Impossible to win in Afghanistan: Q&A on failed nation building and Taliban

Gordon L. Weil

The Twenty-Year War is ending with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

But America’s longest ever war cannot simply be understood by the evacuation from Kabul.  Here are key questions about this wasteful conflict that can help put the war in perspective.

Why did the U.S. go to war in Afghanistan?  After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the headquarters of the terrorist group Al Qaeda was found there, sheltered by the Taliban, religious zealots who ruled most of the country. The U.S. went in to stamp out Al Qaeda, which required ending Taliban control.

Did the U.S. mission change?  President George W. Bush committed U.S. forces without defining the conditions under which they would leave. Though he had said he opposed “nation building,” that’s just what the U.S. tried to do.  Under four presidents, it failed.

Could Afghanistan be turned into “a stable and open” society?  It has never been a unified country, but had been ruled by regional warlords.  The Soviet Union had failed to govern it and withdrew.  Even legendary novelist Rudyard Kipling had revealed how ungovernable and divided it was.

Why couldn’t the U.S. defeat the Taliban?  The Talibs have had a long history in Afghanistan and knew they could wait out the Americans.  Long ago, British statesman Winston Churchill wrote about their entrenched power.  They could endlessly develop and deploy home-grown terrorism to dominate most areas of the country.

Why couldn’t the new government in Kabul take control?   It was riddled by corruption and incompetence.  While it represented an attempt to graft Western values onto local roots, it lacked broad popular support.  It was simply an overlay on historic tribal and Taliban structures.

Also, it was an economic failure. It depended on suitcases of American dollars flown in regularly.  In contrast, the Taliban economy is based on opium sales and few public services, notably schools.

Why did the U.S. and its European allies remain there?  The goal was to prevent the growth of new terrorist bases in the country.  There was progress toward that objective so long as Western troops were on the ground. But terrorism had grown up elsewhere, and it was impractical to keep troops everywhere it might occur.

What about women in Afghan society?  The Taliban suppressed virtually all women’s rights. So long as it did not control the country, those rights could develop and did.  But the society itself did not come to value those rights enough to resist the Taliban after the U.S. troops were withdrawn.

Could the U.S. have struck a deal with the Taliban?  It tried direct talks, even excluding the Kabul government it had fostered. That alone must have sent a message that only the U.S. stood between the people and the Taliban.   Knowing they could outwait the Americans, the Taliban never would make a deal.

Why did the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan?  It cost too much.  Funds that could have gone to meet urgent domestic needs poured continuously into the country.  Even more important, it cost the lives of Americans and others without producing the desired result.

Both Donald Trump, during his presidency, and President Joe Biden read the message from the American people that Afghanistan meant little when compared with the sacrifice, and it was time to leave. Some generals seemed to have a hard time accepting the failure and favored staying.

Why is the withdrawal a chaotic crisis?  Biden thought the government would fall to the Taliban, but that it might save key cities, resulting in a settlement of sorts.  He believed a gradual withdrawal would be possible by continued government control for a limited period.  In effect, the U.S. bought its own propaganda about the Kabul government.

Biden’s policy was based on this faulty assumption, which provided an overly optimistic view of the country’s support for the government without U.S. military backing.  He failed to order a withdrawal of diplomats and other civilians in line with the troop drawdown. This was a serious and costly error.

What about Afghans who helped the U.S.?  Biden says they will be helped to leave the country. But it would be naïve to believe that all Afghans seeking U.S. help themselves helped the U.S. Some opportunistically chose a side; some simply see a way out to the West.  Those left behind will undoubtedly survive as an American political issue.

Is all lost despite the effort?  Russia and China are not likely to do better than previous outside powers in this failed country.  The U.S. has learned a lot about the country and can use air strikes to damage terrorist bases as they develop.  In the end, the U.S. dollar might have greater long-term influence on the Afghan economy than U.S. troops had on its governance.

  

Census shows demographics favor Democrats, but GOP resists change

Gordon L. Weil

America’s worst kept secret just came out.

It’s the Census, mandated by the Constitution to be conducted every ten years to set the number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives each state gets.  Its purpose is political, and the pundits are now having a fine time with it.

It’s a poorly kept secret because it has become easier to keep track of the population annually.   This time, it confirmed some of what we already knew, but provided at least three results that caught new attention.

The country had previously recognized that the non-white population is growing faster than the white population.  The clear message is that at some point in the next 20 to 30 years, the majority in the U.S. will be non-white.

The surprise this year was that, for the first time in U.S. history, there were fewer whites than at the last count, not merely a smaller percentage.  A lower birth rate, an aging population and fewer European immigrants brought the change. The non-white American majority will develop sooner than expected.

Even Maine, while remaining the whitest state, is showing signs of change as its minority population has begun growing faster.

Race designations in the Census result are the choice of each individual respondent.  A surprise this year was sharp growth among people who classified themselves as being of mixed origins. 

Intermarriage between people from different ethnic groups has become more common and more accepted.  Though they may have called themselves Black, both former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamela Harris could have chosen the multiple race category.

The third fact revealing change is the movement of people out of rural America to metropolitan areas.  Many big cities are growing, while small towns are declining.  Cities have more diverse populations, while rural areas have been overwhelmingly white.

In Maine, without big cities, the major urban areas have gained while rural counties have either lost population or have experienced relatively small growth. 

A widely accepted article of truth is that non-whites will predominantly be Democrats, while whites, especially those in rural America, are Republicans. That belief has led to the conclusion that country will move toward the community-oriented politics of urban Democrats and away from rural GOP conservative individualists.

Whether that thesis is true remains to be seen.  As non-whites gain increased prosperity, promised by the “American dream,” the question may be whether they change their politics as they expand their pocketbooks.

So why is a shift to the Democrats assumed?  To a considerable degree, the answer may come from the Republican Party.   At the moment, it is trying to construct political obstacles to minimize the effects of the inevitable change in the ethnic make-up of the population and block Democratic control.

The GOP tool is voter suppression.  Where Republicans now control state governments, they are passing laws making election access more complicated.  They see their traditional white supporters as being more likely to show up at the polling place than are newer, minority voters. Measures to ease voting like longer voting periods or mail-in ballots are being curtailed.

In addition, the GOP uses congressional and state legislative redistricting powers to draw specially designed districts that can produce the smallest number of Democratic legislators.  Through such gerrymandering, they can prolong their control.  That allows time to adopt laws and rules that may be difficult to topple if the Democrats gain control.

In short, the Republicans are attempting to extend their reach far into the future even as power may be slipping away from them.  They seek to delay Democrats gaining political control even as the number of non-white voters increases.

Whether this policy makes sense could be questionable.  It’s possible that some non-white voters are not natural Democrats, but resent GOP efforts to minimize their influence. In effect, the Republicans are inviting them to choose the Democrats.

Too much attention can be paid to what the Census reveals. Two other key factors don’t show up in its count, and they both seem to help the Democrats.

The increased participation of African-Americans in the electoral process shows the Obama elections were not passing events.  Two Georgia Senate races this year elected Democrats in what was a solidly GOP state, thanks to efforts to increase Black voting.  In the face of voter later suppression efforts there, the Democrats have to find ways to keep that happening.

The other change is the participation of women voters.  The major news is that white women are no longer voting similarly to white men. Their participation has grown with their independence.  The GOP has apparently ignored that change.

Political change is coming. The Census and related trends reveal that it may come sooner than 

Infrastructure bill depends on smoke and mirrors, but must bring tax increase

 

Gordon L. Weil

The U.S. Senate is lying to you (and possibly to itself).  Maybe it’s in a good cause, but it’s still a lie. 

The intentional falsehood is that the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill can be financed without raising taxes.

Its use of smoke and mirrors could help explain why people don’t trust government, an unfortunate sentiment when, at the same time, it’s urging you to get a Covid-19 vaccination.

About half the money for the bill will come from unspent funds previously allocated for coronavirus recovery.  But the rest must come from newly identified revenues.  The bipartisan backers of the bill have created some funding sources that don’t pass the straight-face test.

When Congress comes up with new spending, it must go to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for a forecast of the effect of the proposal on the economy and the federal budget.  The CBO found the infrastructure bill undershot the needed revenues by $256 billion.

That means the Senate compromise failed to provide enough money to pay for its outlays. The result must be an increase in the federal debt, but the bill contains no payments for debt service.  The senators have wishfully assumed enough future economic growth to produce tax revenues that would cover the budget gap

Two of the bill’s key sponsors dismissed the CBO’s expert analysis, saying its rules limited it from considering the pie-in-the-sky accounting they use.  They simply ignored the fact that Congress had created the CBO to avoid just that kind of speculation. Several other independent reviews had come up with results like the CBO’s.

Why are some of the deal-making senators, a group that includes Maine’s Susan Collins, so willing to promote obvious “budgetary gimmicks” in light of the CBO’s official role in forecasting?  Politics.

Donald Trump, hailed for keeping his promises as president, had said he would come up with a $1 trillion infrastructure program, but did nothing. That inaction left Americans increasingly tired of potholes, crumbling bridges, inadequate telecommunications and other weak elements of the physical backbone of the country. 

President Joe Biden and the Senate dealmakers said they would do what Trump had promised.  It should make Biden and the Democrats more popular.  It could help some Republicans meet an urgent public need, possibly putting space between them and Trump, who now opposes the deal, mainly because it helps Biden.

This is a rare case where good policy and good politics exist for both sides and they could make a bipartisan deal.

The main opposition comes from most Senate Republicans.  They would accept a smaller bill using only what is already available from unspent funds and limited to items like roads and bridges.  That position insulates them from the sham revenue forecast, but falls far short of the need.

The alternative to the unfounded projections of new tax revenues from future economic growth is raising federal revenues.  A major new source of funding could have come from getting people to pay income taxes they owe rather than, well, cheating.  To do that would require strengthening the IRS.

It would seem difficult to oppose adding federal revenues by collecting taxes already due.  That’s not a tax increase, though some taxpayers would pay more.  But the Republicans refused to include measures to improve IRS tax collection, confirming the favorable GOP tax treatment of the richest Americans.

Paul Krugman, a Nobel-prize winning economist who’s now a liberal New York Times columnist, approves of using “smoke and mirrors,” because of the critical need, even if that really requires more borrowing.  Interest rates are now so low it won’t cost much, he claims. The declining value of the dollar and economic growth will allow future taxpayers easily to cover the cost.

The main problem in justifying the cost is that its advocates rely heavily on their own forecasts of congressional behavior, the economy and tax revenues.  Just two years ago, nobody could have forecast the impact of Covid-19 on the national debt.  Nor do we know what will happen in 2025 when personal income tax rates are supposed to increase.

Basing budget planning on wishful thinking is not the best way to run a government. But it may be the best way to make people believe, at least for one election cycle, that they can have something for nothing.

In the end, all government spending depends on taxes.  Taxpayers ultimately pay for debt.  But the U.S. now has an almost religious dislike of tax increases, even on the most wealthy.  Yet that’s just what’s required – now or later.

Even if it’s later, it will be a big bill. As the late Everett Dirksen, the GOP Senate leader, once supposedly quipped, “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

Both Dems, GOP split in two as they seek big 2022 wins

Gordon L. Weil

It’s fascinating to watch a big-time gambler in high stakes games.  The risks are great, but the pay-off could be huge.

This week’s news reveals the high roller is Donald Trump.  Using remarkable appeal to raise cash, he has staked himself to over $100 million to spend in political games.  The games are the 2022 congressional elections.

Besides Trump, the other players are President Joe Biden’s mainline Democrats, the traditional Republicans and the Democratic progressives, the party’s most liberal element.

The games will decide who controls Congress.  They could show if Trump’s election and GOP takeover was an aberration or if Biden’s victory was a fluke. In either case, they might set the new normal in American politics for a few years.

Trump Republicans seek authoritarian presidential rule that produces powerful leadership at the expense of popular democracy. That type of government can produce change more easily than the intentionally inefficient democratic process.  That’s why Trump retains political appeal.

The temptation for the Trumpers is to oppose anything the Democrats propose.  As part of the Trump gamble, they even blame the January 6 insurrection on the Democrats. 

If Trump succeeds, he will not only change American government, but would likely destroy the traditional Republican Party.  He may have been a RINO – Republican in Name Only – but he would have stolen the party.

Trump’s GOP deploys voter suppression measures in some states to keep likely Democratic voters from easy access to the polls.  Across the country, Republican dominated state governments are hard at work passing restrictive voting laws using the thin excuse of improving ballot security.

Beyond that, Trump’s millions flow to his favored candidates.  If elected, they can flip Congress back from Democratic to Republican, proving that Biden and the Democrats are the aberration.  Even a thin margin of victory could pave the way to Trump’s run for the presidency two years later.

The first test for Trump comes in the party primaries.  He wants to scare away GOP candidates who are not Trumpers.  Failing that, he tries to tip the vote to his favorites by pumping up their campaigns, enabling them to reach more voters.

In a GOP primary for a safe Republican seat in Ohio this week, Trump’s cash created the frontrunner, who won. He defeated a crowded field of traditional conservatives, though he fell far short of an outright majority. The turnout was light, but Trump’s strategy worked.

Even if Congress hedges its bets and reaches some compromises this year, the battle lines for next year remain. One major question is where do anti-Trump Republicans like Wyoming’s Liz Cheney or Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski end up?  Both are up for reelection next year.

Biden has been trying to undermine Trump’s appeal to alienated voters through massive government programs designed to produce benefits for them. Much of the spending in his array of proposals will end up in visible, local projects. That’s pragmatic politics.

In another Ohio primary this week for a safe Democratic seat, the candidates included a Biden-style practical politician and an outspoken progressive promoter of universal health insurance.   The pragmatic candidate defeated the progressive, gaining a clear majority. But the margin was small with a good turnout.

If the progressives lose their challenges to Biden’s more centrist policies, they face the question of sticking to their beliefs, sitting out the elections, and risking GOP control.  Otherwise, they will have to endorse Biden’s plans for political survival and hope for another chance.

For the Democrats finally to end Trump’s influence, they have to win big. To prove they are the new normal, the Democrats would have to overcome the traditional loss of seats by the president’s party in the mid-term elections.

That will take a lot of cash and a strong effort to get out their voters and work around voter suppression.  They could make a last push for the national popular vote. If they win only by squeaking by narrowly in 2022, they remain in jeopardy for the presidential election. If they lose, Biden’s last two years could be a bust.

Biden needs to keep the Democratic progressives involved and supportive.  The Democrats – establishment and progressives – know how to raise money.  Ultimately the question must be if they can pool it to counter Trump’s millions.

In Maine, a similar situation exists. The traditional GOP has been weakened, and it looks like the Republican Party lines up for Trumpian former Gov. Paul LePage.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, could be somewhat undermined by a public power referendum, which she is likely to oppose.  With no ranked choice voting for governor, she has to worry about the possibility of a vote-splitting independent challenger.

No need to proclaim “Let the games begin.”  They have.

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