Rantle

By Eric Anschutz, October 1, 2008

Islamic Fundamentalism and the terrorism it supports are arguably the most serious and most immediate foreign policy threat facing not only America, but the West generally. Readers of this column know of my strong belief that the use of military force to contain and defeat that threat is more often counterproductive than useful. When confronted by military force, hatreds multiply, extremists become more zealous, and recruitment of new terrorists is said to become easier.

To contain and defeat Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, we need to employ soft power: diplomacy, aid, cultural exchange and the like. To provide some further insight into the effectiveness of soft power, I want to tell you about Greg Mortenson, a remarkable American. Some of you have read his best-selling book, “Three Cups of Tea.” Through his actions in remote Pakistan, Mortenson has accomplished a mini-foreign policy miracle; the next American administration, whether Democratic or Republican, would do well look to Mortenson’s one-man success, and replicate it on a wide scale.

Here, in brief, is the story of this man; it begins some 14 years ago, when he was in his mid-30’s. Mortenson, an American mountaineer and adventurer, drifting through Pakistan, attempted to climb K2, that country’s most formidable mountain. After that climb failed, Mortenson, emaciated, lost and bedraggled, wandered into Korphe, a tiny village, in remote Pakistan. The inhabitants accepted this stranger into their midst, and nursed him gently back to health. Mortenson, touched by the kindness and generosity of spirit of these people, sought a way to reciprocate, Noting that the village had no school, Mortenson committed himself to return one day to build one. From that promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time – Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, dedicated to the education of girls. In a region where Americans are often feared and hated, he has survived kidnapping, death threats, and fatwas issued by enraged mullahs. But his success speaks for itself – at last count, over the last 14 years, his Central Asia Institute, based in Bozeman, Montana, has built 64 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, most in remote areas.

Here, in part, is the reason for Mortenson’s success: he stays out of local politics; he lives with the people, eats their food and sleeps in their huts or tents. He has no car, and walks or takes public transport.

Mortenson believing that education is the best way to bring people together in our polarized violent world, has said: “I don’t really care about fighting terror. The issues we need to address today are poverty, illiteracy and ignorance, which breeds hatred.” It is these issues that make young people easy targets for recruitment to terrorist groups. He adds that by ignoring the connection between education and the battle to win hearts and minds in the Muslim world, the Western world has missed the mark in its efforts to eradicate terrorism. He notes that during the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, US aid to that country, mostly in the form of weapons, was about $1 billion a year. When the USSR withdrew, our aid ceased abruptly and almost entirely. To fill the void, Mortenson tells us, Saudi Arabia stepped in to build roads, irrigation channels and schools, and “jihadi and terrorist groups set up shop.”

Had we stayed in Afghanistan, and if, after the departure of the Soviet forces, our military assistance funds been converted into funds for schools and rebuilding of communities, Mortenson believes that the rise of the repressive Taliban might not have occurred. In that case, bin Laden would not have been able to use Afghanistan as a headquarters and training ground for al Qaeda.

But, all of that is water over the dam. Today, anti-American terrorism is on the rise in Pakistan, and the Taliban is resurgent in neighboring Afghanistan. In response, I would advocate a shift in emphasis from military to soft power. The Mortenson story provides evidence that soft power does work. We have six years of evidence that military power is not working.

The size of Mortenson’s staff, about 12 people altogether, is miniscule by the standard of resources available to our government. And the size of his annual budget (some $3 million annually, which comes primarily from sales of his best-selling book) is puny compared to the money we spend in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military assistance funds we provide every year to Pakistan. The US Government would do well to endorse and sponsor a program patterned after Mortenson’s work, expanded with resources that only the government can command. Such an effort could be modeled after our Peace Corps. By thereby winning hearts and minds, and by turning away from counterproductive military confrontation, we could effect a major contribution to containing and ultimately defeating al Qaeda and the Taliban. Schools? Yes. But also water, roads, electricity and health care.

While we’re at it, we need more of that here at home, too.

By Eric Anschutz, September 17, 2008

Much is being said, rightly, about the “character” of our two Presidential candidates. Character, broadly defined, includes such characteristics as integrity, honesty, morality, trustworthiness, fairness, candor, sincerity, determination, consistency and directness. We might also want to include such qualities as compassion, freedom from prejudice, and openness to consideration of the opinions of others.

We are told again and again that John McCain is a man of character, and though he has faults, as we all do, even his political opponents do not argue with that general assessment. My problem here is the implication from McCain’s campaign that Obama is somehow less a man of character than McCain.

The assessment that McCain is a man of character is based on his more than five years as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton, and his 25 years in the Senate. Senator McCain’s acceptance speech contained no less than 43 sentences in which he referred to his POW experience, and only eight that made reference to his years in the Senate. Though the unending allusions by McCain and his surrogates to his time as a POW may seem somewhat overdone, enduring those terrible years with dignity and honor, as he did, would for anyone be a source of pride, and a basis for claims to “character.”

But, POW experience is not the only route to character. Someone who spends five years, or an entire career, teaching in an inner-city classroom can also lay claim to a character-building experience. We could say the same for a neuro-surgeon who endured 12-15 years of difficult and arduous training to develop the skills needed to save lives, or a civil rights leader who confronted snarling dogs and beatings from white supremacists to right the wrongs and injustice of racism. People with backgrounds like these can justifiably lay claim to strength of character; indeed, by making the most of their lives and their talents, and doing so with dignity and purpose and resolve, they, too, are “heroes.”

Another route to strength of character is the life-experience of Barack Obama. Bi-racial, reared by a single mother, winning scholarships to Columbia and later to Harvard Law School, gaining the Presidency of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and then eschewing high-income offers from Wall Street and top law firms to work for some years as a very low-paid community organizer in inner city Chicago. There is a kind of heroism in doing grass roots community work at the expense of making the big money that with Obama’s brilliant academic record was his to take. It needs to be said too that at every stage of the young Obama’s life, colleagues and mentors alike stood in awe of his abilities, his collegiality and his achievements, unvaryingly concluding that he would one day become America’s first African American President.

Sarah Palin and Rudy Giuliani had fun at the Republican Convention showing disdain for “community organizing” – a word combination they pretended not to know the meaning of. Giuliani and Palin reveled in their refusal to acknowledge the kinds of bottom-up processes through which local communities can assume some responsibility for and assert some authority over their schools, environments, and economies.

Senator McCain claims again and again to put “country first,” and tells us that Obama places personal gain above the interests of America. While we’ve learned to excuse and even to accept some over-the top campaign rhetoric, this and other blatant falsehoods should be out of bounds for a man who suggests that he somehow has a unique claim to the twin virtues of character and heroism. Let’s look at some of the other fabrications being told by McCain about Obama.

McCain claims too that Obama has never “worked across the aisle,” when in fact he has worked with his Republican colleagues on ethics reform, nuclear proliferation, and environmental legislation, among others. It is McCain, the self-proclaimed maverick, who has by his own statement “proudly” stood side by side with President Bush more than 90 percent of the time. McCain tells us that Obama’s plans for health care would put “bureaucrats between you and your physician.” Again, not true. Obama’s health care plan would provide care through private insurers, not by or through the government.

McCain’s campaign ads suggest foolishly that Obama is an “elitist.” This charge comes from Mr. Elite himself. McCain’s father and grandfather were four-star admirals; he is now married to a wealthy heiress, and together with his affluent wife owns some 8-10 houses. McCain’s absurd charge of elitism is levied against a man reared in near poverty by a mom who worked two jobs to raise two kids while acquiring a PhD in anthropology. During his teens, Obama was raised by his grandparents, people of modest means.

McCain and his surrogates assert wrongly that Obama would raise taxes on working level people, and that McCain would lower taxes for all. Again, wrong, and McCain certainly knows it. Obama would raise taxes on the wealthy by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to lapse, but would reduce taxes on those of lower incomes. McCain would makes Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, would grant new massive tax relief for corporations.

A man of character should disassociate himself from misleading and deceptive statements of the sort coming from his campaign, from his running mate, and too often from his own oratory.