Far East Cynic

I despise the Tea Party-they represent to me a danger to the United States that is equal to any other the country has faced. A few million docile swine-being manipulated by some very unscrupluous men. They may not being wearing brown shirts physically-but they are of the same caliber of people who manned the ranks of the Brown Shirts way back when. I will continue to attack them at every opportunity-because they deserve the scorn and derison of those of us who actually have the clarity of vision to see through them.

Maybe what it is going to take is for the GOP to take the House and the Senate so that the Tea Party candidates can be exposed as being every bit an empty suit they say Obama is. But before we plunge off that cliff, we might want to play the tape all the way to end to see where it leads.

For the Tea Party to achieve a real measure of power – which I profoundly hope will not be the case – they would rapidly run up against reality: to retain any popular support, they have to deliver economic salvation, and deliver it fast, to the working and middle classes. All the anti-government rhetoric in the world, in the current economic crisis, does not change the fact that there’s simply no way to do that by wielding anti-government, anti-regulation axes. And since the President is not going away for at least two years and has a veto pen-that is not going to happen soon. The American public only has an attention span of about one year-and that is why the current administration is in trouble now. These are not normal times. 

Even in a best-case scenario, it will take years to generate enough jobs to replace the 8 million lost since the start of the recession. Quite simply, the private markets alone do not have the ability to return the country to prosperity. And the odds are not good that the Tea Party goons can do that on their own. For one thing, a point I keep wishing to drive home to you, global economic trends and demographics are not on the Tea Partiers side. For the last 20 years or so, Americans have been outsourcing most of their industrial capacity to the developing world.  Previous recoveries have happened by stimulating consumer demand, which in turn stimulates the industrial sector. But there really isn’t an industrial sector anymore, and consumers, seemingly having learned a lesson from the financial panic, are saving and paying down personal debt. Even if people weren’t saving, increased consumer demand would only widen the trade deficit with China and move even more money and jobs overseas. And those “brown people” they don’t like are out birthing them two to one. 

Despite all their talk-Tea Partiers are not serious about slashing the federal deficit. All the cosmetic spending cuts you folks think you can make-it does not change the fact that the big ticket items – Social Security, Medicare, defense spending, homeland defense - they want to make exempt from spending reductions. That contrasts with cuts of 20, 30, in some cases even 50% in revenues taken in by, and consequently in spending carried out by, city, county, and state level governments. Until you restructure the Big 4 items above-you can’t make any real dent in the budget. And the day you take that on-stand by for a huge fight from more than just the usual folks you make into villains. What is really funny is that these guys want to exacerbate the situation by allowing the Bush tax cuts to continue which will punch an even bigger hole in the deficit. Tax cuts won’t generate additional federal revenue-not this time. (They never did before either). 

The Tea Party can bemoan this all they want, and douche Teabaggers can continue to whine about the federal government; but, at the end of the day, if they become “incumbents” they will have to work out how to govern rather than simply rage against masturbation. ( How anyone can be opposed to that is beyond my ken).  They will, in other words, have to change from being spoiled children to being adults in a complex world. And, unless they want to become as loathed as the current batch of incumbents they are attacking, they will have to work out how to use the tools at the federal government’s disposal to help get the unemployed back to work in an economic environment in which private markets alone aren’t up to the challenge. 

And if Saint Sarah actually wins the Presidency? Well the government will get even bigger than it is now. You can take that to the bank. 

Be careful what you wish for.

Given all the hullabaloo about the nomination of Miss Masturbation here in real murrika-you may not have been paying attention to two elections that have real impacts on the world those Teabaggers as well as the rest of us normal people will face tomorrow.

The first was in Japan-and the result was a big win for the good guys. Ichiro Ozawa’s attempt to replace Naoto Kan as leader of the Democratic Party of Japan  failed. That’s great news-Ozawa is a really sleazy guy.

Kan was announced the winner of Tuesday’s nail-biting party presidential vote at 3:40 pm. He garnered a total vote of 721 compared to Ozawa’s 491. As expected, Kan won a majority of support among party staff, regional representatives and supporters. But he also won majority support of the DPJ’s 411 Diet members, which counted for about two-thirds of the overall result.

The Economistcalled Ozawa an “increasingly ineffectual bully” in July 2007 and partially blamed him both for enervating reformists in his own party and for DPJ failure to profit from LDP predicaments. That’s a pretty good explanation. He is currently under the threat of indictment for his involvement in a land scandal in Tokyo-and many thought his running to replace Kan was an attempt to shield himself from any further investigation.

Of course now, he will not have any chance of becoming Prime Minister-and that is bad news for him.

The other election, and whose results are not so good for the US was in Turkey. The Turks voted on a series of constitutional amendments in a referendum that was cast as a judgment on the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Unfortunately he won-and that’s bad news for the US.

Turkey is an Islamic country. However thanks to Kemal Ataturk, it is a secular country, where the military has had the veto card-making sure that religion stayed out of politics. And in the past they exercised that veto on several occasions-with mixed results. However from a US standpoint the Turks stayed firmly in the Western orbit and did not slip into the morass that other Islamic nations have.

And that is the real problem.  While not perfect,  the Army served as check against an electorate that  keeps on voting in religious parties in Turkey and if the army did not have anything to say in Turkey, things could slip it into a sharia dominated country. That is the antithesis of what Ataturk wanted. And its really bad for the US.

Now there are some who say that this could actually help open the way for a settlement with the Kurds ( like their interests should be any one’s concern) or help Turkey get into the EU. I’m not buying either proposition.  The Kurds need to shut up and color-and as for the EU its going to take a lot more than this one election to persuade the rest of the EU to play ball. Erdogan now has the upper hand-which might be Ok if he were not so beholden to the damn Muslim parties-but he is. Unlike Iraq-Turkey is a Muslim country in a position of interest to the United States, if for no other reason than that control the Straits of Dardanelles.

” The death of Atatürk, who had saved Turkey during the war and revived the Turkish Nation after the war, is a great loss, not only for his country, but also for Europe as well. ” Sir Winston Churchill

I hope this is not coming true again.

Thinking about posting a Tweet or a picture to your Facebook page?

You might want to check your settings on your phone first. Otherwise you might find out the hard way that your phone is sending out messages you would rather not.

A Tweet, like this one, is actually saying this. The Web site I Can Stalk You has some great advice on how to avoid this.

“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.”

The population of  Delaware is 849,000.  The lady who doesn’t like masturbation or sex-got just 30,172 votes tonight. Even assuming a 55/45% split Democratic / Republican and subtracting out underage folks that still leaves a lot of people who did not vote. The number of nonvoters continues to outpace voters. In a primary season where the narrative tends to be about partisanship and anger, the statistics through the end of the summer suggest that voter participation remained relatively consistent with the last couple off-year election cycles.

And that is all you need to know about the Tea Party. Democracy and rule by the people-not a chance. Tyranny of a crazy minority over the rest of us? You betcha!  Refusal to stand up and be counted against stupidity allows the crazy people to to move to the front of the line.  Apathy and refusal to confront the evil when you see it-begets you tyranny later. Welcome to the New McCarthyism-motherfuckers. To quote John Cole:

Oh, you’re gonna get your limited government, Christian style, and you’re gonna get it good, you morons- I may even chip in for the wetsuits and dildo for you special cases at Hit and Run. I can’t blame crazy people for being bat shit crazy, but I sure as hell can heap some scorn on pricks like the Reason writers for running rhetorical cover for the lunatics and helping to mainstream their insanity…………I just hope you chumps lose the leather jackets and designer wayfarer prescription specs, because those look vaguely French. Your days of esoterically talking about the virtues of Ayn Rand at DC wine and cheese parties are over, because you’re now bitches for Real ‘Murrika. Yeefuckinghaw! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Douchebags.

Now I know how good ordinary Germans felt in 1932 as their country slid down the road to ruin-by electing an evil man who manipulated good people…….to destruction.

It may be the wave-but I won’t be surfing it. I will be standing on the shore cursing it at the top of my lungs. Fuck YOU!

It occurred to me that I had forgotten to post one last set of pix from my ten week sojurn in Bucharest. Can’t let that happen. So here for your viewing pleasure are some shots from The peasant museum.Muzeul Taranului Roman in Romanian:

The museum starts with a gallery of art-about a different subject of Romanian history. ( They change it every week). The week we were they they had art from Transylvania:

It is a bride and a groom and what looks like their already born new son. Just making it legal I guess.

Continue Reading »

At least in Montana, there can be found a newspaper with the gumption to expose yet another of Sarah Palin’s lies.

See how many neighborhoods you can recognize in this-interesting time lapse video by photographer Samuel Cockedey:

Not for nothing, does Megan McArdle deserve the title, “Dumbest Blogger Ever”.

Ezra Klein does a great job destroying a post by both her and her husband. The subject-health care reform and the lies that are consistently told about it.

Greetings from the lounge at Heathrow Airport. I’m sitting here cooling my heels waiting to catch my flight back to the US. I am happy to be going home.

It did not dawn on me till yesterday-what day I had been booked to travel. Today is the 9th anniversary of September 11th, 2001. Has it really been 9 years? It seems as if the decade has just flashed by.

There is a very good article by George Friedman ( the guy who wrote the book about the Next 100 years)-about what this day means, and what it also does not mean. I strongly commend it to you-it is a good read.

Time to go board the plane.

Well the day I  have been looking forward to-is getting closer. With luck I will be back across the Atlantic ocean this weekend. Romania has been nice-but ten weeks is about six weeks two much. I’ve seen the city pretty much through and through, driven around southern Romania and up into the mountains. I am very ready to go home. Last couple of nights all I have done is stay in and watch movies on my computer. Problem is, I either need to down load some new ones or get some new entertainment. I’ve pretty well been through all the ones on my external hard drive. Another reason to get back home-even if it is too Shopping Mall USA.

Speaking of movies, one thing I am excited about is that when I get back, the new Wall Street movie should be out. That I am going to go see. If I can’t get the S.O. to go with me-I will go by myself.

<———————————————————————————————————————————————>

Clive Crook has a great column up about how Obama has just folded like a cheap suit this fall-and he is right. If the Democrats get killed this fall, they will have no one to blame but themselves. It seems that no one, and I mean no one, will step to the plate and take leadership-and in the process show the country why the “Tea Party” solution is no solution at all.

His speech on Monday already said, in effect, that he is giving up the effort to pass another stimulus. The Labor Day address called for $50bn of new spending on infrastructure, but over six years, and the plan “will be fully paid for”, presumably meaning no increase in the budget deficit. It is a non-starter in any case, of course. But the messaging was revealing. The word “stimulus” was never mentioned.

This is a great mistake, as I argued here. The economy needs another stimulus, and can afford it. But Obama has decided that politics rules it out. He is in campaign mode, praising unions and beating up Republicans, evidently calculating that getting out the base is what matters. Meanwhile, economic policy is on hold.

Is there an alternative? I believe so, and made the case for it in the article I just linked to. A stimulus based on temporary tax cuts–extend all the Bush changes for two more years, and combine it with generous payroll-tax relief–would be difficult for the Republicans to block. Including an extension of the Bush tax cuts for high-income households alongside those for the middle-class might make the package less cost-effective in fiscal terms, though this is not clear. What is clear is that extending all the cuts would deny the Republicans their favorite excuse for saying no: “It’s a tax increase.”

 

I remain in complete agreement with Krugman-the stimulus was not big enough nor was it targeted enough ont the right sectors. The idiots who keep posting on their Facebook pages about “making their Congressman pay for voting in favor of the stimulus”-really have a short memory it seems. Had their been no stimulus things would be even worse than they are. If throwing the thugs the bone of extending the Bush tax cuts for a couple of years is necessary to get them to play ball on a stimulus-well then so be it. That’s practical politics, something my Tea swilling compatriots conveniently forget.

<—————————————————————————————————————————————>

Truer words have never been written:

Some folks might tell you that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer isn’t emblematic of modern Republicanism. I would tell you that they’re wrong. Brewer is the perfect symbol of everything that is devious, ignorant and generally wrong about the modern GOP. She’s a more retarded version of Sarah Palin, without Palin’s benefit of being hot enough to distract from just how dumb and allergic to personal responsibility she is.

There was a time when the GOP would have had someone like the governor deported at the end of a fucking rocket. But that was before the party made ignorance a virtue, and stupidity and laziness became campaign tactics. In so far as they have made proud and willful imbecility something to aspire to as a career choice, Jan Brewer is symbolic of your modern Republican Party.

Taking a tactic from Saint Sarah’s handbook-Jan Brewer has taken her ball and gone home.

<———————————————————————————————————————————–>

And finally, Negishi had an open base event the other day. Open to every one-except the French. As an aside when I first got to Japan, besides working on my onna no hito’s in my walking club, I also went through my “chase an English teacher” phase and that was how I learned that people who are from South Africa are also on the same list.

The Republican party that is.

This is a serious post-to try to explain why I feel as strongly as I do on several issues and why I feel abandoned by the political party I once considered my home. A post over at the League of Ordinary Gentleman by E.D. Kain and another one by him over at John Cole’s place got me to thinking.

Until the election of 2004, I had voted Republican all my life. I first voted in 1976 for Gerald Ford and voted Republican all the way through 2000 when I held my nose and voted for George Bush -even though I remained appalled at the sleazy way he treated McCain.  In hindsight-I wish I had voted for Gore, perhaps the country might have been spared eight years of misery. In 2004 my vote was a one issue vote-I truly believed ( and I still believe) that the War in Iraq was a huge mistake.  I did not want to lend my support to those who would see us continue to pour lives and effort into that sinkhole. I feel I have been vindicated by the last six -years of the Iraqi experience-which for whatever benefits came, the costs of the effort-in terms of the overall loss to the United States and the contribution of the war to our economic instability far outweighed them. The United States is weaker over all because of this endeavor and the fiasco in Iraq has hastened the rise of nations that are truly not our friends and made the multi-polar world we dislike more of a reality than most Americans realize. ( There is a reason we now rank 11th in all objective measures of national prominence). In 2008, my vote was again motivated primarily by the war(s) and the prospect of more “just let real people suffer and lose ground” economics. So I voted for Obama with a clear conscience-although I did not and still do not consider him to be the best qualified candidate. It was simply that John McCain had foreited any right to that support after choosing someone to appease those who do not deserve such attention. Clearly Obama has made some mistakes ( the gravest being not vetoing the Ominbus Budget bill early on and putting Pelosi in her place-and show the country and the Democrats who is boss). But on a lot of issues I care about-he’s advocated better positions than his opposition. It is clear to me that by 2010-Republicans in general had given up any desire to be concerned with you know, data and facts.

As Kain points out though-during that period, really starting in 1996, the Republican party morphed into something unrecognizable. With the advent of Newt Gingrich and the rise in talk radio and later on Fox News to stoke the propaganda flames, the party slowly, but inexorably abandoned all of the things that made it the reasonable man’s alternative. As Kain points out at Cole’s:

I’m not signing on, carte blanche, to the Democratic party here or to its platform though I am choosing to align myself with that party and with liberalism more broadly. I’m sure I will still find plenty of things the Democrats do that deserve a pox or two. But I did feel as though I was boxing myself in by calling myself a conservative and then finding every way under the sun to undermine that description. My “switch” is not about adopting a brand new pre-packaged ideology. No, I’m much more interested in creating new ways, third ways maybe, alternatives to the accepted left/right divide. But I found myself more and more interested and compelled by the liberal-tarian project. But I’m not a libertarian either, and so perhaps the term ‘liberal’ fits me better. In fact, I’m quite sure it does.

But what Kain pointed out is that it is becoming increasingly difficult-from the perspective of facts to remain allied in support of positions that no compassionate human being can be aligned with. Kain again:

Furthermore, while I think there’s a great deal of merit to competition (one reason I really liked Ron Wyden’s healthcare plan!), free markets, economic liberalism and so forth I find the fetishization of low taxes among the right and among many American libertarians more than a bit silly. I favor investment in public health, public transit and infrastructure, and in the welfare system generally rather than some vague bare-boned state. Sure, there’s problems with all sorts of government programs, with some public sector unions, etc. but at least liberals seem open to tackling these problems. At least within the big tent of liberalism there is room to disagree.

I’ve noted before that I don’t think free markets are sustainable without a broad and sturdy welfare state to support them. Theoretically, sure – anything is possible – but the fact is markets fail and must fail to be effective as a system, and very real people pay the price – not because they are lazy, or because they are lacking enough rugged individualism, but because life can be hard, and it is much harder for those people who lack strong family or community support. Ultimately, the highest price is paid by those who can afford it least. We need to craft a society where that price is not so high – and I think we can use markets and the welfare state to achieve this, much as they have done in northern Europe (though undoubtedly our version will be unique and we can, on the way, learn from their mistakes). I don’t see many conservatives taking these questions seriously, and even the most progressive-minded conservatives out there, I fear, are placing their hopes in the wrong coalition.

The demonization of “moderate” Republicans-leaders who actually put “Country First” ahead of partisan ideology is troublesome to me. And in folks like Palin and Beck I see that trend being carried out to its own serious, destructive, and out right pathological ends.  Furthermore-especially in Palin, there are clear indicators of a crass, selfish, narcissism that will be destructive to both her and the country in the long run if she were to run and win the highest office in the land.

It is not that some of the ideas that conservatives have put forward are not without merit-it is their refusal to accept that the opposite may aslo be true that really troubles me. I agree with Kain when he states:

At the end of the day, I guess I just find very little in common with the right save for a sort of loose commitment to limited government, and even then it becomes more and more apparent that this is only true in a fictional world that bears no resemblance to our own.

Torture, war, mindless obstructionism, a rigid more-conservative-than-thou orthodoxy, the constant parroting of right-wing pundits, and a blatant disregard for civil liberties all lead me to the conclusion that I have no place in the modern American right. Perhaps that makes me a neoliberal or a liberal-tarian or an independent or a lost boy – I have no idea.

As move on into my graying years-I remain distinctly troubled by the fact that collectively-humanity has failed to advance to realize its real potential. We can-and should be- a lot further along in defeating diseases like AIDS and Cancer, and worldwide there should be a greater commitment to at least a baseline quality of life for all of a country’s citizens. The only place I actually see any of this occuring is in Asia-and even then the progress is very uneven. Troubling too,  is the countries that have made the most progress are also the most non-Democratic. (e.g. LKY’s Singapore-nice place to live, could never ever vote there). The colossal waste of what we-the supposedly civilized Western world, spend our resources on is troubling me more than you know. The income divide between the “haves and have nots” is growing and not shrinking-and we are failing to notice that. If you want a real reason for world wide terrorism we should be looking there first.

And at the end of the decade-I am still no safer than I was on Sept 10, 2001.

And so it has come down to this-I cannot, I will not,  ally myself with people who for whatever reason deliberately choose to be stupid and ignore facts and/ or historical precedents. The world is not black and white-it is only grey. But it should be progressing forward. And its not.

And I will not ally myself with those who will not support that.

So yes, I will continue to write passionately against those who advocate positions that are ultimately destructive to the USA as a whole-and who would rather take a selfish short term view -than seek to move ahead for the long term.  I’m sure my one lone, little, under-reported or read voice will not accomplish much. But at least I will be on record in opposition to collective stupidity.

And that is a better place to be than on the Washington Mall last weekend.

Especially when you are incapable of telling the truth.

The details of Sarah Palin’s contract were ordered released by a California judge who pointed out that University of California officials had violated state public records laws in agreeing with Palin to keep the contract secret.

On top of a $75,000 dollar speaking fee (half payable up front)-it has some other particualr goodies:

If flying on a private plane IT MUST be a Lear 60 or a Hawker 800. (These don’t come cheap).If flying commercially two first class seats and two full fare economy seats must be purchased. Internationally two first class and two business class tickets-no business class 4 first class tickets please.

She gets a suite, complete with laptop and printer (guess she can’t afford her own)-SUV transportation to/from-bendable straws. While none of the foregoing is that surprising, the billing to her agent of all fees, and no accountability or traceability of expenses to Palin directly provided in the contract is interesting.

For the media-Sarah Palin remains behind her force shields, not taking direct questions, all questions screened and accepted or rejected in advance, and photographers have a lot of restrictions placed upon them.

Read the whole contract here.

So by my conservative math-if you want Tea Bagger Barbie at your next shindig, it’s going to cost you and your financiers somewhere in the neighborhood of 125,000 dollars to stage the event.

So much for the common touch.

Some times a photo says it all:

       Make-up and Hair style…………..$1,500.00

      New Dress for the show…………$2,700.00

        Giant Stuffed Bear………………….$300.00

       Not knowing how to hold the bear with a microphone in your hand…………Priceless!

And acknowledging an inconsistency the Tea Party needs to get its arms around. Take it away Ron Paul:

As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.

 Our foreign policy is based on an illusion: that we are actually paying for it. What we are doing is borrowing and printing money to maintain our presence overseas. Americans are seeing the cost of this irresponsible approach as their own communities crumble and our economic decline continues. 

Col Sellin is not going quietly into that great good night-as he returns to Finland and his job with an IT company ( where he was before he got ordered up to active duty). This post is right on the mark-as was his other one about the atrophy of our decision making processes and the increasing refusal to delegate authority down (and responsibilty of course). His last paragraph about Aghanistan is right on the mark IMHO. Here is the article in its entirety:

By Col. Lawrence Sellin (U.S. Army Reserve)
Best Defense guest columnist

I was assigned to the ISAF Joint Command (IJC) in Kabul for the last two months. Since arriving in Afghanistan my job had changed twice and in both cases I had no clear duties. Twice I asked my superiors for a more substantive assignment. Once I provided a high-level overview of proven management methodologies that I offered to the command as a means to address the quite apparent organizational issues at IJC. Nothing happened.

That frustrating situation was one of the triggers for writing my now infamous article “ISAF Joint Command — Power Points ‘R’ Us.”

The second trigger was more serious. Last autumn the US government announced that after 8 years and $27 billion, the Afghan Army training program was being declared a failure. Despite the fact that symptoms of failure were already appearing in the press years earlier, apparently no one in the chain of command spoke up. I wondered how much American, coalition and Afghan blood was shed while the program was heading toward failure. I wonder how much blood will be shed before the Afghan Army is ready.

With that in mind and after two months of observing the IJC function and speaking with people from all the sections, I decided to write a tongue-in-cheek description, an obviously over-the-top and sarcastic article hopefully containing threads of constructive criticism woven into the text. I largely succeeded in those aims with the very slight exception of how my superiors might react.

One of the main themes of the article involved the use of PowerPoint. I don’t hate PowerPoint. In fact, I use it often. I do object to its use as a crutch or a replacement for serious thinking. Also, the overuse of PowerPoint can give the illusion of progress, when it is really only motion in the form of busy work. (Italics mine-SS). It can confuse the volume of information with the quality of information.

A second theme was the way in which organizations function and why they don’t e.g. stovepipes, ad hoc or absent processes, run-away egos or adding bodies as a solution to every problem.

My favorite IJC “idea” was a senior officer’s recommendation to install steel girders in the Joint Operations Center (JOC) so he could build a booth 10 feet off the floor where he could oversee operations on the JOC floor. Of course, the JOC floor is already supervised by the JOC director. So, there is nothing to oversee. It sounded more like he was building a throne room.

In any case, after the article was published and after a helpful colleague slipped a yellow-highlighted copy under his door, my major general supervisor politely and professionally asked me to leave Afghanistan. Another major general, who I had never met, but who had a previous unpleasant experience with an article-writer, ordered me behind closed doors so he could call me names. A case of projected anger, I suppose.

Seriously though, I think it is time for the American people to hold the senior military leaderships’ (colonels and up) feet to the fire. When they make their reports to Congress, one can be sure that it is the best possible scenario that they can justify without lying. The phrase “progress is being made” should not be accepted as an answer. It is like saying “the check is in the mail.”

Everyone should remember that these are military careerists. War provides the opportunity for testing their skills, getting medals and promotions. A compromise peace without their definition of “victory” might be considered a failure. They all want to march down Pennsylvania Avenue like General Norman Schwarzkopf. Likewise, the contractors want to continue making their huge profits. It is the common soldiers, however, who are providing the sweat and shedding the blood.

We must stop treating the Afghans like children. They are not. It is their country and for better or worse, they should start taking responsibility for it. There is little reason not to begin turning over responsibility now. Regional Command West is possible because it is the most peaceful part of the country. That could be followed by Regional Command North. Between now and next July, the coalition can concentrate on Regional Commands East, South and Southwest.

After that no more blank checks. In my opinion, time’s up.

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D., is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a veteran of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Until recently he was serving his second deployment to Afghanistan. The views expressed are his own and definitely do not reflect those of the U.S. Army or U.S. government. He was not compensated for this article.