Restitutor Orbis

President Obama has made his long-awaited decision about Afghanistan. The question never really was whether or not to leave, but came down to how many additional troops were we going to send, and how long were they going to stay. There were vague demands that we fight to win from such stalwarts as John McCain, but what constitutes victory?

In modern American wars, that idea seems to be little considered. Take Korea. In the just-concluded Second World War, the United States knew just what it wanted to do: destroy Hitler; destroy Japan. Easy. We knew what we wanted, we knew what the public demanded, and we did it.

But then Korea came along, a war nobody really wanted, except perhaps Douglas MacArthur. And nobody really knew how to win the damn thing. It was in many ways a precursor to Vietnam. Both wars took place in Asia, far away from home, in areas the American public knew little about and cared about even less. And both wars put us in position of creating bigger wars - World Wars - if we tried our WWII strategy of total annihilation.

We couldn't invade North Korea without triggering a Chinese response (as events proved) and we couldn't invade North Vietnam without...you got it, triggering a response, either from China or from Russia, which was busily supplying the North Vietnamese army and even providing, as we had done in the 60's, military advisers.

Afghanistan is different. Again, it is far away. Again, it is in Asia. Again, it is a country the public doesn't really know much about and doesn't seem to care about. Add to that the fact that in all of history, only Alexander the Great seems to have had any luck there, and that was more than two millennia ago.

Not promising.

And here, even if we wanted to, there is nobody to invade. We're already IN the country. Coming to grips with the enemy and destroying him has proved difficult. Promoting the local government and infrastructure seems to be the way to go. We can't just role over the enemy with superior numbers or fire power. "Shock and awe" don't mean much in that remote country. The enemy is neither shocked, nor awed.

The decision could not have been easy for President Obama. The New York Times tells us,

On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia.

That visit must have made for a sobering period of reflection. "How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But his advisers say he was haunted by the human toll as he wrestled with what to do about the eight-year-old war."

Think about it: eight years. We were in WWI for just two years; in WWII for just four. We fought two world wars in a period of just six years. We have been in Afghanistan for eight. And we're still not entirely done with Iraq.

And Mr. Obama made Afghanistan of central importance during his presidential run. He constantly harped on President Bush's mistake in invading Iraq, saying Afghanistan was where the war should have been fought. You have to wonder, knowing what he knows now, how President Obama feels about those words. He committed himself; now, as president, it was time to put his money where his mouth was.

Now as his top military adviser ran through a slide show of options, Mr. Obama expressed frustration. He held up a chart showing how reinforcements would flow into Afghanistan over 18 months and eventually begin to pull out, a bell curve that meant American forces would be there for years to come.

“I want this pushed to the left,” he told advisers, pointing to the bell curve. In other words, the troops should be in sooner, then out sooner.

The new plan in a nutshell? Mr. Obama seems to be hoping for a little shock and awe, getting 30,000 additional troops (Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the man on the spot, made a request for 40,000) there as quickly as possible (within the next six months - not exactly Hitler's invasion of Poland or France) in the hopes that we can regain the initiative (if we ever had it to begin with) not to win a crushing victory on the ground, but to buy time. Time in which to permit the Afghan government to establish itself and for their forces to pick up the slack so that our boys and girls can come home, starting in a year.

We have a huge stake in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama has a lot to gain (he can win a war the Republicans didn't even try to prosecute, let alone win) and a lot to lose (though the Democrats didn't start the war, they'll certainly take the blame for losing it). And he had already sent additional troops: Even before this decision for a surge he had "ordered the military to send 21,000 more troops there, bringing the force to 68,000."

We already have more men there than Alexander did; and we've been there a lot longer. Of course, Mr. Obama can't cement local alliances by marrying a chieftain's daughter and the enemy is no longer foolish enough to fort up on a convenient mountain top to give us the victories Alexander so often gained.

And, of course, the United States is sadly lacking in spare Alexanders. We haven't had one of those, or even anything close, since WWII.

How will it all end? Can we win the victory we want and need? An end to terrorism? Even if we put a strong Afghan government in place, will the United States have succeeded in its goal?

It's impossible to say.

As the New York Times says, "When the history of the Obama presidency is written, that day with the chart may prove to be a turning point, the moment a young commander in chief set in motion a high-stakes gamble to turn around a losing war."

Anyone who has spent any time at all on places like Digg are well aware of the rise of extremism in this country. Until recently, you might not have seen it talked about by the major media outlets. This is despite the fact that one major media outlet, FOX News, has for some time now been a source of right wing hate speech. The fringe has become mainstream. It owns its own political party, the GOP, and its own media outlet, FOX News, all the while spreading a myth about some sort of "liberal media elite" that twists facts and slants the news and is out to get them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reports that

The number of hate groups operating in the United States continued to rise in 2008 and has grown by 54 percent since 2000 — an increase fueled last year by immigration fears, a failing economy and the successful campaign of Barack Obama

"The SPLC identified 926 hate groups active in 2008, up more than 4 percent from the 888 groups in 2007 and far above the 602 groups documented in 2000." This is a frightening trend and it should come as no surprise that a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report warns that right-wing extremism "may be on the rise." According to CNN:

Though the nine-page report said it has "no specific information that domestic right-wing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence," it said real-estate foreclosures, unemployment and tight credit "could create a fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past."

The report, prepared in coordination with the FBI and published April 7, was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement officials under the title "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment."

Of course, the extremists are themselves all up in arms (quite literally, I'm sorry to say) over the release of this report, claiming that "they" are coming to get their guns now, and that the US government has become a repressive regime and that "they" are the true patriots. They're having "tea parties" and pretending witht heir over-inflated egos and imaginations that they are a bunch of 21st century Thomas Paines. It's a sign of how out of touch these people are that while waving their guns around and making terroristic threats they can complain about being labeled as terrorists.

Of course,

A DHS official said the department was not trying to squelch free speech by issuing the report. "There is no link between extremists being talked about in that report and conservative political thinkers, activists and voters," the official said.

Not to be symied by facts, however:

But conservative radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock was not persuaded. "If the Bush administration had done this to left-wing extremists, it would be all over the press as an obvious trampling of the First Amendment rights of folks and dissent," he told CNN.

And the facts? You'll laugh:

In fact, the Obama administration in January did issue a warning about left-wing extremists. Both reports were initiated during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

So once again, Obama is the fall guy for something Bush put into place. But then extremist groups don't care much for facts. Hitler and the Nazis didn't; Rush Limbaugh and the Republicans are no different.

A recommended read: The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (Paperback)
by David Neiwert

I finally got to watch the Obama interview from the Today Show. I'd h ave enjoyed it more, and might have watched the entire thing, if they hadn't spread it out as teasers over the entire length of the broadcast. More than a little annoying but typical of the show. It was, however, nice to see Obama relaxed and without suit and tie, and the beautiful rooms and corridors of the White House. He seems like such a "real" person after the banana republic dictator-types we've had there for the past eight years - Bush, Cheney and their storm-trooper followers. I heard Andy Card even criticized Obama over not wearing a suit and tie. As if that makes you a better president. It sure didn't help Bush to dress up. He was a petty little thug in nice duds. How is that a good thing?

There was some news today as well. The Washington Post reports that there will be some changes in Obama's National Security Council.

President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.

The result will be a "dramatically different" NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after World War II to advise the president on diplomatic and military matters, according to national security adviser James L. Jones, who described the changes in an interview. "The world that we live in has changed so dramatically in this decade that organizations that were created to meet a certain set of criteria no longer are terribly useful," he said.

Jones, a retired Marine general, made it clear that he will run the process and be the primary conduit of national security advice to Obama, eliminating the "back channels" that at times in the Bush administration allowed Cabinet secretaries and the vice president's office to unilaterally influence and make policy out of view of the others.

This is not unreasonable, given the changes in the world. I don't think Bush kept up well. He ran the country on hunches, by the seat of his pants. He probably really had no need for advisors because he had already made up his mind. He needed only "yes" men. Obama is cut from a different cloth. He actually wants to be advised, which is a refreshing change of pace. It's almost too good to be true:

"We're not always going to agree on everything," Jones said, and "so it's my job to make sure that minority opinion is represented" to the president. "But if at the end of the day he turns to me and says, 'Well, what do you think, Jones?,' I'm going to tell him what I think."

The Associated Press reports on the stimulus package and the future course of events:

The Senate's $827 billion stimulus legislation seems assured narrow passage by Tuesday. Harder work for Obama and the Democrats comes in the days ahead, when the House and Senate attempt to reconcile differences in their two versions.

Obama and Democratic Party leaders had hoped to have a bill ready for the president's signature by Feb. 16 — a goal that appears increasingly unlikely.

It's going to be tough. The Republicans are not making it easy. They want the same old same old even though they lost and they're not enough of a minority in the Senate that their will can be brushed aside. I think the next few days will define this presidency. Obama points out that it's early and that trust takes time to develop, but he's putting a good face on it. The Republicans have no intention of compromising or cooperating or developing trust. With Rush Limbaugh as their Pope, they've made it clear that they're the party of the not-so loyal opposition.