Signs around country continue to show that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s contentious bill that would eliminate collective bargaining in most cases for public employees has done precisely what we suggested it would do a few weeks ago – mobilize the opposition.
According to recent polls, Scott Walker’s approval rating has plummeted recently. The latest poll from Rasmussen, a polling company itself accused of bias towards Republicans, shows that just 43% in Wisconsin support the job that Governor Walker is doing, while 57% have negative reviews. More concerning is that while just 34% strongly approve of the job he is doing, 48% strongly disapprove.
Making matters worse, yesterday, were images of police tackling State Representative Nick Milroy to the ground as he attempted to enter the Wisconsin Capitol Building on Thursday night.
“I was aggressive in attempting to enter the building,” Rep. Milroy told reporters. “Law enforcement was aggressive in trying to keep me out.”
“This is supposed to be the people’s house and it should be open for business. People should have access to their legislators,” he said.
“Overall I think that law enforcement is doing a great job,” Rep. Milroy said. “I’m frustrated by what happened last [Thursday] night. But really, to me, law enforcement is just following the orders that are coming down from Governor Walker.”
In California, fallout is continuing from an Op-Ed that UC Regent David Crane wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle last weekend, opposing collective bargaining.
David Crane, a former adviser to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and current member of the UC Board of Regents, wrote, “In the private sector, collective bargaining is used to equalize the power of employees and employers.”
Mr. Crane wrote, “because state employees already had civil service protections, collective bargaining wasn’t needed to equalize their power with employers’ power. As a result, collective bargaining for public employees in California changed the balance of power and – most importantly – gave public employees power over their compensation and benefits.”
Making the matter more dicey is the fact that Mr. Crane was just appointed to the Board of Regents and is now subject to a confirmation vote by the Senate. He probably would have been a shoe-in for the position had he simply not opened his mouth.
On Friday, Senator Ted Lieu, Chair of the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, issued a statement regarding the confirmation of Mr. Crane.
“I actively oppose the confirmation of David Crane as a UC Regent,” the Senator wrote. “I read Mr. Crane’s Op-Ed in the San Francisco Chronicle in which he argues for the elimination of collective bargaining for public sector employees.”
He continued, “I cannot support someone for the powerful post of UC Regent who continues to perpetuate the myth that collective bargaining caused our state economic crisis and has a fundamental misunderstanding of how our state budget operates.”
Senate Lieu continues, “Mr. Crane argues that because of collective bargaining, ‘general fund spending on higher education, parks and environmental protection was flat or lower.’ As a matter of historical fact, that is false. Our general fund spending generally declined because of a national economic recession. The recession was not caused by collective bargaining or public sector unions, but by private sector, out of control Wall Street firms at the time.”
“The specific reason our general fund spending sharply declined was because the person Mr. Crane advised, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, reduced the Vehicle License Fee and replaced it with . . . nothing,” Senator Lieu wrote. “As a result, the state general fund lost over $5 to $6 billion in revenues per year for every year Mr. Schwarzenegger was in office. The VLF reduction has resulted in a total loss of over $30 billion to the state, an amount in excess of the current California budgetary shortfall.”
He continues, “Mr. Crane’s Op-Ed also discusses political spending by public sector unions. In his world view, political spending by the California Teachers Association is inappropriate, but the massive political spending by the Koch Brothers would presumably be acceptable.”
He concludes, “I cannot, and will not, support someone for the post of UC Regent who blames public sector employees, such as teachers, for somehow being responsible for our economic crisis or the resulting decline in general fund spending. We need UC Regents who are interested in solving problems, not those who twist historical facts to suit an ideological agenda.”
Senator Lieu is the second Democrat in the Senate to take issue with Mr. Crane’s remarks. As reported earlier this week, Senator Leland Yee also took umbrage at Mr. Crane’s op-ed.
“I thought we had already seen the height of arrogance by UC Regents,” said Senator Yee. “It is time for Regent Crane to put away his Wisconsin playbook and come down from his ivory tower.”
“While the Regents have approved million dollar contracts for their top administrators, they allow many UC workers and their families to live in poverty,” said Yee. “Now, Regent Crane wants to take away their only avenue to earning a livable wage and a respectable retirement – their collective bargaining rights.”
At a press conference, Senator Yee became more strident still.
“David Crane, he thinks custodians, teachers, nurses and other public sector workers don’t need representation,” he said.
David Crane, according to accounts in the Bay Citizen, is somewhat astonished that his op-ed has caused this level of ruckus.
He writes, “Nothing in my op-ed calls for an end to collective bargaining and I support collective bargaining for UC employees.”
I am not sure what he believes he wrote, but he indicated, that “collective bargaining for public employees in California changed the balance of power and – most importantly – gave public employees power over their compensation and benefits” and that “collective bargaining wasn’t needed to equalize their power with employers’ power.”
It certainly would seem to the casual observer that he was calling for an end to collective bargaining, but I guess since he just described collective bargaining in negative terms and never overtly said that we need to end it, he is somehow off the hook, having his plausible deniability.
Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald described his Democratic colleagues as creating a “constitutional crisis.” “They’re insulting the very fabric of our representative democracy,” he added.
Democrats only need three Republican votes to defeat the bill outright and some Republicans are signaling it is time for compromise.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, Republican Senator Dale Schultz, speaking to a local radio show, said his fellow Republican senators are “wasting valuable time about collective bargaining, which I don’t ever remember being a part of the last election whatsoever. But most of all … this just looks like the classic overreach we see every two years.”
But will the party heed the warnings? As we said from the outset, this had the chance of igniting the opposition and blowing up in their faces, and that appears to be what is happening.
At the outset of this issue, one of our posters remarked that America considered Governor Walker a hero. The truth is that while Republicans may support his action, the majority of Americans do not. People want to see pensions and spending dealt with. What they do not want are political vendettas, particularly targeting public employees.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Quinnipiac poll from 3/2/2011
“To reduce state budget deficits, collective bargaining for public employees should be limited, 45 percent of American voters tell the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, while 42 percent oppose limits on collective bargaining. But voters say 63 – 31 percent that government workers should pay more for benefits and retirement programs.
Efforts by governors to limit collective bargaining rights are motivated by a desire to reduce government costs rather than to weaken unions, voters say 47 – 41 percent.”
“While the Regents have approved million dollar contracts for their top administrators, they allow many UC workers and their families to live in poverty,” said Yee. “Now, Regent Crane wants to take away their only avenue to earning a livable wage and a respectable retirement – their collective bargaining rights.”
The Senator’s statement unintentionally makes a case against collective bargaining. If cbr is such a great avenue, why are the top administrators making millions while PUE families are living in poverty after 30 years of cbr? Taking the Senator’s statement at face value, cbr is not achieving the intended objective.
The Senator’s comments above are unfortunately reflective of the level of public debate on both sides of the cbr issue. Faulty reasoning, arithmetic that doesn’t add up, misstatements of fact. It’s little wonder that we’re thrashing around.
And am I the only one that sees some serious errors in the Senator’s comments regarding the Vehicle License Fee? It all amounts to a bunch of noise, not a debate.
Note: I’m not defending Crane’s statements. In fact, I’m backing off on any cbr position. It’s become a bit too strident and militant on both sides.
If true and the tide is turning against Gov. Walker then obviously more
public education is clearly needed on the plastic bags issue.
Oops, I meant the public union issue.
[i]”Governor Walker, who was elected narrowly in November with 52% of the vote, has polarized the electorate with 73% of Wisconsin Republicans approving of the job he is doing, but 89% of Democrats and 56% of independents disapproving.[/i]
From a recent Gallup Poll: “An average of 81% of Democrats and 13% of Republicans approved of the job Obama was doing as president during his second year. That 68-point gap in party ratings is up from 65 points in his first year and is easily the most polarized second year for a president since Dwight Eisenhower.”
So this is where we are: left-leaning voters approving of leaders that tax more and grow nanny government, and right-leaning voters approving fiscal responsibilty and blanced budgets without raising taxes. Note that one approach makes it easier to win approval from the masses; the other more difficult. Hugo Chavez knows this.
When you are the CEO of a large company having to cut, you will not be liked by the workforce. That does not mean you are an ineffective leader… in fact, it make signal just the opposite. The same is true for a governor or a president.
A recent report from the GAO [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/01/AR2011030106448.html[/url] confirms what right-leaning folk are up in arms about. [quote]With Congress and the White House set to debate the merits of massive spending cuts, federal auditors have identified hundreds of overlapping government offices and programs that if merged or eliminated could save taxpayers billions of dollars.
The U.S. government has, for example, more than 100 programs dealing with surface transportation issues, 82 that monitor teacher quality, 80 for economic development, 56 for “financial literacy,” 20 offices or programs devoted to homelessness and 17 grant programs for disaster preparedness, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday. Among other redundancies, 15 agencies or offices handle food safety, and five agencies are working to ensure that the federal government uses less gasoline.
“Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services,” the GAO said. [/quote]
[i] this just looks like the classic overreach we see every two years[/i]
Problem with Walker’s position is that his rhetoric probably defies common experience of most people. Grade school teachers are his biggest target, but by outward appearance, teachers aren’t driving luxury cars, living in Belaire mansions, or vacationing in the Caribbean. Almost everyone knows a teacher, through their kids, church, family/extended family, neighbors, etc. As in Davis, the lifestyles of teachers are not notably different from anyone else, and often they’re slightly less. Walker did not have to go this far to balance the budget.
dmg: “It certainly would seem to the casual observer that he was calling for an end to collective bargaining, but I guess since he just described collective bargaining in negative terms and never overtly said that we need to end it, he is somehow off the hook, having his plausible deniability.”
Now who is twisting whose words?
dmg: “At the outset of this issue, one of our posters remarked that America considered Governor Walker a hero. The truth is that while Republicans may support his action, the majority of Americans do not. People want to see pensions and spending dealt with. What they do not want are political vendettas, particularly targeting public employees.”
You bet the public is fed up w PEUs, as they should be. The collective bargaining process has been completely corrupted. Had not Walker taken the position he did, I’ll bet PEUs in Wisconsin would not have made any meaningful concessions.
DTB: “The Senator’s statement unintentionally makes a case against collective bargaining. If cbr is such a great avenue, why are the top administrators making millions while PUE families are living in poverty after 30 years of cbr? Taking the Senator’s statement at face value, cbr is not achieving the intended objective.
The Senator’s comments above are unfortunately reflective of the level of public debate on both sides of the cbr issue. Faulty reasoning, arithmetic that doesn’t add up, misstatements of fact. It’s little wonder that we’re thrashing around.
And am I the only one that sees some serious errors in the Senator’s comments regarding the Vehicle License Fee? It all amounts to a bunch of noise, not a debate.”
Excellent points. Yee shot himself in the foot w his silly statement about PEUs and how well they have done for the poor working folk at UC. And I agree w you in regard to the Vehicle License Fee – talk about spin…
[i]”David Crane, a former adviser to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and current member of the UC Board of Regents, wrote, ‘In the private sector, collective bargaining is used to equalize the power of employees and employers.'”[/i]
I appreciate how you identify Mr. Crane as a Schwarzenegger affiliate. It is helpful to know where he is coming from.
[i]”Mr. Crane wrote, ‘because state employees already had civil service protections, collective bargaining wasn’t needed to equalize their power with employers’ power. As a result, [b]collective bargaining for public employees in California[/b] changed the balance of power and – most importantly – gave public employees power over their compensation and benefits.'”[/i]
Mr. Crane correctly points to “public employees in California.’ I notice he did not specify state employees, but rather all sorts of public employees.
[i”On Friday, Senator Ted Lieu, Chair of the Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, issued a statement regarding the confirmation of Mr. Crane.”[/i]
I don’t appreciate how you fail to properly identify Ted Lieu. You neglect to point out up front that he is a Democrat, the party of the public employee unions. (You later note that Sen. Yee and he are Dems, but that is way down in your story.)
You fail to point out that when Mr. Lieu just ran for attorney general, he was funded by the California Professional Firefighters, the group which has more than any other labor association in our state abused the collective bargaining process by purchasing favorable treatment. He also was financed for office by AFSCME, which has a direct interest in softening up those they bargain against. Other unions which attempted to corrupt Mr. Lieu through their largesse were: the California Teachers Federation; the Calif. State Council of Service Employees; Intl. Longshore & Warehouse Union; Long Beach Firefighters; Long Beach POA; Operating Engineers; Orange County Firefighters; Classified School Employees PAC; Professional Engineers in CA Govt; Riverside POA PAC; Riverside Sheriffs; Sheet Metal Workers; So. Cal Pipe Trades; Steamfitters and Refrigerators Local; and Torrance Firefighters PAC.
Lieu has been taking union money for many years. He just won a special election in the Calif. Senate. Before that he was in the Assembly, where many of the same PEUs funded him.
I don’t want to imply that he has not been corrupted by other financiers, including many business PACs and others who are trying to rip-off taxpayers by funding politicians. However, it’s important to know that when Mr. Lieu speaks on behalf of the public employee unions, he has been taking their money and speaking on their behalf for a long time.
[i]”‘I cannot support someone for the powerful post of UC Regent who continues to perpetuate the myth that collective bargaining caused our state economic crisis and has a fundamental misunderstanding of how our state budget operates.'”[/i]
Here is where Sen. Lieu goes off the rails. Mr. Crane did not say that ‘collective bargaining caused our state economic crisis.'” He said it was a part of it. Moreover, he condemns collective bargaining with PEUs at all levels of public employment in our state, because it is a rigged system.
[i]”Mr. Crane argues that because of collective bargaining, ‘general fund spending on higher education, parks and environmental protection was flat or lower.’ As a matter of historical fact, that is false. Our general fund spending generally declined because of a national economic recession.”[/i]
Wait. Those are not mutually exclusive. Lieu is trying to pull a fast one on stupid people. We have a budget crisis in part because of lower revenues and in part because of how we have been spending money. If the unions had not pushed so hard for (and paid so much in contributions for) things like unsustainable pensions, there would be more money available for parks and environmental protection. If the corrections officers had not won such lucrative contracts which, with massive amounts of built in overtime and very early retirements and very rich medical plans for life, we would have a lot more money for other state expenditures.
Most of the bits you quote Mr. Lieu as saying, where he excoriates Wall Street and the like, reads like a diversion tactic. He does not want his audience to notice that he cannot defend the people who have funded him for office. So he changes the topic by villianizing others who are not relevant to what Mr. Crane charged in his op-ed.
We’ve all seen children throwing tantrums when their parents try to teach them to behave in a civilized way.
Sometimes the children lash out against responsible parents, and say “But the other kids get to eat as much candy as they like” and even “I hate you” and “I wish you weren’t my parents”.
Responsible adults know that children have limited understanding of the long term consequences of their actions, and don’t get persuaded by tantrums, even when it costs them short term popularity.
So just out of curiosity, who are the children in your metaphor? and who are the responsible parents?
J.R., great post, you hit it on the head. Even if, and a big if, Gov. Walker has lost some popularity time will show that he stood up and acted like an adult and did the right thing. Doing the right thing isn’t always the most popular track to take. He’s a true American hero.
“so this where we are: left leaning voters approving of leaders that tax more and grow nanny government, and right leaning voters approving fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets without raising taxes”
I would like to rephrase your comment hopefully in somewhat more neutral terms. How about left leaning voters who believe in fiscal responsibility and are willing to pay for services they value through taxes rather than supporting what they view as unnecessary and destructive military adventures and right leaning voters who believe that everyone here should fend for themselves despite apparent differences in opportunity and life circumstances and who believe that foreign invasions are worth the cost because they are somehow portrayed as “defense” of our freedoms or way of life, even when these clearly are not threatened (Iraq) ?
While I agree that the elimination of duplication,overlap,fragmentation is desirable, I believe it is probably a drop in the bucket compared with our wasteful and destructive military spending.
There are governors all over the country who are balancing their budgets without attacking unions. Only a couple have decided that they want to link fiscal issues directly with the rights of union workers. So they’ve decided to polarize the issue rather than seek to work across party lines.
Republicans have been no more or less fiscally responsible than Democrats. They just have different priorities for the use of taxpayer dollars.
DS: “There are governors all over the country who are balancing their budgets without attacking unions. Only a couple have decided that they want to link fiscal issues directly with the rights of union workers. So they’ve decided to polarize the issue rather than seek to work across party lines.
Republicans have been no more or less fiscally responsible than Democrats. They just have different priorities for the use of taxpayer dollars.”
And there are governors all over the country who are running deficits and don’t know how they are going to fund wages/benefits of their PEU employees. It has taken some drastic measures, via Walker and others like him, to get the PEUs to make any concessions. The fact of the matter is that collective bargaining is a rigged game.
I agree that neither Republicans nor Democrats have been fiscally responsible, but the PEUs have gamed the system so much that states are going to go broke bc of it…
mw: “I would like to rephrase your comment hopefully in somewhat more neutral terms. How about left leaning voters who believe in fiscal responsibility and are willing to pay for services they value through taxes rather than supporting what they view as unnecessary and destructive military adventures and right leaning voters who believe that everyone here should fend for themselves despite apparent differences in opportunity and life circumstances and who believe that foreign invasions are worth the cost because they are somehow portrayed as “defense” of our freedoms or way of life, even when these clearly are not threatened (Iraq) ?”
More “neutral terms”? LOL
[i]”I would like to rephrase your comment hopefully in somewhat more neutral terms.”[/i]
Those are neutral terms? You paint one side as light and beneficent and the other as dark and malevolent. That’s certainly your prerogative, but it’s mindnumbing to think that is a “neutral” protrayal.
Since you condemn “destructive military adventures” as being the playground of the right, are you further saying that President Obama’s tenfold increase in expenditures on ground troops and air attacks and civilian programs in Afghanistan* and Pakistan make him a right-winger?
I would think from your self-styled “neutral” position you would have to. If not, it’s hard to see how you are “neutral” as you claim.
*Obama is a smart guy. However, the dumbest thing he ever did–worse than his misguided stimulus spending program–was to declare that “the right war is in Afghanistan, not Iraq.” It was stupid enough that W. Bush wasted so much of our treasury on his misadventure in Iraq. But at least in that stupid war you could say we were fighting over important, central territory in the heart of oilistan. Never mind that we didn’t take any of Iraq’s oil or anybody else’s oil or that we have never much depended on imports from the Persian Gulf. But with Afghanistan, there could not be a less important piece of land on earth. It’s a strategic wasteland of nothingness and no importance. And Obama, due to his dumb statement in his campaign, is wasting more and more of our treasure in that bottomless pit of nothingness.
[i]I agree that neither Republicans nor Democrats have been fiscally responsible, but the PEUs have gamed the system so much that states are going to go broke bc of it…[/i]
Walker could have chosen more egregious examples of fiscal irresponsibility than the teachers, but he didn’t. And I think there were plenty of other good options he could have chosen short of drastically reducing or eliminating collective bargaining among public employees. Successful governing involves compromise. Ronald Reagan knew that.
One more thing about Mr. Obama’s supposedly benevolent foreign adventures. I have to wonder if the netural medium woman has yet condemned the “right-wing” president who promised to close Guantanamo last year for not closing that prison?
I was bewildered why Obama thought closing it was a good idea. But it was his promise to the neutral people of the far left, and he has failed to do so. And yet I have not noticed any of them parading around with signs against Guantanamo lately, though they certainly protested before Mr. neutral became president.
On a side note … NPR is reporting that a former Guantanamo detainee is now leading Al-Qaeda in Yemen: [quote] Over the weekend, al-Qaida’s arm in Yemen provided the first outward indication that it is trying to take advantage of the instability there. One of its leaders, a former Guantanamo detainee named Ibrahim Rubaish, released an audiotape. He is seen as AQAP’s chief theologian.
In the 10-minute tape, he urged Muslims not just to protest against Arab rulers but to go a step further and demand governments based on Islamic law. Toppling tyrants is fine, he says, but the most important thing is to choose the right people to replace them. In his view, the right people would be strict Islamists.[/quote] I cannot understand why we should ever free these maniacs. If executing them is not justified, then it seems to me anyone who is advocating a violent jihad and the suppression of human rights and civil rights belongs locked up–in Guantanamo or in some other hellhole.
“So this is where we are: left-leaning voters approving of leaders that tax more and grow nanny government, and right-leaning voters approving fiscal responsibilty and blanced budgets without raising taxes.”
JB, I don’t think your comment is reflective of reality. DS is quite a bit closer to to the mark. Republicans for decades have preached that deficits don’t matter. Democrats are no better. Fiscally responsible leaders are the exception,not the rule.
wdf1, Ronald Reagan knew about successful governing? That’s a bit of revisionist myth. Reagan was as fiscally irresponsible as any other. To pretend otherwise is to willfully disregard the facts.
[i]But with Afghanistan, there could not be a less important piece of land on earth. It’s a strategic wasteland of nothingness and no importance.[/i]
Except that at one time it was the home of Islamic militancy/fanaticism — the Taliban and Al Qaeda — not Iraq. I agree that being in Afghanistan right now is questionable, because the militants have spread to other places (Pakistan, Yemen). Because of our venture in Iraq, we may have pushed that country into a future alliance with the Iranian government. I don’t see how we benefit from that.
[i]wdf1, Ronald Reagan knew about successful governing? That’s a bit of revisionist myth. Reagan was as fiscally irresponsible as any other. To pretend otherwise is to willfully disregard the facts.[/i]
I define successful governing as the ability to move your agenda forward. Not whether I agree with it or not. I use Reagan as an example because many limited government conservatives like to hold Reagan up as an icon, for whatever reason. Grover Norquist is prominent in this category.
Ok, ok …. Major misunderstanding which is my fault.
I in no way intended to portray my position as neutral. It clearly is not. The term neutral was
intended to modify only the word “term” and was written in response only to the clearly perforative term “nanny state”. And,although I only referenced Iraq, I do not support Obama in Afganistan any more than I supported Bush in Iraq and fail to see how any one could have assumed I support a Democratic led war any more than a Republican led one. DS actually made my point far better than I did by pointing out that there is a fundamental difference in priorities at work here rather than one side having a monopoly on responsibility
[i]So this is where we are: left-leaning voters approving of leaders that tax more and grow nanny government, and right-leaning voters approving fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets without raising taxes.”
JB, I don’t think your comment is reflective of reality. [/i]
DT: I was talking about voters, and you connected my comments to the politicians.
I do a lot of deep thinking on how my neighbor and I are so friendly and similar in all things except our politics. I think it comes does to a difference in mindset over the perceived power of natural rights, individual freedom and self-determination, over the perceived power and progressive rights of collectivism and central authority. Left-leaning voters think in terms of central government solving more of their problems. Right-leaning voters think in terms of having the responsibility and ability to solve more of their own problems.
This debate has raged since the group of white men got together to form the great experiment. Thomas Jefferson (the Republican anti-federalist) and John Adams (the progressive Democrat) were friends, and then enemies, and then friends again until they both died on the same day: July 4, 1826. Ironically, although he advocated for smaller government and prosperity though self-determination, Jefferson was a terrible businessman and died broke.
However, beginning with FDR all politicians have developed “Adams-it is”. Democrats cry that the wealthy should pay more taxes like they did in the 75% top tax bracket 1960s. However, as a percent of GDP, total tax receipts collected by the government have continued to climb. Democrats say we spend too much on defense; however, defense spending has remained flat. It is non-defense spending that has blown the doors off. Today, the US government spends 41% of GDP… that is $.41 of every $1.00 the US economy produces. The trend is steeply upward.
[url]http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_20th_century_chart.html[/url]
The current political battle is one pitting selfish, overpaid, public-sector unions, and their puppet politicians against the future of our children.
[i]Except that [b]at one time it was the home of Islamic militancy/fanaticism[/b] — the Taliban and Al Qaeda — not Iraq. I agree that being in Afghanistan right now is questionable, because the militants have spread to other places (Pakistan, Yemen). [/i]
If you have followed the so-called War on Drugs, you will note that the home of the drug kingpins has every 5-10 years moved. It was for a long time in the mountains of Bolivia. But we successfully (for a time) pushed them out. Then the center of action was in Peru. But again (for a time) we successfully moved them out. Then it went to Colombia, and while there are still kingpins and production there, many of the kingpins and traffickers were killed or moved on. Mexico is now where many of the biggest kingpins do business. But there are plenty of others in Panama, various Carribbean islands, and of course some here in the U.S. (This same moving target of drug production and sales has taken place across Asia, too.)
The point is, you don’t ever win such wars by capturing territory. You just move them along.
It’s a myth that al-Qaeda was ever just in Afghanistan and by moving them out (as we did 8 years ago) they would have nowhere to operate from. The interntional jihadis have had a base of operations in Sudan and Somalia for much longer than they ever were in Afghanistan. They rule large parts of West Africa. As long as the Kashmir conflict has been going on, the jihadis have been in Pakistan and in India. There has always been a safe jihadi base in the Phillipines and another in Indonesia and another in Malaysia*.
And while they were not always treated well by their host governments, the Sunni version of the international jihad has had strong encampments for 30 years and more in Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
So it has never made sense to think that by taking over Afghanistan and putting in that reprehensible team of thieves who run the government of Kabul, we would make any dent against the international jihad. It’s not a land war. It’s a clash of civilizations (at least from the fundamentalist Islamist perspective).
*I am not counting the Shiite Islamists, who are safely ensconced in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Nor do I count in the Palestinian jihadis, because they don’t have a safe base of any kind, other than in Gaza where they are mostly terrorizing other Muslims.