ThinkProgress Logo

Security

Matthew Hoh: ‘I Firmly Believe That We Are Taking Part In A Civil War’ In Afghanistan

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 2, 2009 at 9:00 pm

Last week, former Marine captain and State Department employee Matthew Hoh made headlines when he went public with his resignation from the administration over his opposition to the continuation of the war in Afghanistan. In a four-page letter he sent to the State Department, he explained his resignation by writing that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan serves to “bolster a failing state, while encouraging an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by [the Afghan] people.”

This past Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Hoh about his views on the war. During one segment of the interview, Zakaria asked Hoh why he feels the U.S. should begin to draw down its troops from the country. Hoh replied that he doesn’t see the Afghan conflict as one between the U.S. and the Taliban, but rather as a 35-year long “civil war” between rural Pashtuns “who want to be left alone” and an urban government the U.S. is backing:

HOH: I firmly believe that we are taking part in a civil war. We are on the same side of the civil war that the Soviets intervened on.

ZAKARIA: So, you have a divide among the Pashtuns. There’s the urban middle class. And Karzai, presumably, who is a Pashtun, comes from this urban middle class.

HOH: Correct.

ZAKARIA: Many of them left the country after the — during the years of the civil war. And the ones who have stayed to fight, who fought the Soviet Union and who are now fighting us, are the rural, mountain tribe Pashtuns who resent the central government and its intrusions.

HOH: Who want to be left alone.

Watch it:

Hoh also told Zakaria that he thinks keeping 60,000 troops in Afghanistan is detrimental to U.S. security. “Occupying a location only provides justification and only lends credence to the goals of that organization,” he said. “It only inspires young Muslim men to defend their culture against an occupying army, which is what we are.”

When the CNN host asked Hoh why he was speaking out, the former State Department employee cited support from two groups: Afghan Americans and U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan. “I’ve had a lot of Afghan-Americans contact me and say, ‘Matt, you get it,’” Hoh told Zakaria. “I’ve gotten many e-mails from guys [serving] in Afghanistan…men and women who are saying, ‘Matt, thanks for doing this.’”

Update

Last month, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) spoke at an event sponsored by Brave New Films’ “Rethink Afghanistan” project. Grayson told the audience that he’s been to 175 countries and that he has come to the conclusion that the best foreign policy is to “leave people alone,” echoing Hoh’s comments on Afghanistan:

Related Posts

Politics

Senate GOP embrace Inhofe’s boycott of Clean Energy Jobs Act.

By Brad Johnson on Nov 2, 2009 at 7:30 pm

Inhofe
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK)

Senate Republicans have endorsed Sen. Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) plan to boycott the legislative markup of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S. 1733), scheduled to begin tomorrow. Inhofe’s GOP compatriots on the environment committee hope to block action by refusing to participate in the markup on the pretext that the Enviromental Protection Agency’s economic analysis of the bill is not “complete.” In a letter sent to committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA), ranking member Inhofe and his counterparts on five other committees said any attempt to begin the markup before acceding to his demands “would severely damage” its chances for passage:

We understand that there may be an attempt to report S. 1733 from the Committee not only without a satisfactory analysis, but also without sufficient opportunity to address the bipartisan concerns raised over the course of legislative hearings on the measure. As we are sure you will understand, from our viewpoint, such an approach would severely damage, rather than help, the chances of enacting changes to our nation’s climate and energy policies.

The signatories are the top Republicans on the six Senate committees that will consider this legislation — environment, energy, agriculture, commerce, foreign relations, and finance. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX, ), like Inhofe, flatly deny the reality of climate change. However, several of the signatories have claimed concern about the threat of global warming — Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Dick Lugar (R-IN), who in 2006 warned of the “significant long-term risks to the economy and the environment of the United States from the temperature increases and climatic disruptions that are projected to result from increased greenhouse gas concentrations.” Evidently their commitment to partisan obstruction is greater than their concern for the future of the nation.

Download the letter here.

Update

The Sierra Club has posted the “Top Ten Excuses for not showing up for work on the Clean Energy Jobs bill.”


Update

,According to a Washington Times newsletter, Boxer has extended the amendment deadline to Tuesday night, and will hold off on the markup of the legislation, saying:

We’re going to be very patient. We’re going to wait for them to come. We’re going to sit there every day and ask them to please come back to the table. We’re not going to rush this through because we don’t think that would be the right thing to do.

Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 2, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Well the bum is talkin’ battle to the first man that he sees:

— Lawrence Wright on Gaza.

— Can you make Afghanistan work while ignoring national governance issues? Survey says no you can’t.

— Jeffrey Goldberg is dodging the substance of the issue with regard to these attacks on NIAC.

— Obama is accomplish more than people generally realize.

— Afghanistan is very different from France.

— Scozzofava doing robocalls for Owens.

Check out King Khan & BBQ Show with “Fish Fight”.

Politics

Why Hatch Is Really Blocking Health Reform: Americans Will Love The New System And Vote Democratic

By Amanda Terkel on Nov 2, 2009 at 6:00 pm

In a new interview with CNS News, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) repeated his concern that requiring Americans to purchase health insurance is unconstitutional. Hatch offered typical run-of-the-mill conservative arguments about “socialized medicine.” But at one point, he let it slip that the real reason he is trying to stop health care reform is that the American public might really like it and therefore vote for Democrats:

HATCH: That’s their goal. Move people into government that way. Do it in increments. They’ve actually said it. They’ve said it out loud.

Q: This is a step-by-step approach —

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, “All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.”

Q: They’ll have reduced the American people to dependency on the federal government.

HATCH: Yeah, you got that right. That’s their goal. That’s what keeps Democrats in power.

Watch it (at approx. 19:50):

A scenario whereby the two-party system is abolished because of government-run health care is unlikely at best. Republicans were also fear-mongering about the “socialized” system that became Medicare. In 1961, Ronald Reagan stated:

[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Republicans, of course, have had no problem getting elected with Medicare in place, and they now wholeheartedly support the program (recognizing that it’s popular with American seniors). For months, it’s been clear that electoral considerations are behind the GOP’s efforts to block reform. In July, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that if they could “stall” or “block” any legislation, it would be a “huge gain” for the 2010 elections.

In June, President Obama pointed out Republican’s illogical opposition to a public plan, saying that if government-run health care will really be as bad as they say it will be, how could it “drive” private insurers out of business anyway?

Update

Atrios sums up what Hatch is saying: “Orrin Hatch says we can’t have health care reform because it will be awesome and everyone will love it and they’ll be so grateful that they will vote for Democrats for all eternity.”


Update

,Steve Benen also notes that Hatch isn’t just against “socialized medicine,” since he has “suggested he’d oppose health care reform whether the provision [public option] is in the bill or not.”

Economy

Shiller: Income Inequality Is A Problem That Could Be ‘Bigger Than This Whole Financial Crisis’

By Pat Garofalo on Nov 2, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Yesterday, economist Robert Shiller — co-creator of the Case-Shiller housing price index and a professor at Yale — appeared on CNN to discuss Wall Street’s bonus bonanza and its implications for economic policy. Shiller is of the opinion that the bonuses are indicative of America’s greater problems with income inequality, which he feels will be become “bigger than this whole financial crisis” if left unaddressed:

To me, I would hope that this would spur public discussion about the structural problem that inequality, economic inequality, has been worsening in the United States and in other countries for 30 years. And it’s gotten really — especially at the high end — it’s gotten really off…This, I think, is potentially the big problem which is bigger than this whole financial crisis. If these trends that we’ve seen for 30 years now in inequality continue for another 30 years, we’re going to look like — it’s going to create resentment and hostility. It’s not a country that — we could turn into a country that even the rich would rather not be in. [...]

And I think we ought to think about — I have a proposal. I’ve talked about this in my other, some of my books. I have proposed that the government should index the tax system to inequality.

Watch it:

The income gap in America is at an all-time high, with the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans earning 11.4 times the amount made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008. And most of that wealth is concentrated at the very top, as between 1979 and 2006, the inflation-adjusted after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households increased by 256 percent (compared to 21 percent for families in the middle income quintile and 11 percent for the bottom). In 2007, the last year for which data is available, executives and other highly compensated employees received more than one-third of all pay in the U.S.

As The New York Times’ David Leonhardt pointed out, in recent years “the wealthy have received both the largest pretax raises and the largest tax cuts.” Under Shiller’s “Rising Tide Tax System,” tax rates would “automatically adjust along with levels of income inequality.” If the incomes of the middle class and the poor were growing faster than those of the rich, tax rates on the rich would fall. If the incomes of the rich were growing faster, their tax rates would rise.

I don’t see much of a chance of anything resembling Shiller’s plan making an appearance in Congress anytime soon. However, the surtax in the House’s health reform bill — which is still causing all manner of consternation — would help to address some of the inequality, by increasing taxes on the very wealthiest to pay, in part, for a bill that would rein in health care costs for everybody.

Yglesias

Celebrating 120 Years of North Dakota

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm

North_Dakota_state_seal

States of America. Given that more people live in Memphis, TN than North Dakota it might seem unfair that this large and essentially empty patch of land gets two senators. When you consider that even mighty South Dakota has fewer people than Jacksonville, Florida and that the two states combined contain considerably fewer people than live in Queens or the Virginia Beach / Norfolk / Newport News metro area then it starts to seem even stranger that there are actually two Dakotas. Why would you do it that way?

The answer, it turns out, is cynical partisan politics. The Dakota Territory was extremely favorable to the Republican Party, so the GOP made it into two states.

Politics

Rep. Steve King is open to running for president but not yet making plans: ‘It is flattering.’

By Amanda Terkel on Nov 2, 2009 at 5:20 pm

A few weeks ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that while she wasn’t considering a run for president, she was very interested in seeing the “stunning” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as a candidate. “I have a very high opinion of Steve King and his ability, so I would encourage him to consider any position for higher office,” she said. In a new interview with the Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV, King refused to say that he was interested in running, but also refused to rule it out:

KING: It is flattering, and I am stunned. … Here’s what I’d like to do, and that is be engaged in the national debate. I want to lay out the parameters on what we need to do to refurbish the pillars of American exceptionalism. We’ve got to have a vision, and it needs to be offered by more than one person. And I’d like to see a number of candidates who are able to articulate the vision, sort those visions, bring the best one forward. We’re going to need a lot of help in 2012, and being in Iowa, from Iowa, representing Congress in a strong district in Iowa, gives me a platform to be able to articulate those arguments, and I intend to do that.

And we’ll see what happens, but I’m making no plans to run for president. I didn’t make any plans to run for Congress either, and so – I’ve long surpassed my personal aspirations, and I just count it as a blessing to be able to engage in this debate.

Watch it:

(HT: Iowa Independent)

Related Posts

Security

‘Prissy Schoolmarm’s Lips’

By Matt Duss on Nov 2, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Rachel Abrams, The Weekly Standard’s Meir Kahane Writing Fellow, manages to mix sexism and racism into her carefully considered analysis of the Obama administration’s climbdown on settlements:

“Palestinian” “leaders” are afloat in a sea of anti-Zionism and self-pity so deep and so wide, so intractable and so paralyzing, they have made bedfellows — odd as they may be — of Bibi Netanyahu and the U.S. secretary of state. Only a few months ago Mrs. Clinton was pursing her prissy schoolmarm’s lips at the Israeli prime minister over even the minimal “natural growth” of settlements; today she is using those same lips to hail his moratorium on new construction — a considerable compromise — as “unprecedented”.

See, Abrams puts Palestinian in quotes because she doesn’t believe the Palestinians really exist as a people, and thus they have no claim to Palestine, and thus no reason to complain when Israel steals Palestinian water and land for settlements. This was a big Israeli propaganda talking point back in the day. It’s discredited now, but still an article of faith for certain elements of the Israeli hard right.

As for Secretary Clinton’s “prissy schoolmarm’s lips,” I suppose I could feign surprise that The Weekly Standard would publish such stuff, but who would be fooled?

Yglesias

Family Structure, Inequality, and Opportunity

By Matthew Yglesias on Nov 2, 2009 at 4:46 pm

There’s no doubt that shifts in family structure play a role in both inequality and in its inter-generational transmission. The gap in resources (but in terms of money, social capital, and parental attention) available to a child of two high-earning professionals, and those available to a kid raised by a lone working-class mom is much bigger than the gap that would exist if the inequality in earnings weren’t intensified by the difference in family structure.

That said, it was strange to read this from Sawhill & Haskins:

Actually, some other advanced economies offer more opportunity than ours does. For example, recent research shows that in the Nordic countries and in the United Kingdom, children born into a lower-income family have a greater chance than those in the United States of forming a substantially higher-income family by the time they’re adults. [...]

[A] more important reason for our lack of progress against poverty and our growing inequality is a dramatic change in American family life. Almost 30 percent of children now live in single-parent families, up from 12 percent in 1968. Since poverty rates in single-parent households are roughly five times as high as in two-parent households, this shift has helped keep the poverty rate up; it climbed to 13.2 percent last year. If we had the same fraction of single-parent families today as we had in 1970, the child poverty rate would probably be about 30 percent lower than it is today.

Now guess where they have more single-parent families than the United States?

Among 14 countries analyzed in the report by the National Center for Health Statistics, the percentage of all live unmarried births in the USA — 40% in 2007 — ranks somewhere in the middle. That’s up from 18% in 1980. The sharpest rise was from 2002 to 2007, the report found. Countries with a higher proportion of births to unmarried mothers include Iceland, Sweden, Norway, France, Denmark and the United Kingdom; countries with a lower percentage than the USA include Ireland, Germany, Canada, Spain, Italy and Japan.

marriage

Now I can think of some reasons you might say that notwithstanding the success the Nordic countries have had in creating a low-inequality, high-opportunity society despite low marriage rates that marriage promotion policies are still the right solution for the United States. But it does seem to me that if you’re going to write about why the U.S. falls short of Nordic levels of inequality, you can’t just turn around and start talking about marriage without even mentioning actual out-of-wedlock birthrates in Nordic countries. “We should have really high taxes like Denmark” is not a great political slogan for an American politician, but the facts are what they are—high opportunity countries are also highly egalitarian countries, and highly egalitarian countries get that way largely through high taxes and high levels of social services.

Update

It’s worth being clear that a big part of the issue here is that in the Nordic countries it’s quite common for committed couples raising children to just not be married. In the US a child whose mother isn’t married is typically growing up without his or her father being present, which isn’t the case in Sweden or Norway.

Of course, this isn’t an unknown phenomenon in the United States either. And a successful marriage-promotion effort would, at the margin, presumably be inducing the most-committed couples — which is to say the most Nordic-style ones — to get hitched, not the least-committed ones.


Update

,And to further further clarify, the term “Nordic” actually obscures a bit here as Iceland has lots of American-style single-parent households.


[upd

Older

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up