Afghanistan on The Huffington Post

Gates: Financial Woes No Excuse To Avoid Funding Afghanistan War

2008-11-22T10:51:39Z

CORNWALLIS, Nova Scotia — Even in a global financial crisis, the world cannot afford to skimp on its obligations to Afghanistan, which wants to double the size of its army but will never be able to pay for it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says.

Gates said some characterizations of backsliding in the 7-year-old Afghan war are too dire, but he said violence is up. Nations with fighting forces in Afghanistan and those without must respond, Gates said Friday after a day of strategy talks with British, Canadian and other defense ministers with troops fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan's closely contested south.

David Quigg: Don't Tell William Langewiesche to "Have a Safe Flight" (And Other Ways to Avoid Self-Destruction in the War on Terror)

2008-11-22T02:35:48Z

The very first reader of my previous HuffPost piece interpreted some quotes I used so differently than I'd intended that I worried I'd been criminally clumsy in the way I'd framed another person's words.

Three facts made my worry more sickening:

1) The person I'd quoted is a writer I've admired for years: William Langewiesche of Vanity Fair.

2) The point of my piece -- that President-elect Obama could fortify America immeasurably by talking to us like grownups about terrorism -- means so much to me. I hated to think I might have bungled the job.

3) That very first reader of my piece was my wife. We were about to go to lunch. Together. So I didn't have the luxury of shrugging off my possible screwup. What's more, my wife loved Langewiesche's writing before I did -- especially his reporting from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. So she wasn't predisposed to think of him as naive. Which is what she was doing.

Here's the quote that messed up my lunch. Langewiesche spoke the words in 2007 during a speech about his book on the spread of nuclear weapons:

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a world where the United States would do the completely unrealistic and say in advance, 'If you hit us, we will take the hit. We don't want to be hit. But we'll take it and we'll not complain. We will not overdo our reaction. So we will diminish the effect of what you want to do to us. We will mourn our dead. And there will be possibly several hundred thousand. We will rebuild the city as quickly as we can and we will accept whatever level of radiation poisoning without complaint. So go to hell."

My wife read that quote and thought it was tantamount to advising a battered wife to just sit back, take the beatings, and hope her husband eventually would get bored and disappear from her life. Langewiesche's phrase "radiation poisioning without complaint" particularly bothered her.

I defended Langewiesche's position. I argued that he'd surely want America to hunt al Qaeda -- not just literally sit back and accept a massacre. But my defense made it more and more clear that I was guessing at the details of what Langewiesche believed. This was no good.

Two days later -- after a kick in the butt from my newspaper-editor aunt who reminded me that journalists ask questions instead of guessing at details -- I got Langewiesche on the phone.

"Of course, bin Laden should be pursued," he said Friday in answer to my first question. "In the Middle East, which is an area I know well, you definitely don't turn the other cheek. That's seen as a weakness."

It's about calibrating our response, he said. Get al Qaeda? Yes. Use 9/11 as a pretext for going off on a tangent and invading Iraq? No.

Now, if my interview with Langewiesche had merely settled a misunderstanding in my marriage, I wouldn't be writing this post. Langewiesche did more. Much more. He guided me to a trailhead.

Yes, he's pessimistic. Yes, he thinks we Americans would punish Obama or any other leader who dares to talk to us like grownups about terrorism. But he pointed to a spot on the map where a president could start to steer us away from our default reactions to terrorism: shock, panic, and a lust for scattershot vengeance.

That spot on the map is marked "safety."

Our problem, according to Langewiesche, is that we have "embraced safety as the highest value." He said you can see this in everything from the laws passed after 9/11 to the words we use to see each other off at the airport:

"'Have a safe trip. Have a safe flight.' It's deeply embedded in our culture right now. If that's our highest value or one of our highest values, then we are doomed to self-destruct ... after a terrorist attack."

Langewiesche argued there's a direct link between our indulgence in "huge public displays of grief" and the "famous massive failure of the American press" in the months before the Iraq War.

America is not supposed to act like this. Langewiesche noted that America only rose to its spot in the world's hierarchy by embracing risk -- in everything from economics to everyday life.

As he spoke, I thought of the American Revolution, of the fact that our country only exists because our forefathers stuck a thumb in the eye of the most powerful empire on Earth.

Not safe.

I thought of the reason my own unique DNA even exists: A Polish teenager left her family, made her way to Antwerp, boarded a ship, crossed an ocean in steerage, disembarked, and tried to make a life for herself in a country where she couldn't even speak the language.

Not safe.

A risk.

A risk that allowed the Polish girl to meet my great-grandfather. A risk that, in turn, led to the birth of my grandmother, to the birth of my father, to the moment my father met my mother, to their marriage, to my own birth.

Risk, when you reflect on it, is so obviously how we got to where we are as a people, as a country. It's depressing that safety has elbowed risk aside to such an extent. For all our bluster, so many of us are so scared.

Langewiesche thinks we are probably too scared for a president to reason with us -- about terrorism, about our self-defeating wish for total safety: "The fault is with us that our politicians can't speak honestly about this even if they want to."

I'm not so sure. I'm still intoxicated enough by the election results to believe that Americans are ready to hear the truth. But the truth needs to be delivered carefully and it needs to be delivered before the next terrorist attack. Langewiesche and I do agree on that.

"That's correct," he said. "It has to be done in advance. It really does."

So what could Obama do if he took the political risk of talking to us like grownups about terrorism, about fear, about safety?

"Let's talk about safety," Langewiesche said. "We know how to construct a very safe society. Basically, it's what dictatorships do."

With that bleak truth in mind, Obama could ask us the key question: Do we want to live in a society organized around what Langewiesche termed "the pursuit of safety at any cost"?

As it turns out, this is a question I've thought about a lot. Back in June, I gave my own answer to the question in a piece called "Live Tyrannized and Die Anyways." As I wrote then, "We can risk being murdered before our next birthday as proud citizens of a country that stands for something. Or we can slog into inconsequential old age as cowering, hunted inhabitants of some putrid corpse of what America once was."

Americans need to come up with their own answers. I think Obama can be the one to get us to think hard about what kind of a country we want to call home.

"Of course, Obama is capable of it," Langewiesche acknowledged.

He just doesn't think it will happen. He doesn't think we, as a people, are up to the conversation.

I'd love to prove him wrong. I suspect he'd love to see us prove him wrong. That's my guess, at least.

But I've already fouled up one lunch date by guessing at what Langewiesche thinks. So scratch that.

Whatever Langewiesche thinks or doesn't think, let's be grownups about this. Let's reject "the pursuit of safety at any cost." Let's take the risk of protecting America, its founding values, and the quality of our own lives.

It's a risk well worth taking. We could do it. With brave leadership at the top and a new notion of patriotism all through our society.

U.S. Considering "Surge" Of Over 20,000 Troops For Afghanistan

2008-11-21T20:41:08Z

The Pentagon is considering a plan to send more than 20,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next 12 to 18 months to help safeguard elections and quell rising Taliban violence, officials said on Friday.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he and top commanders had discussed sending five brigades to Afghanistan, including four brigades of combat ground forces as well as an aviation brigade, which a defense official said would consist mainly of support troops. An Army combat brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.

Gates: More US Forces To Afghanistan

2008-11-21T15:31:03Z

CORNWALLIS, Nova Scotia — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he would like to add significant U.S. forces to the war in Afghanistan before national elections scheduled for next year, and that grim depictions of backsliding in the seven-year-old war are "far too pessimistic."

Gates said the additional forces would give greater security for fall elections in Afghanistan, and predicted that security conditions will "be under enough control to allow the elections to take place." Secure successful elections are probably the most important goal for Afghanistan next year, Gates said.

Afghan Prisoner Slaughter Is Basis For New Movie

2008-11-20T18:13:37Z

Drive north of Kabul for an hour, turn left into a grey desert and head east for fifteen minutes, the sand shawling up the side of the windows until an armed man in the uniform of the Iranian police stops you before a forbidding compound of watchtowers, mud walls and razor wire. For a brief moment, that willing suspension of disbelief - I can see the inmates sitting on the sand beyond the iron gate -- I forget that this is an Afghan movie set, and that Daoud Wahab, the producer of 'The White Rock' is sitting in front of me. "Looks real, huh?" he asks over his shoulder. It does.

For incredibly, as Afghanistan sinks back into the anarchy which became its natural state these past 29 years, Afghan film-makers are producing movies of international quality, turning out pictures which prove -- even amid war -- that a country's tragedy can be imaginatively recreated for its people. Safaid Sang -- Dari (Persian) for White Rock -- was an Afghan refugee detention camp inside Iran whose Iranian guards helped to massacre more than 630 of their prisoners in 1998 after inmates protested at their treatment. The atrocity -- largely unknown in the West -- ended after two Iranian helicopters strafed the Afghans with machine guns. Quite a story. Quite a movie.

"I'm really hoping for something big for this," Wahab says as he eases himself into the producer's folding canvas chair inside the prison gate. "We built all the mud walls, bought the razor wire, constructed the concrete lavatories -- we even made fake shit to put all over the floor -- and I found a real Iranian flag in the 'souk' in Kabul." It snaps above us now in the desert wind, the silken split-onion symbol of the Islamic Republic between red and green, the banner fringed with gold. The guards even speak with the right accent because some are half-Iranian. At least one of the actors was himself a prisoner in the real camp.

Pakistani Prime Minister Says US Strikes Will Stop Once Obama Takes Office

2008-11-20T09:43:45Z

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan protested to the U.S. ambassador Thursday over a deep cross-border missile strike, and a militant group threatened to target foreigners unless the attacks stop.

Pakistani intelligence officials say the U.S. has staged some 20 missile strikes on Pakistani territory since August, almost all of them aimed at the lawless tribal region along the Afghan border. But for the first time Wednesday, the missiles targeted militants beyond the tribal areas, deeper inside Pakistan. Six suspected insurgents were killed.

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Al Qaeda, Obama and Pakistan

2008-11-19T17:25:12Z

So once again we have to suffer through yet another one of Al Qaeda's anti-American diatribes -- this one constituting a pre-inaugural attack on our president-elect by Al Qaeda's propogandist and ideologue-in-chief "Dr. Evil" Ayman al-Zawahiri. When, pray tell, are we going to put al-Zawahiri out of his misery once and for all? Insha'allah

In its first "official" reaction to Barack Obama's election Al Qaeda's propogandist used a sure-to-backfire demeaning racial epithet against America's president-elect, likening Barack Obama to a "house slave" or "house negro." Given the fact that he hasn't even been inaugurated, Al Qaeda's attack on the president-elect reveals a certain appetizing panic and desperation in the face of worldwide acclaim over Obama's election.

There is no doubt that Barack Obama's election is going to go a long way in helping to rebuild America's tarnished image in the Muslim world. And Al Qaeda is clearly worried that with his election, Barack Obama will make it infinitely more difficult to convince Al Qaeda's Muslim base from which it must continuously recruit that the America under George Bush will be the same America under Barack Obama.

The U.S. intelligence community clearly fears that through indifference, neglect and policy misstep Al Qaeda's command and control structure has reconstituted itself inside Pakistan's war-torn western frontier provinces. And given Obama's campaign commitment, reitereated in his "60 Minutes" interview last Sunday, that under his presidency, stamping out Al Qaeda once and for all will be a top priority, the next administration faces a battle against Al Qaeda on many fronts: in the battle of ideas against extremists, in denying their funding, sanctuaries and recruits, in forging stronger Muslim allies, in executing a responsibly swift withdrawal from Iraq, in taking the battle to Al Qaeda's re-established bases in Pakistan and on the Afghani-Pakistan border, and developing an effective strategy to redress our relationship with Pakistan.

Despite the continuing debate within the intel community about where best to concentrate our resources against Al Qaeda, one thing is for certain, fulfilling a pledge to dismantle Al Qaeda will not be possible without coming up with an effective multi-tiered strategy to stabilize Pakistan and rebuild America's image with this essential ally.

Pakistan is not only ground zero against Al Qaeda's command structure, it is a nuclear-armed country that is teetering on financial collapse. Fortunately, Pakistant was able to negotiate an IMF loan of $7.6 billion this week to temporarily stave off economic chaos. Unfortunately, this financial band-aid is insufficient to restore Pakistan to long-term economic stability, without which the struggle against Al Qeda will prove even more daunting for President Obama.

Just a few days ago, the venerable Center for American Progress (CAP) issued an inciteful and highly probative report on Pakistan entitled "Partnership for Progress" detailing an innovative policy approach to help reverse Pakistan's deteriorating fortunes. I commend the report to our readers, which can be found at "www.americanprogress.org."

The Report outlines a daunting series of policy challenges facing Democratic national security experts in the months ahead to maintain Pakistan's democracy and support. But the Report also delineates a responsible roadmap to helping restore Pakistan's poitical and economic foundation.

There is no doubt that unilateral military operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda will defeat Pakistan's militant groups. The Report recommends a reversal fo the Bush administration "military only" policy by proposing the adoption of a diverse strategy, including strengthening governance and rule of law, creating economic opportunities and exploring political negotiations with non-Al Qaeda-oriented militant groups.

I realize that chaning the Pakistani equation is easier said than done. I recall that right after 9/11, Pakistan appealed to the U.S. to help its internal economic crisis by reducing U.S. tariffs on Pakistan's textile industry to help it garner domestic support for U.S. policy, only to find textile-state lawmakers dead set against the idea.

Ultimately, the war against Al Qaeda will not be won on the battlefields of Waziristan alone. Ayman al Zawahiri's unwelcomed reemergence from his cave today is a sad reminder how much the Bush Administration's failures are being dumped into Barack Obama's lap.

David Quigg: Barack: Talk To Us Like Grownups About Terrorism and Save Us From Ourselves

2008-11-19T16:01:13Z

Barack Obama, who saved his presidential campaign by talking to us like grownups about race relations, could fortify America immeasurably by talking to us like grownups about terrorism.

This is something to do now. Or very soon. As a former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security wrote this month, our country is in "an unprecedented vulnerable state as it welcomes a new president and rescues a battered economy ... creating a fertile ground for a terrorist attack."

This is common sense -- a simple truth that has nothing to do with the outcome of the election. That much was obvious back in September when I wrote, "Whether this election gives us President McCain or President Obama, it seems logical to expect that terrorists will try to strike early and spectacularly in the incoming administration in a bid to provoke the new president into responses as counterproductive and repellent as those of President Bush."

Sometimes it can be hard to take in the full scope of what Bush's swaggering incompetence has wrought. While al Qaeda might have anticipated baiting us into a draining war in Afghanistan, could the terrorists possibly have dared to dream of the total non sequitur that came next: Bush using 9/11 as a pretext for pushing us into a second reputation-ruining quagmire in Iraq?

When we let shock or panic or a lust for vengeance guide us, we are a greater danger to ourselves than terrorists ever could be. Any terrorists. With any weapon. Because the bigger the terrorist attack, the greater our shock, panic, and lust for vengeance is sure to be.

I vividly remember changing my daughter's diaper on September 12, 2001. Raw with the shock of the previous day's massacres, I looked down at my sweet, oblivious nine-month-old baby and wanted to keep her safe forever. I thought of the terrorists. I thought of our huge military, our absurd abundance of nuclear weapons, and formed in my head the message Bush should send to the terrorists: Do that again and we will nuke every inch from Mecca to Morocco, from Tehran to Jakarta.

It was madness. Total madness. But I couldn't shake the thought. Like I said, the bigger the terrorist attack, the greater our shock, panic, and lust for vengeance is likely to be.

Barack Obama realizes this. Writing in The Audacity of Hope back in 2006, the future president dissected al Qaeda's plan for "winning a war from a cave."

"Osama bin Laden understands that he cannot defeat or even incapacitate the United States in a conventional war. What he and his allies can do is inflict enough pain to provoke a reaction of the sort we've seen in Iraq -- a botched and ill-advised U.S. military incursion into a Muslim country, which in turn spurs on insurgencies based on religious sentiment and nationalist pride, which in turn necessitates a lengthy and difficult U.S. occupation, which in turn leads to an escalating death toll on the part of U.S. troops and the local civilian population. All of this fans anti-American sentiment among Muslims, increases the pool of potential terrorist recruits, and prompts the American public to question not only the war but also those policies that project us into the Islamic world in the first place."

Or, as another excellent writer, William Langewiesche, said while discussing his harrowing book on the spread of nuclear weapons, "the actual explosion is not the issue, it's the reaction."

Speaking at the University of Chicago, Langewiesche argued we, as a society, don't have it in us to react to terrorism with restraint, precision, and effectiveness. That was back in 2007. It would be interesting to know if Langewiesche feels otherwise now.

I do.

I think we have it in us to react to terrorism with restraint, precision, and effectiveness. But it will take determined leadership to reshape our thinking, re-imagine our patriotism, and ready us for the disciplined task of using our vast might intelligently. The leadership we need is a president who will talk to us like grownups about terrorism. Before the next attack. Obama can be that president.

What might it sound like to have someone talk to us like grownups about terrorism, about something as ghastly as nuclear terrorism, even? It might sound something like Langewiesche did in those remarks at the University of Chicago two years ago:

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a world where the United States would do the completely unrealistic and say in advance, 'If you hit us, we will take the hit. We don't want to be hit. But we'll take it and we'll not complain. We will not overdo our reaction. So we will diminish the effect of what you want to do to us. We will mourn our dead. And there will be possibly several hundred thousand. We will rebuild the city as quickly as we can and we will accept whatever level of radiation poisoning without complaint. So go to hell."

These aren't the sort of words that will.i.am could set to music. But they are the sort of words we need to hear. I hope we'll hear them from Barack Obama. Soon. Before the next attack. Once it comes, there will be no reasoning with us. Just like there was no reasoning with me on September 12, 2001.

We need to think ahead for once.

Ilan Goldenberg: What Zawahiri's Message Says About Obama and Al Qaeda

2008-11-19T12:09:54Z

Today, Al Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released his first message since the election. As the AP reported he

used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.

Zawahiri also challenged Obama's policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan saying

Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them

The press is reporting this as Al Qaeda's first direct challenge to Obama. But what does it actually say about Al Qaeda? More than anything it demonstrates that Al Qaeda is genuinely concerned about an Obama presidency and views it as a strategic threat to its existence.

First and foremost, Al Qaeda is an organization that thrives on propaganda. It paints the United States as an evil empire that oppresses its own minorities and has little regard for the rest of the world. Al Qaeda uses these types of narratives to raise funds and recruit. The Bush administration played right into this trap. Its "with us or against us" mentality and invasion of Iraq damaged America's image around the world and reinforced Al Qaeda's narrative.

But Al Qaeda's narrative is now under siege and it's clearly uncertain about how to react. The election of the first African American President, one with a Muslim father, flies in the face of this narrative. It shows America as an open and tolerant society - not the oppressive empire Al Qaeda would like to portray. In fact, the overwhelmingly positive international reaction to Obama's election is proof of the the threat Al Qaeda faces. As a 29 year old at a Bangkok Starbucks explained,

What an inspiration. He is the first truly global US president the world has ever had. He had an Asian childhood, African parentage and has a Middle Eastern name. He is a truly global president.

Thus, it's not surprising that Zawahiri has resorted to calling Obama a "house negro" to try and paint him as just another American President. But this is clearly more a defensive and weak message than effective propaganda that might actually work.

Moreover, Zawahiri's message about Afghanistan and Pakistan portrays a certain level of nervousness over an administration that is actually going to go after the real terrorist haven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Al Qaeda viewed the invasion of Iraq as a positive creating a recruiting and training ground for terrorists. As a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate explained (PDF)

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for
jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim
world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Now, the U.S. is once again focused on the area of the world that the Intelligence Community agrees represents the most the direct threat to the homeland. It is the area of the world, which was the source of the 9/11 attacks and has been the source of just about every other major plot against a Western target over the past few years. This should raise some serious concerns for Al Qaeda's central leadership - especially since most of them are in fact believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands.

Khaled Hosseini: A Renewed Global Commitment to Afghan Refugees

2008-11-18T18:07:49Z

This week, donor nations will convene in Kabul for the Return and Reintegration conference. The objective is to enhance efforts to reintegrate Afghan refugees in their homeland. The conference is a good reminder that the Afghan refugee situation, among the longest running and most complex in the world, is far from over.

The mass exodus of Afghans began during the war against the Soviet Union. Since then, for more than two decades and largely without sufficient international assistance, Iran and Pakistan have generously hosted millions of Afghan refugees who fled the violence back home.

Recently, however, both countries have shown signs of fatigue over the long presence of Afghan refugees on their territory and have increased pressure for Afghans to return. Since 2002, over five million Afghans have voluntarily returned home, the majority with assistance from UNHCR (the U.N. Refugee Agency). This year alone, UNHCR has helped some 270,000 refugees return home from Pakistan.

But repatriation patterns are changing. Increasingly, decisions to return are driven not by expectation of a better life in Afghanistan but by rising prices and insecurity of life in exile. Many of the repatriating refugees have encountered harsh realities as the earlier hopes of durable peace, reconstruction and development in Afghanistan have faltered. Upon returning, they end up in makeshift shelters in barren deserts where the elements are unforgiving and the resources few.

In northern Afghanistan last year, I met families of refugees who had spent the previous winter in underground shelters dug with their own hands. One village elder told me that that his community routinely expects to lose 10 to 15 children to exposure every winter. Clean, potable water is a luxury, a prized resource for which refugees must compete with the local population. Schools with trained teachers are either not available or too distant. The same is true of health clinics, meaning a routine, treatable illness can often prove fatal. Jobs are scarce, and when available, pay less than a dollar a day.

Some returning refugees gather their families and move to overpopulated urban centers like Kabul, where they live in squalor and face severe shortages in food, work, shelter and sanitation. High cost of living, starvation, disease and droughts drive some to cross the border back into Iran or Pakistan, where they are unwelcome and increasingly perceived as a burden. Many have become displaced internally as the Taliban insurgency has spread and the violence spiraled to a record pace.

With the widespread failure of harvests and rising food prices, a humanitarian crisis looms in Afghanistan this winter. There is no quick fix to this crisis. Whatever the solution, the Afghan government must be part of it. For the time being, however, the central government in Kabul and provincial authorities are overwhelmed with meeting the needs of a poor and war-weary population. The Afghan government lacks the capacity to effectively absorb the returning millions and has struggled greatly to provide refugees with security, livelihood and even basic services. The hopes of the refugees, therefore, rest largely on assistance from donor nations in the international community.

This past June in Paris, donors pledged nearly $21 billion to support the Afghan National Development Strategy. U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to bring global focus back on Afghanistan. That is an important first step and an encouraging development for Afghanistan. However, I hope that this apparent renewed commitment extends far beyond the mere bolstering of coalition forces.

What the Afghan people -- and most urgently the returning refugees -- need is international attention to long-neglected and serious failures in the civil sector: addressing widespread unemployment and poverty, providing access to health and educational facilities, rebuilding infrastructure, meeting food and clean water shortages, curbing corruption, building a competent and legitimate police force that will provide security and protect its people, and investing in long-term social programs.

Today, roughly three million Afghan refugees live in Iran and Pakistan, almost half of them born in exile. They remain reluctant and fearful to return home. The challenge at hand, however, lies not in sending the refugees home but in keeping them there. Existing conditions in Afghanistan must be remedied to ensure a safe, sustained and durable return for the refugees. This will take time. As a good friend from UNHCR recently told me, "It will not be a hundred-meter dash, but a marathon."

The plight of Afghan refugees will continue to test the will and commitment of donor countries. It is a test that, I hope, they are willing to take on.

Mort Rosenblum: America Is Back, Now the Hard Part

2008-11-18T16:30:01Z

PARIS - A poker-faced French border cop actually cracked a faint smile as he hefted my U.S. passport. Euphoria must fade inevitably in hard light but, even here, America is back.
It was that simple. A convincing plurality showed a doubtful world that the United States they once respected -- however grudgingly, at times -- still has a heart and a soul.

The question, after an eight-year break from reality, is how much is left of its brain?
For most of the world, it wasn't so much that Barack Obama is half black and all not-Bush. People heard his message: Think one planet. Listen to others. Watch out with that big stick.
Now they are waiting for us to act beyond our borders.

Americans, mostly, want to do the right thing. But so many have tuned out, letting news coverage shrink while schools dumb down, that we no longer know what the right thing is.
Obama's message resonates so loudly because a world in trouble desperately misses the nation that once took on greater responsibilities than its own narrow interest.

Yet however good our intentions, we can't fix a globe we don't understand. Americans pay scant attention to vital details abroad. We simplify complexity to nonsense, forgetting that real human beings are involved, and they take things personally.

At best, this creates bad will. It can also mean a half million needless Iraqi deaths, whole regions in violent turmoil, squandered trillions, and a world in fear of looming depression.
Our folly has caused terrorist ranks to swell with people whose grandsons will hate us. The Taliban is not only taking back Afghanistan but also threatens a nuclear-tipped Pakistan.
Any nation, let alone a superpower, needs credible news outlets -- mainstream and marginal -- to define what really matters. Headlines mean nothing without details and context.

Yet editors are closing bureaus, replacing seasoned hands with untested stringers who don't challenge their misperceptions. And, increasingly, what is reported ends up on the spike.
A Project for Excellence in Journalism study shows foreign news filled only 10.7 percent of the U.S. media news hole from Jan. 1 to July 30; much of that was on China. Of that fraction, 7.6 percent was about Iraq and half of that about Afghanistan.

For the week of Nov. 9-15, only one foreign story surfaced, at 2 percent: violence flared again in Iraq. Newsroom floors awash in blood should scare us a lot more than phantom terrorists.
It is simple: if foreign correspondents are not there, we're not there. Instead, editors and commentators guess at reality from a distance. That is how Iraq happened. What's next?
I banged this alarm last year in a book, Escaping Plato's Cave. Since then, much is dramatically worse. Yet there is also fresh promise. For Obama to succeed, we need to rethink "media."
First, consider why this is so important.

Joe the plumber was a silly sidelight. In the real world, who counts are key players like Vladimir the Gasman. Russia is back, too. Putin's authoritarian state is not the old Evil Empire. Yet in the ways that affect daily Western lives, it is a greater threat. Jab a stick at any sort of bear (except maybe a polar bear; they've got enough problems). Its reaction will explain the Georgia smackdown -- and why Europe's response was so muted. Already humiliated by Bill Clinton, who led it around by the nose, Russia saw George Bush's ideologues arm its neighbors, threaten its borders, and cut petroleum deals in its backyard.

Russia pumps more oil than Saudi Arabia and is after vast Arctic reserves. By shutting off the gas, it can freeze Europe overnight. Germany and France, among others, are eager to trade. A hard-minded Kremlin is ready for serious poker and flush with chips. This is no game for inattentive amateurs.

On climate change, our greatest challenge, Beijing called Washington's bluff. China is now the planet's biggest polluter, but it blames crises today on past offenders. Unless the United States and Europe commit one percent of their wealth toward reversing atmospheric damage, the Chinese say, emerging industrial powers are off the hook. Then there is the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and all the rest. The world is not really flat. If we don't understand its curvatures, every misstep comes around to bite us.

Some avaricious owners are to blame. But others who try hard are faced with a populace that, increasingly, wants its news for free. Guessing from a distance is cheap. But a trained reporter who gets close enough to see it and smell costs some employers upwards of $250,000 a year. Intrepid freelancers help. But they cannot replace newspapers, agencies, and broadcasters, which depend on proven credibility.

Excellent correspondents are out there, but you have to find them amid all the Internet babble. Commentators from Olbermann to O'Reilly rely on real reporters like the rest of us.
Some old models can be fixed; others are beyond repair. Most "media" are businesses that give what they think consumers want. If they detect a taste for real news, they will change.
So, what to do?

For starters, realize that real news has a value like a gallon of gas or a pound of flour. Reporters have to go get it, and editors need to make sure it is accurate. The New York Times still watches the world. But so many people read it free online that it must cut its newsgathering budget. Buy the real thing; it is cheaper than a cup of coffee. The cornerstone is America's news supermarket, a non-profit cooperative that is more vital to our wellbeing than the Defense Department: The Associated Press.

AP dates back to 1848 when newspapers pooled resources to cover news beyond their reach. These days, when so many papers are cutting back, this role is more crucial than ever.
But since 2002, AP has reinvented itself to focus on money-spinning sideshows and scoops at the expense of basic coverage from remote places where trouble brews. Today, disgruntled newspapers are dropping AP. Some are plotting a new cooperative to replace it. This is scary. AP has huge resources, and we badly need what it is meant to provide. (Truth in packaging: I left the AP at the end of 2004 after reporting on stories abroad for 35 years.)

Television networks seldom mention the world without a U.S. angle. CNN trumpets its own personalities. Fox is no less tendentious than Al Jazeera with far less real news. NPR, though good, is hardly enough. In New York, I heard WINS all-news radio still promising, "Give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world." I gave it two days and got traffic on the Tappan Zee with local stories on the order of boy-trapped-in-refrigerator-eats-foot. To fortify sporadic coverage, build a bedrock context via magazines that delve into foreign affairs. The weekly Guardian combines fresh news with essential background. Find the BBC World Service online, TV or radio, not the remedial version for the U.S. market. Lobby to get Al Jazeera in English on U.S. cable carriers.

Old hands who have left the mainstream are trying new things, convinced that appetites are ravenous for up-close reporting. Initial public reaction is encouraging. An ambitious news agency, GlobalPost, is coming online in January, edited by Charles Sennott, star correspondent at the Boston Globe before it turned its back on the world. Pro Publica is already breaking stories. Photographer Gary Knight and I started the quarterly, dispatches, to focus on issues that matter. We let seasoned writers and photographers tell it straight, at length. Make an effort. If a daily you like is worth reading, pay for it. If it only wastes trees, cancel your subscription and tell the editor why. Prowl the Web. Support consolidator sites like Truthout.com that sample a lot of sources.
Test your prejudices against facts and intelligent analysis. If you support a cause, say Israel or Palestine, look at the other side.

In the longer term, we need better schools with inspired teachers who spark intellectual curiosity so kids learn early how to shape their own world. Meantime, we can teach our own kids that Americans make up only 4 percent of humanity. No one else agrees we are somehow a chosen people. Skin crawled just about everywhere when Sarah Palin chanted "USA! USA!"
My optimism soared at 6 a.m. on November 4 among people who jammed a Brooklyn school to throw the bums out of office. I watched results with friends happy to pay tax on six-figure salaries if it would finally be put to good use.

Then I talked to J.K. Gupta, a St. Louis physician who spends half the year in his native India treating poor patients. "People are thinking differently in America, and they projected this through Obama," he told me. "He only reflects them. They want to see the world in another way." If Gupta is right, we might finally change that misguided mantra: you can't worry about what you can't change. In fact, you can't change what you don't worry about.

Jeffrey Shaffer: Tips for Training the New First Dog

2008-11-18T12:46:05Z

A historic election is over and our next commander-in-chief faces daunting challenges. Barack Obama must deal with a struggling economy, two wars, health care reform, all complicated by huge budget deficits. And, of course, let's not forget about the four-legged family addition.

I watched the winning candidate speaking in Chicago's Grant Park on election night and truly enjoyed the moment when he paused to praise daughters Sasha and Malia and then added, "You have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."

It was an authentic family friendly telecast for me and millions of other viewers, but in my mind a little voice called out, "Sir! Wait just a second! Do you truly know what you're getting into?"

Adjusting to a puppy is not unlike starting a new administration. It's a complex process that practically cries out for its own transition team. As someone who's survived the experience (more or less), I'd be happy to lead such a group if the Obama team reads this and wants me onboard.

So, Mr. President-elect, while I await that call (if the line is busy just keep trying), here are some key points to keep in mind as you embark on the path of canine companionship.

1) Establish schedules for feeding, playtime, and other activities. It's very important for the dog to learn rules and understand your expectations about good behavior. Get him into a routine and then make him stick to it. If he knows you're happy, that will make him feel happy. Also, you might want to think seriously about using this same technique when dealing with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

2) Let the pup socialize with people. Grab an old shirt from Joe Biden so the little tyke gets accustomed to his scent in the Oval Office, and can track him down quickly if the senate needs to break a tie.

3) Barking is not necessarily bad. If the puppy seems scared or agitated, find out what's causing the anxiety. Barking may be a sign that a family member has fallen down an old abandon well, or that Dick Cheney is still hiding behind the curtains in the Oval Office.

4) Never sign an important treaty with, say, North Korea, and then leave the document on your desk to go chat with reporters in the Rose Garden. When you get back inside, that landmark agreement may be shredded into diplomatic confetti.

No need to be alarmed by any of this, just prepared. Lots of American families have made this transition successfully. Remember not to panic in the middle of the night if a Secret Service guard wakes you out of a sound sleep and says, "Sir, we just caught the puppy chewing on the priceless antique headboard in the Lincoln bedroom."

At such moments, you may grit your own teeth and think, "Was this dog idea a huge mistake? Can we really handle the trials, tribulations, and endless surprises that keep popping up, day after day, for years to come?"

The answer, Mr. President, is three simple words: Yes we can.

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Afghanistan: Taliban Reject Offer For Peace Talks With President

2008-11-17T13:08:02Z

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Taliban militants rejected an offer of peace talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying Monday there would be no negotiations until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

Karzai offered Sunday to provide security for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar if he enters negotiations and said the U.S. and other Western nations could leave Afghanistan or oust him if they disagree.

Afghan President Offers Taliban Leader Safety Deal

2008-11-16T18:49:57Z

Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered Sunday to provide security for the Taliban's reclusive leader if he agrees to enter peace talks, and suggested that the U.S. and other Western nations could leave the country or oust him if they disagree.

Karzai's comments come as international political and military leaders are increasingly mulling whether negotiating with the Taliban is necessary as the insurgency gains sway in large areas of Afghanistan.

Karzai has long supported drawing the Islamist militia into the political mainstream on the condition that they accept the country's constitution.

"If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices, remove me or leave if they disagree," Karzai said in an hourlong news conference in Kabul.

"If I am removed in the cause of peace for Afghanistan by force by them, than I will be very happy. If they disagree, they can leave. But we are not in that stage yet," Karzai said.

Omar is a leader of the Afghan Taliban and headed the government toppled by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Since then, he has been in hiding but is believed to be running the insurgency.

Previously, Karzai has said that Omar lives in neighboring Pakistan, an allegation dismissed by Pakistani officials.

Seven years after the invasion, record levels of violence are afflicting Afghanistan, where the number of insurgent attacks are up by 30 percent compared to 2007. The Taliban are present in large parts of Afghanistan's south and east and are increasingly encroaching on Kabul, the capital.

In September, Taliban members met with Afghan and Pakistani officials during a dinner hosted by Saudi Arabia's king, but there were no concrete results from the meeting.

"If I hear from (Mullah Omar) that he is willing to come to Afghanistan or to negotiate for peace and for the well-being of the Afghans so that our children are not killed anymore, I as a president of Afghanistan will go to any length to provide protection," Karzai said.

Omar has not directly responded to these calls, but spokesmen associated with the Taliban have previously said their participation in any talks depends on the withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign troops from the country.

Karzai dismissed that, saying foreign troops are necessary for Afghanistan's security.

Stephen C. Rose: The War in Afghanistan Is A No-Win Situation

2008-11-16T10:02:18Z

The situation in Afghanistan weighs more and more heavily on us. I took it up in a Huffington Post piece a while back titled Could Barack Obama Suffer The Fate of LBJ?

Many wish the war on terror to be translated from a military trap into a POLICE ACTION, something sane observers believe it should have been from the very start.

Today, comes a sad vindication of the reality and a stark warning that there can be no winning in Afghanistan. It will be Barack Obama's task to cut a deal and be honest about why

Violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 SOURCE

A Pakistani decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for U.S. and NATO troops on Sunday and raised more fears about deteriorating security in the militant-plagued border region.

The suspension of oil tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers came as U.S.-led coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan reported killing five al-Qaida-linked fighters and detaining eight others, including a militant leader.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are behind much of the escalating violence along the lengthy, porous Afghan-Pakistan border, and both nations have traded accusations that the other was not doing enough to keep militants out from its side.

The tensions come as violence in Afghanistan has reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 and as a surge in U.S. missile strikes on the Pakistani side of the border has prompted protests from Pakistan government leaders.

And this piece from UK notes that the answer lies in cutting a deal with the Taliban, period. SOURCE

There is no question that British troops win almost every battle and firefight, but the Taliban refuse to go away.

For every 10 men they lose, there are 10 more waiting to take their place.

The insurgents have a saying: "You have the clocks, we have the time."

The British and American strategy seems to be to fight on with increased numbers of troops and try to train the Afghan forces to take over.

Building a country virtually from scratch, containing the Taliban and developing a national army in a land that's riven by ethnic rivalries and feuding warlords is probably a challenge too far.

Cutting and running is not an option - so cutting a deal may have to be.

Repeat: The War in Afghanistan is a no-win situation. The answer lies in talking to the Taliban, something Barack has already advocated. A protracted military engagement should be avoided like a plague.

Send a Personal Email to Stephen C. Rose

US says 5 militants killed in east Afghanistan

2008-11-15T09:29:33Z

KABUL, Afghanistan — A raid by coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan killed five al-Qaida associated militants and eight others were detained, including a militant leader, the U.S. military said in a statement Sunday.

A NATO soldier died in a roadside bomb attack in the south, the military said.

Steve Kettmann: View From Europe: Hillary Would Be Great As Madame Secretary

2008-11-14T10:38:22Z

Berlin--Choosing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State would be a great move by our president-elect for several reasons, starting with how the selection would go over here in Europe.

The simple fact is, in Europe as in the U.S., Obama cannot afford to overlook the potential problem of not being able to meet the sky-high expectations that have been built up for him - the bold, self-confident choice of Hillary Clinton to restore the office of Secretary of State to its past standing would send the message far and wide that a) Obama has read his Doris Kearns Goodwin and knows the value of putting the talent of past rivals to work for you, and b) the American diplomatic presence in the world will be conducted from top to bottom with professionalism and seriousness and a strong presence at the top.

(Please, would foreign policy commentators stop pretending that Rice's garbage-time posturing on behalf of multilateralism meant anything -- it was too little, too late, and with no credibility or strong relationships to tap, such efforts as her would-be-legacy-bolstering try at Middle East peace were in the end utterly empty exercises doomed from the start.)

The economic meltdown in the U.S. -- and the emergence of what Paul Krugman calls "depression economics" -- will in many ways pin President Obama down over the coming months. When I watched Obama speak to the crowd of 200,000 in Berlin's Tiergarten last summer, I assumed that once he was elected, he would probably make a return trip to Europe early in his administration to address more exuberant crowds, including quite possibly giving a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, his first choice before the Bush administration intervened behind the scenes to pressure the German government not to allow it. Obama still may -- but it seems hard to imagine, with the need to face such grim problems as what to do about Detroit.

As I wrote at the time, Obama backed off of a clear, specific demand for more European troops in Afghanistan in that speech -- a tactical retreat from what his aides had indicated he would say, and a smart one at that. He told the Berliners only that on Afghanistan, the U.S. and Europe must "renew our resolve" and that the "Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda." That was vague enough to leave plenty of wiggle room.

Nevertheless, the right has drawn a line in the sand on this issue, ready to pounce. Earlier this week, a Wall Street Journal editorial made the wild claim that "Mr. Obama has promised a multilateral surge of troops into the Afghanistan-Pakistan front."

It's true Obama wants more troops for Afghanistan, but he's been careful on what he has promised -- having a strong figure as Secretary of State, one who is held in great respect around the world, including in Europe, where public opinion polls have shown her doing almost as well as Obama himself, would be a huge asset for an administration looking to make progress in Afghanistan without distracting from President Obama's focus on the economy and jobs.

For the Clinton-haters, and I know there are some of you out there here at HuffPost, first off: Can't we try to stop hating? Isn't that one of the messages of Obama as the kind of potentially transformative leader who only comes along once in a great while? That we can turn to hope for a better future and not let everything curdle into recitations of rancid resentment, carefully preserved, long after the original grounds -- often based on falsehood -- are no longer relevant?

Second, can we review some of the more unfortunate reasoning cited in recent months for distrusting the Clintons as partners for Obama? We were told by smart people that Obama's campaign had been ruined because Hillary Clinton continued to campaign. How does that call look from the perspective of now? The long campaign season helped turn Obama from a good candidate into a great one; it built interest and boosted registration and turned more states competitive, as the Obama team has explained in post-election interviews with CBS and the New Yorker and elsewhere.

Hillary Clinton did more for the Obama presidential campaign than any defeated candidate in history, by whatever measure -- appearances on the stump, money raised, you name it. And yes, her husband was also a major asset, and that great moment on stage in Florida when the former president and the future president stood side by side probably made a difference in that state. If Obama were to choose her for Secretary of State, Hillary would throw herself into it the new role as a team player and she'd have instant respect abroad.

The same cannot be said for Bill Richardson, for example, who seems to believe he's entitled to a plum post in the new administration because the Latino vote supported Obama in large numbers. They supported Obama in large numbers because he was the best candidate. As for John Kerry, it's not really fair, given his command of foreign policy, but he carries the taint of his too-passive defeat at the hands of the fear-mongering Bush 2004 campaign, and it's hard to believe Obama would really make that call.

So is it possible? Absolutely. Would Senator Clinton give up her seat to take the job? Very possibly. Will it happen? Let's hope so.

Back to that recent WSJ editorial, Same Old Berlin Wall" -- it includes the delusional claim: "When Europeans talk about 'multilateralism,' they typically don't mean agreeing on a common policy to carry out together. They mean defaulting global security to the United Nations, where Russian and Chinese vetoes curtail effective action. At best, multilateralism a la Paris and Berlin is short for European approval for where and how Americans may intervene around the world."

This is claptrap, part of a pretty lame effort to fight the "myth" that Bush administration unilateralism and blundering is to blame for the severe plunge in international perceptions of the United States. It says a lot that the WSJ, like the Bush administration, has no idea what it actually means to have respectful relations with allies that involve listening -- and stopping and thinking. President-elect Obama clearly does understand that. His choice of Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State would represent a great show of respect to our allies that he wants the best available person to handle the job of being his top diplomat.

Related:

Confirmed: Clinton Met With Obama About Role In New Administration

Jamal Dajani: Ahmadinejad: Guns N' Roses

2008-11-14T10:34:34Z

There is nothing more exciting to watch on Iranian state-run television than another spectacular missile launch followed by a fiery speech by Ahmadinejad. Yet, the scenario is predictable.

On Wednesday, the Iranian armed forces successfully test fired a new generation of surface-to-surface missiles.

"The launch of the Sejil missile signifies Iran's determination to promote its conventional defense capability," announced Iran's Defense Ministry spokesman.

Addressing a large crowd in the northern city of Sari in Mazandaran Province, President Ahmadinejad cautioned Iran's enemies to avoid using the language of force against the Islamic Republic. He also warned possible invaders of a crushing response should they commit an act of aggression against Iran.

"The Iranian nation defends its honor and whichever power that wants to stand against the movement of the Iranian nation, the Iranian nation will crush it under its foot and slap it on the mouth," Ahmadinejad said.

His tone has quickly changed from the tone in the congratulatory letter he'd sent to President-elect Barack Obama just a week earlier.

What happened? Is this because Barack Obama has not responded yet?

The truth of the matter is: it is neither. Ahmadinejad has been standing on shaky ground for some time. He is being attacked openly in the Iranian media, something that could not have happened without the knowledge and approval of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Just recently, the Majlis (Iranian parliament) fired Interior Minister Ali Kordan, a friend and supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for faking an honorary doctorate degree he had supposedly received from Oxford University. This, along with other allies being forced out from key government positions, has been weakening Ahmadinejad's chances for re-election next June. But this is not all; Iran's financial crisis and falling oil prices are becoming subjects of discontent amongst many in the Iranian elite. I recently watched a financial expert on Iranian Al Alam TV criticizing the Iranian president for his inability to deal with the country's financial crisis.

Now, much has also been said about the congratulatory letter Ahmadinejad sent to Obama.

Many analysts have warned that Obama "risked a trap with Ahmadinejad's letter," and recommended that it be ignored. Others suggested that the President-elect reply to it, but that he ought to take his time, in order to prevent Ahmadinejad from taking credit for beginning a dialogue with the United States without conditions, thereby rehabilitating his political standing. The problem with these two arguments is that Barack Obama, once sworn in as president next January, will find himself in no position to ignore Ahmadinejad or wait until the summer for a regime change in Iran.

Throughout his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama has promised to withdraw combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and to bolster forces battling Taliban and al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. Iran has the key for achieving these objectives.

The Islamic Republic maintains close ties with one of Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri el-Maliki's coalition partners, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, or ISCI, which was formed in Iran by Iraqi Shiite exiles. Without the support of ISCI, Maliki cannot maintain power. Iran has also been arming several Shiite factions in Iraq including Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army. Barack Obama will need the cooperation of the Iranians not to turn life in Iraq into hell once he decides to reduce U.S. combat troops there.

Also on the Afghanistan front, Barack Obama might need to cozy up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to a senior U.S. military official who was quoted in the Washington Post on condition of anonymity, "The Bush administration has kept Tehran at arm's length, but as we look to the future, it would be helpful to have an interlocutor to explore shared objectives."
What are these shared objectives?

There is no love lost between the Iranians and the Taliban. In 1998, a war between the Islamic Republic and the Taliban regime almost erupted after Taliban forces killed nine Iranian diplomats in the central Afghan city of Mazar el Sharif. Just this week an Iranian diplomat was abducted in Pakistan after his driver was shot dead. All leads point towards Taliban insurgents.

Once a deal is struck between the United States and Iran on Iraq and Afghanistan, discussions over Iran's nuclear file will follow.

Obama has stated that he was prepared to hold tough presidential negotiations without preconditions with Iran; it seems that he may just have to do so earlier than he might have expected.

Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV.

US Soldier, 8 Afghan Civilians Killed In Convoy Attack

2008-11-14T00:18:26Z

KABUL, Afghanistan — A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. military convoy passing through a crowded livestock market in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least eight civilians and an American soldier and wounding 74 people, Afghan officials said.

The American patrol was hit in the Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S. military spokesman. The convoy was about 90 miles east of Kabul on the main road linking the capital to the Pakistan border at Torkham.

Convoy attack kills US soldier, 8 Afghan civilians

2008-11-13T00:52:22Z

William Bradley: Obama's America: Observing the Observance of Veterans Day

2008-11-12T19:52:43Z

Former Navy Secretary-turned-U.S. Senator Jim Webb, the most highly decorated Marine combat officer of the Vietnam War, introducing Barack Obama three weeks ago in Roanoke, Virginia.

It's just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we've already seen a telling new approach to one of America's most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.

President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago's Soldier Field to honor our nation's military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.

Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration -- which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies -- has never dared.

War has its costs, and military service has its costs, as I know from my own unremarkable Navy stint. It is only when you acknowledge the cost that you can recognize the value.

My father was a war hero. He was wounded three times in action, the last time taking shrapnel to the brain. Though he recovered, his wound deeply colored the rest of his life, making him moody and difficult, sometimes at a moment's notice.

And his wounds occurred in an era before technology allowed heroic savings of the still more grievously wounded. The number of those killed in action in Iraq is only -- only, a word to be used advisedly -- something over 4000 souls. But more than 30,000 have been wounded, many of them very grievously. In previous wars, many of them would have died. But the gift of their lives comes at a cost which will color the lives of every one of them, and their families, for decades to come.

This is the human cost of war, a cost which President Bush and Vice President Cheney -- neither of whom served in the military -- have sought, with the help of a complacent media, to keep out of the public spotlight. It's striking how most of America's most vehement war hawks were conveniently unavailable for military service in their younger years.

What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars -- one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy -- in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?

Celebrating military service.

Let's start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was "the war to end all wars." It didn't work out that way.

Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won't be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.

We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force -- or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit -- is necessary to pursue America's strategic ends.

Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death.

John McCain resurfaced, following his sweeping defeat at the hands of Obama, last night on The Tonight Show. He is certainly America's most famous Vietnam War hero. And his defeat means that Vietnam will be the only major war which did not produce a president of the United States. John Kerry and Al Gore, both Vietnam vets, lost their respective races in 2004 and 2000. (Though Gore, of course, actually won, which is a whole other matter.)

For all his evident heroism, McCain seemed out of sync to me throughout most of this campaign, even when discussing national security issues, the raison d'etre of his presidential candidacy.

He was especially out of sync when it came to emerging veterans issues.

Strangely, McCain opposed the New GI Bill authored by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, the former US Navy secretary under Ronald Reagan who was the most highly decorated Marine combat officer of the Vietnam War.

I remember last May, spending a day around McCain, and finding him in a fit of pique over Obama's criticisms of him for McCain's opposition to the Webb bill. Obama, he said, wasn't even qualified to venture an opinion on this or any other military-related issue.

But for all his evident anger, which we later saw manifested in the general election campaign, McCain could not bring himself to mention Webb, who was, after all, the actual author of the bill he opposed, and an old friend of his. McCain contributed a blurb to Webb's must-read book on the Scots-Irish tradition in America, "Born Fighting," calling Webb "a legendary fighting man."

McCain wanted to force service members to stay in service longer before getting new benefits. His rationale? That that would build the non-commissioned officer cadre necessary for any effective military. Webb saw things very differently, reasoning that the folks putting themselves at risk whenever they walked down a street in Iraq or Afghanistan need to know that they will be well-rewarded for that risk.

Although both McCain and Webb are Annapolis graduates, their paths after the Naval Academy took them in very different directions.

Webb was a a Marine, a ground pounder. McCain was a naval aviator, an airedale. In his Vietnam War, Webb was at risk, one way or the other, most every hour of the day. McCain had periods of intense risk, but at the end of the mission, he flew back to great food, Filipino stewards, and a warm bed on his aircraft carrier. Until the time he did not, of course.

These experiences led to very different perspectives.

As Webb put it last year on Veterans Day, as he began what turned out to be the overwhelmingly successful push for his bill, despite the opposition of McCain, Bush, and Cheney: On this Veteran's Day, we should remember that every day, our military is fighting across the world, and we owe those soldiers a debt, regardless of the political debates over the war(s) we fight. It is with pride that our party supports our troops as they return home as veterans, proposing and supporting legislation to fully fund the Veterans Administration, offer services at the Federal and State level upon their return home, and making sure their families are cared for.

Barack Obama showed an easy rapport with American troops on his trip to the Middle East.

Barack Obama has never worn the uniform. Had he done so, his path to the White House would have been easier. But he is part of a class and a generation that increasingly never experiences the military.

Yet he has more rapport with the most common experience of the American veteran -- and understanding of the cost that taking military action can ring up, in the lives of individuals, families, and a nation -- than the Republicans who are now in the process of relinquishing power to him and his allies.

And that is a very good thing.

You can check things out during the day on my site, New West Notes.

Two Afghan Schoolgirls Blinded After Being Sprayed With Acid

2008-11-12T19:00:18Z

Two men on a motorcycle used water pistols to spray acid on girls walking to school Wednesday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, blinding at least two of them, military spokesmen said.

U.S. Col. Greg Julian said Afghanistan's National Military Command Center told him that four girls were hurt in the incident. Two were blinded and remain hospitalized, and two were treated and released, he said.

Ashley Bommer: Roadway Through the FATA

2008-11-12T17:00:55Z

Islamabad, Pakistan

Sitting next to a four foot tall water pipe, in a cloud of steamy sweetness, I asked the tribal leader in front of me: What is victory? He sputtered smoke, raised his bushy white eyebrows and said, "Victory. How can you have victory here?"

The United States went into Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda. But seven years later, what have we achieved? We have spent over one hundred and seventy billion dollars in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda is growing stronger. We know that the road to the heart of Al Qaeda now leads to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, FATA, in Pakistan. Last month Vice President-elect Joe Biden referring to Al Qaeda leadership said, "That's where they live. That's where they are. That's where it will come from. And right now that (the threat) resides in Pakistan."

What are we doing now? The U.S. has no presence in the FATA. We have little contact or communication with these people and their leaders. We provide little support, healthcare, or aide to the population that lives there. We send in missiles and airstrikes that infuriate the people rather than aide and emissaries to engage their youth who are turning to extremism. It's no surprise that we have not won them back.

There is a way. People who have influence in the tribal 'unsettled' areas are living in nearby settled areas. These tribesmen move to the settled areas for economic and security purposes and are the life-support to their home villages. We must establish dialogue and services with these influential people to build a bridge to the tribesmen in the unsettled FATA areas. These leaders already know the tribal chiefs, spiritual leaders, feudals, tribal custom and code. They also know who the enemy is and can play a role in isolating militants from local people. The dialogue begins with D.I. Khan (South Waziristan); Bannu (North Waziristan); Hangu (Kurram); Kohat (Orakzai); Peshawar (Khyber); Malakand (Mohmand); and Dir (Bajaur).

A friend from the region described the FATA as "a forgotten age" where only the "law of the jungle" prevails. These unsettled areas have become infiltrated by a multinational anti-state terror network (Al Qaeda, Taliban, Haqqani network, and over fourteen definable anti state elements operating in the FATA alone) which the U.S. Government calls "Anti-coalition militias", a group that is far more sinister and interconnected than the West imagines. With five years of Iraqi experience -- and powerful communication and financial support behind them -- this network is growing rapidly.

The FATA tribesmen are completely aware of this situation. When pressed with the question, "If Osama bin Laden was in the house next door, would you notify the authorities?" the answer from the tribesmen I met was a resounding -No. As Frederick Mackeson, a British colonial officer observed in 1850, "their fidelity is measured by the length of the purse of their seducer, and they transfer their obedience - according to the liberality of the donation."

While the enemy weaves in and out of the tribal areas, living and interacting with the people, we fight the war against Al Qaeda superficially through military airstrikes and covert special operations. Homes are destroyed and people die. And because we have no presence on the ground in any capacity, we feed the hatred, Americans are seen as the aggressors, and the militants are seen as the providers. There are a few exceptions; in Bajaur, for example, some tribesmen see the militants as the enemy and are fighting back -- for now.

According to the Pakistani Center for Research and Security studies, ninety percent of the people living in the FATA live below the poverty line, earning less than two dollars a day. To a newborn, life will be a struggle for survival in a warzone. It is not just the United States's presence that is lacking. The Pakistani government provides little to no services in this area. And the international community is absent as well.

The links between the settled and unsettled areas started over one hundred years ago. Facing tribal unrest, and incessant fighting, the British proposed to settle the tribes from Waziristan (present day North Waziristan and South Waziristan) in British territory.

The Secretary of State wrote to Queen Victoria, "The pacification of border tribes by preserving in the exercise of humanizing influences is more likely to be permanent than their subjection by military force; and I always shall therefore receive with satisfaction such proposals as that now before me, recommended by your officers on the spot, which afford a reasonable prospect of rendering the people on the frontier line between our territories and Afghanistan peaceful and friendly neighbors."

The British moved some members of the tribes from the unsettled areas of the frontier to the settled (colony) areas. Before this policy, the British had spent fifteen years and countless funds repressing and punishing the tribes without getting results. The British policy continues today in the FATA.

There are effective local organizations such as the Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) -- part of the Rural Support Programmes Network of Pakistan -- that we could partner with immediately in the settled areas to get started. They work with the people to assess their needs and then build the institutions to deliver care. SRSP has the capacity, they just need directions and financial support to expand. Once dialogue and cooperation are established with the tribesmen in the settled areas, inroads can be laid through them into the tribal unsettled areas.

Yes, the British were ultimately defeated. But they left a unique roadway to the FATA through the adjoining settled areas. It is time to get back in the driver's seat. The road to achieving our objective in Afghanistan goes through the FATA.