Can we be sure we’re on the right course in a nation where we are viewed as unwanted imperialists as opposed to liberators? How should Obama deal with America’s military reality in Afghanistan?Is there any course of action that could ensure the defeat of Al-Qaida forces in that part of the world? Is the United States stuck in an endless quagmire that will cost valued blood and treasure for years to come?
The Questions of Matthew Hoh merit some answers. His concerns about the region should not go unaddressed.
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
The reaction to Hoh’s letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The rest of the story can be read here.
By Thought Merchant
Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel currently chairs the House Ways and Means committee which makes him a steward of the nations income tax policy in that branch of Congress. Rep. Rangel is now himself being investigated for income tax improprieties, putting his chairmanship of that most powerful committee in jeopardy.
Not surprisingly, the right wing has been making strong attacks against Rangel in an effort to use him as the poster child for Democratic Party hypocrisy considering that Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi became Speaker assuring Americans she would “drain the swamp” and clean up ethics violations.
But as stated in this piece in Salon.com: “…when you look at how long Tom DeLay and all the Abramoff-tainted Republicans took to face reality, the clock has barely started ticking on Rangel.”
Furthermore, Rangel is still being supported by many of his traditional allies on the left as explained here:
“The Congressional Black Caucus, of which Rangel was a founding member, sent a letter to Pelosi on Thursday blasting the vote as “partisan attempts to ignore the well-established, bipartisan congressional ethics process.”
“Regrettably, the minority has repeatedly attempted to make an end-run around the bipartisan procedures for investigating possible ethics issues,” the letter read. “These Republican attempts to presume guilt before an investigation has been completed violate the core American principle of the presumption of innocence.”
Rangel’s office condemned the measure as a “highly partisan effort.”
What is more interesting is how some of the more prominent voices from the left wing blogoshphere have been willing to throw Rangel under the bus and demand he resign from Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee.
Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the Huffington Post stated the following in her recent Blog post: “Congress’ approval rating is at 21 percent, a 10-point drop over the last month. If the Democrats want to see it hit single digits, by all means, keep Charlie Rangel as Chairman.”
Some see it fit to compare Charlie Rangel to another African American Congressman, William Jefferson, whose ethics problems were criminal in nature, while Rangel himself has been found to have done nothing illegal thus far, insinuating that there is a problem with “those types” of Congressmen. “Those types” of course meaning Black.
As Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas put it on his blog’s diary:
“Memo to House Democrats — the “culture of corruption” crosses partisan lines. Last time the Democrats looked the other way — with William Jefferson — Republicans picked up a seat in one of the most Democratic districts in the nation. Next time, they may pick up the entire U.S. House of Representatives.”
As of yet, no ethics violations have been adjudicated and no criminal misdeeds have yet come close to being alleged. Yet it is ironic to me how White liberals who always claim to stand by African Americans as true friends are now willing to stand on top of Charlie Rangel as he’s being raked over the coals by the right wing and some of their own ilk.
Let us be fair and withhold judgment until all investigations are complete instead of joining in on the right wing pile on. Truly, with liberal friends like these, does a Democratic politician really need enemies?
August 2009, was a difficult month for President Obama. On the heals of the public relations debacle that was the Skip Gates Beer Summit, Obama seeks to push forward a domestic policy that has been the bane of Democratic administrations going back almost 20 years. Health Care Reform presents a treacherous path for Obama, who once marshaled approval numbers FDR would have envied, but now finds it difficult to keep both Independents and the base of his party in his corner. At a time when the President attempts to find his way through this most difficult political agenda, his inability to present a clear Health Care plan to the American public has cost him two things needed by a President: time and political capital.
In an attempt to leverage his most valuable political asset: his profound communication skills; Obama is planning to speak before a joint session of Congress to make his case for the urgency of Health Care Reform. As stated in The Politico:
“….if soaring oratory has often been Obama’s saving grace, the Health Care Reform address he’s scheduled to deliver to a joint session of Congress next week is his riskiest effort to date – a high-reward gamble with significant potential downsides.
“This speech is different, it’s coming much later in the game at a more difficult time than if he’d made it earlier,” warns Princeton University politics professor Julian Zelizer.
“But the downside of making a big speech — saying this is the fight of the year – is if that you just amplify the expectations you’re going to get it done,” Zelizer added.”
Clearly the risks of this speech are great. Addressing both houses of Congress requires Obama to lay out a health care plan in clear terms that will allow little equivocation. Thus far, the biggest problem the President has had is explaining which plan he actually favors and intends to sign. Moreover, Obama will have to inform the public of the things he is willing to give up. When the liberal base of his party is making it clear that the Public Health Care Option–which is actually a mild level of reform in comparison to the proposals being tossed about earlier like single payer Health Care–is crucial to any acceptable reform, Obama risks alienating a substantial portion of his most loyal supporters if he gives in to the immense pressure being applied by those on his political right. Furthermore, when Obama has some in his own party who will stop at nothing to protect the interests of the Health Care lobby, the dedication of the Democratic Party on this issue comes in to question.
Many blame Obama’s attempts at bi-partisanship for being one of the obstacles to passing meaningful reform. With a 60 seat majority in the Senate, and a significant majority in the House of Representatives, if bi-partisanship simply means dealing with total obstructionists in the Republican Party, the perception will be that Obama is giving up the core principles of his political base out of a lack of conviction for Health Care Reform in general. As stated in Salon.com:
“If President Obama expects Congress to pass a healthcare reform bill worth signing, he’d better grasp that “bipartisanship” is a means, not an end. After eight years of cheering themselves hoarse over one catastrophic Bush blunder after another, Republicans will start dealing with reality only when they’re afraid not to. Right now, it’s their talk-radio/Fox News-hypnotized base that’s got GOP congressmen running scared.”
In the end, what Obama needs to save Health Care Reform from total failure, or politically emasculating levels of compromise, is the sheer force of will to apply pressure to his own political party in Congress. Even a gifted orator like Barack Obama will need more than lofty rhetoric to fight the entrenched financial interests of insurance and pharmaceutical companies that will be staring him in the face while he addresses the same Congress that is loaded with campaign contributions from those opposed to reform. But one thing is clear, when the well being of over 50 million Americans without Health Care is at stake, Obama’s speech is one example where talk clearly cannot be cheap.
In this 1957 clip from the program “The Open Mind,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. outlines the characteristics of a renaissance African American he refers to as the “New Negro.” Over 50 years later we must ask, has the Black Community in America evolved in its self-awareness to a point where the African American Dr.King describes in this clip exists? Has the Black community collectively stood for a dignity of conscience and defended its image against the onslaught of racism and White supremacy? Is the duplicity Dr. King spoke of a relic of the past, or are there elements within the Black community who still seek to undermine advancement in order to protect their own positions?
