Obama’s impressive use of brains over muscles

Posted by Shyam Moondra

A year ago, it was unthinkable that the long sought Al Qaeda master-mind, Osama bin Laden, would be killed in a daring raid deep inside Pakistan by the U.S. Special Forces that used secret stealth helicopters unknown to the world. No one could imagine that a combination of effective diplomacy at the UN and surgical strikes by the U.S. and NATO forces would be enough to enable the Libyan revolutionaries to kill the brutal dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, and put Libya on a path to democracy. Who could have thought that the political and diplomatic support by President Barack Obama would be enough for the Egyptian people to oust the strongman, Hosni Mubarak, and for the Tunisians to depose their ruthless leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali? It was an unexpected surprise when the U.S. military used a high-tech unmanned drone to get Anwar al-Awlaki, the dangerous Al Qaeda leader based in Yemen. In fact, American unmanned drone attacks have killed a score of other high-value targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen. What’s more impressive is that Obama got all of this done without using an overwhelming military force and at a cost of around $1 billion compared with over $1 trillion President George W. Bush spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the above foreign successes, a few things become clear about Obama’s strategy:

• As a first step, Obama prefers to use diplomacy and political and economic means (e.g., sanctions) to bring about the desired changes. On Libya, Obama insisted that the Arab League first formally ask for help through the U.N. Obama then skillfully persuaded the major powers at the U.N. to start with economic sanctions followed by minimal force to protect the unarmed civilian protesters. In case of Egypt, Obama successfully leveraged the military-to-military relations between the U.S. and Egypt to dissuade the Egyptian generals from firing upon the unarmed protesters that eventually led to the downfall of Mubarak.

• Obama prefers multi-lateral approach as opposed to going alone as Bush initially did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given our weakened financial situation at home, Obama is acutely aware that the U.S. can no longer be the world police.

• Obama keeps his options open and uses the military as a last resort, even in the face of criticism from the right-wing Republican hawks. For example, Obama was wise to ignore Sen. John McCain’s advice to put American forces on the ground in Libya. Obama correctly understood that the American people had absolutely no appetite for engaging in yet another costly war.

• Obama doesn’t feel the need to always have the U.S. in the lead. In Libya, he ordered the U.S. Air Force to initiate the early surgical strikes but then let the French and British forces takeover the operation. Obama’s willingness to lead from behind was brilliant; he got the job done at minimal cost without endangering the lives of American soldiers, while at the same time he let our allies shine in the limelight.

• Obama combines first-rate intelligence and smart technologies (e.g., unmanned drones, stealth helicopters, and laser bombs) to execute military campaigns cheaply and with minimum casualties.

• Obama seems to understand that raw military force in Muslim countries does more harm than good. He prefers to use military covertly in a subtle manner rather than in a more visible way such as deploying overwhelming heavy armored ground forces. The Islamic extremists can easily exploit heavy military presence on the ground by framing the U.S. as a country in war with the Islam.

• Obama uses patience as a virtue. Unlike Republican predecessors, Obama doesn’t shoot first and then ask questions. Bush was known to have the cow-boy mentality in dealing with international problems. Obama is very deliberate and he exhausts all political and economic means before resorting to force. In case of Libya, initially he relied on diplomacy to have Gaddafi relinquish power in a peaceful way. Many Republicans called him timid and urged him to take stronger action right away. The ultimate results show that Obama’s patience and deliberate way of tackling the crises proved to be very effective.

Obama has demonstrated that you can accomplish security goals by using brains over muscles. Republicans usually have the reputation of being strong when it comes to defense and security, but Democratic Obama has shown an uncanny ability to use the military force in a very intelligent way and achieve the desired results with minimum loss of American lives and at minimum cost. Time and again, Obama has convincingly shown that you can do more with less. Obama’s string of successes in a short period of time has made him the most successful security president of modern times. Even some of Obama's Republican critics have conceded that Obama has made some "gutsy" calls. Also, Obama and First Lady Mrs. Michelle Obama have tirelessly worked to ensure that the veterans and their families are treated well. Obama has proved to be one of be the most effective Commanders-in Chief in recent history. No wonder why the Republican presidential candidates have been uncharacteristically quiet on the issue of security that would normally feature as the number one issue in the presidential politics.

Obama speeded up the withdrawal of the U.S. armed forces from Iraq and put the withdrawal from Afghanistan on a fast track. In Iraq, the insurgency has its roots in the religious discord between the majority Shiite and minority Sunni populations; therefore, even if the U.S. stayed in Iraq for a few more years, the animosity between the two groups will still be there. Whatever differences exist between the two sects, those differences have to be bridged by themselves; our continuing involvement there only makes it harder for them to reconcile. In the absence of a clear-cut mission, our presence in Iraq is an unnecessary burden on the taxpayers and now that Obama has made a decision to pull them out by the end of 2011, it’s all for the best. It’s interesting that hard-core Republican ideologues are now criticizing Obama for this wise decision which is being overwhelmingly supported by the American people (as a matter of fact, the decision to pull out by the end of 2011 was originally made by Bush). Obama seems to have completely neutralized the Republican’s winning issue of defense and security.

Some political analysts argue that Obama’s intelligent foreign policy and all of his impressive successes may not be enough for him to win re-election because the people tend to vote based on economic issues. While that may be true in theory, Obama’s successes do reduce the war costs at a time when our deficits are running high; so his performance as a war-time president does have economic implications. For Obama to be re-elected, the unemployment doesn’t have to come down a lot; if, in the next year or so, economy starts showing the signs that we are moving in the right direction, that may be just enough to tilt the balance in his favor. Many Americans understand that Bush left an array of serious problems and it takes time to tackle those complex problems. Also, the people understand that Republicans control the House, so in a divided government Obama is not free to do things that he wants to do to get economy growing again. Obama’s solid leadership in foreign affairs combined with his sincere efforts on economy may be just enough to win him a second chance.

Occupy Wall Street - A populous revolt against “the government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich”

Posted by Shyam Moondra

Occupy Wall Street, a leaderless protest by mostly young people, started out only about a month ago in New York’s financial district but has now quickly spread to other American cities and across continents. Yesterday, this rapid fire revolution turned violent in Rome, Italy. The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R) called them a "mob." Some conservative commentators labeled these angry young people as a misguided minority. However, the latest opinion polls paint a very different picture; these young revolutionaries in fact enjoy twice as much support among the general public as does the Tea Partiers. Not only that, the main demand of the protesters, to increase the taxes for the rich, is now supported by a whopping 73% of the people, including 53% of the Republicans.

Many conservative political pundits have taken a dismissive attitude towards the Wall Street protesters by labeling them as a bunch of losers that are anti-rich and anti-capitalist system. That’s a complete misread of the situation. These young protesters, many of them with college degrees and crushing student loans, are faced with high level of unemployment and lack of opportunities to realize their dreams. They are not anti-rich or anti-capitalist system; they are simply protesting against the inequitable system that treats rich and powerful people a lot more favorably than the ordinary folks. They are angry at the excessive compensation of corporate executives (that increased by 300% since 1990), who caused the financial crisis and still got bailed out by the government. They are angry at the Exxon-Mobil Board that granted a $400 million retirement package to a former CEO. They are angry at the report that GE paid zero income taxes in 2010. What these young people are protesting against is a system that’s designed to favor the rich and powerful. The recent census survey results clearly show the disparities and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The rich people became rich, not exclusively because of their hard work, but mostly because of the pro-rich government policies that granted them special breaks and lower income tax rates.

The Congressional Republicans’ emphasis on spending cuts and no tax increases is just a continuation of their policy of favoring the rich over the struggling working class people. They know very well that spending cuts would negatively affect largely the low-income and middle-income families while no tax increases mean maintaining the status-quo for the rich. The low-income and middle-income families account for 67% of the overall consumer spending, so if they are hurt by government spending cuts then it would make that much harder to recover from the recession and we will continue to see an elevated level of unemployment rate. The Republicans blame President Barack Obama for initiating a class-warfare, when in fact they themselves have been engaged in class-warfare all these years by giving the rich all kinds of special breaks. It's interesting to note that a majority of the members of the Congress are themselves millionaires. Even rich Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (a flat 9% income tax rate for corporations, a flat 9% income tax rate for individuals, and a flat 9% sales tax for everyone) is  laced with the same ill-timed pro-rich philosophy. Most low-income and middle-income struggling families, who live from pay-check to pay-check, would see a net increase in their taxes while the rich people would see a net decrease in their taxes because Cain is also proposing to eliminate capital-gains and estate taxes that largely benefit the affluent people. The 9-9-9 is actually a code language to make rich people richer while piling up on the pain for the struggling ordinary people.

Here are some actionable initiatives that the Congress could look at to reflect the mood of their constituents:

• Reform the tax code. Corporations and rich people must pay more in income taxes; it’s unacceptable when GE pays zero taxes or Google pays only 2% or Goldman Sachs pays only 10% and when billionaire Warren Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary.

• Close off-shore tax loop-holes that corporations use to escape from paying their fair share of taxes.

• Eliminate tax subsidies to corporations (e.g., to rich oil companies, hedge funds, drug companies, and farmers).

• Impose limits on how much corporate CEOs can make (as a multiple of the lowest paid employee in the company). Ban golden parachutes accorded to executives, especially to those who were fired for non-performance or those who are retiring.

• Ban campaign contributions by corporations and their representatives that are polluting our political system. Big money from big business is drowning out the voice of the ordinary citizens. Through their relentless lobbying efforts, the corrupt corporations are able to win special breaks often at the expense of consumers.

• Create an environment where corporations are induced to become more ethical via stricter enforcement of the laws against insider trading and manipulation by the SEC, CFTC, Federal Reserve Board, and FDIC.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has sparked a debate on how the system is rigged in favor of the rich and how it has made almost impossible for the poor people to climb out of poverty. Given the increasing broad support of the Occupiers among the population, the Republican Party seems to be stuck on the wrong side of the debate just before the up-coming general election. It would be a fatal political mistake to assume that this revolution is just a fad and it will go away, and that it will have no impact on the 2012 elections.

War or no war, that is the question

Posted by Shyam Moondra

This week, America marks the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan war, the longest running war in the nation's history. The Afghanistan campaign began soon after Al Qaeda attacked the U.S. mainland on September 11, 2001. And then we started yet another war in Iraq to topple the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein and seize Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. has become a habitual warrior with perpetual military campaigns undertaken by its armed forces around the world. After the World War II, the U.S. has been militarily involved in the Korean peninsula (1950-1953), Vietnam (1964-1973), Iranian hostage crisis (1979-1980), Lebanon civil war (1982-1984), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Gulf war (1991), Somalia (1992-1993), Bosnia (1995), and Kosovo (1999). Not to forget an assorted collection of skirmishes around the world involving Cuba, Guatemala, Angola, Cambodia, Laos, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Iran, Iraq no-fly zone, Haiti, Kenya, Somalia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia, Liberia, Chile, Albania, Zaire (Congo), China (to protect Taiwan isles), Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, etc. It seems like the U.S. is addicted to wars. When discussing the Pentagon’s budgetary needs, even politicians often talk in terms of how many wars the Pentagon can fight simultaneously. Our defense planning presumes that we will always be involved in wars. On the other hand, other major military powers such as Russia and China, have had less frequent armed conflicts and they spend a lot less on defense than we do. After the World War II, during the Cold War, the former Soviet Union invaded East European countries and imposed the communist rule there and in the 1980's they invaded Afghanistan. More recently, Russian military has fought against insurgents in Chechnya and invaded Georgia. China invaded India during the 1960's but more recently it has had some minor skirmishes with the neighboring countries (such as Vietnam) over the territorial disputes involving some tiny islands in the South China Sea.

In modern history, the Democratic Presidents, in general, have been reluctant to engage in wars while the Republican Presidents have been more eager to flex military muscle to achieve their foreign policy goals. President John Kennedy (D) tried very hard to not let the Cuban missile crisis turn into a major conflict between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. President Kennedy also resisted the temptation to get involved in Vietnam. While President Lyndon Johnson (D) escalated the military campaign in Vietnam, it was President Richard Nixon (R) who expanded the bombing campaign to include neighboring countries such as Laos and Cambodia. President Jimmy Carter (D) was extremely reluctant to use military force; he was perceived as a weak president which led the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan. Even when Carter tried to use military, for example to free the American hostages in Iran, he failed. President Ronald Reagan (R) was more open to the use of military (Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.). President H. W. Bush (R) ordered a major military campaign against Iraq to expel the Iraqi invaders from Kuwait. President Bill Clinton (D) was a reluctant Commander-in-Chief; he was primarily focused on economic issues (his election campaign strategy was based on “it’s economy, stupid”). Clinton entered the Kosovo campaign only after the Europeans kept urging him to do so and Clinton sent the American troops to Somalia in the midst of a civil war only after a drumbeat from the Congressional Republicans. Some argue that Clinton's response to Al Qaeda’s terrorist acts in Kenya and Yemen was too timid which only emboldened Al Qaeda. After the Al Qaeda attack in September 2001, President George W. Bush (R) held nothing back and unleashed the U.S. military might in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of over $1 trillion. President Barack Obama (D) has been very eager to end our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and he has been very guarded against getting sucked too deep into the civil war of Libya. Like Clinton, Obama's main focus is on economy and jobs and he is not interested in creating distractions by engaging in wars.

Most presidents are aware that it’s easy to get in but it’s very hard to get out of a conflict, given the uncertain outcomes of the wars. Bush invaded Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction but when those weapons were not found, he changed the mission to fight Al Qaeda, and then to establish democracy, and then to nation building at a cost of almost a trillion dollars. The same thing happened in Afghanistan – the initial mission was to remove the Taliban from power because they gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda, but then the mission changed to establishing democracy, and then to nation building.

In a recent Pew opinion poll, 45% of the general population said neither of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has been worth the costs. And half of the public say the wars have not made them feel more secured. Even among the post-9/11 veterans, only one-third say the wars have been worth the costs. In Afghanistan, as soon as we leave, it’s almost certain that the Taliban will takeover the government. So the question is should we be spending enormous amount of money to keep the Taliban in check just for a short duration? It seems like we are fighting a battle in vain and wasting our valuable resources at a time when we are experiencing severe financial crisis at home. During the 1980’s, the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan but the Soviet army was forced to leave in defeat. Given the tenacity of the mobile Taliban fighters, it’s almost certain that as soon as the NATO forces leave by 2015, the Taliban would prevail over the Afghan forces. In retrospect, the best strategy would have been for Bush to negotiate a settlement with the weakened Taliban right after we installed the Karzai government there.

The Pentagon is a wasteland of tax-dollars. We spend in excess of 4.7% of our GDP on defense (up from 3.1% in 2001). The more military power we have, the more eager we seem to become to use it. Republicans are haggling over a few billions of dollars for children's programs at home while they have no qualm against spending billions of dollars in far flung places, even though they are not a direct security threat to the United States. Having enormous military assets means we are the de facto world police. The history has clearly demonstrated that our military involvement in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have cost us the lives of thousands of our soldiers and trillions of dollars, but they have really not brought out the results worthy of those sacrifices. Knowing that we have the most powerful military in the world has sometimes led us to erroneously believe that we have the right to intervene militarily anywhere and everywhere at whim. In many cases, even though other countries can deal with their regional crises themselves but they just find it more convenient and less costly to let the well-armed (and always eager to oblige) Yankees do it. There is so much money lying around at the Pentagon that they don't care if they paid $500 for toilet seats or $100 for hammers. During the Iraq war, billions of dollars of cash simply vanished in thin air (even today, it's unaccounted for) or paid to the contractors without any proper paperwork (so nobody can tell what services were provided by those contractors). Per the government audits, the suppliers of defense equipment routinely overbill the government.

Recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have not made us more secured. Our presence in Muslim countries has fueled anti-Americanism among the local populations and strengthened the hands of Islamic extremists. Our involvement in the World War I and II had moral underpinnings and we were treated by the local populations as heroes or saviors, but that is not the case in Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama was wise to not jump into the civil war in Libya and wait until the Arab League formally asked to intervene. Also, Obama was correct in limiting the campaign to air support and not putting soldiers on the ground that would have been more inflammatory to some of the Islamic fundamentalists in the Muslim world.

The “Arab Spring” revolution sweeping through Northern Africa and Middle-East is being driven by the youth who are angry because of high unemployment and lack of opportunities to realize their dreams. They used Facebook and Twitter to galvanize the revolution. Thanks to Internet, the youngsters in these Muslim countries were knowledgeable about how the kids lived and what they did in developed countries, and they very much wanted to emulate those life styles. The older generation was also unhappy but they were too afraid to speak up in police states. However, when they saw the brave young people protesting in masses, they overcame their fear and felt like they had nothing to lose. The protests were not fueled by any Islamic fundamentalist groups. This revolution is in its truest sense a revolution of the masses across all ethnic groups and not driven by any particular anti-western group. The younger generation doesn't subscribe to the old rigid Islamic rules. Besides, they will be busy rebuilding their countries, so they wouldn't have time for radical indoctrination. Islamic radicalism will thus decline. This is the best opportunity for the U.S. to scale down its military operations in the Muslim world and eventually cease these operations completely. The U.S. should focus more on interacting with the younger generation to help them rebuild their countries and work collaboratively on technologies, education, and trade so that they can improve their own living standards.

Strong military helps protect our security and economic interests around the world and it serves as a deterrent to potential adversaries. Wars afford an opportunity of hands-on field experience to our armed forces that keeps them on their toes and sharp. Our huge investments in new technologies and military strategies make our military the best in the world. For example, the use of drones, the unmanned vehicles, such as the one used in last week's killing of Al Qaeda's Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, is proving to be very effective. Our defense funding also keeps our military industrial complex financially healthy that enables them to keep churning out new breakthrough technologies. On the negative side, our constant engagement in multiple wars is proving to be a huge financial burden on taxpayers that is becoming increasingly untenable given our high debt and budget deficit. Obama seems to have understood that the best strategy is to combine first-rate intelligence, special operations, and the use of remote capabilities (e.g., unmanned drones and other high-tech systems) to achieve the desired results at minimum cost. His focus seems to be not on big military but on smart military.

Presently, a Congressional Super Committee is trying to come up with a deficit reduction plan. If this special congressional panel fails to agree on the mandated deficit savings of $1.5 trillion by this November, there will be across-the-board cuts in all discretionary spending, including the defense budget. The potential for sharp cuts in the Pentagon budget has got Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, quite worried because that would force us to fight wars more selectively. Now, would that be such a bad thing?