NYC Junta

Good news out of the Afpak region, the Taliban second in command, Mullah Baradar, was captured in Karachi.  This is notable in itself, and comes as the US is leading an ambitious effort to capture the Taliban stronghold of Marja, but I was particularly happy to hear that the raid was a joint effort by Pakistan’s secret service, the ISI, and the CIA. The ISI has for a long time played both sides of the Taliban and the US for reasons clear in this article, and I think it’s critical to get the Pakistanis to abandon the Taliban as a client and work with the US to deny them sanctuary. That means attacking their strongholds in the tribal regions, which they’ve done in the last few months, and have the intelligence agencies work together to go after high-value targets.  Hopefully this raid is just the first wave of this. What if the next few months Marja falls and the Afghans seem to actually hold the city themselves and set up a semi-decent government while a joint US/Pakistan raid captures or kills Mullah Omar (who is said to be in Karachi)? That kind of thing could be a game-changer and would be some well-deserved good news for the Obama foreign policy team, which I think is actually doing a good job.

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Earlier in the day yesterday, I tweeted that I’d like to hear Obama admit the truth about the state of our Union. While he couldn’t come out and put it the way I did, I noticed that he avoided the traditional opening of the speech, “The state of our Union is strong.”

Obama opened with a frank assessment of the tough times we’re facing, but put them in a historical context so as to soften the blow of bad news. It was not until the twelfth paragraph of his speech (six minutes into it), as he concluded his introduction and came to specific proposals, that he affirmed the strength of the country.

It’s because of this spirit — this great decency and great strength — that I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight.  Despite our hardships, our union is strong.  We do not give up.  We do not quit.  We do not allow fear or division to break our spirit.  In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength.

I found the speech uplifting, and welcomed the return of Obama the Force. Throughout 2009, it seemed the strong, eloquent man I had voted for was taking a back seat too often, and not standing up for important principles. Despite the power of the speech, I still find fault with his policies on the war, national security, and the prosecution of war crimes which were clearly committed by our government. I will still fight him on that. But this was a welcome return of a strong leader with the right ideas on jobs, energy and education.

One of the high points was when he said we need to reject those who say his program is too ambitious, and “that we should just put things on hold for a while.” Obama’s response channeled Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, where the civil rights leader wrote, “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ … This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”

As the President put it:

For those who make these claims, I have one simple question: How long should we wait?  How long should America put its future on hold?

You see, Washington has been telling us to wait for decades, even as the problems have grown worse.  Meanwhile, China is not waiting to revamp its economy.  Germany is not waiting.  India is not waiting.  These nations — they’re not standing still.  These nations aren’t playing for second place.

I’m looking forward to the ways in which Obama might rally his party to avoid a monstrous November defeat. It will be difficult. But as he said, they still have the largest majority in decades, and we the people expect them to pass some meaningful legislation.

What did you think of the speech?

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Good for Google, finally standing up to China, I hope this embarrasses the Chinese government. The Chinese government has been extraordinarily effective at censoring the internet, contradicting many who thought initially that the internet would be the trojan horse through which more liberal ideas circulated through to the people. I don’t care about the justifications about keeping order, or the tired story about protecting people from pornography, any regime afraid of ideas is a bad one.

I’m the benefactor of a smart colleague who is a voracious reader and, like I occasionally do, leaves magazines around the office for others to read after he finishes them. Among the mags I got today was Foreign Policy, just read Walter Russel Mead’s excellent piece that has gotten a lot of attention this past week for really exploring the comparison between the foreign policy of Obama and Carter.

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