Charlie Rose

doodah  08/13/2011 04:35 AM Report

China would never shoot themselves in the foot like that. They have their hands full within their own borders, and Need all the help they can get, so No Cold War; Esp. with USA.

Ahhhh-sooooo Hi-Yahhhhhh Nobody bodder me.

But your right, America will defend their good friend, India. And as long as Pakistan harbors terrorists, will continue to chase them down with drones. Maybe even India will join in with the fun.

gnosis  08/12/2011 11:24 PM Report

No one made predictions, so let me have a go at it. The US will withdraw. The Northern Alliance will reassemble, this time with some Pashtun allies, i.e. a broader force than before. India, Iran and the Russians will resume funding the alliance and maybe the US will too (doubtful). The Taliban will receive funding from Pakistan but no more than before. The civil war will resume. The US possibly could still do drone attacks in Afghanistan from Tajikistan or other such areas. Al Qaeda or its cousin the Lashkar e Tayaba will reestablish itself in Afghanistan. There will be spectacular attacks on Pakistan. This will polarize Pakistan further into secularists (mildly pro American, mending fences with India, non-Islamists, Pakistan-first viewpoints) and extremists (America and India are the devil, Pakistan as one component of a pan_Islamic world strategy). Civil war of sorts in Pakistan is a very real possibility - first it will be denied, then it will be in the open. China will first not act and then will intervene on the side of the secularists. Chinese military assistance to Pakistan will pick-up tremendously. Chinese bases entirely possible on Pakistan's coastline in stone's throw to the Persian Gulf. The extremists will be defeated after 15-30 years of struggle. Pakistan will take its place in the Chinese-led alliance in the new US-China coldwar which will begin in, say, 2030. The US will be drawn into this whether it likes it or not because China will apply pressure on matters crucial to the US and the West: hydrocarbons, weaponized presence, deployment capability to Australia and the Middle East, increased cultivation of Latin American states, space race, global economic arrangements, fight over carbon credits in a new carbon regime which the world will agree to as cities begin to submerge around 2030.

Ellen_Dibble  08/12/2011 08:53 AM Report

Did not the Afghans have money before the advent of Americans? Before the advent of Russians? I think we are having a Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in the temple moment, except it's not about money; it's about governance, the way that is done/mediated by currencies and the kinds of force/persuasion Americans think it commands. (I'm still not at all sure I understand.)

But I do know that referring to Afghans as "they" is a slippery slope. Plenty of motivated Afghans have had over a generation to get the heck out of Afghanistan. You could say that those who stay might have self-selected a certain way. I do know one a little, from the Kandahar region, whose English is without accent by now, and she seems at least as closely in tune with the way opportunities run in this country as any of us. She is more reserved/restrained than the British but knows exactly what to ask and when to ask it. You might say she knows the American dream better than I do, and it's not about the Great American McMansion; it has more to do with diversity, accommodation, choice, respect. As for many immigrants, a heightened role for family and culture envelops her, like a christening blanket, a "receiving blanket," and she is a little in awe of Americans who seem able to fly free and independent of these traditional safeguards. "Seem." Like Icarus, we seem to fall out of the sky too. "How do you stay up?" "Well, for me, it's like this," and she files that away carefully.

JohnGelles  08/12/2011 07:50 AM Report

The damage done to Americans by our own domestic failure to create government for the people (other than the top half --or smaller fraction perhaps) is so immense (in terms of losses of wealth and economic security and all that follows from same) -- that our advice to other nations must be pretty poor: we seem to have clue on how to build a good society in modern times. And what we built before today was even worse -- if we are counting and comparing the comfortable and the deprived.

Any decent god looking down on our scene at home and abroad would dismiss our own condition as not much better than those we look down upon.

Very very discouraging.

What will it take to build in all our lands for all our citizens communities of well behaved, well fed, well hosed, well educated, hospitable interesting people? What will it take to reclaim the American dream and spread it around the globe?

Some say well managed paper money could do the trick.

Money is a language but it is the language learned instantly by anyone the first toime they hear it.

Unfortunately, it is learned by no one well enough to replace the savage speaking it with someone worthy of its use.

doodah  08/12/2011 07:04 AM Report

... Over time, as they become more sophisticated, we can replace the Elvis records with Frank Zappa and Suze Orman with Jane Fonda Exercise videos. Before too long they'll be throwing their own Woodstock festivals and screwing in the streets. suicide bombing a thing of the past.

doodah  08/12/2011 06:16 AM Report

... we should air lift them old Elvis Presley 45s and Suzy Orman dvds, and get the hell out.

Missionaries can go back and organize sock-hops.

'Let's go to the Hop! Oh Baby! Let's Go to the Hop

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/12/2011 03:12 AM Report

"I recently came back from a tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Having not seen my wife for several months, I was horny & hot, pulsing with anticipation and looking forward to a night of hot passionate love with her.

Unfortunately she came out of the shower with a towel wrapped round her head, so I shot her."

This joke captures the essence of the issue.

Where the hell are the Afghans? Are we breeding our own generation? Pick up the ball and run with it Afghans!

davidhamber  08/12/2011 03:02 AM Report

We have been in Afghanistan longer than the Revolutionary War, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War. than WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (starting from the Tonkin Gulf action), and the 1st Iraq War. We are no closer to defeating the Taliban than we were 10 years ago. Most of the Afghanis consider us despicable infidels who want to disrupt their culture of female servitude, male chauvinism, devotion to a 7th century Islam, and centuries old tribalism, nepotism,and graft.

prasadbinoy  08/11/2011 08:54 PM Report

This was a very illuminating discussion, Charlie, with two of your very distinguished guests who weren't hesitant to call a spade a spade. There are lessons contained in the remarks: Dexter says the only dependable institution in Pakistan was the military. Well, the military didn't allow the system of civilian governance to develop in Pak. The USA backed the military. The civilian leaders took the help of military, militants and the maulavis to strengthen their hold on power. The population of Pakistan swelled to 180 million with the hope of a civil society. The peace-loving, prosperity-aspiring Pakistanis were always betrayed by their corrupt civilian-military governments. The same extremist-militant elements the governments were using against India are now out for their blood and they are running for cover.

The best strategy at this moment is for the USA and India to assure Pakistan against any border warfare from the Indian side and let Pakistan concentrate on its domestic politics, i.e., to contain the menace from all kinds of extremists.

However, there is another danger. The US Congress may thwart the effort by cutting down the aid. Or, the Pakistani elite may continue to feed on external aid and do nothing.

If the Pakistani nukes fall in the hands of the extremist elements, the nuclear destruction in terms of life and property will be a real possibility in South Asia. To avert that threat is a moral responsibility of USA and India.

Dundas, Ontario

Aug 11, 2011

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/11/2011 06:19 PM Report

So three leaders were killed in the South by the Taliban but these were bad leaders and the people are happy.

Sounds like it is time to finally look in the mirror.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/11/2011 06:13 PM Report

Charlie, you used three verys: very, very, very discouraging.

I think we both need to up our anti-anxiety medication.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  08/11/2011 06:10 PM Report

A bomb in a turban? Shoe and underwear and now a turban. What's next, a kite? What do suicide bombers want?

Bill Maher says sex in "Religulous":

[in a deleted scene on the DVD] Religions are maintained by people. People who can't get laid, because sex is the first great earthly pleasure. But if you can't get that, power is a pretty good second one. And that's what religion gives to people. Power. Power is sex for people who can't get or don't want or aren't any good at sex itself.

So first find these guys and teach them to hook up--eharmonyafghanstyle.com

The Taliban pays their soldiers $8 a day to fight and in a country with 40% unemployment this is a good job. For a tenth of what we spend to kill people we could employ every unemployed person in Afghanistan rebuilding water and sewage systems, schools and infrastructure. Would not this create more goodwill and be a greater deterrent to terrorism than killing the civilians?

Hey a jobs program--sorry too radical. Lock and load boys.

Ellen_Dibble  08/11/2011 05:21 PM Report

Benezraa, if I were presiding over a nation that had been at war with itself, partly trying to split in two, for almost all of my presidency, I too would come up with some very eloquent words, if I had it in me, to make sacred the very turf where lives were lost under my aegis. I am thinking 630,000 lives, but maybe that's North and South. A war for unity was getting elevated by its very cost into a war for a higher cause, one the North was not at all sure about. As I understand it, the campaign argument was about the value of negotiation: Settle for preserving the union, and cancel the emancipation proclamation. After shepherding us through that, how to mend the fences? Maybe best to become a martyr and leave that to generation next. How this figures in Af-Pak? We start with Al-Qaida and kick it up to emancipating Afghan females, something like that, to validate our costs.

I was interested to hear we don't know where the nukes are. When Pakistani militants were approaching sensitive sites, the State Department assured us we know and are certain of control of them. A certain inevitability appears. There are too many Muslims in India for me as uninformed as I am to think Islamabad would nuke Delhi, or anywhere in India. If such a thing happened, I think China would be plenty concerned. I think that the shifts that transpired post 9/11 would be microscopic compared to the shift after such a move (of the loose nuke sort). Mutual-assured police-state might be the appropriate threat, rather than mutually assured destruction. I assume the State Department has collaborated with other foreign offices to have a plan ready to roll out almost instantaneously if it happened. It probably would succeed to the extent it was invisible.

gnosis  08/11/2011 04:45 PM Report

I agree. This was the best and most honest interview on Afghanistan that I have seen in quite some time. It depressed the hell out of me but it's still good to know where things stand instead of deluding ourselves.

It seems like this illustrates an unexplored side of the strategic overreach phenomenon. Crucial interests are at stake (the nuclear issue), so we can't disengage. But the costs of engagement are bleeding us. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. And all this plays straight into China's hands. Pakistan's been handing over Xinjiang militants to China as soon as they catch them. No double games there. It's clear that an actual alliance at play, if there is one here, is Pakistan-China. If the Taliban were hurting China, I bet the outcomes would be very different. I think we've forgotten the cold war completely in the sense that we keep looking at it purely with the US as the sole superpower actor. Increasingly, it's not.

BENEZRAA  08/11/2011 04:34 PM Report

THE EARLESS, NOSELESS FACE OF AFGHANISTAN

When I think of Afghanistan, I think of that young Afghani girl, forced at tender age to marry against her will, and then having her ears and nose cut off in the name of "justice" and "family honor". Such justice! Such family honor!

What a disgrace, should the USA abandon Afghanistan! And to which powers should the USA leave Central Asia -- Iran and China, bordering Central Asia westerly and easterly, respectively?

Shall we enable a nuclear corridor to stretch from Iran through Central Asia all the way to China and North Korea? Shall we wrap ribbons on the nuclear missiles of Pakistan and gift them to Iran, the Taliban, Al-Quaeda, and Afghanistan? Shall we abandon our bases in Afghanistan and leave India alone to deal with Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China?

Has the USA so devoted itself to hedonism, isolationism, and the illusion that the oceans keep us safe from the rest of the world, that apathy, cowardice, and the printing of paper dollars define our value in the world?

Todays political world and human family are so intimately intertwined that all wars may DE FACTO be regarded as CIVIL WARS. It is therefore appropriate to quote the famous words of President Abraham Lincoln, presented succinctly, pointedly, and most eloquently in the text of Aaron Copland's "Lincloln Portrait".

From Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait:

"FELLOW CITIZENS, WE CANNOT ESCAPE HISTORY."

That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said.

"Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]

He was born in Kentucky, raised in Indiana, and lived in Illinois. And this is what he said. This is what Abe Lincoln said:

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves and then we will save our country." [Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]

When standing erect he was six feet four inches tall, and this is what he said;

He said: "It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." [Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858]

Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man. But when he spoke of democracy, this is what he said;

He said: "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of these United States, is everlasting in the memory of his countrymen. For on the battleground at Gettysburg, this is what he said;

He said: "That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

DavLev  08/11/2011 03:24 PM Report

Seems that both who were interviewed dont have any idea as to the future of both Iraq and Afghanistan. and Pakistan could turn out to be the straw that broke the US back, with its 100 nukes. I mean, why are we fighting to defend one side against another in these civil wars. of Islamic domination I ask? We killed Osama and Saddam...and basically hurt their militant organizations,if not having killed them entirely. So what? These are not Waffen SS German Panzer divisions we are fighting. The Ruskies/Chinese are smart. They learned from past experience, let us do the dirty work...while they are manufacturing carriers...having political work camps which

introduce youngsters to hate the US ("the fault of everything"). While back on the farm, Syria and Libya are burning...and Egypts Muslim Brotherhood is manipulating itself into the deposed govt (while our friend Mubarak,

is lying on a hospital bed, in a cell, surrounded by his two sons). Iran is perhaps 1year from having a nuclear capabiity,.with all that implies..and the Pales are trying to circumvernt 62 years of warfare and losses by a UN bid to include allowing 5m Muslns to live in Israel proper).

The two men interviwed have it right,.no one knows what they are doing. At least Charlie asked some salient questions this time, not loaded.

ShalomFreedman  08/11/2011 02:12 PM Report

If the U.S. has promised to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2114 , then as Filkins said, the Taliban simply has to 'let the clock run down.' But what happens to the American soldiers there between now and then? Why should they be sacrificed to a 'mission' that cannot be accomplished? Why doesn't the U.S. leave if an eventual civil war is definitely in the cards?

As for what seems far more important the situation in Pakistan the U.S. failure dating from the Clinton Administration to prevent Pakistan from becoming a nuclear power, and then later exercise control over that power is a much more serious matter. For as Filkins indicates a nuclear war between India and Pakistan is a real possibility. Another possibility is that as Pakistan disintegrates those weapons will fall into terrorist hands. As for the double- game Pakistan has been playing and the U.S. inability to put a halt to that this too indicates the terrible weakness of the overall U.S. position. Is there no way the U.S. can take control over those weapons, or is that militarily impossible and likely to lead to an even more disastrous situation?

I have no idea of what the proper answer is or if there is one.

I do however have the sense that the U.S. will gain nothing by negotiating with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and that any agreement made in Pakistan will also not be worth anything. Dealing with totally unreliable entities one cannot expect a positive result.

If it were not for the nuclear proliferation issue my sense is the U.S. would be better off being entirely out of the area.

gnosis  08/11/2011 12:31 PM Report

Afghanistan is actually the more stable state of the two in the longer term. It is a nation that has come together in whatever fashion by itself. It has survived lots of strife and neglect, but does have a sense of shared nationhood between all the groups there. The outlook on Pakistan is not that positive as far as I can discern. Reading the New Yorker piece it struck me how the United States has funneled billions into it starting the 1950s. Is it an politically and economically viable state? The jury is out. It appears to have secessionist movements in every province, including the really loud one in Balochistan. It appears to be held together by armed force more than any sense of shared nationhood. And the army required to hold it together is so large that it can only be sustained by massive external aid. Most of the traditional markets for the goods produced in Pakistan are in the east in India which are currently off limits. There is no question that there is an elite group flush with wealth and influence in Pakistan, but it seems to be a very thin layer. It could be that Pakistan can create a stable nation-state, but a 60 year dependence on foreign assistance, a bloated security apparatus and now other actors vying to displace the state itself make it much more complicated. There is China of course, so it is possible that they will step in where the US steps out - but the pound of flesh they will extract from Pakistan will be a much deeper cut. Tough time to be a Pakistani.

REMant  08/11/2011 11:01 AM Report

Filkins is right, of course. Maybe that's why he isn't working at the Times anymore? Again Karzai's regime looks an awful lot like Diem's, relatives and all. And, of course, we always said back then, too, that the VC had no support. I can't, BTW, see the State Dept negotiating anything, for the reasons Charlie enumerated. Bad as it may be, I can't see, either, an India-Pakistan conflict escalating in the way I can a Sunni-Shiite, or having anywhere near the impact. The really puzzling thing about Pakistan that is that despite all of this it is a fairly rich place, with an economy much larger than most realize. They just sent aid to Somalia.