Barack Obama, Stanley McChrystal and dithering in Afghanistan

That’s the subject of this week’s Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk. You’ll probably not be surprised that I’m suggesting it’s time to ratchet down our endless war against the Taliban. You might be surprised to find out my conservative colleague seemingly agrees. He writes:

Trying to pacify the ungovernable Afghan countryside or win the support of people who are nothing if not xenophobic is a waste of time, money and precious American lives. If the goal is to secure Americans at home, we’re unlikely to accomplish it on the present course.

Point-counterpoint columns are probably less entertaining when the point and the counterpoint make the same point. But still. My take:

In his memo to President Obama, Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggested that even if America does everything right, it might still lose the war. Why? Because victory depends on having a stable, corruption-lite ― nobody expects corruption-free ― Afghan government that meets the needs of its people. Afghan President Hamid Karzai cannot provide that government, which means America cannot win. More troops won’t change that.

There have been other signs that after eight years, Afghanistan is a quagmire. We’ve now been in that country about the same amount of time as the Soviet Union was during its doomed war in the 1980s. Karzai’s brother ― long known to be dealing in the drugs that finance Taliban operations in that country ― was this week revealed to be on the CIA payroll. And an American Foreign Service officer resigned after concluding that the presence of U.S. and NATO troops has fueled the insurgency. We’re still there because they’re fighting us; they’re fighting us because we’re still there. It’s a complete mess.

And it is a mess that was mostly achieved under President George W. Bush, who let his attention wander ― disastrously ― to Iraq. Dick Cheney’s recent criticism of President Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan policy is thus remarkable. Having screwed it up so badly, you would think the former vice president would have the good sense and grace to simply shut up. But political bickering won’t solve Afghanistan. Probably nothing can.

America originally invaded Afghanistan because al- Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11, was headquartered there. But fighting an endless war against the Taliban is not doing much, if anything, to make Americans safer from terrorism. It might be making things worse. Time to try something new.

Happy Independence Day Weekend!

You’ll notice that it’s pretty quiet around the PW website today; we’re all out of the office, relaxing and enjoying our lives. We’ll be back Monday, ready to have fun.

In the meantime, I offer my half of this week’s Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk. The debate this week: How free is America on this July 4 weekend?

When the Founding Fathers declared America’s independence more than 230 years ago, they couldn’t have imagined some of the events this country has witnessed in the last year or so: A black man elected president. A woman nominated for vice president, and another nearly claim her party’s nomination for the top spot. In a few states, gay men and women have even been allowed to marry each other.

More Americans than ever can be confident of their ability to participate fully in the political process or create the family of their choosing — and if those aren’t signs that freedom is on the rise, well, what is? But the job is not complete. Gay Americans are still largely second-class citizens, prohibited in most places from marrying their partners. They’re still not allowed to serve openly in the military.

Meanwhile, America’s new president — while he has committed the welcome act of ending torture — has put himself on the side of warrantless wiretapping and the indefinite detention of terror suspects who can’t be convicted in a court of law. Lovers of liberty are rightly troubled by these developments.

What we have learned — again — is that freedom belongs to no particular political party. That it demands constant vigilance. And that it still stirs the American soul.

The battles that consume so much of our political life very often balance someone’s notion of freedom against somebody else’s desire to fix a problem. That’s not a bad thing. As long as we are battling for freedom — against its limitations and for its expansion — then we still have a large measure of it. That is something for which Americans can still be grateful.

Does pro-life rhetoric incite murder?

That’s the question in my Scripps Howard column this week with my conservative colleague Ben Boychuk. My take:

Many Americans, I suspect, hate abortion politics. We understand why pro-lifers are appalled by abortion. We also understand why pro-choicers believe women should be free to make private reproductive health choices. Liberals like me usually end up on the pro-choice side, but the fit is often awkward.

The question of whether pro-life rhetoric led to George Tiller’s murder, however, is easy: Yes. Without a doubt. How could it not? How could a political movement spend decades portraying one man as the Hitler-like embodiment of evil and not expect that somebody someday wouldn’t try to violently end that perceived evil? Tiller’s death was, in retrospect, inevitable.

Nobody, it should be noted, is ever killed for refusing to perform an abortion or dispense birth control pills.

Some abortion defenders have suggested that it’s time for the abortion debate to end. That won’t happen. But pro-lifers must now vigorously root the merest suggestions of violence from their midst or be banished to the political fringes. And they can start by reining in the talk show blowhards on their side.

“If I could get my hands on Tiller — well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes,” Bill O’Reilly said on his radio show in 2006. “Can’t do that. It’s just a figure of speech.”

Abortion-opponents must be rigorously ensure their rhetoric doesn’t incite murder. Did O’Reilly’s comments cross that line? He certainly didn’t avoid it, so he deserves the criticism he receives. Those who encourage violence must feel the full weight of the law.

But abortion-rights defenders shouldn’t think they can or should try to silence the moral qualms of a great many Americans — including those who wrestle mightily with such qualms yet still support the pro-choice position.

The debate will be with us always. It must not become an actual war.

Once again: Let’s prosecute Bush Administration officials for torture

I know, I know: Stop me if you’ve heard this before. But that’s the case I make in this week’s Scripps Howard column with Ben Boychuk:

Investigation and prosecution of Bush-era officials — accompanied by their conviction or exoneration — would be painful and probably messy. There would undoubtedly be a political firestorm. It is nonetheless the right thing to do.

Why? Because torture has long been illegal under both international and domestic law. There are no exceptions made for torturing bad guys, no matter how bad they may be. If we turn our backs on those allegations for political convenience or to avoid a mess, we’ve turned our back on one of America’s founding principles: The rule of law.

What’s on the line? Our credibility and our longstanding moral leadership in the world. If we brush aside credible allegations of war crimes — and the International Red Cross is no fly-by-night bleeding-heart lefty organization; its job is to look into these matters on behalf of the international community — then we forfeit the moral high ground we have long claimed on human rights matters. “Torture for me, but not for thee” is not going to cut it when we confront two-bit dictators about their crimes against humanity.

Republican critics say the torture of terrorists helped save America from attacks. The evidence indicates otherwise — and, in fact, images of Abu Ghraib helped intensify the Iraqi insurgency that has killed so many Americans.

The critics say prosecutions of Bush Administration officials would “criminalize policy differences.” That’s not true. Instead, a fair process would re-affirm two things that we’ve always known and proclaimed to be correct: Torture is against the law. And nobody — not even the president, nor his top aides — is above the law.

Ben, of course, disagrees. But for not-exactly traditional reasons. You can read him here.

The podcast: Meagan McCain, Afghanistan and Battlestar Galactica

Ben and Joel are joined in this week’s podcast by Macworld Editor Jason Snell for a lively discussion of:

• Meghan McCain and the pros and cons of “sickening bipartisanship”;
• How Dungeons & Dragons may be an apt metaphor for political polarization in these crazy times;
• Whether President Obama’s new Afghanistan policy really advances America’s strategic interests;
• Why the Battlestar Galactica series finale still disappoints Joel a week later and why Jason thinks Joel is all wet;
• And what’s in everybody’s Netflix queues.

Music heard in this podcast:

• “Taxi Driver: A Night Piece for Orchestra-Prelude,” by the Los Angeles Philharmonic (from Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores)
• “H.T.,” by Tsuneo Imahori (from the Trigun: The First Donuts OST)
• “Starman,” by John C. Reilly (from the Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story OST)
• “Meet The Flintstones,” by the Monty Alexander Trio (from Triple Treat, Vol. 1)

Listen to the podcast here.

Rihanna, feminism and sex: The last go-round

I’ve had my dander up about this particular topic lately, so Ben Boychuk and I decided to tackle the issue in our column for Scripps Howard this week. You’ve already heard my take on this, so I’ll give you a taste of what Ben has to say.

Ben, to his credit, suggests that trying to link feminism to the Rihanna beating is “missing the point.” But then he goes on to blame feminism … for everything else:

There can be no doubt, however, that feminism’s futile effort to deny the differences between the sexes has had consequences.

Among those consequences is the widely accepted belief that girls can and should be a sexually aggressive (i.e. promiscuous) as boys. Another is the popular idea, born out by a national illegitimacy rate approaching 40 percent, that fathers aren’t necessary. Yet another is the trend among a subset of women to leave their husbands for other women.

I didn’t wrestle directly with these lines in my half of the column, because, well, we have both word limits and deadlines — and I had points of my own to make. But I do want to address these “consequences” just a little bit.

• THAT GIRLS CAN BE AS SEXUALLY AGGRESSIVE AS BOYS: Um, where to start? I’m no fan of hookup culture, but people have been trying to have sex with each other since, well, there were people. What’s changed is that 50 years ago, men (generally speaking) had sexual freedom and women had sexual responsibility — stuck with the responsibility to say “no” and the responsibility to live with the consequences if they didn’t. Even today, men who are “womanizers” don’t pay nearly the cultural penalty that “sluts” do.

Ideally, men and women should bear the same levels of freedom and responsibility for their sexual conduct. And while you’ll get no argument from me that the oversexualization of culture — brought to you in large part by capitalism’s marketeers — could use a bit of reining in, it’s not right to expect that women should bear the burden of that task.

• HIGH ILLEGITIMACY RATES THAT SUGGEST FATHERS AREN’T NECESSARY: Ben’s right that births to unwed mothers are about 40 percent. Unlike him, I’m not sure we know why that’s the case, and I suspect that “feminism” makes a convenient bugaboo here. But certainly it’s the case that it takes two to tango, and we have ample evidence that there are plenty of men who shirk their responsibilities in this regard — why else would we have an ever-growing set of rules and bureaucracy designed to get men to pay their child support, already? Is that feminism’s fault?

It’s true that feminism has encouraged women to get out of bad relationships rather than stay together for the sake of the children; but it’s also true that feminists have urged men to take on a greater portion of child-rearing duties than was the norm a couple of generations ago.

• A TREND AMONG A SUBSET OF WOMEN TO LEAVE THEIR HUSBANDS FOR OTHER WOMEN: Golly, I’d like to see some data on this trend. But I don’t think it exists; instead, I suspect Ben is referring — indirectly — to an article in Oprah Magazine which is frank in acknowledging that it can’t document any such trend, but goes on about it for a few thousand words nonetheless. (Ben, to be fair, hedges his bets by calling it a trend among a “subset” of women. Which subset would that be? Lesbians?)

Even if there is such a trend, though, so what? Is America really in danger of being swamped by a tide of lesbianism that threatens our ability to make another generation of Americans? If we’re not — if a sexual minority is simply getting slightly larger — what’s the big deal?

Unless you think homosexuality is ipso facto bad — and I won’t suggest that Ben believes such a thing — the only real consequence of this particular “consequence” is that things are different than they used to be. Conservatives tend to hate that kind of thing. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.

Should government cap executive pay?

That’s the question Ben and I take on in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

Pity the poor CEO. He’s spent the last few years making tens of millions of dollars while running his business into the ground — helping destroy retirement accounts, explode the unemployment rolls and generally devastate the economy. Now he goes hat in hand to the federal government for help and he’s supposed to take a pay cut? To only $500,000 a year? As the saying goes: Cry me a river.

President Obama is right to insist on pay caps for executives at companies receiving federal assistance. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to subsidize, say, Merrill Lynch’s $1,200 wastebaskets as the cost of saving the country from a new Great Depression.

That’s not to say Americans should completely give in to their populist rage. Capping the compensation of executives at thriving companies might feel good for a moment, but it’s almost purely punitive and it probably won’t revive the economy. That’s where our focus should be.

Executives at businesses getting a federal handout, though, have already failed. In a real free market economy they’d be out of work, their companies shuttered. They’re lucky taxpayers are helping them survive; they shouldn’t also expect to get ultra-rich in the process.

Ben says more or less the same thing, but with more emphasis on “those liberals are trying to ruin the free market system!”

Ze podcast: Can Obama save us?

I forgot to link to this week’s podcast with Ben, where we consider — among other things — whether Barack Obama can save us from this spiraling hellhole the country seems to be descending into. I want to be optimistic, but I’m feeling pessimistic.

That also happens to be the question at the heart of our column this week. Ben and I end up in kind of the same place — we kind of shrug and act hopeful — but I give Obama points for his relative honesty:

That is why it’s perversely refreshing to hear Obama say that harder times are ahead. “Recovery won’t happen overnight, and it’s likely that things will get worse before they get better,” he said in a recent radio address. Americans have often been asked to choose between an unjustly optimistic president or their own lying eyes. Obama’s grim realism is thus bracing, but welcome.

Also in the podcast: I propound my theory that The Office is not actually a comedy, but a devastating human tragedy that happens to have punch lines.

Podcasty goodness

After a hiatus, Ben and I are attempting to podcast again. We are rusty, conversationally and technically, but please listen in and let us know what you want!

How to save journalism?

That’s the question Ben and I tackle in our column this week. I reveal my socialist true colors:

The problem with journalism isn’t journalism. It’s capitalism.

Despite the dire talk about declining circulation and slowing revenues, there’s a growing audience for what newspapers do — but that audience is online, where newspapers saw a 25 percent increase in visitors during the third quarter of this year. Nobody has figured out how to turn that audience into double-digit profit margins for newspaper owners, however, so the bankruptcy filings and layoffs continue apace.

It’s time to consider an alternative model. It’s time for the government to get into the news business.

Actually, it already is: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends about $400 million in federal funds each year to subsidize programming on PBS and NPR. Why not double, triple or quadruple CPB’s funding and distribute that money to newspapers across the country? That might someday lead to the ugly prospect of twice-a-year pledge drives by your local newspaper, but it’s worth the risk.

Why? Because journalism is essential to a thriving democracy; that’s why the Founding Fathers protected it with the very first amendment to the Constitution. It’s a mission too important to be left to the mercy of market forces. If the public good is served by bailing out the banks and carmakers, then journalists shouldn’t be far behind. They’ll be much cheaper to save.

Ben, of course, thinks that idea is nuts. You can read his take at the link.