Afghanistan: Land of Contrasts, Our Neighbor to the East

There's something about the Middle East that confuses even the best of us. I'm not only talking about finding the One True Path to Mideast Peace here; I'm talking also about the simple geography of the area.

Any seventh grader worth his or her salt should be able to give you a rough idea of which countries are considered part of the Middle East; at the very least, said student would be able to tell you that the region is nowhere within thousands of miles of These United States. Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin? Not so much:

SAN FRANCISCO - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin called Afghanistan “our neighboring country” on Sunday in a speech that could revive questions over her tendency to stumble into linguistic knots.

Three days after a mostly gaffe-free debate performance, the Alaska governor fumbled during a speech in which she praised U.S. soldiers for “fighting terrorism and protecting us and our democratic values”.

“They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan,” she told several hundred supporters at a fundraising event in San Francisco.

This kind of thing--and the way it was portrayed in the article--raises the question of precisely how we can distinguish between a candidate's innocent misstatement and his or her jaw-dropping lack of knowledge about the world in which we live. Did Palin commit a flub because she is currently spewing roughly one trillion words per day (some of which are bound to be mistakes), or was this a genuine glimpse into her confusion about how the planet is put together? The world may never know.

"If General McClellan--oops, McKiernan--does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."

Not to get into the whole "Who won the debate?" thing (except that, unfortunately, Palin had clearly won the debate about halfway through, so I gave up in despair and went to clip my toenails), but one would think that Afghanistan, fer chrissakes, is prominent enough on our national radar that you would bother getting the stuff right.

I know, I know: we've only been at war there for seven years. Some might say that this is not long enough to figure out who's who and what's what. If you're running for vice president, however, you might want to give it a shot:

Sarah Palin gets wrong both the commanding general in Afghanistan's name and position.The commanding general in Afghanistan didn't merely state that Surge tactics won't work! He also said that tribal involvement in the COIN strategy wouldn't work either! Absolutely right on infrastructure in Afghanistan though! Know what they really need in Afghanistan to enhance security? ROADS.

Palin thinks our commander in Afghanistan is someone named "McClellan." It is, I believe, McKiernan. And Palin is DEAD WRONG. He absolutely said that tribal involvement in Afghanistan COIN strategy would not work.

McKiernan: "I do think there's a role for traditional tribal authorities and tribal structure in Afghanistan, in the rural areas especially, to play in a community-based sense of security, of connection with the government, and of environmental considerations. But I think that has to be led, that tribal engagement, it has to be led by the Afghan government. I specifically tell my chain of command in ISAF [International Security Assistance Force, the name for NATO's mission in Afghanistan] that I don't want the military to be engaging the tribes to do that. It has to be through the Afghan government to do that. But of course, there's danger in that. There's always, "Is this particular tribe, is it being reached out to for all the right reasons?" That has to be watched very closely."

McKiernan: "First of all, please don't think that I'm saying there's no room for tribal engagement in Afghanistan, because I think it's very necessary. But I think it's much more complex environment of tribal linkages, and intertribal complexity than there is in Iraq. It's not as simple as taking the Sunni Awakening and doing the Pashtun Awakening in Afghanistan. It's much more complex than that."

It's a damned good thing that McClellan isn't our general in Afghanistan; Lincoln isn't around to send him dryly sarcastic notes before ultimately tossing him out on his butt for incompetence.

All roads lead to the Middle East

Ben Smith reports the latest McCain geographical head-scratcher:

A Democrat sends over this clip from John McCain's economic forum just now, in which McCain, talking about energy policy, stresses the importance of "ensuring that America is secure, and not dependent on oil from people like Hugo Chavez or other parts of the Middle East which is, we know, could be destabilized under certain sets of circumstances."

I teach seventh-grade history and geography. Right now we're learning the countries of the Middle East as part of our unit on Islam. It is my sincere hope and expectation that a class of twelve-year-olds will demonstrate more geographic knowledge than McCain does in this clip.

Don't you agree that these guys should have to pass some kind of test?