Descend into the Maelstrom

Foreign policy is back in good hands again.  We are witnessing a veritable sea change in the way that America deals with the rest of the world, and it is long overdue.  An honest assessment of the dramatic moves being made by the new foreign policy establishment under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will show that America is finally on the path of responsible leadership that is becoming of our stature in the world.  I have long argued that America’s current position as the world’s lone superpower is stable but will not last forever; however what we do during this critical period will have repercussions around the world for many decades to come.   During this time it is important to portray confidence, not fear; understanding rather than “my way or the highway.”  The rest of the world is not inclined to be either “with us or against us” no matter what we do just because we are a superpower; they are with us if we lead by our shining example, and they will be against us if we are belligerent, unempathetic, and uncooperative. 

The narrow neoconservative views of the world we live in, espoused by George W. Bush and his friends who have fallen out of power, live on today in the form of angry attack dogs who have recently come out on the airwaves en masse to decry the sea change we are witnessing.  They are led by folks such as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, who whine that America is less safe today than during their tenure, when we actually happened to lose about 3,000 American lives on 9/11 on their watch and over 5,000 more Americans and 25,000 limbs on living soldiers in theaters of wars that they initiated.  In the world these people live in, most countries outside America are scary and evil and intent on destroying our way of life, and us.  Neoconservatives by and large successfully prey on the minds of American citizens who do not have a good understanding of history and culture outside of America’s.  Their solution to survival in the frightening world that they portray is to carry big guns and point them at everybody.

I’m not one to say that Latin or Asian dictators or Al-Qaeda terrorists or Somali pirates aren’t bad people; I just believe that Barack Obama understands these phenomena better than the neocon dunces do and concordantly, there are far better ways of dealing with these problems that we can now finally pursue.  Let’s sift through the action that’s in the headlines today and compare the points of view against the reality of the world we live in.  Because you aren’t going to get any dose of reality from these talking heads who have fallen from power, nor from their missile-humping minions such as Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. 

The torture memos.    Obama recently released memos describing the types of torture America committed against our prisoners under Bush.  He also announced that America would no longer engage in torture.  The ending of the practice of torture by our government is controversial for several reasons.  Throughout history, it has been commonly practiced by the law enforcement and national security apparatus of most countries around the world.  It achieves multiple purposes: (1) The extraction of sensitive information, which is why Bush enabled it in the post 9/11 world when much of America was busily peeing itself with fright.  (2) As a deterrent to would-be criminals or terrorists: if you know you’ll go to jail and get your skin slowly peeled off with a cheese grater, you might think twice about some nefarious act you are being asked to do.  (3) It demoralizes the resistance to your government. 

Let’s separate the hysteria from the facts.  (1) Extraction of information:  Abu Zubaydah was considered to be among Osama Bin Laden’s deputies, and he was caught during a dramatic shootout with the local troops in Pakistan.  When you grab hold of an extremely high-level terrorist target such as this, you know he has a ton of valuable information about how Al-Qaeda operates, as well as potential future attacks.  There was a choice to torture him or not torture him, and we decided to mess him up: he was water-boarded about 180 times according to the newly released memos.  He was subjected to exposure to nasty insects and “stress positions” such as being forced to stand in tiny closets.  If he spilled the beans, that’s all well and good.  However there has been no evidence presented of how torture was successfully used against Abu Zubaydah or ANYONE in the last eight years to make us safer.  The Bush administration just expected us to take their word for it.  Meanwhile the CIA, the armed forces, and numerous other agencies have conducted lots of studies on the effectiveness of torture to get information; the bottom line conclusion has consistently been that torture does not achieve valid results.  Victims of torture often tell interrogators what they want to hear, and not the truth.  There is a ton of evidence on this fact.   Since people like Cheney and Rove have never chosen to read this evidence, and have also never been water-boarded, they wouldn’t know that and their contention that this practice is effective is absurd.   (2) Rather than acting as a deterrent, there is overwhelming evidence that our use of inhumane tactics and incarceration of detainees in Guantanamo has grown the anti-America terrorist movement, as well as anti-US government sentiment within our own nation and among the citizenry of our staunchest allies. (3) Far from breaking the spirit of terrorists, our brand of incarceration and torture has been a rallying cry for Muslims the world over, and has converted normal people into terrorists.  Don’t take my word for it; statistics clearly demonstrate how Islamist movements have grown exponentially since 2001.

Mr. Cheney, if fueling the terrorist movement against us is your idea of making America safe, I’ll take being “less safe” any day.  Thank God we have now ended it.  All of this does not even touch on the fact that even the founding fathers of America considered torture to be morally reprehensible.  That is why the 8th Amendment to the Constitution states “there shall be no cruel or unusual punishment.”  Finally, if we do it ourselves, we have no legs to stand on if Americans are captured abroad by another government or non-state actor.  As McCain has said over and over, it exposes our own troops to grave danger.

The Chavez Handshake.  Right-wingers across the country are up in arms that Obama would dare shake the hand of the democratically elected President of Venezuela at a conference of American states.  Whether Chavez is a savory character or not, he is the leader of a nation that is close to us geographically, and is the fourth-biggest supplier of our oil and gas imports.  The conference they were at resulted in a foreign policy coup: the two nations have made overtures about re-instating embassies on one another’s soil.  This is an excellent development for many reasons.  Dialogue through diplomacy is an excellent way to achieve the common goals between any two nations.  Much of the business of international relations is conducted over bottles of whiskey shared in embassy meeting rooms between friends from different countries; these meetings have resulted in treaties that have improved the lives of millions of people.

The criticism of this positive moment from the right-wing is based on a larger narrative: that Obama is going to somehow lessen America’s standing in the world by opening up dialogue with leaders of rogue nations.  To the contrary, Obama’s confidence in America is strong enough that he is willing to speak to leaders of nations such as Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela even though their behavior has been troublesome in the past.  Obama recognizes that America is immensely powerul relative to these countries and does not face any sort of serious threat from any of them.  Standing in the world is not only a function of military might; it is also the product of the power of ideas.  By demonstrating that he is breaking from the past, when many nations felt that America was ignoring their interests, Obama is setting the stage for further cooperation.  Although we have not seen many tangible results yet, we are still in the early days of the administration.  The increased warmth towards Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America will help increase trade and goodwill between America and other countries.  It will also lead to the downfall of authoritarian and socialist regimes, which is good for America as well as the citizens of these nations.

Under Bush, who used the cold shoulder to deal with Latin American leaders, populist socialist movements thrived in multiple countries.  That is simply not in America’s interest.  Although we have yet to see if Obama’s administration can reverse this trend, it is always worth trying something new when old ideas have failed.  I challenge anyone to look at examples in history where opening up dialoge led to a dangerous outcome.  The classic example that is always brought up is European and American appeasement of Hitler during his rise.  That’s overdramatic and does not apply to any of today’s leaders.  The most dangerous among them is Kim Jong Il of North Korea.  He is only a threat if he is a suicidal maniac, which appears to be up for debate.  In extreme cases such as this, there is no easy answer on how to deal with them.  There are simply no good answers that any scholar has for conducting relations with a suicidal maniac.   

Our foreign policy must be shaped by an understanding of the forces behind rogue actors and how they gain power.  This understanding will be key toward dismantling the factors that allowed these rogue leaders and the movements behind them to establish a foothold.  The downfall of today’s conservatives is that they never like to look in the mirror and admit that America ever screwed up.  But America’s actions in the past were a strong impetus that helped create many of America’s worst headaches: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Al Qaeda, and even Saddam Hussein included.  On the other hand, the positive we have done for helping the world flourish far outweighs the effects of our mistakes.  Admitting that we have made mistakes in the past is the first step toward correcting them.  Now we can try to do some things differently, and better.  We are finally on the path of creative solutions once again with the scrapping of torture and the opening up of dialogue with the rest of the world.

A part of me derives great pleasure to witness the pathetic state of today’s Republican party and its American conservative movement in general.  After all, the Chicken-Hawk cabal of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and their minions achieved a nearly irreversible degree of damage to the state of the nation, both at home and abroad.  The unlikely victory of Barack Obama was entirely thanks to this dark period of the last 8 years.  The sound defeat of the party at many levels of government in 2008 restored my faith in the American citizenry’s ability to elect the right people into power at least when backed into a corner.  The mess we have inherited is so bad that it could take many years to restore America’s standing in the world.   For these reasons I was happy to say goodbye, and good riddance when large sections of the White House and Congress packed up their bags and left, hopefully to retire for good.

Another side of me recognizes that a failed Republican party is bad for the country.  I want to see the party come back, stronger than before led by politicians who have something to positive to offer the country.  We are a nation of checks and balances, and Washington functions best as a cauldron of competing ideas, especially in times of enormous crisis like today.  The Democratic party cannot have a monopoly on power and in fact is not capable of maintaining it anyway.  The necessary political equilibrium can only be achieved with a healthy intellectual ferment on both sides of the aisle.  Unfortunately, the Republican brand is currently an irrelevant horror show with the same tired old ideas at the forefront since the 1960’s.  The country has changed immensely and is in real danger of passing the Republicans by, especially when the party has lost sight of what its core values are supposed to be.  That is why disillusioned red-blooded conservatives such as Newt Gingrich have made noises about starting a third political party.

What went wrong in the party of Reagan?  2008 was a watershed year which will be remembered by liberals and conservatives alike as the turning point when Republicans completely lost their way.  There are plenty of reasons why. 

Leadership, anyone?  It will take mighty human beings to challenge the phenomenon of Barack Obama.   Despite all the criticism (and my documented bromance aside) Obama is a powerhouse of a politician who ran circles against all Democratic and Republican comers that already had clout and name recognition and millions of dollars while Barry O was still drinking in his college dormitory.  Critics also lose sight of the fact that by 2012 the economy WILL have improved on his watch, as will the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the simple reason that these problems cannot get any worse mathematically.  We have already spiralled to rock-bottom.  Guess who is going to get the credit for getting us out of it?  The Republicans are in serious danger of being completely irrelevant to this recovery, which could set them back a decade.  So let’s get started on the Rogue’s Gallery.

Michael Steele - The Republican party is so behind the times and reactionary that they cannot seem to put forward their token minority or women candidates for office until they realize how popular the Democratic one is.  Every one of these conservative tokens has been in haplessly over their heads.  Barack Obama running for an Illinois Senate in 2004?  Let’s get a Reagan old salt, Alan Keyes, who’s not even from Illinois, to run against him!  Hillary Clinton got 18 million primary votes?  Let’s dispatch Sarah Palin to mop up those disenfrachised women!  The Democrats got a black guy elected?  Let’s make our own leading black politician the new face of the Republican party as the RNC Chairman!  There is too long a list of mistakes made by Steele to note here.  Let me just hazard a guess that his concept of enlisting hip-hop music to garner black voters is as tone-deaf as Washington ideas come.  That’s saying a great deal.  The RNC is utterly rudderless.

Sarah Palin.  Thank you, Sarah; for not reading about the same issues that you are running on as a Vice Presidential candidate.  For not knowing how to run a competent PAC.  For not knowing that cities are part of the “real America” too.  For blaming your foibles on the media.  For running as a “maverick” when your political strategies are culled from a tired Republican playbook.  I hope that you run in 2012; you are obviously a front-runner in your party and Charlie, you do fire ‘em up, Charlie.

Dick Cheney.  Please go away, sir.  Go back to the (Jackson) Hole in Wyoming you came from and enjoy retirement.  How DARE you emerge during a fledgling administration that was legitimately elected and say that it is making America less safe by dismantling policies that have threatened our security?  When your incompetence allowed 9/11 to happen; when you failed to secure victory in Iraq and Afghanistan; and when you have helped lower our standing in the world by running your own shadow government that steamrolled the appointed government apparatus?  When your Chief of Staff was indicted for outing a CIA official?  Your words are not only in bad taste, they are downright dangerous.  You had your chance to protect America, and you failed.  Be a man and let your legacy speak for itself.

The pundits.  I am struck by the dearth of good ideas coming out of conservative so-called intellectuals and other right-wing media figures these days.  Histrionic cries of how we are turning socialist, about taxes being too high, about how we’re spending too much on domestic programs and not enough on defense, how abortion and stem cell research and gay marriage are ruining our society, and whining about Obama’s warmth towards Europe would carry more weight if they mattered in today’s society.   Evidence is piling up that the world has moved on since these issues were actually relevant.  Obama is an attractive target for this gang, but there are no good alternatives being offered that I can see.  It is very telling to listen to figures such as Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, or John Bolton with their righteous anger.  They are understandably angry that their side has lost, but if they are to lead the intellectual ferment of the Republicans, God save the party. 

So what’s needed?  I believe that you need a new generation of smart young people to take control of the ship who grew up sometime after the 60’s and care about things that matter to conservatism’s core: most importantly, real and sensible conservative fiscal policy as opposed to the lip service paid throughout the 2000’s.  This will be the most important role of the new Republican party; everything else on the RNC platform appears to be either indistinguishable from the left, or bankrupt.  If you know of any impressive Repblican leaders, I’d love to hear about them.  Because I don’t see this new leadership ANYWHERE on the horizon.  And I’m desperate to find it.  It’s unfortunate that the party will have to go digging in Barack Obama’s scraps.

During the early stages of the presidential campaign in 2007, my older and wiser friend Richard told me that the reason I was so enamored of Barack Obama was my emotional connection to him.  I argued back that my support was related strictly to his policies. 

Several years later I was able to admit to Richard, and more importantly myself, that he was right in a sense.  Obama and I do have a number of things in common which have endeared me to him- some of which may be considered to be throwaway coincidences on their own, but as an aggregate I find them to be interesting.  Here are some of them that I can think of.  It’s not as uncanny as the Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences but it’s all true.

Our early lives have some interesting parallels.  While growing up, Obama was often an outsider or even what I call “double outsider”- where he was in the minority or even super-minority.  Like my parents, Obama’s mother loved to travel from country to country and learn about new cultures.

- Obama was among the few black kids in Hawaii with parentage from another country- Kenya in his case, India in mine.  During my childhood in Indiana I was among the small handful of Indians in my town.

- Obama spent four years from age 6-10 in the world’s largest Muslim nation, Indonesia.  I spent four years from age 7-11 in the world’s original Muslim nation- Saudi Arabia.  So he was a Kenyan-American in Indonesia, and I was an Indian-American in Saudi Arabia- this is what I mean by double outsider.  Like he is, I’m highly thankful for this chance to understand Islamic life from an outside perspective, to play or go to school with the local kids and understand how much we actually had in common.

- Obama has made Illinois his home.  I lived in Illinois briefly during middle school (okay, tenuous).  However we both have that midwestern accent, and I like to think, charm.

- In high school, Obama worked at a Baskin-Robbins ice cream store for pocket money.  I also scooped ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins for pocket money during high school.  My shop had 36 flavors technically, not 31.  I ate way too many sundaes during this period, to the point where I smelled like ice cream from my pores.

-  Obama went to an East Coast college and majored in International Relations, with a focus on nuclear weapons proliferation which he wrote his thesis on.  I went to an East Coast college and majored in International Relations, writing my thesis on nuclear weapons proliferation.  Neither of us were exactly honor students either.

- Obama had a Pakistani roommate in college.  I had a Pakistani roommate in college too.  Obama went on a trip to Pakistan with his buddy; I’d love to visit mine there one day soon. 

-  Obama spent the early years of his young adulthood in New York City.  I have spent my 20’s in New York City.  This amazing experience no doubt shapes a person’s worldview as much as anything else.

- I’ve uh, been to Kenya, and uh, so has Obama to visit his relatives (very tenuous, I know).

- Obama has been known to carry a Hanuman trinket, or a small idol of the Hindu monkey God which has excited Hindus the world over and was considered to give him a lot of power by many Indians.  I always have different forms of Hanuman on me: pictures in my wallet, or a small idol on my chain.  I don’t make too much of this, but most Indians who know about this fact do.

- We have just about the same skin complexion.   Inconsequential, yet interesting when you consider he is the first one of our skin color to get into the White House.

- Although Obama is a politician and dedicated his adult life to public service, including many years at the local level, he made his big bucks as a writer.  His books made him a millionaire.  I’ve been in public service all of my adult life at the local level, and I do write some stuff (at least you’re reading this!) and am also hoping to publish professionally.  Can’t speak to the big bucks just yet.

- Obama ended up marrying someone from his background: a pretty African American named Michelle, though there was no indication this was a done deal from his earlier life around people of mostly different backgrounds.  In June I am marrying a pretty Indian girl, after many years of never being sure I’d do this either.  Both spouses seem inclined to put their mate in their place.

-  Obama’s positions on foreign policy are nearly mirror-images of mine; if I were much more intelligent and well-read, I would say some of the same things he says.  This, most of all, has shaped my admiration for this man.  He was against the Iraq invasion, he wants to shut down Guantanamo, he wants to draw down our nuclear arsenal, he believes America should listen more, and the list goes on.  I always remember what David Letterman said after interviewing Obama last year: “What an intelligent guy.  He could do what I do in a heartbeat; but I could never do what he does.”

So go ahead, make fun of my “BrOmance” if you will; just don’t be jealous that you can’t say that you have as much in common with our president as I do.  I’ll freely admit that someone with this background being in the White House excites me, perhaps to a worrying degree.  And with the hiring of actor Kal Penn yesterday to the White House, there is a pretty cool Indian-American in Obama’s circle.  Can’t pretend that I’m not excited to hear that.