Well,well,well--does this crap sound familiar--remember the 06 elections these are the same bastards that f....d us over the last time. Fool me once shame on you--you miserable b......s have had your chances--now we will have ours--see you in DC--anybody need a ride?

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
2.1 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2.2 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
2.3 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
2.4 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The fantsy pantsies get 'antsy'! Whoo! This is a big opposition to the Republicans war making, isn't it? Oh... I meant' Barack Obama's war making.

Well, Obama said that he would make mistakes, and it is the duty of his supporters to point them out to him. Perhaps it is time to remember John Kerry's seminal question during the Vietnam War: "How do you ask someone to be the last person to die for a mistake?" A question which he apparently forgot to ask in 2004, but which was as applicable then as it is now.

Does anybody seriously believe that this latest spate of "congressional concern" is anything more than a CYA exercise in PR pettifoggery?

The Democrats have majorities in both houses of Congress and occupy the White House and not only is ending the mid-east wars of aggression off the table, so is rejecting increased funding and committment to its madness.

Pipelinestan must be built starting next year becasue the multinational consortiums whose interests Washington DC and "its" (as oppossed to "our")military are pledged to serve say so.

Troops and equipment must stay in Afghanistan and Iraq because, well, how better to stage an invasion, occupation, and regime change in Iran than by being able to invade them from both sides?

One year from now there will be more military deployed to AFPAK and IRAQRAN and more people will have been slaughtered for no reason more noble than the bottom lines of the petroleum businesses and their speculator's further control of available energy reserves.

Don't be surprised if another false flag event like 911 is concocted to rally the home front for the latest round of attrocities getting set to happen.

Poet

This is an example of clear thinking in Congress:

"What I am saying is — and I'm saying it carefully but, I hope, clearly — that we should complete the planned number of additional combat forces that are planned to go in for this year," Levin said, "but that what we must do if we're going to succeed in Afghanistan is to focus on the strength of the Afghan military forces and to do it in a way that we have not yet done it."

With clarity like this, who needs confusion?

We don't hold them accountable and they know it!

I hope the 'ants' eat them alive and then walk across the aisle and continue dining.

I am coming to understand why so many in the USA don't vote. I voted for Obama mostly because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, and plan to reform Health Care. I was concerned about his words about increasing troops to Afghanistan, but hoped that it wouldn't be a long term thing. Now, I find him disappointing on every level. A recent poll said that a majority disapproved of Obama's handling of health care. I would actually have been part of that, because, by claiming that the public option is only a sliver of the plan, and completely abandoning the single payer option, he has betrayed the reason I voted for him.

And, sending thousands of more troops (on what, their 10th deployment?) to Afghanistan, that has pretty much completed my disillusionment with Obama. I'm not sorry I voted for him, as McCain-Palin could not have been better, but I am sorry to see Obama folding on so many issues that I trusted him to champion.

The Hartford Advocate Newspaper in Ct, had a picture of
Afghanistan with the Pipe line showing where it is proposed.
The reporter has been missing ever since..
Whey can't Obama show us the Pipe-Line??
Maybe people will support the oil interests again...like Iraq.

We should get out of Afghanistan the same way we got in unilaterally and pronto, as this isn't at all about democracy nor any other high sounding ideals or values but about imperialism for the benefit of big time US power elites, and very wealthy ones at that. Let them fight their own damn wars. As my paternal grandfather said about another war, "This is a rich man's war and poor man's fight."

AD

Democrats growing antsy over a war? Why, the checks from Blackwater and Halliburton didn't clear?

There's nothing the War Party wouldn't like better than to escalate Afghanistan so they could cash in as much as the Republicans during Iraq and 8 years of Bush, don't pay attention to this "antsy" crap. There's a lot of war cash to be made during the 8 years of Obama and a Democratic congress.

Weighing whether not to increase U.S. Forces (A) is not the same as deciding to withdraw U.S. Forces (B). The president and this country's cuckoo-bird warrior community (one tires of calling them "hawks" since hawks are sleek and have good eyesight) need to switch their heads from (A) to (B).

The most disgusting apologist for the Aflac war is a person who said on national radio that the idea of complete, immediate withdrawal is "immensely seductive." His implication that it is not also "immensely sound and the only reasonable course of action" is patently ridiculous.

Anyone who still supports this war after eight sterile years needs to present some clear reasons for their position. This will prove impossible since they're aren't any.

Unfortunately, the only necessary action needed to be taken in Afghanistan, after 9/11, was to find and destroy Al Qaida and their financier, and leader, Osama ben Laden. Instead, Bush invaded Iraq. History will judge the stupidity of that war.

Today, this war against insurgents, which is unwinnable and questionably necessary, continues in a land of pastoral peoples with a burgeoning government. It is true that the Taliban is like a brain cancer in Afghanistan. Military warfare will not treat it affectively but the patient is too primitive to understand the ailment. It is the Taliban that are thinking of nation building. Unfortuantely, for the simple people of Afghanistan, that would be the nation from hell and could pose serious issues for American, if not World, security.

Putting our foot in and out of Afghanistan will not work. Rather than placing more military in the country, if we want to continue our presence for surveillance of Al Qaida activities and to excise the Taliban, we should send aid. Aid, in the form of the humanitarian efforts of education (build schools), health (build clinics), and some military training of a very rudimentary governmental police force. The only way to help Afghanistan grow is to assist in their development. Their development is necessary lest they continue to be little more than a haven for such as the likes of Al Qaida and the Taliban. This is a very poor, and as I said, pastoral, country. When they decide to become a nation, post education, it will be because they have the heart to do so. Until then, we are like a mouse pushing an elephant toward water. Better to encourage the beast to move on its own.

America's leadership needs to think outside the box on so many of today’s current issues. This one in particular. We cannot sustain activity in Afghanistan, financially or with the bodies of our young soldiers, but morally we cannot abandon them either. We can only hope our leadership will think outside the box and figure this out for both America and Afghanistan.

Maybe, those questioning U.S. Taxpayers are remembering our sorry lessons of Viet Nam; as well as, the Russian disasters in Afghanistan.

No Foreign armies can ever win and hold the "ground" in a land war in Afghanistan. The insane idea of "holding" these worthless mountains seems to have mesmerized the NeoCons who have controlled the Bush Administration.

Smart move is to totally remove our troops from ground combat, and occupation. Rain death down on all Taliban and Al-Qaida forces as they try to move into the country. Let the Afghan "government" and their warlords try to control the "ground".

A similar Plan "B" might work in Iraq....use our Air Super-Power/Star wars weapons to zap the "bad guys".

.

No escalation! End the occupation!
No escalation! End the occupation!

Heaven forbid Congress actually formulates its own policy.

As another poster wrote recently it is 200,000 more troops on the 20,000 more troops installment plan.

How is sending in more combat troops a change in strategy more deaths is just more of the same policy.

And training more Northern Alliance troops to crush the Pastun resistence is just creating a worse civil war after the USA withdrawal.

Look at the great shape Iraq is in. What are the USA troops doing in Iraq now? Recreating until they invade Iran?

Also please people get out of your USA superiority thinking.

Afghanistan was not any worse and in some ways better than than the USA before the Russian invasion to crush the foundamentalists and landlords armed by the USA rebelling against a socialist government attempting to implement womens rights and agrarian reform.

Take an objective look at the Taliban and Neocons and see how the Regime which stole the last two elections in the USA has done more damage to Humankind than the Taliban could ever do.

USA state department employs pimps the Taliban eliminated pimps.

The USA destabilized Afghanistan after the Taliban stabilized and brought law and order and a sessation of murder and rape much of it by Northern alliance militias.

And the Taliban almost eliminated poppy cultivation where as USA convoys drive in tandem with Chemical Tanker Trucks transporting the precursor for Heroin from Pakistan.

The neocons are responsible for the deaths of 100,000s of Iraqi's Afghans Pakistanis and Somalians. Many times more than the Taliban killed in ending the civil war.

The neocons have destroyed the USA economy whereas the Taliban are true nationalists and only want what they believe is best for their people.

That said the short comings of the Taliban could easily have been altered through diplomacy( they did meet Bush in Crawford) and cooperated in poppy reduction and could have implemented womens rights reform.

What happened pre USA invasion is the USA tried to contact moderate Taliban through the ISI and the ISI turned around and informed the extreme Taliban which Talibs were speaking to the USA thus causing the moderates to be murdered.

Thus a failure of intelligence lead to an invasion and occupation.

And as many realize AlQaeda did and does need a police action to be eradicated.

Interesting, congress ignores it's criminality in this war crime and worries only about re-elections.

These Muslim-Afghan Guerillas are overcome with joy, anticipating another demoralized, infidel-army, crawling anxiously through haunted, mined, mountain passes. The Americans tread wearily, as military incarnations, over the bloodstains of sacrificed, foreign intruders. The spirits of British, Russian, and ancient Greek soldiers are strewn along the ravines.

We are being seduced into a rehearsed, 'asymetric' guerilla war. Afghans appropriate the mountains and ravines to themselves, exclusively.
Like Alpine Switzerland, the terrain is remote and detached, beyond the spiritual
grasp of foreigners.

They have designed a blueprint entitled: "Death by a thousand knife-cuts." We are reliving the Vietnamese nightmare, with the same American strategists who engineered the Indo-China catastrophe.

This harsh sacrifice accords with Muslim doctrine. It marks a clearly described act of 'infidel'-retribution, intended to defy, or undermine the West. Additionally, this vindicates Koranic scripture, and bolsters the claims of Muslims.
Paradoxically perhaps, the American Armies are unwittingly validating the controversial aspects of Islamic theology.

In practice, this cataclysmic wish has assumed prominence within the primary, desired prayers of the world's Muslim population. It is safe to say that, Allah, their deity, is endlessly sought in their quest for strength, courage, or wisdom. He represents a created, "Moral High Ground." This is a spiritually derived absolute. Victory for Muslims,depends on this assumption.

Cultural degradation, resulting from decades of Western imperialism, has resulted in a long-delayed, seismic, political revolt. The cultural trauma has yet to heal, the wounds lay open and exposed, to this day.

Islamic culture, I suppose, could cite good reasons for retaliation, or at least compensation, through scriptural interpretation, or clues. If the west disagrees, it would be irrelevant to Muslims. They are confident in their ancient, spiritual ideology.

Their world-view defines the Capitalist-materialist world as a clever, or sadistic void, and trap.

I heard the news today, oh boy--seems that many of us are saying the same thing as public enemy #1 OBL--he has declared that it is the Israeli/corporations that are responsible for us wasting our monies/blood in Iraq/Afgh--now that makes us all supporters of OBL--are you sure Carl Rove isn't working with BHO? WTF is going on here?

Imagine, it turns out that -
- immoral wars to force new puppet regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan are failing
- terrorists recruiting and activity are up since we decided blowing up civilians was the way to kill terrorists, rather than trials of people we can prove are guilty, and discredit
- taxpayers are tired of being told every useful government program is too expensive, but no war is ever too expensive
- torture yields bad public relations worldwide and REALLY bum 'intelligence' on the terrorists
- a swindle based economy crashes regularly
- etc.

HOW COULD ANYONE HAVE PREDICTED THIS?

oh, wait everyone did who didn't let their short term greed override any rational thought

Carl Levin, alias "The Hobit". He’ll be on Charlie Rose tonight. I’m certain Carl thinks he’s too important speak to anyone lower than Charlie Rose. He probably demanded 60 Minutes buy nobody wanted to talk to the little bore, so he settled. This way he can deny any interviews with reporters because he'll say he said all he's going to say to Charlie. Charlie will do his thing. Give the Hobit a script of questions and let him mumble on, only disclosing what he’s comfortable mumbling on about. Carl's comfort level only spans out to other those who fit in the category of "other older distinguished Jewish men", and a handful of African Americans to act as bodyguards and spy’s. Everyone else, keep your distance.

It is very important for the American people to see their leaders appear to be antsy about Afghanistan. In the end they will approve the surge. There is no other way.

We are entering a decades-old, civil war in Afghanistan, like Vietnam.

Our leaders have again dragged us into a lose-lose war.
If congress wants to end this insanity, they could simply tie the purse-strings.

The "mission'
has not been defined, let alone an exit-strategy. The troops are obviously going insane from stress and endless war. A draft would effect a monumental, anti-war backlash, so the congress won't discuss it.

None of the Dems/Repubs apparently care about the young soldiers. The troops are being routinely destroyed psychologically, or killed in battle, or handicapped, or maimed. This is terrorism against our own patriots. Osama Bin Laden, the foremost terrorist, could not have imagined a more extreme punishment.

Military related suicides have skyrocketed, without notice by MSM. Isn't this worthy of modern journalism? MSM has degenerated into propaganda, and should be universally boycotted. MSM is a fraud and a lie itself.

If the Dems/Repubs had family members fighting in the wars, they may re-scrutinize policy, or perhaps not. The politicians should rightly be the first men sent directly into battle, as the county's 'leaders.' That would gauge their underlying commitment, [or lying commitment.]

This will never happen because they are cardboard-frauds, or paper-tigers.
They appear more interested in their interns, or mistresses, than the young soldiers in the jaws of death.