Roving Mouths, Listening Ears: Afghanistan, Russia Challenge

Two events in the news today.

In the first, the U.N. came out today stating that among the 90 civilians killed in western Afghanistan last Thursday were some 60 children.

The United Nations team visited the scene and interviewed survivors and local officials and elders, getting a name, age and gender of each person reported killed. The team reported that 15 people had been injured in the air strikes, which occurred in the middle of the night. The numbers closely match those given by a government commission sent from Kabul to investigate the bombing, which put the total dead at up to 95.

Of course the mistake, if true, only complicates our task there.

The other event was Russia unilaterally deciding to recognize two Russian leaning provinces in Georgia. The N.Y Times reports:

Acting a day after Russia’s Parliament unanimously supported the enclaves’ request to secede, President Dmitri A. Medvedev announced that he had signed decrees recognizing the two territories’ independence. He blamed the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for causing the bloodshed and forcing Moscow’s hand.

The responses by Germany, the United States and France to this action was along the lines of criticizing the action for being in violation of "territorial integrity" and "principles of international law."

With these two situations we have what might be considered the outcomes of "American tactical shortsightedness."  In the case of Afghanistan, we can argue (as candidate Obama has pointed out) that Iraq has diverted resources, thus reducing our ability to conduct necessary tasks with minimal collateral damage (though such civilian deaths are always the fixed factor in war and not a marker for the worth of a war). With Russia we see the result of the West's arbitrary and subjective elevation of "freedom" over sovereignty.  This ethnic determinism is masked under the brand "democracy," thus exposing us to the law of unintended consequences as each ethnic group around the world discovers its inner democrat.

Do the candidates currently running for president in the United States offer the listening ear, or the roving mouth, and which will serve us best going forward in the international arena?  Domestic policy is the life of the single person, but international policy is much like a relationship where give and take, good communication and strong commitment are paramount.

(We would also like to add that we think the military was thoroughly capable of handling both the Iraq war and the Afghani situation, if not for bad execution on the part of the former defense secretary in Iraq. Thus we see Obama's viewpoint as only one version of many possible correct viewpoints. In other words, you cannot badly run two wars and succeed easily, but you can still succeed while fighting two fronts).