Overstaying your welcome

Maliki Calls for Timetable for US Troop Withdrawal

"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has for the first time publicly called for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The Bush administration has been secretly negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraq that would allow the US to keep permanent military bases in Iraq. But al-Maliki said Iraq only wants to sign a short-term agreement that includes a withdrawal timetable. Al-Maliki said, “The goal is to end the presence of foreign troops.” In Washington, the Bush administration rebuffed Maliki’s request. Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman criticized timelines as “artificial.” State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack questioned whether Maliki might have been misquoted."


Yesterday [July 08, 2008], Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would like to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Today, however, the Bush administration rejected the timetable. In an April 24, 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, however, President said he would remove troops if asked by Iraq, but he predicted that Maliki would not ask for a withdrawal:

ROSE: But if he said get out now, we don’t want you anymore–

BUSH: I don’t see how we could stay. It is his country.

ROSE: But if he said that, it would lead to the catastrophe that you have suggested.

BUSH: That’s why he’s not going to say it.

ROSE: You don’t think he’ll say it?

BUSH: I don’t. No, I don’t.


Back in April 2004, Peter Peterson, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, asked Sen. McCain what the US government would do if asked to leave by the Iraqi government.

McCAIN: "Well, if that scenario evolves, then I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."


President Bush has long maintained that if the Iraqi government wants the U.S. to leave Iraq, then the U.S. would do just that, as he said in May 2007:

"We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It’s their government’s choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave."

So we're left with an administration and a GOP presidential candidate grasping at straws to try and find another reason we should stay in Iraq. Once the democratically elected government asks us to leave and we refuse, we truly do become an occupying force and all those arguments about how we went in to remove an evil dictator and help the Iraqis form their own government become null and void. So what have our soldiers and Iraqi civilians been dying for then?

"The purpose of the war in Iraq is to maintain a war in Iraq."
Keith Olbermann

Book Review: Three Cups of Tea

The title of the book is a reference to the customary way of doing business in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other parts of Central Asia:

For the first cup of tea, you are a stranger. By the second cup, you are a friend. By the third cup, you are family. It is a testament to the patience and understanding it takes to forge the kind of long-lasting ties to work in this region of the world.


By far, one of the most inspiring books I've ever read. Greg Mortenson single handedly started an initiative to bring education to rural Pakistan. I wish I had gotten a chance to read this before finishing my thesis - because this story is more directly related to my work than any other book or journal article I used.

Through persistence and a little luck, he made the right connections in Pakistan (and eventually Afghanistan) and in the U.S. with donors. This book recounts his efforts from their inception in 1996 after getting lost in the Himalaya through 9/11 and up to 2003 when the war in Iraq diverted promised American resources from Afghanistan (again). His work survived a kidnapping in Waziristan, several fatwas (that were eventually overturned by the highest mufti in Iran), and death threats (most of which came from his fellow Americans after 9/11 in the form of "how dare you help Muslims").

After getting separated from his guide leading him off the Baltoro glacier in Northern Pakistan after a failed attempt to scale K2, Mortenson found himself in a little village called Korphe in Baltistan, Pakistan. The first Westerner ever to stumble into Korphe intrigued the people. After being nursed back to health and served what little food the people had to offer, he witnessed children in Korphe studying outside, with no teacher and no school, scratching lessons in the dirt. He promised the village elder Haji Ali that he would build them a school, went back to the US, began writing letters and grants while living out of his car. After sending 580 letters, a single $100 check from Tom Brokaw, and $600 in pennies raised by elementary school children was the net result.

Then, fellow Mountaineer, physicist and silicon-valley pioneer turned philanthropist Jean Hoerni agreed to donate $12,000 for the school. Mortenson sold everything he owned, and returned to Pakistan, forged business ties and purchased supplies only to discover that the village did not yet want a school - but a bridge. Korphe was inaccessible except for a single hand-pulled makeshift lift cart that spanned the Braldu river. There was no way to get supplies into Korphe. Rather than storming off like many impatient Americans would, Mortenson entered a partnership with the people of Korphe - valuing their opinions, customs, and assessments of their own needs rather than dismissing them as primitive or assuming that an American knows what's best for them.

As Mortenson has said, it took 3 years and a lot of mistakes, but the Korphe school was finally built and has sent many of Korphe's children on to local towns for further education - including many girls.

It's a stunning account of an extraordinary man, who through his humility and respect for the people of the region, worked with them, heeding their input and their cultural norms, was able to do what no other humanitarian organization could -- build schools focusing on girls' education and bring long-lasting, meaningful change to one of the world's poorest and most unstable regions of the world where outsiders are usually regarded with cautious suspicion.

With Jean Hoerni's help once again, Mortenson founded the Central Asia Institute (see link to the left) and has built over 60 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1996 and has provided countless services and monetary support for education in these regions.

He is fighting the war on terror with the only effective ammunition - education. Give people education, and you give them the means to take control of their own lives. In areas where the only free education available is in the form of conservative, fundamentalist madrassas (many funded by the Saudi government), access to broad general education is key to fighting terrorism while forging ties with the very people we're trying to help.

It costs $1 per day to pay a teacher in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Wes Clark is right

I do not understand the uproar over Wesley Clark's comments the other day.

“I certainly honor (McCain’s) service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces as a prisoner of war,” Clark said in his opening remarks.

Clark then went to dispute McCain’s claim of extensive experience with strategic issues, noting that in his political and military careers McCain had never handled major executive responsibility and had little experience in decision-making roles.

(2:43 in video above) “Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down,” host Bob Schieffer said.

“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president,” Clark responded.

Seriously... what is wrong with that? He wasn't "devaluing" McCain's service. He was simply saying that his experience as a POW and a fighter pilot is not a qualification to be president. I agree with that. It takes more than a singular experience to qualify someone to be president. Just because he was a POW doesn't mean he's automatically qualified.

Barack Obama played into that hand by condemning the comments. Sure, McCain is an American war hero. No doubt about that. But is that all we want in a president?

And... a funny

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