A “new beginning” with the Muslim World would involve the only troops in their countries being the Marine Detachments at the US Embassy. When Preznit Bunnypants legitimized the ascendency of the Generals over the Diplomats it was all over but the crying in those countries. Just sayin’.

One American for every Muslim. Right down there with the Israeli ratio.

New Beginning? Wasn’t there something like that in Cairo?

Tangentially on topic – Never let it be said that our Generals and CEOs would pass up a war to test out their latest weaponry:

Sighted: A Secret US Aircraft in Afghanistan

Since April, a steady string of reports have detailed sightings of a mysterious, unidentified UAV prowling the skies above Kandahar. Grainy, Loch-Ness-Monster-like photos revealed a flying-wing-type aircraft with stealth features…

As a number of commenters have noted, the Taliban have no radar, so why the need for stealth?

And the simplest explanation is that the Pakistanis do have radar.

With recent news reports that the some parts of Pakistan’s intelligence services are suspected by the US of informing Taliban targets in Pakistan ahead of any US strike, it may be the case that the US wishes to keep the Pakistanis themselves in the dark.

Waters is disappointed. O’s strategy has no end. Coming from her, that’s gotta bite somewhat.

Linky?

Waters talked with Lee & they won’t support O.

Waters will vote against funding.

So O has pissed off the Black Caucus. Nice job.

Though hard to see, the links are there in the quoted text.

Pissing off the Black Caucus might not be a bad thing eCAHN! :-)

I think they are already pissed. Didn’t they hold up the banking regulation bill cause not enough had been done for regular folk?

General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, issued a statement on Tuesday expressing clear support for President Obama’s strategy in the region.

Full text:

The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the President has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task. The clarity, commitment and resolve outlined in the President’s address are critical steps toward bringing security to Afghanistan and eliminating terrorist safe havens that threaten regional and global security.

Oprah pissed off the Black Caucus? Oh damn Obama is in trouble. /s

Thanks. Got it.

Can’t even keep his own demographic. But then, a black from the black caucus could never have been elected, so I guees I shouldn’t be surprised.

Raven, we’re in deep shit. Right?

There’s gonna be hell to pay in the 2012 election unless they have a Palin/Anyone ticket to run against, and he’ll have Rahm to thank for it in large part. Mark my words.

Ah, yes, another racist anti-black black man (think Clarence Thomas). Just what the U.S. needs. Gee, if I were prez and represented a disadvantaged group, I’d try to keep my group with me. But that is soooo naive.

President Obama is just another lying, killing American imperialist terrorist. He is in Afghanistan to try to secure a colonial puppet regime that will allow American oil corporations to install gas and oil pipelines. Obama is keeping Iraq occupied so American petroleum corporations can have easily access to their vast oil fields.

Rahm isn’t responsible, O is.

The future’s uncertain
and the end is always near

or, if you don’t care for the Doors there is always Zappa

there’s no way to delay
that trouble comin every day

he’s not IN Afghanistan douche bag

Obama’s Speech Word Cloud

Long time until 2012. However, 2010 is not looking good for Ds. And if they lost a lot, the Ds will conclude they need to act even more like Rs.

and people will again come to the brilliant conclusion that it is all bullshit

McChrystal is Westmoreland Lite. Obama is LBJ without the legislative moxie. Afghanistan is the archetypical empire-killing quagmire for Vietnam and now we’re there. All that’s missing is a jungle or two and the Soviets supplying the Taliban…shit, they even wear black pajamas.

What come next, interdiction along the Hindu Kush Trail aka the Bin Laden Trail and Enclaves II, The Reprise? Or Operation Phoenix because you know, a Phoenix rises from it’s own ashes.

Thanks for that. I love the prominent position of “MUST”. The only pol I’ve ever heard call anyone out on hortatories is Hillary. It’s one of the few brownie points I award her. She said she was sick of them.

Me too, way long ago.

Well, it would be a bit of a relief if the bullshit could come at a somewhat more modest human and financial cost.

operation dewey canyon 4?

anyone else get skeeved when Obama furthered bush’s Nazi rhetoric by using the word “homeland”?

I honestly don’t know what the right course of action in Afghanistan is. But I do think the president is playing politics here, building his usual post-partisan bridges and targeting the middle. That speech wasn’t about Afghanistan. And that’s what’s troubling me.

I must have been sleeping by that part of the speech.

And let’s not forget “Rolling Thunder.”

I think Rahm is responsible because he has been steering a lot of Obama’s agenda, and it is Obama’s fault for allowing that.

I agree, 2010 is not looking good, because of a failure of leadership and allowing the minority to drive too much of the discussion. Sadly, you’re right when you say that the lesson the D’s will take away is that they need to act more like the opposition, and less like who they are or who we need them to be.

We haven’t gotten there yet, but I hear the engines on the BUFFs warming up in Diego Garcia and Anderson once again. Who said history doesn’t repeat itself?

About the WH party crashers:

Michele S. Jones, Secretary Robert Gates’ special assistant and the Pentagon’s White House liason, was revealed Monday to have exchanged emails with White House gatecrashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi. Entertainment lawyer Paul W. Gardner has claimed that both parties are clients.

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/pentagon-official-create-imaginary-lcc-pad-resume/

I remember that early in the post-Afghan invasion, cspan showed a few special ops hiking up the Hindu Kush looking for OBL. Now in my younger days, I did a lot of hiking in the U.S. mountains, as let me assure you that if OBL wanted to hide from the handful of U.S. special ops, all he needed to do is hide behind the nearest tree. It was the most ridiculous military operation I’d ever seen pics of.

Wilkerson sez Cheney is not the man he used to know. Translation: I used to like the guy and I was wrong as shit.

Siun, thank you once again. This is a travesty. This lines right up with the new Meme of the Righteous Noble Cause Dick Cheney was spewing this weekend.
Well, there we are.
Listen
absorb
digest
regurgitate
Listen
It looks like it’s time to focus on issues. Seems like we’re going to get creamed if we go for the “Democrat” vision of America. Lions and tigers and bears,oh no.
Kill the Stupak amendment as a start?

you are way out of your element eC

Actually eCahn, it really wasn’t. The SpecOps guy are pretty good at what they do, but they needed support and manpower to accomplish that mission. Between repositionable satellites that can read license plates at night (almost) and sophisticated electronic/night-time recon it’s really hard to hide from an intense search run well. Those guys are as capable of living like their adversaries, and have the advantage of a lot of access to high and low-tech methods to do their job. For some reason, Rummy, Bunnypants and Franks wanted to give ObL a break and thus it ended.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but then the conclusion I drew from the photo turned out to be accurate. (I know, stopped clocks are also right 2x/day.)

Just on a call with “Senior Administration Officials” who focused over and over on “national security” as the reason for all of this … plus a LOT of nation building … astonishing.

Precisely. It was the paucity of resources devoted to the hunt that was so totally obvious in the pic. Not saying it couldn’t be done without more good men, but the pic showed that wasn’t to be.

I think you mean 100 Muslims for every American.

Lalalalala. I don’t want to hear it. The U.S. is so good at nation building that it’s been a complete failure in the 14 countries that it has overthrown the govt of since 1893 (or whatever the year the U.S. overthrew the queen of Hawaii).

Ah, gotcha. Well, it’s my turn to be a stopped clock then… :)

They just don’t understand. I don’t lie awake at night worrying about the Afghanis attacking. I wonder why………

Oy. You are absolutely right. Why did I not catch that when I reread my comment. Drat.

Funny there is no discussion of the number of Muslims killed by Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Maybe I need to tune in Fox tonight for “fair and balance reporting.” Seems to be true that liberals eat their young.

“Senior Administration Officials”

So much for transparency, eh? Am I the only one tired of that?

Living in NYC (well not so much anymore), I don’t spend a nannosecond worrying about dying in a terrorist attack.

Something like 20,000 or 30,000 “innocents” have been killed by terrorists, worldwide, since 1968, which is apparently when they started keeping track. Crossing the street in Manhattan is considerably more dangerous.

Nation Building is code word for Resource Raping. Right?

Seems like the COIN word is off the table this week, no?

Good thing we didn’t make coin a drinking word.

Heh. Hadn’t thought of it that way. Precise definition.

Nation building is 2 McDonalds, a Wal-Mart, and a Walgreens.
They’ll be all set.

Phoenix never died. Colby brought it back with him and like a young vampire has grown stronger ever since.

This is the addition to my Obama scandals list entry (9) on Afghanistan:

On December 1, 2009 at West Point and on primetime television, Obama announced his Afghanistan surge. He would send in 30,000 more troops bringing US force size to around 100,000. He promised to begin their withdrawal by July 2011. He stated his policy reason for remaining in Afghanistan as

Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

This simply repeats the reason we went into Afghanistan in late 2001. That goal was largely met by the spring of 2002. There are almost no al Qaeda currently in Afghanistan and a surge will have no effect on their presence in Pakistan, just as our military presence in Afghanistan has had no effect on that presence anytime in the last 8 years.

So what is the point of having an army in Afghanistan and increasing its size? In part, Obama addressed this by erroneously, or dishonestly, conflating the Taliban with al Qaeda despite the fact that while al Qaeda is about international terrorism the Taliban is one Pushtun faction in an ongoing inter- and intra- ethnic civil war in Afghanistan.

But even with regard to an anti-Taliban war, Obama’s math is all wrong. It will take 6 to 8 months to move the surge troops into Afghanistan. This will leave them 12 months at full strength to accomplish the following:

1. secure large parts of the Afghan population from the Taliban
2. build up, train, and deploy a large Afghan army
3. make the Afghan government both less corrupt and more effective
4. improve the Afghan economy

None of these objectives can be accomplished within this timeframe. Within the context of Afghanistan and its history of ethnic conflicts, each of these is generational in nature. We do not have the resources to undertake them nor any compelling reason to try.

We continue to have an army in Afghanistan and will soon have an even larger army there, but still no coherent policy to explain why it is there. Obama has opted for a strategy that will continue to overstrain our military, our soldiers, their families, and our resources in a war on the other side of the world in a deeply impoverished country of no policy and little strategic value in pursuit of goals that by their nature are impossible to achieve. It is hard to say which is worse that Obama believes this will work or that he is using the current surge as the first part of a screen to keep our troops in Afghanistan for years to come.

Number of Muslims killed by Muslims is not the U.S. business. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the concept of U.S. interests.

Obama wants to get on the Cheney’s good side.

Sucking up to the former VP.

yea, they bailed on it

I like them both. But Jethro Tull’s “Skating away on the thin ice
of a new day” keeps going through my head.

Right.

Hugh, you are a national treasure.

Has anyone asked, you know, the people of Afghanistan whether they want us there or not?

A whole lot of people claim to be speaking for them.

hehe. the iPhone version of foxnews isn’t even mentioning the speech in their headlines.. instead leading with the following headline: “GOP Blasts Obama, Democrats for Acorn connections.”

Oh, also lots of “time limited” and how that was pressure on the Afghan government … given that the Afghan govt (Karzai) is already backing off of any effort to stop corruption but are now getting how many US troops, the idea that this is pressure is … a pipedream.

Brown people don’t count, even if they are white, as long as they don’t speak English with an American accent.

Has anyone said the number of mercenaries that would accompany the troop surge? I haven’t heard. But then, I’m an American citizen. Why would I hear these ugly things? I’m protected.

Yes, that was my TILT on the prior thread. The U.S. involvement is dependent on Afghan govt, but the more ineffective the Afghan govt is, the greater necessity for U.S. troops to meet the other mission, routing the Taliban.

Oh well.

Didn’t Obama reference some recent foiled attacks inside U.S. borders, planned in Afghanistan/Pakistan?

Like to see actual evidence, also evidence that our occupation of the region led to our disrupting the plot(s), as opposed (if it really happened) to effective law enforcement techniques employed here or in Europe, which I might add come a hell of a lot cheaper than a large scale military deployment.

That would be enough for me to throw the iphone into the toilet.

Rayne posted on this earlier today. I guess there’s evidence suggesting that the population there is evenly split on our presence there.

I’ve been haunted by the pictures of children in Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,Palestine.
I’m pretty sure the answer is the same to every colonial power who has aggressively attacked any of them.
no

Don’t worry. The World Bank will save the world.

Or…is that shave the world…or enslave? Interesting World Bank connections to Goldman Sachs (Robert Zoelick).
With our good friends in the Pakistani and Afghani ‘governments’ we will triumph!

I think it is time to start stockpiling canned goods again.

Tsk tsk. You are being so sensible. Not allowed.

Have no idea what O was talking about but an easy guess would be a plain vanilla lie, or a truth extracted by torture.

I enjoyed your troll friend’s statement that librul’s eat their young. Almost like some kind of “purity test,” no wait, that’s the GOP.

This is pure bullshit. The notion that we are waging war on the “Muslim world” rather than the terrorists who murdered 3000 Americans and those who harbored them is as ridiculous as an assertion that we were waging war on the “Shinto-world” during World War II. Even more disgraceful is the assertion by Walt that Americans are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths because of sanctions, as if Hussein doesn’t factor into the equation and he didn’t spend billions given to the Iraqi government for humanitarian purposes for his palaces and the like. I guess the whole “Oil For Food” scandal is something you ignorant jackasses have never heard of either. Moreover, there is not one legitimate study out(the Lancet study was long ago debunked) showing Iraqi fatalities from the “occupation” are anywhere near the numbers Walt suggests. But of course in the worldview of this site and Stephen “I hate every Jew who breathes” Walt, the US is the greatest force of evil in this world (aside from maybe Israel), and is actually more dangerous to Muslims than the murderous butchers we are fighting who have absolutely no qualms about murdering their co-religionists and who see it as their duty to institute tyrannical theocracies all in the name of Allah. Which is why Walt seems to be attributing all the Iraqi civilian deaths during the war to the actions of American servicemen. Of course aside from George Bush there are no institutions or individuals the left hates more than the military and the servicemen and women in it. Which is why casually smearing them as callous murderers is really no big deal for those who frequent this site.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Walt blamed the US for the Iranian protest massacres that occured following the “election”. One thing is for certain, if Bush had been in office, this very site would have done that and probably found a way to blame it on him anyway.

hey you guys, eli is writing again

Evenly split is quite telling, since the alternative to U.S. occupation is civil war, which, given its history, is what the population might well view as the alternative. So half prefer the chaos of civil war to U.S. occupation. Revealing.

I’m surprised they didn’t blame Afghanistan on ACORN. It’s about their speed.

why confuse your wingnut audience by relating a speech in which the brown president appeared to embrace the rethug desire for escalation? nah… pander to the cognitive limitations of your illiterate audience by just ignoring the speech and speak of what they all believe to be the president’s secret leadership of a Muslim terror organization called Acorn instead.

Nice to see you on the cheerier side again.

My troll friend? My technique vis-a-vis trolls is to either ignore them, or to treat them with false kindness. I love gently grinding them into the ground.

I think I’m going to start a new blog called “Escalashaton”…

Yah, I know. I figured the snark was self-evident.

I don’t know I found something lacking. There was no bringing in the unions or blaming political correctness, not even a reference to our precious bodily fluids.

Siun, thanks for the post and info.

Sadly, the message sent tonight to USA will NOT be filtered the same way in Muslim countries, will it.

And the big fool says push on.

Sigh.

Cool! I was just reading a link SOMEWHERE on FDL that there’s a Troll Writer company hiring all kinds of Troll Writers.
In this economy I thought they’d be less obvious with all the talent available. But then I decided they must layer the message….. Not all Trolls are pureborn trolls. Some throw both ways. And are taller. Or shorter? Some look like us and talk like us. But we were taught as children that there are troll stories. I read troll stories to my children.
So, has anyone considered getting hired. ?

Lemme translate that for the others, hoss:

“Minderbender, Inc. is BACK in business and the skies of Afghanistan are filled with the planes of Air America! Let the profiteering flow!”

The history President Obama recited or expanded on during this speech as to causes,effects and narrative was one that cannot be seen as a good start point for understanding of what led up to 9/11/2001 taking place or where events stand here in late 2009 or may by 2011 or 2014 or 2019.

This lack of honesty or lack of willingness to relate WashingtonDCs conduct both covert and overt that lies at roots of ongoing conflict with Iran or what created current Afghanistan coming out of 1980s or what came out of Kuwait Gulf War of 1990-1991 with American military basing in Saudi Arabia is a problem. A real problem.

OBL comes out of WashingtonDCs decisions and conduct coming out of 1991 in Saudi Arabia.

Taliban comes out of WashgintonDCs decisions and conduct made or enabled during Soviet Unions 1980s invasion/occupation of Afghanistan.

Saddam was WashingtonDCs choice and puppet tool with which to torment Iran during 1980s Iran/Iraq War. WashingtonDC appearing to have hoped Saddam would overrun Iran and topple post 1979 Tehran regime.

President Obama chose to couch WashingtonDCs being in Asian lands as a result of 9/11 unprovoked attack. This reading that Americans were the innocent victims and had done nothing to deserve 9/11 is just not accurate,honest or helpful framing as to why 9/11 would take place in first place.

Americans suffered a terrible attack on 9/11. But that attack did not just come out of nowhere. There is a history involved here and President Obama gave a version tonight that was less than accurate or honest.

Whatever happens in Afghanistan,Pakistan or Iran over next year,two years or five years is not independent of what happened five years ago,fifteen years ago or thirty years ago or 56 years ago in Iran,Iraq,Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. President Obama ignoring that history or cherry picking bits and pieces of it to serve propaganda purposes erodes current or future foundations of WashingtonDCs policies and conduct across Asia.

Calculations of combined death tolls from 1980 onwards for Iranians,Iraqis,Afghanis and Arab Palestinians surely is a terrible sum. What Iranians endured during Saddams attack or what Iraqis endured under Saddams lash to attack very brutal and deadly to be sure. The Russians surely killed thousands and thousands of Afghanis. Arab Palestinians have suffered tremendously since 1980 under boot of Israels Occupation which is directly supported by WashingtonDC and seldom ever questioned or tempered by WashingtonDC. There has been a lot of death brought to Asia which has fingerprints of WashingtonDC on it. WashingtonDC is not the moral agent it would like to suggest it is or preen about being. The history and facts do not support such a premise.

So we have switched from “crusade” to “cancer”. That, I assume, is the difference between Bush and Obama.

Ok.

What do we have to do to elect a president who reflects the will of the American people and not the power elite?

You betcha!! Ain’t no business like drug business
It’s the best business we know!!
CIA

Your second para presumes that BOTH parties are not equally invested, bought, paid for and controlled by the 1%.

Factor THAT in, and it don’t matter WHAT the Dem’s do, or who we vote for . . . or don’t vote for.

Good evening, all. Good post, Siun, informative as always. Glad I was at work and totally missed the speech – didn’t want to hear it anyway. If I want to hear bullshit and lies, I could just play a re-run of one of Dubya’s speeches. Come to think of it, do you think ma;ybe O has hired Bush’s former speechwriter?

If not for the whitewash I’d call them insane.

Waist Deep.

hey, Larue, how are you? I think everyone’s upstairs.

Well summed.

WW1 and WW2 also had huge impacts on CONFIGURING the Middle East.

The Shah of Iran was all our doing in ’53, I think it was.

Countries forged along geo lines that didn’t take into consideration a thousand years of history and tribal alliances and such . . . sigh.

Yeah, just a bit late catching up from dinner . . thanks!

Looks like Steve Clemons wasn’t in on that call.

According to a senior White House source, Vice President Biden believes that the review led by the president has produced a sound strategy — but that the Vice President’s contributions helped shape clear, narrow and achievable goals for Afghanistan: denying Al Qaeda sanctuary, disrupting the Taliban so it can’t topple the government, and accelerating transition to Afghan responsibility for their own security and governance.

Biden has helped choke down the nation building script and encouraged that the surge Obama will outline not be open-ended.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/does-joe-biden-win-or-los_b_376058.html

we elected a black george bush jr

bush jr could have given that speech

americans it does not matter who you elect this is an imperialist country and has been since after world war two.

now obama can go pick up his peace trophy

the world is insane

only a ego manic could except that prize

george jr could have

there are speechs and there are actions

his actions give him away

another war monger in america

this country is full of them

is obama from texas???????

what a sad day in the world give a peace prize to a person that is fighting an illegal war

the enemy keeps changing to keep the fighting going.

90% of americans did not know who the viet cong were and we killed one million vietnamese in that illegal war.

and most americans get upset when i mention it like that war is over.

no it isnt as the imperialists are still among us called americans.

most americans will believe obama as most americans in their hearts are imperialists.

how many germans knew they were imperialists until the bombs starting dropping on their homes.

yes americans stand up and be proud while we kill men women and children around the world with our war machine.

obama is willing to give up american and afghan lives so he can be reelected in 2012

yes we can really means yes I can.

hope ran out the door tonight

he is just another american war monger

The entire premise behind this blog post is far too narrow-minded.

America & its allies are in Afghanastan fighting the Taliban and AQ, who routinely murder innocent Afghans.

It is not that we are there solely for our own purposes.

To not call-out the insurgents and the former Taliban rulers for their attrocities and to instead focus only on U.S. military collateral damage is incredibly mean-spirited, misleading and dishonest.

Krauthammer and Rove said BO didn’t have any passion and they weren’t happy with the exit plan and BO wasn’t any Churchill. They must have saw the same movie on Churchill the other day that I did. O’Reily didn’t like the time line either.
Some one earlier said BO staying there for the oil pipe line. It’s also for the natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan to the sea. Saw any natural gas commercials lately? There on all the time here in MI.

Thanks for the word “surreal”, Siun.

Craven decision. Momentous. Watched Charlie Rose tonight, and the talking heads, including Rachel, reported on political domestic and international gamesmanship. The human cost of this craven and surreal decision and its true avaricious and rapacious goals, not a bit.

The most recent winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is a War Criminal. Well, so was Kissinger, right?

The Oligarchs win another one. Incredible. $1 million per soldier per year going for the contracting fat cats that are grifting profiteers. We are opium plantation part owners. War on Drugs? We are the drug enemy.

There is that saying “Hope was the last temptation of Christ.” After Bushco it is so cruel to have to let go of hope re Obama. Just one more time, this time, Obama, get it right. Prove you are a moral being. Please. Not a hubristic, ambitious front man for the MAN … the oligarchy. Damn.

Disagree with your last sentence thoughts/views and how expressed. For the many Afghan or Pakistani families who have lost parents,children,friends and loved ones because of Americans shooting,bombing,drone attacks “collateral damage” is very real and painful. More of which will now happen because of President Obams sending in more American troops who will come under attack and call in airstrikes which will produce more collateral damage. It is doubtful President Obama would be blithesome were his two children killed by a USAF drone attack or USAF aerial fire suppresion/bombing.Human beings are human beings here in United States or in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan. This term collateral damage is a monstrous one.

If it were your familly member(s) who had been killed by outsiders who came to your village,spoke a different language,were very alien in appearance and seemed far too willing to shoot your village up and kill your family members,friends and fellow villagers you may have a different view. Or would that be OK with you and not seem mean spirited? You know — just unintended collateral damage done by outsiders. You may not think of your parents,brother or sister or friends or loved ones as being collateral that got damaged(killed). Or would you?

Americans are the outsiders in Iraq,Afghanistan and Pakistan and despite what WashingtonDC and American leaders choose to tell us the motives for being in these lands are not so very noble and have much to do with desires that are much more connected to Ameriacn economic imperialism and expansive militarism. Americans are in Asia killing Asians for mean spirited,misleading and dishonest reasons. WashingtonDC and American leaders not being very forthcoming about any of this either.

Are there CIA covert ops taking place in Pakistan? Are mercenaries such as Xe being used in Pakistan? President Obama failed to elaborate during West Point speech. That is misleading and dishonest. Pakistanis may well view this CIA/Xe activity as being quite deadly and mean spirited.

Taliban has origins coming out of WashingtonDCs 1980s conduct and activities in Afghanistan. Americans have tendency to create monsters which then become out of control. Not just in Asia but in Central and South America then too.

To characterise WashingtonDC and American leaders as being misleading and dishonest is to be accurate and in adherence to what is factual and historical. mk3872 — suggest you read about Fillipino Pacification War of 1899-1904. Also American War SE Asia 1964 – 1975. Both present many examples of American cultural/political imperialism and terrorism driven conduct.What Americans have done in Iraq since 2003 when better known is not so noble either. All of which was based on some big lies being told over and over to create premise for American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Make no mistake about nature of long stay Americans intend for Iraq and Afghanistan as seen with nature of military bases being put in. As to why just look at Asian map and note which country has shared borders with Iraq to west and Afghanistan to east.WashingtonDC has ulterior military motive here.

President Obama was not being honest in declaring WashingtonDC is not intent on long stays in Iraq or Afghanistan based on reasons he failed to elaborate on in or with this speech given at West Point.

That was and is dishonest.

“Even so, the United States has killed nearly 30 Muslims for every American lost. The real ratio is probably much higher, and a reasonable upper bound for Muslim fatalities (based mostly on higher estimates of “excess deaths” in Iraq due to the sanctions regime and the post-2003 occupation) is well over one million, equivalent to over 100 Muslim fatalities for every American lost.”

It’s called winning. Seriously – The whole idea is to incur fewer losses than you inflict.