Rural America is not served well by the medical profession because there is a lack of family practice doctors, a problem that could be addressed somewhat in the health reform bills now before Congress. That's the good news. The bad news is that the reform package, if passed, would extend insurance coverage to millions more in areas where there are a lack of doctors to attend their illnesses.
I have experienced the dilemma up front and personal having lived in rural Oregon for 13 years. What reminded me of that ordeal was a splendid article in today's Washington Post about Dr. Ben Edwards, a family practitioner in Post, a tiny town in West Texas. I strongly recommend reading the article for it precisely outlines the Catch-22 dilemma in Washington because it won't solve the doctor shortage nor improve care.
Several years before I moved to Oregon I was diagnosed with diabetes. The condition worsened as the years rolled by. I could afford the oral medication prescribed by a San Diego physician at the time but I could not afford insurance premiums or copays visits to a doctor. My teeth fell out. My vision deterioated. I developed numbness in all my extremities as nueropathy set in. Bad circulation in my legs made it painful to walk. These were symptoms I figured out on my own. What I didn't realize that at the same time I developed kidney problems and congestive heart disease. More on that later.
In 1994, my third year living in Gold Beach, the Oregon state legislature enacted a universal health care plan with coverage extended to some 700 types of illnesses. Premiums were based on a person's income. My reported income was 0 for which the monthly premium was $7 .I confess I was part of the shadow, underground earners who lived off of cash tips for cleaning fish and pumping propane gas for visiting fishermen and tourists at the RV park where I worked rent-free.
It saved my life.
The first thing I did was see a dentist. He was the only dentist participating in the state health plan (OHP) beween Brookings and Coos Bay about 90 miles apart and serving about 7,000 residents. The waiting list was nine weeks for the first visit. He worked on four patients at the same time, each in separate rooms. His wife, who was his secretary, told me her husband attended to 140 patients a day, seven days a week. He did not have a dental hygenist. He pulled my six remaining teeth. By the end of the fourth visit I received complete upper and lower dentures I still wear today, some 15 years later.
There were two family practice doctors in Gold Beach, three if you count an old man who no longer took on new patients and specialized in herbal treatments for whatever causes. One of the doctors suffered from a personality disorder and insulted all of his patients for failing to follow his instructions.
I was fortunate to become a patient of Dr. Michael O'Gara who himself was a diabetic. He put me on a special diet, told me to get a diabetes monitor to test my blood sugars and changed my medication from oral to direct insulin injections.All that was new to me.
But, Dr. O'Gara was equipped to do little more to treat diabetes. The closest specialists were 100 miles inland in Medford. I had no car at that time.
Gold Beach had a public hospital supported by a district tax. It had no trauma unit and eight beds. As a result, most people in the Gold Beach area subscribed to a life flight service for $72 a year that would airlift patients to Medford. The number of flights per subscriber was limited to three per year, as I recall.
I moved to Nehalem, about 250 miles up the Oregon coast, in 2001. There, the nearest doctor was in Tillamook, about 30 miles to the south. Same situation. Specialists dealing with diabetes were non-existent. By then, I owned a Ford Ranger and had to drive 90 miles to Portland to see specialists dealing with my circulatory problems.
It wasn't until I returned to San Diego in 2003 that the heart and kidney conditions were diagnosed. And, that discovery came accidentally. A hospital-run senior health clinic prescribed diuretics to battle a water-retention condition. Eventually, I became dehydrated, lowering my natural potassium level to nil. I was taken to the hospital where a battery of tests and an MRI finally determined my heart, kidney and lung malfunctions.
The point of my story and the one about Dr. Edwards of Texas illustrates how difficult it is for patients receiving adequate health care in rural areas of America. It is not a question of public options or stringent rules on health insurers denying coverage for pre-exiting conditions.
It is a system that makes it economically awkward to entice family doctors to practice medicine in rural America. The rural hospitals can treat broken limbs but rarely can afford the expensive diagnoses equipment to treat respiratory, heart, kidney and other diseases.
There was much amusement of the sardonic sign the Democratic congressman from Florida displayed when fighting the Republicans on the health care legislation. "Die Quickly," it said, referring to the Republican plan.
By the same logic, the sign for rural America might be "Die Slowly Or Move To The City."
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Rowing Upstream With One Oar In The Water
Whenever I gaze weary eyed into the problems facing our economic recovery, I often wonder if I am as dumb as those proverbial "economic analysts."
Take today's announcement by the Labor Department that the national unemployment rate dropped to 10% from October's 10.2%. The New York Times blithely reported we lost only 11,000 jobs while economists had been expecting roughly 125,000.
Hey, if I was 10 times off the mark on a news story I, too, would be on the unemployment rolls.
The Times:
“Those numbers caught pretty much everyone flat-footed,” Stephen Wood, chief market strategist at Russell Investments, said of the jobs report, pointing in particular to sharp upward revisions in the data for previous months “This confirms that we’ve moved away from the edge of the precipice where we stood last year, the recovery story is real.”
Yes, investors waffled, reflected in a day-long series of small gains and losses ending with the green arrow pointing skyward on the Dow Industrial, Nasdaq and S&P exchanges. The U.S. dollar gained against the euro, pound and yen.
And there was President Barack Obama listening to a jobs summit meeting on Thursday and talking to Pennsylvania rust belt workers in Allentown today. He's taking notes for -- you guessed it -- another major speech next Tuesday with the focus on jobs.
I hate to drop this bombshell on those without jobs but the fact is the president is about as powerful to fix the economy as you and I are. Yes, he proposes. But Congress decides. Translation: More pork barrel spending to win votes, especially in those areas where the incumbent faces a tough re-election.
We saw how Congress divvied up the $787 billion stimulus package in which most of the money spent so far was to help states and counties from going bankrupt. Now, Congress is toying with about $100 billion in TARP funds either unspent or paid back by bailed out financial institutions. That money the Democrats are considering for "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects we heard about but scarcely have seen from the earlier stimulus plan.
Let's review:
Most economists cannot agree on anything. The president cares but can't do much about it except rail from the bully pulpit. Congress is more concerned with re-election and winning votes from their own constituents than addressing the root cause of joblessness.
Despite all that, the economy really is improving albeit as fast as rowing with one oar upstream. Sort of a miracle the way our sausage is cranked out by our government.
For specifics on job data, the economy and efforts underway by Congress and the President, click here, here, here, here and here.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Huckabee's Political Career On Life Support
I feel sorry for Mike Huckabee. Nine years ago as governor of Arkansas he commuted the sentence of a man who this past week killed four police officers in Lakewood, Wash., and the next day was gunned down by police.
To hear Huckabee tell it, Maurice Clemmons was not the murderer and rapist he commuted but an impoverished black at the age of 16 unjustly sentenced to 108 years in prison for burglary and robbery charges.
News of Huckabee's involvement was cheered by a few die-hard liberals who figured that he would be a dead man walking if he entered the 2012 presidential race after placing second in the Republican primaries to John McCain in 2008. Conservatives of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin trashed Huckabee for being weak on crime. Other conservatives said religion of the compassionate Baptist minister clouded his thinking.
Huckabee described the criticism against him by conservatives as "disgusting." He refused to apologize. "It really does show though how sick society has become when we're more interested in the political consequences of an election that's three years away," he said.
According to CNN, Huckabee told reporters Wednesday that "You're looking at this nine years later and trying to make something as if I can look in to the future." "I wish I could have. Good Lord, I wish I had that power. I wish I could have done that. But I don't know how anyone can do it," he added. Huckabee said that "nobody at that point was saying he's a cop killer."
Huckabee defended his commutation in an article he wrote for Human Events. Here are his key points:
Despite news reports, there are no records that the prosecutor, law enforcement, the Attorney General, or victims objected to the commutation. The only responses my office had record of during the public comment period were support letters from the trial judge, and members of the community.
He was back in prison by 2004 and would have remained there until 2015 due to his parole violations had the prosecutor chosen to properly file the paperwork.
The Clemmons of 2000 did not exhibit traits of psychosis and the kind of behavior that he would later express during several arrests in Washington state during the past year.
Religion had nothing to do with the commutation. It’s been erroneously expressed that my own personal faith or the claims of faith of the inmate factored into my decision. That is simply not true and nothing in the record even suggests it. The reasons were straightforward -- a unanimous recommendation from the board, support from a trial judge and no objections from officials in a case that involved a 16 year old sentenced to a term that was exponentially longer than similar cases and certainly longer than had he been white, upper middle class, and represented by effective counsel who would have clearly objected to the sentencing.
Here's an opposing account by Timothy Egan writing for the New York Times' Opinionator:
To hear Huckabee tell it, Maurice Clemmons was not the murderer and rapist he commuted but an impoverished black at the age of 16 unjustly sentenced to 108 years in prison for burglary and robbery charges.
News of Huckabee's involvement was cheered by a few die-hard liberals who figured that he would be a dead man walking if he entered the 2012 presidential race after placing second in the Republican primaries to John McCain in 2008. Conservatives of the ilk of Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin trashed Huckabee for being weak on crime. Other conservatives said religion of the compassionate Baptist minister clouded his thinking.
Huckabee described the criticism against him by conservatives as "disgusting." He refused to apologize. "It really does show though how sick society has become when we're more interested in the political consequences of an election that's three years away," he said.
According to CNN, Huckabee told reporters Wednesday that "You're looking at this nine years later and trying to make something as if I can look in to the future." "I wish I could have. Good Lord, I wish I had that power. I wish I could have done that. But I don't know how anyone can do it," he added. Huckabee said that "nobody at that point was saying he's a cop killer."
Huckabee defended his commutation in an article he wrote for Human Events. Here are his key points:
Despite news reports, there are no records that the prosecutor, law enforcement, the Attorney General, or victims objected to the commutation. The only responses my office had record of during the public comment period were support letters from the trial judge, and members of the community.
He was back in prison by 2004 and would have remained there until 2015 due to his parole violations had the prosecutor chosen to properly file the paperwork.
The Clemmons of 2000 did not exhibit traits of psychosis and the kind of behavior that he would later express during several arrests in Washington state during the past year.
Religion had nothing to do with the commutation. It’s been erroneously expressed that my own personal faith or the claims of faith of the inmate factored into my decision. That is simply not true and nothing in the record even suggests it. The reasons were straightforward -- a unanimous recommendation from the board, support from a trial judge and no objections from officials in a case that involved a 16 year old sentenced to a term that was exponentially longer than similar cases and certainly longer than had he been white, upper middle class, and represented by effective counsel who would have clearly objected to the sentencing.
Here's an opposing account by Timothy Egan writing for the New York Times' Opinionator:
Trying to explain how such a man could have been on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said, “Some people have to answer to that.”
At the top of that list is Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and current host at Fox News. Huckabee granted Clemmons early release nine years ago, against the objections of prosecutors and victims.If this case does not sink the presidential aspirations of Huckabee, a leading Republican candidate, it should. By the standards that Republicans launched almost 20 years ago, Huckabee will be Willie Hortonized. But this case also shows, as with an earlier episode in Arkansas, that Huckabee’s judgment is seriously flawed.
Instead, he’s been allowed to get away with issuing a passive, blame-shifting statement. In the release, issued Sunday night, Huckabee takes no personal responsibility for letting Clemmons out early. Instead, he cites “a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington.”
If Huckabee's version is accurate -- that there was no protest for commutation by the prosecutor and victims -- then he is being unfairly treated by his right-wing pals.I don't know whom to believe, Huckabee or the prosecutor. Either one or both are lying.
Of course, I could get cynical here and claim everyone involved is out covering their butts. Such is the course public officials select when the best of intentions turn to tragedy.
Still, I like Mike. He's a decent human being and far from the worst governor the state of Arkansas has seen. I would never vote for him nor do I watch his Fox show, but that's another story for another day.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Leave Tiger Woods Alone
I have refrained from writing about Tiger Woods, his accident and his rumored extra-marital exploits because it triggered painful memories of why I got out of the newspaper business. In short, I believed the media was stepping out of bounds by invading people's privacy.
This is one of the most fundamental challenges facing publishers, editors and reporters. At what point does one cross the line and let the facts either be damned in search of a good story or fall wherever they land?
A reluctant Woods finally succumbed to the pressures and issued a guarded statement today. (See Joe Windish's post on themoderatevoice.com). Naturally, his statement only begged for further questions. Such as what were his "transgressions?"
Woods is a private person living in the public arena because he is arguably the best golfer the world has ever witnessed. Consequently, there is a natural thirst for every move he makes in or out of golfdom.
His greatness in his profession is transferred to him as a person and that is a colossal mistake. Shame on the public for thinking that way. Off the fairways, he is not a god, but, in his words, an imperfect person.
What other than evil thoughts do we have speculating that he abused his wife by lusting after other women? Give the guy a mulligan and leave it at that, I say.
Probably more than any other star athlete, Woods is protective of his image culled over the years on the golf courses and crafted in TV ads. He is a brand name. As with many celebrities, he lives in his own bubble reinforced by underlings who tell him only what they think he wants to hear. The world is his oyster and when he starts believing that, trouble follows.
In this auto-accident-fire-plug-tree mishap, Woods made an unfortunate decision by going into hiding six days before fessing up. It accomplished the fanning of gossip which could have been snuffed last Friday.
Yes, there are unanswered questions. What was he doing at 2:30 a.m. driving barefoot out of his driveway? Why did his wife break the rear window of their SUV when he apparently was trapped in the front driver's seat? Why was he laying in front of the vehicle when police arrived?
By the way, his wife swings a mighty club. Have you ever tried to break a car windshield with a golf iron? It's not a slam dunk.
I think a good PR man could have earned his money by getting Woods to at least address these questions early on. After that, the public be damned.
The strange thing is that Woods gave hints of his imperfect condition on the golf course. You need not be a lip reader when he curses after a bad swing or even bouncing his club into the gallery. But what he does behind closed doors is his business.
I started having doubts about the public's right to know years ago. As a police reporter, I interviewed the father of a child killed during a gang-related driveby shooting. The day after the story appeared in the paper, the father was shot for speaking out.
So often, these right-to-know stories lead to unintended consequences. Ruining people's lives by dwelling into the dark abyss rarely accomplishes anything. In other words, put yourself in the position of the guy you are about to trash. Guilt by innuendo in this case is worse than the crime itself.
Tiger Woods deserves more respect for what he has done professionally than what we can only imagine he has done in private.
This is one of the most fundamental challenges facing publishers, editors and reporters. At what point does one cross the line and let the facts either be damned in search of a good story or fall wherever they land?
A reluctant Woods finally succumbed to the pressures and issued a guarded statement today. (See Joe Windish's post on themoderatevoice.com). Naturally, his statement only begged for further questions. Such as what were his "transgressions?"
Woods is a private person living in the public arena because he is arguably the best golfer the world has ever witnessed. Consequently, there is a natural thirst for every move he makes in or out of golfdom.
His greatness in his profession is transferred to him as a person and that is a colossal mistake. Shame on the public for thinking that way. Off the fairways, he is not a god, but, in his words, an imperfect person.
What other than evil thoughts do we have speculating that he abused his wife by lusting after other women? Give the guy a mulligan and leave it at that, I say.
Probably more than any other star athlete, Woods is protective of his image culled over the years on the golf courses and crafted in TV ads. He is a brand name. As with many celebrities, he lives in his own bubble reinforced by underlings who tell him only what they think he wants to hear. The world is his oyster and when he starts believing that, trouble follows.
In this auto-accident-fire-plug-tree mishap, Woods made an unfortunate decision by going into hiding six days before fessing up. It accomplished the fanning of gossip which could have been snuffed last Friday.
Yes, there are unanswered questions. What was he doing at 2:30 a.m. driving barefoot out of his driveway? Why did his wife break the rear window of their SUV when he apparently was trapped in the front driver's seat? Why was he laying in front of the vehicle when police arrived?
By the way, his wife swings a mighty club. Have you ever tried to break a car windshield with a golf iron? It's not a slam dunk.
I think a good PR man could have earned his money by getting Woods to at least address these questions early on. After that, the public be damned.
The strange thing is that Woods gave hints of his imperfect condition on the golf course. You need not be a lip reader when he curses after a bad swing or even bouncing his club into the gallery. But what he does behind closed doors is his business.
I started having doubts about the public's right to know years ago. As a police reporter, I interviewed the father of a child killed during a gang-related driveby shooting. The day after the story appeared in the paper, the father was shot for speaking out.
So often, these right-to-know stories lead to unintended consequences. Ruining people's lives by dwelling into the dark abyss rarely accomplishes anything. In other words, put yourself in the position of the guy you are about to trash. Guilt by innuendo in this case is worse than the crime itself.
Tiger Woods deserves more respect for what he has done professionally than what we can only imagine he has done in private.
Obama's Folly
Okay, here's what I really think about President Obama's strategy to fight al Quada in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It sucks.
It is a short-term approach that in the end will not improve our national security. The president makes a good case for a stable, self-governing Afghanistan. That's wishful thinking.
He failed to convince me how that will translate to a more stable Pakistan which owns nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of al Quada or other terrorists.
I'll give credit to the president for not claiming the mission will produce a win. The 30,000 additional troops could turn the current stalemate to our favor in the Afghan provinces. But only as long as they remain there.
In Pakistan, the government is weak, the population pocked with extremists and the Army is focused on their arch enemy India.
The problem with the strategy is that the 100,000 U.S. troops and whatever the NATO countries grudgingly provide are to take over and hold the population centers. The main target will be Kandahar in the south which has been the stronghold of the Taliban. This is a strategy doomed from the start because it pits the rural areas against the cities and consequently fuels the competing cultures into a doomed civil war. That's not my analysis but one predicted by Matthew Hoh, the administration's top Afghan foreign service diplomat who quit in disgust.
Much is being made of Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011. It is either an appeasement to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party who were candidate Obama's strongest supporters. Or a benchmark telling the insurgents when to return.
The answer to that we'll see in Iraq when the status of forces agreement calls for all U.S. combat troops be pulled out by 2011. I'm certain that is a coincidence not overlooked by al Quada and insurgent Sunni masterminds.
To me, the Obama Doctrine is a war of attrition playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden to such us dry of both will, lives and treasure. It's national security vs. affordability.
The president at least recognizes our national security depends on a robust domestic economy which at the moment is in recovery mode.
Look at the numbers. It costs an estimated $1 million to support each soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. At the same time, unemployment is above 10% and likely to remain there for at least several more years. And, about 43,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford health insurance. Our national debt exceeds $1.2 trillion and exponentially increases as interest rates balloon.
In this regard, I am a progressive and believe we cannot afford a major future presence in the Afghan provinces where we are seen as occupiers and untrusted. The Republicans in Congress almost to the last one believes we cannot afford health reform yet are willing to write a blank check for our national security.
Yet, when Obama's $30 billion military appropriation request for Afghanistan reaches Congress we will see something we haven't seen in years. Bipartisanship. I suspect the bill will be approved, carried by the Republicans and just enough Democrats.
It's the classic guns vs. butter argument. The answer is a no-brainer. In this venue, the pen is not mightier than the sword and that's a shame.
Afghanistan will be Afghanistan 10, 20 or 100 years from now. Our presence there in the sands of time is a pimple on a blimp.
It sucks.
It is a short-term approach that in the end will not improve our national security. The president makes a good case for a stable, self-governing Afghanistan. That's wishful thinking.
He failed to convince me how that will translate to a more stable Pakistan which owns nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of al Quada or other terrorists.
I'll give credit to the president for not claiming the mission will produce a win. The 30,000 additional troops could turn the current stalemate to our favor in the Afghan provinces. But only as long as they remain there.
In Pakistan, the government is weak, the population pocked with extremists and the Army is focused on their arch enemy India.
The problem with the strategy is that the 100,000 U.S. troops and whatever the NATO countries grudgingly provide are to take over and hold the population centers. The main target will be Kandahar in the south which has been the stronghold of the Taliban. This is a strategy doomed from the start because it pits the rural areas against the cities and consequently fuels the competing cultures into a doomed civil war. That's not my analysis but one predicted by Matthew Hoh, the administration's top Afghan foreign service diplomat who quit in disgust.
Much is being made of Obama's pledge to begin withdrawing troops by July 2011. It is either an appeasement to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party who were candidate Obama's strongest supporters. Or a benchmark telling the insurgents when to return.
The answer to that we'll see in Iraq when the status of forces agreement calls for all U.S. combat troops be pulled out by 2011. I'm certain that is a coincidence not overlooked by al Quada and insurgent Sunni masterminds.
To me, the Obama Doctrine is a war of attrition playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden to such us dry of both will, lives and treasure. It's national security vs. affordability.
The president at least recognizes our national security depends on a robust domestic economy which at the moment is in recovery mode.
Look at the numbers. It costs an estimated $1 million to support each soldier on the ground in Afghanistan. At the same time, unemployment is above 10% and likely to remain there for at least several more years. And, about 43,000 Americans die each year because they cannot afford health insurance. Our national debt exceeds $1.2 trillion and exponentially increases as interest rates balloon.
In this regard, I am a progressive and believe we cannot afford a major future presence in the Afghan provinces where we are seen as occupiers and untrusted. The Republicans in Congress almost to the last one believes we cannot afford health reform yet are willing to write a blank check for our national security.
Yet, when Obama's $30 billion military appropriation request for Afghanistan reaches Congress we will see something we haven't seen in years. Bipartisanship. I suspect the bill will be approved, carried by the Republicans and just enough Democrats.
It's the classic guns vs. butter argument. The answer is a no-brainer. In this venue, the pen is not mightier than the sword and that's a shame.
Afghanistan will be Afghanistan 10, 20 or 100 years from now. Our presence there in the sands of time is a pimple on a blimp.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
The Obama Doctrine, Like It Or Not
On the banks of the Hudson River at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point the country and world heard spelled out the Obama Doctrine by the nation's commander-in-chief.
Kill al Qaeda who murdered more than 3,000 innocent civilians on Sept. 11, 2001, render the Taliban impotent by increasing our troop levels, improve the Afghan security forces and support Pakistan's government so terrorists never get their hands on that nation's nuclear arsenal.
Oh, by the way, begin withdrawing troops in 2011 and get the hell out of that country as fast as conditions on the ground allow.
Another minor detail. President Obama said the Afghan punch will cost $30 billion next year and will leave it up to Congress to find the money.
In the most anticipated wartime speech, details of which were leaked days in advance, Obama managed to placate few and certainly not his core supporters who got him elected to office.
At first blush, I think Obama is too optimistic. He's overlooking the deep-rooted corruption in the Afghan government, underplaying the increased presence of American troops as a symbol of foreign occupiers and praying the Afghan army and police can be trained to protect themselves.
In fact, he's extending the impossible role our troops must endure by being soldiers on one hand and diplomatic nation builders on the other. As for Pakistan, the least he could have asked is if they want our help then turn over Osama bin Laden.
In his prepared speech, Obama said al Qaeda is a cancer that must be crushed.
This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.
In the days before his speech, administration officials were changing tactics from accusing President Hamid Karzai's government as corrupt to accentuating the positive forces undertaken in the country. They are hoping to build support from allies as well as the U.S. Congress to finance the mission.
One new approach is a "monitoring and verification" system to determine whether ministries and agencies are worthy of receiving direct U.S. aid.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a late November visit to Kabul, the capital, praised the progress of the country's agriculture sector, the growth of small business and the treatment of women. "If you are looking at social indicators, well-being of people, opportunities for women, it's not all a one-sided negative story." She apparently didn't travel to the rural areas in southern Afghanistan where none of that is happening.
She described Karzai as a "patriot" and visionary," his ministers "very impressive" and complimented anti-corruption steps, including a new system for issuing automobile licenses that eliminates government middlemen who had been skimming fees.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters last week that the country, which has raised its school population from 1 million to 8 million, has made "extraordinary progress" in education.
One of the keys to improving Afghanistan army security forces is Karzai's appointment of Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak as defense minister. Wardak has support of U.S. diplomatic and military advisors as he has fired poor commanders, only to see them reassigned elsewhere by Karzai for political or personal reasons.
Wardak does not control the 80,000-man Afghan National Police, the sole counterinsurgency force in much of the country. The police belong to the Interior Ministry, for years a cesspool of incompetence and corruption.
Such an assessment by Mark Moyar, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Marine Corps University and the author of "A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq," does not bode well for Obama's new strategy. He describes Karzai better fitted as a Kiwanis president then a president of a country torn apart with insurgents and government corruption.
As a general rule, I seek out the conservative opinion of New York Times columnist David Brooks on how the other guys think. In his pre-speech column today, Brooks thinks the president has done the best he can under a complex set of circumstances.
It is a hybrid approach, and as we watch the president’s speech Tuesday night, we’ll all get to judge whether he has cut and pasted the different options into a coherent whole. It’s not the troop levels that matter. What matters is how this war will be fought.
The deployment of 30,000 additional troops with the first 9,000 sent in January will add to the 68,000 now on the ground in Afghanistan. How well prepared the new troops will be or whether they will be taken from previous duty in Iraq is unclear.
Obama did not directly define what would be considered a U.S. victory other than hoping for strong security forces protecting their borders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Strange as it seems, Obama asked the American public for unity enjoyed by President Bush immediately after the 9/11 attacks but after eight years the public's patience is extremely limited.
By the way, the real fireworks on cost could come Wednesday and Thursday, when Secretaries Gates and Clinton testify to Congress about the new strategy.
Kill al Qaeda who murdered more than 3,000 innocent civilians on Sept. 11, 2001, render the Taliban impotent by increasing our troop levels, improve the Afghan security forces and support Pakistan's government so terrorists never get their hands on that nation's nuclear arsenal.
Oh, by the way, begin withdrawing troops in 2011 and get the hell out of that country as fast as conditions on the ground allow.
Another minor detail. President Obama said the Afghan punch will cost $30 billion next year and will leave it up to Congress to find the money.
In the most anticipated wartime speech, details of which were leaked days in advance, Obama managed to placate few and certainly not his core supporters who got him elected to office.
At first blush, I think Obama is too optimistic. He's overlooking the deep-rooted corruption in the Afghan government, underplaying the increased presence of American troops as a symbol of foreign occupiers and praying the Afghan army and police can be trained to protect themselves.
In fact, he's extending the impossible role our troops must endure by being soldiers on one hand and diplomatic nation builders on the other. As for Pakistan, the least he could have asked is if they want our help then turn over Osama bin Laden.
In his prepared speech, Obama said al Qaeda is a cancer that must be crushed.
This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat. In the last few months alone, we have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror. This danger will only grow if the region slides backwards, and al Qaeda can operate with impunity. We must keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and to do that, we must increase the stability and capacity of our partners in the region.
In the days before his speech, administration officials were changing tactics from accusing President Hamid Karzai's government as corrupt to accentuating the positive forces undertaken in the country. They are hoping to build support from allies as well as the U.S. Congress to finance the mission.
One new approach is a "monitoring and verification" system to determine whether ministries and agencies are worthy of receiving direct U.S. aid.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a late November visit to Kabul, the capital, praised the progress of the country's agriculture sector, the growth of small business and the treatment of women. "If you are looking at social indicators, well-being of people, opportunities for women, it's not all a one-sided negative story." She apparently didn't travel to the rural areas in southern Afghanistan where none of that is happening.
She described Karzai as a "patriot" and visionary," his ministers "very impressive" and complimented anti-corruption steps, including a new system for issuing automobile licenses that eliminates government middlemen who had been skimming fees.
Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told reporters last week that the country, which has raised its school population from 1 million to 8 million, has made "extraordinary progress" in education.
One of the keys to improving Afghanistan army security forces is Karzai's appointment of Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak as defense minister. Wardak has support of U.S. diplomatic and military advisors as he has fired poor commanders, only to see them reassigned elsewhere by Karzai for political or personal reasons.
Wardak does not control the 80,000-man Afghan National Police, the sole counterinsurgency force in much of the country. The police belong to the Interior Ministry, for years a cesspool of incompetence and corruption.
Such an assessment by Mark Moyar, a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Marine Corps University and the author of "A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq," does not bode well for Obama's new strategy. He describes Karzai better fitted as a Kiwanis president then a president of a country torn apart with insurgents and government corruption.
As a general rule, I seek out the conservative opinion of New York Times columnist David Brooks on how the other guys think. In his pre-speech column today, Brooks thinks the president has done the best he can under a complex set of circumstances.
It is a hybrid approach, and as we watch the president’s speech Tuesday night, we’ll all get to judge whether he has cut and pasted the different options into a coherent whole. It’s not the troop levels that matter. What matters is how this war will be fought.
The deployment of 30,000 additional troops with the first 9,000 sent in January will add to the 68,000 now on the ground in Afghanistan. How well prepared the new troops will be or whether they will be taken from previous duty in Iraq is unclear.
Obama did not directly define what would be considered a U.S. victory other than hoping for strong security forces protecting their borders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Strange as it seems, Obama asked the American public for unity enjoyed by President Bush immediately after the 9/11 attacks but after eight years the public's patience is extremely limited.
By the way, the real fireworks on cost could come Wednesday and Thursday, when Secretaries Gates and Clinton testify to Congress about the new strategy.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Three Cheers For The High Court
I find myself in the unusual position of cheering the Supreme Court for suppressing release of more photographs of American abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The high court today instructed the lower court to re-examine the issue.
My common sense is that we have seen enough of the photos and to show more would only aggravate the ill feeling and revulsion of a sad chapter scripted under the auspices of the Bush administration.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan in 2008 ruled the additional pictures should be released to the public. President Obama at first approved the release but changed his mind when the proposal was objected to by the Pentagon.
Since that time, Congress authorized the Defense Department to keep the additional photos secret, a policy enacted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The photos would inflame anti-American sentiment in Muslim and other countries, the administration determined.
Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the ACLU , said in a statement that “No democracy has ever been made stronger by suppressing evidence of its own misconduct.”
Justice Sonya Sotomayor, a member of the Circuit Court which made the earlier decision, recused herself from voting on the decision announced today.
It seems to me the release of additional photos would add nothing but another nail in the coffin of a horrendous misdeed conducted by poorly supervised soldiers and condoned by authorities all the way up the chain of command to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The real issue in this nightmare is not the release of more photos but the disgrace of civilian leaders who denied culpability allowing such actions to occur.
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