Review: Ahmed Rashid's Descent Into Chaos

Typically, American books on foreign policy, be they from the right or the left, see every foreign policy endeavor through the eyes of the American political system, tying action half a world away to the sturm and derang of the two-party system here. Very rarely are we treated to books about foreign nations by scholars actually acquainted with those nations and their inhabitants, and as a result we remain fatally detached from the realities of most foreign conflicts.

Ahmad Rashid, however, has lived in Pakistan for the whole of his life, and has journalistic and personal relationships with personalities on both sides of the various conflicts enveloping Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the whole of Central Asia. His ability to elicit frank statements from both Hamid Karzai and members of various Islamic terrorist organizations gives the reader a glimpse of that world rarely offered to the Western Hemisphere. His freedom from the American political system is a definite bonus, as he is under no obligation to artificially tailor all his arguments to suit its bi-polar nature, and is free to simply recount the facts and realities of the situation.

The overwhelming theme that I took away from the book is the continual doublespeak on the part of the ISI and the Pakistani military. Musharraf has welcomed American aid in all its forms -- debt forgiveness, cash, and arms -- while presiding over a nation that has continued its long-standing cozy relationship with Islamic terror.

The Taliban maintained power in Afghanistan in no small part because the ISI allowed it to. Even as the American bombing campaign wore on, the Pakistanis asked for a brief reprieve so that they might escort the ISI agents still aiding the Taliban out of Afghanistan. The Pakistanis have allowed the Taliban safe haven in Waziristan and refrained from turning its members over to NATO forces, choosing instead to collect Arabs and call them al Qaeda. The ISI also believes itself to be combating growing Indian influence in the region and still maintains a vast expanse of madrassas in which to train future Kashmiri militants or fight the Indian presence in Afghanistan.

For its part, the US has for the most part avoided calling Musharraf on any of it, afraid that doing so might result in the loss of the strongest ally in the region. But, as Rashid exhaustively details, Pakistan has remained an ally in name only. The Pakistanis have welcomed American aid and arms willfully, to be sure, but when it comes time to fulfill their end of the bargain they have failed catastrophically.

In Afghanistan Proper, the US chose to fund various warlords in lieu of sending its own troops, resulting in a weak central government and even weaker security. The side project in Iraq not only siphoned off troops, but space-bound intelligence apparatuses as well, leaving the return of the Taliban essentially unchecked for years.

Rashid's book is full of immense detail and exhibits a wealth of knowledge about the region one would be hard-pressed to find in any contemporary American writer. Anyone who looks to better understand the true components of the resurgence of the Taliban and the failure of the Pakistanis to thwart an al Qaeda safe haven owes themselves the purchase of Descent Into Chaos.

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Review: Dennis Perrin's Savage Mules

As I have written here, here, and here, the Republicans do not possess a monopoly on nationalistic, imperialistic foreign policy. Quite to the contrary, Democrats have a long tradition of engaging in nation-building (read: nation destroying), propping up military juntas, and just plain old bombing in general. It was Truman who was responsible for the only use of atomic weapons in history and who oversaw the blood-drenched Korean Peninsula. It was LBJ who saw Kennedy's plans to fruition in Vietnam. Even Bill Clinton, that model of progressive idealism, saw to continuous bombing and destructive sanctions on Iraq, substituted one source of death for another in Kosovo, and from whose administration--not Bush's--sprang the extraordinary rendition program.

Dennis Perrin provides one of the few voices in America today not blinded by the false pragmatism of the Democratic Party and beholden to party loyalty above general ideals. In a political spectrum divided by blind homage to party above all else, and denigration of the only other politically-viable alternative, Perrin is a rare breed, indeed, not content to merely elect "better" Democrats, he sees the need for a real alternative. A tearing down of the system which pits citizens against each other merely to distract them from the fact that both parties are running away with the money and the country.

Although this could be extended to all facets of American political theater, Savage Mules deals with foreign policy, breezing through successive Democratic Presidents and candidates in a succinct 120 pages. He touches on all the things I mentioned above and more, detailing at each juncture how each was met will willful glee by liberals ostensibly opposed to war. The same Daily Kos bloggers now feigning abhorrence of Bush's foreign policy were just 10 years ago happily justifying Clinton's incursion into Kosovo, ignoring its clear intent of extending NATOs reach in Europe. Just the same, although they now raise alarms about Bush's assault on the Constitution, liberals have spent the last century accepting similar attacks on speech and democracy by Democratic Presidents in times of Democrat wars.

What makes Perrin an anomaly in today's arena is that his counter-point does not come under the umbrella of the false opposition party. All too often, brief moments of clarity, such as Sean Hannity decrying Clinton's use of Executive power, come only as a vehicle for arguing for the speaker's own party, rather than to advance a consistent idea. Once the Republicans took power, Hannity's tune changed, cementing his place as a Republican stooge.

Perrin, on the contrary, opposes America's interventionalist foreign policy without regard to party allegiance. That this comes off as a radical position is particularly infuriating, as clearly the country would be better off were it the norm. Democrats only become opposed to wars when it becomes politically expedient, but are more than happy to join in the next foray as if the last century never happened, as if there is no recorded history from which to cull opposition to such policy making.

Rather than seeing Democratic supporters of American hegemony and dwindling civil liberties as simply a defective version of a good product, Perrin sees them for what they are: predictable products of the corporate, two-party American political system. Democracy in America can only go so far, and at no time is it allowed to call the system itself into question.

In that regard, neither party is exempt from employing an army of useful idiots dedicated to upholding the system no matter how many times it kicks them in the teeth. Democrats in particular seem fond of blows to the jaw, as they have sat by approvingly as 'progressive' after 'progressive' has done their part to continue the long American tradition of imposing itself on the world's citizens, one administration at a time.

One need only look at Barack Obama's recent hard right turn, and the shocked liberals left in his wake, to see Perrin's thesis in full bloom. Be it his commitment to the status quo ante on FISA, his willingness to leave residual forces in Iraq, walking his timeline back, his pledge to bomb Pakistan, or his commitment to transferring the failed Iraq policies to its Eastern neighbor, Obama has shown himself to be the same product in a shinier package. And what is the Kossacks' response? Withholding a campaign donation for a few days until placated and assured all is well in the Matrix.

Here, we should all share Perrin's attitude. In American politics, the public is pitted against each other in a contest of faux poles while the corporate system continues unabated. When we dedicate ourselves blindly to Party above self, we all lose.

Related:

Obama's Hard Right Turn, July 2
Obama Would Keep Extra-judicial Contractors in Iraq, March 3
The False Bi-Polar Appearances of American Foreign Policy, June 25

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Review: The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby

One of the areas of the American political arena that most interests me is how rhetoric and subjugation to emotion affects the path of discourse. All too often, sides are chosen well before the ennumeration of arguments begins, and those arguments, once made, never stray far from the superficial. Today's politics are based on plays to emotions, empty rhetoric, and only a fleeting association with logic and reason.

It is with this frame of reference that I picked up Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason. I was hoping, I suppose, for Jacoby to examine the psychological aspects of both the use of 'unreason' in proselytizing and the susceptibility of Americans to such rhetorical facades.

However, the book instead serves as more of a historical view at America's intellectual past and its influence on the current climate. In doing so, Jacoby rehashes much of what has been said before, offering not much in the way of new perspective on historical eras--from the Enlightenment musings of the founding fathers to McCarthy's Red Scare bully pulpit.

These certainly have done much to shape the current state of affairs, but Jacoby is offering nothing new. Like most other 'cultural conservationists' [her term], Jacoby is wary of Literaure curricula not centered on the classics. While I have no doubt that Plato, Aristotle, Paine, and the like are important, I grow weary of arguments suggesting that culture should be centered on these works to the exclusion of all others. The argument, it seems to me, is based almost entirely on nostalgia and indicative of a blind eye toward any work which is either new or has garnered new importance.

Jacoby's obsession with the typical 'dead white men' is not nearly as infuriating as her war on all things newer than parchment. Her aversion to any use of technology is sprinkled throughout the book and retains its own chapter later in the tome. Is there a lot of worthless information on the Iternet? Absolutely. But there's also a lot of good. And for someone who bemoans the faltering import of the classics, Jacoby is all-too-quick to dismiss the Internet's role in introducing people to such works, along with an infinite amount of other resources.

Video games also draw Jacoby's ire, which is to be expected. While I share her annoyance with the 'culture of distraction,' it is a tired argument and does nothing to advance what should be her central tenet. (She even works in the cliched admonishment of Grand Theft Auto.)

Throughout the book, Jacoby illustrates a good, learned perspective of history. But I picked up this book, not in search of a history lesson, but a new vision on the use of anti-intellectualism and anti-rationalism in American politics. While she dabbles in the latter theme, her recount of history is far from innovative and she pauses too long on cultural inanities for my taste. Overall, an interesting read, but lacking in innovation.

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