Obama's following in Bush's footsteps - The reconstruction of Afghanistan

There is a condition afflicting Republicans all over the country called Obama Derangement Syndrome or ODS. Symptoms include an inability to take our president at his word, a certainty that everything he does has an ulterior (read: socialist/statist/un-American) motive, and a belief that he was raised as a secret muslim/Nazi/Black Panther while living with his white grandparents in Kansas.

On the other end of the spectrum is Obama Fanboy Disease (OFD), a condition that suppresses one's ability to criticize our president in any way. I've been accused of suffering from OFD because I haven't taken issue with anything he's done since I was the first columnist in America to predict he would become our 44th president (back in April of 2007). That streak ends today.

Last week's decision to fire the commander of our military forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal (aka Frat Boy Stan), was the correct one; but the decision to continue George W. Bush's policy in Afghanistan was a mistake. Generations of warfare have left just about every institution of Afghan society needing to be built or re-built from the ground up, and the last 30 years have proven that country to be critical to the health and safety of the free world. America's role in the nation (re)building process must, by definition, be directed by our Department of State and not our Department of Defense. So while it's good that Frat Boy Stan is out on his frat boy can, I'm still waiting for the day President Obama sends Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Provincial Reconstruction Teams in to take over.

It's important to keep in mind that the "war" part of the war in Afghanistan has been over since at least 2003 when NATO took command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). NATO says its main role is to "assist the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance." That reconstruction, and not breaking the Taliban's momentum, should be the focus — if for no other reason than we won't be able to bring our troops home until that effective governance is in place.

Unfortunately for Commander in Chief Obama, the United States Army can't solve the problems that come from reconstruction or from establishing a strong central government. As deadly efficient as military problem solving is, the Army is great at two things: killing people and breaking stuff. If we cared less about civilians, we could kill our way out of our Taliban trouble over a long weekend. But our official Rules of Engagement are designed to protect the local population so we can win the hearts and minds of the natives when the Army comes in to "clear, hold, and build." The problem is that the Army doesn't "build" anything; and we won't be able to end this military campaign (which has now lasted longer than the Vietnam War) until responsibility is transferred to an organization that knows a thing or two about how to build a nation.

That's where President Obama should be focusing our attention and not, as President Bush did in Iraq, distracting us with talk of which general is in command and what tactics are being employed. President Obama should be reminding us that the mission in Afghanistan was authorized by the U.N. Security Council and is being conducted under the auspices of an alliance of 28 countries. We know that the size and destructive power of the U.S. armed forces makes us first among equals in that group, but that status becomes irrelevant when the way forward is diplomatic, not military.

Think back to Iraq in the late summer of 2003. The invasion was over, Saddam was gone, the U.S. military had de-facto control on the ground, and it was time to re-build. That was when the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad became a target for so many deadly bomb attacks that the organization pulled out of the country. For the next three years, President Bush tasked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, not Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, with re-building Iraq. Four years after Sec. Rumsfeld was fired, people who live in the historic (and sweltering) capital of Baghdad get maybe six hours of electricity per day because the U.S. military knows much more about how to destroy power grids than how to operate them.

President Obama is making a mistake by talking about generals more than the diplomatic work that will allow our troops to come home where they belong. If he insists on continuing Bush administration policy, he should at least use the buying power of the Pentagon to promote some kind of economic development for the people of Afghanistan. It's great that our counter-insurgency plan is designed to protect civilians, but they still have to eat. Don't forget Kandahari pomegranates are the best in the world. Exports of the fruit bring in as much money per acre as poppies, but without epidemic dependency or the narco-dollars the Taliban use to undermine the leadership in Kabul and make the "effective governance" we need in order to bring our troops home more and more elusive.

Playing the good sport - Celtics vs. Lakers 2010 NBA Finals

The Internet saved my life last week. I had to take a nice, long walk after game seven of the NBA Finals, and if not for the ability to access video clips of the post-game press conferences via the web, I don't know where I'd be right now. Because it really took watching Mr. Kobe Bryant and Mr. Ron Artest (the real Finals MVP) speak to the media about what winning that game and that series meant to them for me to be able to accept losing the championship to their team. And after calling into the Doug Gottlieb and Jalen Rose show on ESPN radio first thing Friday morning to register my complaints about how the game was officiated, I was able to move on to Red Sox baseball.

Mr. Bryant has now joined guys like James Worthy, Magic Johnson, Bernie Williams, and Derek Jeter as players I have to respect even though they wear the wrong uniforms. Knowing your opponent's intensity is a reflection of what they see in you (and vice-versa) has to be taken as a compliment to a competitor. So, because he finally humbled himself and admitted the diva thing was an act he used to get himself to where he needed to be mentally in order to beat my team, I have canceled my membership in the Kobe Hater's Club — effective immediately after the ring presentation ceremony next season.

What did I tell Doug and Jalen? First, I congratulated the Lakers and their fans for winning the championship because we Bostonians are classy like that. Then I pointed out some of the things we saw in that game that we've never seen before. We've never seen this Lakers team score so few points and win, we've never seen this Celtics team give up so few points and lose, and we haven't seen a winning team shoot as poorly as the Lakers shot since the league was all white dudes. I didn't get a chance to mention that we also saw Lakers center Pau Gasol turn into a combination of David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaq O'Neal, and Ben Wallace; joining those former defensive players of the year as the only centers to play 40-plus minutes in a Finals game and commit two fouls or less. Pau's first defensive foul came on the Celtics' second offensive possession of the game; I'm still waiting for referees Joe Crawford, Dan Crawford, or Scott Foster to call his second.

Putting aside how tough it is to get or defend a lead when the refs don't see the other team's big man commit a foul on anyone for the whole game, Thursday night was the kind of NBA basketball I love to watch. Living in L.A., you don't get to see those team-oriented, unfriendly, physical games that prove basketball at the highest level is not a one-on-one, finesse, non-contact sport (note to Commissioner Stern: the people like it best when the officials go unnoticed). Both teams played hard with and for each other and every player left it all on the floor. If I had been at Staples Center that night, I would have given a 20-minute standing ovation — then I would have spent the next three hours throwing up.

Before the game I let some friends know that no matter what happened, I loved them (I figured they would know what that meant if I went missing). After my walk, I watched Mr. Bryant's press conference once and Mr. Artest's press conference about 50 times — and I decided living in a world where these Lakers are back-to-back champs is slightly preferable to ending it all. Artest's 10 minute video should be required viewing for all young Lakers fans wanting to know what passion for your team and your sport looks like. The benefits of unselfishness and team play are written on Ronnie's face when he raises his hands exclaiming, "Kobe passed me the ball!" That face kept me out of the abyss.

Boston sports fans are lucky to the point of being spoiled by championships in pro sports. One thing we all learned from our Patriots' gut-wrenching 2008 Super Bowl loss is that sometimes it's just not meant to be. We can take heart in knowing it took a series of mathematical improbabilities for these Lakers to keep us from our championship; and the 2010 Finals delivered all anyone could have asked for on either side. These guys played an ugly game of basketball beautifully, and the team that played best together was the team that won — as it should be.

I love Boston and I always will so this pains me to say, but if I was a Lakers fan living there, people wouldn't be happy for me right now. As a Celtics fan in Santa Monica, I know my friends would be. That's why I live here and not there — well, that and the perfect weather. So after a lot of emotional heavy lifting, I can admit that Kobe Bryant has earned my respect as a basketball player and that I'm happy for my L.A. friends and my adopted city. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

Pete Carroll is a poor excuse for leadership - USC & the NCAA's "death penalty"

I'll never forget the day I met former USC head football coach Pete Carroll. It was 1997, I was living in Boston, and my New England Patriots (coming off a Super Bowl loss and the departure of Bill Parcells) had just hired Carroll as our head coach. I was walking into a bar that he was walking out of and I asked him if we were going to be a Super Bowl team again. He grabbed me by my lapels, got in my face, and excitedly said, "You just get ready to get pumped up about New England Patriots football!" Not being local, Pete didn't yet realize that in Boston, we stay pumped up about Patriots football. But the thing I remember most is walking away thinking, "What is this, college?"

In four seasons as an NFL head coach, three with the Pats and one disastrous 6-10 season with the New York Jets, Pete's teams won more than they lost only twice; and both times were with rosters built by Parcells. Carroll left USC five months ago for a shiny new $33 million contract to coach the Seattle Seahawks. But unfortunately for his new team, Pete Carroll is not a leader of men. After watching him bail on his players, his coaching staff, and the university that paid him more than $25 million over the past decade rather than take responsibility for rules violations that took place on his watch, it should be clear to everyone that Pete Carroll just isn't much of a leader.

Four years ago, the NCAA was compelled to open an investigation into the athletics department at USC when it was discovered that former running back Reggie Bush's parents had been living in a $750,000 house provided by a sports agent. It turned out that there was also a women's tennis player, Gabriela Niculescu, who was allowed to run up thousands of dollars in long-distance phone charges; and the only big-time basketball player the school has seen in recent memory, O.J. Mayo, was recruited because of a man the NCAA had labeled an agent's representative.

The football team, however, had much bigger issues than just one guy who only attended college because his professional sports league of choice said he had to wait a year before he could join. The USC football team had already been placed on probation and had scholarships reduced for allowing tutors to write papers for players (on Pete's watch) in 2001, so there was no way the NCAA could let the university get away with policing itself. Coach Carroll's team basically had an open-door policy at practice, in the locker room, and on the sideline for boosters and bagmen alike. And I'm sorry, but nothing good can come from having rapper/actor/pothead/pimp Snoop Doggy Dogg hanging around young men who are supposed to be student-athletes.

In a report released last week, the NCAA correctly concluded there was a lack of institutional control (ya think?) when it came to the athletic department and hit USC football with what's known as the "death penalty." Among other sanctions, there will be no bowl games or postseason play for two years, 30 scholarships lost over three years, and vacation of all victories from December of 2004 through the Trojans' national championship over Oklahoma in 2005, which, of course, encompasses the undefeated 2004 season. It turns out that USC's toughest opponent that year wore number five — and played for the Trojans.

Make no mistake about it: Pete Carroll could have gone back to the NFL at any time over the past three off-seasons. If he had made it known that he wanted to try his hand at coaching a pro team again, some team owner somewhere would have dumped his head guy, backed the money truck up Pete's driveway in Palos Verdes, and thrown open the doors. It hadn't happened before this off-season because Coach Carroll had it made at USC as the highest-paid private university employee in America, making about $4.5 million per year. He had also previously indicated he would want total control of football operations, meaning he would basically be head coach and general manager of whatever NFL team hired him. He backed off of that demand when the NCAA rejected USC's self-imposed football team sanctions and he hurriedly took the Seahawks job. In fact, he announced his resignation from USC and his hiring in Seattle at the exact same time. Some of the players he recruited — and whose parents he'd made promises to — found out via news reports and not from their coach.

So when it became clear that the NCAA was going to bring the hammer down on USC football for what went on while he was in charge (including a call to running backs coach Todd McNair from Reggie Bush's illicit business partners spelling out Reggie's infractions in detail), coach Pete Carroll just skipped town and left it to others to clean up the mess the he knew — or should have known — that his star running back was making of the program.

That's not what I call leadership.

Supporting the next generation - Santa Monica's MVP's: Most Valuable Parents

Something you may not know about your occasionally cynical, slightly jaded, friendly neighborhood columnist is that I love the young people. Having done work with a local organization (which I'm sure would prefer to remain nameless) for the past few years, I've been lucky enough to form friendships with families of all descriptions from all over town. From 5-year-old munchkins in kindergarten to 18-year-old seniors about to graduate from Samohi and go on to college, I've been about as happy and proud to watch these young people do their thing as any non-parent could be.

So it was tough for me to stay out of the debate over Measure A, the five-year, $198 per parcel tax increase to help the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District make up for its $12 million budget deficit. It's not that I don't have an opinion on whether or not the more than 10,000 students in the district deserve the money (they do), it's that I don't own property and I don't have a child enrolled in school. So I didn't think it was right for me to weigh in on the issue. Now that the measure has been defeated, I will say that I'm unbelievably disappointed in us as an electorate for literally nickel-and-diming our young people's educations. But rather than focusing on the negative, I will accentuate the positive this week by introducing you to some of Santa Monica's MVPs, our Most Valuable Parents.

If you've never heard of it, SMASH is the Santa Monica Alternative School House that shares a campus with John Muir Elementary. It's a small, progressive, K-8 school open to all Santa Monica students no matter where they live. As a general rule, SMASH parents are pumped to participate in the goings-on at their kid's school. So when this budget crisis hit they simply took it upon themselves to make last Saturday's annual SuperSMASH fundraising carnival and silent auction bigger and better than ever.

Initially, I was surprised by some of the items available for bidding. I mean, there was an entire wall of Uglydolls (far and away the most popular item among the munchkins), two gorgeous fixie bikes, and a white electric guitar autographed by Justin Bieber. I was also surprised by the sheer amount of items available for bidding — until I learned that SMASH parents, MVPs that they are, went out and solicited more than 500 donations from local businesses. But I have to say that my most pleasant surprises came when I was informed about the new-this-year live auction and about the raffle.

Apparently, there were typically three kinds of items at the SMASH silent auction: kid-driven and kid-paid (like the Uglydoll), kid-driven and parent-paid (like the Bieber guitar), and parent-driven and parent-paid (like the artwork made by students, known as "Core Art"). The most valuable stuff is, of course, the Core Art. It is almost impossible to put a price on the painting, sculpture, and photography of SMASH's young artists. Consequently, the frenzy of last-minute signatures on bidding sheets drove organizers to make a change and offer the Core Art via live auction. And it worked. For example, a gorgeous piece by two young artists went for $500 after a long bidding war between both sets of parents — a classic win/win.

I didn't want to compete for any Core Art, but I made sure to contribute in other ways. I bought a bunch of $1 tickets; which I proceeded to turn into a plate of Dave's famous ribs, some homemade lemonade, Diddy Riese snickerdoodles, a massage, a snow cone, and a few carnival games (I made sure to pick up some Alka-Seltzer on my way home).

I also invested in the experience of a lifetime for myself and for the student body at SMASH when I bought about a dozen tickets for the raffle. Among the items available were things like "Lunch and a movie with Coach Tony," and "Pizza and a movie with Jayme and Janice." The one I wanted was "Principal for a Day," so I put all of my tickets in that jar, crossed my fingers, and waited for the results. I didn't win (congratulations to fifth grader Devin Dempsey), so next year I'm going to try two dozen.

Can a person with the resources to own a home in this city honestly say they can't afford another two hundred bucks in taxes when the (increasing) value of their property is directly related to the quality and funding level of our schools? And how could anyone look a school-age munchkin in the face and tell her that to keep her favorite teacher, the school nurse, her reading helper, the library staff, and the music teachers in her school, they can't spare one thin dime over the next five years?

I promise you that the young people in China and India that our kids will be competing against in the new global economy we created for them aren't being short-changed by the adults in their communities.

Betting on Celtic green - Another banner for Boston

For the 12th time in our illustrious history, my Boston Celtics are about to meet the Los Angeles Lakers to decide this season's NBA championship. With all the talk about renewing the playoff "rivalry" between the two franchises, I, as a lifelong Red Sox fan, finally understood why Yankees fans used to laugh at the idea when it came to Sox/Yanks prior to 2004: for a playoff rivalry to exist, the head-to-head record has to be close. The Celtics' tally against the Lakers in the Finals is 9-2, making the relationship more like big brother/little brother than rivals. This year's Celtics victory in 5 or 6 games will basically cement the Lakers' little brother status, a position Kobe Bryant should be used to after riding Shaq O'Neal's coattails on the way to (ahem) winning three rings between 2000 and 20002.

For you local fans who haven't seen it since Hall of Famers O'Neal, Karl Malone, Gary Payton, and Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson left the Lakers in Kobe's ball-hogging hands back in 2004, please note the way Boston plays basketball as a team game. Our "Core Four" of Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett each attempted about 12 shots per game this season and scored between 12 and 18 points. These guys are all capable of scoring 30 on any given night, but they know a championship-winning offense has to be balanced so they share the ball. I realize that passing the rock to a teammate with a better shot at the basket is a foreign concept in this town, but the 17 banners hanging from the rafters of the Garden in Boston prove it works.

Another thing my Celtics do that the average Lakers fan wouldn't recognize is we take pride in playing individual and team defense. By contrast, Bryant and the mercurial Ron Artest are the only Los Angeles players who can be counted on to play hard when their team doesn't have the ball. Derek Fisher is too slow, Andrew Bynum is too banged-up, and the soft Spaniard Pau Gasol is best known for playing "matador" defense — where he reaches for the ball then pulls his hands out of the way as the opposing player charges past him like a bull. In the 2010 playoffs, Boston's team defense has held opponents to about 90 points per game despite the presence of prolific scorers like Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard. The Lakers as a team allow over 100 points per game and gave up 115 and 118 points in their most recent losses to the Phoenix Suns. Needless to say, that kind of defensive effort won't get it done when the Lakers offense will struggle to score 95 against the Celtics.

Lakers fans will be surprised when their team loses (again), but none of this will get through L.A.'s collective cognitive dissonance because they have Kobe; and in their basketball ignorance, Lakers fans have come to believe that one consistently super-human player can win a title by himself. I would remind them that this player lost game 4 against OKC by pouting instead of shooting, missed a game-winning shot in game 6 of that series (Gasol's miracle put-back won the game), missed a game-winning shot in game 5 against Phoenix (Artest's miracle put-back won the game), and either of those series could have gone to a game 7 where the Lakers would have been a few bad bounces or breaks away from elimination.

To win a playoff series, whether it was against the No. 8 seed Thunder or the No. 3 seed Suns, the Lakers needed Kobe to play out of his mind and they needed some kind of miracle. To beat this Celtics team, the Lakers will also need a sustained team defensive effort and they will need Kobe to share the ball. The only way the Celtics lose is if Kobe is unstoppable AND the Lakers get at least one miracle AND play 48 minutes of team defense in every game AND Kobe voluntarily gives up shots to someone else. Of those four elements, the only thing Lakers fans can count on is Bryant's offensive output. That will win you one game, maybe two, but not a championship.

Once this series is over and the C's take the Larry O'Brien trophy on another Duck Tour of Boston, it won't take very long for basketball fans everywhere to look at two Celtics championships in 2008 and 2010 interrupted by a Lakers championship in 2009 and start asking some questions. What happened to the 2009 Celtics? Kevin Garnett was injured during the playoffs. If Garnett had been healthy, would Boston have played L.A. in the Finals? Yes. If the Lakers couldn't beat the Celtics in 2008 or 2010, should anyone believe they would have beaten a healthy Boston team in 2009? No. So, were the Lakers the best team in the NBA in 2009? We'll never know.

As a lover of the game of basketball, a fan of the premiere franchise in NBA history, and a card-carrying member of the Kobe Hater's Club, the only thing better than winning the championship this year will be putting an asterisk next to the Lakers 2009 championship in the process.