The fact that Gates has not been fired by our impotent excuse for a leader should tell you what our policy will be. We'll be there until the pipeline runs dry.

Gates should never have been kept on. Anyone associated with George W. Bush should have been hit in the back of the head with the door as they left town on January 20, 2009.

We are currently destroying the atmosphere. I would advocate departing from the metaphor of war as the only way to solve problems, but if you want to phrase it that way what we need is a war on carbon emissions. If done properly we would not need a pipeline from the Caspian basin to the Arabian sea, which is the real reason we are in Afghanistan.

Obama seems to accept the obviously flawed and false official explanation of 9/11 that some guy in a cave in Afghanistan organized the whole thing. If you watch the video of the towers coming down it's obvious they were destroyed by planted explosives. That was a huge and complex enterprise that could not possibly have been organized by an outsider in Afghanistan.

And Obama must be smoking a lot of weed if he imagines that Afghan farmers are going to stop raising poppies and switch to corn or something. It just isn't going to happen.

OK Obomber, here's a chance for us to watch you turn the wheel of the ship of state--fire this chicken-hawk's stooge's ass and prove us wrong--if not we will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are indeed the wanker's third term.

And our resolve against you well be the same against you as it has been against that other war monger/criminal--no pardons!

Our only hope, will to run out of money or the materials necessary to make bombs, etc.

Somebody should be reading Kippling about mountain passes.

- Progressives are demanding that the president demonstrate that a "clear exit strategy" exists... -

Ah, that favorite pastime of 'progressives'. Waiting for Santa Obama to bring people what they wish for.

Where's all the anger at Congress for getting us into this mess and ignoring all responsibility for getting us out?

Where's the responsibility of the American electorate?

Oh, that's right. We wait for Santa. Good luck with that.

And when this latest messaging effort fails, will 'progressives' finally listen to the only plan that will work?
Probably not, but I'll keep trying.

Repeal the DAFT law (Public Law 107-40) and end the DAFT war.
That's a job for Congress, not the President.

Wasn't there a song called "Perpetual War"?
Why don't we let the Honduran Military run things?
Remind me again, why were/are we in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Just random mid-morning wanderings.......

Gates: " Afghanistan is a country that could be pacified and stabilized if the right policy was adapted ". Well Mr. stooge for the Pentagon,that is a very astute statement,but the only way what you say will work is to have the policy to get the hell out of Afghanistan now before you kill more of our troops, not to mention all the innocent civilians. Too bad you could not leave out the word exit and tell the truth, but that word is not in your vocabulary either for you or the rest of your war mongering criminals!

There is "never" a good time for retreat; therefore it must be done NOW, regardless! But there is NO MORE (BASE) GOODWILL to sacrifice in Obamanible delay!! Otherwise, we'll ALL be visiting the Iraqiranistan memorial "blood for oil-gushing derrick" monument on the mall in DC, inscribed with the names of upwards of 5000 dupes sacrificed, so far!!!

Nothing much to say here except its a no-brainer not to tell folks that are shooting at you what you intend to do. DUH.

I believe Obama will withdraw.....for many reasons.

Three thoughts on SecDef Gates Sunday remarks:

1. "Taliban and Al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, defeated one superpower. For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think, would have catastrophic consequences....."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Taliban did not even exist until after the Soviets had withdrawn from Afghanistan. The Taliban did not exist until after the government in Kabul that originally requested Soviet military aid had been overthrown, and until after Hekmatyr and the other warlord crazy factions had run rampant in the capitol and the countryside. Go read Steven Coll's fine book, "Ghost Wars", for a thorough, non-revisionist account of what realy happened in this region and in US/Pakistani relations in the 80's and 90's.

The Afghan Taliban ("students" movement) arose from the Afghan refugee camps in northwest Pakistan, an understandable reaction to the endless factional warlord civil strife that filled the vaccuum when the central government in Kabul fell. The Taliban were a Pashtun-based Islamist alternative to the chaos of yet more ongoing civil war inside Af/Pak tribal areas, a grassroots group created, organized, armed and clandestinely supported by the Pakistani ISI. Conflating Taliban-style nationalism with Al Qaeda's internationalist ideology is either shocking historic myopia - or more likely deliberate propaganda - on Robert Gates' part.

2. Gates is perhaps correct, however, that setting an artificial time deadline for US/Nato withdrawal would destabilize a deteriorating, dangerous situation still further. As in contemporary Iraq, all factions would simply hunker down to wait out the infidel troops' departure, so old scores could be settled.

Back to basics. The sole basis in the 2001 AUMF ostensibly justifying a US military presence on Afghan soil is to bring to justice those foreigners (bin Laden, Zwahiri, et al.) linked to the 9/11 attacks under the official 9/11 attack scenario. Why not therefore link US departure publicly to accomplishing that goal? Pledge to pull out the entire US/Nato military presence within 90 days of Osama and friends being turned over to a neutral state for trial under international or Muslim law, leaving behind only a civilian reparations/reconstruction US presence in Afghanistan pledged to work with whatever post-Karzai coalition government the Afghans can cobble together.

Mullah Omar offered to do precisely this in the fall of 2001 to forestall an American invasion - an offer from the Taliban regime that the Bushies arrogantly rejected in favor of waging a global war on terror. What does Obama have to lose by at least giving this exit strategy approach a fair try? It could create some momentum to reverse the dynamics currently in play on the ground in the whole region. Oust Al Qaeda, and Uncle Sam will leave. All you foreigners, get out of the pool. Afghanistan for Afghans only.

3. As others have commented above, you know we're in deep shit when Robert Gates is considered a voice for moderation within what's passing for the DC beltway debate concerning civilian political accountability over behavior of the nation's sprawling global complex of soldiers, mercenary contractors, and spies.

If these public remarks by Gates - like those of General McChrystal earlier - is the sort of bipartisan loyalty team Obama is supposed to tolerate, then it's time to shake up the old team of rivals approach.

Andrew Bacevich as Secretary of Defense would be ideal.

Bill from Saginaw

I am curious if Mr. Gates opinion would change if the wealthy were taxed heavily to fight the war that largely benefits them only. I expect that it would. The Washington SOB's are too aggressive with tax dollars. Where are the Tea Party protesters for the Afghan war.

Go big, Gates. Throw everything you've got into your lost cause. The bigger the eventual defeat, the better for the world.

Bring it on, I'm loving it.

I am curious if Mr. Gates opinion would change if the wealthy were taxed heavily to pay for the war that largely benefits them only. I expect that he would. The Washington SOB's are too warlike with tax dollars. Where are the Tea Party protesters for the Afghan war. I have a suspicious feeling that Washington is attempting to provoke violent resistance at home to their overly aggressive policies so that they can institute draconian homeland policies that leads us to totalitarianism. I strongly believe that peaceful resistance is the key unless they provoke home invasions and warrantless arrests.

Gates insisted that far from being a quagmire, Afghanistan was a country that could be pacified and stabilized . . .

The blindness and stupidity of the American government knows no bounds and just goes on and on and on.

>>
Gates insisted that far from being a quagmire, Afghanistan was a country that could be pacified and stabilized if the right policy was adopted. One thing the United States should not do, he added, was set deadlines or outline an approach by which military forces would eventually leave the country.
<<

Would that be pacified and stabilised as Baghdad, one city in Iraq, which so far does not appear to be pacified and stabilised by the world's most powerful military? Perhaps Gates feels that since we've had the military in Japan and Germany for 60 years, it wouldn't hurt to keep them in Afghanistan for a century or so.

Soooo, our Secretary of War says that there is "No Exit" from this national catastrophy?

"For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think, would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaeda recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on."

If Obama does what the people of the US elected him to do, get out of Afghanistan, it wouldn't be a defeat for the US, it would be a win for democracy and a great example for the Afghan people.

Winning is everything to conservatives, even if we lose the world.

If they had any intention of leaving, they wouldn't be building that huge compound in Baghrum. This pause is to make us think Obama is actually considering not adding the additional 40,000 troops.

Won't be fooled again!

WTF
Over 70% of the American people want us to stop our empire building and tend to building America.

Richard Holbrooke and Greg Mortenson: Contrast and Compare

By John Escher

"Organizing for America," the Barack Obama website

By now I have revisited "Our Point Man in Afghanistan, The Last Mission, A Reporter at Large" in the Sept. 28 New Yorker, and realize that my first reading of Holbrooke's profile was too quick and superficial, which is all too apt to happen nowadays when one reads any article on a place as topical as Aflacia.

This article, contrary to my opinion in an earlier post, is not rambling and diffuse but tight and well-constructed.

My complaint that the article excluded mention of Holbrooke's wife, the Hungarian author and human rights activist Kati Marton, was totally wrong; in fact, George Packer, the writer, pictures Marton and Holbrooke in a real photograph "perched atop a rusting Soviet tank in the Afghan city of Herat." This prescient photograph corresponds to the dark fatalism built into the DNA of all Hungarians, whose destiny has always been to lose wars.

Also, in my previous posts, I should have more fully explained my professional relationship with Holbrooke, a man I've never met, just as I've never met the more apolitical Greg Mortenson, best American builder of schools-- mostly for girls-- in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (Mortenson's most prominent political support, however, seems to come from Republicans, something nice about them a person such as myself can say at last.)

Both men have incredible energy levels, work incredibly hard, have incredible talent at making local connections, and are pros at dealing with subordinates, who always seem to retain great regard for the boss. In my case, at Brown University, Holbrooke was editor of the Brown Daily Herald Supplement and published my first article about the Brown rowing club without changing a single word, which makes him better than any editor I've had since. The university president read the article and called me into his office. Crew became not only a recognized sport but a dominant national and even world power both with its men and its women. Probably I wouldn't even have known it was Holbrooke who accepted my long piece and gave it a great play if a mutual friend, Katherine Pierce, a Pembroke student and BDH staffer, didn't tip me off.

Now for some differences. Offered money by the American Army, the mountaineer Mortenson declined it, knowing that such an overt connection to our troops would spoil his chance of successfully building and maintaining new schools once and for all.

The hawkish Holbrooke on the other hand has like President Obama, whom I admire for other reasons, invoked America's neurotic fear of Al Qaeda (real fear would be okay if not overdone for once). In this they are much too close to their Republican predecessors. Holbrooke has furthermore striven mightily to build up the Afghan infra-structure, which would include new schools, as if this isn't historic and social impossibility so long as our polarizing Military presence is there, as Mortenson was able to realize.

Packer's article speculates that a typical Holbrooke day is full and chaotic beyond a human's ability to recall its details. In contrast to all the complexity, Packer asserts, Holbrooke works "from the simple deduction that, because Al Qaeda threatened the United States, America (does) need to be there."

This sharp portrait of Holbrooke as a team guy carrying out Obama's play "relentlessly" also makes him fair game-- especially if you think, like me, that conducting war any time someone threatens you is specious.

Holbrooke is quoted as saying, "We're not always right about our goals-- what we want-- and the government we're supporting is not always right."

Addressing some Afghan officials, he says, "Yesterday we were in Laskhar Gah, which in the fifties was knwn as Little America, with American schools, American movie theaters, streets laid out like an American suburb. All gone."

Like the Russian tank, this vision is both of past and future, so let's get out now.

Listening to Secretary of Defense Gates would be a strategic mistake.

Robert Gates is nothing but a slime and a liar anyway.
He will say anything or do anything to continue war or escalate conflict globally. This trash should never have been put in charge of our National Defense.
Obama kept him and Petraeus to run the war machine (meaning that Obama has no plans at all to stop it)
This is a "good cop / bad cop" scenario.
Don't be fooled by Obama's smile. Obama is the kind of guy that will smile and shake your hand but while you are distracted, his boys are robbing you blind.

If Gates was right, Iraq would be a tourist haven now.

"said Gates. "The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States. Taliban and Al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, defeated one superpower. For them to be seen to defeat a second, I think, would have catastrophic consequences in terms of energizing the extremist movement, Al Qaeda recruitment, operations, fundraising, and so on."

He is 100% in error.

When we leave, we win. Why? Because it's smart to leave.

Sure the ragtops would party up for a while, but then they would squat down, scratch their balls and begin their slow slide back into the 19th century.

Our presence in AfPak, and our military-backed/commercial empire every where else is the cause of the rise of AlQaeda and other crazies.

When we dump the corporate global agenda and return home to strengthen and build our own country, we will win.

The Commander-in-Chief should demote Gates for insubordination. Bush and Cheney would not have tolerated such undermining of their authority.

Joe

If you know so much, Gates, prove it. Let's see your genius strategy and the analysis on which it is based. What are the metrics?

No, your gut instinct isn't good enough.

Both President Obama and his Sec. of Defense need to get on the same page.

They should first read (several times) THE ART OF WAR by Sun Tzu; then have a long day of personal talks.

As soon as possible, fire Adm. Mullen and Gen. McChrystal.

Adopt radical PLAN B (Get most of our current "boots on the ground" out of the country side}. Heed Sun Tzu

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