Setup-Punch

John Cornyn misspoke when he claimed that we needed the F-22 to combat the rising national security threat from India.

He meant to say Indiana.

After all, they voted for Obama, and he's not even from here!

The Unknown War With India

The President had a big victory this week when the Senate voted to strip funding for additional F-22 fighter jets, which the Pentagon and the Air Force didn't want, which haven't been flown once in Iraq or Afghanistan and which are apparently vulnerable to rain. It was a small step toward breaking the stranglehold of the military-industrial complex. The lobbyists were out in force to keep this alive, and a lot of lawmakers who have parts of the F-22 made in their district wanted to keep the gravy train going, but eventually, sanity prevailed. The military budget is increasing this year, and eventually we have to end a circumstance where we spend more on the military than every other country in the world combined, but if we couldn't cancel the F-22, we would not be able to cancel pretty much anything. So it was a good step toward lessening the power and influence of military contractors. Robert Farley has a great roundup of opinions.

Naturally, John Cornyn (Bugfuck Crazy-TX) doesn't agree. In fact, he thinks we have to use the F-22 to counter all sorts of threats. Including... India.

"It's important to our national security because we're not just fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," Cornyn says. "We're fighting -- we have graver threats and greater threats than that: From a rising India, with increased exercise of their military power; Russia; Iran, that's threatening to build a nuclear weapon; with North Korea, shooting intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of hitting American soil."

I wasn't aware that we were at war with India. In fact, I don't get over there much, but I'm pretty sure we're an ally. In fact, Hillary Clinton just spent four days there this week. We just completed a civilian nuclear power agreement with them last year.

I guess being Republican means "never having to say you're sorry to an allied country for calling them an enemy." Remember when John McCain thought we were at war with Spain?

The Thorny Green Jobs Issue

I truly recommend this David Leonhardt interview with President Obama. Regardless of where you stand on his policies, you can agree that he understands the issues and can articulate a sharp vision. Here he talks about the need for a more balanced economy.

That’s why I don’t just want to see more college graduates; I also want to specifically see more math and science graduates, I specifically want to see more folks in engineering. I think part of the postbubble economy that I’m describing is one in which we are restoring a balance between making things and providing services, whether it’s marketing or catering to people or servicing folks in some way. Those are all good jobs, and we’re not going to return to an economy in which manufacturing is as large a percentage as it was back in the 1940s just because of automation and technological advance [...]

But the broader point is that if you look at who our long-term competition will be in the global economy — China, India, the E.U., Brazil, Korea — the countries that are producing the best-educated work force, whose education system emphasizes the sciences and mathematics, who can translate those technology backgrounds or those science backgrounds into technological applications, they are going to have a significant advantage in the economy. And I think that we’ve got to have enough of that in order to maintain our economic strength.

I think a healthy economy is going to have a broad mix of jobs, and there has to be a place for somebody with terrific mechanical aptitude who can perform highly skilled tasks with his hands, whether it’s in construction or manufacturing. And I don’t think that those jobs should vanish. I do think that they will constitute a smaller percentage of the overall economy. And so what we’re going to have to do is, with a younger generation, find new places for that kind of work.

The possibilities are there, though. I spoke during the campaign of this company that I visited, McKinstry, in Seattle, where you’ve got a bunch of welders and tradesmen who are now retrofitting buildings. They’re not performing the same kind of manufacturing that their fathers might have, but with similar skill sets they are now making hospitals and schools and office buildings much more energy efficient, and then that’s providing enormous value to the economy as a whole.

Interestingly enough, the current issue we're having with green jobs is that we're retaining the construction and labor sector but losing the knowledge sector, precisely the opposite of the President's proposed vision.

As the Obama government gets ready to raise a protectionist wall against offshoring, the US firms seem to be shipping more jobs to India.

The US firms have offshored 22,000 green technology jobs to India since January 1, 2009, Doug Brown, co-author of the influential 2009 Green Outsourcing Report, informed TNIE [...]

Noting an interesting irony the authors of the report say, “In the US, green stimulus plan is creating low-wage installation and construction jobs.” But, in India, which is usually associated with cheap and low-skill work, “…New green jobs include higher dollar engineers, strategic business management and support technicians charged with designing innovative environmental friendly solutions,” they add.

A country that can employ all these laborers to retrofit homes and build out the smart grid has some chance of stability, but only at the low-wage end. But the design and engineering sector has floated away to India.

And while providing green jobs in low-income communities may breathe economic life into those areas, the people living there may not be able to, well, breathe.

A read of the "Justice in the Air" report would maybe change that perspective. Using data from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory and Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators reports, researchers were able to locate where toxic air pollution from industrial facilities is strongest. They also determined the percentage of racial minorities and low-income families who live in those heavily impacted areas. To no surprise, they found that African-, Latino- and Asian-Americans suffer the worst health risks. For example, 69 percent of those whose health is impacted by ExxonMobil's pollution are minorities [...]

So, how exactly can a green-jobs movement alleviate poverty without equal concern for pollution exposure and health consequences? What good is giving a person a job if their frail health from toxic pollution will affect their productivity? Most of the jobs that have been tagged for the poor -- you know, the ones that "can't be exported" and "don't require a diploma" -- are outdoor jobs. So if you're installing a solar panel on a roof, weatherizing a building, cleaning up waste, or doing urban garden work, chances are in America (if you're poor and/or black/Latino) you'll be doing this in an area prone to air pollution.

We need to address these issues of environmental justice. At-risk communities bear the brunt of toxic pollution. Heck, even James Inhofe sponsored a black carbon bill, so it's not like we need to drop these concerns for political expediency.

The green jobs movement makes some intuitive sense, but there are larger questions that need to be addressed, through regulating the air we breathe, through improving our educational competitiveness so all of the green economy can stay in America.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

I know there are new Oscar contenders in the theaters, and Obama showed his pecs and all, but two nuclear powers are moving toward war and you'd think people would begin to pay attention to that, what with the potential for radioactivity to spread across the Earth and all.

Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said.

The move represents a sharp escalation in the standoff between the nuclear-armed neighbors and will hurt Pakistan's U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban taking place near Afghanistan's border.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

These are not two countries known for their restraint - they have fought three wars since Pakistani independence in 1947. In the post-nuclear era, they almost started a fourth war in 2001, after militants attacked the Indian Parliament. Earlier in the week, Pakistan scrambled fighter jets over its own cities to protect them from an Indian attack, after the Indian foreign minister ratcheted up the rhetoric.

"We have so far acted with utmost restraint," Pranab Mukherjee told the more than 120 envoys from posts around the world. But he added, "We will take all measures necessary as we deem fit to deal with the situation."

A senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, later called Mukherjee's tough talk "an expression of political will that India will not take this lying down." He added that the option of "precision airstrikes" on terrorist training camps in Pakistan would remain on the table if Islamabad did not act effectively against groups fomenting terrorism against India.

There was a point in this renewed conflict after the Mumbai attacks, when Pakistan was rolling up elements of the Lashkar-i-Taiba extremist group and cooperation between the two South Asian countries appeared possible. Things have deteriorated since then, as India is accusing Pakistan of playing games with their homegrown militants:

In a background briefing, another senior government official said India is tired of the conflicting signals from Pakistan.

"We hear different voices from different places in Pakistan. Every day, different stories are floated. First we heard that Masood Azhar is arrested, then they say they do not know where he is," he said, referring to one of the fugitives India has demanded that Pakistan hand over. "If Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa have been proscribed, then why is their Web site active and operational?" the official added.

Pakistan has at the very least tolerated, and at the most actively supported through their military and intelligence services, the existence of extremists for a while. Not only has that partially been funded with the copious amounts of US aid that goes toward the Pakistani military, but this recent activity at the Indian border is being financed by our tax dollars as well. So instead of using American treasure to fight terrorism, it's being used to underwrite it, as well as raise tensions between nuclear powers.

The Indian Prime Minister has called for calm but there is no reason to expect that either side will comply. Just add this onto the pile of major foreign policy crises that the incoming Obama Administration will face. And of course, it's intimately connected to Afghanistan, since each Pakistani soldier moving to the Indian border is one less stopping insurgents and Taliban from crossing over and carrying out attacks.

Pakistan/India Update

After a week in which a prank phone call almost led to nuclear war in East Asia, it looks as if, tentatively, Pakistan is starting to act against the militants in their midst. On Sunday they raided a Lakshar-e-Tayiba camp, the first concrete action in years to crack down on the terrorist group that appears to have been responsible for the Mumbai siege. And now, they've made an arrest against a possible mastermind of the attack. Questions abound about the arrest, but this is much better than political leaders lobbing insults across the border.

According to local reports, 12 members of the banned group including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused by Delhi as being one of the planners of the carnage in India's financial centre, were arrested in Sunday night's raid in the hills above Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A helicopter gunship hovered overhead and gunfire was heard.

Some Indian officials privately described it as "an important first step", though there was some scepticism in India about the nature of the raid. The "camp" that was stormed included a hospital, a madrasa (Islamic school) and offices. However, it was unclear whether it was a training facility for militants or just an administrative and charitable site [...]

Lakhvi was supposed to be LeT's operations chief and, according to some reports, recruited Ajmal Ameer Kasab, the lone gunman caught alive during the Mumbai assault. There was no word on what happened to Lakhvi after the arrest or on the whereabouts of Yusuf Muzammil, who has been named by Delhi as the other main planner of the Mumbai attack.

It has been reported that the Indian authorities have asked for the two men to be handed over. Some locals in Muzaffarabad suggested the raid may have been staged in some aspects, with rumours that the militants were tipped off beforehand.

Meanwhile, the former head of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, is being implicated in the attacks enough to publicly deny his involvement. We're not going to round up every bad actor in Pakistan in a week or even a year, but if the central government is motivated to at least start the process, that's very hopeful. I think we're at least off of the super red alert at this point.

Mumbai Update

India and Pakistan are in the war of words stage, and while I hope that's all that will come of this, just rhetoric between two nuclear powers can be dangerous. It's positive that the Indian Foreign Minister is not looking into troop movements at this time, but I imagine a lot will hinge on whether or not Pakistan gives up those 20 terrorist suspects India has demanded. So far, the Prime Minister in Islamabad has only said that Pakistan would try the suspects themselves, and I suspect that won't be good enough.

Condi Rice is in the region, but the lame duck administration is not going to be able to manage this. I think it's positive that Obama is considering sending Richard Holbrooke as an envoy to the region to smooth tensions. He should do so as soon as possible. Holbrooke has the right experience for this role.

Bystanders In East Asia, Cont'd

I fear that reporting of the terror attacks in Mumbai in this country suffers from a kind of Ptolemaic model of foreign policy, where the United States is considered to be the center of the universe and thus every incident is filtered through that lens. For instance, while many US sources are jumping on reports that Indian intelligence cost lives by failing to open fire on the militants, Israeli intelligence is saying the exact opposite:

"In hostage situations, the first thing the forces are supposed to do is assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence," said a former official in the Shin Bet's security unit. "In this case, it appears that the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists instead of first taking control of the area."

And while the conventional wisdom is that the terrorists attacked Western targets in Mumbai and sought out Americans and Britons, almost all of the victims were Indians and the hotels targeted were Indian-owned and served the local elite rather than Westerners. To the extent that Americans were targeted, that would be for the fact that they were visiting the Chabad House, and I wouldn't attribute that to their American-ness.

What we're seeing in the aftermath is a regional battle playing out. While the Pakistanis have offered aid in a joint investigation into the attacks, India has upped the ante and demanded the turnover of twenty terror suspects:

India has demanded that Pakistan hand over 20 men wanted under Indian law to show the country is serious about closer cooperation on security issues in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks here last week.

With tension rising between the two countries, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday that the list of wanted men had been handed over in a Monday meeting with Pakistan's ranking diplomat in India.

According to officials in the Indian Foreign Ministry, the list included some of India's most wanted fugitives -- notably Dawood Ibrahim, implicated in 1993 bombings in Mumbai, and Masood Azhar, a Muslim cleric tied to the Kashmiri militant movement. Azhar had been incarcerated in India but was let go in 1999 in exchange for passengers onboard a hijacked Indian airliner.

Those two and the others are thought to be living in Pakistan.

"We have . . . asked for the arrest and hand-over of those persons who are settled in Pakistan and who are fugitive of Indian law," Mukherjee said in New Delhi, the Reuters wire service reported.

This sets up for possible raids into Pakistani territory for purposes of self-defense and counter-terrorism, which would escalate tensions between the two nuclear powers to a very dangerous degree. And considering that the Bush Administration is probably not seen as any kind of honest broker by either side, we are sidelined in this conflict for at least a couple months. And even if we weren't, this isn't about us, fundamentally speaking.

...see also this spectacular analysis by Juan Cole, particularly how the Pakistanis have an obligation to go after Lashkar-e Tayiba militants as the only way to fight terror and solve the difficult Kashmir issue.

If the Pakistani government does not give up this covert terrorist campaign in Kashmir and does not stop coddling the radical vigilantes who go off to fight there, South Asian terrorism will grow as a problem and very possibly provoke the world's first nuclear war (possible death toll: 20 million).

The civilian government that has recently taken over Pakistan is weak. If it puts too much pressure on the military too quickly, it risks another coup and destabilization. But the training camps in Azad Kashmir must be closed.

India, Pakistan, and the Obama administration need to do some serious diplomacy on Kashmir, and try to settle this major global fault line before the 10.0 earthquake finally hits.

Read the whole thing.

Bystanders

The attacks in Mumbai are grisly enough, and it's a relief that they appear to be coming to an end. But the question over involvement of Pakistani groups has the potential to make things much, much worse, and really cripple any hope of stability in the region.

Pakistani militant groups on Friday became the focus of the investigation into the attacks in Mumbai as India and its archrival Pakistan jousted over who was responsible. Both sides pledged to cooperate in the probe, but tensions remained high amid fears the conflict could escalate.

Pakistan initially said Friday that it had agreed to send its spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, on an unprecedented visit to India to share and obtain information from investigators there. Later Friday, however, Pakistani officials changed their minds and decided to send a less senior intelligence official in Pasha's place, according to a Pakistani source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was unclear what prompted the reversal, but the Pakistani source said the Islamabad government was "already bending over backwards" to be cooperative and did not "want to create more opportunities for Pakistan-bashing." Pakistan's defense minister, Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, told reporters in Islamabad, "I will say in very categoric terms that Pakistan is not involved in these gory incidents."

Worse, the preliminary speculation focuses on Kashmiri militants.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said some "signatures of the attack" were consistent with the work of Pakistani militant groups known as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed that have fought Indian troops in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and also are reported to be linked to al-Qaida.

At this point, it's not particularly relevant whether or not these allegations are true (and it may not be). It's that they are being made at all. Because the charges themselves are enough to raise tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. India and Pakistan have been at war over Kashmir almost since Pakistan has become a sovereign nation. National pride demands that neither side surrender. And if the voices continue to rise about Pakistani involvement, India will react, whether by massing forces at the Pakistani border or even engaging in a first strike, which under cover of the Bush Doctrine has a patina of sanction.

A lot of basically sensible people [...] who may well find themselves with positions in the Obama administration, have suggested that maybe we don’t want to throw the alleged baby of preventive war out with the bathwater of Bushism. I always think people thinking along these lines need to keep in mind that the United States isn’t the only country on the planet. I don’t think we want a world in which India claims to have a U.S.-endorsed right to launch preventive military strikes on Pakistan, or a world in which Pakistani policymaking is dominated by fear of a potentially imminent preventive Indian military attack.

Ultimately, our so-called "strategy" in that region of the world, including Afghanistan where we have a shooting war, means exceedingly little in the eyes of the Indians and the Pakistanis compared to the threat posed by each other. We have very little ability to shape these events, and any attempt to choose sides or play one country off of the other will have devastating consequences. Pakistan's anti-terrorism efforts will be consumed by anti-Indian efforts. Afghanistan could become a proxy fight between the two East Asian powers, as we saw when the Indian embassy in Kabul was bombed.

This is a terribly explosive situation and it had better inform the incoming Administration's continued presence in the region.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

The US military lost its 500th soldier in Afghanistan in July, nearly seven years after the initial invasion. The increasing deadliness of the war has finally moved it somewhat into the national consciousness, as Taliban remnants combined with tribal villagers have reformed to offer strong resistance to the Afghan government and coalition troops. Increasing use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks presage a new reality, with insurgents resisting a foreign occupation rather than extremists seeking to overturn the government.

The question is, where do we go from here. Bob Gates wants to throw $20 billion in aid at the problem, mostly to transform the Afghan military. Both Sen. Obama and, more recently, Sen. McCain have asked for additional US brigades to be deployed to the region, which smacks of posturing. Of course, it's very possible that Obama honestly believes that Afghanistan is the right war and Al Qaeda must be denied safe haven to project attacks at Americans and the West. Of course, the question is how to best achieve that objective.

Over the past few weeks, as progressives have driven a conversation on this policy, there have been some very good studies written about what to do over there. Two of the best are Rory Stewart's piece in TIME...

So what exactly should we do about Afghanistan now? First, the West should not increase troop numbers. In time, NATO allies, such as Germany and Holland, will probably want to draw down their numbers, and they should be allowed to do so. We face pressing challenges elsewhere. If we are worried about terrorism, Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan; if we are worried about regional stability, then Egypt, Iran or even Lebanon is more important; if we are worried about poverty, Africa is more important. A troop increase is likely to inflame Afghan nationalism because Afghans are more anti-foreign than we acknowledge and the support for our presence in the insurgency areas is declining. The Taliban, which was a largely discredited and backward movement, gains support by portraying itself as fighting for Islam and Afghanistan against a foreign military occupation.

Nor should we increase our involvement in government and the economy. The more responsibility we take in Afghanistan, the more we undermine the credibility and responsibility of the Afghan government and encourage it to act irresponsibly. Our claims that Afghanistan is the "front line in the war on terror" and that "failure is not an option" have convinced the Afghan government that we need it more than it needs us. The worse things become, the more assistance it seems to receive. This is not an incentive to reform. Increasing our commitment to Afghanistan gives us no leverage over the government.

Afghans increasingly blame us for the problems in the country: the evening news is dominated by stories of wasted development aid. The government claims that in 2007, $1.3 billion out of $3.5 billion of aid was spent on international consultants, some of whom received more than $1,000 a day and whose policy papers are often ignored by Afghan civil servants and are invisible to the population. Our lack of success despite our wealth and technology convinces ordinary Afghans to believe in conspiracy theories. Well-educated people have told me that the West is secretly backing the Taliban and that the U.S.'s main objective was to steal Afghanistan's emeralds, antiquities and uranium — and that we knew where Osama bin Laden was but had decided not to catch him.

A smarter strategy would focus on two elements: more effective aid and a more limited military objective. We should target development assistance in provinces where we have a track record of success. Our investment goes further in stable and welcoming places like Hazarajat than it can in hostile, insurgency-dominated areas like Kandahar and Helmand, where we have to spend millions on security and the locals do not contribute to the project and will not sustain it after our departure. We should focus on meeting the Afghan government's request for more investment in agricultural irrigation, energy and roads. And we should increase our support to the most effective departments, such as education, health and rural development; they are good for the reputation of the Afghan state and the West. Creating more educated, healthier women and men and better transport, communications and electrical infrastructure may be only part of the story, but they are essential for Afghanistan's economic future.

... and Vikram Singh in World Politics Review:

Afghanistan is in trouble but far from lost. Less than one-third of the country is really unstable and only about 10 percent of Afghan districts are under significant Taliban sway. But a surge of all types of effort -- military and civilian -- is needed to turn the tide. The mini-surge of 3,000 marines into the south and east of the country will soon draw to close after some success clearing insurgents, but the U.S. and its allies have little ability to hold and build those areas without capable Afghan security forces and Afghan and international civilians.

U.S. forces should only surge into Afghanistan with a workable and comprehensive strategy and the right civilian counterparts. The renewal of interest in Afghanistan and Pakistan offers a real opportunity. The presidential candidates -- or indeed President Bush in his remaining months -- should craft a strategy that ensures money and personnel for a civilian and military surge tailored to Afghanistan.

These two writers have little in common ideologically but they understand that a straight military solution is completely misguided. I think Stewart makes a lot more sense, having spent time in the country and having internalized its dynamics.

Of course, no discussion of Afghanistan can be divorced from Pakistan, where insurgents live and train and receive support from even the country's intelligence services. Robert Kaplan's piece in The Atlantic framed Pakistan's interest in Afghanistan in the proper context of a larger struggle with India. This also argues against additional troops, as the politics are far more substantial that two brigades can counteract. The new secular government has paid lip service to rooting Taliban sympathizers out of the ISI and against to prevent safe havens for insurgents along the border, but that is unlikely, to be honest.

The Bush administration and its allies are pressing Pakistan to end its support for Afghan insurgents linked to al Qaida, but Pakistani generals are unlikely to be swayed because they increasingly see their interests diverging from those of the United States, U.S. and foreign experts said [...]

"The fact that we're reduced to trying to send messages to the Pakistanis by putting stories in (newspapers) tells you we don't have any good options," said a former senior intelligence official knowledgeable about South Asia. "It also suggests that the high-level, face-to-face contacts haven't worked so far. The trouble is, these kinds of public threats are likely to backfire."

For one thing, the Taliban and other groups allied with al Qaida could respond to any Pakistani crackdown by stepping up attacks inside Pakistan, which is battling Islamic extremist violence, U.S. officials and experts said.

Furthermore, they said, Pakistan's nearly dysfunctional, feud-riddled civilian government has little power over the Army and the ISI. The latest evidence was a botched attempt under U.S. pressure to put the agency under the Interior Ministry before Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani's three-day visit to Washington this week.

Pakistani generals and other leaders are also infuriated by President Bush's pursuit of a strategic relationship with India, their foe in three wars, as embodied by a U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation pact that won United Nations approval Friday, the U.S. officials and experts said.

"One thing we never understood is that India has always been the major threat for Pakistan," said former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain, now the president of the Middle East Institute.

That is an almost unthinkably stupid statement, but it does seem to underline our missteps in the region.

Now, the fractious government does seem to be coming together around impeaching Pervez Musharraf, but that could only increase tensions with the military and lead to internal chaos, at which point they would be little help on the border.

Brian Katulis from CAP is really knowledgeable on this stuff, so his report on Pakistan is worth reading. The region is incredibly complex, with interlocking battles and jockeying for power that can be exploited by extremist elements. Our goal is to suck out the ability for those extremists to prosper, to the extent that we can. Bombing civilians doesn't help. Neither does antagonizing the Waziris. We need to get this right, but it's very precarious.

This is What "Regional Instability" Means

Dozens killed in 16 separate bombings in India. Two bombs in Turkey, reportedly set off by PKK rebels (many of whom operate in Iraqi Kurdistan, kill 16 and wound 150. The relative success or failure of the surge ought to be considered in a regional and global context. A non-functional government, a culture of violence and a maintenance of order through airstrikes which inflame local populations all contribute to world terrorism generally (and violence locally, even if the reporting is more sporadic).

If we continue to have foreign policy "experts" who think only about American interests with respect to Iraq, and then fail to actually understand American global interests when making those decisions, so blinded are they by the prospect of all those natural resources so ripe for the taking, we aren't going to solve these fundamental problems, and we will weaken our national security significantly.