ignoring the other’s wishes. The bargaining can be polite or rude, entail threats as well as offers, assume a status quo or ignore all rights and privileges, and assume mistrust rather than trust. But whether polite or impolite, constructive or aggressive, respectful or vicious, whether it occurs among friends or antagonists and whether or not there is a basis for trust and goodwill, there must be some common interest, if only in the avoidance of mutual damage, and an awareness of the need to make the other party prefer an outcome acceptable to oneself. With enough military force a country may not need to bargain. Some things a country wants it can take, and some things it has it can keep, by sheer strength, skill and ingenuity. It can do this forcibly, accommodating only to opposing strength, skill, and ingenuity and without trying to appeal to an enemy’s wishes. Forcibly a country can repel and expel, penetrate and occupy, seize, exterminate, disarm and disable, confine, deny access, and directly frustrate intrusion or attack. It can, that is, if it has enough strength. “Enough” depends on how much an opponent has. There is something else, though, that force can do. It is less military, less heroic, less impersonal, and less unilateral; it is uglier, and has received less attention in Western military strategy. In addition to seizing and holding, disarming and confining, penetrating and obstructing, and all that, military force can be used to hurt. In addition to taking and protecting things of value it can destroy value. In addition to weakening an enemy militarily it can cause an enemy plain suffering.

Schelling, Thomas C.. Arms and Influence (The Henry L. Stimson Lectures Series) (pp. 1-2). Yale University Press.

It has been asked many times in the last few days, weeks, and months, why are we in Afghanistan and what is the American National Interest. The Presidents last news conference touched on this as have some of his last announcements on his decision to withdrew and news outlets have stated that polls on the American people stated that they wanted to get out of Afghanistan. Biden has also on several occasions said that our goals have been met and we should not continue to put US forces in harm’s way. I started off with the opening paragraph from Thomas Shelling’s book “Arms and Influence.” It is interesting to note that the first chapter is titled “The Diplomacy of Violence.”  I could have as easily quoted George Santayana “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Afghanistan is a wild and virtually ungovernable country. It was used by Al Qaeda to plan and launch the 9/11 attacks. Would we ever be able to work with the Taliban to bring them into the government, no. President Biden seemed to think so, as did President Trump. Both were determined to end US military presence in Afghanistan. Trump understood how difficult it would be to corral the Taliban so he placed conditions on our exit and while using diplomacy added the threat of military intervention should the Taliban not meet the conditions. Biden on the other hand Using the deal Trump hammed out as the excuse that we had to get out, regardless of conditions. As we have learned from Schelling, diplomacy with out the threat of force is useless. Carl von Clausewitz in his work “On War” declared that “war is a continuation of policy by other means.” Does all this mean that the US or any other country must engage in “Forever Wars’ of course not. What we need to understand is that when dealing with foreign adversaries diplomatically there is always going to be the knowledge of a military in the background. This is not a horrible, brutal, bulling way of existence, but a matter of human nature. Without such a threat Hitler went on a rampage that nearly destroyed the world. With the threat of “Mutually Assured Destruction” the US and the Soviet Union existed side by side in peace. Biden and his government are living in a world of Ideology not reality. With Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban terrorist once again have a base of operations. Why did this not happen before as we wound down our force commitment? Trumps threats were believed. Currently Biden is seen as weak and ineffectual. Why is Afghanistan important? To keep the knowledge alive that the US will support its allies. What now will keep Turkey from attacking Iraq and eliminating the Kurds. What will keep Israel safe? What is going to keep China from attacking Taiwan. Second and Third order of effect must be considered in any decision that is made, not just feel good ideological rea

Afghanistan, American Politics, American Politics, Current events, National Defence, Uncategorized

Afghanistain lesson not learned

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There will be much finger pointing and recriminations following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. There will be Congressional hearings and white papers from think tanks, and none will address the root cause of this and other problems that face the government and the people. The culture within the decision-making process sucks.  

Much of what I am going to say can be summed up by a saying attributed to Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House in the mid 1950s to early ‘60s. When speaking to young congressmen who told him of their ambitions his reply was, “to get along you have to go along.” This is the basic philosophy that drives career government and military leaders as they advance, don’t rock the boat.

This is not to say that there are not those who do indeed rock the boat, but they are few and do not last long. Those in the Intelligence Community are known as Cassandras, from the Greek woman in mythology who was given the gift of prophecy and the curse of never being believed.  While there should be a place for different analysis, and in fact has doctrinal support, it is seldom if ever used. Those who go the route of “Red Team,” or Devils Advocate,” rarely survive, it’s a career ender.   

While this mentality is less evident in the military it begins to rear its ugly head as people advance. To that end those that reach the higher command levels tend to be more politician than warrior. This was not always the case. There is an old story about a Soviet officer saying that the difficulty in planning against the Americans is that they rarely read their regulations or feel an obligation to follow it. Today strict adherence to doctrine is the road to success. George Patton would likely not have made it past captain.

I am not sure this problem will be, or can be, address. Those who write reports for the decision makers have their own form and language. If they are certain of the results, their superior wants they can structure the report to fit the desire. If not, which is more often the case, they can structure the report to be interpreted as needed. An absurd example would be a report that should read, “it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, we conclude it is a duck” would conclude more like “… we conclude with a high degree of probability that it is some form of waterfowl.”

Many have touted the results of a recent final report to congress from the Afghanistan Study Group that had listed several courses of action and the resulting consequences. Today most zero in on courses of action from the chapter of Alternative Pathways. The recommended pathway was to maximize existing US leverage to achieve an acceptable negotiated peace agreement. The most risky pathway was called a Washing of Hands and warned of the results, which we have now seen. The conclusion of the report stated that

“With the launch of peace negotiations, the conflict in Afghanistan has entered a new phase. This new phase requires a new understanding. Afghans must take primary responsibility for their own future. The United States must orient its efforts and resources toward shaping the conditions around the peace process—resetting and reframing it in ways recommended in this report—in order to give it the best chance to succeed. It should be reiterated, however, that our troop presence is a key point of leverage. U.S. troops play a vital role in ensuring the continuity of state structures, and thus their presence is essential to brokering a lasting peace. Success, it should be acknowledged, is not guaranteed. But there is a clear path forward. There is now a real possibility of the conflict winding down and Afghanistan becoming a country that needs far less help from the United States. If this happens, the United States can bring its troops home and both countries can move forward as sovereign nations with friendly relations based on shared values and sacrifices.”

 The answers were given to the decision makers, not from the IC or DoD but a select group empowered by Congress. This groups membership consisted of retired politicians and retired military as well as former diplomats and academics. In other words, this group consisted of people who could speak their minds without fear of professional recriminations, and they got it right.  This also shows that the information was out there for anyone willing to see it and think.

This failure of allowing the unpopular analysis to get through to the decision makers needs to be corrected and the culture of fear over being out of step with the mainstream needs to end. This needs to be a major lesson leaned or this problem will just continue.

American Politics, Filibuster, HR1

How to stop the vote

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The news is abuzz over the heroic action of the Texas Democratic Caucus that left the state to go to DC so the Texas government could not vote on a new election law. The left is all aflutter over the bravery of these elected officials in denying the Texas legislature the quorum it needs to vote on a bill. In the meanwhile back in DC the left is up in arms over a Senate rule that that allows the minority to hold up a vote, called the filibuster.

If one is wrong the other is wrong and if one is right the other is right. Regardless of political position one of the mainstays of American governance is the right of the minority to have its say. Are the Texas Democrats playing a political game, of course they are. Will they pay a price, that remains to be seen. Are they Hero’s or tools. your call.

American Politics, Current events, Uncategorized

Atlanta

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The Murders in Atlanta are a horror and an abomination, as they would be anywhere. The horror of what the left is making of them is even worse for our society. The suspect Robert Aaron Long, is a troubled young man with a history of mental illness. Two stories in the Washington Post highlight the problems the left has with dealing with reality. The first, headlined in at the beginning of the online and print versions spoke of the troubles Aaron faced in his life, starting the article with “The war within Robert Arron Long was evident for years.” Long is portrayed as a quiet young man who was raised in a strict religious family and community. He was seen changing after graduation from High School when he became obsessed with sex. He found relief through pornography and visits to massage parlors where the women would help him masturbate. He was in rehabilitation programs that centered on religious therapy. He eventually succumbed to guilt and decided that killing the sex workers at the Spas would reduce his guilt. He was captured on the way to Florida where he intended to attack the Porn industry.    

Six of the eight people he killed were Asian. The media immediately declared this a hate crime and decried the rise in hate crimes against Asians, blaming it on President Trump calling the Covid-19 virus the Chinese virus. Statistically a case can be made for an increase. According to reports the number of hate crime against Asians rose 150% between 2019 and 2020. The number of hate crimes recorded against Asians in 2020 was 122. Society should never tolerate hate crime and one is too many, yet 122 is hardly at crisis level.  To be clear these are reported hate crimes and the number does not cover anti-Asian racist incidents.

The second article in the WP was about President Biden and Vice-President Harris on a trip to Atlanta speaking out on the crime and declaring it a racist act. This is reminiscent of President Obama’s visit to Ferguson Missouri following the death of Michael Brown. Browns death at the hands of a police officer was called police brutality perpetrated by a white officer. This launched the Black Lives Matter movement as well as several deadly riots across the country. Obama and his AG, Eric Holder, met with the community and spoke of the horror of racism and the need for police reform. In the end, after all the evidence was collected, it was determined that Brown had attacked the officer and that the shooting was justified.  

As the evidence is being collected in Atlanta it is becoming clear that this is not a hate crime against Asians, but murder committed by a deranged individual who targeted sex workers who he felt were guilty of his problems. What the takeaway should be is to look at the potential of sex trafficking in this case, the use of massage parlors to conduct prostitution, and the need to pay attention to the mentally ill in need of help. The response should bot be an instant cry of racism and protests and calls for more laws. We need to look at the reality and evidence and wait and see were that leads us. In other words, Pleasethink before just reacting.

We need to remember the story of the boy who cried wolf. When will the cry of racism become ignored? A military axiom from Frederick the Great of Prussia states, He who defends everything defends nothing. We can extend that today and say when everything becomes racist, then nothing is racist. There is racism in the world, always has been and always will be. The objective is to blunt its impact on society. Today however we reward its activities and when there is not enough, we make it up. The people that gain from this are not the few racist/white supremacist/black activist, but the politicians who use it to increase their hold on power at the expense of the people. I for one am tired of them trying to manipulate me.   

What happened Atlanta was a crime, it was murder, it was mass murder, but it was not racially motivated and to insist that it was is to deny the facts and ignore the true nature of the crime which means that crimes like this will continue while society looks the other way.   

American Politics, Current events

Why we need to fight wokeness

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I have been asked why it bothers me that such things as removing Disney’s Peter Pan, Dumbo, or the cartoon Pepe La Pew, when they are meaningless to someone of my age. My response has been that it is not the specific action that bothers me it is the stupidity of it. Emotional reactions are more destructive to society than discussing things logically. Returning to Pepe Le Pew, it is now suggested that his affection for Penelope Pussycat is symbolic of a “rape-revenge narrative” in many cases it was Penelope who became the aggressor. In the end, it is a cartoon. The Indians/Native Americans, characterization is viewed as degrading.  The degrading imagery of the crows in Dumbo, with one named Jim Crow is the closest thing that needs to be removed, yet again it is a cartoon, and the crows could be revoiced and renamed without effecting the story. The story lines are either educational or just comical there is no reason to deny them to future generations

Recently in North Carolina a class of 4th graders was given an assignment to write tweets as if they were in the Civil War era. In an article in the Washington Post the assignment was made to look like a white supremacist workbook. Some of the students wrote, to quote the article, “You may not agree with slavery but I do and I’m honest about it. #SlaveryforLife,” read one, above the made-up account name @dontStopSlavery. Said another, using the handle @Confederate4life: “Why do we need to leave the country? We can stay and our slaves! #SLAVERYFOREVER.” It is important to remember this was an assignment to teach the thinking of a bygone era. There was nowhere in the story about the any after discussion, what was the lesson learned. Was it possible that afterward there was a discussion about how the view of race has changed over the years and what we need to know today, that would be education, not political correctness. Even a member of the local NAACP and former member of the Board of education said: “that the lack of context made it appear as if the students were espousing racist messages themselves rather than showing what they believed people might have written during the Civil War.”, but then continued “It should be deeply disturbing to anyone,” 

We are losing connection with our past and attempting to rewrite history to the current narrative. To disconnect from our history, warts, and all, makes it impossible to move forward in an orderly fashion and leads to emotional and reactionary laws. We cannot govern this way and expect our society to progress. To forget the past or worse to rewrite it, is the sure and certain road to losing everything we hold dear as a nation.

American Politics, Current events

COVID-19 RELIEF

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I would like to say I am happy that Congress finally passed a covid-19 relief bill. I would like to but cannot since this is the wrong bill at the wrong time with most of it aimed at the wrong things. I am happy that an additional $1400.00 will be going out, but it not going to impact the economy and could have been accomplished months ago had the Democrat party been more concerned with the people then trying to make sure President Trump did not get credit. I listened to Chuck Shummer today say that the money will help reduce poverty, how? The poverty level is currently at 10.5%, the lowest it has ever been and has declined steadily for years, but that does not fit the lefts narrative. It is suppose to help reopen schools and help struggling businesses through loans and grants, but at what cost? While only 9% is actually directed at direct covid relief the rest is designed to send tax dollars to state and local governments to offset the cost of implementing mitigation programs. Those of us who have followed how government programs are run know that most of the money will get eaten up by an increased in bureaucracy with little ever getting to the intended target. No this is a bad bill that will cost the tax payer and accomplish little.     

American Politics, American Politics, Current events, Impeachment

THE IMPEACHMENT IS OVER, NOW WHAT

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It is all over, Trump was acquitted. It is not all over and will not be for some time. It is not in the interest of the left to allow it to die. It is not in the interest of the right to let it die. Just as the years following the Civil War the Republicans continued to wave the bloody shirt blaming the Democrats for ripping the Union apart, the Democrats will now wave their bona fides as the ones who tried to protect the nation from a dictator. The Republicans will then point out that it was the Democrats who twice used their positions to attempt to overthrow the President and then to deny a private citizen the rights of citizenship. Much of the movements on the left are due to the inability to accept the outcome of the 2016 election. The problem with the right is their inability to accept the declared outcome of the 2020 election. We now see Both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer calling out the 43 Senators for voting to acquit Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection. Schumer has said if acquitted he would move to have Trump censured invoking the 14th amendment in order to stop him from running in 2024, again in order to overturn the verdict. This would not be a direct violation of the constitutional probation against double jeopardy but it would violate its sprit.

The Impeachment is done, in fact, so we need to do some analysis and then look to the future of conservativism in America. Did President Trump make mistakes following the 2020 election, the answer has to be yes. The Trump presidency, without reverting to emotion, was very successful. Unemployment decreased across the board for all citizens, with black and other minorities seeing the lowest unemployment in history. With the removal of business killing regulations businesses bloomed including the greatest growth in minority businesses. Business began to return to the US and the dollar got stronger against foreign currencies. The Iran deal was reversed stopping the flow of money into Iran that had been used to increase its terrorist activities across the region. North Korea was somewhat subdued, at least the threat was minimized. Russian expansion into Ukraine was halted and its economy was struck a blow with the loss of oil revenue into Europe and Europe itself was forced to acknowledge its overdependence on US military deterrence to keep it safe.       

The impeachment was a microcosm of problems and solutions in America. The left continued to show itself driven by hatred and ideological intransigence. The right on the other hand was looking to decide what they really are or what they stand for.  The left had decided to impeach Trump even before he was sworn into office. The mainstream news media, which is 90% left leaning, began to attack Trump from policy disagreements to personnel attacks on him and his family.  The right is paralyzed by its perceived history of being the old white man’s party. The left popularized the belief that they alone were able to bring equality to the American people and that the right only wants to hold down anyone not like them. All disinformation campaigns begin with a little truth.  While in the past the Republican party has been dominated by older white males it is today more of a big tent party. Party leadership crosses race and gender as well as age. The Democrat party has in the past advanced the cause of civil rights and gender equality. Today democrats are seen as stalled and unable to progress to the next level. This has allowed the right to justifiably claim that the left has used minorities and is holding back any forward progress, more on this in the nest blog.

The impeachment has freed both sides to pursue their separate agendas. Please Think of what this means. In the next few days, I will go deeper into the how I see the future.