President Obama announces his decision on Afghanistan

. . . at 8 pm at West Point. I wish I could watch and listen to his speech live, but I'll be in class.

I support whatever the president needs to do to 'stage' his presentation given that lack of public relations ability - poor salesmanship - was a major weakness of his predecessor. I once advanced the notion that President Bush ought to enlist President Clinton to be his spokesman for OIF because of Bush's shortcomings as a salesman. My hope for Obama is that he campaigns for the liberal foreign policy outlook he shares with Bush to a level, at home and abroad, that Bush failed to reach.

Add: transcript of President Obama's speech here. Immediate short reaction: I can live with that. Informative Congressional report about troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some insight into Obama's review. Along with Bush holdovers Mullen, Petraeus and Gates, don't forget "war czar" Doug Lute. Plans for Afghanistan 'surge' underway at the end of the Bush admin. Thomas Friedman does not support a COIN 'surge' in Afghanistan, which he contrasts with his support for nation-building in Iraq. Friedman's column reminds me of an earlier comment I made on Prof Nacos' blog:

Comparing the presidential decisions faced by the two presidents, Bush's choice to double-down in Iraq was easier than Obama's choice today: Iraq has much higher immediate, long-term, and regional strategic value (the reason why the terrorists also diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq until defeated there) and Iraq is a much better candidate for nation-building than Afghanistan, whereas we can lose a lot in Afghanistan without gaining much benefit even from a nation-building success.

It must be awfully tempting to the current Commander in Chief to give in to the military leaders who opposed COIN under Bush and continue to oppose COIN today, abandon nation-building in Afghanistan, and limit OEF to a kinetic warfare battle-zone.

For a longer piggyback reaction, I responded with comments to Prof Nacos' post about the speech here:

Professor Nacos,

To be fair, the early 20K troop increase was authorized under President Bush, although President Obama certainly could have stopped it if he disagreed with it.

The Republicans did criticize the 18 month limit, but it was a mild criticism, certainly compared to what the Democrats did to Bush, and they mixed their criticism with praise for the greater decision. Realistically, there is no more an absolute deadline for Obama's OEF 'surge' than there was an unlimited escalation in Bush's OIF "Surge". COIN is meant to effect conditions such that local actors, such as in the Anbar Awakening, will make independent rational choices that serve our interests. So, just because 18 months happened to turn out to be a working timeframe in Iraq doesn't mean it will be the magic figure for an Afghanistan turnaround. In many wars, variants of "home by Christmas" have routinely been predicted and rarely with accuracy; as in Iraq, conditions on the ground in Afghanistan and our own limits will dictate what we actually do when the time comes to do it.

The main difference I see between Bush and Obama as War on Terror presidents, which the Republican critics did not say, is that Bush's commitment to the mission allowed for a change to Plan B when Plan A failed, or even change to Plan D after Plans A to C failed. Without that kind of apolitical leadership from President Bush, for which the Republicans paid a high political price, there would have been no (very controversial at the time) COIN "Surge" in Iraq. However, President Obama, while embracing the COIN strategy he inherited from President Bush, gives less indication he shares Bush's willingness to sacrifice his political cache by responding to a future failure with a change in strategy as opposed to a Nixonian surrender.

"Why not telling the American people that he was wrong in predicting that the Iraq surge would not work?"

I agree. I commented on your blog in
http://www.reflectivepundit.com/reflectivepundit/2009/09/what-endgame-in-afghanistan.html?cid=6a00d8341ca8e553ef0120a630affd970c#comment-6a00d8341ca8e553ef0120a630affd970c :

"What's called neo-conservatism is just the progressive (interventionalist) liberalism of Wilson, FDR, and Truman, renamed. The bashing of neo-conservatism by self-described Western liberals, therefore, has led to the frustrating, self-defeating spectacle of influential people speaking liberal platitudes but quixotically opposing our definitively liberal strategy in the War on Terror. The effect of these liberals' tragic hypocrisy has been the degradation of the Western liberalizing influence on the illiberal regions of the world."

By the same token, an equally damaging effect of the attacks by self-described liberals on our liberal strategy has been the degradation within Western societies of the domestic understanding and support we need to adequately sustain the war/peace-building strategy endorsed by Presidents Bush and Obama. Therefore, a critical task of President Obama is to fix the deep damage done to his and Bush's foreign policy goals by Senator/Candidate Obama and other Bush critics.

For example, watching the CNN reaction segment after Obama's USMA speech I noted that CNN used zero COIN experts - although to be fair, they had some reporters (eg, Michael Ware) and commentators (eg, Fareed Zakaria) who at least had some relevant subject matter knowledge. But the segment was dominated by partisan political pundits who were remarkably ignorant about COIN and area 'country study' knowledge. Worse, they didn't seem to care about the Afghanistan mission beyond its effect on the GOP and Dem partisan contest at home.

Obama needs to convey both his unity with President Bush (as Bush did with Clinton re Iraq) and that the War on Terror is no more his and the Democrats' war than it was Bush and the Republicans' war. Rather, he needs to show us that the War on Terror is America's war and greater, it is the Western liberal world order's war. I suggest that the president ought to dedicate himself to changing the entire frame of the dialogue in the way FDR unified America for our WWII intervention despite, at the time, strong domestic anti-Wilsonian sentiment not to intervene again in a European war.

One concrete step I advise President Obama take is persistent education in the media about the War on Terror, like FDR's radio chats, in a manner that treats Americans as intelligent people who will support the mission when we learn what he and President Bush know.

To augment his personal efforts, the president ought to enlist COIN and country experts to educate the American public and by expansion, the Western public, about the mission.

More locally, you, as a concerned citizen, media expert, and political science professor at a globally important university that just happens to have the highest population of student-veterans in the Ivy League, can bring COIN experts into academia and the media as well. (With all due to respect to Professor Betts and the Saltzman Institute, I didn't get the impression as a Columbia poli sci major that we were on the leading academic edge of the COIN phenomenon.)

Posted by: Eric December 05, 2009 at 05:36 PM

Eric:

Just a quick response to your once again appreciated comment: Yes, it took Pres. Obama to make sure that more troops were deployed in Afghanistan soon after he took office.
More importantly, Defense Secretary Gates and his colleagues were quite clear in their testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the withdrawal deadline was not written in stone but subject to the conditions on the ground.
As for the going public imperative of presidents, both Bush and Obama tried pretty hard in this respect. But as research has shown and the recent practice once again affirmed, there are limits to enlisting public support for military engagements abroad--especially in the face of real problems at home.
As for Columbia and the large number of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I have several outstanding, young veterans in my current class and assure you that they greatly enrich our class discussions and are appreciated by their peers and, most of all, by their instructor.

Posted by: Brigitte December 05, 2009 at 09:19 PM

Professor Nacos,

I disagree. The early 20K troop increase was based on changes to the Afghanistan mission developed at the end of the Bush administration. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103504.html , just one of many news stories that discussed this at the time. Excerpt: "Empowering Afghans to secure and govern their own country is expected to be a main theme of a Bush administration review of Afghanistan strategy that is expected to be released soon."

I don't have Bob Woodward access to know for sure, but I think it's clear on the available evidence that there has been substantial continuity between Presidents Bush and Obama on Afghanistan.

First, the media indicates that the Afghanistan strategy change and troop deployments were being developed at the end of the Bush admin. Second, more telling as a practical matter, a large-scale troop deployment to a war zone unavoidably requires months to plan and prepare; President Obama even referred to the lead-time issue in his West Point speech, eg, the 2010 deployment reality. Therefore, given their deployment date, it simply is impossible for the 20K troop deployment to have started after President Obama took office. However, you are correct that as the president at actual time of deployment, it still required Obama's permission. Third, COIN was and still is opposed in many influential circles, which means the switch to COIN in Afghanistan could only have followed upon COIN definitively proven in Iraq, and COIN only became a settled issue by the end of the Bush admin. At that time, per accounts, the Bush admin conducted its final Afghanistan policy review, incorporating COIN (note: GEN Petraeus assumed command of CentCom on 31Oct08), which became the basis for Obama's Afghanistan policy. More evidence: Obama's war team is Bush's war team - GEN Petraeus, SecDef Gates, JCS ADM Mullen - nearly intact, which points to one feature - continuity. Even more stark, President Obama is following the advice of the Bush holdovers on his war team over the advice of his own additions, NSA Jones and Ambassador Eikenberry, who both opposed an Afghanistan 'surge'.

Finally, many have wondered and you have discussed, why would President Obama need to do an extensive policy review and make his decision about Afghanistan now - after his March statement, 20+K troop deployments, and switching OEF commanders? Odd sequence, because Obama's early actions clearly indicated a settled policy on Afghanistan. The reasonable explanation for this seemingly backwards decision-making sequence is that Obama's early actions re Afghanistan, including the troop deployments, were based on plans already in motion. So, Obama didn't need to form the actions; he only had to cancel or approve them, and he approved them. Then, only after the Bush-inherited actions were completed did Obama conduct his own comprehensive review and take complete ownership of OEF with his West Point speech. (Note: while a comprehensive review normally is expected to be an early act in a change of command, in Obama's defense, I've heard his transition team was invited by Bush officials to work on Bush's final Afghanistan review, so Obama likely had input in Bush's final Afghanistan to-do list.)

"But as research has shown and the recent practice once again affirmed, there are limits to enlisting public support for military engagements abroad--especially in the face of real problems at home."

True, like his inauguration speech, President Obama's West Point speech in many respects was indistinguishable from President Bush's speeches, although I thought Obama did a better job of acknowledging concerns and opposing talking points.

Unlike what Bush faced, though, the Republicans - who will oppose him on many other issues - will not undermine him publicly when it comes to vigorously prosecuting the war, whereas the Democrats consistently undermined President Bush as commander in chief to the public. We can hope that the Democrats' public undermining of Bush was purely partisan, and with political control of Congress and the White House their reward, they will rally behind their man doing the same job.

The greater expectation rests on the man himself. President Obama is supposed to be a great, even global, 21st century media communicator and consensus builder, not to mention a bare-knuckles 'Chicago Way' politician. He even has a Nobel Peace prize based largely on those perceptions. In short, Obama is supposed to be the exception to the research. President Bush was a poor communicator in the media and often drowned out by his critics. With many of those critics neutralized, Obama is in a better position to sell his foreign policy against a domestic opposition that's been reduced mainly to 'paleo-con' realists, racists, isolationists, and leftists. But even in his superior position to Bush, Obama will still have to work very hard to fix the damage caused by himself and other Bush critics to the popular narrative. As I've said before on your blog, by opposing Bush, they have done great harm to liberalism. Hopefully, the liberal pundits who were unwilling to help President Bush uphold the liberal war effort to the public will now choose to help President Obama in the same cause ... he'll need the help, because Afghanistan is a lot harder than Iraq.

The effect of the economy on the war? A very good question for the political economists in SIPA, I think. I agree that President Bush had the luxury of a bullish economy (for which he famously told us to maintain our credit-fueled consumer habits after 9/11) with which to fund the mission, whereas President Obama must balance war costs with the recession and the outsized costs of his domestic initiatives.

Interesting question: given that Obama is willing to be a profligate spender with his non-war initiatives, eg bail-outs and stimulus, heath care, and possibly global warming, how does that support or hurt his war spending?

Posted by: Eric December 06, 2009 at 05:35 PM

PS:

"More importantly, Defense Secretary Gates and his colleagues were quite clear in their testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the withdrawal deadline was not written in stone but subject to the conditions on the ground."

Me, I shrugged when Republicans criticized the supposed time limit. It didn't bother me since an absolute time limit is unrealistic. However, on balance, it would have been better for President Obama to follow President Bush's lead and emphasize the 'conditions on the ground' aspect for public consumption. (Though, if Obama needed to state a time limit for a practical reason, such as to secure funding, then that changes the calculation.) While I believe serious educated observers such as enemy leaders, Afghan government officials, and political scientists will know the difference, we also need to win over casual observers and the confidence of cost/benefit-analysing American soldiers and Afghanis deciding whether to risk their lives - or not - based on their trust of the American president.

For example, I work with a 'salt dog' Marine reservist who's served twice in Iraq. The 2nd time, he volunteered for the "Surge" and now he's considering volunteering for Afghanistan. He's the kind of serious, experienced, smart Marine the OEF 'surge' needs. However, he understands that 18 months is insufficient to do this job and the president's speech discouraged him. It's one thing for him and me to speculate in the office what's realistic and what's not, but he needs to hear the commitment from the President before deciding the mission is worth risking his life - again. It's only one example, but does my co-worker's reaction represent the reaction of other US servicemen and women to Obama's speech? What about the Afghanis being asked to make a life-or-death decision in picking sides?

In short, you, I and President Obama may recognize that there is no absolute time limit to the mission, but the ultimate result of the mission does not

Posted by: Eric December 06, 2009 at 07:24 PM

Oops, the last paragraph is supposed to read: In short, you, I and President Obama may recognize that there is no absolute time limit to the mission, but the ultimate result of the mission does not depend on you, me and the president.

PPS: I'm always glad to hear about my fellow Columbia milvets making a difference on campus, but it doesn't change that Columbia in my experience is behind the curve on COIN. Should SIPA choose to take on COIN, your exceptional ready access to Ivy League pedigreed war veterans, enlisted and commissioned, on campus would be an asset.

Posted by: Eric December 06, 2009 at 07:32 PM

PPPS:

Withdrawn - 2nd point of evidence: "Therefore, given their deployment date, it simply is impossible for the 20K troop deployment to have started after President Obama took office."

The memory plays tricks. Upon review, I realized I made an error by confusing times of requests (Feb/March) for the 20+K increase with the times of deployments. Otherwise, I believe the evidence upholds that President Obama initially continued the COIN-based plans, already in motion, President Bush handed off to him. (Before leaving office, Bush put in for a 9K deployment based on the new COIN-based OEF strategy.) Then, when Obama later conducted his own belated change-of-command strategic review of OEF, he found "no silver bullets", circled the block and reached a conclusion substantively the same as the revised Afghanistan strategy he inherited from President Bush.

Also, I omitted OEF/OIF "war czar" LTG Doug Lute as another key member of Bush's war team whom Obama retained on his war team for continuity. Lute, notably, was in charge of conducting Bush's final Afghanistan review.

Posted by: Eric December 09, 2009 at 08:33 AM

Eric

Senator Kerry report: TORA BORA REVISITED: HOW WE FAILED TO GET BIN LADEN AND WHY IT MATTERS TODAY

You can read Senator Kerry's report here. Release date is tomorrow, 30NOV09, and anticipates President Obama's speech on Afghanistan scheduled for 01DEC09.

For an in-depth response to Senator Kerry's report, I refer to Mudville Gazette's reaction here (part one) and here (part two).

There's nothing really new in the report. My reaction is that the Afghanistan invasion plan had, as any plan must have, strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion, the plan made sense. Speed was necessary. As it was, for diplomatic as well as practical reasons, Operation Enduring Freedom didn't begin until 07OCT01. Using airpower and Spec Ops organizing local 'Northern Alliance' forces as the stand-in for conventional forces allowed for the rapid deployment and invasion and surprisingly fast defeat of Taliban and al Qaeda forces. However, Tora Bora was and is notoriously difficult operational territory, worst case scenario stuff, which is why Osama bin Laden and his allies used it as a fall-back position. Moreso given the timeframe, Afghan forces presumably were immediately better prepared to operate as light infantry in the Afghan mountains compared to our conventional forces. Even our SF guys had trouble operating there, as evidenced by the battle of Takur Ghur in March 2002, which Oscar fought in as an Army Ranger.

The fact that Senator Kerry can be reasonably certain our SF guys had Osama bin Laden cornered in Dec 01 is a testament to the success of the SF and speed-based invasion plan. However, if Osama bin Laden was truly obtainable at that moment, what happened at that point may also be a testament to a weakness of the plan, ie, the shortage of Western military conventional mass and the reliability of our Afghan allies in hunting down al Qaeda, when presumably our allies were more concerned about wresting control of the country from the Taliban. Another possibility is that the necessary Western military elements were available, ie, an SF team fixing bin Laden's position while airpower and reinforcements (eg, QRF) were on stand-by, but a commander on the ground simply made the wrong cautious judgement. Or it may be the actions that reasonably could have been taken were taken and Senator Kerry is using his office to play partisan political blame-games. If I recall correctly, "Dalton Fury" in his 60 Minutes interview said airstrikes were called in on the position where bin Laden was believed to be. He believes we hit the right spot and that local Afghans got bin Laden out. I've also read that escaping al Qaeda and Taliban in Tora Bora used bluff surrender ploys to stall our forces while they escaped, which may have worked regardless of the size of the forces we had in the area.

We defeated the Taliban and al Qaeda in terms of controlling Afghanistan, but it can be more straightforward to achieve traditional military victory by occupying a country than it can for a nation to hunt down a single man or group of men. Senator Kerry's speculation about Osama bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora reminds me of the WWII stories about Nazi leaders escaping from Germany despite their defeated nation being thoroughly occupied and surrounded by millions of Soviet, American, and other nations' soldiers.

Be that as it may, if a different invasion plan was followed that emphasized Western conventional forces, would we have reached the same moment where bin Laden was cornered? Assuming we reached that moment, would it have been practical to have had an additional brigade-plus of conventional American infantry in the area on a moment's notice? And assuming they could have been there as a "blocking force" at that moment, would the additional troops have made a difference in stopping bin Laden's escape through the notorious Tora Bora? And, finally, even if bin Laden was killed or captured in Dec 01, would the post-war peace-building mission in Afghanistan be substantially changed today?

06DEC09 update: Doug Stanton takes the opposite tack and says we should have been more SF and less conventional in Afghanistan.

Eric

Understanding the Surge

Check out this educational website, Understanding the Surge, that discusses the counterinsurgency-based strategy shift in Iraq. It's important to understand what we did in Iraq after 2006 because our strategy adjustments in Afghanistan are based on what we changed in Iraq. Really, the only hope that justifies present-day optimism about the Afghanistan mission is that COIN worked in Iraq so it might work in Afghanistan.

Eric

In the wake of Nidal Hasan: The Power of Diversity

I wrote this article for my school paper, the Columbia Spectator, less than 2 months after the attacks of 9/11. I first posted it on my blog in December 2004. In the wake of the Nidal Hasan terrorist attack at Fort Hood, I'm bumping it up.

The Power of Diversity, published Friday 9 November 2001:

In our war against terrorism, diversity should be the greatest strength of the American people. Our country is not defined by any ethnicity or religion. We share a concept of country that embraces every person, no matter where he traces his family’s roots. Every language, every culture, every religion, every ethnicity, and every race of the world can be found in our American mosaic. To fight this war, our country should be able to draw upon an abundance of diverse human resources.

We have been raised, however, to think of our differences as a source of conflict. Politically correct culture has tried to downplay our differences when we should cherish our diversity and recognize that it makes us stronger people. Now that peacetime discourse has been replaced by wartime necessity, we have the opportunity to transform American diversity from a source of domestic conflict into a powerful weapon. The nation demands the unity of the American people in confronting our common enemy, but the diversity of the American people is the key to American victory.

Osama bin Laden, on his side, views our diversity as a weakness. Where President Bush has continually affirmed that the war on terrorism is not against Muslims, Osama bin Laden has defined the war along unmistakable ethnic and religious lines. His voice is louder than America’s voice in the Muslim world, and he has succeeded in winning the sympathy of many Muslims.

The United States has taken the lead in the war against Osama bin Laden’s terrorism, and we have the capability to defeat him. When isolated, the terrorists amount to no more than a radical fringe of particularly sophisticated bandits. But we cannot defeat terrorism if Osama bin Laden succeeds in polarizing Muslims against America. The war against terrorism is, in large part, a psychological war; therefore, winning the hearts and minds of the world’s Muslims is essential to the American war effort. Fortunately, within our diversity, we find a powerful weapon in the psychological fight: millions of Americans who are gifted with the right language, culture, and religion to appeal to the world’s Muslims on America’s behalf.

In building his terrorist organization, Osama bin Laden has proven to be an astute student of history and a master of propaganda. He appreciates the power of hate and has chosen the United States to be the scapegoat of his hate-driven campaign, much like the way Adolph Hitler once chose Europe’s Jews to focus his efforts. Terrorism represents a virulent form of destructive hate that is every bit as effective as Nazism in 1930s Germany. Like Hitler, Osama bin Laden has presented himself as an avenger of past wrongs, thus masking his murderous actions with pretences of a false victimization. Even as he defiles Islam, kills thousands of innocents, and foments a war that causes massive destruction among those he claims to represent, Osama bin Laden, by manipulating legitimate grievances, has successfully won the sympathy of many Muslims who would otherwise be in the best position to stop him. The unfortunate people who have chosen to support Osama bin Laden, such as the Taliban, are also victims of terrorism. In the unavoidable human cost of America’s battle against terrorism, the supporters of Osama bin Laden will pay the same penalty as the Nazi supporters in World War II.

Muslim Americans are in a unique position to aid the American war effort, both at home and abroad, while diminishing the overall casualties of the war. At home, many non-Muslim Americans lack an understanding of Islam and Islamic culture, which has allowed the fear generated by the terrorist attacks to have a deep impact on our country, particularly Muslim Americans. By engaging in the American war effort and educating non-Muslim Americans about their religion and culture, Muslim Americans can unify and strengthen the American people, while also negating the caustic fear that serves the terrorist enemy. As the face and voice of America abroad, Muslim Americans can effectively combat Osama bin Laden’s propaganda campaign in the Muslim world. By convincing the world’s Muslims to support America and not the terrorists, Muslim Americans can save many lives: those who do not support Osama bin Laden, after all, will not die on his behalf.

In our American diversity, we find our greatest advantage over the terrorists and our nation’s key to winning this war. All Americans share the same duty of service to our country. Muslim Americans, however, have a special opportunity to serve their country with a unique set of skills and abilities. With this war, Muslim Americans hold the power to change the course of American history, and in doing so, to join the annals of the greatest American heroes. Muslim Americans, in essence, have been given a rare chance to create a permanent niche in the hearts and minds of America.

Eric

Obama circling the block on Afghanistan

After some reflection, I agree with Fred Kaplan, Andrew Exum, and my supervisor (a USMCR Gunnery Sergeant recently returned from Iraq and contemplating a deployment to Afghanistan) that it's fair for President Obama to do his own review of the Afghanistan mission, even if he ultimately arrives at a very similar conclusion to that of President Bush.

Perception-wise, the main problem is that President Obama seemed certain about Afghanistan when he was Candidate Obama and earlier in his presidency, and that doesn't fit with his present uncertainty about Afghanistan.

It's important to note that it's not that we're doing nothing in Afghanistan right now. At minimum, Obama is continuing the status quo mission and COIN adjustments he inherited from Bush. As much as I wish Candidate Obama actually understood the Afghanistan situation as well as he claimed, so that he felt comfortable making these decisions earlier in his presidency, I think it's fair for President Obama to work through the problem for himself rather than simply accept the answers that have been presented to him. It'd be silly to believe the hype that President Bush didn't think thoroughly about the Afghanistan problem, but even so, it's understandable for Obama to hope to find something that Bush missed. That's a natural expectation for any change of command.

There just aren't any easy answers or good choices for the Afghanistan mission. The only reasonable reason for optimism for the mission is that COIN made a difference in Iraq and it might make a difference in Afghanistan. Ultimately, I suspect President Obama will circle the block and arrive at the same or similar conclusions as President Bush did.

Add: I also use 'circle the block' in this comment on Professor Nacos' blog describing another decision by President Obama.

Eric

RIP, Colonel Lew Millett

COL Lew Millett passed away on 14NOV09.

I spent several days with COL Millett, and his son Lee, in 2000 when I was tasked to serve as his driver for the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War commemoration in Korea.

COL Millett impressed me as a man with a deep love and belief in soldiers. Not healthy even then and seemingly tired much of the time, he came alive when around soldiers. One time, we made an impromptu stop on post as we were driving past soldiers who were conducting some kind of training setting up field operations. Their commanding officer, who was obviously in awe, gathered his troops and COL Millett gave them an unprepared heartfelt, motivational speech that made me tremendously proud to be an American soldier.

Two memories: COL Millett allowing me to hold and examine his Medal of Honor and the afternoon in the Yongsan Heritage Center he 'hung out' with MoH recipient Ola Mize. As a junior enlisted soldier, I was awed to be in the casual presence of two genuine, great American heroes.

Interesting fact: COL Millett inherited company command of E Co, 27 Inf Regt, 25ID from Medal of Honor (posthumous) recipient CPT Reginald Desiderio. They earned their Medals of Honor 3 months apart.

Well done, Sir. Be thou at peace.

Eric

Baking soda as dandruff treatment

It's working ... so far.

In the Army, I was diagnosed with seborrheic dermatitis. To fight it, I used dandruff shampoos with active ingredients zinc pyrithione or selenium sulfide. I haven't tried dandruff shampoos with salicylic acid, ketoconazole, tar, or sulfur.

Zinc pyrithione didn't work, but the selenium sulfide was effective for years. Supposedly, though, it's normal for dandruff shampoos to stop working when the scalp or perhaps the dandruff-causing fungus develops "resistance" to the active ingredient. That's what happened. Suddenly, one night my old, regular dandruff shampoo stopped working. After I showered, my entire scalp experienced a sudden all-over dry tightening sensation, itched, and that was that - my dandruff shampoo was ineffective. I tried zinc pyrithione again and it didn't work. I switched brands to another brand of dandruff shampoo that used selenium sulfide and it didn't work, either.

I continued using the selenium sulfide shampoo, even though it was no longer effective as an anti-dandruff agent, simply because it seemed wasteful not to use it up. I also was reluctant to try the expensive, seemingly harsher salicylic acid, ketoconazole, tar, or sulfur based shampoos. So, I resigned myself to the situation.

About 2 weeks ago, I googled the problem and found websites discussing natural remedies for dandruff, including baking soda or sodium bicarbonate. (Another popular natural remedy is apple cider vinegar.) Baking soda works against dandruff supposedly due to its mildly abrasive ex-foliating and fungicidal properties. It appealed to me because it's natural, I have a box of it at home I wasn't using, and the method is uncomplicated. So, for the last 2 weeks, I've used baking soda to wash my hair. The 1st week, I applied a rough palmful of baking soda per daily wash and emptied half the 1 lb box in the process. The 2nd week, I've tried much less baking soda per daily hair wash, about 1 teaspoonful mixed with water, and it's been as effective.

So far so good. The baking soda has substantially reduced the dandruff since the 1st time I used it. After 2 weeks, I'm pleased with the result and plan to continue washing my hair with baking soda. My scalp itches far less, though it still itches somewhat; I don't know whether the residual itch is due to the dandruff condition or the baking soda treatment. I purposely skipped washing my hair one day to see whether the dandruff would recur. It didn't, although I decided not to push my luck by skipping a 2nd day. I just hope the baking soda doesn't stop working at some point like the dandruff shampoo did.

Baking soda has many other suggested household cleaning and hygiene uses and is touted as a cheaper, natural alternative to commercial cleaning products. With my success so far with baking soda as a dandruff treatment, I'm tempted to experiment with baking soda for other suggested uses such as teeth whitener and a booster for laundry detergent and bleach.

Eric

Nidal Hasan and Fort Hood murders

The murders by Nidal Hasan on Fort Hood on Thursday are bad enough in and of themselves. But making his act worse is that Hasan was a field-grade Army officer with the sacred duty to lead and care for soldiers, moreso as a psychiatrist and, therefore, medical doctor. (He's still alive, but while Hasan still holds his commission and license, I am loath to consider him a doctor and officer any longer.) As such, Hasan's crime is a gross betrayal of everything that was honorable and beneficial about who he was.

Hasan acted out as a radical Islamic terrorist (yes, he's a terrorist - it's an obsolete notion that Islamic terrorists are limited to card-carrying, dues-paying members of recognized Islamic terrorist organizations), but he reminds me more of recent high-profile murderers George Sodini, Seung-Hui Cho, and Charles Carl Roberts. They were mentally diseased men. Hasan's acts likely will cause honorable Muslim American soldiers to be scrutinized and perhaps alienated in a profession in which shared trust is essential, and I would not be surprised if Hasan intended for that to happen. Rather than turn on our own, though, I hope and trust the military community will instead reaffirm the fraternal bonds among soldiers.

Here's the statement from APAAM on the Fort Hood shootings:

STATEMENT ON FORT HOOD SHOOTINGS FROM ASSOCIATION OF PATRIOTIC ARAB AMERICANS IN THE MILITARY

At a time of deep sorrow in the midst of this horrific tragedy, our thoughts are first and foremost with the Fort Hood shooting victims and their families. One can only imagine the unspeakable pain and loss they are and will be dealing with in the weeks, months and years to come.

It is unfortunate that whatever demons possessed Nidal Hasan, that he chose to deal with his problems in this way.

In the aftermath of this terrible tragedy, it is more important than ever that we not make the same scapegoating and broad stroke mistakes that were evident in the aftermath of previous tragedies. The Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military urges the media, government officials and all of our fellow Americans to recognize that the actions of Hasan are those of a deranged gunman, and are in no way representative of the wider Arab American or American Muslim community.

In fact, thousands of Arab Americans and American Muslims serve honorably everyday in all four branches of the U.S. military and in the National Guard. Additionally, many of us have willingly stepped forward to fulfill our duty with our fellow soldiers in both Afghanistan, Iraq and other locations around the globe, including most of the member of APAAM. Indeed, many of us are today currently deployed in both countries, honorably serving each and every day.

There have been three Congressional Medal of Honor awarded to three of our nation's heroes. One of those heroes is Arab American Petty Officer Michael Monsoor, US Navy.

About APAAM
The Association of Patriotic Arab Americans in Military (APAAM) was created shortly after September 11th, 2001, in an effort to organize current and former Arab- Americans in the military. There are approximately 3,500 Arab- Americans serving in our Armed Forces. Based on the fact that there are no other formal organizations representing Arab- Americans in the military, APAAM has the distinction of being the first official organization for Arab- Americans in the Military.

Media Contact:
Ray Hanania
APAAM Media Coordinator, Vietnam Era Veteran
rayhanania@comcast.net

Eric

Winners always want the ball when the game's on the line.

Here's another resonant quote from one of my favorite movies, the under-appreciated The Replacements:

Shane Falco: I read Blitz!
Coach McGinty: [confronts Falco] Winners always want the ball when the game's on the line.

I've failed to live up to this principle and my failure must stop. I would add to the Coach McGinty quote that winners want the ball when the game's on the line - even when they fail, which happens.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

My mom gave me hard news, but it's not devastating yet, at least until the test results come back. It's incentive to clarify, focus, and accelerate what I'm doing with my life.

After winning 8-5 in Philadelphia last night, the Yankees are up 2-1 on the Phillies in the World Series. I'd like to see the Phillies win. I thought about rooting for the Yankees because they're a NYC team, I'm not an anti-Yankees Mets fan, and I usually root for the team that defeated my team to be eliminated as soon as possible. I can't hate on the Phillies like that, though, because the last 3 years, ever since Carlos Beltran struck out looking with the bases loaded, making the last out against the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS, the Mets have defeated themselves. They've choked, whereas the Phillies have developed into a high character team that combines their talent with hard-nosed, resilient tenacity. They're a tougher team than the Mets and I respect them as champions.

I'd like to get Bobby Valentine back as Mets manager.

Knicks and Nets both look like bottom-dwellers this season. Knicks are holding out for Lebron James and/or Dwyane Wade and the Nets are holding out for a move to Brooklyn. It's doubtful either will happen.

Eric