An introductory meeting with my advisor on Friday threw up one surprise. "Hey Gareth, guess who's moving into the next door office. Stanley McChrystal! Plans to teach a grad seminar on leadership this semester." Yale likes to pull in big names - Tony Blair makes guest appearances for a course titled Faith and Globalization (though not with great aplomb, judging by the Youtube clips). Having the ousted general wandering the corridors of the polisci department, presumably in full combats, will be profitable. The counterinsurgency strategy devised by McChrystal remains the mantra of Petreus, his esteemed replacement. What's more, he's still in touch with Pentagon policy wonks, as the war reaches a critical stage in the ever harsher court of public opinion. Nixon's silent majority - the broad-based support for Vietnam, even amid the clamorous protests of the early '70s - simply isn't in evidence when it comes to Afghanistan.
Like others on this issue, I'm caught between two impulses: win the peace with whatever it takes, or think seriously now about withdrawing. That discounts the option of lingering aimlessly, which represents the present scenario (including the indecision about whether to scale down troop numbers in mid-2011). The justifications for pushing on, whether humanitarian or security-grounded, are powerful. It'd be pretty appalling to see the Taliban waltz back to Kabul to reinstate what rates among the most barbaric regimes of the 1990s. The regional implications of a pull-out in terms of India-Pakistan are worrisome. And it needs to be demonstrated to rogue states that giving bed and breakfast to terrorists won't go unchallenged. Taken together, then, I'd stay the course. Yet clear goals for establishing national and government strength must be set, with checklists, so voters can gauge the effectiveness of a war they're paying for dearly - in lives and treasure. The status quo can't be sustained.
To change the subject, Chris sent me a speech delivered by Jimmy Reid, the Scottish trade unionist who died this month. Here, in an address to the University of Glasgow, he sets out his philosophy for education and politics. This brilliant part, one of many, I thought was spot on:
"I am convinced that the great mass of our people go through life without even a glimmer of what they could have contributed to their fellow human beings. This is a personal tragedy. It's a social crime. The flowering of each individual's personality and talents is the pre-condition for everyone's development."
As lucid a statement as ever there was for what the state, through education, might ultimately accomplish.
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