We're back to Tinkerbell politics. Just "believe in me or I'll die." Whether it's achieving real reform in health care or giving some kind of peace and prosperity to the people of Afghanistan or whether we're talking about cleaning up a thoroughly corrupt financial system , we're being asked to clap to keep the good thoughts alive and ignore reality.
Take a look at the news and analysis today and you'll find some of the more thoughtful people have stopped believing in Tinkerbell.
Tom Friedman looks at where the enemy is and who's (not) helping us to defeat him.
Whatever threat the real Afghanistan poses to U.S. national security, the “Virtual Afghanistan” now poses just as big a threat. The Virtual Afghanistan is the network of hundreds of jihadist Web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against America and the West. Whatever surge we do in the real Afghanistan has no chance of being a self-sustaining success, unless there is a parallel surge — by Arab and Muslim political and religious leaders — against those who promote violent jihadism on the ground in Muslim lands and online in the Virtual Afghanistan. ......Sorry, but we don’t need more NATO allies to kill more Taliban and Al Qaeda. We need more Arab and Muslim allies to kill their extremist ideas, which, thanks to the Virtual Afghanistan, are now being spread farther than ever before. ...NYT
Maureen Dowd has traveled to Afghanistan with the Secretary of Defense. Yes, really. In a pretty sober editorial, Dowd presents a Robert Gates who doesn't sound exactly optimistic.
Gates knows messy conflicts get messier. When we were in Kabul, a senior NATO commander conceded that civilians may have been killed during a joint military operation with Afghan forces. There is a brief window of opportunity when a benign occupying power can accomplish some good before it is regarded with resentment and resistance. I showed Gates an article in the newspaper Stars and Stripes reporting that U.S. trainers considered Afghan soldiers and police a long way from ready, and that some Afghans in a new unit in Baghlan Province cower in ditches, steal U.S. fuel and weapons and are suspected of collaborating with the Taliban. ...
Even though "resentment and resistance" are clearly on the rise, Gates says what's needed is more than "a brief window of opportunity."
“You have to be realistic about the fact that developments of the kind we want to see take time,” Gates replied. “If we can re-empower the traditional local centers of authority, the tribal shuras and elders and things like that and put an overlay of human rights on that, isn’t that a step in the right direction?
“I’m leery of trying to change history in dramatic, short strokes. I think it’s very risky.”...NYT
And then there's Wall Street -- specifically that flagship of profit, Goldman Sachs. After a brief period of playing ball with the reformers, Goldman has relaxed back into its old ways of looking for short-term gains. It's top execs responded to the public outcry by not taking bonuses this year. But even that is not quite as it seems.
Bowing to pressure from shareholders and the public to rein in runaway pay on Wall Street, Goldman announced last week that its top executives, including Mr. Blankfein, would forgo cash bonuses this year. Instead, the executives will be paid in the form of special stock — an arrangement that, while eliminating big paydays this year, nonetheless may turn out to be enormously lucrative if Goldman’s share prices rises in the future. ......Since the modern Goldman emerged during the Depression, its executives have cultivated a ruthless professionalism tempered by what might best be described as Goldman Sachs Exceptionalism: a sense that Goldman stands apart from, if not above, Wall Street rivals. ...NYT
Health care reform? Another Tinkerbell effort. Just clap your hands and the compromise which appears to pass for real reform will become -- magic! -- real reform. It would certainly appear to have hit the same dead end as reforming the financial system and achieving real peace in Afghanistan.
What's puzzling is why the Senate and the White House are unwilling to use the constitutional weapons in their own hands to achieve real health care reform. See next post.
