Afghanistan: the president threw in with the Taliban

No, not that one.

Now that I have your attention, though, I think it best to remind everyone that carping at President Obama for his announcement of an American pullout from Afghanistan by 2014 is simply a waste of time. No American president of either party would have been able to stay longer, because Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants us out and wants a deal with the Talibs.

That what is good for Karzai is terrible for his and our country matters nothing to him.

Whether we like it or not, a new phase in the battele with the Taliban is soon to begin: basically a proxy war that pits the Pakistani ISI against us. The Afghans, once again, our caught in the middle. While elitist and posers enjoy warbling about Afghanistan resisting all foreign occupiers throughout its history, they tend to ignore that, for the most part, Afghans have never been able to unite, either. Thus, while foreign troops come and go, foreign influence is eternal there.

We are headed for a 21st Century version of the Great Game, with the U.S. and India on one side (against the Talibs), Pakistan and Communist China on the other (with the Talibs and Karzai), and Russia eagerly trying to leverage both of us.

We will need to make sure the anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan triumph (simplistically, the non-Pashtuns; more accurately, the tenuous coalition that controls the Afghan Parliament), and remind everyone that the Taliban and al Qaeda are still joined at the hip (especially the Russians, who tend to let their Anti-American ADHD get in the way of maneuvering against the allies of Chechnya’s rebels).

So, rather than rip President Obama for choosing the inevitable withdrawal, we should instead rip hm for his refusal to say anything about how to help Afghanistan defeat the Taliban. He seems to think that just handing over the reigns will answer the mail – meaning he either doesn’t realize Karzai’s actual intentions, or he just doesn’t care.

That is the real problem with Obama’s policy of Afghanistan.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift

Those who do not learn from history . . . (Virginia Senate edition)

. . . are condemned to repeat it.

I thought of this when looking toward this November, when it is a very real possibility that the GOP will retake the Virginia Senate (lost in 2007). For obvious reasons, there is some exciting on the right about the prospect. However, it is also leading to some dangerous amnesia – especially where the 36th district GOP primary is concerned.

Many of my close political friends have decided to back Tito Munoz in that primary against Jeff Frederick. Munoz is more electable, they say, and would cause fewer headaches for other GOP candidates, thus making it more likely that the Senate will flip over. I don’t agree with any of those assessments: Frederick has more histtory in the district, and Munoz has already been ripped by the Dems statewide.

I do, however, have one important question: does anyone remember what the “Republican” Virginia Senate was like? It wasn’t pretty.

The State Senate was taken out of a power-sharing arrangement and into GOP hands in the election of 1999. The Republican Senate majority had less than two years under its belt when it tried to halt Jim Gilmore’s car-tax phase-out. One year later (2002), with Gilmore out and Warner in, the Senate succeeded. The next five years included a tax-hike referendum in NoVa and Hampton Roads (voted down); a proposed tax hike in 2004 that was larger than what Mak Warner wanted; Warner’s tax increase; a proposed gas tax hike; and finally the HB3202 fiasco before the voters finally put the tax-addicted majority out of their misery in November 2007.

Now, this is not to say I want the current status quo in the State Senate: the Democrats tried to raise more taxes in six months than ther GOP colleagues tried in six years. What I am saying is that we have be careful about which Republicans we send t0 Richmond.

I will freely confess that I don’t know Tito Munoz. From what I’ve seen and heard of him, he is an earnest Republican, a nice guy, and a good businessman who will fit right in with the current GOP State Senate caucus.

That’s exactly what we need to avoid.

If we want to avoid the fiasco of the aughts, we need Senators who will not let Walter Stosch et al lead the caucus down the same disastrous path. We need rebels; we need gadflys; we need independent thinkers who will not follow the lemming leader over the cliff.

That’s why we need Jeff Frederick in Richmond. Though his time as party chair was brief (and it had its mistakes), it was at the beginning of it (the summer of 2008) when he threw down the gauntlet to his own Speaker and demanded tax hikes be taken out of any transportation plan. As a result, Speaker Howell was forced to shift gears; a much better plan was put forward; and Bob McDonnell was able to lead the GOP to victory in 2009.

The Republican Party can not win elections if voters confuse it with the pro-tax-hike Democrats. I don’t know if Tito Munoz understands this, but I’m certain Jeff Frederick does – and that is the most important reason Frederick is the better candidate, would be the better nominee, and will be a better State Senator.

We’re having the wrong debate on Afghanistan

One can begin to see the contours of a major debate on the future of America’s military deployment to Afghanistan. With the beginning of President Obama’s drawdown set to begin next month, and the campaign for the Republican nomination to replace him beginning to take form, candidates and voters are asking whether we should stay past 2014 or go (either then or sooner).

I think it is best that we stay, but I also think the entire argument is irrelevant. I say that for this reason: we will be out of Afghanistan militarily in 2014 whether we like it or not.

Whatever our president might want, their president has made it quite clear who his friends are: the Taliban and their Pakistani sponsors. Hamid Karzai has never been able to see past his Pashtun connections, and they have led him to believe that he can be more secure making a deal with our enemies than staying with us. Looking back, our de facto complicity in the deeply flawed presidential election of 2009 was a very large mistake.

However, the Pashtun are not the majority in Afghanistan (neither are they all friends of either Karzai or the Talibs). In fact, Afghanistan’s Parliament – elected under much fairer circumstances – is largely under opposition control (in part because, as I mentioned earlier, non-Pashtun tribes cobble together a majority in Afghanistan). So the Afghan people are less enthused with the Taliban than their president.

Add to this the pro-Taliban Pakistan, heavily anti-Taliban India, and anti-American regime in Iran (all which will probably be armed with nuclear weapons by 2014), and it’s a complex picture indeed. The question we should be asking is this: What can we do to hold the Taliban at bay – and push them to their demise – after our troops have gone?

The answer is hardly easy, or even simple. If we do choose to aid the anti-Taliban Afghans, it could be anything from military aid (assuming Karzai doesn’t get his meat hooks into the National Army), to political backing for the Parliamentary majority akin to what we did for the anti-Communists in Italy during the late 1940s. More concrete aid (military, economic, etc.), will require precision at the provincial or even local level – not just in Afghanistan, but getting the aid through Pakistan.

There will be temptation to simply wash our hands of the whole thing . . . except that’s what led us to 9/11 in the first place. There will be another impulse to shower Afghanistan with money – never mind that it may go to the wrong place and the wrong politicians (or that non-military aid even in the hands of the right politicians, could nudge them to make severe policy mistakes).

As strange, complex, and difficult as it may sound, we have managed somewhat similar issues before: El Salvador and Nicaragua, Poland, and yes, Afghanistan, before we jumped ship in 1992). President Bush the Younger himself had authorized military and other aid to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance one week before 9/11 - when the Taliban had over 90% of the country and complete control of whatever it called the government.  Today, the anti-Taliban forces have control of the Parliament and (or more logically, due to) enough tribal support to have a firm majority in the country.

We tend to forget that the Vietnam War continued for two years after our troops came home. What defeated South Vietnam was a lack of financial support from the United States (the South Vietnamese military literally ran out of bullets).

So . . . our military is not staying in Afghanistan, but that doesn’t mean the Taliban automatically win – far from it, in fact. We need to accept both realities before we can come up decide whether keeping the Taliban out of power is a real priority and if so, how we will do it.

None of that will happen the, however, as long as we continue to ask the wrong questions and have the wrong debate in Afghanistan.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift

IPCC caught recycling Greenpeace propaganda, again

“Imagine the reaction, for instance, if a government had produced a fossil-fuel friendly report based on work by an oil sands engineer, without revealing the source, and had paid the same engineer to write its own summary of his initial work.”

That was the question Lorne Gunter (National Post) asked, and we know the reaction: all hell would have broken loose.

As it was, it was only Greenpeace, so it’s left to Steve McIntyre to expose them, again:

Canadian researcher Steve McIntyre discovered earlier this week that the IPCC’s recent report on alternative energy — which asserted that it was possible to convert the world to 80% green energy by 2050 if politicians would simply tax conventional sources and spend billions on alternative sources — was lifted largely from Greenpeace reports.

The lead author of the IPCC report turns out to be Sven Teske, a Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, who the IPCC does not identify as such in either the report or its media releases. Mr. Teske is also the author of much of the Greenpeace material on which the IPCC report is based, in effect making him a peer reviewer of the validity of his own material.

Nice work if you can get it.

Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon

Surprise! Yet another green myth up in smoke

Remember how electric cars were supposed to be the low-carbon way of the future?

Oops (The Australian via Andrew Bolt).

Electric cars produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

In other words, all the talk about Chevy Volts, green cars, etc., was based largely on incomplete science.

Quelle surprise!

Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon

If you happen to live in the 12th State Senate District . . . (UPDATE: never mind)

. . . this is for you:

Jane Eshagpoor, a principled conservative, has opened her campaign office at 4100 E Parham Road, (1^st floor), Henrico, Virginia 23228.  She will challenge Senator Walter Stosch in the August 23^rd primary.  The campaign is collecting signatures on petitions and you can sign the petition today and Tuesday from 7:30 am to 9:00 pm, Wednesday 7:30 am to 3:00 pm.  This is a ballot access request only.  You may reach the campaign by dialing the full number 804-915-4505.  It is not a long distance call.

Hopefully, she also has folks out in the neighborhoods collecting signature.  I say that because Senator Stosch has a terrible history with tax increases, and voters in the 12th are in desperate need of an upgrade.

The deadline for primary petitions is tomorrow.

UPDATE: Eshagpoor fell short on the petitions, so Stosch is unopposed for renomination

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift

An epic takedown against anti-gun silliness

Kevin Williamson takes the latest tut-tutting from would-be gun confiscators and grinds it into a fine paste at NRO – The Corner. Here’s a taste:

Any time you find yourself citing al-Qaeda propaganda as a source, do a little fact-checking.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted to VV

Kuwaiti wacko ensures third term for Vladimir Putin

Confused?

Allow me to clear it up for you.

Salwa al-Mutairi, a former candidate for Kuwait’s Parliament (she lost, scoring less than one-fifth of one percent of the vote) mused about how Muslim men can be spared fom commiting adulterly by taking captured infidel women as sex-slaves (Al Arabiya via Middle Eastern Forum).

A Muslim state must [first] attack a Christian state—sorry, I mean any non-Muslim state—and they [the women, the future sex-slaves] must be captives of the raid. Is this forbidden? Not at all; according to Islam, sex slaves are not at all forbidden. Quite the contrary, the rules regulating sex-slaves differ from those for free women [i.e., Muslim women] . . .

Now, before we all get carried away, keep in mind that (1) 99.8% of Kuwaitis in District 4 rejected her candidacy and (2) even the boss of the anglophone division of Al Arabiya thought this was nuts.

There was, however, one line of hers that could have a dramatic impact half-a-world away:

In the Chechnyan war, surely there are female Russian captives. So go and buy those and sell them here in Kuwait; better that than have our men engage in forbidden sexual relations.

I suspect that statement will easily reach Moscow before March’s presidential elections . . . meaning Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s campaign for a third term is practically a done deal.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift

Donnie Walsh is out

The now-former President/GM of the Knicks has left under a “mutual decision.”

Is Isaiah Thomas coming back?

Please God, I hope not.

Cross-posted to Virginia Virtucon

UPDATE: ESPN-1050 (NYC) is saying Walsh was asked to take a 40% pay cut. Sounds like a railroad job to me. I should have known this season was too good to be true.

Unemployment back over 9%

Economic slowth continues to smother the American job market (WSJ):

U.S. hiring slowed dramatically in May and the unemployment rate kept rising, adding to concerns the jobs market will take years to heal as the economy remains weak.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 54,000 last month as the private sector posted the smallest jobs gain in nearly a year, the Labor Department said Friday in its survey of employers. Payrolls data for the previous two months were revised down by a total 39,000 to show increases of 232,000 jobs in April and 194,000 in March.

The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.1% in May from 9.0% in April. There are almost 13.9 million Americans who would like to work but can’t get a job.

If you think that’s bad, wait until next month, the traditional month where teenagers no longer at school take their place in the workforce.

What we’re seeing is a combination of factors. They are . . .

The aforementioned slowth: my term for, literally, slow growth. For at least thrity years, economies pulling out of recession have taken time to hit their stride. In the 1980s it was one year; in the 1990s, about  three years; in the aughts, at least four years. For this “recovery,” slowth is now deep into its third year and shows no sign of disappearing.

Notice a pattern here?

All three “slowth” periods came after the Great Inflation (1968-81) meaning that price levels were a political issue to a much greater extent that before – or even during – the GI. More importantly, however, all three saw the federal government in major spending booms (defense in the 1980s; health care in the 1990s and aughts; just about everything today. One could argue (and in fact, I would) that in each case, the American people saw plans dramatic increases in spending, expected future tax increases to pay for it, and acted accordingly.

If anything, the exceptions prove the rule: the 199os was the one decade where the massive spending hike did not occur (health care “reform” collapsed; the GOP took over Congress; and Clinton agreed to a slow path for government spending) . . . and the one decade that saw a natural “boom.” Meanwhile, the aughts, plagued by permanent spending hikes and temporary tax cuts (all but telegraphing a tax hike in the future) saw the longest “slowth” period and the weakest overall recovery since the Inflation-plagued 1970s.

In other words, the American people knew what was coming, and acted accordingly.

For the current era, the proscription is therefore clear: make the Bush tax cuts permanent and get serious cutting spending. Only that will show the American people that government spending will fall (and future tax hikes avoidable), thus unlocking both the capital and disposable income currently on the sidelines. The “Ryan” plan moves in that general direction, but doesn’t really get there (the Garrett plan does). Of course, if we see some serious spending cuts out of the debt-ceiling negotiations, that would help, too.

Cross-posted to Bearing Drift