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ABCDE Steady in Afghanistan


ANINDEPENDENTNEWSPAPER EDITORIALS


The early results of Mr. Obama’s strategy are mixed — but promising. T


HE SALIENT conclusion of the Obama administration’s review of the Afghan war is that it is too early to tell whether the strategy that the president an- nounced a year ago is working. Presi-


dent Obama was appropriately cautious in his summary Thursday, saying that while “we are on track to meet our goals . . . this continues to be a very difficult endeavor.” But the encouraging news is that, in areas where the surge of troops, aid workers and money should have shown results by now, progress has been undeniable. Before a military offensive in and around the


crucial southern city of Kandahar was launched several months ago, some experts doubted wheth- er U.S. forces could succeed in securing an area that the Taliban regards as its heartland. What followed has been something approaching a rout in which enemy forces have been driven out of key districts outside the city for the first time in four years. Last week, the New York Times quoted a veteran Taliban commander as saying that the operation had left its forces demoralized and that


Kicking the crude


Why does Congress continue to ignore the best ways to get America off foreign oil?


I


F YOUWANTEDto spend $5 billion to reduce America’s oil use, what would you do? Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s answer this lame-duck session of Congress was to float a


bill that puts nearly all of thatsuminto converting heavy-duty vehicles to run on natural gas. This sort of proposal will undoubtedly come up again soon, and it has some attractions — but it’s far from elegant policy. America has a lot of natural gas, much of it


newly accessible thanks to improved drilling technology. The fuel is inexpensive. The technolo- gy to run cars on natural gas exists, and burning natural gas instead of gasolinemay reduce vehicle carbon emissions. Building enough fueling sta- tions to service passenger cars, though, would be very expensive. SoMr. Reid, with a sustained push from natural gas booster T. Boone Pickens, wants to subsidize the replacement of America’s buses and large trucks with ones that runonnatural gas. Building infrastructure for vehicle fleets that travel along particular routes and refuel at pre- dictable intervals is much cheaper—in fact, such anetworkalready exists alongmajorinterstates in California and other western states. Still, even many energy executives with a


financial stake in natural gas seem puzzled by this emphasis on the transportation sector. A recent study from the International Energy Agency reports that the carbon benefits of using natural gas in heavy-duty vehicles vary widely — from negligible to as high as a nearly 30 percent reduction compared with traditional technology — depending on what sorts of vehicles fleet operators buy, where the fuel comes from and in what form it is transported. But the benefits are not on the scale of, say, replacing coal with natural gas in the electricity sector, where natural gas can do far more good for much less money. And as government fuel efficiency standards force cars


and trucks to use less gasoline or diesel, the relative benefits of switching to natural gas may diminish further. This leaves us wondering why policymakers continue to ignore far more pressing policies that affect America’s roads and the oil used on them. Congress has yet to pass a much-needed transpor- tation bill investing in the nation’s infrastructure, partly because politicians can’t agree on how to replenish theHighway Trust Fund, which pays for the upgrades. The answer is the same as it was


when Congress created the trust fund: through a small fee on those who use the roads — that is, a gasoline tax.Astudy fromHarvard’s Belfer Center found that raising the gas tax is also one of the most effective ways to significantly reduce oil imports — which was the nominal aim of Mr. Reid’s natural gas bill. Meanwhile, incentives to replace the dirtiest coal-burning power plants with plants that use natural gas could go a long way toward meeting the nation’s climate-change goals.


An eclipse, D.C.-style Shadows plague the council’s version of a sunshine law. M


EMBERS OF THE D.C. Council who want the body to operate under its own rules rather than be bound by a pro- posed new open-meetings law say that


they will stay true to its spirit of sunshine. They belittle concerns that the council will try to do the public’s business behind closed doors. But no sooner did they offer those assurances than they moved to shield council committees — where the bulk of business is conducted — from require- ments of the newlaw. The council gave unanimous, tentative approv-


al to a bill that would overhaul the city’s outdated open-meetings law; a final vote is set for Tuesday. There is much good in the measure. It extends the


TAKING EXCEPTION


Why I wasn’t at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony The Dec. 9 editorial “China’s shame” criti-


cized me for “failing to attend” the ceremony awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo. I wish tomake it clear—as I have done repeatedly — that I was never invited to attend the ceremony by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, and I never declined to at- tend. Rather more relevant than


a feverish polemic on this point is the fact that I have on a number of occasions taken a clear position on the situation of Liu Xiaobo. On Christmas Day last year—the day he was sentenced to 11 years in jail — I issued a statement describing the sentence as “extremely harsh” and questioning the fairness of the charges against him. When the committee announced the recipi-


I wasn’t invited, but I have repeatedly spoken out about Liu Xiaobo’s detention.


ent of this year’s Nobel Prize, I welcomed the award toMr. Liu and called for his release. Last week, I not only reiterated those posi-


tions but I also drew attention to restrictions, including detention and house arrests, that have re- portedly targeted at least 140 people recently, including a number of close associates of Mr. Liu. It is therefore not clear to


me why The Post — which made no mention of any of the above—stated so assertively that “by failing to attend” an event to which I was never formally invitedandwhichnoneofmy predeces- sors have ever attended, I have “lost all credibili- ty on the subject of [my] portfolio.” Navi Pillay, Geneva


The writer is the U.N. high commissioner for hu- man rights.


umbrella of openness to government boards that had become accustomed to secrecy, abolishes the loophole that let officials meet behind closed doors as long as no “official” vote was taken and establishes an open-government office. However, the council continues to have a blind spot about including itself under the full provisions of the law. The Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Associa- tion (of which TheWashington Post is a member) has objected to loopholes in the bill. By allowing the council to write its own rules,


the measure gives the legislature a huge out. Witness last week’s debate when only two council members — Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) — favored an amendment to


include council committees in the bill’s require- ment. The council’sWeb site reports that much of the council’s work is done in standing and special committees, and even the weak current law requires committees to meet in public when a quorumis present.Nonetheless, councilmembers argued that this would restrict council members in their interactions with each other, a silly notion undermined by the fact that there is an exception in the proposal for chance or social encounters. What emerged as council members agreed with


Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) about the need for the council to have a “freer hand” was their unwillingness to abide by the rules they think others should follow.


ABCDE


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Editorial Page Editor JACKSON DIEHL


“the government has the upper hand now.” That success hasbeenmatched with continuing


gains in the neighboring province of Helmand, while special forces operations have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban commanders around the country. Skeptics point out thatenemy attacks have increased in once-tranquil areas of the north and west, away from the concentration of American forces. But Taliban influence is likely to be limited in these areas because most of the population is not from the Pashtun ethnic group. The real military contest is in the Pashtun belt across the south and east—and there, fornow, the United States and its allies are winning. Critics of Mr. Obama’s policy tend to focus on


the fact that it has not succeeded in twokey areas: inducingPakistan to attackTaliban safe havenson its territory and fostering local and national Afghan authorities who can fill the space left by the Taliban’s retreat. (On a third key task, the training of the Afghan army and police forces, the results are mixed.) The doubters are right that without progress in those areas, the military gains


of recent months may not be sustainable. But improvements in governance are not like military campaigns; results come over years, not months. As for Pakistan, administration officials believe it may finally move against the Taliban in the coming year — if its military and intelligence commanders perceive that the United States is defeating the Taliban and will stay long enough to ensure that it cannot quickly revive. Mr. Obama has raised the odds for success by


committing U.S. forces to Afghanistan for four more years and by promising to negotiate a strategic partnership with the government of Hamid Karzai in 2011. Political considerations may make this steadiness more difficult as the 2012 presidential election approaches; some in the administration and Congress will surely press for U.S. troop withdrawals beginning next sum- mer that are larger than conditions warrant. So far, however, the president has stayed focused in defending what are critical national interests in Afghanistan. If he continues, his strategy willhave a real chance to succeed.


TOMTOLES


SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2010


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR dletters@washpost.com


Let’s ‘reset’ Metro’s escalators Riding theMetro, I often reflect on why big cities


such asMoscow, Paris and London seem to have an underground transport system that works while ours inWashington is being clobberedbya thousand flaws: trains out of service, broken escalators, quirky brakes, long delays between trains, unintelligible loudspeakers. The Dec. 15 Style article “From Russia with ease,” on the care and feeding of Moscow’s escalators, provides an obvious answer: Expand our “reset” efforts with the Russians to include an exchange program that would allow their techni- cians to come over here and teach us how it’s done. I lived in Moscow for a few years, and, while its


system may be a bit old and in need of improve- ments, it ran fast and consistently, which one cannot say about ourMetro.


R.V. Arnaudo, Falls Church


The roots of a good education I noticed the irony of the juxtaposed Dec. 15


articles “Dunbar High worse off since contractor’s hiring” and “D.C. region is nation’s richest, most educated.” One article chronicled the failure of educational contractors to solve the myriad prob- lems in a historic high school. The other showed the high educational achievement and impressive earn- ing potential in several nearby wealthy counties. The great divide stems from inequalities in


education and family commitment.We can’t rely on educators alone to turn around failing schools. Pro- viding the kind of opportunities for students at Dunbar to achieve and move on to higher education and a better life starts with increased parental involvement. Nobel laureate economist James J.Heckman has


shown impoverished education to be the root of poor employment and poor health in America. Families need to demand academic excellence from their children and insist schools provide opportuni- ty.


Daniel J. Levy, Columbia


The writer is a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics.


A politicized Supreme Court Regarding George F. Will’s Dec. 12 column, “A


decade after Bush v. Gore”: Five Supreme Court justices took leave of their


senses on Dec. 12, 2000, a date that lives in jurisprudential infamy, and it still boggles the mind 10 years later. Justice Anthony M.Kennedy told a congressional


committee in 2001 that the court had decided to spend its “capital of trust,” an indirect admission that he and fellow Republican justices acted extra- legally. The court’s 5 to 4 ruling falsely attributed to Florida an intent to treat Dec. 12 as a “drop dead” date forcompleting a contest recount.That lockedin the result while 175,000 ballots containing decipher- able votes remained uncounted. The five justices said, in effect, that Florida preferred to insulate an inaccurate result from congressional challenge (by completing the process by Dec. 12) rather than take time (until Dec. 18, 2000, or Jan. 6, 2001) to achieve an accurate result. This made no sense whatsoever, had no support


in Florida lawand could have been arrived at only by justices intentionally wishing to fix the result for their fellow Republican, GeorgeW. Bush. Otherwise the five would haveremandedthe case


to the Florida Supreme Court for a continuation of the recount in line with the equal protection principles set forth in the Bush v. Gore opinion. Eric C. Jacobson, Los Angeles


The writer co-founded the Supreme Court Five Censure Project, which advocated for a congressional resolution of censure against the five justices who decided Bush v. Gore.


A lawyer of one’s own choosing Regarding the Dec. 10 editorial “In their own


defense”: Although society has an important stake in fixing


the scandalous condition of criminal defense for indigent people, funding increases are unlikely. There is a deeper problem: The indigent accused


is allowed no say in choosing a lawyer. This flaw is not expensive to cure. The power to


selectadefenseattorneyneedonlybetransferred,by a voucher system, from the government to the accused. Vouchers would greatly improve the quali- ty of representation, because attorneys would have to give priority to serving their clients, not just the court system. Better representation, in turn, would make it less likely that innocentswouldbe pressured to plead guilty while the perpetrators remained free to repeat their offenses. For those convicted, better representation would bring better information to the sentencing process. Many other countries with common-lawsystems


permit indigent defendants to select their own lawyers.


Stephen J. Schulhofer, New York


Mint does coin collectors a favor As an amateur numismatist, I’d like to commend


The Post on its Dec. 15 Metro article on the new“Union Shield” reverse of the Lincoln penny. As we coin collectors say, “Change is good.” In fact, since the new state quarters began


coming out in 1999, many Americans have taken up the hobby of coin collecting. While it may seem strange to see anewreverseonthepenny, people will adjust to it, just as they did to the newstate quarters, Jefferson nickels, bicentennial reverses, etc. The great thing about coin collecting is that


there’s always a chance that you’ll find something different or rare in your pocket change. While finding an old “wheatie” one-cent piece is always interesting and a bit exciting, finding a 1955 double- die cent could make you instantly wealthy. So let’s hear it for the new penny — and for the


U.S.Mint for reinvigorating coin collecting. Mitch Katz, Falls Church


dLetters can be sent to letters@washpost.com. Submissions must be exclusive to The Post and should include the writer's address and day and evening telephone numbers. Letters are subject to editing and abridgment. Please do not send letters as attachments. Because of the volume of material we receive, we are unable to acknowledge submissions; writers whose letters are under consideration for publication will be contacted.


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