Fond Freshman Memories

All of us are shaped by the social experiences we've had as part of groups or organizations: schools, colleges, workplaces, clubs, teams,etc.

I've been fortunate to belong to some great organizations: universities, athletic teams, societies, government agencies, publications, and others where I've learned a lot and formed lasting relationships. Most of it that's worth mentioning, you'd find on my resume. But resumes are generally dull. They're lists that don't tell much of a story.

Whenever I look back, there is always one organizational experience out of dozens that stands out in my mind as my favorite from over 16 years ago: the Hickman High School tennis team. I've never really delved into why I have these unwaveringly sunny memories of this time, but as an older, more experienced student of organizations and management I've come to some realizations that are fairly interesting. The reasons, which are many, are telling in a psychological sense. I'd be surprised if some of you don't identify.

In the spring of 1994, I was a ninth grader who played on the junior varsity tennis squad for Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. But I attended West Junior High School, which is some miles down the road. West Junior was grades 7-9 while Hickman was grades 10-12. Ninth grade athletes with talent and potential from West Junior were allowed to play JV or varsity sports at Hickman with the older students if they made it through tryouts.

In reality I made it through the cut-throat tryouts, when about 25 tennis players were whittled down to 16, more due to potential than talent. The coach told me so, and I was actually bottom-feeding at number 15 on the depth chart, where the top 8 were varsity and lower 8 were JV. A good friend of mine got cut because I took a set off him 6-4 after having being down 4-1 in tryouts, and we were never that friendly again. An 11th grade kid who was much better than me, and as a 16 year-old had a car and drove me to tryouts, was cut too because he was expected to have less playing years.

Right off the bat I got an inflated sense of my 14 year-old self. Man, I'm gonna take the bus with the very few West Junior kids who get to leave school early (everyone would see me) to make it to sports practice at the high school in time. The high school where I might be going the following year. Where everyone was older and cooler. Where the girls were hotter. Where people drove cars, had jobs, and their own money. All of which was new to me. And exciting. I was gonna be a player at that level when I walked those halls, at the junior high school as well as the high school.

Things only got better from that initial euphoria, which helped salve the pain from being cut from the basketball team the previous winter, something I had wanted more badly. As Indian kids growing up across America and their parents know, chances are you're not going to be a great basketball or football player due to your size. But we could be dominant at tennis to get that jock fix in addition to high SAT scores. Sure enough there were several other Indian kids on the tennis team too- one of whom was a habitual cheater who called every ball out when you played him.

What I liked the most by far, and the reason I am writing about it today, is that the two hours of practice every afternoon and the matches against other schools were bar none the most fun, yet grueling experience I'd had in my life till then and probably since. Nearly everyone on the team was better than me. Every stroke, every serve, every volley and every drill I had to put in 110% to stay afloat. And I relished it. I learned like crazy from the other guys, each with their different style, and a great coach. My learning curve was steep because I had barely played before. I was made fun of quite a lot, as the youngest and nearly worst player, but that motivated me. It forced me to be clever socially, and step up on the court to gain respect. And every single day that season, I was getting stronger and better.

During drills, I got to practice with and watch everyone from top to bottom. Occasionally I'd do well enough to hit a few strokes against the varsity guys, getting crushed but nonetheless learning and getting better. I had to play out of my mind just to rally against the guys a few slots above me.

And I looked up to those guys like nothing else. It was awesome getting car rides with the music blasting, or taking long bus trips to rural areas of the state, learning everything about what high school would be like and goofing around. And I was part of a team with a sense of camaraderie and purpose I'd never seen before. I was having a (tennis) ball.

And we were pretty damn good. Both JV and Varsity teams went undefeated through the season, and barely had to break a sweat to do so. We romped over any school because at every position, singles and doubles we were just better. Our top few players were ranked at the state level. The varsity won the state playoffs without too much trouble that year. We hardly even bothered asking each other about winning or losing. It was just sequences of numbers: instead of stating the set score, "Oh yeah I won 6-3, 6-2" we just said "3 and 2." More often than not we just heard "donuts," meaning 6-0, 6-0, or "bagels" to make fun of our coach, who was a health food nut who'd get on anyone's case for uttering the word "cola." Earning donuts and bagels became our reason for being to impress our teammates because winning wasn't really in question. We traveled around Missouri and demoralized people. And as the bottom feeder fluctuating between #13 and #15, I was generally better than the other team's scrubs were. At one point I remember our JV team taking on another school's varsity and spanking them.

This success was probably a combination of coincidence, when the school just happened to have a particular stellar crop of talent, and strong coaching. There was also a culture that developed, as anyone who's been a part of a legacy of sports champions at any level would understand. Those of us on the team were cocky, and though in most schools being a tennis player probably isn't the same as being a star quarterback, we still walked around with a gangster swagger. Tennis players, being few and far between at that age, also had a mystique. It's part of the reason why we could win so easily. I must have worn my tennis uniform to school 3-4 days a week.

I really liked this particular position of being near the bottom of a truly excellent team. I didn't want practices or matches or team bus trips to ever end. I wanted to just be around these guys all the time- there was nothing else I wanted to do with myself more than that, besides traveling to India in the summer. My position worked well for me and my world view, and as the season went on it became clear my upside was being noticed. The coach and some of the best players were openly guessing that one day, perhaps Junior or Senior year, I would be the #1 singles player at Hickman. Even so, I was still getting pinned down and mooned on bus rides by the Seniors.

Another factor is that it was an escape from the academic grind which our parents kept asking us about, while at the same time condoned by our parents because it was a healthy activity that could also help kids get into college and stay out of trouble. It was one of the few things that we really wanted to do for fun, and the rest of the community- from teachers to neighbors to parents to the local media- encouraged us in it. It was like I could be a rebel without really rebelling.

The next three years of high school, in sharp contrast, I lived in Ohio and was a middling #1 player/Captain for a horrendous team that almost never won. For three years I had nobody at my level to practice with each day, disinterested and mediocre coaches, and much worse weather to play in. I remember tennis in Missouri always being under sunny conditions, and the three seasons in Ohio were always cold, raining gray and windy. While partly true, my mind's eye probably exaggerates dramatically. I can hardly remember my 3 years as the undisputed leader of my high school team, even though I earned an individual winning record and various accolades. It wasn't that much fun because the team wasn't winning. Tennis was still a big part of my identity, but in a wounded sort of way. I got into other things. And nothing else since 9th grade has compared.

These experiences never really leave you. Winning never stopped being fun and addictive. I've never lost that unique combination of swagger and cockiness blended with a dose of humility and eagerness to pick things up that I don't know from other people. My desire to be liked by everyone and prove myself were reinforced by those days too. I've developed a strong liking for being around people who are a few years older than me, which has formed the base of my social circle for many years. And I've completely lost interest in being #1 for its own sake which is what most hip-hop stars seem to rap about these days. I like to think that power would not go to my head. I'd rather be part of a successful organization that kicks ass and does good stuff, rather than being at the top of it and achieving individual success while watching it fail. I wish Wall Street operated this way.

Funny enough, I'm not even in touch with anyone from that magical tennis spring of '94 these days. Maybe I'll hunt some of these folks down on the web. I'm quite sure that none of them would remember things the way that I do if they even remember the team (or me) at all- another of life's conundrums. To some of the better players, tennis was probably another chore.

Wikileaks: A Crossroads of Contradictions

With the recent document dump by the website Wikileaks.org, 25,000 State Department cables that had been previously classified were released into the public domain in one fell swoop. As with most controversial political issues of the day, pundits and public leaders around the world came out by the thousands to comment on this unprecedented event. The latest episode came on the heals of the previous big Wikileaks story: the release of thousands of secret documents regarding the conduct of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a military video of a tragic killing in an Iraqi neighborhood by American troops from an Apache helicopter. As with the embassy cables, the war diaries run the gamut from the mundane, which is mostly the case, to quite serious and disturbing. I recommend for all of you to read the fascinating New Yorker account of how this came to pass.

The Wikileaks exposures of sensitive government documents that were not meant for public consumption represent societal conundrums that are yet to be judged in either a court of law, or of public opinion. Is Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a hero, a whistle blower, a criminal, or a terrorist? Is he a force for good or evil? He has been called all of these things. And in an exceedingly rare case of a person entering the world stage in so dramatic and important a way, he cannot be pigeonholed as any one of these. This would be a gross and unjust oversimplification. For Mr. Assange, ladies and gentlemen, is all of these things at once- defying definitions and straining our moral assumptions.

Whatever the outcome of all this, and whatever your opinion of it might be, Wikileaks has helped alter the course of human history by catalyzing a form of rogue journalism that is impossible for governments to prevent or stop. For a change we have someone throwing caution to the wind instead of erring on the side of caution.

Technology has made it possible to run your website piecemeal on servers all over the world in countries with varying laws about censorship and cyber security. Once Wikileaks documents are published on the web, they cannot be easily taken down, and will never disappear from the public eye once documents have gone viral. The documents are already out there, and the backups of the backups have backups. Finances and operations are decentralized and run by shadowy members around the globe. What's been done can never be undone. This is the largest shift from how secrets were stolen before- a tape, a person, a room, a computer, a camera, or a notebook with sensitive information can be stolen or destroyed even if there are multiples. Document dumps onto the web cannot.

So what now? The future of the website or the copycat movement it will spawn are hard to fathom. We can only conjecture on what has already happened. It's time for the good, the bad, and the... highly entertaining.

No Page-Turner. After skimming the site and reading numerous accounts of the supposedly juiciest tidbits that Wikileaks has published, I was disappointed by the lack of truly interesting documents. Far from earth-shattering, most exposed documents describe routine matters and few surprises. So diplomats send cables about Libya's dictator traveling around with a "voluptuous blonde" nurse, or Putin likes to get drunk with Berlusconi? Less interesting than a single page of any Nelson DeMille novel. I was actually pleased to see that diplomats played hardball when trying to convince foreign countries to accept Guantanamo detainees- offering aid here and a meeting with Obama there. That's awesome- that's what they're supposed to be doing, it's what we pay them for! Reading any given cable to the extent it's worth it, is less a surprise than an affirmation that many at State were pushing US interests hard. Good.

Public Service?. Government agencies got a horrific wakeup call that was desperately needed- and of little surprise to most astute observers. For this reason, and the fact that little if anything truly dangerous leaked out yet, Americans should be highly grateful to Wikileaks. If the US Army or the State Department could allow disgruntled runts to simply waltz out of the office with thousands of sensitive documents capable of causing such an international stir, security measures are woefully lacking. There are far too many people with high-level clearances, too many sensitive documents floating around, and too little control of the flow of information we are told is so goddam critical to national security. If this stuff was so critical, it should have been guarded far more jealously. The current situation is unacceptable. President Obama should call an immediate review of US government agencies' information security practices. Governors and Mayors across the nation need to do the same. This isn't just for the Pentagon or State; other agencies one wouldn't usually expect to need worry about such as the Department of Agriculture, Social Security Administration, or the state DMV all harbor documents we wouldn't want in the wrong hands and certainly not out in public.

The Danger Zone. This brings us to why Wikileaks is potentially a big threat. It demonstrates how a small group of determined individuals seeking to perform chaos can probably manage to do some serious harm, using a small network of inside informants and tech savvy hackers in key places. They could release documents that could get people killed if terrorists or foreign governments got a hold of them. This in itself should worry us. Although there is something fair and even democratic in the end product being seen by website visitors- government documents in their original form for one to judge for himself or herself, something traditional journalism does not give us- Wikileaks self-selects what documents get released and when. The site decides on the sources to use, and they are not made public. However socially responsible their goals may be, and however noble a goal it is to investigate how taxpayer money is really being spent, it is dangerous to wield this power to decide who and what makes the cut. You cannot shine a light from a dark place over a long period of time. It carries the type of potential for abuse of power that Wikileaks is supposed to be against.

Should it be Shut? There is much talk of shutting down the site, arresting its principals, and making an example of them. Clearly a number of U.S. laws have been broken regarding release of classified information. However, Assange and most of his team are not U.S. citizens, and in fact many of them are not known. The information was leaked from the inside of government first, and in the case of State it's not clear which runt(s) were responsible. While the Wikileaks team could be considered accomplices to the initial crimes of stealing, the unique nature of what the website has done so far will never be stopped. In fact, imprisoning Assange could make him a sort of martyr, which could be exactly what he wants in order to accelerate the movement exponentially.

Spreading Democracy? Although the American media is largely missing this point, closed and corrupt governments such as those in China, Russia, North Korea, Burma, and Iran are much less concerned with what US diplomats are saying about them than what Wikileaks could say about them. In this sense, Wikileaks has done Western governments and people the most important service of all. Autocrats trying to keep things close to the vest are probably pretty worried right now.

At its best, Wikileaks could expose things to the global public that journalists, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement cannot or are unable to. It could even help bring down or alter regimes more easily than a superpower can. If it stays open, I hope Wikileaks does so. And if a byproduct of this is some more accountability at home, then so be it. Those who follow the rules generally have less to worry about.

Your 2010 Midterm Election Primer

The general election campaign of 2010 is coming to a rolling boil. At stake is who will control the next Congress- Democrats as they have since 2006, or Republicans angling to seize it again with the tea party winds at their backs?

The consequences are pretty serious. A Republican takeover guarantees at least two years of utter Washington gridlock on domestic policy, and bitter battles over funding the legislative mandates achieved by Democrats in 2009 and 2010: health insurance reform, Wall Street reform, and other initiatives. Under these circumstances it is practically guaranteed that major legislation will languish, as neither party will have the numbers to push their agenda, and the President's veto pen will be waiting for any bills of import that Republicans might manage to push through.

For what it's worth, I've been confident of the outcome since last spring, as the energy and fervor are clearly on one side. Republicans will take back the House, Democrats will hang on to the Senate, and both chambers will thus have slim margins for the next two years. The perfect recipe for a wave of gridlock.

Here have been the big themes of the election year. The overall message to take away is this: America's grand experiment in democratic governance is far from concluded. In many ways, we are regressing.

Money Dominates Without Pretense. Politics was always dominated by money but until recently there were legal limits on corporate spending on campaigns. The landmark 5-4 Supreme Court decision of January removed these limits, and immediately we are witnessing the birth of a new era in politics: where money is shamelessly thrown around with great secrecy, and very little control. FEC oversight is now a running beltway joke. Candidates from both parties may benefit in the first election season of this new era, but democracy is the ultimate loser. Rich corporations and individuals, whose interests are usually far from what's best for the public, are consolidating control of the government by attempting to elect politicians who would deregulate safety measures, environmental protections, financial controls, insurance rules, and other laws meant to protect common citizens. Unfortunately, most people don't understand this. That's because rich corporate titans, and I can't think of a better example than the Koch brothers, prefer to lurk in the shadows and let their money do the talking. Cold, hard cash is how the tea party movement was co-opted long ago by Republican money interests such as financiers and corporations, as I'd written before, while most of the mainstream media was obsessing over whether it was the tea partiers taking over the Republican party. In this case, the tail does not wag the dog.

Wither the post-racial era? Another worrying theme has been the dramatic return of bigotry to American politics. We have seen a wave of anger being channeled against blacks, Muslims, and Hispanics in general by mainstream politicians and candidates, some of whom may end up in Congress come January. I was wrong in 2008, when I thought the election of Barack Obama would help usher in a new post-racial era when Americans would not be judged by their skin color or religion. Instead, Republican candidates have tapped into a groundswell of mistrust and fear of the "other" that I believe has been brought on partly by Barack Obama's very occupation of the White House - a black man that many honestly believe is Muslim and foreign-born. He has frightened and emboldened the bigots emerging from the fringes, and white politicians have been eager to show their understanding of this crowd- for their votes. Don't take my word for it. Rachel Maddow has documented this phenomenon brilliantly. Republicans such as Newt Gingrich have eagerly stoked the fire (unfathomably, presidential wannabe Gingrich parroted madman Dinesh D'Souza's bizarre theory that Obama's agenda is based on his absentee Kenyan father's anti-colonialist views from the era of Mau Mau rebellion).

The first 24-hour political party news channel. See above, unprecedented control by corporations. One in particular, Fox News, represents the first time in American history that a political party has had its own 24-hour news channel. It's the world's best propaganda machine. Fox has emerged more emboldened than before. It used to at least have pretense of being "fair and balanced," but no longer. It has recently unabashedly declared itself an official Republican mouthpiece. By hiring active Republican operatives such as Sarah Palin and Karl Rove onto its payroll (who are themselves running PACs with huge financial influence on this election), while donating millions to Republican campaigns this election season, News Corporation has inserted itself as a participant in politics instead of a reporter of it. Fox co-founded and single-handedly nurtured the tea party movement with endless one-sided positive coverage. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and friends keep the bigots riled up with their constant attacks on Muslims and other talking points handed down from the Republican party- the lines between the two entities have been blurred completely. It is an admirably run operation, a shining example of the successful fusion of politics and profit. And a monumental threat to democracy. I am fascinated to see how this story will play out.

Democrats Play to Not Lose It's curious how the Democratic party could be performing so badly politically. While it's quite damaging for unemployment to hover between 9-10%, perhaps irreparably so in a midterm election where the enthusiasm gap for liberals is a given, the long list of results coming out of the Democrat-controlled Washington in the last two years is astounding. Taxes were cut for 95% of Americans, the auto industry is on the road to recovery, numerous jobs were created, health insurance reform was passed, college loans are cheaper, new Wall Street and credit card regulations are on the books, we are finally pulling the US military out of Iraq, and not a single terrorist attack from abroad has been committed successfully. Quite the opposite, we are killing bad guys at a breakneck pace these days. And yet two weeks out, Democrats across the nation are running from their own party's record as if fleeing from a fire.

A great deal of thinking on this matter has revealed the root cause of the Dem woes. They haven't managed the messaging, and by extension, the Republicans have. Do most people know that their taxes were lowered? That Obama has kept us safer from attack than Bush did? That Wall Street bailouts and the stimulus are two different things, and the former was a George W. Bush legacy authored by the Republican Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson? No, they don't. Republicans have successfully conflated Obama with all that is wrong with the country. It worked. And it's a bitter political lesson to be learned for the Democrats, especially the ones getting booted out of power.

Dumb is the New Black Since when is it so cool to be a fool running for office? I believe that George W. Bush ushered in the era of the likable everyman, but I thought the ensuing crises would remind people of the future why not to let that happen again. The future is here, and they're back with a vengeance, led by Queen Bee Sarah Palin, who dismisses criticism in the media of her nonsensical statements and uneducated policy positions on the "liberal East Coast elites." I am now a firm believer that a well-informed politician is a good thing. Please tell that to the people who intend to vote for dolts like Sharon Angle, Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell, Joe Miller, Carl Paladino, or dozens of others. I understand the backlash against the intellectual, professorial types embodied by our president, but this is really going too far.

Is India Ready to Sit at the Big Boys' Table?

Many Indians and NRIs around the world like to talk about India and how great it is. There is much discussion of how rapidly the nation is developing, how Indian figures are rising to prominence in business, science, or entertainment, how it's one of the few nuclear powers on the global stage. In fact, many proud folks truly believe that India is Mahaan - great, even the greatest place on the planet. I've seen this sentiment stated time and again in endless email forwards.

In many ways, India is indeed ascendant. It has also been by far the world's largest democracy for years running. However India is not, politically speaking, a great power. Nor has it ever been one throughout history, except in the days of yore with myth and legend such as in the Mahabharat, pictured above, which described an epic war in Kurukshetra where practically every country in the world fought on one side or the other because the feuding armies were so critical to the global power structure.

Earning great power status requires punching your weight, with acts worthy of this exalted label. With a population of 1.3 billion, India must fight in a higher weight class than it's now in. The best way to start this process is to prepare a serious bid for that most exclusive of clubs in the international system: the United Nations Security Council. The Big Boys' Table at this time has only 5 permanent seats, for the US, UK, China, Russia, and France. Until then, India clearly will not have arrived.

A path now seems to be opening up. Last week we heard reports that the Obama administration would support India's permanent entry into the UNSC, in return for India's cooperation with Pakistan to fully resolve the festering Kashmir issue once and for all. This followed close on the heels of India announcing a major policy shift toward Kashmir, with an emphasis on redressing citizens' concerns, releasing jailed youth, and injecting money to improve the economy. Simultaneously, Pakistan has made strong overtures toward having talks with India for a peaceful resolution in Kashmir, including at the UN General Assembly.

US and Indian officials are playing coy now, a requisite charade in order to plausibly deny international speculation about a potential quid pro quo agreement. But all this rapid flurry of activity is no coincidence. President Obama is visiting India in November, and it would be surprising if the Security Council question is not near the top of the agenda.

The deal is an excellent proposition for several reasons. India has coveted the Security Council seat, and the status that comes with it, for a decade now. It would help India provide a counterbalance to other powers in the neighborhood, most of all China, the leader of emerging Asia. It is also appropriate that India resolve the Kashmir dispute as a prerequisite; India won't ever be considered a great power if it hasn't resolved a petty disputed territory question after 60 years of trying including several bloody wars and decades of struggle against insurgency. India's national security also cannot be held hostage in perpetuity by a far smaller and poorer neighbor (Pakistan)while aspiring to call itself a great country. Although it is just one of several territorial disputes India faces, Kashmir is the largest and most volatile. Complete with human rights abuses, senseless violence, and massive hindrances to commerce and development, Kashmir's security situation is a festering embarrassment India's government cannot afford to sustain.

The United States of course has an interest in seeing a Kashmir resolution. Now more than ever, it is clear that Obama's exit strategy in Afghanistan relies heavily on Pakistan's cooperation in bringing the war to a close next year. If Pakistan's government and security forces are continuously distracted by Kashmir, and by extension India, it will come at the expense of the Afghanistan adventure. Without a disputed Kashmir, it is far less likely that India and Pakistan would ever fight a war again for the foreseeable future; cross-border terrorist incidents would likely fall off completely as well. Troops could be pulled off the Line of Control (LoC) and deployed elsewhere. Additionally, as the Kashmiri militancy dies off in a peaceful environment, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their networks will lose many allies and a global recruitment tool. Even Osama Bin Laden himself quoted abuses in Kashmir as a justification for the 9/11 attacks.

The solution should not be that hard to achieve. Agree to draw a hard line along the LoC, giving one side to Pakistan and the other to India; it's practically a de facto border anyway, with the armies of both nations straddling either side. Follow up by allowing the region's citizens to decide for themselves which side they would like to settle in, and keep the border porous for social and economic reasons.

Becoming a great power of course means much more than just resolving a petty territorial dispute and sitting at a table. It requires becoming a more responsible part of the global conversations about the economy, keeping the peace, alleviating poverty, sharing outer space, and protecting the environment. India is inching closer to being ready for this, and the United States as the world's only superpower still has the ability to become India's patron to help make it happen.

2010 is potentially shaping up to be a watershed year in South Asian affairs. An opportunity is presenting for India to help seal a lasting regional peace while rising in prominence in the world for the first time, all the while strengthening ties to Uncle Sam. The question is, will India finally rise to the occasion and take a seat at the Big Boys' table? Or will it find a way to squander this unprecedented chance?

With Friends Like These...

One of the defining characteristics of the Obama presidency will be the shameful irresponsibility from critical partners that his administration has had to work with both at home and abroad during a time of great duress. One does not even have to be a supporter of Obama, or America for that matter, to appreciate this reality objectively. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

The number of serious problems facing the nation today is staggering in comparison to much of America's history- a flailing economy, a mortgage crisis and stock market crash which wiped out 20% of the nation's wealth, two costly and bloody foreign wars each over 7 years old, and an unprecedented environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to name a few. Partnership isn't an option in this mess; it is an absolute necessity. Democrats have no choice but to reach out to Republicans, government to the private sector, America to foreign nations. The hand has been extended in each case by an open Obama administration. Here is what we have seen in return:

The Party of No. While there are a few impressive figures left in the Republican Party who are getting constructive things done, such as Chris Christie of New Jersey or Dick Lugar of Indiana, most nationally prominent Republican politicians are simply blocking everything the Democrats are trying to do while blaming the administration for all the ills in our country. Many defeatist figures, such as Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Michael Steele have little to no real involvement in the nation's affairs outside of preening themselves for the media, putting their own naked ambitions on display while denouncing everything anyone else is trying to do. Those who actually do have a policy portfolio in our democracy, such as John Boehner and Eric Kantor, blindly and reflexively object to virtually every law and presidential nominee brought in front of them. Critical government posts are vacant for months or years? Oh well, it just makes the Democrats look pathetic for their inability to govern. Major legislation languishing on the table? At least they made a stand against Obama and nearly succeeded in "breaking" him. The dearth of good governance ideas, meanwhile, is legendary. Only expect this situation to get much worse if Republicans make gains in November 2010, validating the strategy in their minds. It is easier to summarily dump on others than try to do the hard work of compromising in the trenches during a historically difficult time.

Hamid Karzai. The reason why the United States effort is languishing mightily in Afghanistan is because we do not have a reliable friend to lean on. It's that simple. The US armed forces have largely achieved the military objectives, but the ultimate solution is political. Karzai is a train wreck of a partner to have on our side: power-tripping, blatantly corrupt, a documented rigger of elections, an incompetent manager, possibly mentally unstable, and certainly insubordinate to America. Karzai is even secretly forming back-room deals with the very Taliban insurgents we are supposed to be fighting. He owes his very existence in power to massive amounts of American blood and treasure, yet he is proving a completely ungrateful wretch. Morally bankrupt as he is, we have no alternative in Afghanistan except the Taliban Mullahs with their shahria law and governance by terror. Karzai is probably the lesser of two evils. We could have pulled out of the country by now with a competent local government working alongside us to build up the military, police, courts, and other institutions of civil society. Sadly, this was not meant to be.

Two-Face Incarnate. Even worse may be the treatment America gets from its supposed ally, Pakistan. Since 9/11 America has given this nation billions upon billions in aid, and helped broker a deal between erstwhile enemies Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto, and General Pervez Musharraf to coexist peacefully and even run an election together. Instead, Bhutto was mysteriously assassinated upon her return from exile, and the government not only failed to protect her in life, her cold-blooded murder investigation was covered up by officials in death. Now with her corrupt widower in power, the recent "Wikileaks" brought to light something most observers have known for years: that insurgents including Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are openly supported by Pakistani military intelligence. This is the same military establishment that accepted $15 billion in US aid since 2001. In effect, Pakistan is using the very aid dollars America gave them to fight the insurgents to instead kill American soldiers in Afghanistan through their terrorist proxies. What a brilliantly wicked thing to do, and get away with.

General Insubordination. General Stanley McChrystal, widely thought to be a good strategist and a fine soldier, was appointed by Obama to help clean up the mess in Afghanistan. McChrystal had one fatal flaw: a total lack of respect and even disdain for the chain of command. On multiple occasions he was insubordinate, and the recent Rolling Stone article exposing the depth of this disdain for civilian control over the military was unforgivable. He was summarily fired by Obama, but we have not witnessed such open antics by a four-star wartime general in many decades. We can hope that Petraeus will bring professionalism back to the corps as we struggle on in Afghanistan.

Beyond Pathetic. BP not only caused the worst oil spill in US history, they then lied about it shamelessly for weeks on end. The company lied about the amount of oil gushing out, tried to cover up the extent of damage to the gulf waters and coastline, and were slow to help roll out solutions. The administration has worked to ensure that BP will pay out for the damage, but the company has resisted mightily all along the way, shirking on its legal duty whenever possible. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I have yet to meet someone who honestly believes that BP did all that was within its power to contain the spill.

Wall Street. The bailout happened. Debate will continue for years whether TARP actually helped us avert a bigger disaster or not. What has been made clear since 2008 is that although the banks happily took $800 billion of the government's money during the tough times they were largely responsible for creating, they had no intention of helping kick-start the economy in return. While most of the country suffered, bank executives continued to pay themselves insane bonuses even while their companies hoarded capital, and credit largely was not loosened as TARP intended. Goldman and Citibank alumni including the TARP architect, Hank Paulson were tasked with pretending to oversee their old pals. Wall street continues to have an outsize influence on the economy, with no pretense of social responsibility or of adding real value to society with honest and transparent labor and products.

We have clearly gotten away from what made America a great nation. We have lost the way in both the private sector and in government. Somehow, someway Obama and his JV team of Democrats are muddling along, steering the nation through the dense fog alone. Obama is far from perfect but that is a poor excuse for the lack of sincere help he is getting along the way.

Not My Cup of Tea: A Bipolar Tea Party Tasting

The tea party has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in American politics since 2009. What this means for the 2010 midterm elections and beyond is not entirely clear yet due to the organic nature of this movement, but a path is beginning to take shape.

On the one hand, I am a big fan of what the tea party movement stands for. I admire the grassroots passion for politics. It's sorely lacking amongst the American citizenry. The right to protest against the government when its actions seem unjust is sacred to those of us who value freedom of assembly, speech and expression. Many government policies make no sense. Members of the movement are following the example of the original Boston Tea Party, the very colonial heroes who threw crates of British tea leaves into Boston Harbor in 1773 and in so doing, began brewing the Revolutionary War which created the America we now live in. Members of the modern tea party undoubtedly represent a large groundswell of national sentiment, representing up to 20% of Americans if polls are to be believed.

On the other hand, the tea party disappoints. The movement is fundamentally lacking in practical ideas beyond claiming populist victimhood during a historically bad recession. Being anti-government, anti-tax, anti-Obama, or anti-socialist in a country where socialism is marginalized does not constitute an intelligent belief system. It's one thing to shout slogans such as "Don't tread on me" or "no taxation without representation" if they had any bearing on reality. However, the stimulus bill and health insurance reform do not quite qualify. In fact, when a real-life debate about taxation without representation for Washington, DC residents played out in April and was derailed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), tea partiers were nowhere to be found. This leads us to believe that it isn't principle which drives the tea party movement, but something else.

Bitter to the Taste Tea partiers are easy to spot. They are defined by overwhelming bitterness, and some are willing to take to the streets or march on Capitol Hill to show their anger and even hate. This is not a new phenomenon. During the Bush administration massive crowds gathered across the country and around the world to decry US policy, especially in relation to the invasion of Iraq that was seen as an unnecessary, unjust, and dumb war. State Senator Barack Obama made an anti-war speech at just such a gathering. While largely ineffective in affecting war policy or moving Bush, the anti-war movement did eventually help the Democratic Party take back Congress in 2006, and formed the backbone of the coalition which helped elect Obama as President in 2008. It is unfathomable that Barack Obama could have become President so early in his political career if not for the Bush backlash. But what is it these days that riles up the tea partiers so?

Why the long face? A confluence of factors have come together to put wind in the tea party's sails. Tea partiers peddle the notion that things are very, very bad for the common American person. The sentiment is understandable, and in some ways they are right. We are still in the midst of a massive recession. Other nations are growing in stature while the American state seems stagnant, especially in comparison. US Government is spending like a drunken sailor, whether it's for healthcare, bank bailouts, auto company bailouts, or to support illegal immigrants. Most people still aren't better off. Unemployment is high, and good jobs are hard to come by. Civil liberties (guns and God) are being taken away by the government. America isn't the country that many tea partiers remember from the good old 1950's or 1960's. Meanwhile, the terrorists are out to kill us and we're not being defended from them. The party will go on as long as these problems, real or perceived, are in play.

Who are they? There's some disagreement about who is involved with the tea party movement. Liberals tend to write them off as mostly white and older, like the right-wing base of the Republican Party itself, the type of crabby people who resurface whenever Democrats return to power in Washington. Liberals also point to evidence that the rallies and websites are organized and funded by shadowy operatives of the Republican establishment, trying quietly to garner momentum for the coming elections while turning huge profits for themselves. Meanwhile conservatives have tried hard to portray the diversity of the tea party movement, pointing out the minority members at rallies whenever possible, taking pains to show the movement's independence and disaffection towards both parties, and occasionally attempting to shun the blatantly racist and vitriolic elements of the group. Liberals call them ignorant, while Republicans show polls demonstrating that tea party members are more highly educated than the average American.

In reality it's impossible for anyone to truly know the makeup of the tea party movement. It is less than two years old, and most of its members are people who lurk on websites and make anonymous statements. There are no official leaders, although several established conservative or libertarian politicians are working hard to curry favor with the movement out of ideological affinity or political opportunism.

Affecting the Outcome. It's common wisdom that in order to get elected, many conservative politicians will need to bow at the altar of the tea party, just as liberals in key battlegrounds must get the blessing of the local unions, or face the consequences. Establishment centrist Republicans including John McCain and Charlie Crist are so afraid of their right flank that they dramatically changed issue stances (McCain) or left the party outright (Crist). Most believe Scott Brown won a key Republican victory in January thanks to tea party support in the state where it all started 230 years ago. New politicians like Brown are expected to arrive in Washington beginning in 2010 on the shoulders of the tea party, including people such as Marco Rubio from Florida who may defeat Crist for a Senate seat. And it's no coincidence that 2012 presidential hopefuls like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich are actively courting the tea party; they are aware that any chance of defeating Barack Obama will require the movement's help.

Until the Party Ends. The tea party movement is becoming a victim of its own contradictions. Its anti-government message will only resonate until it becomes clear that the economy is improving and the Obama government claims some of the credit. Most members may not be racist and ignorant of the facts, but plenty of them are, and the media loves to focus on the crazies who attend tea party rallies because it boosts ratings. There is passion and energy, but no adult leadership and no responsible platform. Reducing taxes is a great rallying cry, except that's exactly what has already happened for most Americans. Tea party support may appear essential nationally, but it has spectacularly failed to get candidates elected throughout the midwest and significantly, in NY-23 late last year. Finally, if the tea party truly is made up of civil libertarians, then will they also support other causes for civil liberties such as free choice on abortion, gay marriage, immigrant rights, gays openly serving in the military, and Miranda rights for suspected terrorists? I didn't think so.

The tea party may be a worthwhile hand-maiden for the Republican party in the short term, but it's likely that once a few tea party heroes are elected to office in Washington, the contradictions will cause the marriage to unravel. The question is whether the Republicans will read the tea leaves.

Terror Begins at Home

A disturbing trend has recently emerged in America to challenge established assumptions about terrorists and terrorism in the post-9/11 world. The specter of cornfed, homegrown American terrorists engaging in acts of political violence and mayhem both within American borders and abroad is difficult to comprehend, anticipate, and defend against. The problem is also exploding in scale to judge by recent history. If the threat of the future comes from the American-born neighbor in the townhouse next door, not just the Al-Qaeda warrior hiding in Afghan caves, there are far-reaching policy implications as well.

Many in the media and in political life have chosen to ignore aspects of this phenomenon entirely because it does not compute with their narrow worldviews on race, religion, and the nature of fundamentalism. This syndrome is personified nicely by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) whose state of Michigan has become the frontline for thwarted terror events not once, but twice in the last three months. Last December crotch bomber Abdulmutallab was arrested by the FBI in Detroit after a failed attempt to bring down an airliner, and in March we saw the FBI/law enforcement roundup of the radical Christian Hutaree militia preparing to execute numerous Michigan policemen and their families in April. While Hoekstra launched a massive fundraising and media campaign over the Obama administration's handling of Abdulmutallab and how the man should have been treated as an enemy combatant, had his Miranda rights stripped, gotten waterboarded, etc. we did not hear him denouncing the Hutaree on national TV, or getting involved in the discussion in any way. Hoekstra's major platform in his gubernatorial run is increased toughness against terrorists, but apparently this is much easier applied to a funny-named black Muslim than Christian caucasians named Jones in his own backyard. But Hoekstra is just a nutshell for the sentiments shared by a wider swath of the population who make these distinctions.

A survey of the homegrown terrorist incidents from recent months demonstrates the complexity of the problem, any aspect of which we ignore at our own peril.

Americans exporting terror. The conversation about terrorism gets turned on its head when US terrorists plan to kill people in other countries instead of the other way around. But that's exactly what has been happening in a curious tradition that appears to have begun with Mr. John Walker Lindh, the most famous of the "American Taliban" who was captured by the US military in Afghanistan in 2001, a longtime and trained follower of Bin Laden who landed on the wrong side of the Jihad after being born and raised in the States. He refused to identify himself as an American citizen long after his detention. More recently the "Washington Five" were arrested while lurking in Pakistan, a group of five American youths from Northern Virginia accused of attempting to join Al-Qaeda and/or the Taliban and casing facilities for terrorist acts. It is surreal watching five American boys facing charges by counterterrorism prosecutors - of Pakistan. Meanwhile, David Headley of Chicago was arrested in March on evidence of helping plan the 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, India which killed nearly 200 and wounded almost 300, including both Indian and Western innocents. While most of those attracted to these Islamist causes tend to be the sons of Muslim immigrants, others such as Lindh are born to Christian parents who made sure their kids were baptized. The lesson here is that American youngsters are susceptible to this ideology, and could form the backbone of the new terrorist frontline. President George W. Bush famously said things such as "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here." Unfortunately, we have no choice but to deal with the problem here.

American on American violence. We often talk about "suicide bombers" in the context of foreigners in Iraq or Afghanistan, attempting to kill American soldiers or the local civilian population. When we think of planes crashed intentionally into buildings the tragedy of 9/11 in New York comes to mind. Much less talked about is the February 2010 terror attack by Joseph Stack, who rammed a small plane kamikaze-style into an Austin, Texas IRS office, killing himself, federal IRS official Vernon Hunter, and injuring others. While this may be a case of individual insanity triggered by an IRS audit rather than the plot of a terror syndicate, the result is equally horrific.

There has been a spate of such loner type attacks against government officials in Washington, DC and elsewhere. There were shootings at Minority Whip Eric Cantor's Richmond office two weeks ago, near the Pentagon on March 5th, of Michigan's state Congress on February 28th, and against Capitol Hill police near the Senate on July 15th 2009. These haven't gotten as much attention because they were not committed by a Muslim, which was the case in the November 2009 massacre of soldiers at Fort Hood by one of their own, Major Nidal Malik Hassan. But Hassan was a deranged lone ranger too. At some point these losers will need to be accepted as an ugly American truth, a threat in its own right, just as we must recognize that the long string of school shootings since the early 1990's are an almost uniquely American male psychosis.

In March we have seen a sharp increase in terror tactics such as death threats and noose hanging designed to intimidate Democratic Congressmen and government officials subsequent to the passage of healthcare reform legislation. Other Americans have felt the need to express their legal right to bear arms specifically near President Obama's events in the last year. The anti-government movement, egged on by the tea party's fringe and criminally irresponsible rhetoric from people such as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck represents a potential powder keg. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the militia movement. Nobody should be surprised that there is a thread that runs through these forces.

Militias are not usually associated by Americans with terrorism, although the Hutaree members have brought this intersection back to the forefront. In fact, the godfather of American terrorism, Timothy McVeigh had both Michigan and militia connections, and killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City federal building specifically because he felt the government was evil. In today's environment, there are many other potential McVeighs and Hutarees out there, misguided into believing that the solution to their disagreements with taxation, various other government policies, or President Obama is to violently attack and intimidate the government itself. Fortunately, the FBI had infliltrated the Hutaree militia and had the ability to prevent an April disaster. This was a strong moment in America's national security and law enforcement strategy, and the story is truly a case of the system working well.

How to Win. Despite what we hear from the likes of Pete Hoekstra or Sean Hannity, the Obama administration in partnership with local and international law enforcement are exacting a punishing toll on enemies of the state both here and abroad. The campaign to assassinate suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia with drone aircraft has been beefed up in the last year and it's destroying scores of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters (sadly along with some innocent civilian collateral). Abdulmutallab failed to light up, but provided valuable intelligence that helped the US government and our allies to roll up his nasty friends. Pakistan has partnered with America to kill or capture at least certain factions of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, including some truly bad motor-scooters such as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The Hutaree was disabled in time to prevent any violence, which hopefully sent a warning message to the other extremist militias throughout the United States. Somali pirates foolish enough to mount US ships in the Gulf of Aden have been killed or captured on multiple occasions at the hands of the US Navy, including a dramatic Navy SEAL rescue authorized by the Pentagon and President Obama. NYPD and the FBI worked in tandem and used a sophisticated network of informants to foil US resident Najibullah Zazi's brazen plan to bomb the New York City subway system in September 2009. There are more successes, most of which we will never know.

America has been fortunate to avoid larger acts of terrorism so far since 9/11 under both administrations. Continued success in preventing the next big attack, as well as the small ones, is going to depend on continued vigilance. This vigilance will require an open mind on the part of law enforcement, national security officials, and the public about where the threat may come from, and what the threat may look like. Dark-skinned and Muslim youths will continue to receive extra scrutiny, but focusing on this demographic as the only terror threat like Fox News does would leave the country highly vulnerable. If Republicans choose to push this issue to wrestle back the upper hand on national security, they will fast make themselves irrelevant to the debate. It will prove that their agenda is centered more on the politics, religion, and race than it is on national security- especially when the party's leaders are losing credibility by fanning the very flames of hatred which can morph into violence.

Our safety depends on recognizing some difficult facts. The War on Terror is long over. The problem cannot be pigeonholed into neat little ignorant worldviews. The problem is not Muslim or Christian, white or brown, left or right, homegrown or foreign-born. It is living in a reality where deranged human beings of all stripes have something to say, and they are right here.

GUT CHECK TIME for Obama and Democrats

In an ironic twist of fate, health care reform suffered a near fatal blow on Tuesday because an anti-reform Republican replaced Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. Senator Kennedy, a leading American advocate of healthcare reform for several generations, died of cancer just as the finish line was in sight. He will be succeeded by Scott Brown, who came up quietly through the Massachussetts legislature to shock the Democratic establishment. He defeated State Attorney General Martha Coakley, who expected a cakewalk into the Senate. Obama's stumping for Coakley was not enough, just as it wasn't enough to help Jon Corzine win the Governor's race last November in another deep blue East Coast state, New Jersey.

Put aside the fun facts that the dashing Brown posed nude for Cosmo in his 20's and tried to pawn off his daughters on national TV during the victory speech on Tuesday night. The election was a dramatic defeat for the Democratic party just as Obama is hitting the one year mark of his administration. Massachussetts was a solid blue state that Obama carried by a huge margin, and a longtime stronghold for Senators Kerry and the beloved homegrown Kennedy clan. This race wasn't even supposed to be close, but the evidence shows that moderate independents who make up the largest chunk of the Massachussetts electorate migrated en masse to Mr. Brown, who ran as an anti-establishment outsider. Critically, the balance in the US Senate shifted from 60-40 to 59-41, leaving Democrats one vote shy of the filibuster-proof majority of 60 votes needed to pass health care reform and other parts of the liberal agenda.

In the immediate aftermath we are witnessing panic and dissent within the Democrat ranks, and gloating and rejoicing on the part of Republicans. The finger-pointing began even before the polls closed: administration officials blaming Coakley's lackluster campaign, Coakley's people blaming the DNC and the administration for not providing greater material support in a close race, and ugly internecine warfare in the Massachussetts Democratic party that was probably the largest factor of all. Many have concluded that the vote was a referendum on Obama and on healthcare reform. Meanwhile we are to believe Republicans and Tea Party folks are ascendant, the national electorate has shifted sharply to the right, and the 2010 midterms could become a bloodbath for Democrats. Whether any of this is true is debatable. But Tuesday was clearly a sick day for advocates of health care reform, including the president, but the show must go on. Here is why.

Democrats still own a massive majority. Many Democrats in Congress, in their weak-kneed fear that other "safe" seats across the country might fall in November, have forgotten that they were elected to office not simply to win more elections, but to serve the people. One measly defeat of a third-rate Senatorial candidate is by no means reason to give up on health care reform, or even scale back an already weak bill. Anyone who believes that reforming the health care system is right for the country, even if it is incremental reform, needs to double down on their efforts to pass it. Now is the time to courageously stand for convictions and deeply held beliefs, not abandon them out of fear. And if you are booted out of office, so be it. At least you can claim an ounce of integrity for standing for something. Yes, this might be Obama's Waterloo as Jim DeMint predicted, but at least he would go down in history as having fought for something that eluded liberals for 60 years and coming closer than any of them.

What seems to be getting lost here is that 59-41 is still a historically massive advantage, and paired with a House majority it's a far larger mandate than George W. Bush ever had. Yet under his watch the Republicans were able to steamroll through critical legislation such as the decision to invade Iraq. The problem with Democrats is that they lack that type of discipline. They need to find it, fast. The entire bickering caucus needs to get back on message. Passage of a bill in some form would be a victory that would not only help Democrats get re-elected, it would actually help real people.

This is About those 30 million uninsured Americans, remember? It's easy to see why some Massachussetts voters weren't scrambling to elect someone to office who could help pass health care reform. That's because Massachussetts already has a form of universal coverage, ironically implemented under Republican Governor Mitt Romney. Passage of health care reform at the federal level would not really help people in the Commonwealth at all. To the extent people were aware of that fact, Brown exploited it.

This represents a larger symptom of the health care struggle: most people are either pretty healthy or happy with the insurance they already have. The insurance industry is also perfectly content with the status quo, with laws in place which help keep the oligopolies in business and highly profitable. However, this arrangement comes at the expense of the millions of Americans who cannot get decent coverage, many of whom are children, the working poor, or the chronically ill, people who cannot speak for themselves as loudly as industry lobbyists. Who speaks for them? It was supposed to be Obama and his allies in Congress. To give up on them now, after already caving in on the public option and a hundred other needed reforms would be disgusting.

The Opposition. Sure, there is a groundswell of grassroots opposition to reform, though I believe this only played a limited role in Massachussetts. Politicians by nature must pay attention to this type of sincere and heartfelt opposition. However, much of it is fueled by the aforementioned contentment with the current system, coupled with fear. Fear of change, fear of spending more while the economy is a mess, fear of socialism, and even fear of the fictional Sarah Palin construct called "Death Panels" are what make the teabaggers tick. The opposition movement, to the extent they rally around any rational concept, are united by fear. And their scare tactics have successfully crept into the Democratic psyche. Yet neither the teabaggers, nor the Republican party have a plan on the table to cover the 30 million uninsured Americans. What are we supposed to do, just pretend they don't exist, and let them suffer and die from curable diseases? Nobody seems to have a good answer on that, except Republican coughs about tort reform, a good idea that at best would only constitute a fraction of the cost controls we need. The policy of saying no at all costs is untenable.

Obama's Position. The Obama camp is understandably rattled. The national mood has soured considerably since the inauguration exactly one year ago. Approval ratings have plummeted. The media has turned on the president for the second time, the first being during the long election cycle when now long-distant and irrelevant memories of Reverend Wright and Tony Rezko nearly derailed Obama's nomination. Most self-identified Republicans appear to hate Obama with a passion for his agenda which they consider diabolical, while many liberals are disappointed that Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan and compromising on civil liberties, the environment, and healthcare reform promises.

A sober look at his record, something the media is not paid to do, will show that Obama is not doing so badly. Sure, 10% of Americans are waiting in line for unemployment checks. The would-be Christmas bomber made us tremble and disrupted holiday travel. Deficits stare at us and look to grow bigger. While Obama's popularity abroad is high, we have not yet seen tangible foreign policy victories in relation to Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or Israel-Palestine yet. Most Americans do not think we are better off than a year ago.

However most economists agree we have successfully avoided a more monumental collapse in the economy, and part of the credit must go to the administration's work in assisting the banking and auto industries, along with the stimulus package that clearly created and preserved jobs. We have seen steady improvement in the stock market and stopped much of the bleeding in the housing sector. The government over the last year has aggressively gone after terrorists, arresting or killing many before they were able to do harm to American interests.

Obama's position is much stronger than it might seem from emboldened critics and disheartened supporters. He inherited power at a historically difficult time, and has only been in office for a year. The next national election will not be until November. The players are in place. Now is the time to fight tooth and nail for health care reform, using whatever legal means available, including passing pieces through the 51 vote reconciliation process. It is critical to pass a bill with even minor reforms, so that in the future a more enlightened government can build on them. Losing at this stage, when a health care bill is so close, would set back efforts for years if not decades. It's quite possible that the fleeting Democratic majority may end as soon as November.

The 2010 election will hinge on the economy, not health care reform, as any provisions in the bill including higher costs and taxes will not kick in for several more years. The economy is the issue that will matter most at the polls, as Democrats can expect to be kicked out if they don't demonstrate that they were able to create jobs after nearly two years of being in power in Washington. It would be a mistake to conflate health care efforts with the Massachussetts election, which is exactly what the opponents of health care want the Democrats to do. If Scott Brown is the straw that breaks the health care reform camel's back, the Democrats should resign right now and leave Washington, and spare us the pretense of being in charge of anything, let alone our government.

It's gut check time. The next ten months will show what Obama and his party are really made of, will define their legacy far more than the first year did, will determine if they deserve to stay in power or not. Hope still exists, but the clock is ticking.

Powdered Crotch, Hidden Weapon

Passengers on Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit were nearly treated to an unpleasant Christmas day fireworks show, courtesy of a young Nigerian traveler named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. There are striking parallels aplenty to another would-be airplane bomber, Englishman Richard Reid a.k.a the "shoe-bomber" who attempted to light some explosive-filled footwear on fire with a match during Christmastime 2001. A stark contrast is that Abdulmutallab packed the explosive PETN powder tightly against his crotch inside his underwear, which we can safely say wasn't a jock itch remedy. The Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist intended to use a syringe of fluid to set off the explosion, ostensibly in hope of taking down the plane with him.

Fortunately, both men were forcibly stopped by alert passengers and flight crew just in time to prevent a potential fiery explosion, which might have damaged either plane enough to force an emergency crash-landing. Abdulmutallab, like Reid, is now in jail. Such heroism and vigilance, while applaudable, offer small comfort for those of us who feel that these pyromaniacs should have been intercepted by government agencies first, especially 8 long years after the catastrophic 9/11 attack when four hijacked airliners became weapons of mass destruction.

There is much at stake in the foiled Abdulmutallab terror plot. It is a shadowy tale of international intrigue spanning many countries, involving many US and foreign government agencies, and brings to light key details of how America executes its counter-terrorism efforts on the front lines. In the final analysis, both sides failed. The Jihadist network did not get the plane crashes they sought; and the security apparatus of America suffered "systemic failure" as President Obama admitted several days later. The fight is far from over, so this is a good time to assess what is happening and demystify the strategies we are using to defeat the bad guys.

Terror, Inc. is alive and well. While the crotch bomb failed to blow, another terror plot was executed very successfuly a few short days later. A Taliban commando dressed as an Afghan military officer blew up a US compound in Afghanistan, killing 8 CIA officers in one of the deadliest attacks of the entire 8-year Aghanistan campaign, and in the six decade history of the CIA itself. Though entirely separate incidents in different countries, they illustrate that the tentacles of Jihad are truly global and have a very long reach.

In November yet another airliner bomb plot was foiled as a man carrying PETN and a syringe, just like Abdulmutallab, was captured in Somalia by the authorities at Mogadishu Airport before he could get on the Dallo Airlines flight. Judging by the fact that these are the only two known PETN plots, they happened within about a month, and both men had connections to Yemen, it is likely to be backed by the same Al-Qaeda network in that country. It is embarrassing that Somalia's dysfunctional government could stop the guy from getting on their airliner, but the US government did not stop Abdulmutallab from flying Northwest's friendly skies. In an unfortunate twist, the Somali government released their man from custody, losing a vital source of evidence perhaps for good. Yet another terror plot may have been foiled recently as five Americans of Pakistani descent from D.C. are being held by the Pakistani government for, among other charges, casing Pakistani nuclear facilities for a potential strike. This is not the first time that a foreign government is holding Americans on charges of terrorism on their soil, a strange turning of the tables.

These disparate events prove the significant reach of the terror networks, which thanks to the Internet and no shortage of weak and strong states to stage their bases in, are truly globalized in nature. Take Abdulmutallab- a Nigerian, living in England, trained in Yemen by Saudis, and boarding a flight in Amsterdam bound for the United States. Nigeria, England, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Holland, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and the United States: with a borderless enemy full of loose affiliations operating in dozens countries, it is foolish to think we can defeat terrorism by military means alone. The "War on Terror" initiated by the Bush Administration is a monumental example of a fool's errand on behalf of an ignorant citizenry, one that has led us to spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan without buying even a basic modicum of security. Terrorism is a criminal law enforcement problem, not a war, not deserving of the legitimacy the far-flung members are given by calling it a war, and must be treated as criminals. We continue thinking of our national security policy as a "War on Terror" at our own peril. Sadly, this moniker is just one of the mistakes committed by a Rogue's Gallery of national security professionals.

A Comedy of Errors. If there were ever a chance to catch an angry young anti-American terrorist red-handed on a silver platter, before he ever boarded a plane, this was it. Abdulmutallab was ratted out by his own father, of all people, far in advance of Christmas. Several months ago, after noting his son's flirtations with Al-Qaeda in Yemen, including correspondence indicating the boy wouldn't see his family again, Abdulmutallab the Senior informed officials of Nigeria, along with State Department and CIA personnel at the US embassy. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a Muslim Nigerian who bought a one-way ticket, with cold hard cash, and checked no bags in. And all this just one month after the failed PETN attempt in Mogadishu in November. It boggles the mind to wonder how this person was given a US visa, and did not have it revoked at any point during the process.

It should have been easy to track down this amateur with a profile screaming "catch me please!" He seems to have been on the radar of multiple agencies, including just within the United States alone: State, CIA, FBI, TSA, and other pieces of the Department of Homeland Security puzzle. Who should be held accountable in this labyrinth of a bureaucracy? Central to the furor is the so-called "watch lists" maintained by the intelligence commmunity; instead of the "no-fly" list that could have stopped him at the boarding gate, Abdulmutallab was placed in another broader database, tucked away with 550,000 other names. Washington must take a very close look at how these various databases are used and updated, as in this case it was rendered completely ineffective. We must make better use of these lists, and have better protocols to investigate red flags properly. We must have much better lines of communication between agencies. Finally and related to that, our human intelligence and signals intelligence must be better at connecting the dots. We were getting electronic chatter from Yemen that a Christmas attack was imminent, but this information was not cross-referenced with any of the numerous other red flags.

Politicizing the incident. When under attack, it would be nice to see the nation come together as one in the face of a shadowy enemy. But like nearly everything in a polarized America at war with itself, Flight 253 has demonstrated a level of finger-pointing between politicians to rival that of the security officials. Most disgusting of all is the opportunism displayed by Congressional Republicans and right-wing bloviators in the media, attempting to seize back the political high ground on their bread and butter issue of national security, and the spotlight after being rendered irrelevant in the health care debate, which degenerated into a tug of war between liberal and conservative Democrats only. The cheap shots at Obama attempt to paint him as weak in the face of our enemies.

The Obama administration damaged itself by waiting far too long to make a statement on the incident. This shook the nation's confidence during the heaviest period of airline traffic on the calendar. When Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano finally spoke, she initially said the system worked, when it was quite obvoiusly the opposite. Counting on passengers and flight attendants to take down a terrorist isn't exactly watching the multi-billion dollar system work, and nobody was fooled. Obama made a critical error. Though Republicans have tried to jump on this as evidence of an administration weak on national security, the poor initial reaction is inconsequential for national security in the long run. Hopefully the White House learned its lesson on message control during a crisis. Meanwhile, many seem to have forgotten the incompetent prevention and response measures by Bush and Cheney to disasters such as 9/11, when Mayor Giuliani became the soother of America's psyche for a week rather than the president. Additionally, Republicans and Democrats alike stayed quiet during the Richard Reid incident in 2001 as well. The latest attackes are ample proof of putting politics above country.

The most consequential question of the day is Guantanamo Bay. There is evidence of a connection between Abdulmutallab and two Saudi figures released from Guantanamo by the Bush administration, who allegedly turned up in Yemen in the Al-Qaeda fold to help train jihadists like Abdulmutallab. There are two ways of looking at this set of facts. One is the tack being taken by former VP Dick Cheney, who refuses to allow his failed legacy to speak for itself, and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI): we should not release detainees held as enemy combatants in Guantanamo, because they will go back to the business of terror again, like an ex-con freed from jail to commit more rapes. The other side of the coin is the one that Obama seems to espouse, though in a more lukewarm manner than before: holding enemy combatants indefinitely, without presenting proper evidence of wrong-doing or setting up some form of trial, against the spirit of most laws, will result in enough anger to help Al-Qaeda and the Taliban recruit new members. Meanwhile the guys who do finally get out will desire revenge for the way they were treated. This in turn, makes us less safe.

The evidence clearly shows that Guantanamo should still be shut down, but the Christmas day incident will force a continued debate on the matter. Those engaged in the battle to shut the base down lost a key general, when White House Counsel Greg Craig was pushed out of the administration this fall.

Airline Security. In examining the technical aspects of airline security, it is necessary to step back and look at the bigger picture. No matter what measures are put in place- including invasive new machines that will show the exact contours of a passenger's body- a terrorist who is halfway competent and willing to kill himself will find a way to take innocent lives, on a plane or elsewhere. I attended a presentation by a security consultant who regularly passes through TSA checkpoints at airports across America with lethal weapons such as guns and knives on his person. His team uses a combination of distractions, less-detectable materials, and hiding techniques. Focusing on an individual security measure will only lead to trying new ways of killing people. The magnometers present in most airports today cannot detect explosives, only metals. This means that we rely on poorly trained, poorly paid TSA personnel using wands and old-school body searches to find explosives or drugs. Adding the new machines, at many billions of dollars during a time of budget shortfalls, may help with that specific problem, but as a nation we will still have many other vulnerabilities. Another piece of the solution is better law enforcement: the type that we see by the detectives on "Law and Order" or "Criminal Minds." This requires the police work of deducting connections, motives, finances, putting weapons in someone's hands, and the enabling supply chains in order to destroy them. It will also require close cooperation with other nations, including some that are unsavory.

Abdulmutallab should be tried and sentenced in a court of law for all the world to see. And given a lifetime to rot in jail, rather than the paradise that he probably thought would await him as the martyr he never became. As Americans, we are bigger than the enemy. We have the righteous winds at our back, and morally acceptable tools at our disposal.

Empty words such as "victory" in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan are pipe dreams, nice things to talk about, if even worthy goals since we created the messes over there. However, it was dumb for us to believe that military campaigns would in any way eliminate terrorism. Terrorism is everywhere, and we will have to deal with it everywhere. Drying up the wells that foster terrorists will require more than swinging around our big guns wildly, as we have spent nearly the last decade doing.