The following is an excerpt from Elbert Ventura’s review of Peter Richardson’s A Bomb in Every Issue in the newest issue of Democracy journal:

Flipping through The New York Times on the morning of February 16, 1966, a reader would have come across a startling photo: a stern-faced soldier, standing against a pitch-black backdrop, crowned by the bold declaration “I quit!” The soldier was Donald Duncan, a decorated Green Beret who had just returned from Vietnam. The small print announced Duncan’s opposition to the war after an 18-month tour. “I couldn’t kid myself any longer that my country was acting rationally, or even morally,” he said. But the photo wasn’t telling his story. It was selling it–it appeared in a full-page ad promoting the newest scoop fromRamparts magazine.

That wasn’t the first, and was hardly the last, of the Bay Area-based monthly’s provocations. In its brief and glorious heyday during the late 1960s, Ramparts produced a succession of images and stories that jumped out of newsstands and shook readers by the shoulders: four hands holding aloft burning draft cards; a portrait of Black Panther Huey P. Newton behind bars; an exhortation for more student uprisings and “two, three, many Columbias”; an all-American tyke holding the Viet Cong flag under the headline, “Alienation is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win.”

The magazine bloomed during a fertile period for radical media. Underground newspapers and leftist journals–the Berkeley Barb, the Los Angeles Free Press, Viet-Report, Rat–sprouted like wildflowers in the 1960s. But none of them were as big, as brash, or as influential asRamparts. This was no austere newsletter that took pride in its obscurity. Its covers were as eye-catching and inventive as anything mainstream publishing produced. Ramparts was unrepentantly glossy, filled with ads (a no-no for some on the left), groundbreaking design, and a pop savvy that tempered the sting of its incisive critique. Warren Hinckle, the executive editor, proudly wrote of the influential Ramparts style: “[B]y the late 1960s one could line up Evergreen Review, Harper’s, Atlantic, New Yorkmagazine, Esquire and Ramparts and be unable to tell the chicken from the egg.” By aping the look of the corporate media it mercilessly hammered, the magazine gave a sheen of mainstream legitimacy to radical ideas.

Considering that an entire continent’s worth of trees has been felled commemorating the ‘60s, it is something of a surprise that a proper history of Ramparts has never been published. Peter Richardson’s A Bomb In Every Issue: How the Short Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America redresses that oversight. The editorial director of PoliPointPress, a publisher of progressive books, and author of a book on 1960s Nation editor Carey McWilliams, Richardson is steeped in the world of leftist ideas and journalism, and he ascribes an autobiographical dimension to his interest, noting that he grew up in the Bay Area and was marked at an early age by the very milieu that gave rise to Ramparts.

Richardson’s book offers a breezy, blow-by-blow account of the magazine’s short-lived existence. If anything, for those hungering for such a history, it might be a little too brisk–at a mere 227 pages including endnotes, the book whets one’s appetite for a longer, more immersive chronicle, not to mention an anthology of Ramparts’ best. But what’s here is choice. Relying heavily on two autobiographies by Ramparts editors–David Horowitz’s Radical Son and Hinckle’s If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade,, a gonzo memoir that’s due for rediscovery–Richardson also includes material from recent interviews with many of the magazine’s principals to put in perspective its unlikely achievements.

Smart enough to get out of the way of a story that needs no embellishing, Richardson fills in the backdrop with convincing color, placing Rampartsfirmly in its unique historical moment. The dramatis personae is a writer’s dream: eccentric millionaires, Berkeley radicals, Black Panthers, a dipsomaniac editor. Richardson is a lucid and even clever writer (a nice touch: lyrics from “The Star Spangled Banner” are used as chapter titles, a nod to Ramparts’ provenance). “If 1968 was the year America had a nervous breakdown, Ramparts was its most reliable fever chart,” writes Richardson. (The chapter is aptly titled “Bombs Bursting in Air.”) The line sums up Ramparts’ importance in the story of American journalism. In the postwar era’s most tumultuous decade, the magazine became the scrapbook of the zeitgeist. Richardson strains to make a case for Ramparts’–and his project’s–relevance to today, but he need not try so hard. The magazine’s singular brilliance and influence on its time more than qualify it for remembrance.

Read the rest at Democracy.

Sarah Holewinski and Jim Morin–two of my friends through the Truman National Security Project –have an excellent op-ed in today’s Christian Science Monitor on a issue that may haunt and confuse many Americans. First, Holewinski and Morin restate something that may still be missed in the public debate–that our forces are primarily in Afghanistan to protect Afghan civilians from the Taliban, not to fight the Taliban directly. This then begs a question Holewinski and Morin ask–if our forces are primarily concerned with protecting Afghans from the Taliban, does that mean more of our guys will die as a consequence?  Here’s their take:

Military families back home want to know: Are troops walking into hell with one hand tied behind their backs? Are civilian lives being spared in exchange for military ones?

The answer to both questions is no.  […]

Protecting the population isn’t political correctness; it’s a vital military objective and a distinct advantage over an enemy that uses civilians as shields. The drop in civilian casualties is a mark of success.

Allied troop fatalities have meanwhile increased, but efforts to spare civilians are not the cause. Rather, troops are fighting the insurgents where they live – as in Marjah. Taking on the Taliban requires taking that risk. American and allied forces may be walking into hell, but given the right strategy and purpose, they remain free to fight effectively. […]

Combat is violent, frightening, and confusing, and troops on the ground have both the instinct – and the right – to protect themselves. The critical role for commanders is to convey the lesson taught by the US Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual, drafted under Gen. David Petraeus: “Sometimes the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.”

Military tactics are always balanced against strategic objectives, force protection, and humanitarian imperatives. In Afghanistan, international forces have had more than eight years to figure out what hasn’t worked and what will. The new emphasis on civilian protection is a welcome move toward striking the right balance.

In the Army there is a saying, “Mission First, Soldiers Always.” Safeguarding civilians and taking care of soldiers are not mutually exclusive. We owe our troops as much training, operational guidance, and moral certainty as modern war will allow.

This issue highlights how policy can be distorted and create bad political optics.  This is a nagging problem with the Afghanistan debate.  For example, the public discourse on President Obama’s decision on the war centered on two issues: how many troops, and the right’s false charge that he was “dithering” on what to do.  In that regard, the White House let the debate get away from it because, frankly, thousands of troop numbers grabs headlines in ways that strategy discussions don’t.

So, progressives should heed this op-ed and use it to push back when charges come–from either the left or right–that our troops are dying because we’re allegedly more concerned with Afghans.  There will be casualties, of course, but we have to understand that Afghan casualties vs. American casualties aren’t a zero-sum game.

Everyone knows that America’s attempt to implant democracy in Iraq was a fool’s errand. Everyone, that is, but the Iraqi people.

Stubbornly defying terrorist bombings and official incompetence, they turned out in force to vote in national elections over the weekend. Although the outcome isn’t yet known, the elections confirmed Iraq’s status as the Middle East’s most important, if precarious, experiment in democracy.

The process hasn’t been pretty, but there’s no denying that something like a normal, pluralistic politics is emerging in a society brutalized by a sadistic tyrant and scarred by the sectarian violence that followed the U.S. invasion. The big question now is whether Iraqis will continue along the path of power-sharing and representative government, or give up on democracy and opt for some form of authoritarian rule, which is the norm in their neighborhood.

It’s easy to be pessimistic about Iraq, so let’s start with the positive side of the ledger. First, al Qaeda has been defeated. Though it still perpetrates atrocities against Iraqi civilians, it has scant popular support and cannot stand up to Iraq’s army and police. Sectarian strife also has subsided, at least for the moment; the Economist reports that civilian casualties are at a six-year low.

Second, politics is becoming less sectarian as communal groups splinter and forge cross-cutting alliances. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has broken with the main Shia groups, which failed to field their own candidate for his post. Also expected to do well is former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a nationalist whose coalition includes Shia and Sunnis. In the north, a reform movement called “Change” has broken with the two dominant Kurdish parties on the issue of local political corruption. And in pointed contrast to Iran, Iraq’s Shia clerical establishment stays out of politics.

On the other side of the ledger, Iraq’s emerging political order faces several enormous challenges. One is a fatal combination of governmental weakness and corruption. The central government still cannot supply basic infrastructure, including electricity. Rampant bribery and cronyism are giving democracy a bad name and feeding popular sentiment for strongman rule. It’s not hard to imagine Iraq moving toward a “soft authoritarianism” like Egypt’s or perhaps the even more stifling models of Syria or Saudi Arabia.

The Iraqi economy is in shambles. Unemployment is pervasive and private industry is weak; government is the employer of first and last resort in Iraq. Although the country has enormous oil reserves, there’s a real danger it could use them to foster dependence on state subsidies rather than private sector work.

Finally, there’s the question of what happens when U.S. troops are no longer around to backstop Iraq’s political evolution. Under the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the Bush administration and Baghdad, all U.S. forces must be out by the end of 2011. As Peter Beinart warns, this deadline may not allow enough time for the consolidation of democracy in Iraq. The United States plays a quiet but vital role in mediating sectarian conflicts and helping Iraqis set up nonpartisan governing institutions. In our absence, civil war could flare up again, Iran might escalate its internal interference in Iraqi affairs, or there could be a military coup in reaction to public anger over the chaos and incompetence of civilian government.

Of course, the United States cannot unilaterally change the Status of Forces Agreement. But Obama should be vigilant and open to a request from the Iraqi government to do so should that become necessary. We have come too far, at enormous expense to both Iraqis and Americans, to give up now on Iraq’s struggles to build a decent government that rules by popular consent.

Iraq is having a major election on Sunday. No way, really? Yup, really. The leader of the winning coalition gets to be prime minister even. Suffice it to say, I’m pretty sure this one has slipped under the radar for most Americans. My quick and informal poll of friends — “Are you aware that Iraq is going to elect a new prime minister on Sunday?” — drew a mix of blank stares and disbelief. Gone are the days of George W. Bush’s PR blitz, where the ex-prez’s attempts to build public support for his war hung on selling the country on wistfully wrapped, grandiose concepts of liberty and freedom.

This time around, the Obama administration has opted for a more low-key approach. Democracies aren’t built overnight, a lesson the Bush folks probably knew, but since they had staked so much political capital to a quick victory and transition in Iraq, they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The reality is that this election is more important than the last one, and the next one will be more important than this weekend’s. The mere act of holding elections is of course highly significant, but they must continually confirm the growth and strength of state institutions to truly build a democracy. That’s what this election is really about — how stable is Iraq?

So who’s going to win, and what issues are Iraqis concerned with? Man, if I could answer either of those with granularity, I could probably figure out how to make a lot of money with it. For starters, click here for a guide to all the different coalitions. Current polling predicts that incumbent PM Nouri al-Maliki’s coalition will win 30 percent of parliamentary seats, ex-PM Ayad Allawi’s (a Shia, running with a Sunni and secular Shia on a national unity coaition) bloc will take 22 percent, and the Iraqi National Alliance (a conservative Shia group) will get 17. But this doesn’t necessarily determine the “winner” because all the main groups will have to form a governing majority by reaching out to some of the millions of minority blocs in a coalition-of-the-coalitions government. In other words, Allawi might become prime minister if he can form a bigger coalition alliance with a few critical minority groups.

“Issues” in Iraq don’t carry — at least for now — the same weight and implications they do as in Western democratic politics. Iraqis aren’t going to bicker about abortion language in a health care bill in Baghdad, for example. Rather, Iraqi politicians are still debating the first two levels on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and wants: basic security, public services, and the like.

Which is why incumbent PM Nouri al-Maliki has named his coalition “State of Law,” which is of course designed to appeal to those who desire security. It’s also why there has been an uptick in attacks across Iraq over the last few months, as various groups try to disprove al-Maliki’s claim that he has the upper hand in the security situation.

I think we’ll really know how far Iraqi democracy has come based on sectarian voting patterns. Are Shias just voting for other Shias? Sunnis for Sunnis? Kurds for Kurds? We’ll know that democracy has really come to Iraq when a Shia will vote for a Sunni based on issues, not patronage. But since the issues are still so rudimentary, sectarianism still probably carries the day.

Finally, the post-election period will be the most critical. How easy will it be to form a governing majority? Will there be a peaceful transfer of power? How bad is sectarian violence? These questions all hinge on one another, I’m afraid. There may be calls for the U.S. to extend its presence in Iraq if the post-election period is really messy. But as I’ve written here, that’s a lot tougher than it might seem.

So pay attention, America — Iraq still deserves your attention.

If you are at all interested in the future national security of the United States, do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to read Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech yesterday at Kansas State University. It’s clear that Adm. Mullen understands the changing nature of warfare in the 21st century and that the military must adapt along with it. Mullen’s fears that U.S. foreign policy is “too dominated by the military” is particularly striking given that Adm. Mullen is, well, the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. military. Or, to quote Nathan Hodge of Danger Room, Mullen seems to be saying that, “avoiding wars is as important as winning them.”

Adm. Mullen endorses a strong, smart and principled national security worldview that progressives should embrace. Here are a few extended excerpts (they’re long, but worth it), which should double as powerful rebuttals to any conservative who accuses progressives of being “weak on security”:
On the nature of war:

[T]here is no single defining American way of war. It changes over time, and it should change over time, adapting appropriately to the most relevant threats to our national security….[T]he military may be the best and sometimes the first tool; it should never be the only tool. The tangible effects of military engagement may give policymakers a level of comfort not necessarily or wholly justified. As we have seen, the international environment is more fluid and more complex than ever before.
[…]
Contrary to popular imagination, war has never been a set-piece affair. The enemy adapts to your strategy and you adapt to his. And so you keep the interplay going between policy and strategy until you find the right combination at the right time.
[…]
Trying everything else is not weakness. It means we don’t give up. It means we never stop learning, and in my view if we’ve learned nothing else from these two wars of ours, it is that a flexible, balanced approach to using military force is best.

On the relationship between defense and diplomacy:

Defense and diplomacy are simply no longer discrete choices, one to be applied when the other one fails, but must, in fact, complement one another throughout the messy process of international relations….[W]e cannot count on military might alone. We have to invest in our homeland security; we have to improve and better coordinate our intelligence; and we will have to use diplomacy, because no one nation can meet the challenges of an interconnected world acting alone. My fear, quite frankly, is that we aren’t moving fast enough in this regard.

 

U.S. foreign policy is still too dominated by the military, too dependent upon the generals and admirals who lead our major overseas commands. Secretaries Clinton and Gates have called for more funding and more emphasis on our soft power, and I could not agree with them more. Should we choose to exert American influence solely through our troops, we should expect to see that influence diminish in time.

On the use of force:

 

Force should, to the maximum extent possible, be applied in a precise and principled way….[P]recisely applying force in a principled manner can help reduce…costs and actually improve our chances of success. In this type of war, when the objective is not the enemy’s defeat but the people’s success, less really is more. Each time an errant bomb or a bomb accurately aimed but against the wrong target kills or hurts civilians, we risk setting our strategy back months, if not years.

Precise and principled force applies whether we are attacking an entrenched enemy or securing the population. In either case, it protects the innocent. We protect the innocent. It’s who we are. And in so doing, we better preserve both our freedom of action and our security interests.

Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thejointstaff/ / CC BY 2.0

I haven’t written much on the Marja offensive—the joint US/Afghan/NATO operation in the Helmand province city of the same name—because I wanted to see how it played out before drawing sweeping conclusions.

The assault on Marja (population 80,000) is now in its third week. It is the largest offensive in Afghanistan by U.S./NATO/Afghan troops since 2002, involving some 5,000 total troops. Marja had been one of the last significant Taliban strongholds in Helmand province, and NATO and Afghan commanders had eyed it as potentially excellent example of the alliance’s new force posture and growing inter-operability with the Afghan military. “Force posture,” you ask? That’s right—lost in last year’s debate of how many American troops to send was the more important point about why extra forces were needed.

General McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy was a page ripped from General Petraeus’ Iraq playbook of early 2007, when violence in that war began to decrease significantly. It’s a military mindset that values protecting the local population over killing the enemy. General Petraeus rightly pointed out, “We don’t want to destroy Marja to save it.”

The mantra “clear, hold, and build” has been the recipe for success: clearing Taliban out of an area, holding the area so Taliban don’t immediately return, and building basic governing capacities that show locals that NATO and Afghan forces are serious about improving people’s lives, not just destroying. To execute this strategy, you need more boots on the ground.

It’s important for progressives to realize that though American casualties have been rising as our forces live among Afghans, that’s because they’re putting themselves in the firing line between civilians and the Taliban. Of course, civilians are killed, whether it’s because our forces have mistakenly identified a location as a Taliban hideout or because the Taliban has ruthlessly used civilians as human shields. There have been, depending on whose numbers you believe, probably somewhere around 25 civilian deaths in Marja thus far. They are all tragedies. But as Sarah Holewinski (full disclosure: a friend through the Truman National Security Project) of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Combat (CIVIC) says, care to avoid civilian casualties is at its highest in years:

Soldiers on the ground are telling us, ‘look, we’re restricting our air power. We’re going in on foot. We are shooting only when we know that that other combatant is carrying a gun. So we’re trying to distinguish as clearly as possible between civilians and combatants.’ ….And then when an incident actually does happen, they are very quick to do an investigation, and then pay compensation.

The offensive was repeatedly announced in the Afghan press weeks before it happened. Sounds crazy, right? But the military knew that even though many Taliban fighters would flee out of town, the better course of action was to give civilians time to prepare.

The military side of the campaign was relatively swift and effective. The Afghan flag now flies over Marja, and mid-level American officers are happy with the progress. Taliban certainly remain scattered throughout the countryside, but as long as they are dispersed away from the city with no real power-base, that’s acceptable for now.

But here comes the hard part—the “building” phase. General McChrystal says, “We’re not at the end of the military phase, but we’re clearly approaching that….The government of Afghanistan is in the position now of having the opportunity, and the requirement, to prove they can establish legitimate governance.”

 

McChrystal has said that there’s an Afghan “government in a box” (allegedly trustworthy Afghans set to temporarily run Marja) ready to roll in and start working on basic public services. That’s a plus because it clears out the local corruption-laden crew and stands a better chance of success, but potentially dangerous because the government transplants are aliens to the local power structures and traditional Afghan system of family-based patronage.

So what do the locals think? As far as I’ve observed, quotes from local tend to fall into three general categories, something along these lines and in roughly equal numbers:

1. “Good riddance to the Taliban. This operation was needed.”
2. “Life wasn’t so bad under the Taliban. It wasn’t great, but I was surviving. What are the Americans doing?”
3. “The Afghan Army is completely incompetent. If they Americans don’t stay engaged in Marja, the whole deal will have been for nothing.”

Thus far, Marja seems to have been an effective demonstration of the first two aspects of counter-insurgency strategy (“clear” and “hold”), but the “build” will take months upon months to come to fruition. If the NATO/Afghan engagement produces an effective local government with decent public services, public opinion will begin to swing towards the first quote above. That’s a big “if.”

And if it is indeed one of the last major Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan — I’m not expert enough to weigh whether that’s true — the Marja operation will have certainly been worth it.

Take a minute to soak in Tom Ricks’ column in NYT today. Here are a two key excerpts:

IRAQ’S March 7 national election, and the formation of a new government that will follow, carry huge implications for both Iraqis and American policy. It appears now that the results are unlikely to resolve key political struggles that could return the country to sectarianism and violence.  If so, President Obama may find himself later this year considering whether once again to break his campaign promises about ending the war, and to offer to keep tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for several more years. Surprisingly, that probably is the best course for him, and for Iraqi leaders, to pursue.

[…]

The political situation is far less certain, and I think less stable, than most Americans believe. … All the existential questions that plagued Iraq before the surge remain unanswered. How will oil revenue be shared among the country’s major groups? What is to be the fundamental relationship between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds? Will Iraq have a strong central government or be a loose confederation? And what will be the role of Iran (for my money, the biggest winner in the Iraq war thus far)?

Ricks goes on to advocate slowing down the U.S. withdrawal, which can really only occur if the Iraqis offer to re-open negotiations on the status of forces agreement (SOFA). It was signed in the waning days of the Bush administration and establishes December 31, 2011, as the date when “all United States forces shall withdraw from Iraq.”

While the future in Iraq certainly continues to look murky and Ricks’ suggestion should be kept in mind, I don’t think we’re quite at the point of seriously debating a change to the SOFA just yet. Let’s wait until the March 7th elections have passed and the mood of the country and new government shake out until we think about it. After all, it’s not our call anyway — as the SOFA clearly states, “The United States recognizes the sovereign right of the Government of Iraq to request the departure of the United States Forces from Iraq at any time,” and that’s a politically weighty sentence to revisit if you’re a brand new Iraqi government.

That’s why I don’t think the announcement of General Odierno’s contingency plan to delay withdrawal is much of a definite harbinger at this point. That’s what the military does — it plans for things. They’re the best Boy Scouts (motto: Be Prepared) in the world. And just because it plans, doesn’t mean the commander-in-chief is about to put those plans in motion. After all, we have a plan on the books to attack Iran. And I’ve got $20 that says we have a plan to attack Canada.

But then again, invading Canada would make winning the hockey gold medal a lot less fun.

Najibullah Zazi pled guilty yesterday in what should be a major coup for the administration. Right now, they’re not exploiting it for all it’s worth.

First, some background: Zazi traveled from Colorado to New York with explosives in his car and the intention to detonate them in the New York subway, potentially killing hundreds of innocent Americans. The NYT is reporting that Zazi copped to it after DOJ pressured him into cooperation out of fear that the inquiry might widen to include other members of his family. As a part of the deal, prospectors believe he’ll prove a valuable source of information about his contacts in Pakistan, where he met with al Qaeda and learned to make the devices.

Though Zazi’s plea has been sealed by the judge, he has admitted to conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction, to commit murder in a foreign country, and to provide material support for a terrorist organization. In exchange, he’ll reportedly be sentenced to a life term in a June 25th hearing. Leaving Zazi to anonymously rot in jail is a win-win for the USA in the worldwide PR battle with al Qaeda, too. Sentencing him to die denies terrorists the sickening prospect of using Zazi as a “martyr” in recruiting and financing propaganda. This is worth remembering when KSM’s sentencing comes around.

The case demonstrates that the intelligence community can partner with law enforcement agencies to provide swift, effective justice to those who would harm us. The American security apparatus “connected the dots” to prevent a major terrorist attack. What’s more, it shows that the Obama administration is committed to defeating terrorism and can apply the civilian justice system as part of that effort.

The bottom line is that this is an absolutely huge win for a sound, progressive worldview on national security. The good news is that Attorney General Eric Holder is out making the case. The bad news is that he’s making the case in the wrong way. Here’s a telling statement on the usefulness of the civilian court system from his press conference:

To take this tool [civilian courts] out of our hands, to denigrate this tool flies in the face of facts and is more about politics than it is about facts.

It’s a perfectly sound and correct argument. It’s also one that most Americans ignore.

It would be much more effective to frame the national security argument in terms of emotion, not wonkery. Americans want to hear that their country is strong, that we’re beating terrorism, and that we’re on the offensive in that fight. Using civilian courts shouldn’t be referred to as a “tool”; rather, the entire case should be framed as a “strong victory over those who are dedicated to killing us.”

Conservatives don’t care about facts. They fight these ideological battles on emotional grounds, and for decades their arguments have resonated more with Americans than progressive ones. I would rather have the AG preempting conservative attacks using the Zazi case by projecting an image of staunch, fist-pounding resolve to defend the country, not wonkishly responding to conservatives’ false assertions that civilian courts are weak.

Think I’m wrong? Look no farther than this WaPo/ABC poll that shows the only category that conservatives are “winning” on national security right now is the civilian courts vs. military courts argument, despite the civilian courts’ effectiveness in the Reid, Moussaoui, and, now, Zazi cases. Why? My hunch is that the emotional idea behind a military court simply projects a better image of strength, irrespective of the justice it may deliver.

Now is the time to go on the offensive. Progressives should use this very tangible example of progressive strength and smarts on national security and show that conservative approaches continue to be reckless. Or we could continue fighting this battle on conservatives’ terms and keep wasting our breath.

It’s not hard to understand China’s angry reaction to President Obama’s meeting yesterday with the Dalai Lama. Beijing claims that Tibet’s spiritual leader is a “separatist,” but he has never demanded independence. Instead, the Dalai Lama has become a living symbol of ideals that China, for all its burgeoning strength, deeply fears: human rights, free expression, religious liberty and democracy.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14^th Dalai Lama, is unquestionably a thorn in Beijing’s side. Since being forced into exile in 1959, he has been a gentle but relentless opponent of China’s attempts to suppress Tibetan cultural and spiritual identity. The “simple Buddhist monk,” as he calls himself, won the Nobel Peace Prize for espousing nonviolence in the struggle for Tibetan autonomy within China.

The Dalai Lama is cut from the same mold as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., great moral leaders who rose to prominence by fusing the spiritual and the political. But where Gandhi and King couched their demands for justice in values honored (if in the breach) by their oppressors, the Dalai Lama confronts a Chinese regime that rejects liberal ideals as exclusively Western. On the contrary, it vaunts the superiority of  “Asian values” of order, social harmony, and deference to authority.

Of course, the Dalai Lama’s rejection of violence, his refusal to foment ethnic hatred, and his calls for dialogue with Beijing, are prudent as well as grounded in the values of Tibetan Buddhism. After all, there are only six million Tibetans living in close proximity to over a billion Han Chinese. But as Carl Gershman noted today at a packed ceremony at the Library of Congress, the Dalai Lama’s approach also has “preserved the moral integrity” of the Tibetan cause and left open the door to a future reconciliation with a less insecure, more tolerant Chinese government.

Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, presented the Dalai Lama with NED’s Democracy Service Medal. The award is intended to highlight what Gershman called an underappreciated dimension of the Dalai Lama’s work – his staunch support for democracy. Over the years, Tibetan exiles in India have developed representative institutions and held elections to select political leaders. Such efforts, of course, only aggravate China more by giving the lie to its claims that democracy isn’t for Asians. In this sense, Gershman noted, Tibet is not a mere sideshow; its fate is linked to that of China’s intrepid dissidents and democracy activists.

They too deserve recognition and moral support from U.S. political leaders, even if that too chafes China’s ruling elites.

The English language online version of Der Spiegel is reporting that Mullah Abdul Salam — a big-fish Taliban commander who has been responsible for recent attacks against German forces stationed in northern Afghanistan — has been arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Salam has been described by both Der Spiegel and the LA Times as the “shadow governor” of province of Kunduz. While Salam doesn’t appear to be the critical lynch-pin that Mullah Baradar was, the LAT explains:

In Kunduz, a once-quiet corner of Afghanistan, Salam presided over a major buildup of Taliban forces over the last 18 months. The insurgents took over entire districts, repeatedly attacked Afghan security posts, harried NATO troops in the province — who were mainly Germans — and menaced a NATO supply line running through Kunduz.

One of the worst civilian-casualty episodes of the war occurred in August after suspected Taliban fighters hijacked a fuel truck. The Germans, fearing the vehicle would be used for an attack on their main base in Kunduz, called in an airstrike that killed dozens of insurgents — and also dozens of civilians.

Late last year, a series of raids, carried out mainly by U.S. special forces, drove the insurgents underground in Kunduz, but their presence remained a threat.

What in the dickens is going on here? As is eloquently detailed in Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, the ISI essentially started and supported the Taliban throughout the ’90s, and has an institutional culture that has been loathe to crack down on its own project.

Why now? Why has the ISI suddenly decided to wrap-up two significant Taliban commanders in two days, a batting average that makes them look like Ted Williams compared to their standard impersonation of the 1987 Cleveland Indians’ Otis Nixon (I’ll spare you the click — .059 BA).

Consider this: By arresting these guys, the ISI is amassing credit and power. Sure, you could say that the Americans have finally convinced the Pakistanis that it’s in Islamabad’s interest to side with Washington. In the long-term, it definitely is.  But as the strategic landscape shifts and there may be some sort of negotiation with the Taliban (ill-advised though that may be, in my opinion), the ISI is simply collecting all the big cards in its own hand.

The bottom line is that nothing’s for certain just yet — the ISI could continue to cooperate with the Americans, or simply look the other way during an escape attempt, just like the Yemenis.