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Authors of Iraq War Push Obama on Afghanistan
The neoconservatives who provided the intellectual foundation for the war in Iraq convened on Monday to make a renewed push for the current administration to pursue greater military engagement in Afghanistan.
US Marines keep watch on a hilltop during a patrol in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on September 21. (AFP/David Furst) Hours after it was reported that military officials are advising
President Obama to send up to 40,000 more American troops to the
eight-year-long war, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt
Romney joined the intellectuals at the Foreign Policy Initiative forum
to declare any future policy debate moot.
"This is not the time for Hamlet in the White House," said Romney, mocking President Barack Obama's appeal for more time to decide the best course forward for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
"Hopefully he has had the time to deal with the issue of Afghanistan," Romney added. "He will make the decision, which is called for by as great a team of military minds that has ever been assembled for a conflict like this... This team is unanimous. They have developed a strategy that is consistent with his principles. How in the world can he at this stage be saying what he is saying?"
Speaking before the FPI -- a group headed by many of the chief intellectual authors of the war in Iraq, including The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, renowned neocon Robert Kagan, and former adviser to the Coalition in Iraq Dan Senor -- Romney's remarks were filled with other carefully-worded criticisms of Obama's foreign policy. The president had shown himself to be "a reluctant and timid defender of freedom," was pursuing a "dramatic" and "revolutionary" departure from previous approaches to global affairs and was alienating our allies in an effort to placate emerging international forces, argued the former Massachusetts governor argued.
"All politicians are in love with love," Romney said of the alleged "neutrality" that Obama had brought to U.S. diplomatic relations. "I think it flows in part from the sense that is growing in a lot of foreign policy circles that America is in decline. And that is inevitable that other great nations will surpass America and therefore the job of the president of the US should be to manage America through decline and make sure that we are in good stead with the Chinese and the Russians and these other contenders."
And yet, for all the foreign policy machismo and rhetorical platitudes offered by Romney, a countervailing truth seemed to temper his and others remarks. On the topic of Afghanistan, Obama and the neocons are far closer to one another than they are apart. The president, to date, has pursued policies that even former rivals like Sen. John McCain, (R-A.Z.) and Lindsey Graham, (R-S.C.) have cheered.
At an earlier panel at the FPI forum, the president was urged once more to follow the recommendations that his top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, laid out in a 66-page assessment of the situation in that country.
"The primary objective [in Afghanistan] is to protect the United States" from another 9/11," said Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican Senatorial candidate in Illinois. My job, Kirk added, is to "make sure that everyone in [Chicago's] Sears Tower can come home tonight."
But others were more accommodating of the president's desire for deliberation, noting the need to build up public support for the endeavor and the long-term implications of any additional troop commitment.
"The support of the American people is the center of gravity for the next ten years," said Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, USA (Ret.). Given the extent of the commitment hoped for, this "is going need some deliberation," Kimmitt said, "we don't want to see a rush to failure."
42 Comments so far
Show AllThis would be the perfect time for Obama to say Ok we are sending in what is required to End the war and the timetable will be before we get booted out!
Well, this is just a cartoon.
To paraphrase some lyrics to a Doors' song, "The time for triangulation is through/there's no time to wallow in the mind/try and we can only lose and our war become a funeral pyre. . ."
Jim Morrison was something else. Oh, I know you knew Jim Morrison, and I'm no Jim Morrison."
Spam filter coming through. Gee, I sure am getting to be a connoisseur of spam. It must be my working class background.
Hey, I got spam/you got spam/all God's children got spam/we gonna put that spam out all over this world/'cause all God's children got spam."
AD
To paraphrase some lyrics to a Doors' song, "The time for triangulation is through/there's no time to wallow in the mind/try and we can only lose and our war become a funeral pyre. . ."
Jim Morrison was something else. Oh, I know you knew Jim Morrison, and I'm no Jim Morrison."
AD
Republican Rep. Mark Kirk claim that liberal neoconservative Barack Obama must remain in Afghanistan in order to insure that "another 9/11" does not occur at Chicago's Sears Tower is another example of fear and hysteria at its finest. One has to wonder what is worse, Kirk's belief that the fearsome terrorists are now entrenched in Afghanistan instead of Pakistan, his apparently misguided notion that the Taliban were somehow connected to 9/11/01 or his insistence, like Obama, that al-Qaeda was supposedly behind the attacks of that day even though the FBI has refused to place bin Laden on their Most Wanted List because they do not have "enough hard evidence to connect him to the attacks of 9/11".
Given the fact that Obama seems eager to demonstrate that he is just as militant as his ideologically like minded colleagues the neoconservatives, it would be quite surprising indeed if Obama decided not to emulate another Democratic president of the past named Lyndon Baines Johnson by sending in even more troops which can then become bogged down in that quagmire called Afghanistan [or as Daniel Ellsberg calls it [Vietnamistan].
Don't hold your breath for this American's commitment, General. What is it with you guys-- McCain cheers hostilities in Afghanistan, his buddy Lindsey Graham cheers the same, as we continue to botch war after war that we should never engaged in in the first place. Maybe we Americans just plain get a kick out of killing people. Hawks of any kind, chicken or war, are angry men scapegoating the rest of the world to satisfy their own blood lust. As for you, Obama, what can I say?--mistake after mistake-- it's just too much.
"Intellectual foundation for the war in Iraq"??? That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. These people are more like intellectual midgets. First of all, anyone planning a new attack on the U.S. has, as likely as not,long ago moved out of Afghanistan. Second, their dreaming that the U.S. can and should roam the world smiting enemies for imagined or vaporous reasons, is pure anti-intellectual drivel, and third, thinking you can stop America's decline with bullets is more of the same.
Exactly right! Lies upon lies upon more lies, forgeries and domestic propaganda are completely bereft of any intellectualism.
Actually, Obama will eventually send the troops. If he knows what's good for him. One only has to think back to Dallas in 1963 to see what happens to presidents who don't play ball with the MIC. I'm quite sure that Obama has been "reminded" of this since the call for troops went out.
If not, I'm sure the MIC will find Pres. Biden a good deal more attentive...
I wish that "miltary minds" was just an oxymoron but it isn't. Asking their opinion though, is like asking the Hells Angels for the solution to the "drug problem".
When did a manure pile have an intellectual foundation?
from this article: "The primary objective [in Afghanistan] is to protect the United States" from another 9/11," said Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican Senatorial candidate in Illinois."
Really? What about this:
"Every official we questioned about the possibility of an invasion of Afghanistan said that it was almost unthinkable, absent a provocation such as 9/11." - The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004 (p 137)
and...
"Officials we interviewed flatly said that neither Congress nor the American public would have supported large-scale military operations in Afghanistan before the shock of 9/11 - despite repeated attacks and plots, including the embassy bombings, the Millennium plots, concerns about Al Qaeda to acquire WMD, the USS Cole, and the summer 2001 threat spike. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz warned that it would have been impossible to get Congress to support sending 10,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan to do what the Soviet Union failed to do in the 1980s. Vice Admiral Scott Fry, the former operations director for the JCS, noted that “a two-or-four division plan would require a footprint [troop level] and force that was larger than the political leadership was willing to accept.” - 9/11 Commission The Military: Staff Statement No 6, 2004 p.12
and...
"To be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan, but for what happened on September 11.” – Tony Blair (July 2002)
***from this article***: "But others were more accommodating of the president's desire for deliberation, noting the need to build up public support for the endeavor..."
Busted.
Ghandighost
Extremely well stated.
Of course, even according to the official conspiracy theory, the evil-doers trained extensively in Florida---not Afghanistan....BOMB FLORIDA!
The silliness that passes for public discourse in the United States would be funny...if it didn't have such deadly consequences.
Whether it's Pakistan or Afghanistan the republicans know that we are sick of these occupations down to the deepest part of our souls--if they can get someone to be stupid enough to continue on this destructive course, their chances go way up to regain control of this farce we call the government of the united states--the people who got this country into this mess are the ones that know what a quagmire it is--they now realize that the citizens are fed up and are starting to rebel--it's over--fold the hand and move away from the table. The bottom line is this: If we the American people feel such hatred against these occupations of other peoples land --just imagine how much the victims and the rest of the world feel about this shit. There will never be peace or security until there is Justice.
"As great a team of military minds that has ever been assembled"? And this team includes Bill Kristol?? Hey, doesn't that say it all?
I thank the Congressman for reminding me not to shop at the Willis (Sears) Tower...or to contimue subsidizing any part of the war between those who own and lease in the Willis Tower and their mafia rivals...damn...I'm low on fuel...have to find alternative to this.
This article speaks to the root of Afghanistan's US occupation; Israel.
Why we are there, or, what put us/keeps us there if you like; Israel.
Kristol, Kagan. Zionism. Pipelines, yes, they carry and transmit spin well.
Neoconservative means attacking Islam. The FPI, AIPAC's incarnation since it stained it's name, w/ McCain & Kristol, was screeching for a heavier US presence in AfPak many months ago.
If Panama had been Palestine, Latin America would be desecrated by Jews and under full scale attack by US military forces. Terrorists would habla Espanol, not plot in Arabic.
We need a 2-state now.
It's remarkable how quickly 0bama's rightism has pushed the Republicans even further to the right. 0 has beaten even Cheney-Bush at expanding war, escalating Afghanistan and Pakistan while only pretending to withdraw from conflict in Iraq.
With no moderate in office to play against, with the Democrats in office following their policies almost to the letter, they get to or have to drift right to distinguish themselves.
Al Qaeda is a bogeyman.
See the documentary "Power of Nightmares"
Unfortunately, the foreign policy actions of the last 8 years has caused their bogeyman to gain a foothold in reality. how convenient
Vernn:
Thanks so much for the reference to "Power of Nightmares"...it's like a Rosetta Stone to the obfuscations of the Neocons! It will be our next film on movie night at my church (yes, I get the irony that religion was one of the control organs advocated by Leo Strauss...he didn't know my church).
Peace,
mattcourtman@hotmail.com
Give Americans health care reform including the government option, then we can talk about your new extedned war.
I say new because , we all know now, according to the big brass at the pentegon, we have been fighting the wrong kind of war for the last 8 years.
So now we need another 200 billion a year for the next 8 years to fight with a new stratagy.
Give the military industrial complex and the neocons thier due, they played America like a violin concerto.
Part one , War in Afphganistan, part two war in Iraq, part three, new war in Afghanistan.
Kick in fear mongering, the Patriot Acts to spy on everyone and keep them at bay using the stazi right wing nation wide spy network, and corporate medias faliure to expose this mess for what it really is, a Fascist take over of America, not a socialized take over.
Hitler did it best, and the neocons learned all to well, if you tell a lie over and over, it is soon accepted as the truth by the masses of stupid, brain dead people.
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/09/21/us-blames-irans-quds-force-for-afghan-failures/
Here we go!!
McCrystal now claims the reason Nato and US forces are losing ground in Afghanistan is that Iran is supporting the Taliban.
Yep! Iran is the same country that once backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. They despised the Taliban but now apparently are sending those mystical "quds" forces to help them out.
I can only infer from this that Iran now controls Pakistan as it well known The Taliban retreat into the border areas there rather then Iran.
This follows Israeli claims that Iran has taken over Hizbollah.
No doubts we will soon learn Iran is the country behind the trouble in Yemen, Somalia, the Sudan and are likley backing revolutanries in The Honduras, Venezuala and Bolivia.
Just look for a country that is trying to take control of its resources and force the Corporations out and you will find the nefarious hand of Iran and their Quds!
They can do ALL this with with a budget of under a Billion dollars a year.
Who says Governments can not be efficient? These guys are doing it all for less then what the USA pays Blackwater!!
And there are bogeymen already lined up after Iran! Venezuela/South America! North Korea! Russia! China! But WE are not bogeymen with our black ops and black waters and black intentions.
"On the topic of Afghanistan, Obama and the neocons are far closer to one another than they are apart." ... This should be our immediate concern.
Well, good thing OBAMA is President, isn't it ... and ETERNAL WAR in the Middle East
change the name from the WAR ON TERROR to Now OBAMA's WAR FOREVER!
WAKE UP People- OBAMA LIED To YOU!
They Are Going to CONTINUE to Send Troops to The Middle East and NEVER END WAR!!!
How COme All you Hypocrites were out on the Streets chanting Anti-War under Bush?
But now that Obama is in Office, you give Up? It's Okay to Be in WAR Forever and Be TAXED higher as long as it is OBAMA killing Our Soldiers and Murdering Middle Eastern People.
HYPOCRITES!
No Wonder Why Liberals ALWAYS Get their Asses Kicked By The Neo-COns
and Leave US LIBERTARIANS to Have to Fight against the Evils of WARS and TAX alone!
God Dang It You WIMPS! WAKE UP and JOIN US In the Fight to Get OUR Country Back!
Lets Defend OUR Constitution and Our Bill of Rights!
Lets End the WORSE Economical climate since the GREAT DEPRESSION!
Lets Turn the Water Back on in Central California so we can Grow Food, Have Jobs and Save Our State and Our Country!
Lets Take the Power Back from the NOT-So-Federal "federal" reserve
Lets Put the Monetary Power Back Into CONGRESS (article I Section 8)
Let US Say NO MORE TROOPS for WAR - NO MORE MONEY For WAR! NO ! NO! NO!
Wake the F Up People - Grow Some Balls! Lets Take BACK Our COUNTRY Now!
Libertarians sure are a confused bunch. First you want little to NO government and ESPECIALLY NO TAXES... even though EVERY money transaction can be considered a tax. Then you want to "end the 'worse economical' climate" since the Great Depression, but neglect to say how... certainly NOT through Libertarianism, which is the HappyFace of Corporatism/Fascism by another name- see Ayn Rand. Then you want to TURN THE WATER back on in central California... yes, the SOCIALIST water system. Then you want to put the monetary power back into the hands of the government; that surely is not a Libertarian ideal. I think you are all mixed up.
You complain about Obama, ok, well and good. But remember, the only Real choice finally presented to the people were Obama and McCain/Palin. And do you think McCain would be even waffling about sending armed forces anywhere? How many million soldiers would now be going to Afghanistan under a McCain? How many soldiers would be fighting Russians in Georgia? How many fighting in Iran, at the Zionists urging? How many other wars could McCain concoct? (And his economic plan on Americans would be left to the utterly contemptible and hellishly corrupt and disgustingly depraved and traitorous Phil Gramm, who helped father the Entire Current Crisis and who should instead be imprisoned for life for what he has done to America. But then, Phil Gramm is a moneygrubbing Capitalist-Pig Libertarian running with the rest of the NeoConfederate Republicans.) So what other choice was there?
Now, for sure, try and make Obama fulfill his pledges by political pressure on your Representatives in Congress (and only the Dems will even listen), despite ALL the powerful DC insiders tugging him the other way. And start RIGHT NOW with finding and recruiting a different and better choice for 2012... and it is NOT that fundie-Catholic kook Libertarian Ron Paul.
You complain about how there are no 'liberals' out in the streets AGAIN, as liberals were "under Bush"... well, it sure did SUCH a load of good the last time, didn't it! Hundreds of times more people marched Against The Wars back then, than the number of people that marched in the FAUX NEWS/Beck-Brigade March on Washington, and hundreds of thousands of times more people marched then than the number of Townhall Limbaugh-Legion Ranters that were so SUSPICIOUSLY EXTENSIVELY COVERED by the Corporate-run MSM; and yet those MILLIONS received NO CHANGE and NO RESPECT. So your plan is to do that again?
And your claim that liberals were leaving YOU LIBERTARIANS to have to fight against wars AND ESPECIALLY TAXES all by their lonesomes... what a laugh that is! I did not see them marching last time. And the libertarian view of the social structure we need at this time in history is severely wrong and morally retarded. Libertarians are by definition selfish and self-centered. Ayn Rand is their god, and Reagan one of their saints.
No, libertarianism must be fought against, as a blight upon the land. But I think most people do not know what libertarianism is... liberty sounds good, just like the Patriot Act sounds patriotic.
But on the other hand, you personally do have the right ideas... no wars, fair wages, fair trade, fair taxes, end the rule of the economy by banksters and corporate interests, take the Federal Resserve back from the banksters and use it for the benefit of the people, government relief for the people... but especially NO MORE WARS/FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS as President Washington requested. If only you would see that GOOD GOVERNMENT IS THE ANSWER, A GOOD SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT. But we have has such BAD GOVERNMENT under Republicans and have been bombarded with the right-wing propaganda war that has been waged on the American people, so much so that the very word socialism has been demonized and good government suppressed so much that people now mistrust the solutions.
And that, my friend, is what the entire right-wing corporate propaganda machine has as the goal. The deliberate confusion and dumbing-down of the American people. So they can be herded and sheared like sheep by their corporate and NeoCon masters.
We do need to keep up the demonstrations to end the wars. Wouldn't Obama need that kind of support from the American people in the face of the pressure from government insiders? In this we can celebrate common ground with libertarians.
With the tax issues, libertarians will come around once realizing dependence on corporations is hardly liberty, that we can trust ourselves to govern ourselves as we see fit.
And wouldn't it have been a different story if the pretty little neocons had had to lead the fronts in their war theaters.
"'All politicians are in love with love,' Romney said of the alleged 'neutrality' that Obama had brought to U.S. diplomatic relations. 'I think it flows in part from the sense that is growing in a lot of foreign policy circles that America is in decline. And that is inevitable that other great nations will surpass America and therefore the job of the president of the US should be to manage America through decline and make sure that we are in good stead with the Chinese and the Russians and these other contenders.'"
As if this is a BAD thing. But see the FEAR. See how LOVE (neutrality) is BAD. And why did he project this 'love' and 'sense of decline' onto foreigners?
We have been in decline as long as we have allowed fear to master us, when we have acted out of terror. How about if we stop doing that, so that we can recover from decline?
If that is how you feel about "liberals" you libetarians can go take the country back by yourself.
You think you are gonna lead the Peace movement with this shitty bravado?
Who do ya think you are talkin to, jerk.
"neoconservative and intellectual foundation"
How can those words be in the same sentence??
If The Neocons want more war, then they can finance and fight it themselves.
Wonderful image. Good idea.
Joe
These criminal neo-cons should be in prison until their trials for forgery and domestic propaganda.
"as great a team of military minds"
Yup! They're such a great team they can't defeat a handful of goat-herders with the largest, most expensive military force in the world in 8 years time. BLOODY genius' they are.
Mitt Romney = as dumb as Douglas Feith
Obama is a believer in the nwo. He takes his orders from Wall St., and Wall St. loves war.
Obama already knows he's sending more troops. His foot dragging is just a little theatre for public consumption.
Never say no to Wall Street and War. It's the American way.
So who do you prefer?
Good cop Obama wants to sit and dicker a while before sending in tens of thousands more military and CIA personnel to secure Pipelinestan on behalf of the international consortium building three pippelines and assorted transhipment terminal facilities for the movement of Central Asian oil.
Bad cop Romney (is that a swastika armband and spit-shined jack boots he's wearing?!!)wants "Operation Manhood" to go ahead full steam without delay. If it takes the depopulating of Pipeleinestan, as much money and as many troops as "we" can scare up, then that's okay because nothing must stop the flow of "our oil".
A plague on both their houses.
Poet
former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney joined the intellectuals...
-------------------
intellectuals = clown college rejects
cygnus: romney as an intellectual - that's a good one
what's next - tom delay dancing on dancing with the stars
I have no sympathy for our president on Afghanistan. By averring that Afghanistan is not a war of choice but of necessity he hoisted himself on his own petard. The Pentagon and the GOP will not let him bury that loaded sentence which was only a political ploy to get his requested funding for the AfPak war without Democratic strings attached. It is disheartening to learn by practice what I had predicted during the campaigns namely that Mr. Obama is a horrible neophyte who is stumbling over-and-over again. Perhaps the country might have been slightly better off with a President Rodham and her savvy hubby.
If President Obama does not at least give the Pentagon/GOP a few more bodies for AfPak he risks giving them a huge pile of political ammo for the 2010 and 2012 elections. Remember what Joe Biden said about Giuliani: "his sentences have one verb and 9/11". In 2010 and 2012 there will not even be a verb in the GOP's sentences. Security still sells.
Why do listen to the military exclusively for advice about whether or not we need more military involvement? Isn't this like calling up an aluminum siding salesman and saying: "Say, Bob...should I use aluminum siding...or do I need to call the paint store also?" Guess what Bob's answer will be.
Of course, this is all just a ruse. There is NO "American" objective in Afghanistan...just some private benefit to be had from the grotesque expenditure of public blood and treasure...which would be inexcusable even absent the devastation inflicted on Afghanistan and its people by our taxes.
Any suggestions on a way to get a serious national discussion on the costs and benefits of our military predations? Maybe a People's Congress?
I have just finished reading an article on Brad Blog on the Sibel Edmond testimony this August on bribery, drug trafficking and the sale of nuclear material by some pretty nefarious characters running the Bush administration. Here are just two key points, of many, that point to the lead up to the "occupation" in Iraq.
1. "Details about how the Bush Administration, including officials such as Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz [all three are dual US-Israeli citizens], were "discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country" between the U.S., Great Britain, and possibly Turkey, some four months before 9/11 occurred".
2. "Former Bush Sr. administration official Brent Scowcroft, who had become chair of the American Turkish Council (ATC), is said to have been involved in similar discussions as well prior to 9/11, along with James Baker and Richard Armitage. Scowcroft, Edmonds alleges, only came out against the Iraq War when the George W. Bush administration decided against an arrangement for a "Turkish protectorate" in northern Iraq".
It's even gets better and should be all over the MSM, but guess who owns the MSM? Full article here:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7427
dead: further reading might be found in cheney's energy task force - convened days after bushbaby took office
they drew the maps to divide iraq and pakistan, available here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Task_Force - it is a pdf so you may want to right click and save
from wiki:
The Energy Task Force, officially the National Energy Policy Development Group, was a task force created by then-president George W. Bush during his second week in office. Vice President Dick Cheney was named chairman. This group was intended to “develop a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and, as necessary and appropriate, State and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future."
The Bush Transition Energy Advisory Team, shaped the administration’s supply-side energy policy administration and was a precursor to the Energy Task Force.[2]
Most of the activities of the Energy Task Force had not been disclosed to the public, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials. The organisations Judicial Watch and Sierra Club launched a law suit (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia: Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) under the FOIA to gain access to the task force's materials. After several years of legal wrangling, in May, 2005 an appeals court permitted the Energy Task Force's records to remain secret.[4][5]
On April 4, 2001, representatives of 13 environmental groups, including Erich Pica of Friends of the Earth and Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Group, met with the Task Force (although not with Vice President Cheney personally).
Environmental groups have speculated that this meeting was an attempt to appease them, since it is reported that a draft paper had already been produced at the time of this meeting and that half of the meeting was spent on various members introducing themselves. No further meetings between the task force and the environmental groups were reported, although there had been at least 40 meetings between the task force and representatives of the energy industry and its interest groups
now we see the nwo shill obama attacking pakistan - all according to plan...
anyone who thinks that 9/11 was an act of 19 saudi boy is just plain stubborn and foolish
Fear and money rule!
These expert authorities are the same as fox news dingbats, only they use bigger words. before they were FPI they were project for a new american century and they did indeed draft the blueprint for invading Iraq, as part of a grand design to become the new american empire.
thee people are extreme right fanatics. they can print or say what they want but no one making policy in washington should listen to them. obomber has already caved in much too often to right wing extremists. he needs to find a moral compass somewhere. right now he looks more like a political wind sock.