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From the department of really stupid messaging.
But although Mr Obama is now reported to have ruled out troop cuts or a major scaling back of the US effort in Afghanistan, it remains unclear whether he will approve a significant escalation to an increasingly unpopular war.
Mr Obama told key members of Congress that he would decide on a course of action with a sense of urgency – but that not everyone would be pleased.
"The president is going to make a decision – popular or unpopular – based on what he thinks is in the best interests of the country," White House press spokesman Robert Gibbs insisted.
Remind you of anyone? Oh, right.
I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.
That’s right, Dubya would have none of that governin’ and war makin’ by pollin’ crap.
How’d that turn out for him, President Obama?
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Actually, it unfortunately turned out well enough for him to serve two terms.
Mr Obama told key members of Congress that he would decide on a course of action with a sense of urgency – but that not everyone would be pleased.
Nobody’s gonna be pleased. The only options he’s really considering are shit.
And trash his reputation, his party, and the country in the process.
Is Neil Sheehan gonna hafta come back and write A Bright Shining Lie II?
Muthafuckers.
Trashing his party I see as a positive accomplishment.
Yes, though I would not see Obama taking down the Democrats equally positively.
I beg to differ on one point: Iraq is the unpopular war not Afghanistan. I think you’ll find that more Americans supported the latter than the former including me. Something had to be done about the Taliban and al Qaeda. My only regret about what Bush did is that he did not seem to have capturing bin Laden as a goal nor wiping out the Taliban.
I don’t really see what the alternatives are at this point. If we leave, the Taliban are back. Who’s going to fight them? Afghan army? Pakistan? Hell, Pakistan’s security agency sides with the Taliban and probably helped in the planning and execution of 9/11. Leave and negotiate? I don’t really see the purpose of negotiating with people who see it as merely a delaying tactic until they figure out a way to win.
I want to see the Afghan War ended and the troops brought home. Unfortunately, the Afghan/Taliban War is yet to be finished in a way that makes bringing them home feasible.
Nor would I but there’s still a lot of work to do within the Dem party.
O/T How’s that troop withdrawal form Iraq coming along?
Are you speaking present or past tense? After 9/11 the invasion of Afghanistan was widely supported. That is no longer the case.
It wasn’t a war when the neglect started in 2002. Now it’s very costly to fix. But it’s still irresponsible to just walk away from debts and obligations even if the failures and transgressions weren’t your fault.
Define “finished in a way that…,” please. What, in your opinion, is a winning strategy to defeat an insurgency supported by the indigenous population?
The logical problem with this? We can never leave.
As usual for American wars, examining “all options” means everything other than “ending the war.” – Glenn Greenwald
AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Blue Texan and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
I think what we have goin’ on this last 2 weeks is the fascists holdin up healthcare reform while puttin’ the squeeze on for more money and more troops for the on-goin’ war to keep America and Americans weak and poor.
I will be interested to see if ObamaRhama can hold off on makin’ a committment to more troops until after the House votes for the public option.
The pressure to keep the wars goin’ is comin’ in the form of blackmail on healthcare.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE FUCKIN’ AMMUNITION, THE REAL WAR AIN’T IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!
Charlie’s infiltrated through the wire in front and on both flanks, Cap’n.
When the polls are with you, invoke the polls.
When the polls are against you, talk about character and toughness.
From Politics 101.
I agree with very much of what you say. Whether it was a visceral post-9/11 feeling on my part, i don’t know but I supported this war. I wish we could have done all that stuff you mention. We didn’t. But at this point it’s unwinnable so what’s the point of staying? Even if we had achieved those goals – kill UBL; bust up Taliban and al-Qaeda, then what? Mission accomplished, right? So then what? we leave. then what? Pretty soon, the same problems – Taliban & al-Qaeda will be back. See if we stay “accomplish our goals” and leave or just say “fuck it” and leave now… same result. Let’s leave now.
‘zactly!!!
Back to the cesspool.
Namaste
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised us change. He won, and we now learn that on crucial issues — useless wars abroad, government secrecy, massive and illegal wiretapping of the American people and bailouts for Wall Street rather than Main Street — there is no change; it’s pure continuity from Bushco, only with a more sympathetic and articulate spokesman.
Obama promised change. He’s provided no change. That’s the change.
I think we know what The Who would’ve said about these days:
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” And I actually thought Obama was smarter than this.
Acclowns of the Week #78: Nattering Nabobs of Negativism edition is just up and still steaming. On the spit this week:
Right wing stooge Dan Riehl
Birther Orly Taitz
John “Trog” Derbyshire
Armchair General John L. Perkins
American Private Police Force
and much, much more!
Citizen SouthernDragon:
And so it goes, Brother Dragonman, on and on and on…they can’t have a couple a hundred thousand war toughened GI’s come home all at once and take down Blackwater and the fuckin’ mercenary army of the corporate rulin’ class…we can’t let this happen to our own children like it happened to us, bro.
How can you win a war that isn’t a war?
It will be a success if we can turn Afghanistan into a semi-failed state like California.
-G
who is this dipshit I saw on Ed last nite? Karen Hanretty? Doesn’t even know how to spell Hanratty. Never saw her before. major asshole.
+ military tribunals which he swore pre 1/21 to not use war tribunals.
Meet the new boss same as the old bush ?
The rationale for the US military intervention into Afghanistan is as profoundly dishonest and incomplete as it is fanciful. By waging the war it will also assure the persistense of an Arabic group bent on waging reprisal attacks against the US.
The rationale is dishonest because it was Cheney and his crew that threatened the then Taliban government with anhialation if they did not grant US companies passage for a gas pipeline from norht of Afghanistan across their land and out to sea. This predated 9/11. The Taliban then looked the other way as Al Quaeda decided to attack first. Even after 9/11 the Taliban agreed to give up OBL to a neutral third country for trial but the US declined.
Al Quaeda had its own reasons for the attack of 9/11 which it stated very explicitly, all perfectly intelligible. They were: that the US was an implacable supporter of Israel as they carried out usurpation of land and genocidal killing of Palestinians; that the US occupied Arabian lands that were holy to Muslims and that the US supported corrupt Arab monarchies that suppressed their population. Not suprisingly, the hatred of America’s freedom did not appear on that list.
The point is that the US ruthlessly pursues it’s interests through the use of mass violence more than any other country on earth and has done so uninterruptedly for some 60 years on end. Killing innocent millions in the process.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no exception and the American public must come to understand at some point that it can’t be just random chance that accounts for this country being perpetually at war with some country or ideology or whatever it feels like fighting about. Nor that they are despised by those that suffer for doing so.
The additional sad fact is that with the exception of the weakest of opponents such as Grenada, Panama and Haiti, the mighty US forces have been kept at bay in Viet Nam then Iraq and now in Afghanistan. The reason being that the US has no business waging war and then occupying these places.
If you doubt this then how to explain that over 60% of Afghan’s when recently polled said that they prefer a negotiated end of the conflict with the Taliban, who are after all also Afghan’s and that the same amount said that they want the US out.
Where is Daniel Ellsberg when we need him?
No kidding.
Unfortunately, this is in large part about the pressure that Democrats — especially those with no military service on their résumés — feel whenever they get to Capitol Hill or the White House. They always feel that they must compensate for this by doing whatever the generals want.
Go to the London Review of Books website and type in “Rory Stewart” on the search field. His article, “The Irresistible Illusion” explains EXACTLY why we don’t need to be in Afghanistan.
He was also on Moyers recently and said the same things.
This is a guy who walked across Afghanistan and wrote a book about it, “The Places In Between.” He speaks the native languages and knows the country. He also worked in Iraq as part of the Coalition. Unlike, I’m sure, about 99.2% of everybody inside the beltway, I think he knows what he’s talking about.
He discusses in detail why we shouldn’t be there, how long he thinks it would take to get Afghanistan up to Pakistan levels of society and infrastructure (30 years!) and why “nation building” with soldiers will fail.
Besides, Obama, why in the world are we freely spending money halfway across the world when Americans are hurting RIGHT HERE AT HOME?
It’s all a COIN toss now. Heads or tails… COIN it is.
Never mind the dead people and the wasted treasure.
This is where I say.. thank God and my own common sense I didn’t vote for this president.
Key the phugas
Nice comments. And isn’t it interesting how we hear nothing about the status of that Caspian pipeline project now? It’s hard to even find anything on it on the Internet. Come to think of it, I’d love to read an analysis of how much revenue the major US & British oil companies have gained from Iraq since our invasion…
So Obama wants to go into history as the first leader to successfully occupy Afghanistan since Alexander the Great… There are good reasons why Afghanistan has been called the “graveyard of empires”…
By February 2010 the Afghanistan War will surpass the length of the Revolution, by May the Viet Nam War. Iraq in less than 24 months will be ahead of them both. Bush’s decision and Obama’s yielding to the War Department’s Pentagon strategists…what a tough guy that General McChrystal is running to work and back every day, spent as much time in the SF as most of us who volunteered, has a plan to win, the President should bow down to the military, else they stage a coup. Team America….fuck yeah!
War is a Racket (http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm wonder what the 2 time MOH recipient would say to the Commander-in-Chief/). The Generals want to try new strategies, the Military Industrial Complex needs to keep the tax $$’s flowing (bonuses bitches!), the Politicians want to make their “bones”, the public needs to express their primitive DNA urges…we all love a winner, no matter the cost.
Speaking of costs, as of May 2009: If the Administration’s FY2009 Supplemental request is enacted, total war-related funding would
reach $941 billion, including $684 billion for Iraq, $223 billion for Afghanistan, $28 billion for enhanced security, and $5 billion that cannot be allocated. Of this cumulative total, 73% would be for Iraq, 24% for Afghanistan, and 3% for enhanced security. If Congress approves the
FY2010 war request, war funding since the 9/11 attacks would total over $1 trillion. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
But we don’t have enough for universal health care.
Now what would be the Captains of Capitalism business plan? Pay Saddam Hussein $200 BILLION to find and kill al qaeda’s Bin Laden, along with his number 2 through 10, flee Iraq, leaving it at least governable, put himself in exile in Iceland, they certainly could use the bribe, and then pocket the remaining $800 Billion as deal making pre-tax profits, with expected bonuses of course. I know this sounds sarcastic and maybe naive but that would criticize from the position that we’re already there now what, but that’s not my point. As to perpetual war making I think Greenwald makes the argument best: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Too true. A’stan is neither Iraq nor Vietnam, well actually it is quite a bit like Vietnam. The totally corrupt govt-in Vietnam we kept fighting a war that the Vietnamese wanted no part of and there were a number of coups where a general of the month took over so that he could get his share of the loot. Then you have the locals, who want to be left alone. They are starting to look back at the Taliban with favor. Actually I do not believe that any real central govt actually controlled the entire country. They are tribal or clan in nature with war lords who control the drug trade. Poppy is the only real cash crop. With the money we have spent so far, and in the end doing zip as far as changing crops goes, why on earth don’t we just give them a better price for their crop of poppy, use what we need to make morphine, then burn the rest. Easier than trying to get them to grow shit that no one buys. Anyway, they just go back to growing poppy as soon as we turn our backs. I have no idea why we pretend that we are the worlds policeman. Attack A’stan, invade Iraq, bomb Iran. Who the fuck do our “leaders” think we are? What, we can’t go 8 years without starting a war someplace? OK, we HAD a reason to invade A’stan. Then our fearless leaders fucked up by doing war on the cheap and let OBL run free. Rumy and the rethugs were total fuckin idiots, the “man in the street” in A’stan likes and admires OBL, it was a given that they would let him run. We have zero understanding of the area and the people and we, it seems, do not learn from history. Never has any invader in history managed to “liberate” A’stan. They like their way of life, we come around and make them a “democratic” “civilized” country. What hubris and esp what an ego. You can not fix every damn thing in the world. We went in to get OBL and the alQaeda leadership. Fine. Except we let him go and anyway it really does not matter any more as alQaeda has changed into a totally different organ, no longer run by OBL, independent groups all over the world. What is needed is spec ops. The fly swatter, not a freekin sledge hammer. What we don’t need is the idea that the military is there, so lets use them. Nope, we can not “win” in A’stan no matter what we do. We are backing a president that simply stole the “election”. Now what do we do? We will never leave, at least not during the Obama years because then the rethugs would kill the dems on “national security” again. So we stay in A’stan in order to keep the dems in charge? It isn’t to eliminate the Taliban, because the Afghans don’t want to fight them. It isn’t to destroy alQaeda-a worthy goal, but they have moved on to other countries. So, other than to keep Obama in office, why are we there? Was Moore right when he said it waqs all about an oil pipeline? All I know is that we will stay there until we get a draft. Which I am totally in favor of BTW. If the children of the rich and powerful were at risk to fight in a war we might actually have a slightly more sane foreign policy. Other wise we have less than 1% of americans involved with and dying in a war. I go to about 10 funerals a week. All for vets of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, GWI & II, and Afghanistan. There have been about 500K military persons in harms way over the last 8 years. For what exactly? 4K+ dead and over 30K wounded. For what reason? When you find a real good reason let me know, I haven’t found one yet.
YES. Total Agreement!
New Republic is reporting dems have a filibuster-proof majority.
Thanks for the hits.
I wouldn’t trust Short Ride as far I as could throw ‘im. That’s one dude I would never let stand behind me.
Nor would I trust the New Republic.
Why we cant say President Obama. come on people’ give the man his due.
Afghanistan: where empires go to die.
For a great article on the pipeline situation check out this article by Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times
And as a poster on Greenwald’s site once said:
“Afghanistan won’t be your Vietnam. Afghanistan will be your Afghanistan.”
Well, it got him re-elected; as pitiful a statement as that is.
There is no good reason, I haven’t read all the comments yet, but this is insanity, no good comes out of any of this.
This must end, we cannot win, we cannot keep from killing innocents, we cannot keep from death those who are sent there.
I am in tears of frustration,
Cynicism aside rxbusa @44, you are as close to the truth as one can get.
I agree. How can we help?
http://www.historycommons.org/…..whitepaper
(active links at above)
September 23-24, 2001: Secretary of State Powell Says White House Will Provide Evidence of Al-Qaeda Role in 9/11, but He Is Contradicted by White House
Secretary of State Colin Powell is asked in a television interview, “Will you release publicly a white paper which links [bin Laden] and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?” Powell responds, “We are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack.” [MSNBC, 9/23/2001] The next day, the New York Times reports that this report is expected to be published “within days… Officials say they are still arguing over how much information to release…” [New York Times, 9/24/2001] But later that day, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says, “I think that there was just a misinterpretation of the exact words the secretary used on the Sunday shows.… I’m not aware of anybody who said white paper, and the secretary didn’t say anything about a white paper yesterday.” [White House, 9/24/2001] The New Yorker will report a short time later that, according to a senior CIA official, US intelligence had not yet developed enough information about the hijackers. “One day we’ll know, but at the moment we don’t know” (see Late September 2001). [New Yorker, 10/8/2001] But no such paper is ever released.
Entity Tags: Ari Fleischer, Colin Powell
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline
Of course it’s President Obama. Sometimes many of us just shorten it to Obama. You’ll see above I’m not the only one to do it. It’s nothing personal against him.
Thanks for the link. Interesting article on the status of the pipeline saga.
The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. It was strictly an al Qaeda job. Don’t confuse the two. Al Qaeda is an international terrorist organization financed mainly by rich Saudis with a strong right wing religious orientation. The Taliban is an Afghan/Pakistan right wing religious movement that really doesn’t care about what happens outside its borders. They happen to be conflated in the public mind because at the time of 9/11 al Qaeda was hiding out in Afghanistan. Actually it’s roots are in Afghanistan because the CIA thought it was a good idea to set up a bunch of religious warriors to fight the Russians there.
Interesting note: “al Qaeda” means “the base” like Bush’s famous “base” that he was always playing to. Both of them are right wing religious zealots willing to do anything to promote their warped vision of God.
What’s similar to Dubya is the Rovian patina transferred to the current White House whose every move is with an eye to the next election. Obama and his people want one of them there khaki elections.
Much like our own right wing religious zealots.
Unfortunately, this is the worst possible decision. If there were any reason to go on fighting and anything to win by doing so, use as many troops as you can and get it over with. If the war is not worth that kind of escalation, get out now. But just to go on bleeding makes less than no sense at all.
It’s sometimes said “the best revenge is living well”. I suggest that if we’re done, if our goal of destroying Al Qaeda achieved, then we should come home and ‘live well’.
Of course, some people will say we have to stay at it forever to avoid them ‘coming back’. But, those people will always say we must war forever. F’ ‘em.