July 2021 Archives

Dear America,

The first time I mentioned the fact that George W. Bush sent troops to Afghanistan for the express, and for that matter sole, purpose of apprehending Bin Laden was in March 2015, and I mentioned it in the context of remarks about the American presumption that we have the prerogative of invading any nation that doesn't order its society the way we think it should.  Since then, I have made the point several times that our expenditure of life and treasure in Afghanistan, especially since the killing of Bin Laden, has been for some inchoate purpose that has never been articulated except for to imply that we were somehow responsible to insulate the people of Afghanistan from the tyranny of the Taliban.  But for the first time that I can recall, a foreign affairs "expert" uttered exactly that thought on NPR's "Morning Edition" along with the blunt assessment that other ex-post facto justifications for our continuing presence there had failed to inure to the benefit of the Afghan people in any meaningful and enduring way.  That interview and commentary came in response to criticism of President Biden's decision to remove our troops from Afghanistan, and his explanation of that policy decision to the effect that once Bin Laden was dead, our mission in Afghanistan had been completed, and further, that we were never present in that country for "nation building" purposes.  Implicit was the criticism of past administrations and congresses for failing to acknowledge that fact and instead committing a deplorable waste of our fiscal and human resources on an expedition that no other nation since Alexander the Great had succeeded in more than ephemerally, after which the country always reverted to its previous chaotic state.

Naturally, the Republicans seem to have seized upon this opportunity to criticize Biden, ostensibly for leaving the Afghan people in the lurch.  So let me point out that the Republican claim ignores the fact that even such a party luminary as former President Trump, "stable genius" that he and they claim him to be, had committed to removing our troops as well.  In October 2020, just a month before the election, Trump pledged to remove all of our troops by Christmas: another promise he didn't keep.  At that time, I don't recall there being any significant criticism, at least none that was less ardent than perfunctory in character, of Trump's policy decision...not from Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals.  Of course there were a few jingoistic diehards like Lindsey Graham, who has just opined that the departure of American troops was "paving the way for another 9/11," as if being in Afghanistan could prevent it.  In April this year, Mitch McConnell, the peremptory Republican minority leader of The Senate, chimed in with his pronouncement that it is a "grave mistake," characterizing it as "retreat in the face of the enemy," presumably because pride was the issue on his mind, damn the consequences.  There was a smattering of dissent in both houses over both the Trump and Biden decisions, but outside of grave predictions obviously intended to cover some political asses, not much has been said.  Biden has accomplished what even his patron, President Obama, couldn't manage; he is ending America's longest war, albeit with no more laudable outcome than we accomplished in Vietnam, where a goodly portion of our clothes are now made, which was perhaps the first occasion on which one of our nation's international adventures was rebuked by events for the presumption that we are the world's messiah nation.  

Let me make it clear that neither I nor anyone else in this country is reveling over our outcome in Afghanistan.  Our invasion of the country, then controlled by the Taliban, has been in my opinion the denouement of almost a century of what people like Newt Gingrich boastfully called "American Exceptionalism," though the phrase was coined by Stalin in 1929 (odd intellectual bedfellows, don't you think?).  It is unfortunate, but I do believe that Afghanistan will revert to its former state and stay there over an interminable period in world history.  And I believe that it is a misfortune for millions of people that such will be the case.  But without the univocal determination of the international community to remedy the situation in concert with a near universal willingness to act, nothing will change. 

Personally, I believe that the Afghan people do have the right, as President Biden pointed out, to self-determination.  I also believe that if the United States should have done anything for Afghanistan it would have been to create a small safe haven within the country to facilitate repatriation for those who wanted to leave rather than be governed by another reactionary Islamic state.  But while that may be a plan in the future, the current state of affairs in Afghanistan doesn't include American intervention in any way.  I hesitate not at all to conclude that such should have been the case right from the beginning.

Your friend,

Mike   

Dear America,

Just when we thought that bipartisanship was a possibility, both parties--and both parties claim to be in favor of bipartisanship--demonstrated that they weren't really up for it.  This dénouement didn't even miss a beat after the announcement of the "bipartisan infrastructure deal" agreed to by our president and a group of legislators from both parties and both houses of congress.  Almost concomitant with President Biden stamping his imprimatur on the deal, he announced very publicly that if a bill to authorized the additional spending that his original, pre-bipartisan-compromise bill included...a few trillion dollars worth of social infrastructure spending intended to remedy logistical problems suffered by the middle class, to be specific...he would veto the compromise when it reached his desk.  Mere seconds passed before Republicans bellowed foul, and I have to say, their discomfiture seemed quite fair.  Either it was a bipartisan deal or it wasn't.  Saying that it was no more than a preface to  giving President Biden and the Democrats what they wanted and the Republicans refused to agree to was saying that in reality, there was no deal at all, and Biden saw immediately that he had to recant his intransigence.  Within a day he announced, again very publicly, that he didn't really mean it; he offered some dubious explanation for reneging on the bi-partisan deal, and we were back on track toward getting some repair and construction work underway, work that had been clamored for in the halls of power for about four decades since the Mianus River Bridge collapse in 1983, when it became clear that there was something rotten in America, and we drive over it every day.  It took people dieing on Interstate 95 in Connecticut to get everyone's attention, but still...other than specific repairs in certain places, nothing redemptive was done by our politicians until this week.

But within hours, the Republicans drew their foot-shooting pistol as they are wont to do and started firing away.  The Democrats had agreed, in the name of bipartisan compromise, to the actual infrastructure components of their bill, and to pursue the other parts separately, by reconciliation if necessary.  Reconciliation is a legislative process for budgetary measures that allows a bill, once passed by The House, to be passed by The Senate with only 51 votes and to eschew the near certainty of a lethal obstruction by the Republicans.  Both parties have used it, and it has gained a kind of pragmatic legitimacy by virtue of its utility in thwarting the  sheer Arcanum of The Senate's self-serving protection from having to vote against something that the people might like out of party loyalty: the filibuster.  So, while not particularly savory, the Democrats' presaged tactic was legitimate, but the Republicans couldn't just let it lie.  They howled that the Democrats self-disclosed intentions were violative of the bi-partisan deal, even though the two were no longer linked...even though the log rolling intended by the Democrats to ensure that infrastructure could only be part of a package deal including measures that were very popular among voters but not Republican politicians had ceased.  Now, the Republicans were howling like a stuck elephant again, stating that they wouldn't vote for the compromise bill if the other bill got sent over by the Democrats.  But this time they were as far in the wrong as our president had been.  The notion that a bill to address crucial infrastructure needs could only be passed if the Democrats never tried to pass what they had wanted before is preposterous.  In fact, the only purpose that a bipartisan infrastructure bill could have served was to get its provisions signed into law regardless of other issues, not to their exclusion as possibilities.  The two parties had obviated mutual destruction of their respective good intentions, but after that bill was passed, it was back to internecine legislative practice again, and there was never any reason to believe that one bipartisan bill would make both houses of Congress bipartisan for keeps.

The irony in all this is that we seem to be back where we started.  Despite an actual bipartisan process to address our nations infrastructure needs without partisan dramatics having succeeded, neither party could just let it happen.  Both parties have stated an intention to wreck what is the first good big thing Congress has done in years.  They finally earned their paychecks, but in the end, they just couldn't bring themselves to do the right thing, and we're back to business as usual; nothing will get done.  The Republicans could save the deal by just voting for it and doing their worst relative to the reconciliation that's in the offing.  That was always how the deal was intended to work, but they won't.  Unfortunately, we can't get their paychecks back, but that would surely be what they deserved...all of them.  What we can do however is vote.

Your friend,

Mike