Today's program was seemingly all over the map with discussions on the Republican Primary races, Super PACs, Afghanistan and the tragic act committed by Sgt. Robert Bales, the crisis in Syria, and finally the discussion of what is happening in the Sudan with George Clooney and John Prendergast. However, there are three consistently interwoven threads that connect them all and those are the United States, Russia, and China.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ), making his 64th appearance on Meet The Press, said point blank that Mitt Romney needs to do a better job campaigning if he wants the nomination. Mr. Romney, on the campaign trail, consistently speaks of increasing military spending so that there will be no question around the world as to which country has the most military power. But we already have that supremacy, 10-fold in fact. Rarely does he speak of diplomacy in solving the problems that the U.S. faces abroad. Diplomacy requires nuance and as evidenced on the campaign, this is something that Mr. Romney sorely lacks.
Mr. McCain is correct to complain about Super PACs, but you get what you pay for. In the case of Newt Gingrich's campaign, Sheldon Adelson funds his campaign on the promise that the United States will wage a war on Iran to protect Israel. In strict constructionist terms, the First Amendment guarantees free speech but does not designate the difference between a collective or an individual so technically the decision was correct, however, in practicality this decision is a disaster. It's created the nastiest campaign, to use the Senator's words, that he's ever seen. So will our foreign policy be dictated by the whims of a few? Senator McCain said that there would be scandals (with regard to Super PAC funding) and then we'll have to 're-legislate,' but really it's a 're-litigate.'
The Senator also stated that Iran would be dealt a crippling blow in its influence if the United States were to engage militarily with Syria, and given the evidence that Russia is supplying the Assad Government with arms, he concludes that we should arm the insurgents. In effect this will create another proxy war with Russia, which we can not afford. What would a President Romney do? Would he look into the soul of President Putin, as President Bush did, and conclude that we trust them? Russia is loving what is happening in Afghanistan with the United States being bogged down in a prolonged war in that country, seeing our finances and human resources stretched beyond capacity.
The good Senator said that we needed to be committed to victory in Afghanistan instead of consistently emphasizing withdrawal plans. However, if you listened to the round table discussion today, 'victory' is a murky proposition. Author John Krakauer deemed the counter-insurgency doomed to fail at the start. The point being that a military trained to fight can not win hearts and minds with the barrel of a gun. To buttress that, Ms. Cooper pointed out that the population does not feel safe with the presence of the U.S. Military in country. Of course this is punctuated by this latest tragedy of Sgt. Robert Bales' mass shooting of Afghan civilians. These realities, along with many others, should be the impetus for us to get out of country.
Paul Rieckhoff stated that at this moment the suicide rate among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans is higher than the casualty rate among our soldiers. This is the direct product of too few fighting too much, over ten years of war and more than 200,000 traumatic brain injuries in ten years. So to Senator McCain, where's the victory in this? The panel threw around comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan with some of the members pointing to the commonalities and others disagreeing. But here's how that stacks up given that we've executed a troop surge in both countries. The similarities are few. Afghanistan is no where near as stable as Iraq, and that's saying something. The Iraqis have had the sense of what a functioning government looks like and the network of bureaucracy that is needed to create stability. Also, a distinct difference between both counter-insurgency efforts is that in Afghanistan we are paying people whereas in Iraq we enriched people with money, and power. For dissident Iraqis there was the incentive of control. There is no sense of control in Afghanistan.
Mr. Gregory, in the interview segment with Senator McCain asked about the contraception law in Arizona that if passed would require women to inform their employers why they would want birth control. The Senator doesn't think that this will pass, and when asked about the Republican (clearly Republican initiated) 'War on Women,' he said that this needed to be fixed. What Mr. Gregory didn't point out is the distinct irony that in Afghanistan we're fighting for women's rights (Republicans advocating for continued/escalated fighting) while here at home Republicans are trying to take rights from women. Frankly, this is a disgrace.
Lastly, in addition to the human cost, our finances are so strained because of our extended wars, it renders the United States with little leverage in dealing with China, and in the example of today's program, the Sudan which Mr. Gregory discussed with George Clooney and John Prendergast. Though Mr. Clooney effectively puts it in financial terms, China has little incentive to do cooperative business with us because they can outbid and outspend the United States at every turn in the procuring natural resources [read: petroleum]. As long as the United States is engaged in protracted wars, Mr. Clooney will have to continue to solely rely on his celebrity because the U.S. government, though would like to have his back, can not afford it.
Round table: Author and Afghanistan War veteran Wes Moore; author of the bestselling book “Where Men Win Glory” about the death of Pat Tillman, Jon Krakauer; Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Paul Rieckhoff; the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward; and the New York Times’ Helene Cooper.
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