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Obama Weighing More Troops for Afghan War
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama faces a decision later this year whether to send an extra 10,000 US troops to Afghanistan, amid an escalating war against Islamist insurgents, defense officials said.
A top general and senior Pentagon official disclosed on Wednesday for the first time details of a pending request from the US commander in Afghanistan for yet more troops for a war that has already lasted more than seven years.
A US soldier patrols the Nadi Ali district of Helmand province in February 2009. (AFP/File/Shah Marai) "What the president was told is that the request (for more troops) is out there, but he doesn't have to make a decision until the fall so that the troops would arrive as planned in 2010," Michele Flournoy, undersecretary of defense for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The US commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, would "reassess" his request later in the year, she added.
General David Petraeus, the US Central Command chief, said he had approved the troop request but that the Defense Department had not yet formally passed it on to the White House.
The 38,000-strong US contingent in Afghanistan is due to expand to about 68,000 troops by the end of the year, Flournoy said. About 32,000 other foreign allied forces are also deployed there under NATO authority.
But legislators sought clear benchmarks to measure the progress of the US mission in the country.
"How will we know if we're winning?" asked Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
Obama has weighed competing advice in his administration on troop levels, with McKiernan requesting more boots on the ground while others -- including reportedly Vice President Joe Biden -- voicing caution about an open-ended commitment.
Defense officials had previously said McKiernan requested about 30,000 additional troops -- roughly doubling the size of the US force -- and that recent decisions by Obama had met his requests for 2009.
Former presidential candidate John McCain and other Republican lawmakers have accused Obama of failing to provide all the troops the US commander had requested.
Although he praised Obama's new strategy, McCain warned at the hearing of possible "incrementalism," saying the new administration appeared to be delaying decisions on troops or goals for Afghan security forces.
McCain said that "to dribble out these decisions, I think, can create the impression of incrementalism."
Obama was also facing growing criticism on the political left over expanding US military presence in Afghanistan.
"How are we going to know when our national task is finished?" asked Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, a Democrat, at the hearing. "What is the end point?"
Both Flournoy and Petraeus said US military operations aimed to eventually shift security duties to Afghan forces.
Describing the challenges of the Afghanistan mission, Petraeus warned the war would require "a sustained substantial commitment."
"There will be nothing easy about the way ahead in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the general said.
Petraeus, credited as the mastermind behind a successful counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq, acknowledged that more forces were needed in Afghanistan according to troop numbers prescribed in an irregular warfare manual he helped author.
US troops must "be seen as good guests and partners, not as would-be conquerors or superiors" who try to avoid civilian casualties, he warned.
The general also said Pakistan's role was crucial in stemming the threat from Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents operating on the country's porous border with Afghanistan.
He said the Islamist militants posed an "existential threat" to Pakistan itself, echoing words Obama has used as the administration steps up pressure on Islamabad to crack down on the insurgents.
Since taking office, Obama has approved an additional 21,000 troops for the Afghan war, including a 4,000-strong brigade that will focus on training Afghan security forces.
And in the last months of his term, former president George W. Bush approved the deployment of reinforcements, including an additional combat brigade for Afghanistan.
During his election campaign, Obama vowed to send more combat troops to Afghanistan and to make the war a top priority, charging his predecessor had neglected the mission because of his focus on Iraq after the US-led invasion there in 2003.
- Posted in
63 Comments so far
Show All"How will we know if we're winning?" asked Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
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When the friend's and family of the dead start high-fivin' our soldiers and run around Kabul throwing streamers and confetti in the air like Rip Torn on acid.
Snobama is Wall Street's lap dog...he will be gunning for the military industrial media complex until he walks aout of the white house and into a lucrative eight figure income job on Wall Street.
Petraeus, credited as the mastermind behind a successful counter-insurgency campaign in Iraq,...
----------------------------
The "surge" is already coming undone.
From Jeremy Scahill:
Part of the "success" (their term, not mine) is due to the fact that the US supported, encouraged and armed a Shiite campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing in Baghdad, which, after a horrifying and sustained period of death squad operations, largely from 2005-2007, resulted in a drop in violence (after most of the non-Shiites were expelled from the Iraqi capital). Secondly, the US co-opted the Sunni resistance forces through the so-called Awakening Councils, essentially paying off 100,000 or so Sunnis to stop killing US soldiers and to stop fighting the Shiite-led government. This combined with Moqtada al Sadr's restraint over the past year created circumstances for what is portrayed in the US corporate media as a "success" in US strategy. What has not happened is that the US somehow "got it right" and stabilized Iraq in a lasting way for sustained peace. Washington basically backed one faction and paid the other not to fight it.
The point here is that, with just a few definitive events, all of this could unravel very swiftly and Obama could find himself facing a renewed guerrilla insurgency against his occupation--from both Sunni fighters and Shiite forces opposed to Maliki-- and a destabilization of the puppet regime Obama is now backing.
In fact, the early stages of such an unraveling may already be in swing, according to a new analysis of the situation in Iraq by veteran military correspondent Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco and formerly of the Washington Post. "I thought some of the surge-era deals in Iraq would unravel but I didn't think that would begin happening this quickly," says Ricks. "It's only March 2009, and already Awakening fighters are fighting U.S. soldiers in the streets of Baghdad."
Unedited:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-scahill/while-obama-escalates-war_b_181267.html
Well gee - you'd think that with ENOUGH FORCE you could MAKE the world do what you want! Can't hurt to keep trying, eh, Mr. President? I suggest our President read about Sysiphus; it might stimulate some thought about solutions that might actually work. Mythology holds some wisdom for those who choose to learn.
Better yet, I suggest the president read up on Vietnam and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. I have, and this news fills me with that old feeling of deja vu ...
Not much this old Indian can say except life can be tough when your land is occupied by people from another land or lands that force their world upon you.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
Thank you for your wise comments, which remind me of something I just read In The Occupation Magazine, from Israel.
David Shulman, writing about his efforts to protect Beduin herders from the Israeli "settlers" who attack them, tells of an elderly Beduin whose home, a shack made of canvas, tin and nails, was destroyed by the IDF:
" An old man sitting in the tent, wrapped in his robes, seeks out my eyes. I know him from earlier visits, I have seen him in agony—some of the wrecked homes were his and his family`s—but today he is strangely content. He is glad we have come, he welcomes us again and again with the old formulas of the host, he presses more butter-milk on us, he points to the sky and says in his deep-throated Bedouin Arabic: `God has given us this good life. The earth is good, the trees are good, the animals are good, and some of the people are also good. ' http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=32768
I pity the poor people of Afghanistan who will suffer and die under the military jackboot of the USA and NATO. It is they who should be in our thoughts. Every bombed village and targeted home is one too many.
First 17,000 then 4,000 and now our "Duce" Obama is considering 10,000 if not 20,000 more next year. Why? Because he is totally subservient to the Pentagon's wishes. Obama's incremental strategy is designed to confuse and silence the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party. The Obama-Petraeus team has crossed the line beyond which "not winning" in Afghanistan/Pakistan will be a political disaster of epic proportions for them. One problem is that no ally will bail our Duce out when things go wrong in Afghanistan/Pakistan*. A second potential problem may arise if the civil war in Iraq flares up again which, given the recent violent events, appears likely. Then the Obama-Petraeus team will have two major conflicts on its hands.
The most likely outcome? Thousands more dead and numerous destroyed villages but no peace, order and stability in the region.
*Unlike Adolf Hitler who bailed out Benito Mussolini when the Greek soldiers in their "funny tutu uniforms" beat the shit out of the Italian army.
When you INVADE and OCCUPY a sovereign nation, there is no "winning" and there is no "end point". The entire idea is to be PRESENT, to wear down the citizenry in whatever way necessary to gain control over the area and its resources.
Despite the idiotic (intentional?) ignorance of our senators, the most outrageous statement in this article is this: 'US troops must "be seen as good guests and partners, not as would-be conquerors or superiors" who try to avoid civilian casualties, he warned.'
We don't need to BE good guests and partners, only BE SEEN THAT WAY. Whew, that's a relief. Every time I was a guest, I was INVITED. And after a while I LEFT.
When I took a partner, everything I had became his and all he had became mine. We proceeded as equals with a huge stake in each other's survival.
American politicians aren't interested in this kind of partnership. So now the only trick is making it LOOK like they are.
["How will we know if we're winning?" asked Senator Susan Collins of Maine.]
Yeah, this is sort of the crux of the problem. Americans always have to win win win. The media discussions on these issues of Iraq and Afghanistan always seem to be focused on whether we are winning or whether our strategy is working or the fact that we were lied to (!) as a pretext for the war. No one in the media ever questions war to begin with, no one mentions that America is blatantly occupying another country, no one suggests America may be an evil aggressor nation (gasp!).
there IS an end. these guys will be done when they've destroyed the planet.
Barack Obama failed to use his thorough "review" of US military/CIA paramilitary policies in Afghanistan/Pakistan to address the crux of the matter: the NATO ground presence and related US drone strikes are the cause of the heightened anti-American insurgency in the region, both multiplying the hostile factions there, while uniting them temporarily towards the common goal of ousting the foreign infidels. Thus, escalating the size of the military mission, and intensifying the drone attacks, promises to make matters worse rather than better - hopelessly confusing cause with cure.
Added to the willful myopia is a mixed, incoherent external political message. While doubling down our committment to kill the evil doers over there (so we don't have to fight them over here), we announce a dramatic, simultaneous new willingness to hold out olive branches, win hearts and minds, and open talks with rival enemy factions towards downscaling the violence.
So mark it up as one fateful opportunity missed for bringing about change that we could believe in. And the ominous dynamic of the domestic political backlash has only just begun.
Hawks like McCain, and the politicized big players among the Pentagon brass like Petraeus and McKiernan, now publicly accuse the Obama team of practicing dangerous "incrementalism" if the White House does not escalate fast enough into a "sustained substantial committment." This sets in motion the same whipsaw effect that steadily pushed JFK and LBJ deeper and deeper into southeast Asia in the early 60's despite the bloody handwriting scrawled clearly on the wall.
Thus, on the home front the table is neatly set. And the best and brightest of the Obama inner circle brain trust selected the flatware just last week.
Meanwhile over there, factions within Pakistani ISI manipulate the various, ever shifting tribal, regional, ethnic, and ideological factions in the local dogfight from the shadows. Our political classes in turn chatter on about the looming existential threat posed to the governments in Kabul, Islamabad, and Washington DC itself by some globalized mish mash of swarthy boogeymen labeled "Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked Islamist insurgents."
I don't like the looks of this one bit.
Bill from Saginaw
...agreement... except that the Taleban are certainly high on opium and oblivious to shallow concerns. The Taleban are the homeless in your neighborhood if they had guns, a unifying religious zeal, and unlimited opium. The Taleban are everywhere. Think Israeli's, Mossad, and Ecstasy, the Israeli drug of choice.
The nutjobs are everywhere!
One man's infidel is another's freedom fighter.
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Barack Obama has not taken over the US government yet. He has allowed psychopathic Bush trolls to run the military operation. He said he'd close Guantanamo first thing and he hasn't even taken over the base. I mean George Bush literally had Republicon political trolls literally running the operation in Iraq. They were there on the ground although the press largely failed to report this. Bush had full control of the government and knew what was going on. Obama needs to show that he really cares about the people who are being held in this torture facility(it is an act of horrendous torture merely to keep them in Guantanamo after all this time). He needs to relocate them to a proper facility in the mainland USA and process them out to freedom. It was clearly proven that the torture techniques employed by Bush were designed to solicit FALSE confessions. These techniques were designed and used by the Chinese for precisely that reason. The bush administration wanted false confessions as part of their efforts to cover up 9/11 which was entirely orchestrated to create a "new Pearl harbor" to justify the many trillions of dollars of theft of our nations treasury. Even if Obama is hoodwinked about the reality of 9/11 there is no excuse for him not to have sent a contingent of "his people" down to occupy Guantanamo and effectively take over it's administration and conduct an investigation. THERE ARE MANY TOP FBI WHO HAVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE THAT WERE HORRIFIED BY WHAT BUSH DID HE COULD PULL FROM!!
The false conclusion that this evil act called the SURGE was successful concerns me and many others that Obama doesn't have any idea of what's going on. If he cares, truly cares, then he should consult experts in the NGO community and people in our great universities that understand that imprisonment(which Obama continues in Iraq) and torture of the population doesn't win anything in the end but hatred. Obama should have completely turned the rules of engagement in Iraq on their head and made the people of Iraq know that this US military is no longer run by the dark forces of Hell but instead Obama just turned over the control and power to Bush's people aka evil incarnate.
The great and wonderful United States of America is being run by psychopathic criminals THAT IS A FACT. They do not represent our interests, in fact quite to the contrary they are literally destroying US interests with their actions. We need better. We need to see Obama changing this ruined failed Hell into something that will change the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan into our brothers and sisters. He needs to STOP MURDERING PEOPLE!! They are not terrorists --- Bush and now Obama has turned the US military into a terrorist organization for heaven's sake. Not terrorist fighting but terrorists themselves. That is why so many soldiers are killing themselves, the military men and women are as horrified as we are. CHANGE THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT!!. Obama MUST SERVE US it is NOT OPTIONAL!!
I keep getting this really creepy feeling that the military directs the President. Both this one and the last one. Where the hell is Donald Rumsfeld now? There should be 24-7 surveillance of Rummy and Cheney.
Last I heard Cheney bought a place (office?) near Langley, Va. while keeping the house one on Maryland's eastern shore next door to Rummy. Could they still be behind the screen pulling the strings like was done during the Carter and Clinton administrations having the middle level DOD faithful sabotage things from within? Cheney and Rumsfeld are remain at-large and very dangerous. They had complete access to the Pentagon and have been far too quiet for my personal comfort. The Secret Government is back. McFarlane, Secord, Gorbanifhar, North, Poindexter.
And then of course there is the international targeted assassination unit which has not been disbanded by Cheney just because he is out of office. You can bet the whole unit is intact. And Cheney has been making some particularly public announcements regarding terrorism and may just well need to make these prophecies self-fulfilling.
A star chamber assassination unit operating inside the Pentagon and out of the reach of the President or Congress taking orders from Shotgun Dick Cheney with logistics by Rumsfeld.
Petraeus is another military hood ornament of the Empire's elite corps of conquest. Taking his marching orders from contractors. And making money in good markets and bad.
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Very interesting! I agree that even Clinton was occupied by not effectively taking over the ship. The FBI once said that you could wire tap virtually any phone in the Pentagon and find a major felony in play.
Clinton had a Republican press secretary in David Gergen. He had a war given to him by GHW Bush in Bosnia in the final hours and days of his administration. And they completely trashed the computer system before they left.
Clinton was in George H.W. Bush's pocket from the gitgo due to
Clinton's involvement in allowing the use of an National Guard airfield in southern
Arkansas for Southern Air Transport and Air America drug/money/guns
flights. Remember Gene Hasenfuss who went down in Nicaragua? Clinton sat as governor for 8 years while glocks and coke were traded in a virtual flea market in his back yard. Clinton wasn't dumb just an irresponsible child like Obama is. It is all a theatrical event for these folks.
michaelkjordan at yahoo com
http://sites.google.com/site/grandcommitteeofpublicsafety/
James Stirling & siderealm -
Maybe I'm being picky, but I think it's more accurate to say Clinton was given a war in Somalia by George HW Bush when he first took office, and the bombing of the former Yugoslavia and going into Bosnia was pretty much Clinton's own doing. I've also never been fully convinced that the stories about Clinton as Arkansas governor ingratiating himself to the CIA drug runner faction were any more true than the other tall tales about Bill and Hillary's assorted grandiose crimes (Vince Foster? Whitewater?), but it's interesting to speculate.
On your larger point, I agree entirely that part of Obama's problems lie with some really dangerous right wingers who are deeply embedded in the middle and upper echelons of the federal bureaucracy, with fraternal working relationships that date back sometimes through both Bushes even to the Reagan years. The Pentagon, CIA, NSA, DIA, and other tentacles of the military/industrial/national security establishment is where these guys thrive and survive. You are identifying a serious, post WWII structural problem within the federal executive branch of government. Ike warned us about this. It is not wholly dissimilar from the weird, shadowy, omnipresent influence the Pakistani ISI supposedly may (or may not) assert in domestic politics over in the graveyard for empires.
The Ronnie Reagan style of governance - a smiley face at the top, skilled at reading from a well crafted PR script from the Oval office, while the big decisions and big bucks are all being made behind closed doors by others well out of public view - is the much preferred GOP paradigm. Ever notice how even Dick Cheney would always bow and scrape and carry on before the media about how George W was the real decider-in-chief, his own man, the biggest cock of the walk? These power happy dark siders learned and refined their techniques during the Reagan era.
Barack Obama is a potential threat to this shadow regime - to a far greater extent than Bill Clinton ever was. Cross them, and they can take you down in a thousand different ways. Try to co-opt or compromise with them, and you get played just like Jimmy Carter.
I don't know the answer, but I think getting the full background out about 911 might be the best place to start.
Bill from Saginaw
Actually I would say a picky inaccurate and reflexively conservative Republican viewpoint. I watch the news every day and I remember this very clearly and my reaction was that GHWB was making sure that Clinton would have a mess when he assumed office. This is the Bush signature. and carries through with junior Bush.
from George H.W. Bush's October 3, 1992 Remarks on Bosnia:
(NYT)
GHWBush: "I have decided to take a number of further steps:
First, having authorized a resumption of U.S. relief flights into Sarajevo, I am prepared to increase the U.S. share of the airlift."
"Second, we will make available air and sea lift to speed the deployment of the new U.N. force needed immediately in Bosnia to protect relief convoys. The United States will also provide a hospital and other critical support for this force."
"Third, the United States will furnish $12 million in urgently needed cash to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees for the purpose of accelerating preparations for the winter. This is in addition to the $85 million in financial and material support we have already committed."
"Fourth, we will offer to the U.N. and the Red Cross help in transporting and caring for those who are being freed from detention camps. We have already provided $6 million for this purpose."
"Fifth, in cooperation with our friends and allies, we will seek a new U.N. Security Council resolution, with a provision for enforcement, banning all flights in Bosnian airspace except those authorized by the U.N. If asked by the U.N., the U.S. will participate in enforcement measures."
That Mr. Bill is a clear entrance into the affairs of the Serbs and the Bosnians fully four months before Clinton took office. It is a recent Republican rewriting of history which ignores these facts. Who are you? William Kristol?
Facts, please just facts! If you still want to continue we can address your other inaccuracy and your feelings about Bill Clinton's place in history
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Bill, this is siderealm and I still need a response. Please, facts only!
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
George H W Bush: October 3, 1992: NY Times transcript:
"All Americans, and people of compassion everywhere, remain deeply troubled by the cruel war in Bosnia and the broader turmoil in what was Yugoslavia. We took several important initiatives in August, and today I am announcing further steps to help ease the conflict."
"The United States has been working intensively with other concerned nations to contain the conflict, alleviate the human misery it is causing, and exact a heavy price for aggression."
"This international effort has produced some results. The recent London conference set up an international mechanism for addressing all aspects of the Yugoslav problems and put in motion an active negotiation. The tenuous truce in Croatia is holding. . . . The U.N. trade embargo has idled roughly half the industry of Serbia, whose leader bears heavy responsibility for the aggression in Bosnia."
"Our demand that the Red Cross be given access to detention camps has begun to yield results, and the release of detainees has now begun. The U.N. resolution we obtained to authorize "all necessary measures" to get relief supplies into Bosnia has led to the creation of a new U.N. force to be deployed for that purpose."
"We will continue to honor our pledge to get humanitarian relief to the people of Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia. To this end, I have directed the Secretary of Defense to resume American participation in the Sarajevo airlift tomorrow morning. I wish I could say that there is no risk of attack against these flights, but I cannot, although we are taking precautions. . . ."
"Still, the savage violence persists in Bosnia. Despite agreements reached at the London conference, Bosnian cities remain under siege, the movement of humanitarian relief convoys is still hazardous, and innocent civilians continue to be slaughtered. At London, the parties agreed to a ban on all military flights over Bosnia. Yet the bombing of defenseless population centers has actually increased."
"This flagrant disregard for human life and for a clear agreement requires a response from the international community, and we will take steps to see that the ban is respected."
"Now, a new enemy is about to enter the battlefield: winter. Some weeks ago, I asked for an assessment of the effects that the combination of war and winter could inflict on the suffering people of Bosnia. The answer was profoundly disturbing: thousands of innocent people . . . could perish from cold, hunger, and disease."
"Anticipating this danger, the United States has been working with other nations and with the U.N. to mount a major expansion of the international relief effort and to support the tireless negotiations of U.N. and E.C. envoys, Cyrus Vance and David Owen, to get the fighting stopped. . . ."
Please DO NOT ever tell anyone that Bosnia, Serbia, and Herzegovina were the work of Clinton. It is just false historical revisionism.
Republicans will do anything to dupe you. Learn how to search the news through Google and face them off every step of the way!
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
EXCELLENT work, Mr. Jordan! Thank you SO much. While it seems that ever more so, as time goes by and we learn the truth, the Clinton years were not what they appeared to have been, I have never for one second not believed that the machinations going on were being masterminded by none other than the pedophiliac monster that calls itself George HW bush.
The roots of this plot go back further than the animated corpse, raygun, back further than the end of the Eisenhower administration when "they" were so cock sure that their cretin pal Milhouse Nixon would get into office and implement their plans for a NWO. Back to when the senator from Connecticut during WW2, Prescott bush and his henchmen attempted a coup to oust FDR.
Yes, HW bush was in Dallas on 23 November of 1963. Yes, at that time he had an uncanny physical resemblence to stooge Oswald. Yes, he was working to fulfill his traitorous father's "prescott" coup, just as the eldest odious son worked to continue his.
JFK beat out Milhouse- we know what happened to him. Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford (who they were actively trying to supplant with Nelson Rockefeller), and we know how they handled him. Through fabulous monetary enrichment, and/or threat of assassination, Bill Clinton was "triangulated" after beating the first bush. We know that they took the desparate measures of stealing TWO elections to keep the inferior bush in place. Now that Barack Obama has come to office, we see that he is taking the Clinton route in order to $$$tay alive, rather than be humiliated and disparaged, a la Jimmy Carter, and to keep his head on his shoulders, unlike what happened to JFK (and his brother Robert, AND his son, John Jr.)
In order to be human, one must possess some elements of humanity. These creatures do not, and therefore are other than human beings. Often, the work of our "federal government" is compared to steering a huge ship- "the Titanic does not turn on a dime". These dirty bastard mutha fuquas have been steering subtly in their intended direction for DECADES to get us where we are now.
The future is here, the time is now. Time for MAJOR mutiny because they DO fear our numbers, our potential for demonstrable "anger", and the possibility of the masses waking up from the stupor they have worked VERY hard to engender, and not "cooperating" like the cattle that they believe us to be. We must throw them off the ship. We must literally separate their heads from their necks. All of humanity and a future devoid of total slavery demands we do this.
Yes, WE can.
This has been going on since the beginning of time. Armed revolution is a fool's errand at every point of history. Sometimes the futility is not seen for a few centuries like in the case of the American Revolution where no sooner we shook off the tyranny of one King George, only to embrace another 200 years later. The genetic redneck core that stole the country from the "Indians" is still running the show. Thanks to Prince Philip of England the other day we find that even the best education that the world can offer is wasted on rednecks even if they are "Old World" "white trash" of "Royal" presumption.
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
"This has been going on since the beginning of time."
No doubt, that's true. Are you saying that it is an inevitable and foregone conclusion and therefore, our ultimate destiny as well as demise?
"The genetic redneck core ..."
Are you assigning that descriptor to a particular group or "race" of human beings?
History waits patiently. As many fortune tellers will tell you, "Character is Destiny". Meaning that eventually (possibly several generations) there is a noticeable adjustment in values and attitudes. This however can go either way so it can be disheartening if you are marking time chained to a prison wall.
Re: redneck core
I am speaking from experience gained directly from the people I grew up around in suburban Washington D.C., both Virginia and Maryland. There is a dumb as a mud fence obtuseness which plagues the area. I grew up in rural neighborhoods in the mountains where a couple of pimply whites would take a shotgun on a Saturday night at midnight to a High's Ice Cream Store and stick the barrel into the female clerks mouth and pull the trigger. If you get off the main road of America you might find anything; and never on the news unless it involves a dozen people. If you want to know the full extent of this madness through literature I would recommend Hubert Selby (60's) or Cormac McCarthy (contemporary).
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Cool. I enjoy your posts and find them quite valuable and insiteful.
This is looking more like Vietnam every day. Susan Collins: " How will we know if we are winning ". What kind of a facile and sophomoric question is that? A person that is not part of the crime family would ask: Why are we escalating this unwinnable war with more troops? What the hell are we doing there in the first place? During the false flag in the Gulf of Tonkin, the entire criminal, Senate voted to give President Johnson the carte blanche to kill 55,000 of our brave, patriots and another 2 million Asians, with the exception of Senator Gruening of Alaska and Senator Morse of Oregon; Susan---- when that vote is reversed, then the American people will know we are winning!
Listen to my radio show with Ray McGovern:
Obama's Vietnam
http://www.cindysheehanssoapbox.com/LISTEN.html
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to every one striking at the root" HD Thoreau
Cindy,
The one with Ray Mcgovern would only play the intro.
But I am listening to your program with David Swanson... Sounds great!
Did you download the media player?
thanks
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to every one striking at the root" HD Thoreau
It is working now... I just went back to it and I am listening to the Obama's Viet Nam
Thanks
Back in the days before the election, when hope abounded, Obama supporters, like Michael Moore and Norman Solomon, were asked about his talk of escalating the war in Afghanistan. Their answer was, "well let's hope that's one campaign promise he will break". Promises are easily broken when it comes to the voters, but you sure as hell don't break promises to the Pentagon War Party.
MIC + Congressional War Party + Invasion/occupations = US economy
Anybody think that this military, the largest by far in this world, whose job is war, who attain advancement, respect and Glory through war, is ever going to tell Obama, or even any president twenty-five years from now: this situation is bleeped at the root . . . GET OUT! LOL! Progress! Light at the end of the tunnel! Progress at the end of the light! The Afghan military will be forever just a few years away from taking over from the Gringos. Only the American people can get us out of there and right now they're understandably not interested. So the bloody charade will continue, possibly for years or even decades, until some future president, who is now just entering his/her teenage years, tells this country we simply can't afford it anymore and does anybody remember what we were doing there to begin with? Ho hum.
And meanwhile the contracts, and the deaths and the children who will grow up to hate us. But hey, did I mention the contracts?
Joe
they'll grow up to hate us. really? how sad. Listen Joe, I don't know if anyone has told you yet, but the u.s. has been trying very hard for 8 years to prevent the children of Afghanistan from growing up at all. And those who have been lucky enough to stay alive so far have been robbed of their childhood, and know very little beyond fear and hunger.
How do you spell "quagmire? A-F-G-H-A-N-I-S-T-A-N
Stop calling this country a quagmire. Difficult as it may be for you to grasp, this is an old country with a history, several cultures and languages, and many very nice people. Because your stupid armed forces have chosen to try to bomb it into the stone age you have no right to reduce it to the dimensions of only your own stupid failures, to try to define it as a thing you got lost in rather than the millions of fine people it is. Millions of fine people trying desperately to avoid your stupid bombs.
You misunderstand the term I fear. Quagmire when referring to this military venture means that our troops will go in ever increasing numbers and accomplish nothing but slaughter. There is no slur of Afghanistan inherent in the use of that word.
For an intelligent man our new President seems unable to understand the simplest of concepts; that when we attack, the Taliban or AlQaeda or whoever, will simply slip back into Pakistan where we cannot find him.
no i do not misunderstand it. i know it refers to this stupid "military venture". Tnat is my point. I want you all to stop thinking only about what happens to those troops who should never have been sent there in the first place, and start thinking about Afghanistan, and the people, and the little kids who are getting killed.
Sadly,
That is definitely where the rubber meets the road. It is still uncomfortably abstract to be sitting here in the still comfortable U.S. when our drones are killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan but comfortable folks like our president Obama seem content to play to the money. Cynics and careful observers warned us regarding this but we still thrill to the clarion of military power focused on the indefensible.
Semper Fi!
michael jordan
http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/
Bribes and ethnic cleansing make Petraeus a hero. Let's give him the highest medal.
I'm not sure if young Obama is ignorant (of some things) as Chavez says or if he is changing, sucking up to join the oligarchy and selling out the peaceful libs, the fearful poor and middle classes and the raging conservative left that elected him. If he is, I can't say that I blame him. All he gets from his electorate is grief, while joining Mammon has huge perks.
There is BIG Money involved in these War's and Now that Obama is part of the Military Industrial Complex he is looking to make a hell of a lot of money himself (let's see how much money Obama is going to be worth once he is out of office, I bet it will be a lot of money!) - And he is going to make a lot of money for others involved - like his new Chicago based mercenary group (similar to Blackwater aka XE).
Obama is a HOAX! Plain and simple.
He is Not going to End any Wars - He is simply transferring troops out of Iraq (except for the 50,000 he plans to leave there) and send them to Afghanistan (the next 'NAM).
But I guess all he has to do is smile and spit out some rhetoric and all the Obamabots out there will melt and forget about the WAR - forget about the American Tax Payers Dollar being Embezzled to the Bankster Elites and the Military Industrial Complex Elites - etc.
Well, we did have some True American Leaders running during the Primaries, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul & Cynthia McKinney - but I guess they didn't have that same shinning smile as Mr. Barack Obama possesses. Hm, maybe next time.
visit my blog @ http://enemyartistkristofer.blogspot.com
Maybe out of this mess there could evolve a new 3rd party TRUTH JUSTICE AND PEACE FORCE.
Kucinich, Ron Paul & Cynthia McKinney would all be needed to build it and of course we need to get Chicago involved
......big time.
Now that would be the TRUE American party - Defenders of the Constitution, Liberty & Peace!
http://enemyartistkristofer.blogspot.com
That would be good, but I would include the ex Senator from Alaska that was marginalized in the debates.
Yes!
Ralph, Cindy Sheehan.. so many here that could get us there and maybe even the Greens would want to build a coalition so that we could unite on getting truth, justice and peace for once.
We will have Won when we are no longer There!
The dear Senator might feel like she's a "winner" if none of her kids are in Afghanistan, ever.
Let the Pipeliners and the Drug Lords use their own children to get what they want.
Nothing there is worth one American life.
no u.s. "interests" are worth one Afghan life.