Afghan President's Brother

“If they let Ahmed Wali (Karzai) stay in power, it means they are not serious about governance,” said a diplomat in Kabul. [New York Times: 3/31/10]

The Afghan President's brother reportedly controls almost everything in Kandahar, the southern Afghan province that the US is poised to "clear and hold" with a large influx of troops: US, NATO and Afghan.

Ahmed Wali is the most important businessman in the area, and he has used his connection to the President well. He seizes land the Americans want to use--so they have to lease it from him; he controls armed groups that patrol the city; he pays off the Taliban to protect his lands and shipments. While the Taliban controls behind the scenes, Ahmed Wali insures that his businesses flourish. He stole the election in Kandahar for his brother. He even, reportedly, launders drug money for the Taliban, as well as for himself.

The greatest reason for the Afghan government's inability to combat the Taliban is that Afghans perceive it as irretrievably corrupt, reportedly one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

Ahmed Wali is Exhibit A.

As American troops assemble to drive the Taliban out of Kandahar, many independent advisors, from NGO's to NATO, probably including US diplomats, have urged that Ahmed Wali must go--if the US is serious about "holding," i.e. bringing in an Afghan government that wins the loyalty of the people.

But Ahmed Wali is the President's brother. He also, reportedly, has been useful to the CIA. He's one of those manipulators of power, who are able to land on their feet, regardless of who holds the whip. Ahmed Wali is going to stay.

Earlier, after the assault on Marjah, in Helmand province, McClatchy reported that the "returning" Afghan government (the governor had hardly ever set foot in Marjah) was universally despised and distrusted as corrupt.

So, this is a pattern. The US is not "serious about governance."

What does this say about the vaunted "counter-insurgency" strategy, which supposedly aims to put effective government in place to counter the insurgency, to attract Afghans' loyalty?

Despite Obama's hurried, secret visit to Karzai, when he reportedly lectured Karzai on getting rid of corruption, that's not going to happen.

The US can win all the battles--while accidentally killing more civilians--but this is no way to beat an insurgency. All we are doing is spending lives (Afghan and American) and money ($1 million per soldier/marine per year), boosting the earnings of defense contractors and making some parts of Afghanistan safe--for Chinese investment--temporarily.

The US lost Vietnam, despite winning all the battles, because its client government was hopeless: the Vietminh/Vietcong offered a better alternative.

Karzai thumbs his nose at the US, even inviting Iran's Ahmadinejad to dinner to spite us.

Afghanistan is "déjà-vue all over again." The only question is: when will the empire collapse?

Man The Gambler

Man the Gambler

Some of the most densely populated places on earth are either close to, or even below sea-level, and the seas are rising.

Many people cluster in places they know are high risk: of earthquake, flood, or volcanic eruption. These places happen to be some of the most fertile in the world, like the Nile Delta, and the Tigris and Euphrates in the ancient world, places like Java and the deltas of the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India and Bangladesh, or of the Mississippi delta in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Why do they have high populations? They are highly fertile, the basis for Empires like Egypt and Sumer. Adaptable humans are gamblers. Every farmer or peasant bets their crops will flourish; they don't always. A Javanese farmer can expect bumper crops because of benign climate and rich soil, but he might be ruined by a volcanic eruption. So, he cultivates crops, right up the slope of Mount Lurus, or any of the 33 other volcanoes on the island, and if it erupts, he could be wiped out. If not, for this season, he's golden.

Women are probably less gamblers than enablers. Their first priority is to protect their children by ensuring that a man supports them. If he insists that their land on the volcano is the best, they aren't going to demand that the family move--until it's too late.

Romans took another kind of gamble, when forests were cut down for Roman baths with the bet that nothing would change: as I describe on my Ephesus page, everything did: Ephesus, Rome's Asian capital before Constantinople, has been a ruin for two thousand years.

Which leads us to dangerous climate change (a label preferable to 'global warming'): aren't the deniers, like EXXON, Senator Inhofe and Rush, gambling with all our lives? They're gambling that dangerous climate change isn't going to happen, even though all the know-it-alls say it is. Everyone who denies climate change, or our part in it, is gambling that it just ain't so.

What happens to people who lose their gamble?

In places like Java or Bangladesh, farms, even farmers get burned out or washed away. Some who gambled don't survive.

In the case of dangerous climate change, we may all lose, eventually. However, the people who suffer first, are those least at fault, in poor, under-developed countries. Therefore, high stakes gamblers can keep on gambling, denying and "winning" through short-term "investments." Yet, even the winners lose if warming is unchecked, if we pass tipping points like the arctic tundra melting to release huge methane deposits.

Can't we gamble that preventative measures could work; instead of gambling that they aren't needed?

Throw Bricks!

Throw bricks through their windows! Get rid of them!

Violence as a political tool is used in third world, or so-called developing countries; hatred, as well, as events like the Ruanda genocide demonstrate. Both were also used in "developed" states: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the USSR.

But in democracies, politics is supposed to be more civilized. Representatives are supposed to represent our interests. Politics is supposed to be rational, debate is supposed to be about policy. It's also, inevitably, about emotion, but it's supposed to be kept civil enough that you don't have riots and revolutions.

When "mainstream" political parties condone violent action, the march towards totalitarianism has quickened. If Republicans condone violence and egg on extremist rhetoric, they are preparing the way for autocracy.

The violence is incited--has been for years--by right-wing talk radio, by the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks, and violent language has escalated since Obama's election.

So have extremist right wing groups; their numbers have proliferated by almost a third since 2008. But extremist groups don't expect to gain control of the nation through elections: Republicans hope to.

Note: many "tea partiers" reject the GOP almost as bitterly as they oppose Democrats; a Third Party movement is gestating.

Republicans seem to reject rational discourse, however. The health care legislation is similar to Romney-care in Massachusetts and a Heritage Foundation-Republican-backed proposal; it has no public insurer (the poorly labeled "public option," which sounded too much like "public bathroom"). Yet, Republican Senators and Congressmen rant about a "government takeover"--except for those who rail against "socialism." Since the bill creates a (subsidized) market of 31 million new customers for private insurance companies, it's the Republican kind of socialism--for corporations, which is what they extended throughout government during W's reign; they call it "privatization."

Since the legislation isn't theirs, it's okay for Republicans to encourage others to threaten their opponents with hate mail, death threats, insults, racial or sexual slurs--but if someone actually shoots a Congressman, or Senator, or the President, then Republicans will be like the boy who taunts a bully into pummeling someone, and then whines, "it's not my fault!"

The violent turn in right-wing politics ought to stiffen spines. When anti-choice Congressman Stupak receives death threats for voting for health care, others should realize: they'll need the courage of their convictions, or they should quit politics.

If spines collapse, instead, I wouldn't hold much hope for even a civil plutocracy, let alone democracy: the US could become a failed state.

The political parallel to Rome here is the fall of the Republic, replaced by Emperor Augustus. But don't expect American hegemony to last 500 years: we can't afford it.

Big (Good) America?

Americans assume we're doing good abroad. After all, the US is the only country that aided its defeated enemies and prostrate allies (after WWII) to return them to prosperity and democracy.

Since Vietnam, or, arguably, Korea, the American record has been mixed, but that hasn't altered the predominant American mythology: Americans go abroad to do good.

We're in Afghanistan to wrest it--for the Afghans--from Islamic extremist fanatics. We went into Iraq to save it from the tyrannous dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and to bring Iraq democratic politics--although, of course in both cases, we were also defending America from the threat they posed to us: two small countries halfway around the world, separated from us by seas and oceans, as well as other lands.

Hah! What about oil and oil pipelines?

Romans had a similar ideology. Romans believed they were doing good in the world. In Italy, they were unifying the peninsula; in Greece, they were bringing peace and order; in Asia and Europe, they were bringing order and law, and ultimately, civilization and Christianity.

Both Rome and America would boast the old Quaker saying about its most prosperous citizens: "They did well by doing good."

Romans--of the better sort--believed this. They believed it, even though they were wealthy beyond their contemporaries imagining (and right up there with our contemporaries). They became wealthy by grabbing lands Romans had conquered, and accumulating hundreds, even thousands of slaves, captured in Roman wars of conquest. The Senators of the western empire, in its decline, owned huge estates from Egypt to northern Gaul. Some of them had estates along the whole range: they could supply themselves with northern crops and tropical fruits simultaneously.

Now we have billionaires. While not all of them are American (the wealthiest is Mexican), it is the American system of war, and corporate monopoly, which makes them possible.

What most Americans don't realize is that our wars make a few very rich, but they impoverish the many. The Bush family made their fortune in wars going back to WWI. The Obamas didn't, but there are probably a lot of people in Obama's administration, and more of those advising him about "National Defense," who have become wealthy from war.

Furthermore, while the National Security Industrial complex makes a few very rich, it depends on high unemployment and low wages to recruit "the troops." Conveniently, defense contracts generate less than half the jobs civilian government contracts create for the same money, which means, in a finite budget: war dis-employs millions.

Wars also enable a few--our global elite--to rip off large parts of the rest of the world. That's how empires work.

Big bad America is a (declining) Empire.

Words Have Power

"How's that hopey changey thing working out for ya?" asked Sarah Palin.

Hope and Change were two of Obama's most important slogans, but they lacked substance. While "health care reform" or "health insurance reform" are more substantive, they don't lend themselves to sloganeering.

Democrats have a problem, including Obama, conveying their agenda in non-wonkish terms. It would have been so much more easily sold, and understood, if Democrats had campaigned for Medicare for All, rather than health insurance reform. If Medicare for All was too radical for Congressional Democrats (according to polls, it isn't for most people), they should at least have tried to come up with something less opaque and colorless than "Health Insurance Reform."

"Global warming," was easily ridiculed when Washington DC was blanketed in feet of snow (an effect of global warming). I propose a better tag: Bad Climate Change. Cap and Trade? Forgeddaboutit. How about: Stop Bad Climate Change? The tag would make it obvious: we have to do whatever we can to avert as much of the bad effects as possible.

What does 'bad' climate change do, that climate change does not? It adds a value charge, which is what Democrats, and Progressives more generally, have been so bad at conveying: there are values here that we all share. Unless we are awaiting the end of the world, aka the Rapture, we want to continue to live on this bountiful planet.

Another example: when Obama came into office, people were looking for him to proclaim something like The New New Deal. What did we get instead: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the stimulus! It could have been Rebuilding a Better America Act, or even A New Way Forward.

When it comes to the finance industry: everybody outside it loves to hate it, and with good reason. A bill to stop bad practices, to discourage risky behavior and to prevent bankers from ripping off everyone else, is what we need. It could be called Making Bankers Honest Act, which could be wildly popular, despite all the bank money ranged against it. Instead, we have Financial Regulatory Reform. Bank money will be flung against it anyway, but it will be a lot harder to rally troops to counteract those millions of dollars.

Screw bipartisanship! If Obama is going to push through real change, he'll have to do what he did with health care. Politically it would work better if he could package it to sell, like Stop Bad Climate Change. Otherwise:

The best lack all conviction
And the worst are filled with passionate intensity…


Just listen to John Boehner on health care!

1600 Homes on Palestinian Land

"This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace." Yedioth Ahronoth

Biden was responding to the announcement, made while he was meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu, that 1600 new homes would be built in Greater Jerusalem, on land previously claimed by Palestinians. Was 1600 chosen as an echo of the White House's address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

The announcement seemed pointed, but whether it was or not, the problem is the same: the US must de-link itself from Israel's occupation, if it is to be a credible force in the Middle East.

There has been a call to boycott all companies and products associated with the occupation. These should include: Sabra Hummus, but also Motorola, ITT, Terex, Caterpillar, GE, Roadstone Cement, United Technologies and Oshkosh trucks, because of their active role through lucrative contracts, in support of the Israeli occupation. That is something individual Americans can do.

The US administration should go a lot further: it should threaten to withhold military aid, which goes a long way towards supporting the Israel Defense Force, and economic aid, as well. We shouldn't be picky: not just aid that enables the West Bank Settlements, but all aid.

Are the Israelis thumbing their noses at Biden/Obama because they think Democrats are vulnerable? Democrats could lose crucial Jewish support in the upcoming elections, but if Obama put it in terms of Israeli policy "endangering our troops," a muscular policy might actually gain more votes than it would lose. "He's finally showing some balls!" people would say.

What is crucial to understand, however, is that the right-wing Israeli government is not interested in negotiating with Palestinians. Netanyahu wants to establish "facts on the ground" that can't be reversed, that make a two state solution impossible.

Frankly, I don't think it's possible now, because of all the encroachments, settlements and segregated roads. But that means that Palestinians must be integrated into greater Israel. They cannot forever be treated the way blacks were treated in Apartheid South Africa. They have to have rights, votes, and freedom of movement. They must have access to whatever Israelis do, especially opportunities to flourish. Since Israeli right-wing governments have made a two-state solution impossible, Israel will have to live with the consequences, which may, someday soon, mean an Arab majority in Greater Israel.

To continue supporting Israel in its oppressive Palestinian policy justifies al Qaeda in its terror attacks, the Taliban in its nationalism, even Ahmadinejad in his pursuit of regional hegemony.

If the US is to have any influence in the Middle East, it has to assert its interests now. If that's too hard, then we should get out of the empire business.

China and the US Dollar

China and the Dollar

China has a lot of them, more all the time; they keep rolling up surpluses, while we roll up deficits. Even in the Great Recession, China is raking in money, although there have been some US trade improvements: we are buying less, due to the recession.

China has a lot of advantages for trade: a hard-working, low-paid, workforce that rarely dares disrupt business with strikes or labor protests. Chinese labor is highly skilled, especially considering how recently China became an industrial power. And China's sheer numbers gives it a tremendous advantage.

But China has a heavy thumb on the scales--almost literally. The renminbi or yuan, the Chinese official currency, has been artificially undervalued for decades. The money measurement of Chinese export prices is skewed downward by that thumb. Chinese goods cost less than they should, because of currency manipulation, giving China a 20-40% competitive advantage over American goods--or German, or French--in our own markets.

The effect of this undervaluation doesn't stop with the huge US trade deficit. It has global repercussions. China is sucking up more and more money from all over the world, not just the US. When China insists on undervaluing its currency, it destabilizes the whole world economy. It's possible that the unbalanced trade/currency relations between China and the US, provided conditions for the 2008 financial collapse.

There is also the global effect of all that money going to a country that spends too little. Chinese savings rates are now an unbelievable 55%. So, money is withdrawn from the international economy and put into US Treasury bills. China doesn't buy imports with its money; it buys resources, mines, oil fields, real estate. It also induces corporations to build factories in China, because that's the only effective way for non-Chinese to crack the China market.

Now, China is facing inflationary pressure, despite a managed economy, while the rest of the world is flirting with deflation; recovery is held back by this huge trade imbalance.

Nobel Economist Krugman advocates a 25% surcharge on Chinese imports as a temporary measure to force China to revalue. He points out: we have China over a barrel. The Fed could minimize the impact if China sold large amounts of its dollar holdings in protest; the dollar would fall (not collapse), which would make the US more competitive. A declining dollar would also devalue China's remaining dollar assets.

Only Obama could do this. It would be an appropriate assertion of American power, and it could help the whole global economy.

I can hear the screams now! What, devaluing the mighty greenback?

Devaluation would be a powerful development and jobs policy, not a loss of prestige. It's way overdue.

Devaluation would also increase pressure to wind up our costly empire: it would cost more. I don't think that would be a bad thing.

Taxes: A Republican Alternative?

Taxes: when all is said and done, it boils down to who pays and who benefits.

Look at the Bush tax cuts; they cut taxes primarily for the top income earners, and caused the largest budget deficits ever recorded--until the Great Recession, as it's now called.

What did we get for those tax cuts? Unbridled speculation, or increasing debt? Both, actually.

Because of Rubin-Clinton-Greenspan, the banks were unleashed. Because of the tax cuts to the wealthy, there were piles of loose capital available for speculation. Because of the previous 30 years of deregulation, union-busting, tax flattening and shredding safety nets, those without loose capital were so hard-pressed to maintain the "American Lifestyle" that they went into debt. And then some of the speculators had a bright idea: speculate with all that extra debt: bundle it, slice it and resell it (the "derivatives" that nearly brought down the western world--they may still).

Obama's budget-tax policy trims around the edges: allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse for those with high incomes, cutting middle class taxes just a bit and adding some modest progressive credits.

What does a "conservative" Republican have to offer? Congressman Ryan of Wisconsin has offered a Republican alternative tax plan. It has been called radical, and it is; it's definitely not conservative. It would start with making the Bush tax cuts permanent, but would go much further. It would abolish the estate tax and the corporate income tax, privatize Medicare and Medicaid (replacing them with vouchers), reduce and partially privatize Social Security, eliminate taxes on capital gains and dividends, and eliminate the income exclusion of employer-provided health insurance--to force health insurance into the "free" market.

To make up (some) of the difference, Congressman Ryan would add an 8.5% "Business Consumption" tax: a value-added, or sales tax.

The effects would be radical. "It’s difficult to design a tax plan that will lose $2 trillion over a decade even while requiring 90% of taxpayers to pay more," said the analysts of Citizens for Tax Justice about this plan. It does this by shifting much taxation to the sales tax, while eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit and other poverty reduction credits. Since poor people spend more than their income on consumption, they will be taxed more than 8.5% of their income. In fact, only those earning more than $127,384 would pay less in taxes. Those earning more than $480,700 (the top 1%) would save 15% on their taxes, or $211,314. Those earning $20,053-33,117 would pay $2,032 more (7.7%) and the lowest income group would pay $1,605 more (12.3%).

Just what we need! It's the selfish class raising its head again, and the effects could be even more disastrous than they were between 2000 and 2008: debt, excess capital, declining consumption, rising inequality and speculation.

Give the Republicans power and they'll make the Senators of the Late Roman Empire look like pikers!

Filibuster as Empire Buster

Progressive Democratic Senators Bennet, Harkin and others are promoting a bill to reform the filibuster.

However, important Democrats, like Dianne Feinstein, are against it, and the Republicans are obviously against it: they control the Senate's business with 41% of the votes. That's a pretty good trick, when you think about it.

Republicans have used more filibusters in Congress since 2006, than have ever been used before; they're using them to block virtually all legislation, except Defense bills, rendering elections meaningless and government ungovernable.

So, it's easy to understand why no Republican Senators will vote for filibuster reform. But why won't Democrats like Senator Feinstein and fellow caucus member Senator Lieberman vote for reform or abolition. Lieberman did once endorse getting rid of the filibuster, but that was years ago--before he became a pivotal vote. That should be a clue right there.

There is a reason why even a reform of the filibuster (let alone it's abolition) is unlikely.

Senators are there for the power; that's what makes them tick. With the filibuster, all of them, every single one, has much more power than they would with simple majority rule and no power to block.

With the filibuster, Ben Nelson can hold up the nation for his state alone, and so can Lieberman, and so can Jim Bunning. Each, then, gains enormous power--negative--but useful to gain things like the Medicaid in Nebraska deal.

So, why would any power-mad Senator want to give that up?

That's the point: power. And each Senator thinks that if he retains that power for himself, he'll be better placed for re-election, regardless of what happens to the government or his party. Think of all the things he can do for his state, which could insure his re-election (he/she hopes), if he retains that power.

Instead of being a faceless member of the majority, Ben Nelson wheels and deals for his state. Instead of being a retiring and faceless member of the minority, Jim Bunning becomes a national byword.

Maybe not all Senators are motivated solely by power. Maybe some genuinely believe they are doing good for their state and The People, but at the same time, their egos are being massaged, and probably their bank accounts, too.

Also, it may be true that the filibuster could be eliminated by a majority vote (50, plus Biden), but the Senate, as an institution, is very conservative. Also, the abolition of the filibuster might be met by more Republican obstruction: they could refuse to agree to a legislative calendar, thereby blocking all business.

Democrats threatened that in 2005, when Republicans proposed abolishing the filibuster with the "nuclear option." Still, it's too bad the Republicans didn't go through with it.

The Roman Senate led to the downfall of Rome, literally. If the US Senate cannot reform, or legislate, it could be instrumental in the downfall of the American empire, as well.

A State that does not govern, does not survive.

Comments?

What If Nothing Works?

What if the Democrats pass healthcare reform and we find that the back room deals have made it meaningless?

What if Iraq explodes into renewed civil war, and the US stands powerless to stop it? Our guy Maliki was the one who signed on to banning Sunni and secular candidates.

What if Iran announces it will build a bomb, and enough companies and countries are willing to buck or veto sanctions that Iran can't be stopped?

What if Obama and Democrats are unable to re-stimulate job growth, and we are stuck at near 10% unemployment?

What if the Republicans are unwilling to cooperate, and unwilling to lead if and when they regain power in Congress?

What if Afghanistan after Marjah is simply more of the same: a corrupt government takes over in daylight, and the Taliban comes back in at night?

Does President Obama lie awake wondering what to do about all these problems?

Last night, as I imitated Harry Reid, it occurred to me: why did Democrats elect such a wimp as their Senate leader? With his soft-high voice, who would ever listen to him; who would ever change their vote hearing his limp-wristed entreaties?

I yearn for a Senate leader like LBJ. He could twist arms, make deals, and carry out a Democratic agenda even in the face of a (moderate) Republican President. And then ram through civil rights legislation and Medicare when he was President.

Unfortunately, Harry Reid symbolizes Congressional Democrats, so it's no wonder that Congress is held in contempt by huge majorities of Americans. On the one side: timorous Democrats, afraid even to vote for what they believe in--think of Harry's soft high voice. On the other: Republicans who refuse to compromise and insist on playing victim to the big bad Democrats: think of John Boehner, whose voice is made for accusation and flippant denial.

Polarization is worse now than it was when Obama first started to campaign against it. The US Congress will drive the US into "failed state" status, unless it mends its ways, unless party discipline overcomes petty ambition and un-petty corruption.

Ironically, the peace president faces bipartisan support only on the wars. So long as Obama plays the generals' game, he'll get enough Republican votes to offset liberal, anti-war Democrats. No wonder he resists calls by Kucinich and Feingold to buck this rare consensus by adopting time-certain withdrawal plans for Afghanistan!

The US as failed state, except as bully-boy for global corporations. That is what it looks like--and the emerging nations will take over, like the Barbarians. They'll do business with whomever, ignoring global warming--they didn't cause it--until we--and they--are burned to a cinder.

It doesn't have to be this way. All that's needed is a little courage to act like commonsense human beings facing perennial disasters, instead of grasping idiots.