The notion that one party is stupid while the other is evil is something on which activists in both majory U.S. parties can agree. Though the facts aren’t on their side, activists in the Democratic Party use this concept to contend that the passage of their irresponsible financial reform overhaul is in doubt because the legislation was watered down to placate GOP centrists, thereby alienating some progressive Democrats. In this bogus example, Democrats are the stupid party for focusing on reaching out to an “obstructionist” GOP, the “evil party” for them, instead of passing more comprehensive legislation with enthusiastic backing from Senate Democrats, and scant support from Senate Republicans. In reality, lingering uncertainty about the legislation, and broader concerns about the economic policies of the Obama administration are due to an approach to governance focused on enhancing the power of bureaucrats and organized labor at the expense of shareholders, taxpayers, consumers, and entrepreneurs. 

But for Republicans, a rather more concrete example of this concept became apparent in recent days. RNC Chairman Michael Steele offered poignant remarks late last week regarding history, and recent events surrounding the war in Afghanistan. Instead of viewing these remarks in context, however, prominent Republicans and bloggers on the right gave the Obama White House a narrative it desired.

Anyone paying attention would know that Chairman Steele was making the point that President Obama owes the American people an explanation regarding Afghanistan. Regular readers of this blog know that essentially the same point was made here not long ago. It is fundamentally inconsistent for the White House to claim that a military surge will work in Afghanistan when the administration refuses to admit that the Iraq surge was a success.

Furthermore, the current effort in Afghanistan is Barack Obama’s war. To credit the ongoing effort in Afghanistan to George W. Bush would be to attribute Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy to Lyndon Johnson. President Eisenhower drew to a close the Korean War prosecuted initially by President Truman. Sometimes wars are won or lost very early in the fighting, but even then, the leader then in charge is responsible for how things end. Thus, when President Obama appointed Stanley McChrystal to lead the effort in Afghanistan, he was fully taking ownership of the war.

At no time did Michael Steele directly question the legitimacy of the present conflict in Afghanistan. Rather than come out against the war, as some have suggested happened, Mr. Steele was pointing out that past ground wars in Afghanistan have failed miserably. The last incident of blatant Soviet aggression took the form of a decade-long civil war in Afghanistan, one which ultimately permitted the rise of the Taliban. More than half a century earlier, the British Empire with little success attempted to subdue Afghanistan. The success-if it can be called that-of the British misadventure was the Durand Line, better known now as the wholly artificial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rather than promote the idea that Republicans are for war without end, Chairman Steele put forward a realistic appraisal of a very difficult war. Analogies to Vietnam are popular, but “Af-Pak” is fundamentally different from the states of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, all three party to one degree or another to twenty years of war between 1955 and 1975, are largely culturally cohesive countries. There are ethnic minorities of note in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, but their cultural and political development relative to the more numerous, neighboring nationalities is quite limited; the Mon, for example are a majority in no country. In Afghanistan, the Pashtun are the prominent ethnic group, and decades of civil strife have only reinforced the sizeable Pashtun population in nearby areas of Pakistan.  The Mekong and Red rivers  provide an impetus for commerce and development in Southeast Asia which has largely never materialized in Afghanistan, despite the presence of the Helmand River and tributaries of the Indus.  

Iraq, a state with a long and proud history of commerce and societal development, is a state lacking in the geographical difficulties of Afghanistan. As a largely urbanized society, the people of Iraq have a sense of belonging that transcends ethnic or religious identity despite local revalries and mistrust. Simply put, if Iraq, despite having been a state sponsor of terrorism and a safe haven for al-Qaeda, was a ‘war of choice’ at the time that it was denounced by Barack Obama, then so too must the present struggle in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda has been broken, and the forces once supportive of terrorist group have been removed from power.

More essentially, however, if the administration in Washington stands by their campaign rhetoric regarding the Iraq war, and if the surge has not improved the situation there, then the American people are owed an explanation as to why Afghanistan will, despite all odds, be different. Republicans are right to support  military personnel in their endeavors on behalf of this great country. However, the right has been wrong to clamour for an approach to war in which no discernable goal has been established. In so doing, too many Republicans have revealed that they learned nothing from the experiences of the last Bush administration.

For once, it is Michael Steele who is right, and the political establishment that is deeply mistaken. The unwarranted chastising of Michael Steele’s remarks has taken the focus of Republicans away from the pivotal elections set for later this year. Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, it is the ruling party that is politicising this war. The American people are grappling with a recession left unhelped by a big-spending Democratic Party that would rather stick to its bad habits than fund the war and not billions of dollars in special projects. While Republicans have been busy infighting over a non-issue, the other party has continuated unabated trying to implement its unfathomable agenda.

While this author previously supported the choice of McChrystal to command operations in Afghanistan, this controversy necessitated his departure. If a war is not going as desired, a general should be free to say so. However, sharing his concerns with Congress would have been a more appropriate means than openly criticizing the Commander-in-Chief to a columnist. Whistleblowers serve a valuable function, but if the Vietnam War was any indication, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.

The left-wing issue advocacy and political action committee collectively known as MoveOn.org made their weight felt in the last election cycle. The progressive organization backed then-Senator Obama’s candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, and subsequently in the 2008 Presidential Election. True to form, MoveOn has been at it again this election cycle with mixed success. MoveOn was among the many groups to back Joe Sestak over Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Primary. Earlier this week, a MoveOn-endorsed candidate won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina where the incumbent Republican Richard Burr may be vulnerable. The more recent attempt to oust another sitting Democratic U.S. Senator, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, was unsuccessful. That MoveOn viewed Ms. Lincoln as insufficiently liberal is itself disturbing, but rather less so than another former MoveOn campaign.

In September, 2007, Move On posed a rather offensive question.

The text which followed the excerpt above (pdf) made various bogus contentions with respect to the war in Iraq and the surge strategy being employed by the Bush administration to draw that conflict to a close. In reality, the successes of the surge strategy led to the ability of the Bush administration to set a draw down plan into place. Indeed, General Petraeus has won wide praise for his keen understanding of what is at stake in Western Asia.

As with Vietnam, there are many just criticisms of the war in Iraq. Like Vietnam, the necessity or validity of U.S. involvement there will be a long debated topic. However, maligning a general serving a free society making the best of a bad situation is an offense not far off from the sort of disgusting treatment offered to American personnel returning from service in Southeast Asia during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

President Obama was right to have pursued victory in Afghanistan upon taking office. There may be no person better suited to do so than the general responsible for the much-maligned Iraq surge. However, the choice is curious considering that the current President of the United States has never acknowleged the success of the surge strategy in Iraq. How MoveOn and its defenders will address their Petraeus dilemma has yet to be seen.

If it remains the belief of President Obama that the Iraq surge did not work, then proposing Petraeus to direct the ongoing Afghanistan surge and reconstruction is irresponsible. However, if instead the ‘agent of change’ today running this great country now feels that the Iraq surge did work, he owes it to those that elected him as well as those who opposed him to declare such. Making such an announcement would give credibility to the notion that President Obama is above the partisanship that has thus far been the hallmark of the Democratic Party under his leadership.

Corporate groups and conservative interests did put a lot of money into battling any evidence of anthropogenic global warming, for reasons that had very little to with a commitment to solid science.  Having gone more than a few rounds with critics like this, I heartily empathize with the weariness.  But unfortunately, having people you don’t like crawl all over your work looking for errors is, er, science.  When I come across scientists who don’t get that, well, my trust in their work sort of plummets.

These concerns are justified, and while McArdle is correct that the broader consequences for widespread acceptance among scientists of anthropogenic climate change is minimal, the conduct suggested in the leaked emails of scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia merits further inquiry. On this basis, congressional Republicans are justified in calling for hearings on the matter. While Senator Boxer (D-California) is correct that the burglars who stole the sensitive materials from the British university should be prosecuted, an investigation into possible misconduct on the part of intellectuals who should know better must be launched. This is of particular relevance now that the increasingly unpopular Obama administration is seeking to regulate carbon emissions on the assumption that the naturally-occurring gas is a pollutant.

Obstensibly, those gathered in Copenhagen are meeting to set a common, worldwide policy to address climate change accepting the premise that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. However, bad information should not form the basis of what could be sweeping reforms in the way economies presently operate. So far, only the Saudi government has openly called for an investigation into what is being called Climategate by English-language media reports. However, as a state with an economy based on essentially a single industry, oil extraction, Saudi Arabia has reason to prevaricate.

Perhaps “climategate” is the correct name for the conundrum coloring the complicated Copenhagen conversations. If the CRU suppressed contrary data to weaken opponents, then similarities to Watergate are apparent, but not in the way some have alleged. In the scandal which resulted in the only resignation of a U.S. president, Richard Nixon orchestrated a cover-up to hide a burglary carried out against his political opponents he had not authorized. President Nixon, fearing giving his critics a victory, criminally suppressed a lawful inquiry. In the end, of course, the cover-up ruined the political career of a dynamic if paranoid American chief executive. Now, in Britain, scientists could have their reputations ruined by a scandal entirely of their making.

It may well be true that no crime was committed by officials or scientists involved with the Climate Research Unit as was the conclusion reached in the outside investigation of ACORN. However, as was the case with that review, the absence of criminal misconduct does not preclude the possibility that misdeeds were rife. There should be no doubt that the CRU has tarnished the reputation of responsible scientists worldwide.

Ultimately, the international community owes to history a commitment to set policy based on scientific fact and economic reality rather than statist folly. To do otherwise would be to ignore the lessons of the twentieth century and the perversion of science once employed to justify racial segregation and genocide.

On matters pertaining to Afghanistan, conservatives seem to largely be supportive of President Obama while liberals are more critical. As reported elsewhere, this divide is clearly apparent in the responses to news of Obama’s intended surge from Karl Rove and Michael Moore. There should be no surprise, however, that this divide exists. Indeed, the pettiness of contemporary politics helped propel President Obama to Pennsylvania Avenue. In essence, the quandary facing the current administration is one of its own making.

As a candidate for the office he now holds, Barack Obama sharply criticized the war in Iraq as being one of choice rather than of necessity. Yet, despite his rhetoric supportive of the war in Afghanistan, his reasons for opposing Iraq also largely apply to the conflict he now wishes to escalate. Senator Obama argued that the surge strategy implemented in Iraq presented a military solution to a political problem. Conservatives countered that the lack of security a precipitous withdrawal could cause would not only further destabilize Iraq, but also reverse the progress made to that point in the conflict.

Fast forward to 2009. An election for the Afghan presidency fails to legitimately occur due to widespread fraud in the first round of balloting by supporters of the incumbent and the withdrawal thereafter of his principal opponents. Hamid Karzai remains in power, but with substantially less credibility. Simply put, Afghanistan has a political problem; an inept, corrupt central government is incapable of exercising control over its claimed territory. Afghanistan now faces problems not unlike those faced by Iraq before the surge.

An enemy insurgency continues to exist, and rival cultural groups in the country remain distrustful of one another due to past struggles and ongoing difficulties. For Obama, the solution was to cut and run when the country was Iraq. However, for Obama, the proper means of addressing these same problems in a different theatre is escalation. On this basis, it is no wonder that the current administration is facing skepticism among its base and core supporters. Senator Feingold, the prairie progressive and Democrat from Wisconsin remains firm in his opposition to escalating the war. Over the weekend, an editorial by Senator Paul Kirk, the successor to Ted Kennedy, advocated doing more with the personnel already deployed. In the U.S. House of Representatives, those clamoring for a war surtax have announced their opposition, while others seek a swift vote on the surge proposal. Further opposition has materialized among some House Republicans in the sunbelt, but that has been noticeably minimal.

Nonetheless, President Obama is probably in the right to implement a surge in Afghanistan. Assuming his approach largely follows that advocated by General McChrystal, the possibility exists for stability and security to come to Afghanistan. One section from the speech delivered Tuesday stands out for the explanation it offers to the desire of victory in Afghanistan:

Let me be clear: none of this will be easy. The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be an enduring test of our free society, and our leadership in the world. And unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the 20th century, our effort will involve disorderly regions and diffuse enemies.

So as a result, America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict. We will have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.

 However, in the same speech, President Obama continued the sniping that has become commonplace in our politics. Amidst faux appeals at embracing the legacy of American security and the onward march of liberty among the world’s many nations, the speech provided bountiful fodder for critics on the left and the right. In describing the Taliban/Al-Qaeda threat to Afghanistan as a cancer, President Obama validates the contention of his predecessor that the fight against terrorism which, Obama has conceded, goes far beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one in which defeat is not an option. On this basis alone, one ought to ask if the president knows better but simply does not care when he stands by his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Bringing Vietnam into the discussion hurt President Obama with those on the right. The forgotten second half of the the U.S. involvement in Vietnam saw marked progress in the war-progress reversed thereafter by a precipitous withdrawal from the fight. Vietnam exemplifies a conflict where more was left to be done with fewer personnel and resources. President Obama’s dismissal of the Vietnam War as a sort of unilateral endeavor overlooks the contribution of Koreans and Australians among others to the conflict. To put matters anachronistically, Obama forgot Poland. The broad-based popular insurgency alluded to in the West Point speech was largely defeated between 1968 and 1969, years when those clamoring for a hasty withdrawal from the war were loudest. In reality, the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan have much more in common than President Obama is comfortable admitting.

To those on the left, Obama’s invocation of Franklin Roosevelt and steadfast criticism of the Iraq incursion and escalation defeats his own advocacy of the Afghan surge. World War II was waged against two militarist and racialist regimes which had declared war against the United States. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, however, neither attacked the United States nor provoked directly war with other countries. It was Al-Qaeda that attacked the United States, not the government of Saddam Hussein nor that of Muhammad Omar. This sets both of President Bush’s wars apart from World War II, as neoconservatives were at the time reminded. President Obama agrees with Republicans who argue that Afghanistan under the Taliban movement was a state sponsor of terrorism, but so undeniably was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

This state of affairs has also manifested itself in the ongoing health care reform debate. Curiously, those weary about the proposed Afghan surge for its cost have been substantially less worried about how much their statist health reforms will require. By President Obama’s own numbers, health care reform could cost as much as the two wars in Western Asia did from their start to his inauguration. Yet, the West Point remarks made reference to the economy and a populace already hurting financially. A tax increase is the last thing the American people need, whether it is to fund a necessary conflict in a faraway land, or an unnecessary usurpation of the private sector by the state.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, health care reform for the Democrats in Congress has not been about cost, but rather power. Insistence on a government insurance “option” is indicative of such, as is the failure of Democratic reform efforts to establish a national marketplace for health insurance, wherein consumers are free to choose precisely the amount of coverage desired form a variety of companies, large and small. Such would both reduce prices and encourage the purchase of plans by the uninsured. Existing “health insurance exchange” proposals in Democratic legislation require new uniform coverage mandates for all plans almost certainly guaranteeing a rise in costs.

By embracing long-antiquated notions of state-centered medicine advocated by his party, President Obama abandoned the always dubious idea that his style of leadership represented a stark change from the past. Instead of embracing solutions offered by conservatives, the current administration has pursued a firmly partisan approach to governance. The Lyndon Johnson conundrum has set in.

Now, when President Obama may need Republicans the most, there is indication that he will lose his own party in the process. Petty politicking dashed Johnson’s prospects for reelection. He, like Barack Obama, ran as a peace candidate in a presidential election before subsequently escalating a conflict he inherited. It is not too late for President Obama. The possibility still exists for him to govern from the center, and consider the good and innovative ideas of all sides before reaching a compromise acceptable to those involved. However, the time for change is now, and it starts with health care reform.

Thanks to recent news reports, there is some idea of what the Obama strategy for Afghanistan may entail. President Obama intens to protect the major population centers of Afghanistan with a strengthened U.S. military presence in the country. According to the New York Times, the administration is now firmly leaning towards increasing the number of American personnel in the country, and is now primarily debating by how much and in what sort of capacity.

If the President of the United States is serious about escalating the American presence in Afghanistan, then protecting the cities will not be enough. Indeed, that which makes a state viable depends not on its political system, but rather its economy. Neoconservatives often argue that it is through the implementation of democracy that peace and stability emerge. However, history suggests that economic viability is more important. The so-called “Asian Tigers” were economic successes not due to democracy, but to a general embrace of capitalism. Indeed, Taiwan (as the Republic of China) and the Republic of Korea have not long been governed democratically, but have from the 1960’s espoused values largely consistent with free market principles.

On this basis, any U.S. strategy in Afghanistan not involving a precipitous withdrawal must focus on providing security for commerce in that country. Thus, President Obama ought to embrace an Afghanistan strategy which not only seeks to protect the population centers of the country, but also its main areas of productivitiy and avenues of trade. A strategy which does not defend the major roads of Afghanistan will almost certainly render that country a failed state. Furthermore, if the trade in legitimate agricultural pursuits is controlled by the Taliban or some other force in the country, then the government in Kabul will have a much harder time establishing its legitimacy with the Afghan populace.

Though the idea of democracy in Afghanistan may now be a faint dream, there are still lessons for that country regarding attempts at democratization elsewhere in the Islamic world. Terrorist and other subversive organizations, if permitted to function as parallel governments through control or provision of education, medical services, and the marketplace, can easily garner and maintain popular support, regardless of who holds the cities. One needs to look no further than the electoral success of Hamas for an indication of this. Hamas, like the Taliban, are a threat to peace and the best values of civilization, but can also amass widespread support within their areas of relevance.

In this regard, the Vietnam War offers valuable lessons as well. The Vietcong provided an effective, parallel, pro-Hanoi governing structure in the Republic of Vietnam well into the 1960’s. This made U.S. efforts to prop up the Saigon-based legitimate government difficult. Not helping matters was the failure to establish an economy of significance in the country. Economic success, or the potential for it, serves as a means of winning over popular support, be it in Afghanistan, or elsewhere. Indeed, reforms being made in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China are bringing these authoritarian regimes into the world economy, and fostering gradual change to their antiquated political systems.

The Vietnam War demonstrated the importance of control over avenues of trade and commerce. Said war also elucidated the value of building popular support for a government, and the need for that government to exercise control over its claimed territory. Most importantly, however, the Vietnam War revealed the damage petty politicking can do to a nation, a culture, and a cause.

Lyndon Johnson prosecuted the Vietnam War in a manner designed to preserve his popularity, but in the end only served to fuel discontent and defeat. Wars should be waged to be won. This much every president owes the military everytime he deploys them. Sometimes, this includes taking unpopular steps made necessary by a recalcitrant foe.

Sadly, there is little indication that President Obama cares about anything relating to his office other than his own popularity and partisan agenda. Such sentiments have the potential to hinder U.S. military efforts abroad. How the President of the United States handles Afghanistan could well show a commitment yet unseen from this White House to be above the partisan divide, and put the interests of the country first and foremost.

Hey brad, I have just seen your protesting Obama pictures. I wanna ask you something… here in Brazil, we get the news that America loves Obama, is there just a small group of people that doesn’t like him or its a large thing and we get manipulated information?

As I’m continuing to receive messages like this from interested friends, I may just open this up as a future feature. You can feel free to message me at facebook.com/bradtidwell1 with any political questions you may want to ask. But without further ado, this was my reply:

You pretty much always get manipulated information from news sources — actually, even here in America we often get manipulated information!

You can see from national polls that not everyone thinks Obama is doing the best job ever. In fact, many don’t approve of his foreign policy — 53% from Gallup — Obama is now less popular than Hillary Clinton!

Internationally, there’s a great map of foreign perception of Obama at Gallup — interestingly, while some areas have a more favorable perception of Obama, when you look at the overall picture, worldwide perception is overall negative (Russia in particular has a 20% favorability rating).

We hear from our own press that everyone loves Obama, and when nationally there are protests against the massive spending going through DC, and thousands of people march on the Hill (you can see a picture of the protesters and a video from the NRCC of the march through DC) there was little to no coverage of all of that.

The biggest thing I can say to you to prove that Obama does not have full public support is to say that the much-ballyhooed Health care reform bill has not passed congress yet. When the Democrats control the House, Senate and Executive branches of government as they do now, there should be nothing stopping them from passing something like that, but because they do not have public support, they are not able to pass it. There’s even a nice video of all the people rising up against their elected public officials.

So hopefully that gives you a better understanding of where American sentiment truly lies. What is perception like there for the most part? Or do you also get distorted perceptions about your own country’s opinions?

To which she replied:

Here we have the same kind of thing. Our president sucks and what we see on tv is that is god on earth.

So for all my friends all over the country who are dispirited about the way our media seems to focus on Obama and his popularity in things like his dog or his wife’s wardrobe or him swatting a fly… All these things may make good press, but they aren’t doing much for the one number that really matters — his re-electability poll: 43% would re-elect the president according to one recent poll. And that’s the one number that really matters.

At that early stage, the Obama administration was still coming together; there was not yet time for the new president to have done anything.  Therefore, President Obama was nominated for what he might manage to achieve rather than what he has done. This sets him apart from the two other sitting U.S. Presidents who have won the Nobel Peace Prize, Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson, (1919) who led the efforts at peacefully concluding the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars respectively.

President Obama is also the third African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet, in those instances too, past winners Ralph Bunche (1950) and Martin Luther King (1964) had clear track records of accomplishments behind them. These men, without a doubt, have left their mark on future generations. It is noteworthy and commendable that Barack Obama broke the color barrier on the office he now holds, but that was not something only he could do.

Rarely, if ever,  has a Nobel been awarded on the basis of future accomplishments. Even when the undeserving have won, they did so for things they had already done, not things they were going to do. Thus, the decision to honor President Obama with this award at this juncture is proposterous; it is one of those rare events in history which validates the idea that reality is stranger than fiction.

For these reasons, there can no longer be any doubt that the Nobel Peace Prize is, in its current form, little more than a joke. An award once intended to honor those who triumphed in the face of adversity has become a trophy honoring the politically correct over the truly excellent. In this year when the Communist Chinese celebrated their sixieth year of triumph over liberty and democracy, the Norwegian Nobel Committee overlooked the chance to award their peace prize to those promoting human rights in the Asian power. The year 2009 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests too. The award committee also could have honored a physician and women’s rights activist in Afghanistan, a country in which this year’s laureate is almost certain to escalate-rather than end-an existing war.  

Around the world, many kind things have been said lauding the U.S. President in response to the announcement Friday. This was to be expected, however. It is telling, nonetheless, that said leaders praised President Obama for what he might do rather than what he has done. No less than two past Nobel Peace Prize recipients of repute have criticized the choice of Obama this year, Mairead Maguire (1976) and Lech Walesa (1983).

In several years, there was no Nobel Peace Prize awarded, notably 1939 and 1972. In those years, the prize money was allocated for other purposes or causes. Once, in 1973, one of the two winners declined to accept the award, demonstrating a precedent President Obama could have followed. There were questions raised in 1973 over the legitimacy of both winners, Le Duc Tho and Henry Kissinger, honored for their efforts to end the Vietnam War. Simply put, there is no need to award the prize in any particular year; not awarding the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 would have been more honorable than awarding it to an unaccomplished albeit well-liked U.S. President.

Perhaps, in their decision to render Barack Obama a Nobel laureate, the Norwegian Nobel Committee were trying to send a particular message. The idea has been proposed that President Obama was awarded for breaking with the policies of George W. Bush. But, if his presidency thus far has not been enough to suggest otherwise, then perhaps his backpedalling on the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, or the frustrations of the LGBT community with this administration will be.  John McCain is correct that the American people can take pride in the honoring of his last electoral opponent, but the question should be asked if he would have been awarded were Barack Obama still a U.S. senator and Sarah Palin the Vice President. In either instance, the committee missed the irony of their disdain for a man clearly Wilsonian in his view of the world.

The Democratic National Committee too  missed the irony of its blind support for the decision announced in Oslo. Americans were told that they were unpatriotic and with the terrorists by a DNC spokesman for questioning the validity of President Obama’s Nobel Prize win. That Obama won, and that the DNC has not denounced and fired that spokesman demonstrates above all something noted here not long ago, that liberalism is dead.

By orchestrating what could well be the third betrayal of Poland, President Obama has thrown under the bus U.S. allies for the sake of U.S. foes. This author noted an alarmingly similar trend by the Obama administration with respect to Honduras which continues unabated, thus enhancing the misfortune of all concerned. While it is true that the missile defense plan had its flaws, the Obama administration hindered U.S. credibility by eliminating a bargaining chip it held in any potential discussions with the government of Iran, and likely cemented further mistrust from Russia.  

With respect to Afghanistan, there has been no consistent message or signal coming from the Obama White House. Assurances from the new leader of NATO are nice, but they are meaningless if Congress, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, and General McChrystal are all saying different things about the future role of western military forces in Afghanistan. Certainly, the recent frustrations with respect to the course of events in Afghanistan were only enhanced by the antiwar character of Obama presidential campaign. Fortunately, President Obama has exercised rather more sound judgement in matters pertaining to Iraq.

In terms of trade, President Obama has shown an unsettling hostility to the world. His irritation of the mainland Chinese over tire imports was both unnecessary and damaging to relations between Beijing and Washington. Canada has too been given cause to worry that President Obama has no intervention of respecting existing international agreements. Nonetheless, with respect to Canada, the Obama White House has since fortunately backed down.

The victory by Chancellor Merkel’s preferred governing coalition in Germany, and the latest stunt by Britain’s unpopular Labour government demonstrate a real concern about the current trajectory of affairs in the world. Americans more than in the past are paying attention too. Perhaps this is why McDonnell and Christie continue to lead in the gubernatorial consts set for this fall in Virginia and New Jersey respectively.

In a speech before the United Nations this time last week, President Obama talked about his foreign policy goals. Nuclear disarmament is a stated goal of the current President of the United States as a means to foster greater peace and understanding in the world. To this end, aminst the pagentry and fanfare at the U.N. last week, President Obama led a panel on the topic of disarmament. His aims are noble, but partially lacking in priority.

Nonproliferation should be the priority. If nations ignoring the norms of nuclear protocol in the world are the only ones with nuclear weapons capability, then they will have an unnecessary advantage in the world. This is why President Obama did the right thing in allowing U.S. participation in the talks in Switzerland. However, progress on disarming rogue regimes requires having clear advantages they lack. Disarming Iran and North Korea only becomes a real possibility not when the United States and Russia commit to arms reductions, but when the incentives exist for smaller countries to not develop nuclear weapons programs.

Total nuclear disarmament is a noble aim. However, pursuing this goal blindly is irresponsible. The test of the Obama foreign policy will be whether it leads successfully to disarmament in the developing world, not among the industrialized states. So far, the record of success is lacking. But, as President Obama reminded the United Nations, he is only nine months into his term.

If peace among nations is the goal of the Obama administration, then the right road to take is towards greater free trade. The Pittsburgh Summit resulted in a vague commitment among those present to restart the Doha Round of international trade negotiations. There is no better way to incentivize peace than to promote trade. Sadly, on this front number Forty-Four seems unlikely to deliver.

Russia, not surprisingly, takes a slightly different position on aspects of the war than do most. Many seem all-to-willing to excuse the position of the Soviet Union with respect to Germany prior to Operation Barbarossa. There is no comparison, however, between the treatment of Soviet POWs in 1919 and 1920 by Poland and the Katyn massacre of 1940 beyond the fact that both resulted from efforts at unprovoked Soviet expansionism. The inclusion of the Soviet Union among the allied powers following July 1941 was sensible in retrospect, even if details of what that relationship meant in practice were not. Polish complaints with respect to the position of the Russian government pertaining to is commemmorative events marking the seventieth anniversary of the invasion of Poland were without a doubt justified.

What is suprising, however, was how another remarked on the start of the war; political commentator Patrick J. Buchanan. Indeed, the lifelong anticommunist has taken a position on the conflict which one might expect from a Stalinist, but certainly not from the American right. In a commentary available on his own website and earlier on that of MSNBC, the cable news operation which continues to employ him, Pat Buchanan absurdly claims that the refusal of Poland to give up a single port city was the singular cause of the entire Second World War.

Buchanan early on notes that the British declaration of war against Germany occurred a mere two days after the invasion of Poland began. In so doing, he suggests that the British were unnecessarily provoking war. But such an implication ignores the course of events leading up to September, 1939. The sequence of relevant happenings emphasized by Buchanan to justify his point of view demonstrate either ignorance or a deliberate attempt to mislead.

The next paragraph to Buchanan’s commentary on that war so long ago is also worthy of criticism in part. He is absolutle right to suggests that millions perished, and that civilians rather than soldiers suffered the most in the nearly six years of fighting in Europe. Where he makes the attempt to state honest and impartial facts, he does a good job. That said, his focus on Christians in that and other paragraphs overlooks the fate of others. Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria all had significant Muslim populations and were all behind the iron curtain by the end of the war. Secularists of various stripes no doubt perished in the fighting, but Buchanan’s approach seems to conflate the Christian dead with the antisemitism of  the German, and to a lesser extent, Soviet and Polish regimes. Buchanan may not be engaging in Holocaust denial, but in his commentary on the Second World War, he seems to come eerily close.

Later on, Buchanan defends the Fourteen Points made by Woodrow Wilson in a 1918 speech regarding his vision for the organization of Europe following the first of the world wars. While true that the port the Germans called Danzig and the Poles call Gdansk was placed nominally under Polish control following World War I, it was administered separately from Poland, and had internal autonomy. There is no mention of how Buchanan felt about the League of Nations mandates governed rather less autonomously across Asia and Africa by victorious outside powers during the same period. Buchanan further ignores the effort which went into otherwise delineating the German-Polish border between the wars.

The claim is made by Mr. Buchanan that Hitler’s government had proposed a land swap with Poland over the Free State of Danzig, as it was then known. Of course, the land the Germans were swapping was in then-occupied former Czechoslovakia. No source is given for this particular claim, and he overlooks the fact that Poland was already partaking in the forced dismemberment of prewar Czechoslovakia.

In brushing over inconvenient facts, Mr. Buchanan fails to directly mention that a German protectorate over the Czech interior was in contravention to the Munich Pact. Though, in a sense, he makes the same mistake as many who analyze this aspect of European history; working with an incomplete timeline. Events prior to the infamous Munich Pact are as important as those subsequent to it. The annexation of Austria by Hitler’s Germany in 1937 was patently illegal, and prior to the 1938 Munich Pact, Hitler weighed declaring war on Czechoslovakia to achieve his supposedly limited aims.

By blaming the Poles for the Second World War, Pat Buchanan wrongly portrays Hitler as a man whose grand ambitions could be controlled. This point of view has been proven to be demonstrably inaccurate not only on the basis of earlier statements made by the German dictator, but also by his invasion of his early partner in crime, the Soviet Union, in 1941. World War II was not about a Baltic Sea port. Rather, the war in Europe was a more complicated fight of ideology and national vendettas. Hitler’s violation of the Munich Pact revealed his government to be untrustworthy, and Poland correct to not give in to German coercion. Winston Churchill was also correct to recognize the wickedness of grandiose German visions of vast eastward expansion, and that Franz von Papen’s gamble on giving Hitler the chancery in 1933 was perhaps one of the worst mistakes in the history of Europe. Poland was not at fault for the European War, the Axis Powers and their cobelligerents were. 

Getting facts right is important when it comes to issues facing the United States and the world today. However, so too is representing accurately events in history which continue to shape our world. This should matter to Republicans who wisely pushed for the resignation of an Obama administration official this week over his previous support for a 9/11 conspiracy theory.

Much like the election in the United States last November, the focus of media outlets across the globe was once more on one election, a change election, in one country, a world power of sorts.  In both instances, the victorious party shared a name similar to the other; the party of Barack Obama is the Democratic Party, while that of probable Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is known in English as the Democratic Party of Japan. These unrelated parties are both said to be left-of center in orientation generally, while both also have significant conservative and rather more progressive elements. Thus, one ought to take grand visions of change in Japan with a grain of salt, particularly with Mr. Hatoyama seemingly backing away from controversial statements regarding the cross-Pacific relationship. Meanwhile, the current U.S. administration has seen its credibility with moderates diminish.

Interestingly, in both the Japanese election of August 30, and that of the United States last year, swing constituencies were decisive in the electoral outcome.  Much as the perhaps comparably centrist former senator and first lady Hillary Clinton was initially expected to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008, the leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan similarly changed. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the more centrist-to-conservative faction of the DPJ mere months ago was effectively the choice of his party for Prime Minister subject to the even then likely prospect of victory.  Mr. Ozawa, like Mrs. Clinton, will be a factor in government policy moving forward.

Similarities were apparent in other ways too between the 2008 U.S. election campaign and that for the Japanese House of Representatives this year. In both instances, the parties dominating the executive branch of their respective governments managed to alienate key allies or strategic partners abroad with certain policies the opposition promised to change. The responses from the Republic of Korea and People’s Republic of China this week were not unlike those of U.S. partners following Mr. Obama’s big win last year.

In Japan as well as in the United States, the generally conservative ruling party was increasingly bogged down in scandal, and even lost ground in earlier areas of strength. Both elections focused more on economic issues than foreign policy, and in both cases, the victorious parties made tax pledges which will be hard to keep when taking into account proposed new spending. Eerily, the more conservative party of defeated Prime Minister Taro Aso offered an electoral platform not all that different from that of the Democrats in his country, again providing a parallel to the U.S. election November last. As the election neared, Taro Aso, like Republicans stateside, used national security as a basis on which to try and rescue a faltering campaign.

In any comparative analysis of these two noteworthy electoral contests, differences are important to note between the respective countries and political systems concerned. The United States of America, constituted as a federal republic, operates under a presidential system of government wherein the national legislature is selected independently of the executive branch of government headed by an official who is both the leader of the government and chief of state. As the was the case in the last two years of the George W. Bush administration, opposing parties can control the separate branches of government at any one time. Japan, similarly to the United Kingdom, is a constitutional monarchy wherein the lower house of the legislature dominates national politics and forms the executive branch of government below the effectively symbolic monarch. Unlike in Britain, the upper house of the legislature in Japan is elected. Incidentally, the House of Councillors in Japan has been under the control of the Democratic Party of Japan since the year that Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2007.

The contemporary party systems present in the United States and, arguably, most of the industrialized world, are notably different from that of Japan too. Whereas most of the industrialized world have bipartisan or multiparty political systems, Japan was dominated by one political party, the Liberal Democratic Party, from 1955 until this year. Unlike in most other industrialized states, the opposition, soon to be ruling, party in Japan is fairly young, having arisen only in the 1990’s following a ten-month stint of rule by parties other than the LDP early in the decade. 

 The people of Japan may have sought change in this latest election, but like their American counterparts, they may have replaced one factious, increasingly statist government with another one. There have been high hopes offered for a remaking of the Japanese party system and bureaucracy in the wake of this election. Whether or not a new leader with real challenges ahead will even try to keep tough promises and prove himself to be different is something hard to predict. The people of the United have an answer for this question. The Japanese are awaiting theirs.

Moving forward, interest will presumably grow in Japan to rebuild or reform a defeated party. Presumably, efforts will continue to further engage youth in the political process. Apathy among young adults, in the United States as well as Japan, poses problems for those seeking to reduce  taxes or the size and scope of government and regulation. Fortunately, Republicans are making strides to win over younger voters, and have a real opportunity to produce a platform appealing to them, and to a broader cross-section of Americans, from the liberty-minded and those encouraging greater personal responsibility to those seeking better opportunities for business and commerce. Should these efforts succeed, there can be little doubt that parties and movements of similar orientation around the globe will seek to do the same. Nonetheless, the real lesson to take away from the recent Japanese election is that political movements face similar challenges across the world, and can provide inspiration for political efforts elsewhere, even within the United States.