I don’t like to get my hopes up too much, but even a thirty percent chance of a political settlement with the Taliban sounds well worth pursuing. If Obama can end both stupid wars, in addition to passing the most sweeping health care reform in history and the strongest Wall Street reforms and consumer protections in over half a century, all in one term in office, then we won’t even have to mention the elimination of bin-Laden and Gaddafi or the stabilization of the financial system or the saving of the auto industry or the end of DADT or the non-enforcement of DOMA or the hate crimes bill or the many other worthy achievements he’s already notched on his belt. If he can end both wars without further humiliation, and without endangering our national security, then he deserves a special place in the pantheon of American presidents.
He’s at least 50% of the way there. As for cleaning up Bush’s mess, he’s doing an outstanding job with less than no cooperation from the Republicans and often not enough help from the Democrats.
We still have a Congress full of cowards who don’t believe in the American justice system. And the administration is guilty of playing too much defense to protect itself from criticism. It’s hard for any administration to reject powers that Congress, through its predilection for bedwetting and fear mongering, throws at it with threats that they better accept them or they’ll be attacked for endangering national security. The Obama administration has done too much to protect the prior administration and has accepted too much power into its own hands. If not for that, they’d be getting an A-plus in my grading system.
I’d like to see them do more in a second term to roll back these excesses. I’m not optimistic about it, but the luxury of not needing to worry about reelection should give them more confidence to do the right thing without it handing power to a bunch of would-be war criminals and Tea Partiers.
In any case, I fervently hope that the talks with the Taliban bear fruit.
This sounds interesting, but does this story aid or hurt this effort. Doesn’t reporting on “secret” negotiations that are sensitive just make the negotiations even harder since now every echo chamber can get on any MSM tv show and just say stupid shit?
well, they definitely wanted this story out.
I find it notable that they’re putting this story out now, after having kept it so quiet for so long,
Really? Interesting way of keeping it quiet. There have been reports and arguments about “secret” talks with the Taliban for months and months. I’ve heard and seen them on the MSM as well as “alternative” media.
Leaks are one thing. This is an actual press release, publicly acknowledging it.
They are now purposely putting this story out there, pushing it, when they weren’t before.
You ought to grade them on a curve, though. They did all that in the face of the most relentless, cynical, and empowered opposition in modern American history. So it’s an A- and about 10,000 points of extra credit.
I would add: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/hamas-moves-from-violence-palestinian
anyone think that this was done without some behind the scenes help from the Obama admin? add in the – now on hold – deal with North Korea re food aid, this President has, well, presided over one of the hottest foreign policy streaks ever for a first term. Combine that with the undoubted domestic success, all in the face of unimaginable wave of obstruction, and I think that you’d have to give him an A at the least. Yes he’s done things that I disagree with; yes he could be better and more gutsy on civil liberties but that should not stop us from celebrating the way that this man has worked his Presidency.
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Despite Obama and failed Clinton foreign policy on the Middle-East. From the article, Hamas is moving away from the Syria-Iran extremist axis to a more moderate Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood international acceptance. Hamas gained support in Egypt after the Arab Spring revolution with backing from a moderate Europe. The United States is poised in a position of support for a right-wing policy of Israel and the extreme Islamists guarding the holy places of Mecca, et all. The US will be seen as their number one enemy. No change coming.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Let’s not forget Obama’s most important foreign policy achievement, the one for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize: restarting the international nuclear reduction negotiations.
I realize this is supposed to be a punch line among the cool kids, but some of us Eleanor Roosevelt fans continue to believe in things like nuclear arms reduction treaties and the UN.
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No one I can think of deserves an A in the Obama administration. It’s true after eight years of Bush, it would be very tough. On Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan Obama’s policy is strict setting an agenda and following through. “We are out, hoping for all the best to you guys. The problems are now your own.”
Barack Obama scores no higher the a C+ and for Hillary Clinton a B-. All persons involved in the econony, jobs and our financial policy: a D- just to be kind.
To justify an A, one has to be outstanding especially in leadership. A qualification lacking throughout society at all levels.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."We can no more pull our troops out of Afghanistan because of all the mineral reserves, and the oil and gas pipeline(s) route(s), than pull our troops out of Iraq, or Libya. They’re going to be in all three places forever.
(I learned a particular way of coming at the world in general and international affairs in particular back in the ’70’s and I’m too tired, and it would be entirely too much work, to acquire new ones, or look at things on a case by case basis.)
except we never put any troops in Libya and we only have a handful in Iraq to guard the embassy and do some advising (I think the count I saw was about 100)
That was sarcasm.
You have to know Davis.
my bad, I don’t always read the comments here
Thanks
It’s an encouraging sign. It’s a clear admission that the US cannot, as the military wants to do, impose our will on Afghanistan with a clear and unconditional military victory. That means that the US is going to be more likely to reach a political agreement sooner instead of later.
But that agreement will likely not deal with the divisions in Afghan politics that caused the rise of the Taliban in the first place. And the US is likely going to try to have some guarantees of Afghan peace through leaving troops of some kind at the major bases we have constructed there–only to find out that even Hamid Karzai is not interested.
The bad news is that we have come to this point by so pissing off the Pakistani government with our callous disregard for the life of Pakistani military and citizens that they are shutting down supply lines in protest. But the good news is that for the moment the Pakistani government has increased its stability and the unity of Pakistan somewhat by saying No to the US. And for the moment, the government still is a civilian government.
The negotiations have not yet involved the frontline states in any serious manner. Their agreements will be key to Afghanistan being free enough of meddling to deal with its political problems. Key players are China, Pakistan, India (which considers itself frontline although geographically it is not), the surrounding -stans, Iran, and Russia.
The problem with negotiating with the Taliban is knowing who exactly you are negotiating with. The Taliban is a coalition of insurgent groups, some more amenable to negotiation than others. And then there is the problem of knowing if the individual you are negotiating with actually has enough power to honor the agreements he makes.
I read this news as the administration saying to the public, “We really are getting out of Afghanistan by 2014.”
If there’s really a there there, I hope we succeed.
“as the military wants to do”
I don’t think this is right. The Bush-era leadership gave them the assignment of security a total military victory, and they went about trying to figure out how to do that as best they could.
How do you get an A-? Like Oui, I’d go with C+. An A in anything would mean, “Far surpassed my expectations.” In most ways he’s met them. In other ways, he was way under. He’s about what I expected…so a C+.
That’s an interesting way of grading. If I get 95% of questions right on my statistics exam which is just about as much as my professor expects because he thinks he has taught me well, he still gives me an A even though I’ve done no better than he expected.
I know a principal who went to a workshop where the presenter began by putting up a hypothetical list of 10 scores a student had gotten in class for a term (e.g., 80, 75, 100, 50, 80, 65, 80, 90, 100, 95) and then asked the educators what grade they would give the student and why.
The answers were all over the place. One teacher gave an A because the last three grades were A’s, and she weights the end of term grades more heavily. Another teacher throws out the high and low grades, and then averages the rest. A third had a different method, which resulted in a different grade than the first two. And so on.
The presenter’s answer to the question for what determines whether a student gets an A, or a B, or a C? Who the teacher is, not what the student knows.
I don’t know if I’d give Obama an A, but I think Booman’s point is an important one. Looking at the totality of Obama’s administration (so far), and comparing it with other presidential administrations, and taking into account both the circumstances in which he took office (the worst recession in 70 years) and the behavior of the opposition party, Obama’s done a pretty good job—and a much better job than most pundits are willing to credit him with.
The answer to that presenters question is, it depends on the assignments.
Assignments are created for many different reasons. The teacher who weighs the last three tests differently has organized her class and syllabus in a manner that final results are the legitimate measure of a year’s learning, while the teacher who averages all of the scores has arranged hers so that each student should be mastering one little chunk at a time over the course of the semester.
Actually, the presenter apparently argued quite forcefully that it wasn’t the assignments; it was that different teachers can give different grades to students who are equally proficient in a subject area.
To take your example, it’s entirely possible that two students (one in classroom A, and one in classroom B) get to the end of the year and are equally proficient in the subject area. However, because the teachers in classroom A and classroom B have different grading systems, the two students get different grades.
We can see examples of that in this thread. Booman gives Obama “almost an A+”. Oui gives him a C, saying that “(t)o justify an A, one has to be outstanding especially in leadership”. Lodus argues in favor of grading “on a curve”. homeruk gives Obama “at least an A” despite conceding that he “could be better and more gutsy on civil liberties”. seabe gives Obama a C+ because his record is “about what I expected”.
The difference isn’t in Obama and his record; it’s in us and our methods of evaluation.
I would just say a couple of things: to get an A you never had to be perfect; regardless of the different teachers’ views I doubt any one of them would say that you need 100% to get an A; so I give him an A despite a few things I wish he’d done differently. Also, expectations play into this as well. When I got my degree (in UK) i just missed the top grade and my parents asked “what happened”. When my brother – who just wasn’t great at exams albeit very bright – just scraped by, my parents declared it the happiest day of their lives. Expectations matter. To me, Pres has met the expectations I had in the vast majority. There’s a line from the West Wing along the lines of people not expecting the President to have all the answers but to approach the job with integrity, honesty and effort – and I think he’s done that and done that well.
Totally agreed. When I was in school there were basically 2 scales:
90-80-70-60 or
94-86-79-69
Both don’t require perfection for an “A”
I was actually just thinking about my expectations about this President. I actually said the day after the election I expected the President to do in 8 years was get out of Iraq, pass health care reform, and just start on green energy.
He has accomplished that and more. Maybe my expectations were too low, but given my experiences (going back to Reagan) that’s all I thought could be done in 8 years outside of the normal budgeting process.
And other teachers don’t give any A’s except for one. I had a philosophy teacher like that. I also got a B- in my Boundary Layer and Heat Transfer class, even though I got an 87%.
If he was going to be better on civil liberties and live up to the campaign rhetoric there, I’d give him a B. But he went below my expectations there. Health care bill is about what I expected. I expected a climate bill to get through, but I didn’t expect Republican obstruction to the degree that it’s taken place (only in this area). Why? Because for the most part energy is very regional, not partisan. I figured Republicans could be brought on by their lobbyists, not outmatched by Mitch McConnell. So seeing as I didn’t expect that to happen, I don’t hold it against the president as much. Everything else he’s passed I expected; the Financial Reform Bill exceeded my expectations, despite it being watered down.
All of these accomplishments won’t matter one whit if media carpet bombing approaching $500 million is unleashed on his record. Just look at how John Kerry’s accomplishments were trashed.
Unless Congressional and state-level Democrats swing behind and strongly support the President and put their resources into grassroots communication of the record. And with the current incumbents, I don’t see that happening.
And if Congress is the problem, how exactly does that problem get solved in 2012?
We are in better shape in foreign policy than in a decade, but only the easy part has been taken care of. Pakistan has gotten beyond pretending. Egypt and Yemen have uncompleted revolutions in which US military aid is being used against peaceful protesters. Bahrain has crushed a similar revolution by using US military aid to itself and also benefitting from similar aid to other Gulf States. Israel is still defiant.
And then there’s Syria, which we hold little leverage over except as the bogeyman with which Russia can scare Assad into accepting an Arab League “peace initiative” that might do no more than allow observers into Syria. But with which Sec. Clinton seems obsessed with talking about.
Finally, there’s the police suppression of Occupy Wall Street locations, seemingly now coordinated through a federal contractor. There’s no escaping the image that the US has become the police state that it decries. That image will be the biggest obstacle to further leverage for support of the Arab Awakening. Indeed, it may have emboldened the Egyptian SCAF to take a harder line on protesters.
Obama and Clinton are doing the right thing here, whether the negotiations bear fruit or not. The other side gets a vote, and working for a peace deal is the right move, even though it is not certain to work.
Just for the record, let’s not forget that the Taliban, while on the whole a pretty odious bunch, did not attack the United States. On the contrary, the United States attacked them in their country.
This is true although I would say that most Americans don’t regret invading Afghanistan as opposed to Iraq.
Now maybe the war was doomed to failure from the start. But, it’s also clear that the effort suffered from inadequate resources and manpower, poor overall strategy and tactics, and ultimately a loss of focus due to the Iraq war.
I’m more interested in how we extricate ourselves from this mess.
Yeah, Mullah Omar is a swell guy.
Booman, what part of “a pretty odious bunch” do you need translated?
the part where swearing to make America extinct is merely “odious.”
Oh, for gods’ sake, BooMan. That’s just beyond silly.
Some synonyms for “odious” listed in my dictionary: abominable, despicable, execrable, loathsome.
You might prefer other (or additional words) to describe the Taliban, and their views about the United States, but it’s hard for me to take “odious” as anything but harsh criticism of the Taliban.
(Leaving aside for now the issue of how much power the Taliban had/has to act on a desire to “make America extinct”.)
Just for the record, let’s not forget that the Taliban, while on the whole a pretty odious bunch, did not attack the United States. On the contrary, the United States attacked them in their country.
Like Italy. Or Nazi Germany.
Your point?
The point is that retaliating and demobilizing al Quaeda did not of necessity require the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan.
The truth of this assertion is why Lindsey Graham continues to claim that all President Obama is interested in is law enforcement, not war. George W. Bush was interested in being a war President.
The war in Afghanistan was a policy choice based on the logic not that the Taliban attacked the US but that the Taliban supported al Quaeda (without claiming that al Quaeda was an agent of the Taliban), which attacked the US.
We did not have to send troops into Afghanistan to conduct a decade-long war anymore than we had to invade Iraq or, as John McCain wants, attack Iran.
The point is that retaliating and demobilizing al Quaeda did not of necessity require the overthrow of the Taliban government of Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban government of Afghanistan had pretty much made bin Laden the head of training for its military, and because they utilized their military to defend al Qaeda, their assets, their bases, and their personnel, it was indeed necessary.
We did not have to send troops into Afghanistan to conduct a decade-long war anymore than we had to invade Iraq or, as John McCain wants, attack Iran.
This part is true. We could have kept our eye on the ball, finished the job at Tora Bora, and been out of there in a year or two. Nonetheless, this would still have required defeating and overthrowing the Taliban.
I have read a number of places that Bin Laden was not at all loved by the Taliban in general. He paid a lot of money to them to have a spot in Afghanistan on the one hand, but was a liability on the other and also had a sense of superiority. I gather that there was a sizable chunk of the Taliban that thought, as 2001 began, that he was more trouble than he was worth.
Better strategy would have been to drive that wedge between them further and make it more worth their while to give him up. I believe that strategy was considered in the Bush admin but dropped.
You have read correctly. In fact, the Taliban were prepared to negotiate a deal by which they would give bin Laden over for trial, and the Bush regime refused to even consider entering into negotiations. That, among other things, should tell you something about the importance of bin Laden to both the Taliban, and the Bush regime.
As for bin Laden being the head of training for the Afghan military, that sounds awfully far fetched to me on a lot of different levels.
I got the impression that the deal was “pay us money and leave us alone.”
In fact, the Taliban were prepared to negotiate a deal by which they would give bin Laden over for trial
Suuuuuuuuuure they were. If we can’t take Mullah Omar at his word, who can we trust? He’s an honorable man, after all.
I’ll never understand why people who conceive of themselves as astute and worldly are so eager to put their faith in the empty words of someone like Omar.
What is it that makes him so credible to you? Was it his orders to slaughter the staff of the Iranian embassy after the fall of Kabul? Does he have some longstanding horror of killing civilians? Had he developed some heretofore unknown respect for international law? Was he in the habit of turning over members of his family, like bin Laden, to non-Muslim authorities for prosecution?
Or are you just suspending your critical reasoning on this because it allows you to believe what you want to believe?
But Omar is not the whole Taliban. Divide and conquer, Jack.
I have read a number of places that Bin Laden was not at all loved by the Taliban in general.
Perhaps. He was certainly in the good graces of the top leadership, though. He was married to Mullah Omar’s daughter. He was part of the government and military’s top leadership.
What’s YOUR point?
That your effort to paint the Taliban as victims of aggression, and the United States as monsters for going through them to get at al Qaeda, is historically ignorant and morally obtuse.
I didn’t attempt to paint the Taliban as victims of any kind, I merely pointed out what should be an obvious fact to anyone who bothers to use his brain. It’s downright hilarious that Americans are always soooooo outraged when people whose countries they bomb and invade fight back. It’s simply pathetic how ready Americans are to view and present those who fight back as the face of terrorism.
And, of course, it’s beyond pathetic that you (and BooMan) have such a need to twist, distort, and embellish my statement in order to manage an argument against it. If you disagree with what I say, then disagree with what I say, and if you can’t make a decent argument with what I say, don’t pretend I said something else in order to give yourself an argument.
I didn’t attempt to paint the Taliban as victims of any kind
I knew when I read this as your first sentence that you would contradict yourself by the end of your comment, and…
It’s downright hilarious that Americans are always soooooo outraged when people whose countries they bomb and invade fight back. It’s simply pathetic how ready Americans are to view and present those who fight back as the face of terrorism.
Poor Taliban; all they did was “fight back.”
Lol
PS I also did not paint the U.S. as monsters, but you know that. I made a simple statement of fact. Clearly you can’t manage a simple statement of fact. Sad.
PS I also did not paint the U.S. as monsters
Ahem.
Just for the record, let’s not forget that the Taliban, while on the whole a pretty odious bunch, did not attack the United States. On the contrary, the United States attacked them in their country.
But you meant this in a totally non-judgmental way, without any attempt to cast aspersions on the United States. Uh huh.
Please argue with the judgment-free facts I stated, not something you made up. The United States attacked the Taliban in their country. Do you disagree that this is a fact? If so, please present a factual argument that the United States did not attack the Taliban in their country.
Joe from Lowell, I’ve got to agree with Hurria and Tarheel Dem on this one. Especially when you consider how close the US came to capturing or killing bin Laden at Tora Bora 10 years ago. And when you consider how the US actually killed bin Laden earlier this year.
It’s hard to avoid concluding that the wars we’ve waged for the past decade could have been (in some alternate universe where Al Gore was president?) replaced with an intensive intelligence-and-special-forces mission tightly focused on bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders.
Such a mission would likely have lasted months, not years; with costs in the low billions rather than the trillions; with loss of life (US and other nationals) in the hundreds rather than the tens (hundreds?) of thousands.
That, of course, would not have led to the Iraq War. Which, it seems, was the primary foreign policy objective of the Bush administration in 2001.
(Once again, “The Onion” was ahead of the news curve: http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/ )
It’s worth noting that “police work” led to Bin Laden’s death.
Especially when you consider how close the US came to capturing or killing bin Laden at Tora Bora 10 years ago. And when you consider how the US actually killed bin Laden earlier this year.
Tora Bora involved a main-force military attack, complete with massive use of air power, against an entrenched enemy.
Osama bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Afghanistan, without any significant defenses, because his forces had been militarily routed and driven out of Afghanistan by a main-force military mission. Without that invasion, he’d still be a top official in a sovereign government, surrounded by thousands of troops, and not available to be snatched in a raid.
Wait. Bin Laden was not nor was he ever–nor have I ever heard anyone, even the most hawkish hawk–suggest that he was a top official in any government.
The entire premise of Al Qaeda or any terrorist organization is that they are not a state. They are non-state actors. This is what makes them hard to defeat militarily, which is the entire rationale of terrorism, which is a response, justified or no (how many of my Irish American siblings gave money to the IRA decades ago only to rail against terrorism in 2001?) to a militarily superior force?
Where are you getting this stuff, Joe? I do not mean that sarcastically. I genuinely am interested to know from where you are deriving this information. Links, please, because I want to read it.
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"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The administration disputes this, they say they informed the Afgan government before and after each meeting with the Taliban.
On top of everything else, Karzai is just a completely incompetent politician.
He has to distance himself from the US, fine, I get that. But a decent politician should be able to finesse this so that the image of a split is maintained without setting of a he-said-she-said contest.
yep he’s a tool; another Bush mess this President is having the clean up
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Uninvited occupying forces talking “peace” with a delegation of the Afghan Taliban instead of the sovereign state Afghanistan making a deal. Perhaps we don’t discuss any policy with the Pakistan leaders since May 2, 2011 either. I suppose we can uninvite ourselves once more and leave Afhganistan to ___ (insert a name).
Outstanding article in The New Yorker earlier this year:
My conclusion, this can be an early phase of exploratory talks with the Taliban. Perhaps to release Guatanamo prisoners. Afghanistan and Pakistan must be part of a negotiated settlement. Problem for the Obama administration, both nations are unreliable partners. In the meantime, Pakistan through the ISI and Haqqani terror network are responsible for gruesome attacks on Kabul.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."And the U.S. is responsible for gruesome attacks on Pakistan, including the recent “unfortunate mistake” that blew away two dozen Pakistani soldiers. As one of my friends in Pakistan recently pointed out to me, those were very young, very real, very human men with wives and small children. Pakistani people felt the loss as acutely as Americans feel similar losses, and are as angry as Americans are under similar conditions.
Let’s not minimize the carnage on either side. It’s all wrong from every perspective.
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From the outset it was clear the harsh Pakistan words towards NATO/ISAF and the US were inspired for internal politics. Ever since earlier affairs this year: CIA undercover murder of two Pakistanis and the OBL killing in Abbottabad, the Pakistan regime has gone all out to express their “sovereignty”. Still the Pakistan leaders are seen as slaves of enemy number 1, the United States, by domestic terror groups under protection of the ISI. How many Pakistan soldiers have been killed in the battles NWT region.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Oui, I am not talking about politics here, I am talking about Pakistani people. My friends and their families and their friends, and all their neighbors and families and friends are extremely upset over the deaths of two dozen young men who were members of the Pakistani military.
And if the United States was not involved in this incident, then why did they say so in the first place instead of apologizing for the “unfortunate accident”? When stories keep changing every story is suspect.