Culturally Unconscious

Many Neoconservatives seem unable to admit that no matter how much money and blood we shed fighting to make the world a better place, the world will never be perfect. Improving the human condition is extremely difficult as the wars in Iraq and Afganistan have shown.

It is ironic that Neoconservatives are unable to admit that there is a limit to what the government can accomplish through military action, while they will readily admit that there are limits to what the government can achieve in domestic policy. The reverse Irony exists for liberals. I think it would do both Neoconservatives and liberals well to remember that there are limits to what can be done, both by the government and private institutions.Many of the problems that the world faces are so large, that given a limited time frame they will not be solved.

I’d like to note that I use the term neoconservative in this post, because I would, perhaps naively, like to believe that there are still Conservatives such as Robert Taft (1889-1953) who are opposed to the US intervention in foreign affairs.

The Pakistani government seems to be able to prevent the Taliban from toppling Pakistan’s government, while at the same time being unable to eradicate the Taliban in Pakistan. If ther US withdrew it’s ground forces from Afganistan, I think the Afgani government, with military subsidies from the US would be able to produce a similar stalemate.

While I would love to see the Taliban cease to exist, I think it need to be acknowledged that there are limited resources at the United States’ disposal to eradicate them, and that there are any number of important investments that could be made with those resources both at home and abroad that may be just as worthwhile, if not more so than fighting in Afganistan.

I think whether one considers it possible to contain Iran via air power depends largely on what satisfactory containment is viewed as.

For 40 years the United States was able to contain the Soviet Union, in that the Soviet Union never bombed or invaded one of our key allies. However, the Soviets invaded numerous other countries and had they been crazy enough to destroy the world they certainly possessed enough nuclear weapons to do so. So if a Cold War style containment is what we’re looking for I think it is entirely possible to contain Iran (assuming they are not crazier than the Soviets, which is perhaps a big assumption).

If the United States wanted to prevent Iran from obtaining Nuclear weapons they could probably do so with air power. However, it would possibly come at the expense Iranian civilian casualties and a black eye for America in the international community, as well as possible reprisals against American allies in the region.

I would hope, and I think the Obama administration hope so to, that it is possible to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons through non-military means. Unfortunately those hope look increasingly dim.

I don’t know how much air power alone can contain the Taliban in Afganistan. I do think that it is important to remember that the reason we invaded Afganistan in the first place wasn’t because we were opposed to the Taliban regime, but because the Taliban were giving sanctuary to Osama bin Ladin and Al Qaeda leaders.

With that in mind I think it is clear that while our military presence in Afganistan has limited Al Quaeda’s ability to conduct terrorist attacks, it still exists as an organization and has inspired other Islamic terrorists to commit terrorist attacks in London and Madrid.

However, even if we were to remove the Al Qaeda pressence from Afganistan, I think it would be very likely that the leadership would just move to another country that was unstable or sympathetic to its goals. Al Quaeda already has done this several times. In 1994 Osama bin Laden’s Saudi citizenship was revoked and he went into exile in Sudan. In 1996 when Sudan’s government made it clear that Al Qeada was not welcome they moved to Afganistan.

Even if the United States dismantled Al Quaeda, the violent ideology which it uses would still exist. Tom Ridge talked about this on the Daily Show on Thursday. That while it is possible to invade countries and topple dictators, destroying an idea is impossible. Given this, as much of an effort should go into foreign aid and diplomacy that can help eradicate the root causes of terrorism.

I just finished watching Oliver Stone’s Wallstreet and I find it amazing that a movie made 22 years ago could so accurately capture the morality behind the economic crisis of a year ago.

Matt Yglesias, my favorite blogger, deftly points out that David Brooks contention that a Taliban victory in Afganistan would be bad for Pakistan is false. While a Taliban victory would be bad for countless Afganis and humanity in general, Pakistan has not looked happily upon Hamid Karzai’s outreach to India and would favor a regime less friendly to India, who the Pakistanis still view as their largest threat despite all the problems the Taliban is giving them.

David Brooks may be able describe how not to lose in Afganistan, but he can’t say what a win would even look like. Also, while the leadership of Al Qaeda was based in Afganistan prior to 9/11,  zero of the 9/11 hijackers trained in Afganistan. I think there are good arguments that real work in stopping terrorists isn’t done in the middle east, but within the US. There is also the fact that there are real costs to the US that are much easier to measure for staying in Afganistan, the cost to the US for leaving Afganistan are all hypothetical.

The American Prospect has a good article summarizing different attempts to fight poverty through education. There are only two critiques I would make of it.

First, although KIPP does serve a subset of children in poverty who have dedicated and striving parents, I think the claim can be made that this is a large subset rather than a small one.  Also, this subset of children will be the easiest to get out of poverty and from a public policy stand point there is no reason to hold these children back while we wait for the (still non-existant) program that will end poverty for all children.

Secondly, forced busing in the 70s didn’t fuel white flight. It merely perpetuated a decades long trend that had started with the post WWII economic boom and had a number of underlying causes such as government subsidized mortgages and the creation of the interstate highway system.

Charles Blow’s most recent op-ed in the NYT does a good job of questioning the talking points coming from both the left and right about the extent race places in critiques of President Obama. There are two things about many of Blow’s pieces that I really appreciate and are often lacking from other commentators: recognition of complexity and nuance, as well as the willingness to avoid answering the questions he asks. Blow seems to realize that there isn’t enough room in an 800 word article to reach conclusions about most important issues. Unfortunately most pundits don’t seem to get that.

I just watched Thursday’s Daily Show online and it has a clip that captures difficulties of “winning” in Afganistan. Simply put I don’t know anyone who can describe what winning in Afganistan is or how to achieve that undefinable win. There are Neoconservatives that have Utopian visions of a stable and democratic Afganistan, but even most of them will admit that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars, an unknown number of years and lives sacrificed.  However difficult it is for people to argue for staying in Afganistan, I haven’t heard any advocates for scaling the war in Afganistan down, who can offer a vision for Afganistan without the US that clearly describes the effects both for Afganistan, and US national security interests. I think this lack of a vision is a major hindrance to developing a policy and gaining political support for getting the US military out of Afganistan. If the Iraq war has shown us anything, it is that no matter how inconceivable “victory” is, the situation has to become very unstomachable before there are major reductions in the US military presence in foreign country.