Rantle

By Eric Anschutz, December 23, 2009

Many of us who voted for Barack Obama a year ago were motivated in part by the speech he gave in 2002 warning against going to war with Iraq. Here it is again: “I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

I ask you now to contrast the wisdom in that 2002 speech to the unwise and unworthy speech our President gave in Oslo just days ago at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Again, I quote: “ (As President) I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict…”

Some have said that the difference between the two speeches reflects Obama’s transition from candidate to President. Obama, in his Oslo speech, put it this way: “(I am) mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago: ‘Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: It merely creates new and more complicated ones.’ But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by (King’s and Gandhi’s and Mandela’s) examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Most would agree that the war against Nazism was a just war; Hitler needed to be stopped by military force. But, Obama, then went on to say: “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.” This latter statement has won plaudits from Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich – though the right wing crowd is building on Obama’s statement by calling again for Obama to undertake vigorous military confrontation with North Korea and Iran.

It was of course necessary for President Obama, in accepting the Peace Prize, to speak to the war in Afghanistan, and to his responsibilities as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, and to the confrontation with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The problem is, however, that he chose to speak as a political leader, one who deemed it necessary not only to justify our ongoing war, but to go on with the questionable assertion that the global reach of our military had underwritten world security for six decades. All-time hawk President Bush 43 could have given that same speech.

Obama had the opportunity, in Oslo, at a moment when he had the rapt attention of a hopeful world, to speak as a world leader, one worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, he spoke as a very ordinary politician, one not worthy of the Nobel Award, not even worthy of the votes and the hopes invested in him by those to whom he promised change.

Here in brief is what he might have said. Instead of claiming that America’s military strength has helped underwrite global security for six decades, he should have spoken to the two truly meaningful contributions America has made to global security: the first was the Marshall Plan, and the second was détente with and containment of the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War and the Iraq War were not contributions to global security; they were insults to it; those two wars contributed nothing but distress to a war-weary world, the killing of 60,000 young Americans, maiming of so many more, and depletion of both our treasure and our moral stature.

By contrast, the Marshall Plan saved democracy and brought economic enrichment to Western Europe; détente with the USSR, coupled with patient and steady containment, not bombs, resulted in the demise of the Soviet Union and the ultimate restoration of democracy to Eastern Europe.

A Nobel Prize-worthy Obama would have said that what we see as evil in today’s world is the product of injustice, religious zeal and poverty. He might then have quoted our own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who has frequently spoken out on the futility of war as a means of bringing peace, noting that the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end what Gates calls the “Long War” against violent extremism. Our best course, he says, is to use the “soft power” of diplomacy, development assistance, and cultural exchange to eliminate the conditions that foster terrorism. Gates has also wisely called for partnering with China and Russia to blunt their rise as potential adversaries. General McChrystal too emphasizes repeatedly the need to win hearts and minds through construction, not destruction. Paradoxically, though Gates and McChrystal support the surge in Afghanistan, they (like Obama) know that in the end violence fosters violence and only soft power can bring cross-cultural understanding and a peaceful outcome.

A Nobel-worthy Obama would have made the case for alternative policies to “confront” Islamic terrorism by announcing gradual withdrawal of our troops, and spelling out the merits of an Afghanistan strategy centered on the twin policies of containment and a Middle East Marshall Plan. He might have announced at the same time withdrawal of our troops from Germany and Korea – which would save another $70 billion yearly. Obama did say that rebuilding America was the “nation building” most important to him; he might have added that an economically and socially successful and peaceful America would do more to win global support than the futile effort to kill or pacify the religious crazies lurking in Afghanistan’s mountain caves or hiding in the eighth century villages that abound in that unhappy country.

Mankind has tried from its beginning to solve political and geographical and cultural differences with war. We have learned that violence begets more violence. The time has come, a Nobel-worthy Obama could have said, to try something different.

By Eric Anschutz, December 2, 2009

Readers will recognize the title of this column as the title of Barack Obama’s highly acclaimed second book. It is a title apt for what I am about to say, so I beg the President’s indulgence for recycling it. And I ask him also to rethink “audacity” in the context of the crisis that besets today’s America.

I propose a major redirection of our policies to restore greatness to an America that most agree is currently headed in the wrong direction. In doing so, I know that the new direction I propose is not one that in the near term would be approved by our divided Congress, nor would it win majority support from our equally divided citizenry. I write, therefore, not in hope of immediate change, but rather to bring about serious discussion of how a fundamental revision of our policies could provide a basis for the rebuilding and reenergizing of our country.

I begin with a set of facts that define our nation’s current bleak situation. America’s national debt and negative trade balance have grown to proportions that place our long-term economic well-being in serious jeopardy. Our manufacturing base shrinks further with every passing year. Our urban centers are blighted by daily reports of crime and neglect. Our infrastructure is outdated, in disrepair and inadequate. Schools, especially those in the inner-cities, are too often staffed by under-qualified teachers, and far too often stressed by a student body beset by apathy and hostility. Our environment continues to be despoiled by effluents from fossil fuels; despite that, development and implementation of solar and wind technologies lags that of other nations. Health care in our country costs more than twice as much per capita as in Germany, Japan, France, England, Canada and Sweden, and by every measure produces results that rank well below that of every major country.

Our problems are not only domestic. We have in the last six decades suffered the massive financial burden and the horrendous human cost of wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, and are now stuck in the quagmire of Afghanistan. Beyond the financial and human cost of war-fighting, our military forces are spread worldwide: we have troops in more than 100 countries; our Navy maintains flotillas on constant patrol in every ocean.

We know that the massive sums spent by our country on war and military force structure have depleted our domestic economy. Yet, for the last 60 years, America has been engaged in a virtual orgy of military spending – always in the name of national security. Done at first to build a bulwark against the encroachment of communism, it then morphed into defense against the “axis of evil” (North Korea, Iran and Iraq), and morphed again as defense against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Our annual military expenditure for these last six decades has every year exceeded the combined defense expenditures of every other country in the world.

Europeans and Asians have tacitly renounced war as an instrument of national policy. They do of course maintain some military forces (small and ill-equipped compared to ours), but their forces are kept within their boundaries, and are for self-defense. In recent years only Russia has moved militarily against its neighbors (Chechnya and Georgia). The USSR’s ill-advised aggression some 30 years ago in Afghanistan was a costly and bloody failure; they committed some 110,000 troops, suffered in excess of 13,000 deaths, and left in ignominious defeat after ten years of fighting. Following the 1989 demise of the Soviet Union, it is only the United States that continues to maintain a policy of projecting military power across the globe. Iran, by the way, has never been the aggressor in a military action – nor has modern China.

I propose a fundamental change to our military policies. “National Security” should be redefined to include economic strength, first-rate education, world-class health care available to all, the state of our infrastructure, and energy systems based increasingly on non-carbon energy sources. Military power will always continue to be an important component of national security, but we need to reduce the level of military expenditures by ending our wars, withdrawing our forces to bases within our borders, and dedicating our military wholly to defense of our homeland.

Our only enemies today are religious zealots in a far-off place. Defense against that threat must be focused on better intelligence gathering and better policing of our harbors and borders. Our generals are united in concluding that defeating them militarily is a losing game. We need to win hearts and minds by the example of a thriving America, and with a “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East.

My proposed policy redirection must not be seen as advocating that we turn our back to the world. I do not propose isolationist policies. Indeed, I propose grater involvement than ever with other countries. We need to join with our Asian and European and African friends in a new “Alliance for World Peace and Security.” We need to participate in worldwide diplomacy and in international partnerships aimed at global security, defined to include global domestic well-being.

The Chinese, who have for the past decade been aggressively negotiating trade and partnership arrangements all across Africa and Asia, have defined their foreign policy as one of non-interference and non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. Domestically, China lags on health care and attention to the environment; it is, however, undertaking massive infrastructure, economic and education programs. Many Chinese kids are learning English in elementary school, and math and science education are strong across the nation. China is now constructing a network of high-speed rail lines, covering 10,000 miles across that country. 13 of China’s biggest cities are scheduled to have all-electric bus fleets within five years. A new company, said to employ 10,000 engineers, has been created in China to develop electric car batteries. Ironically, US financier Warren Buffet is a major investor in that company.

I urge you, Mr. President, to rethink “audacity” in the context of the crisis that besets today’s America. We require new policies designed to restore America to greatness.

By Eric Anschutz, October 28, 2009

Your Excellencies and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:

Because the Nobel Committee’s decision to grant me the 2009 Peace Prize was undertaken mere days after I took office on January 20 of this year, it is evident that you meant the award to give momentum to the promise of deeds yet to be done, not as a prize for prior accomplishments.

In that spirit, I accept the award, and the honor it brings, not for myself, but for my country and for people across the world that share our aspirations for global peace and justice. As I have said before, I view this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to unite in an effort to confront the common challenges of our time.

The fact that man’s search for enduring peace has proven elusive, and that war/peace issues have been the subject of endless discussion for eons, gives us a sense of humility as we consider them yet again. Yet, the very persistence of these issues tells us of their enduring importance – their unavoidability. Issues of war and peace are at the center of the human condition. To not deal with them would be to shirk our humanity.

No leader is more aware than I of the tragic waste of lives and resources brought by military conflict. Yet, I stand before you today as at once the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and as President of a nation involved in two wars. I am both mindful of the irony implicit in this, and aware of my responsibilities, both as President of the United States and as Nobel Laureate.

I see these twin responsibilities as complementary. My primary responsibility is of course to the office I hold as President of the United States. As President, I am sworn to secure the well being of my country. But, the best interests of my country are inextricably bound to the global good. No country is truly secure unless all are secure.

Thus, the Nobel Award serves to bring into sharper focus all that needs to be done to move my country and the world closer to the goals of worldwide peace and dignity, and toward enhanced economic and environmental health. The Nobel Committee’s clarion call to action is meant not only for my country and me; it has meaning only if nations and people across the globe hear the call and join in a global effort to bring peace and justice to all.

No one nation, and certainly no one leader can alone possess the key to peace. Even collective efforts among wise and well-meaning people have failed. Yet, because violence is so costly, and because peace is so productive, we must redouble our efforts to find and implement ways to resolve conflicts by non-violent means. Among relevant factors, those that most merit study and trial are well known: multilateralism, dignity, tolerance, empathy, human rights, the emerging importance of “soft power,” and far more patient and determined use of international mechanisms are among the more important. Let’s briefly consider some of them.

• While no nation can surrender the right to act in its own self-interest, decisions made unilaterally are by definition guided by a narrower set of considerations than those undertaken on a multilateral basis. When many parties are involved in determination of foreign policy and/or military action, the multilateral process is ponderous compared to the simplicity of unilateral policy development. But the very “sluggishness” of the multilateral process, the need to explain a point of view to other involved parties, and the requirement to win consensus for proposed actions, can generally be expected to yield deeper, richer and less parochial analysis of the issues at hand. Multilateralism can also slow a rush to war.

• Dignity, tolerance and empathy are essential qualities if tensions are to be resolved non-violently. Confrontation between antagonistic parties too often leads to “demonization” of the adversary. There are of course instances where evil is unambiguous, and where systemic malevolence must be condemned and dealt with harshly. But, more often than not, both sides can legitimately assert what seems to them a valid claim to the moral high ground. Because cultures differ, because different histories lead to different and often clashing world-views, efforts must be made by all affected parties to bridge the cultural divide, to seek to understand the basis for an adversary’s concerns, and always to deal with others in ways that honors their dignity.

• Freedom of individual action is a human right deemed important and inviolate to many. To others, unlimited freedom is seen as an invitation to chaos, and even to immorality. Those of us who cherish freedom and the fullest panoply of human rights must seek to be tolerant of opposing views on these matters. By the same token, those to whom restrictions on the rights of individuals is seen as essential to maintenance of order must honor and seek to understand the virtues of an open and free society, and the stimulus it brings to a fullest blossoming of innovation and creativity.

• “Soft power” has in some ways become at least as important as military power in today’s world where military conflict between great nations is highly unlikely. The threat of violence today is more likely to come from small states or from non-state actors against which superpower arsenals have proven to be of little or no value. Soft power encompasses diplomacy, but is centered on such things as aid to education and agriculture and business and infrastructure. Soft power includes greater involvement than heretofore of the mechanisms of the United Nations.

I want to express once again the importance I attach to the opportunity this award provides to address vital issues of peace and justice, and for the Nobel Committee’s call for renewed attention to resolution of conflicts by peaceful means.

By Eric Anschutz, September 23, 2009

Those of us in the Obama camp were first attracted to his intellectual grasp and to his leadership by his profoundly prescient arguments against the Iraq war. Obama, well before the war began, predicted correctly that it would prove to be an un-winnable quagmire, and warned against our involvement. Now that he is our President, now that he has his own war to contend with, Obama needs to reread his pre-Iraq speech, and reflect on how his own earlier apprehensions about war in Iraq apply equally to the war in Afghanistan.

Here are a few of Obama’s words, spoken six months before the Iraq war began: “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars (emphasis added).”

I ask you, is there anything about Obama’s October 2002 warning against the Iraq War that does not apply in spades to our war in Afghanistan? Consider these phrases: “Undetermined length; undetermined cost; no clear rationale; no strong international support; fanning the flames and encouraging the worst impulses of the Arab world; strengthening the recruitment arm of al Qaeda. All of these warnings against Bush’s Iraq War apply equally to Obama’s Afghanistan War. And, yes, Mr. President, the Afghanistan war too is a dumb war, no less dumb than the war in Iraq. And you said you were against dumb wars; have you forgotten?
More than 500 American soldiers have died in Afghanistan, and our death rate is escalating. Many thousands of Afghani civilians have died, most as a result of American (and other NATO) bombs dropped inadvertently on wedding parties, schoolyards and hospitals. For what? Whenever our troops leave a “cleared” village, the Taliban move back the next day.

We have been fighting in Afghanistan since October 2002. To what avail? The cost, so far, according to the Center for defense Information, is $440 billion; costs are rising, and for 2010 an additional $128 billion is budgeted. Total costs are likely to exceed $1 trillion when we take into account the need for post-war care for our many wounded. For what purpose? Is this vast expenditure in resources and lives of value to our nation, or might we be better off diverting all that effort and all those resources to other purposes?
The Afghanistan war was undertaken for the purpose of finding Osama bin Laden, and “bringing him to justice.” We are today no closer to that goal than we were eight years ago when the war began. The war continues for the avowed purpose of denying a sanctuary or an operating base for al Qaeda. Because al Qaeda has now spread throughout the world, that goal, it seems to me, is as elusive as is the goal of “getting” bin Laden.

We are told too that our troops are there to “train” Afghani troops and police. We have been doing that for eight years, to no avail. Why do Afghani Government troops need ever-more training when Taliban troops, also Afghanis, are grudgingly praised by our generals for the growing excellence of their strategy and for their dauntless even reckless courage? The reason, however unjustified and even crazy it may seem to us, is that the Taliban believe in their cause; they are ideologues, driven by religious fanaticism, by compulsion to drive out the “occupying armies,” and by hatred of all things American, including in particular our policies in the Middle East. Afghani Government troops, on the other hand, are motivated only by a paycheck and a strong desire to stay alive. No amount of training will make them effective against a Taliban enemy that sees itself as the “sword of Allah.”

The American effort in Afghanistan could not ask for better leadership. General McChrystal, our commander there, Admiral Mullins, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense, are the best we have. So is President Obama. None of them are insensitive to the need to win hearts and minds; each of them knows (and professes frequently) that military action alone will not achieve our goals. So, they pursue diplomacy and negotiation; undertake vigorous efforts at construction of schools and roads and electrical grids and water supplies; instruct our soldiers to deal gently with the local populace; and support elections aimed at bringing into office a President who will command the respect of all Afghanis.
But, the Afghani President is in fact only the Mayor of Kabul; the rest of that vast country is divided into factions and sects, each run by a warlord. There is no allegiance to the nation as such. Hearts and minds that live in a fifteenth century society are difficult for us to reach. And as we build, the Taliban destroys. As we reach out for support, the individual Afghani knows that our soldiers and our money will one day be gone, whereas the Taliban will still be there. The Taliban are feared and hated by many, perhaps by most (especially women). But they live among the people, they are of the people, they were there yesterday and, unlike us, will be there tomorrow.

It has been said that our presence in Afghanistan is like putting a hand into a bucket of water. By doing so, we disturb the water. We cause splashing and ripples. But, when our hand is withdrawn, the water will return to the condition that existed before our hand was inserted. The only hope for Afghanis is indigenous evolution toward modernization, a growing economy, and growing nationalization less weakened by corruption. Until then, Afghanis will continue to suffer despotism and misery. Only the Afghanis themselves can get out from under it.

So, what to do? Bring our troops home. Bring them home from Afghanistan and from Iraq. Bring them home from Germany, too, and from Italy and France and Korea and Japan and from the innumerable other countries in which we have bases. Reduce our defense budget further by slashing unneeded cold war weapons programs. Invest the countless billions so saved in our own infrastructure, education, alternative energy, health care, science and industry. Invest in a Middle East Marshall Plan aimed at improving the lives of those otherwise attracted to al Qaeda and destruction. We know by now that violence breeds violence. Let’s find out if peace and generosity and good will breed peace and generosity and goodwill. And in the meanwhile, let’s make our own country a better place in which to live.