The following was written by Dave Ramsey, founder of "Financial Peace University," and host of the "Dave Ramsey Show" a nationally syndicated radio show and host of a television show by the same name on the Fox Business Network.
Well, we the people have a new president. It’s an exciting time for Americans, whether or not you agree with President Barack Obama’s plans. My hope is that our new president will instill some confidence in people, not necessarily set out to fix everybody and everything.
There are some bogus government strategies floating around to stimulate the economy and "save us from ourselves." Just because they’re all everyone talks about doesn’t make them true! Here are a few of the big issues:
Tax BreaksThese aren’t bad, and I would never turn them down. But to think that tax breaks single-handedly stimulate the economy is laughable. Remember last fall? Those stimulus checks didn’t fix the problem, so what makes us think it’s going to fix everything this time? Did you know it was your money to start with? They’re just giving it back to you and making you feel good about it. If you’re looking for $1,000 to change your life this year, you obviously don’t have a life to start with!
It may help you today or this month, but $1,000 will do very little for you in the long run. To win with money, you've got to think long term.
Patriotic DutyThe government wants you to spend, spend, spend—and many Americans are taking this advice while still in debt! No matter what the talking heads say, it is not your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have. Your duty is to take care of yourself and your household with the money you earn from an honest day’s work.
If you have your full emergency fund and are in a position to buy something, now is the perfect time! You can get some fabulous deals, but don’t let the deals entice you if you haven’t planned ahead and don’t have the cash!
National DeficitThe dog is still chasing its tail.
Debt started the problem, so what is the current plan to fix the problem? More debt!What really drives the economy? Is it D.C.'s programs or small-business people scattered throughout the country? This down economic time will begin to heal itself. Do we have to go $1 trillion in debt to do that? No way!
The good news is that our future as an economy isn’t coming out of Washington. Our future prosperity is coming out of the hopes, dreams and individual freedoms of the American people. When left alone, we have a tendency to prosper.
The healing of the economy will begin and end with you. Yes, you, the person you see in the mirror! You have to make your decision as to whether or not you’re going to take part in the recession.
As for our new president, if you’re not a fan, pray for him. He’s your president. If you are a fan, pray for him. He’s your president, not your savior. Your hope will be crushed if you wait for him and his administration—or anyone else—to fix your life and give you money.
Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Obama’s Vietnam
The analogy isn't exact. But the war in Afghanistan is starting to look disturbingly familiar.
By John Barry and Evan Thomas
NEWSWEEK
About a year ago, Charlie Rose, the nighttime talk-show host, was interviewing Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the military adviser at the White House coordinating efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan," Lute said. To even casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo. One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Col. Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers recalled it, he said, "You never defeated us in the field." To which the NVA officer replied: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."
Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential "quagmires." But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show his toughness, vows to do what it takes to "win." The nation that we are supposedly rescuing is no nation at all but rather a deeply divided, semi-failed state with an incompetent, corrupt government held to be illegitimate by a large portion of its population. The enemy is well accustomed to resisting foreign invaders and can escape into convenient refuges across the border. There are constraints on America striking those sanctuaries. Meanwhile, neighboring countries may see a chance to bog America down in a costly war. Last, there is no easy way out.
True, there are important differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam. The Taliban is not as powerful or unified a foe as the Viet Cong. On the other hand, Vietnam did not pose a direct national-security threat; even believers in the "domino theory" did not expect to see the Viet Cong fighting in San Francisco. By contrast, while not Taliban themselves, terrorists who trained in Afghanistan did attack New York and Washington in 2001. Afghanistan has always been seen as the right and necessary war to fight—unlike, for many, Iraq. Conceivably, Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the successful surge in Iraq and now, as the head of Central Command in charge of the fight in Afghanistan, could pull off another miraculous transformation.
Privately, Petraeus is said to reject comparisons with Vietnam; he distrusts "history by analogy" as an excuse not to come to grips with the intricacies of Afghanistan itself. But there is this stark similarity: in Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, we may now be facing a situation where we can win every battle and still not win the war—at least not within a time frame and at a cost that is acceptable to the American people.
A wave of reports, official and unofficial, from American and foreign (including Afghan) diplomats and soldiers, present and former, all seem to agree: the situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse. Some four decades ago, American presidents became accustomed to hearing gloomy reports like that from Vietnam, although the public pronouncements were usually rosier.
John F. Kennedy worried to his dying day about getting stuck in a land war in Asia; LBJ was haunted by nightmares about "Uncle Ho." In the military, now as then, there are a growing number of doubters. But the default switch for senior officers in the U.S. military is "can do, sir!" and that seems to be the light blinking now. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, when in doubt, escalate. There are now about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration appear to agree that the number should be twice that a year or so from now.
To be sure, even 60,000 troops is a long way from the half million American soldiers sent to Vietnam at the war's peak; the 642 U.S. deaths sustained so far pale in comparison to the 58,000 lost in Vietnam. Still, consider this: that's a higher death toll than after the first nine years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And what is troubling is that no one in the outgoing or incoming administration has been able to say what the additional troops are for, except as a kind of tourniquet to staunch the bleeding while someone comes up with a strategy that has a chance of working. The most uncomfortable question is whether any strategy will work at this point.
It's still too early to say exactly what President Obama will do in Afghanistan. But there are some signs—difficult to read with certainty, yet nonetheless suggestive—that reality is sinking in, at least in some important corners of the new administration. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the one Bush cabinet holdover, worries that increasing the size of the U.S. military's footprint in Afghanistan will merely fan the locals' antipathy toward foreigners. "We need to be very careful about the nature of the goals we set for ourselves in Afghanistan," he told a congressional committee last week. "My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem, rather than as part of the solution. And then we are lost."
Vietnam, half a world away, seemed alien to many Americans and to Westerners generally. Afghanistan might as well be the moon. At least Vietnam had been a French colony, albeit a troubled one. Afghanistan resisted colonization, dispatching 19th-century British and 20th-century Russian soldiers with equal efficiency. "Afghanistan is not a nation, it is a collection of tribes," according to a Saudi diplomat who did not wish to publicly disparage a Muslim neighbor.
In Vietnam, the Ngo Dinh Diem government was seen as illegitimate because Diem was a Roman Catholic in a mostly Buddhist country and because it was propped up by the United States. In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai's government was essentially created by the United States after local warlords, backed by American airpower, ousted the Taliban in 2001. (Karzai was elected in his own right in 2004, but at a time when he was clearly favored by America and faced no serious rivals.)
As in Diem's Vietnam, government corruption is epic; even Karzai says so. "The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen," he said last November. His former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, rates his old government as "one of the five most corrupt in the world" and warns that Afghanistan is becoming a "failed, narco-mafia state." In a country where seven out of 10 citizens live on about a dollar a day, the average family each year must pay about $100 in baksheesh, or bribes (in Vietnam, this was known as "tea" or "coffee" money). Foreign aid is, after narcotics, the readiest source of income in Afghanistan. But it has been widely estimated that because of stealing and mismanagement in Kabul, the capital, less than half of the money actually finds its way into projects, and only a quarter of that makes it to the countryside, where 70 percent of the people live.
To Afghans now, as to Vietnamese then, the government is more often an arbitrary force to be feared than a benevolent protector. Ordinary Vietnamese lived with the fear of crossing someone more powerful, who could always turn them over to the Americans as an enemy sympathizer; a similar fear pervades Afghanistan now. When U.S. forces quickly crushed the Taliban after 9/11, many Afghans welcomed them, thinking the all-powerful Americans would transform their streets and schools and the economy. Now bitterness has set in. "What have the people of Afghanistan received from the Coalition?" asks Zamir Kabulov, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan. "They lived very poorly before, and they still live poorly—but sometimes they also get bombed by mistake."
Nation-building in Afghanistan may be a hopeless cause. Periods of peace under centralized rule have been few and far between. Violence has been the norm: in the 18th century a Persian king, Nadir Shah, suppressed a revolt and beheaded 6,500 tribesmen (chosen by lot). He stacked their heads in a pyramid—with one of the instigators of the revolt entombed inside. And the Saudi diplomat is right in this sense: especially across the Pashtun belt in southern Afghanistan, local leaders have traditionally held more sway than whoever's in power in Kabul. The Taliban may not be fighting in a nationalist cause per se, as the Viet Cong were. But they certainly are more local, better rooted than the U.S.-led coalition.
The basic mantra of counterinsurgency is "clear, hold and build." Clear the area of insurgents. Hold it so the insurgents cannot return. Build the civic works and government structures so that the community decides to back the government. That's a coherent approach. But while foreign troops can clear better than the Taliban, they simply can't hold as well. In fact, the Taliban are getting pretty good at counterinsurgency themselves—"clear, hold and build" is what they're doing across southern Afghanistan. Their strict brand of justice is appealing to some Afghans, who crave order and security.
In some areas Taliban commanders have even relaxed some of their more unpopular dictates, allowing girls to go to school, for instance. Last month, the sober and respected International Council on Security and Development reported that the Taliban "now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent a year ago." They are moving in on Kabul; according to the ICOS report, "three of the four main highways in Kabul are now compromised by Taliban activity."
The Taliban also has one resource that the Viet Cong never enjoyed: a steady stream of income from Afghanistan's massive heroin trade. Afghan poppies produce roughly 93 percent of the world's opium. Although, nominally, eradication has been a high priority since 2004, poppy cultivation has more than doubled. Farmers can't be persuaded to switch to other crops unless they feel confident that the Taliban won't return to kill them as punishment.
And besides, they'd need passable roads to move more legitimate crops to functioning markets. The Americans don't have anywhere near enough troops—their own or those of increasingly disillusioned NATO allies—to secure the roads and the farm areas. That's not only because of Afghanistan's size (similar to Texas), but also because of a failure of strategy reminiscent of Vietnam.
America has been trying to pacify Afghanistan essentially through a counterterrorist campaign. The consequence has been that some of the military's most valuable warriors—its Special Forces—have been largely misused. Most people think of Special Forces as jumping out of helicopters on secret and dangerous missions.
Actually, until George W. Bush launched his Global War on Terror—and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the Special Operations Command the lead role—their normal (and arguably more useful) mission was to train up the armies of developing countries. In Vietnam, the Green Berets were initially (and successfully) sent into the highlands to train indigenous tribesmen as guerrilla fighters.
After 1962, however, they were diverted to fruitless efforts to seal Vietnam's frontiers.
Similarly, the Special Forces in Afghanistan have been used mostly as strike teams to go after Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders—or deployed along the 1,400-mile border in an effort to stop insurgents from Pakistan—rather than to train Afghanistan's own forces. "The development of Afghan security forces has been a badly managed, grossly understaffed and poorly funded mess," concluded Center for Strategic and International Studies analyst Anthony Cordesman in a briefing to Democratic congressional leaders in January. The United States didn't even seriously fund the development of Afghanistan's own forces until 2007.
Even now, America and its NATO allies have provided fewer than half the trainers the Afghans need; and many of those are unskilled. As a result, the Afghan Army is too small and too poorly trained to take over the counterinsurgency missions that constitute the real battle in Afghanistan. The Afghan Army is getting better, but slowly.
U.S. commanders privately think it may be five years before most units are able to operate on their own. The Afghan police remain a disaster—leaving U.S. forces to fill the vacuum.
As in Vietnam, efforts to seal the frontier have failed. The Taliban, like the North Vietnamese, has depended crucially on supply routes and sanctuaries just over the border. Just as NVA units were able to slip up and down the Ho Chi Minh trail running through Laos, the Taliban can fade away into the mountains and over the border into the lawless regions of Pakistan. These safe havens give them an invaluable space in which to train and resupply.
Taliban fighters are much more willing to return to the fight knowing that their families are parked safely in Pakistan, and that they themselves can retreat there if wounded. One Taliban commander based in Pakistan even gave his men five cell-phone numbers to call for help if they got shot fighting U.S. troops across the border, promising they'd be evacuated and treated quickly.
The Americans have to be careful about chasing after the Taliban into their sanctuaries. In Vietnam, American strategists worried about bringing Russia or China into the war if they bombed too freely in and around Hanoi (by, say, sinking a Russian freighter in Haiphong Harbor). In Pakistan, the Americans worry that a heavy-handed intervention could destabilize the government, a risky move in a country with nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis have shared intelligence on Qaeda targets—and have from time to time launched offensives against Pakistani Taliban fighters along the border—but meanwhile, members of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, have formed covert alliances with some Afghan Taliban factions.
The Pakistanis have a strategic interest in keeping Afghanistan—which has developed close ties to archenemy India—weak. Since many Pakistani leaders are convinced that America will eventually leave, they're covering their bets for the future.
In Vietnam, America worried about covert Russian and Chinese backing for the North Vietnamese (some would say too much). Here, Pakistan may not be the only country playing a double game. While neighboring Iran is predominantly Shiite, and has traditionally backed the Sunni Taliban's foes in the Northern Alliance, Tehran may also be the source of some of the more sophisticated IEDs turning up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Certainly Iran has some interest in seeing the American forces on its border bleed a little.
At times, though, the United States can seem like its own worst enemy in Afghanistan. Lacking enough troops, forced to cover vast areas, U.S. forces depend far too heavily on strikes by A-10s, F-15s, even B-1 bombers. In 2004, the U.S. Air Force flew 86 strike sorties against targets in Afghanistan. By 2007, the number was up to 2,926—and that doesn't count rocket or cannon fire from helicopters. U.S. commanders have become much more careful about collateral damage since Vietnam.
There are no more "free fire zones" or Marines using Zippo lighters to torch villages. But innocents die in the most carefully planned raids, especially when the enemy cynically uses civilians as cover—as the Viet Cong did, and the Taliban does. Already, civilian casualties have climbed from 929 in 2006 to close to 2,000 in 2008, according to the United Nations. "When we kill innocents, especially women and children, you lose that village forever," says Thomas Johnson of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
In the dominant Pashtun tribe, revenge is a duty. Kill one Pashtun tribesman, sadly observes a U.S. Special Forces colonel who spoke anonymously to be more frank, and you make three more your sworn enemy.
This, then, is the mess that faces General Petraeus. He was a near–miracle worker in Iraq, and it may be that just as Lincoln eventually found Grant, Obama will have been lucky to inherit Petraeus. So far, Petraeus is not signaling a new grand strategy, instead letting various policy reviews go forward. A shrewd politician, he may be seeking to quietly educate the new president on the high cost and many years required to "win" in Afghanistan—if such a thing is even possible.
It is a sure bet that Petraeus will want to unify the different commands now muddling the situation in Afghanistan. (Divided command was a chronic problem in Vietnam, too.) Some soldiers report to the Special Operations Command, some to the regular military; some to the U.S. Central Command and some to NATO; and, within NATO, to their own national governments. There are some 37,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan but many are more concerned with "force protection"—not sustaining casualties—than seeking out and engaging the enemy.
Petraeus will work closely with Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who helped broker peace in the Balkans. Holbrooke is being sent by the State Department to coordinate the scattered and easily corrupted foreign-aid programs and to knock heads to make sure the diplomats, politicians and soldiers are on the same page. Holbrooke is a force of nature; still, he could wind up like Robert (Blowtorch Bob) Komer in Vietnam in the late 1960s —brilliant, capable and too late.
In some ways, there is no mystery to what must be done to fight a successful counterinsurgency. As Petraeus himself has said, the United States cannot kill its way to success. Foreign troops cannot defeat insurgents. Only local forces with popular support can do that. (A RAND study of 90 insurgencies since World War II showed that "governments defeated less than a third of the insurgencies when their competence was medium or low.")
It is a good bet that Petraeus will want American soldiers to train local village militias to fight the Taliban. The catch is that the Soviets already tried this (nothing is really new in counterinsurgency) and failed. In Afghanistan, local warlords quickly turn to fighting each other. The local saying is that they can be rented, not bought. And who wants to kill a Taliban fighter if the result is a blood feud?
Americans are appropriately skeptical about the chances of success in Afghanistan. A recent NEWSWEEK Poll shows that while 71 percent of the people believe that Obama can turn around the cratering economy, only 48 percent think he can make progress in Afghanistan. Deploying a U.S. force of 60,000 will cost about $70 billion a year. Training and supporting the 130,000 to 200,000 troops required for a proper Afghan Army would take another decade and could cost at least $20 billion.
Petraeus has consistently warned that Afghanistan will be "the longest campaign in the long war" against Islamic extremism. But it's far from clear that Americans have the appetite for such a commitment: after the economy, their top priority is health care (36 percent). Only 10 percent put Afghanistan at the top of their list, even fewer than nominate Iraq. If there is no real improvement on the ground, by the 2010 midterm elections, candidates for office may be decrying "Obama's war."
So why not just get out? As always, it's not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989.
Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai's administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.
Some argue this wouldn't be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar's government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans.
On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play.
Some problems do not have a solution, or any good solution. Two studies of the Afghanistan mess cochaired by retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, now President Obama's national-security adviser, asserted last year that America cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan.
Who wants to be the American president who allows jihadists to claim that they defeated and drove out American forces? Daniel Ellsberg, the government contractor who leaked the Pentagon papers, used to say about Vietnam, "It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam." The same is all too true for Afghanistan.
With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai Sphere: Related Content
By John Barry and Evan Thomas
NEWSWEEK
About a year ago, Charlie Rose, the nighttime talk-show host, was interviewing Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, the military adviser at the White House coordinating efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We have never been beaten tactically in a fire fight in Afghanistan," Lute said. To even casual students of the Vietnam War, his statement has an eerie echo. One of the iconic exchanges of Vietnam came, some years after the war, between Col. Harry Summers, a military historian, and a counterpart in the North Vietnamese Army. As Summers recalled it, he said, "You never defeated us in the field." To which the NVA officer replied: "That may be true. It is also irrelevant."
Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential "quagmires." But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show his toughness, vows to do what it takes to "win." The nation that we are supposedly rescuing is no nation at all but rather a deeply divided, semi-failed state with an incompetent, corrupt government held to be illegitimate by a large portion of its population. The enemy is well accustomed to resisting foreign invaders and can escape into convenient refuges across the border. There are constraints on America striking those sanctuaries. Meanwhile, neighboring countries may see a chance to bog America down in a costly war. Last, there is no easy way out.
True, there are important differences between Afghanistan and Vietnam. The Taliban is not as powerful or unified a foe as the Viet Cong. On the other hand, Vietnam did not pose a direct national-security threat; even believers in the "domino theory" did not expect to see the Viet Cong fighting in San Francisco. By contrast, while not Taliban themselves, terrorists who trained in Afghanistan did attack New York and Washington in 2001. Afghanistan has always been seen as the right and necessary war to fight—unlike, for many, Iraq. Conceivably, Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the successful surge in Iraq and now, as the head of Central Command in charge of the fight in Afghanistan, could pull off another miraculous transformation.
Privately, Petraeus is said to reject comparisons with Vietnam; he distrusts "history by analogy" as an excuse not to come to grips with the intricacies of Afghanistan itself. But there is this stark similarity: in Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, we may now be facing a situation where we can win every battle and still not win the war—at least not within a time frame and at a cost that is acceptable to the American people.
A wave of reports, official and unofficial, from American and foreign (including Afghan) diplomats and soldiers, present and former, all seem to agree: the situation in Afghanistan is bad and getting worse. Some four decades ago, American presidents became accustomed to hearing gloomy reports like that from Vietnam, although the public pronouncements were usually rosier.
John F. Kennedy worried to his dying day about getting stuck in a land war in Asia; LBJ was haunted by nightmares about "Uncle Ho." In the military, now as then, there are a growing number of doubters. But the default switch for senior officers in the U.S. military is "can do, sir!" and that seems to be the light blinking now. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, when in doubt, escalate. There are now about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration appear to agree that the number should be twice that a year or so from now.
To be sure, even 60,000 troops is a long way from the half million American soldiers sent to Vietnam at the war's peak; the 642 U.S. deaths sustained so far pale in comparison to the 58,000 lost in Vietnam. Still, consider this: that's a higher death toll than after the first nine years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And what is troubling is that no one in the outgoing or incoming administration has been able to say what the additional troops are for, except as a kind of tourniquet to staunch the bleeding while someone comes up with a strategy that has a chance of working. The most uncomfortable question is whether any strategy will work at this point.
It's still too early to say exactly what President Obama will do in Afghanistan. But there are some signs—difficult to read with certainty, yet nonetheless suggestive—that reality is sinking in, at least in some important corners of the new administration. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the one Bush cabinet holdover, worries that increasing the size of the U.S. military's footprint in Afghanistan will merely fan the locals' antipathy toward foreigners. "We need to be very careful about the nature of the goals we set for ourselves in Afghanistan," he told a congressional committee last week. "My worry is that the Afghans come to see us as part of the problem, rather than as part of the solution. And then we are lost."
Vietnam, half a world away, seemed alien to many Americans and to Westerners generally. Afghanistan might as well be the moon. At least Vietnam had been a French colony, albeit a troubled one. Afghanistan resisted colonization, dispatching 19th-century British and 20th-century Russian soldiers with equal efficiency. "Afghanistan is not a nation, it is a collection of tribes," according to a Saudi diplomat who did not wish to publicly disparage a Muslim neighbor.
In Vietnam, the Ngo Dinh Diem government was seen as illegitimate because Diem was a Roman Catholic in a mostly Buddhist country and because it was propped up by the United States. In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai's government was essentially created by the United States after local warlords, backed by American airpower, ousted the Taliban in 2001. (Karzai was elected in his own right in 2004, but at a time when he was clearly favored by America and faced no serious rivals.)
As in Diem's Vietnam, government corruption is epic; even Karzai says so. "The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen," he said last November. His former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, rates his old government as "one of the five most corrupt in the world" and warns that Afghanistan is becoming a "failed, narco-mafia state." In a country where seven out of 10 citizens live on about a dollar a day, the average family each year must pay about $100 in baksheesh, or bribes (in Vietnam, this was known as "tea" or "coffee" money). Foreign aid is, after narcotics, the readiest source of income in Afghanistan. But it has been widely estimated that because of stealing and mismanagement in Kabul, the capital, less than half of the money actually finds its way into projects, and only a quarter of that makes it to the countryside, where 70 percent of the people live.
To Afghans now, as to Vietnamese then, the government is more often an arbitrary force to be feared than a benevolent protector. Ordinary Vietnamese lived with the fear of crossing someone more powerful, who could always turn them over to the Americans as an enemy sympathizer; a similar fear pervades Afghanistan now. When U.S. forces quickly crushed the Taliban after 9/11, many Afghans welcomed them, thinking the all-powerful Americans would transform their streets and schools and the economy. Now bitterness has set in. "What have the people of Afghanistan received from the Coalition?" asks Zamir Kabulov, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan. "They lived very poorly before, and they still live poorly—but sometimes they also get bombed by mistake."
Nation-building in Afghanistan may be a hopeless cause. Periods of peace under centralized rule have been few and far between. Violence has been the norm: in the 18th century a Persian king, Nadir Shah, suppressed a revolt and beheaded 6,500 tribesmen (chosen by lot). He stacked their heads in a pyramid—with one of the instigators of the revolt entombed inside. And the Saudi diplomat is right in this sense: especially across the Pashtun belt in southern Afghanistan, local leaders have traditionally held more sway than whoever's in power in Kabul. The Taliban may not be fighting in a nationalist cause per se, as the Viet Cong were. But they certainly are more local, better rooted than the U.S.-led coalition.
The basic mantra of counterinsurgency is "clear, hold and build." Clear the area of insurgents. Hold it so the insurgents cannot return. Build the civic works and government structures so that the community decides to back the government. That's a coherent approach. But while foreign troops can clear better than the Taliban, they simply can't hold as well. In fact, the Taliban are getting pretty good at counterinsurgency themselves—"clear, hold and build" is what they're doing across southern Afghanistan. Their strict brand of justice is appealing to some Afghans, who crave order and security.
In some areas Taliban commanders have even relaxed some of their more unpopular dictates, allowing girls to go to school, for instance. Last month, the sober and respected International Council on Security and Development reported that the Taliban "now holds a permanent presence in 72 percent of Afghanistan, up from 54 percent a year ago." They are moving in on Kabul; according to the ICOS report, "three of the four main highways in Kabul are now compromised by Taliban activity."
The Taliban also has one resource that the Viet Cong never enjoyed: a steady stream of income from Afghanistan's massive heroin trade. Afghan poppies produce roughly 93 percent of the world's opium. Although, nominally, eradication has been a high priority since 2004, poppy cultivation has more than doubled. Farmers can't be persuaded to switch to other crops unless they feel confident that the Taliban won't return to kill them as punishment.
And besides, they'd need passable roads to move more legitimate crops to functioning markets. The Americans don't have anywhere near enough troops—their own or those of increasingly disillusioned NATO allies—to secure the roads and the farm areas. That's not only because of Afghanistan's size (similar to Texas), but also because of a failure of strategy reminiscent of Vietnam.
America has been trying to pacify Afghanistan essentially through a counterterrorist campaign. The consequence has been that some of the military's most valuable warriors—its Special Forces—have been largely misused. Most people think of Special Forces as jumping out of helicopters on secret and dangerous missions.
Actually, until George W. Bush launched his Global War on Terror—and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld gave the Special Operations Command the lead role—their normal (and arguably more useful) mission was to train up the armies of developing countries. In Vietnam, the Green Berets were initially (and successfully) sent into the highlands to train indigenous tribesmen as guerrilla fighters.
After 1962, however, they were diverted to fruitless efforts to seal Vietnam's frontiers.
Similarly, the Special Forces in Afghanistan have been used mostly as strike teams to go after Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders—or deployed along the 1,400-mile border in an effort to stop insurgents from Pakistan—rather than to train Afghanistan's own forces. "The development of Afghan security forces has been a badly managed, grossly understaffed and poorly funded mess," concluded Center for Strategic and International Studies analyst Anthony Cordesman in a briefing to Democratic congressional leaders in January. The United States didn't even seriously fund the development of Afghanistan's own forces until 2007.
Even now, America and its NATO allies have provided fewer than half the trainers the Afghans need; and many of those are unskilled. As a result, the Afghan Army is too small and too poorly trained to take over the counterinsurgency missions that constitute the real battle in Afghanistan. The Afghan Army is getting better, but slowly.
U.S. commanders privately think it may be five years before most units are able to operate on their own. The Afghan police remain a disaster—leaving U.S. forces to fill the vacuum.
As in Vietnam, efforts to seal the frontier have failed. The Taliban, like the North Vietnamese, has depended crucially on supply routes and sanctuaries just over the border. Just as NVA units were able to slip up and down the Ho Chi Minh trail running through Laos, the Taliban can fade away into the mountains and over the border into the lawless regions of Pakistan. These safe havens give them an invaluable space in which to train and resupply.
Taliban fighters are much more willing to return to the fight knowing that their families are parked safely in Pakistan, and that they themselves can retreat there if wounded. One Taliban commander based in Pakistan even gave his men five cell-phone numbers to call for help if they got shot fighting U.S. troops across the border, promising they'd be evacuated and treated quickly.
The Americans have to be careful about chasing after the Taliban into their sanctuaries. In Vietnam, American strategists worried about bringing Russia or China into the war if they bombed too freely in and around Hanoi (by, say, sinking a Russian freighter in Haiphong Harbor). In Pakistan, the Americans worry that a heavy-handed intervention could destabilize the government, a risky move in a country with nuclear weapons. The Pakistanis have shared intelligence on Qaeda targets—and have from time to time launched offensives against Pakistani Taliban fighters along the border—but meanwhile, members of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, have formed covert alliances with some Afghan Taliban factions.
The Pakistanis have a strategic interest in keeping Afghanistan—which has developed close ties to archenemy India—weak. Since many Pakistani leaders are convinced that America will eventually leave, they're covering their bets for the future.
In Vietnam, America worried about covert Russian and Chinese backing for the North Vietnamese (some would say too much). Here, Pakistan may not be the only country playing a double game. While neighboring Iran is predominantly Shiite, and has traditionally backed the Sunni Taliban's foes in the Northern Alliance, Tehran may also be the source of some of the more sophisticated IEDs turning up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Certainly Iran has some interest in seeing the American forces on its border bleed a little.
At times, though, the United States can seem like its own worst enemy in Afghanistan. Lacking enough troops, forced to cover vast areas, U.S. forces depend far too heavily on strikes by A-10s, F-15s, even B-1 bombers. In 2004, the U.S. Air Force flew 86 strike sorties against targets in Afghanistan. By 2007, the number was up to 2,926—and that doesn't count rocket or cannon fire from helicopters. U.S. commanders have become much more careful about collateral damage since Vietnam.
There are no more "free fire zones" or Marines using Zippo lighters to torch villages. But innocents die in the most carefully planned raids, especially when the enemy cynically uses civilians as cover—as the Viet Cong did, and the Taliban does. Already, civilian casualties have climbed from 929 in 2006 to close to 2,000 in 2008, according to the United Nations. "When we kill innocents, especially women and children, you lose that village forever," says Thomas Johnson of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
In the dominant Pashtun tribe, revenge is a duty. Kill one Pashtun tribesman, sadly observes a U.S. Special Forces colonel who spoke anonymously to be more frank, and you make three more your sworn enemy.
This, then, is the mess that faces General Petraeus. He was a near–miracle worker in Iraq, and it may be that just as Lincoln eventually found Grant, Obama will have been lucky to inherit Petraeus. So far, Petraeus is not signaling a new grand strategy, instead letting various policy reviews go forward. A shrewd politician, he may be seeking to quietly educate the new president on the high cost and many years required to "win" in Afghanistan—if such a thing is even possible.
It is a sure bet that Petraeus will want to unify the different commands now muddling the situation in Afghanistan. (Divided command was a chronic problem in Vietnam, too.) Some soldiers report to the Special Operations Command, some to the regular military; some to the U.S. Central Command and some to NATO; and, within NATO, to their own national governments. There are some 37,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan but many are more concerned with "force protection"—not sustaining casualties—than seeking out and engaging the enemy.
Petraeus will work closely with Richard Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who helped broker peace in the Balkans. Holbrooke is being sent by the State Department to coordinate the scattered and easily corrupted foreign-aid programs and to knock heads to make sure the diplomats, politicians and soldiers are on the same page. Holbrooke is a force of nature; still, he could wind up like Robert (Blowtorch Bob) Komer in Vietnam in the late 1960s —brilliant, capable and too late.
In some ways, there is no mystery to what must be done to fight a successful counterinsurgency. As Petraeus himself has said, the United States cannot kill its way to success. Foreign troops cannot defeat insurgents. Only local forces with popular support can do that. (A RAND study of 90 insurgencies since World War II showed that "governments defeated less than a third of the insurgencies when their competence was medium or low.")
It is a good bet that Petraeus will want American soldiers to train local village militias to fight the Taliban. The catch is that the Soviets already tried this (nothing is really new in counterinsurgency) and failed. In Afghanistan, local warlords quickly turn to fighting each other. The local saying is that they can be rented, not bought. And who wants to kill a Taliban fighter if the result is a blood feud?
Americans are appropriately skeptical about the chances of success in Afghanistan. A recent NEWSWEEK Poll shows that while 71 percent of the people believe that Obama can turn around the cratering economy, only 48 percent think he can make progress in Afghanistan. Deploying a U.S. force of 60,000 will cost about $70 billion a year. Training and supporting the 130,000 to 200,000 troops required for a proper Afghan Army would take another decade and could cost at least $20 billion.
Petraeus has consistently warned that Afghanistan will be "the longest campaign in the long war" against Islamic extremism. But it's far from clear that Americans have the appetite for such a commitment: after the economy, their top priority is health care (36 percent). Only 10 percent put Afghanistan at the top of their list, even fewer than nominate Iraq. If there is no real improvement on the ground, by the 2010 midterm elections, candidates for office may be decrying "Obama's war."
So why not just get out? As always, it's not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989.
Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai's administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.
Some argue this wouldn't be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar's government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans.
On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play.
Some problems do not have a solution, or any good solution. Two studies of the Afghanistan mess cochaired by retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, now President Obama's national-security adviser, asserted last year that America cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan.
Who wants to be the American president who allows jihadists to claim that they defeated and drove out American forces? Daniel Ellsberg, the government contractor who leaked the Pentagon papers, used to say about Vietnam, "It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam." The same is all too true for Afghanistan.
With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai Sphere: Related Content
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Obama’s Oval Office Hypocrisy
By Steven Milloy
FOXNews.com
As reported on JunkScience.com on Thursday…
The New York Times reported on Thursday, January 29 that:
“…the capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
Could this be the same Barack Obama who said last May that:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say ‘OK.’ … That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.”
And could this be the same Barack Obama who is looking to sign a stimulus bill that would spend billions of dollars installing millions of “smart meters” that would enable your power company to prevent you from being as comfortable as he is on hot and cold days?
While our new president is warm-and-toasty in the Oval Office, is he considering the plight of Michigan’s Marvin Schur, a 93-year World War II veteran, who was recently found frozen to death courtesy of a malfunctioning electricity “limiter” device installed by his power company?
Change has come to Washington. Elitism is dead. Long live elitism.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and manages the Free Enterprise Action Fund. He is a junk science expert, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sphere: Related Content
FOXNews.com
As reported on JunkScience.com on Thursday…
The New York Times reported on Thursday, January 29 that:
“…the capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.
“He’s from Hawaii, O.K.?” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, who occupies the small but strategically located office next door to his boss. “He likes it warm. You could grow orchids in there.”
Could this be the same Barack Obama who said last May that:
“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say ‘OK.’ … That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.”
And could this be the same Barack Obama who is looking to sign a stimulus bill that would spend billions of dollars installing millions of “smart meters” that would enable your power company to prevent you from being as comfortable as he is on hot and cold days?
While our new president is warm-and-toasty in the Oval Office, is he considering the plight of Michigan’s Marvin Schur, a 93-year World War II veteran, who was recently found frozen to death courtesy of a malfunctioning electricity “limiter” device installed by his power company?
Change has come to Washington. Elitism is dead. Long live elitism.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and manages the Free Enterprise Action Fund. He is a junk science expert, and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sphere: Related Content
Friday, January 30, 2009
Maryland GOP wins election as RNC chair
This is the best coverage I've seen of the RNC Chairs race today. Here's a wrap up from the Detroit Free Press. - Ed.
By TODD SPANGLER
Detroit Free Press
UPDATED AT 4:13 p.m.
WASHINGTON - Michael Steele, the first African American elected to statewide office in the state of Maryland, wins election as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
A former lieutenant governor in Maryland, Steele beat South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson 91 to 77.
He replaces Mike Duncan, who dropped out of the balloting earlier today.
UPDATED AT 3:53 p.m.
Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis dropped out of the race for Republican National Committee chairman for the best of reasons.
"Can't win," he said. "I know how to count."
It leaves two candidates for the job: Michael Steele, the first African American to win statewide office in Maryland as lieutenant governor, and South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson who once belonged to an all-white country club.
The race was headed into a sixth ballot with 85 votes needed to win. On the fifth ballot, Steele led Dawson, 79 to 69. Anuzis was third with 20 and dropped out without endorsing either of the remaining candidates.
He said he'll work with whoever gets elected and has no plans to take a position with the winner.
"I"ll move on," said Anuzis, who steps down as Michigan's Republican Party chair next month.
UPDATED AT 3:48 p.m.
Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis drops out of race to be Republican National Committee chairman.
That leaves South Carolina's Katon Dawson and Maryland's Mike Steele 79 to 69 with 85 votes needed to win. Anuzis had 20.
UPDATED AT 3:18 p.m.
Ohio's Ken Blackwell, one of two African Americans in the race to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, dropped out after the fourth ballot and threw his weight behind the other, Maryland's Michael Steele.
Michigan's Saul Anuzis and South Carolina's Katon Dawson remain the other candidates in the race going into the fifth ballot.
UPDATED AT 3:00 p.m.
With the departure of current chair Mike Duncan from the race, South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson has taken the lead to become the next head of the Republican National Committee.
In the fourth round of balloting, Dawson took a 62-to-60 lead over Maryland's Michael Steele. Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis was third with 31 votes.
Ohio's Ken Blackwell was fourth with 15 votes. To win, one of the candidates must get 85 votes.
Even though Anuzis remained well behind the others, his numbers did improve with the departure of Duncan from the race. Should his and Steele's forces come behind one or the other, they could propel their candidate to the chairmanship.
The contest is largely about change, with Duncan being criticized in some quarters for losses in congressional races and the presidency. Meanwhile, race has also played a role. Dawson was once a member of an all-white country club. Steele, a former lieutenant governor in Maryland, is African American. Sphere: Related Content
By TODD SPANGLER
Detroit Free Press
UPDATED AT 4:13 p.m.
WASHINGTON - Michael Steele, the first African American elected to statewide office in the state of Maryland, wins election as chairman of the Republican National Committee.
A former lieutenant governor in Maryland, Steele beat South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson 91 to 77.
He replaces Mike Duncan, who dropped out of the balloting earlier today.
UPDATED AT 3:53 p.m.
Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis dropped out of the race for Republican National Committee chairman for the best of reasons.
"Can't win," he said. "I know how to count."
It leaves two candidates for the job: Michael Steele, the first African American to win statewide office in Maryland as lieutenant governor, and South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson who once belonged to an all-white country club.
The race was headed into a sixth ballot with 85 votes needed to win. On the fifth ballot, Steele led Dawson, 79 to 69. Anuzis was third with 20 and dropped out without endorsing either of the remaining candidates.
He said he'll work with whoever gets elected and has no plans to take a position with the winner.
"I"ll move on," said Anuzis, who steps down as Michigan's Republican Party chair next month.
UPDATED AT 3:48 p.m.
Michigan GOP chair Saul Anuzis drops out of race to be Republican National Committee chairman.
That leaves South Carolina's Katon Dawson and Maryland's Mike Steele 79 to 69 with 85 votes needed to win. Anuzis had 20.
UPDATED AT 3:18 p.m.
Ohio's Ken Blackwell, one of two African Americans in the race to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, dropped out after the fourth ballot and threw his weight behind the other, Maryland's Michael Steele.
Michigan's Saul Anuzis and South Carolina's Katon Dawson remain the other candidates in the race going into the fifth ballot.
UPDATED AT 3:00 p.m.
With the departure of current chair Mike Duncan from the race, South Carolina GOP chair Katon Dawson has taken the lead to become the next head of the Republican National Committee.
In the fourth round of balloting, Dawson took a 62-to-60 lead over Maryland's Michael Steele. Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis was third with 31 votes.
Ohio's Ken Blackwell was fourth with 15 votes. To win, one of the candidates must get 85 votes.
Even though Anuzis remained well behind the others, his numbers did improve with the departure of Duncan from the race. Should his and Steele's forces come behind one or the other, they could propel their candidate to the chairmanship.
The contest is largely about change, with Duncan being criticized in some quarters for losses in congressional races and the presidency. Meanwhile, race has also played a role. Dawson was once a member of an all-white country club. Steele, a former lieutenant governor in Maryland, is African American. Sphere: Related Content
RNC chairman Duncan abandons re-election bid
Even though this doesn't have anything to do with President Obama per se, I felt obliged to include it due to it's importance on the Presidential political process. - Ed.
By LIZ SIDOTI,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Mike Duncan, former President George W. Bush's hand-picked national party chairman, abandoned his re-election bid Friday after his support steadily erode over three rounds of balloting, ensuring a fresh face at the beleaguered GOP's helm.
"Obviously the winds of change are blowing," Duncan said as he withdrew from the race and got a standing ovation. The Kentucky Republican thanked Bush and said of his two-year tenure: "It truly has been the highlight of my life."
The move scrambled a field now down to four as the Republican National Committee moved ahead with a fourth round of balloting, with candidates seeking to reach the 85-vote majority threshold to become the new chairman. Whoever wins will inherit a party trying to recover after crushing defeats in back-to-back elections that saw Democrats take control of Congress and the White House.
Duncan dropped out without endorsing a candidate.
After three rounds, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele and South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson had momentum on their side, having gained votes with each tally. Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis' support was holding steady, while former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was trailing.
Thus far, only Duncan has dropped out and thrown his support behind another, though behind-the-scenes negotiations among aides to all the candidates were in full swing. The field is expected to narrow further the more rounds of voting there are, and that means seemingly anyone could end up with a majority.
The results of the first three rounds boded poorly for Duncan, whose lost votes at every turn while Steele and Dawson gained. From the start of the voting, the majority of the RNC cast votes that indicate members want a new direction under a fresh leader, rather than a chairman who is linked to the unpopular former president. Sphere: Related Content
By LIZ SIDOTI,
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Mike Duncan, former President George W. Bush's hand-picked national party chairman, abandoned his re-election bid Friday after his support steadily erode over three rounds of balloting, ensuring a fresh face at the beleaguered GOP's helm.
"Obviously the winds of change are blowing," Duncan said as he withdrew from the race and got a standing ovation. The Kentucky Republican thanked Bush and said of his two-year tenure: "It truly has been the highlight of my life."
The move scrambled a field now down to four as the Republican National Committee moved ahead with a fourth round of balloting, with candidates seeking to reach the 85-vote majority threshold to become the new chairman. Whoever wins will inherit a party trying to recover after crushing defeats in back-to-back elections that saw Democrats take control of Congress and the White House.
Duncan dropped out without endorsing a candidate.
After three rounds, former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele and South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson had momentum on their side, having gained votes with each tally. Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis' support was holding steady, while former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell was trailing.
Thus far, only Duncan has dropped out and thrown his support behind another, though behind-the-scenes negotiations among aides to all the candidates were in full swing. The field is expected to narrow further the more rounds of voting there are, and that means seemingly anyone could end up with a majority.
The results of the first three rounds boded poorly for Duncan, whose lost votes at every turn while Steele and Dawson gained. From the start of the voting, the majority of the RNC cast votes that indicate members want a new direction under a fresh leader, rather than a chairman who is linked to the unpopular former president. Sphere: Related Content
Obama Signs Equal-Pay Legislation
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.”
Mr. Obama was surrounded by a group of beaming lawmakers, most but not all of them Democrats, in the East Room of the White House as he affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men.
After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.
“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” the president said.
He said was signing the bill not only in honor of Ms. Ledbetter — who stood behind him, shaking her head and clasping her hands in seeming disbelief — but in honor of his own grandmother, “who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up again” and for his daughters, “because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams.”
The ceremony, and a reception afterward in the State Dining Room of the White House, had a celebratory feel. The East Room was packed with advocates for civil rights and workers rights; the legislators, who included House and Senate leaders and two moderate Republicans — Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine — shook Mr. Obama’s hand effusively (some, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, received presidential pecks on the cheek) as he took the stage. They looked over his shoulder, practically glowing, as Mr. Obama signed his name to the bill, using one pen for each letter.
“I’ve been practicing signing my name very slowly,” Mr. Obama said wryly, looking at a bank of pens before him. He handed the first pen to the bill’s chief sponsor, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and the last to Ms. Ledbetter.
The ceremony also marked First Lady Michelle Obama’s policy debut; she spoke afterward in a reception in the State Dining Room, where she called Ms. Ledbetter “one of my favorite people.”
Mr. Obama told Ms. Ledbetter’s story over and over again during his campaign for the White House; she spoke frequently as an advocate for him during his campaign, and made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Now 70, Ms. Ledbetter discovered when she was nearing retirement that her male colleagues were earning much more than she was. A jury found her employer, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in Gadsden, Ala., guilty of pay discrimination. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court threw out the case, ruling that she should have filed her suit within 180 days of the date that Goodyear first paid her less than her peers.
Congress tried to pass a law that would have effectively overturned the decision while President George W. Bush was still in office, but the White House opposed the bill; opponents contended it would encourage lawsuits and argued that employees could delay filing their claims in the hope of reaping bigger rewards. But the new Congress passed the bill, which restarts the six-month clock every time the worker receives a paycheck.
Ms. Ledbetter will not see any money as a result of the legislation Mr. Obama signed into law. But what she has gotten, aside from celebrity, is personal satisfaction, as she said in the State Dining Room after the signing ceremony.
“Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of,” she said. “In fact, I will never see a cent. But with the president’s signature today I have an even richer reward.” Sphere: Related Content
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama signed his first bill into law on Thursday, approving equal-pay legislation that he said would “send a clear message that making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody.”
Mr. Obama was surrounded by a group of beaming lawmakers, most but not all of them Democrats, in the East Room of the White House as he affixed his signature to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a law named for an Alabama woman who at the end of a 19-year career as a supervisor in a tire factory complained that she had been paid less than men.
After a Supreme Court ruling against her, Congress approved the legislation that expands workers’ rights to sue in this kind of case, relaxing the statute of limitations.
“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness,” the president said.
He said was signing the bill not only in honor of Ms. Ledbetter — who stood behind him, shaking her head and clasping her hands in seeming disbelief — but in honor of his own grandmother, “who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up again” and for his daughters, “because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams.”
The ceremony, and a reception afterward in the State Dining Room of the White House, had a celebratory feel. The East Room was packed with advocates for civil rights and workers rights; the legislators, who included House and Senate leaders and two moderate Republicans — Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine — shook Mr. Obama’s hand effusively (some, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, received presidential pecks on the cheek) as he took the stage. They looked over his shoulder, practically glowing, as Mr. Obama signed his name to the bill, using one pen for each letter.
“I’ve been practicing signing my name very slowly,” Mr. Obama said wryly, looking at a bank of pens before him. He handed the first pen to the bill’s chief sponsor, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, and the last to Ms. Ledbetter.
The ceremony also marked First Lady Michelle Obama’s policy debut; she spoke afterward in a reception in the State Dining Room, where she called Ms. Ledbetter “one of my favorite people.”
Mr. Obama told Ms. Ledbetter’s story over and over again during his campaign for the White House; she spoke frequently as an advocate for him during his campaign, and made an appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Now 70, Ms. Ledbetter discovered when she was nearing retirement that her male colleagues were earning much more than she was. A jury found her employer, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in Gadsden, Ala., guilty of pay discrimination. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court threw out the case, ruling that she should have filed her suit within 180 days of the date that Goodyear first paid her less than her peers.
Congress tried to pass a law that would have effectively overturned the decision while President George W. Bush was still in office, but the White House opposed the bill; opponents contended it would encourage lawsuits and argued that employees could delay filing their claims in the hope of reaping bigger rewards. But the new Congress passed the bill, which restarts the six-month clock every time the worker receives a paycheck.
Ms. Ledbetter will not see any money as a result of the legislation Mr. Obama signed into law. But what she has gotten, aside from celebrity, is personal satisfaction, as she said in the State Dining Room after the signing ceremony.
“Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of,” she said. “In fact, I will never see a cent. But with the president’s signature today I have an even richer reward.” Sphere: Related Content
Obama May Seek Republican for Cabinet
By JEFF ZELENY and CARL HULSE
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his advisers have approached Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, about becoming commerce secretary, a step that could open the way to significant shift in the balance of power in Congress.
If Mr. Gregg accepted the post, he would probably be replaced by a Democrat. Now, there are 58 Democrats in the Senate, with the number rising to 59 if Al Franken of Minnesota is seated after the court challenge to his race is completed. The replacement of Mr. Gregg could give Democrats 60 seats, the number needed to control the legislative agenda without the threat of Republican filibusters.
Earlier this week, Mr. Gregg was quoted praising the president as “a tour de force.” Asked Thursday about his interest in the commerce job, Mr. Gregg said he would not discuss it.
“I can’t tell you anything,” said Mr. Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. “I have no comment.”
Mr. Gregg is nearing the end of his third term in the Senate, and faces re-election in 2010. Should he accept the position, New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, a Democrat, would appoint his successor and would be likely to pick a Democrat.
The possibility was a surprise to some of Mr. Gregg’s Republican colleagues, who at the moment have the bare minimum number of senators to raise procedural hurdles to Democratic measures. If Democrats captured a 60th seat, it would give them added muscle to push Mr. Obama’s agenda.
The post of commerce secretary is the only remaining position in Mr. Obama’s cabinet for which there is no nominee. It became vacant last month after Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico withdrew his name in the wake of a federal investigation into state government contracts.
Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, said Thursday evening that “the president has still not made his pick.” A senior administration official said the commerce secretary position had not been narrowed down to a sole finalist. Sphere: Related Content
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Obama and his advisers have approached Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, about becoming commerce secretary, a step that could open the way to significant shift in the balance of power in Congress.
If Mr. Gregg accepted the post, he would probably be replaced by a Democrat. Now, there are 58 Democrats in the Senate, with the number rising to 59 if Al Franken of Minnesota is seated after the court challenge to his race is completed. The replacement of Mr. Gregg could give Democrats 60 seats, the number needed to control the legislative agenda without the threat of Republican filibusters.
Earlier this week, Mr. Gregg was quoted praising the president as “a tour de force.” Asked Thursday about his interest in the commerce job, Mr. Gregg said he would not discuss it.
“I can’t tell you anything,” said Mr. Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. “I have no comment.”
Mr. Gregg is nearing the end of his third term in the Senate, and faces re-election in 2010. Should he accept the position, New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, a Democrat, would appoint his successor and would be likely to pick a Democrat.
The possibility was a surprise to some of Mr. Gregg’s Republican colleagues, who at the moment have the bare minimum number of senators to raise procedural hurdles to Democratic measures. If Democrats captured a 60th seat, it would give them added muscle to push Mr. Obama’s agenda.
The post of commerce secretary is the only remaining position in Mr. Obama’s cabinet for which there is no nominee. It became vacant last month after Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico withdrew his name in the wake of a federal investigation into state government contracts.
Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, said Thursday evening that “the president has still not made his pick.” A senior administration official said the commerce secretary position had not been narrowed down to a sole finalist. Sphere: Related Content
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
