Author: hamilton1788

Afghanistan is often analogized to Vietnam, and with good reason.  The analogy isn’t perfect;  the American public is more indifferent than hostile to the war, since Afghanistan was the platform for an attack on us, we haven’t suffered major losses there, and it didn’t result in the reinstitution of the draft.  However, the objective in both countries was to create enough space to permit a successful transition from American to local control of the war.  In Vietnam, it failed completely;  in Afghanistan, after 17 years, it has become clear that it will never succeed.

The questions, then, are as follows:

1. What is a realistic objective for the war?
2. Is the war worth the effort?
3. Are there viable alternatives to the longstanding pattern of surging and retreating?

My analysis is as follows:

1. The only real American strategic interest in Afghanistan is in preventing the country from becoming a platform for terrorist attacks in the US and Europe.  Promoting liberal democratic values and limiting the cultivation of opium there are certainly worthy goals, but we are probably doomed to failure in the end, given the local culture and economy.
2.  Afghanistan is not unique when it comes to providing a platform for terrorists.  There is no longer any obvious reason to throw a disproportionate number of resources at it as opposed to, say, Yemen or parts of Africa.
3.  The alternatives to the current surge and retreat approach are:  (a) escalate the war to include parts of Pakistan; (b) treat Afghanistan in the same way as Yemen or Africa (i.e., withdraw virtually all of our combat forces and fight terrorists, with or without the cooperation of the government, with drones and special forces); or (c) use South Korea as the model, rather than Vietnam, and accept openly that we will be there to maintain a stalemate indefinitely.
4.  Since Pakistan has nuclear weapons, (a) is not a viable approach.  There is no obvious reason why (b) can’t work as long as our objective is as limited as I have suggested in #1.  (C) has worked in South Korea, and can work in Afghanistan as long as the American public is willing to accept the costs of propping up the government and maintaining a stalemate. (C) is also the best alternative if you believe that a negotiated settlement with the Taliban is a reasonable possibility.
5. Either (b) or (c) would be more realistic, and have a better chance of success, than the current approach.  I prefer (b) because I don’t believe there is a sufficient justification for treating Afghanistan differently than the other terrorist hot spots, and the record doesn’t show much of a basis for believing that the Taliban and their Pakistani friends are much interested in a deal.

Sunday’s NYT Magazine contained a lengthy article about the Afghan War that was largely written from the perspective of a single soldier who became increasingly disillusioned with our government’s tactics over time.  The author of the article clearly believes that the war has been a failure.  Is that true?

Yes and no.  Yes, we have been unable to destroy the Taliban; that will not be possible as long as they have the support of the Pakistani military and we lack the will to turn the war into a far larger and more dangerous regional conflict.  Even worse, it has become increasingly clear after seventeen years that the Afghan military and government will not be able to do the job by themselves for the foreseeable future.  On the other hand, we have been able to keep enough pressure on the Taliban to prevent any international terrorist events along the lines of 9/11, and to maintain control over a large portion of the country.   That’s a draw, and a draw is not the same as a defeat, even if we haven’t been able to accomplish our more ambitious objectives.

Is the war worth it, and are there other plausible alternatives?  More on that tomorrow.

 

Erdogan cast his spell on the Turks.

You could call him a bit of a jerk.

While it seems that he hates

Really high interest rates

His alternatives don’t really work.

 

Last week’s issue of The Economist featured a column which gave Trump a medal for being “better than Obama” on Afghanistan even though the author couldn’t point to any meaningful change in tactics.  Part of the justification for the medal was the apparent (to the author, at least) improvement on the battlefield.  A week later, however, the Taliban took over Ghazni.

Whoops!  Does Trump have to give the medal back?  Will we see a mea culpa in next week’s issue?  Not likely.

More on Afghanistan in the following days.

Faced with an economic disaster largely of his own making, Erdogan has responded as all good strongmen would:  by doubling down on his mistakes and blaming foreigners.  When that doesn’t work, will he go the full Maduro?  That remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

From an American perspective, the thing to remember here is that Trump is just as ignorant as Erdogan, has the same authoritarian impulses, and has even less respect for the truth.  When, at some point in the future, American markets spiral out of control, how do you expect him to react?  Exactly the same way, of course, and the results won’t be pretty.

It is undisputed that the GOP weaponizes the deficit when they lose elections and ignores it when they win.  Neither they nor the country has paid the price for their irresponsibility to date;  interest rates remain low, and the economy is roaring.  It then follows, according to the left, that the Democrats should stop trying to be adults about the deficit, and should simply let it rip.  In particular, Obama’s flirtation with a grand bargain was a mistake which should not be repeated when the Democrats regain power.

Are they right?  No.  There is no guarantee that interest rates will remain low forever.  In addition, the financial problems with our entitlement programs haven’t gone away, and will have to be dealt with in the foreseeable future.  If not, the default alternative is a huge battle over how to fix the holes in the system with a deadline looming.  That serves neither party’s best interests.

According to Steve Bannon, 2016 was the inevitable result of 2008.  Angry at an establishment that had initially tolerated the predatory practices of Wall Street financiers, and then had bailed them out, the peasants with pitchforks rose up and elected Donald Trump.  Trump’s limits on immigration and tariffs (loathed by the financiers) will lead to a new golden age for American manufacturing–just you wait!   Wages for workers will soar, and America will be great again!

I hear you snickering.  Stop it!

Of course, this narrative ignores inconvenient facts and distorts others, including the following:

1.  In 2012, after four hard years of the Great Recession, the peasants rose and nominated . . . Mitt Romney.
2.  Bernie Sanders lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
3.  Trump only won a plurality of GOP votes–not a majority.
4.  Clinton won the popular vote by a substantial margin.
5.  Trump spent far more time denouncing Mexican rapists than Wall Street vampire squid during the campaign.
6.  Once elected, Trump stuffed his cabinet with Wall Street billionaires and signed a tax cut which gave virtually all of its benefits to the wealthy.  He continues to bash immigrants on a daily basis.  Wall Street–not so much.
7.  The tariff and immigration program has done nothing for American prosperity to date, and won’t bring jobs back in the future.

Leaving aside the holes in the narrative, there are two interesting aspects to it.  First, Bannon clearly doesn’t subscribe to the bogus GOP counternarrative that it was the Democrats and the federal government, not the vampire squid, who caused the Great Recession.  Second, his rhetoric about Wall Street in the New York Magazine interview could come straight from the mouth of Bernie Sanders.

In the end, right-wing and left-wing American populism may be brothers, not distant relatives.

How to win back Reactionary voters, and whether it is even worth the effort, has been a major topic of discussion among Democrats over the last two years.  Here are my observations:

1.  Don’t expect too much:  You’re only going to nibble around the edges, no matter what you do.  Still, that’s millions of votes that are in play on a national basis.

2.  Faux vs. real populism:  Trump stuffed his cabinet with billionaires and cut taxes primarily for the wealthy, not for working people.  Don’t forget to point that out, repeatedly.

3.  Trump hates labor:  A fair number of Reactionaries are union members.  Make a point of talking about the GOP’s ongoing efforts to destroy unions.

4.  Repeal and don’t replace:  Trump and the GOP tried to take your health insurance away.  Is that really what you voted for in 2016?

5.  Stay neutral in the culture wars:  Emphasize your local roots and your sympathy for rural culture.  Don’t let your opponent tar you as a wealthy, out-of-touch limousine liberal.

Divisive people are disgusting!  Build the wall to keep them out!

In general, you can divide the PBPs into three groups:  big “globalist” businessmen who appreciate Trump’s tax cuts and deregulation, but worry about his tariffs, reactionary social policies, and random interventions; owners of smaller businesses with only domestic clientele who love the man to death; and their wives, who have to balance their economic self-interest against Trump’s deplorable behavior.

There are plenty of votes to be won here, particularly among the women, if you’re willing to forego “socialism.”  Is that tradeoff worth it?  In 2018, it depends on the makeup of each individual district.  The issue will be much more acute in 2020.

In the blue corner, we have “The Sultan!”  A genuine Islamic authoritarian, he’s an economic ignoramus who believes that higher interest rates cause inflation.  Having tried with limited success to play the Russians off against his erstwhile American and European allies, he’s currently holding Americans essentially as hostages in an effort to force the US government to deport one of his political enemies.  He’s a piece of work, to be sure.

In the red corner, we have “The Dotard!”  An inept, corrupt wannabe strongman, he thinks the answer to every foreign policy problem is a war or a tariff.  He thinks he can make America great again by alienating every other government on the planet outside of Israel and Saudi Arabia.  He wants to bring “The Sultan” to his knees, just because, well, he thinks he can.  Swagger is his stock in trade.

LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!

And the winners are . . . my UK vacation, which is getting cheaper by the day, and Vladimir Putin, as usual.  Everyone else loses.

It’s a wonderful world.

It would appear that MBS graduated from the Donald J. Trump School of Thin-Skinned, Swaggering Diplomacy (not to be confused with Trump University).  Having unsuccessfully attempted to change the government of Lebanon, blockaded Qatar, and launched an endless and bloody war in Yemen, the Saudis have now started a row with Canada over some fairly inoffensive statements about human rights violations.    What, exactly, is this supposed to accomplish?

(On two related notes, the US government is not taking sides in this dispute, and it turns out that the Saudis don’t just behead people–they crucify them, too!  Bet that goes over well with Trump’s religious fundamentalist base.)

It’s one thing to swagger when you have the world’s biggest economy and most effective military on your side.  It’s quite another to do it when the world is trying to phase out the use of your country’s only real economic asset.  My guess is that Canada doesn’t even buy any Saudi oil.  Why, under those circumstances, would they capitulate to Saudi pressure?

MBS would be wise to take a hard look at his country’s real assets and liabilities, and to conduct his diplomacy accordingly.

The Koch brothers, who basically embody the CL faction, have indicated that they welcome the opportunity to work with Democrats on issues like criminal justice reform.  Is this an opening for 2020?

Not really.  While the CLs and the Democrats share an interest in clean and effective government, the former want to decrease the size of the state for virtually all purposes, and the latter want to expand it.  In addition, there are relatively few CLs to chase.

The Democrats may get a few votes from CLs who can’t stand Trump’s corruption, incompetence, and tariffs, but not enough to make a difference.  It simply isn’t worth the effort.

The internet is ablaze about Sarah Jeong, a young Asian woman recently hired by the NYT.  It appears that Ms. Jeong has a habit of making extremely derogatory remarks about white people on Twitter, often in response to attacks from right-wing trolls.  Some commentators have responded to this by insisting that racial hate speech by minorities should be held to the same standard as similar speech by white right-wingers.  Her defenders have argued, in essence, that her comments were taken out of their ironic context, and that they should be taken seriously, but not literally.

But, you ask, what about Donald Trump?  He uses Twitter to make extreme comments that are meant to firm up his bonds with his base.  If Ms. Jeong’s facially racist statements should be excused on the basis that she was just chatting ironically with her friends, shouldn’t Trump be treated the same way?

No, because: (a) Trump has responsibilities to the entire nation as president that Ms. Jeong doesn’t; and (b) he isn’t just communicating ironically with his friends–he’s also trying to trigger the libs for his own advantage.

If the Democrats are going to win in 2020, they are going to have to peel away millions of Trump voters within the GOP.  How will they do that?  I will be discussing that in terms of the four factions over the coming days, starting with the Christian Democrats.

Essentially everything about Trump and his government–the lies, corruption, incompetence, divisiveness, arrogance, and indifference (even hostility) to the condition of the poor and powerless–is an affront to the CDs.  In exchange for that, here is an exhaustive list of what Trump has done to accommodate them:

Gorsuch.

That’s it.  Getting the CDs to vote for the Democrat in 2020 should be like shooting fish in a barrel.  All you have to do is avoid sounding too overly hostile to Christian values, and try not to talk too much about abortion.  That shouldn’t be too hard.