There are many possible responses to
the news that we have committed more than four trillion public dollars to Wall Street.
Mine is a roar of admiration.
Four trillion dollars! Holy hell! I didn't even know that was possible!
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
The war in Afghanistan poses two important questions: What should be done and who should be "the deciders"?
Congressional Republicans say the answer to the first query is military escalation. But according to polls, most Americans disagree. At the same time, many experts wonder "whether or not we know what we're doing," as President George W. Bush's former deputy national security adviser said last week.
The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has reached its "sell-by…" date.
A majority of Americans now tell pollsters the mission was a mistake.
Ninety-eight members of the House – including liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans – have cosponsored Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern's resolution asking the Pentagon to develop an exit strategy.
What now for the US in Afghanistan? Does the Obama Administration drop the other shoe and commit us to a second decade of war? Or will it somehow pull up short of the precipice? All of sudden, there’s doubt and the war’s opponents can see a hundred glints of hope – tops among them polls showing Americans now thinking that sending still more troops to Afghanistan because nineteen men hijacked four airplanes eight years earlier might not be the most logical course of action.
Now this just simply could not be made up in that Frankenstein
laboratory where the cuckoos on the right wing cook up their witches
brew of batshit crazy allegations to levy against Barack Obama. There
are scores upon scores of issues where Obama should be rightly taken to
task for continuing Bush-era "war on terror" policies, preemptively
immunizing torturers, refusing to fight for Single Payer health care,
hiring a team of hawks and neoliberal crooks to manage foreign policy
and the economy, among many many others.
October 2009 has begun with the New York Times reporting that "the president, vice president and an array of cabinet secretaries, intelligence chiefs, generals, diplomats and advisers gathered in a windowless basement room of the White House for three hours on Wednesday to chart a new course in Afghanistan."
The US military commander in Iraq is
set to announce that the US will withdraw 4,000 of its soldiers from
the country by the end of October.
General Ray Odierno is due to tell the House of Representatives
Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the US is speeding up its
military withdrawal to complete it by September 2010.
In an advance copy of his address, Odierno said: "We have
approximately 124,000 troops and 11 Combat Teams operating in Iraq
today. By the end of October, I believe we will be down to 120,000
troops.
At least 30 civilians travelling on a bus in southern Afghanistan have been killed by a roadside bomb blast, the Afghan interior ministry has said.
The bus was on its way from Herat to Kandahar when the device exploded, the ministry said, adding that 10 children and seven women were among the dead.
The most seriously wounded have been taken to a Nato base for treatment.
Kandahar's provincial government blamed the Taliban for planting the device, although the group has yet to comment.
WASHINGTON - In a remarkable parallel with a similar turning point in the Vietnam War 44 years ago, President Barack Obama will preside over a series of meetings in the coming weeks that will determine whether the United States will proceed with an escalation of the Afghanistan War or adjust the strategy to reduce the U.S. military commitment there.
Washington has long been frustrated at Islamabad's reluctance to target the Afghan Taliban's ruling council, the Quetta Shura, which is accused of directing large parts of the insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.
State department and intelligence officials delivered the ultimatum to Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, last week as he visited the US for the United Nations' security council sessions and the G20 economic summit.
