White House Fears Liberal War Pressure
by Mike Allen
Politico.com : Sept. 1, 2009
White House officials are increasingly worried liberal, anti-war Democrats
will demand a premature end to the Afghanistan war before President Barack
Obama can show signs of progress in the eight-year conflict, according to
senior administration sources.
These fears, which the officials have discussed on the condition of
anonymity over the past few weeks, are rising fast after U.S. casualties hit
record levels in July and August.
The aides also expressed concern that Afghan election returns, still being
tallied, will result in a narrow reelection for President Hamid Karzai that
could result in qualms about his legitimacy - "Tehran II," as one official
put it, in reference to the disputed Iranian election.
The result: some think Afghanistan - not health care - will be the issue
that defines the early years of the Obama administration.
"There's no question that the drumbeat is going to get louder and louder on
the left, and you'll see some fall-off on the right," said Matt Bennett of
the think tank Third Way, the moderate voice of the progressive movement.
"His supporters on the Hill are fighting a really serious political battle
to keep the criticism under control."
The Afghanistan conflict, which has gotten relatively little attention in
part because Obama talks far more often about domestic concerns, is roaring
back to the top of the Obama agenda as Congress is about to return from
weeks of meetings with often unhappy voters.
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) last week called for a timetable to pull U.S.
troops out of Afghanistan - the same tactic he and other war opponents used
to build congressional support for forcing an end to the Iraq war.
But Obama officials - including National Security Adviser James Jones and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates - know the problem is much bigger than
Feingold and timetables. They anticipate a growing number of anti-war
liberals will call, with increasing force, for an end to the conflict when
lawmakers return. Cost could become an issue, too. With deficits high, there
will be heavy pressure on Obama to find savings somewhere in 2010 - and war
critics see Afghanistan as a good place to start.
George F. Will opened a new fissure among conservatives with a column
Tuesday calling for the U.S. to pull all ground troops out of Afghanistan,
on the theory on the French general Charles de Gaulle that genius "sometimes
consists of knowing when to stop."
But it's Democratic opposition that could force Obama to retreat on what he
has called a "war of necessity."
To try to salve critics, the administration has been developing a series of
numerical indicators, scheduled to be sent to Capitol Hill by Sept. 24, that
are designed to sharpen U.S. goals by measuring everything from civilian
deployments to the proportion of the Afghan population that is secured.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told POLITICO: "We have to show the
American people that all this effort, all these resources, all these lives
are making a difference."
White House officials expect that a whole new national conversation about
what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan, and how, will be prompted by
recommendations for strategy adjustments that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal,
the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, made in an assessment of the war that
went to the Pentagon on Monday and is likely to be delivered to the White
House in the next week.
McChrystal held off from requesting additional troops in the assessment, but
administration officials expect he will ask for at least 10,000 more
soldiers and Marines later this fall, on top of the 20,000 additional troops
Obama authorized in February and March.
"Our point here is: Let's see what's working, and what's not, and base it on
the facts, not a gut instinct that most commanders have, that more is
better," a senior administration official said. "We're prepared to shift and
adjust, depending on what we see work. We need to let this strategy take
hold, and see what we're doing well, and if there are deficiencies, before
coming in with any requests for additional resources."
Nevertheless, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at Monday's
briefing: "I think there's broad agreement that for many years our effort in
Afghanistan has been under-resourced politically, militarily, economically."
Liberal House members have already made it clear they will balk at future
funding requests, but now the administration is trying to make sure that
leaders and key committee chairmen don't also lose their stomach for the
conflict after two months in a row of record U.S. casualties since the 2001
invasion.
"It doesn't need to be victory in 12 months to 18 months -- that's not
realistic," a top administration official said. "But the American people
needed to have a sense that we are moving in the right direction. We need to
bring about noticeable change on the ground. We have to start to show
progress."
Bennett, of Third Way, said Americans need to recognize that the situation
Obama inherited in Afghanistan "is as bad as the economy was -- heading off
the rails in just as dramatic a way."
"In both cases, the president took a bunch of action very quickly to get
back on track, and it will take time to show benefits," Bennett said.
But unlike with the economy, there are few signs of "green shoots" in
Afghanistan.
In August, U.S. deaths in Afghanistan passed 50 for the first month since
the 2001 invasion, adding to administration worries about keeping key
lawmakers on board. A senior official said the White House always "knew it
was going to get worse before it got better."
"These casualties, as gut-wrenching as they are, are not a surprise to
anyone," the official said.
"When you put in 20,000 additional forces and you deploy them to regions of
the country that had been untouched by coalition forces for a long time --
had been basically ceded to the Taliban -- it's not at all unexpected that
that would then result in difficult confrontations, and American and
coalition lives lost. But, ultimately, by going after the Taliban in these
strongholds, it'll turn the tide in those areas."
© 2009 Capitol News Company LLC
***
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090901_new_light_on_copenhagen_climate_talks/
New Light on Copenhagen Climate Talks
By Amy Goodman
Truthdig: Sept 1, 2009
On Sept. 1, the European Union stopped manufacturing and importing
incandescent light bulbs. Europeans will now turn to the much more efficient
compact fluorescent, halogen and LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs.
Incandescents, critics argue, waste up to 95 percent of energy as heat,
using only 5 percent for light. The EU hopes to save the equivalent of 11
million households' energy usage through the year 2020, worth $7.33 billion
per year to the European economy.
The ban precedes the December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, held by
the United Nations to update the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Greenhouse-gas
emissions now occur faster than ever. Copenhagen will be critical to the
success or failure of establishing a practical, binding global plan of
action before human-caused climate change reaches the point of no return,
creating a cascade of catastrophes.
Eventually, global warming will become irreversible if action is not taken.
Greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere are measured in "parts per
million" (PPM). Environmentalist Bill McKibben says that a sustainable level
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 350 PPM. He has named his
organization 350.org to reinforce the point. We are currently at 387 PPM and
climbing. McKibben and 350.org are calling for a global day of action, on
Oct. 24, to pressure governments before the Copenhagen summit.
A new generation of environmental activists is already in motion. This week,
two young people were arrested in West Virginia for halting a Massey Energy
Co. mountaintop coal-mining operation with a weeklong "tree sit," and six
people in London were arrested at the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters
for protesting the bank's investment in fossil fuels. They glued themselves
together and to the floor of the bank to hamper their removal, leading
Reuters to headline its story "Protesters stick together in UK bank
demonstration."
The road to Copenhagen also is paved with gold: money being spent by the
wealthy oil, gas and coal industries to derail or weaken any outcome. The
American Petroleum Institute (API) has launched an "AstroTurf" (not to be
confused with grass roots) campaign in the U.S., paying for and organizing
rallies, largely attended by oil, gas and coal company employees, under the
banner of "Energy Citizens." Employees are bused in to the staged rallies
with signs proclaiming "I'll pass on $4 gas" and "Congress, don't take away
my job!" Similarities to the organized mobs at health care reform
town-hall-style meetings are not merely coincidental; former Republican
House Majority Leader Dick Armey's group FreedomWorks, funded by, among
others, oil and pharmaceutical corporations, is listed as a consultant to
each industry campaign.
The API is attempting to undermine the U.S. Senate's consideration of
climate-change legislation, and it just might succeed. The House bill,
referred to as the American Clean Energy and Security Act or the
Waxman-Markey climate bill, is up for consideration by the Senate in
September. Fast action would be required in order to grant President Barack
Obama the room to negotiate at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh in late
September, a key step in the lead-up to Copenhagen. But Sens. Barbara Boxer
and John Kerry said this week that the bill will be delayed, citing the
health-care debate and the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy. How ironic. Every
week that the health care and energy bills are delayed is a victory for the
opponents of change, which is especially sad since these were two of the
most important issues to Kennedy.
Genuine citizen action, in the U.S. and beyond, will be critical to counter
industry influence over the Copenhagen talks. There is a light at the end of
the climate tunnel-it just isn't incandescent.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio
news hour airing on more than 750 stations in North America. She is the
co-author of "Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary
Times," recently released in paperback.
© 2009 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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