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TechnoratiUS Official Resigns in Protest over Afghan War
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting
When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
![[Matthew Hoh was asked to stay in the job. (Gerald Martineau - The Washington Post) ]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Hoh_resignation.jpg "Hoh_resignation.jpg")
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq,
Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in
Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S.
civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."
While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"
Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. "I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do," he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.
As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because "I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, 'Listen, I don't think this is right.' "
"I realize what I'm getting into . . . what people are going to say about me," he said. "I never thought I would be doing this."
'Uncommon bravery'Hoh's journey -- from Marine, reconstruction expert and diplomat to war protester -- was not an easy one. Over the weeks he spent thinking about and drafting his resignation letter, he said, "I felt physically nauseous at times."
His first ambition in life was to become a firefighter, like his father. Instead, after graduation from Tufts University and a desk job at a publishing firm, he joined the Marines in 1998. After five years in Japan and at the Pentagon -- and at a point early in the Iraq war when it appeared to many in the military that the conflict was all but over -- he left the Marines to join the private sector, only to be recruited as a Defense Department civilian in Iraq. A trained combat engineer, he was sent to manage reconstruction efforts in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit.
"At one point," Hoh said, "I employed up to 5,000 Iraqis" handing out tens of millions of dollars in cash to construct roads and mosques. His program was one of the few later praised as a success by the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
In 2005, Hoh took a job with BearingPoint, a major technology and management contractor at the State Department, and was sent to the Iraq desk in Foggy Bottom. When the U.S. effort in Iraq began to turn south in early 2006, he was recalled to active duty from the reserves. He assumed command of a company in Anbar province, where Marines were dying by the dozens.
Hoh came home in the spring of 2007 with citations for what one Marine evaluator called "uncommon bravery," a recommendation for promotion, and what he later recognized was post-traumatic stress disorder. Of all the deaths he witnessed, the one that weighed most heavily on him happened in a helicopter crash in Anbar in December 2006. He and a friend, Maj. Joseph T. McCloud, were aboard when the aircraft fell into the rushing waters below Haditha dam. Hoh swam to shore, dropped his 90 pounds of gear and dived back in to try to save McCloud and three others he could hear calling for help.
He was a strong swimmer, he said, but by the time he reached them, "they were gone."
'You can't sleep'It wasn't until his third month home, in an apartment in Arlington, that it hit him like a wave. "All the things you hear about how it comes over you, it really did. . . . You have dreams, you can't sleep. You're just, 'Why did I fail? Why didn't I save that man? Why are his kids growing up without a father?' "
Like many Marines in similar situations, he didn't seek help. "The only thing I did," Hoh said, "was drink myself blind."
What finally began to bring him back, he said, was a television show -- "Rescue Me" on the FX cable network -- about a fictional New York firefighter who descended into "survivor guilt" and alcoholism after losing his best friend in the World Trade Center attacks.
He began talking to friends and researching the subject online. He visited McCloud's family and "apologized to his wife . . . because I didn't do enough to save them," even though his rational side knew he had done everything he could.
Hoh represented the service at the funeral of a Marine from his company who committed suicide after returning from Iraq. "My God, I was so afraid they were going to be angry," he said of the man's family. "But they weren't. All they did was tell me how much he loved the Marine Corps."
"It's something I'll carry for the rest of my life," he said of his Iraq experiences. "But it's something I've settled, I've reconciled with."
Late last year, a friend told Hoh that the State Department was offering year-long renewable hires for Foreign Service officers in Afghanistan. It was a chance, he thought, to use the development skills he had learned in Tikrit under a fresh administration that promised a new strategy.
'Valley-ism'In photographs he brought home from Afghanistan, Hoh appears as a tall young man in civilian clothes, with a neatly trimmed beard and a pristine flak jacket. He stands with Eikenberry, the ambassador, on visits to northern Kunar province and Zabul, in the south. He walks with Zabul Gov. Mohammed Ashraf Naseri, confers with U.S. military officers and sits at food-laden meeting tables with Afghan tribal leaders. In one picture, taken on a desolate stretch of desert on the Pakistani border, he poses next to a hand-painted sign in Pashto marking the frontier.
The border picture was taken in early summer, after he arrived in Zabul following two months in a civilian staff job at the military brigade headquarters in Jalalabad, in eastern Afghanistan. It was in Jalalabad that his doubts started to form.
Hoh was assigned to research the response to a question asked by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an April visit. Mullen wanted to know why the U.S. military had been operating for years in the Korengal Valley, an isolated spot near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan where a number of Americans had been killed. Hoh concluded that there was no good reason. The people of Korengal didn't want them; the insurgency appeared to have arrived in strength only after the Americans did, and the battle between the two forces had achieved only a bloody stalemate.
Korengal and other areas, he said, taught him "how localized the insurgency was. I didn't realize that a group in this valley here has no connection with an insurgent group two kilometers away." Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan, he decided, had few ideological ties to the Taliban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their own local power bases.
"That's really what kind of shook me," he said. "I thought it was more nationalistic. But it's localism. I would call it valley-ism."
'Continued . . . assault'Zabul is "one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected," a State Department official said. Kandahar, the Taliban homeland, is to the southwest and Pakistan to the south. Highway 1, the main link between Kandahar and Kabul and the only paved road in Zabul, bisects the province. Over the past year, the official said, security has become increasingly difficult.
By the time Hoh arrived at the U.S. military-run provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the Zabul capital of Qalat, he said, "I already had a lot of frustration. But I knew at that point, the new administration was . . . going to do things differently. So I thought I'd give it another chance." He read all the books he could get his hands on, from ancient Afghan history, to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, through Taliban rule in the 1990s and the eight years of U.S. military involvement.
Frank Ruggiero, the Kandahar-based regional head of the U.S. PRTs in the south, considered Hoh "very capable" and appointed him the senior official among the three U.S. civilians in the province. "I always thought very highly of Matt," he said in a telephone interview.
In accordance with administration policy of decentralizing power in Afghanistan, Hoh worked to increase the political capabilities and clout of Naseri, the provincial governor, and other local officials. "Materially, I don't think we accomplished much," he said in retrospect, but "I think I did represent our government well."
Naseri told him that at least 190 local insurgent groups were fighting in the largely rural province, Hoh said. "It was probably exaggerated," he said, "but the truth is that the majority" are residents with "loyalties to their families, villages, valleys and to their financial supporters."
Hoh's doubts increased with Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election, marked by low turnout and widespread fraud. He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."
With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."
American families, he said at the end of the letter, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more."
'Their problem to solve'Ruggiero said that he was taken aback by Hoh's resignation but that he made no effort to dissuade him. "It's Matt's decision, and I honored, I respected" it, he said. "I didn't agree with his assessment, but it was his decision."
Eikenberry expressed similar respect, but declined through an aide to discuss "individual personnel matters."
Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., Eikenberry's deputy, said he met with Hoh in Kabul but spoke to him "in confidence. I respect him as a thoughtful man who has rendered selfless service to our country, and I expect most of Matt's colleagues would share this positive estimation of him, whatever may be our differences of policy or program perspectives."
This week, Hoh is scheduled to meet with Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, at Blinken's invitation.
If the United States is to remain in Afghanistan, Hoh said, he would advise a reduction in combat forces.
He also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption -- all options being discussed in White House deliberations.
"We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath," Hoh said. "But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."
53 Comments so far
Show AllToo bad regular Army guys get court martialed, sit in the brig, and then are discharged "dishonorably" with no benefits for the same action.
Great Captain, you are to be saluted. We need seventy-thousand more like you. My hope's are that there will be you and many more like you going into politics in the near future. We need to flush the toilets in Wahington and get the old empty heads out. Thank you for the courage it took.
Hoh should carefully learn about what Lt Ehren Watada has said many times. Hoh's not doing too bad in his reasoning, but the fact that he doesn't realise that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now Pakistan, are all criminal, never justified and never will be justifiable, he's certainly short in reasoning abilities and dedication to the U.S. military member's first oath, to the U.S. Constitution and not the U.S. President or anyone else.
When and if he ever comes around to this realisation, then everything of praise said about him by top-ranking U.S. government officials now should not be forgotten; it'll only help to strengthen the words he'll then say, if he ever realises the wars are criminal, always were, always will be, and says so publicly.
He's a fair part of the way there, but will he be sharp enough to be able to arrive at full realisation; or will he always remain half in the dark, half in the light (?). He should carefully listen to the statements of Lt Ehren Watada, IVAW, Courage to Resist, and so on; but he apparently prefers to disregard what these many people have to say and have been saying for long enough that everyone should know, by now, what they're saying.
What an interesting comment from Holbrooke, who has been the diplomacy guy backing various horrible U.S. war efforts over the years.
Holbrooke is quoted as saying, "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"
The assumption behind his comment is that they will continue the war effort, and not end it. Another assumption is that U.S. citizens, who are outside of this process that wastes lives and tax dollars, really have little say over Afghanistan war policy. (Oddly, Holbrooke's argument is reminiscent of loyalist Dem rhetoric - that is, elect Democrats and maybe you'll have some influence.)
Of course, we've known that we haven't effected change being outside the building from the many antiwar protests we've conducted during the Bush years. It's still true under the Obama regime.
(Some thought they were electing Obama as some kind of the antiwar candidate. However, Obama was always clear during the campaign about continuing the wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan, while continuing to occupy Iraq).
So, you're either in the building, conducting war, or you're out of the building without a say on U.S. policy. That sounds like unchecked fanatical power to me, not a republic, where the majority here opposes the wars but has no say.
The guy was right to quit, of course. The troops should just refuse orders. The mission is secure the area for oil piplelines. No one should die over that.
-TIA
The people that will benefit from the oil will not die. They will keep illegal wars going, while the are sitting thousands of miles away counting their dirty money. To name a few, Bush, Cheney, Holbrook and others in their cabal. But there is no one in government that has the balls to do anything except ride along with them. When will Eric Holder look around and say"hey I am the attorney general"? Working for the people that is paying my salary not a group that is following the former neo-conrightwingnazi's. This will not happen under his watch, he is too weak. But he will get you for taking a pail of socks from Wal-Mart.
Growth takes place in stages. He has come a long way and still has a long way to go. That picture helps me believe he will continue to grow. If only that could happen to every soldier everywhere on the planet.
The WP made Hoh’s letter in its entirety available as a pdf and it is worth the read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf
Thanks- that is definitely worth the read. This is clearly someone whose conscience survived and finally turned against the indoctrination of the military. These sort of people (Lt. Watada comes to mind also) can become powerful advocates for ending the war.
my take on this guy is different - to his own admission he is a happy trigger, got more money he can chew and need no more eating the daily dose of hatred Afghan civilians work hard to hide before the killing machines
Finally an informed, credible public official is telling us that the war on terror is creating our
enemies and not eliminating them. The Vietnamese fought as long as we stayed and rightly so.Now they sell us catfish and textiles. So much for "fighting them there so we don*t have to fight them here''.
If Al-Qaeda is such a threat, then why aren*t Americans and American interests all over the world being attacked? The answer is that there is no well organized Al-Qaeda , just random cells of violent extremists all over the world.We mistakenly call all Muslim extremists Al-Qaeda.That is as wrong as calling everyone with a gun in America a Republican. The 9/11 hijackers learned to fly planes into buildings in Florida. not Afghanistan.They lived, plotted and prayed in San Diego and Hamburg, Germany . Linking 9/11 to Afghanistan and Iraq is the result of of an insane desire for revenge, political power, and oil. Did we get enough revenge yet?
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said.
Though maybe if he was he wouldn't have joined the military in the first place. The military's main purpose, as many have stated, is to protect the one-side economic interests, regardless of the killing and misery. He was part of that machine. I don't see him repentant on that part, maybe it will come later.
When we are betrayed by our own government/corporations to carry out acts of human indecency and terror,sometimes we get disgusted with our own actions.
I don't support people who join the military, though I realize that many come from a tough place. In my community, most high school graduates' only option (if they don't go to college or trade school) is the military.
"It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Sinclair Lewis
Hoh says this:
"But you have to draw the line somewhere, and say this is their problem to solve."
An excellent position, but unfortunately he precedes it with this:
"We want to have some kind of governance there, and we have some obligation for it not to be a bloodbath."
Judging by his recent acts, he seems capable of understanding the inherent contradiction, but I don't believe he's there yet.
A good exercise to help him on that path would be to imagine what he might do if some hypothetical power were to invade and occupy the US, on the basis that we don't really have a government by consent of the governed, but merely an outsized organized crime family atop the machinery of state.
So, he took his colege education, and passed the rigours of OCS via the USMC (a tough assignment I promise you) and he passed the test.
Then he went where he was ordered and followed his directives.
Then he joined the higher level leadership and did well.
Then he realized that he had made a mistake, and that his country was making one as well.
Then he resigns a job he worked hard to acquire because he realized that he and his country was wrong.
That takes more courage that most people could ever imagine.
My people would call him a 'Strong Heart Warrior', and one who leads by example.
Hopefully others will follow this mans leadership; but if not he still has the knowledge that he DID do the right thing, even after doing the wrong thing.
And he had the courage to make it PUBLIC.
His 'former' Commander in Chief should follow this man's leadership; but that man instead is giving 'motiviational speeches' to fools who follow fools down in Texas.
Only in America.
on the other hand - his experience and change of mind is only an example:
BEFORE him - at present times - there is Colonel Andrew Bacevich - now a history teacher , whose son died in iraq.
Bacevic writes against these things also - and once said:
"THE AMAZING thing to ME -- is it took me 50 years to REALIZE how wrong we ARE in our policies , it took me all of those years to realize and learn that I was serving what is really an evil system".
that is NO different from General Smedley Butler - considered the greatest and most decorated Marine in US history - who led in 3 continents the USA's imperial adventure...
saying:
"I was the High Class Muscle Enforcer for our Big Banks, Big Corporations, Big Finance -- for our Money and War Racket...you can say we are Gangsters for Capitalism"
"For 30 years I suspended my own conscience , knowing that what we do is EVIL".
'teddy'
A very good point and I have acknowledged the 'Colonel' in the past.
There are few voices more clear and loud than those of a 'reformed offender'.
I also share the same experience. I will admit that it has been forty years since I served an 'outlaw nation, in an illegal war of aggression', and I still have not been able to decide if it was the 'dumbest smart thing I ever did' or the 'smartest dumb thing I ever did'.
I would never do it again but I can't 'take it back'.
I can claim that from 'sharing' my own experience I have been successful in convincing no less than 12 young people from making the same mistake over the years since then.
It so far is the best I can do.
So far.
Thanks
'nativetoungueredux'
Let's you and I 'roll one up for him brother', there is always room for 'convincing the merits of peace' where the other route has proved a failure.
Congress WROTE into LAW that the US military had to prevent our enemies from committing future terrorism. The US invaded Afghanistan to get at al-Qaeda and the Taliban (just like one big reason to take out Saddam was because of purported ties to al-Qaeda and terrorism).
As a further stupidity, Congress wrote that the President would announce later who the enemies were. And Presidents will later announce new enemies, just you wait.
from the article:
- al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys." -
Are Progressives going to continue their unsuccessful strategy of dealing with Afghanistan in isolation?
Is the fighting against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan a different war then the fighting against al-Qaeda in Iraq? And different again from the fight against terrorists worldwide?
No, it is the same DAFT war. Instead of dealing with each branch of the war separately, I suggest dealing with the madness at its root.
If you want to do something, I suggest making DAFT a household word in America. If you draw it, perhaps a red diagonal line would be appropriate.
DAFT - Defense against Future Terrorism
aka GWOT, WOT and The Long War
End the DAFT law, end the insane military effort to forever prevent future terrorism.
I know this is delusional, but I can dream can't I? Wouldn't you love to wake up some morning and read a headline that said: U.S. MILITARY RESIGNS IN PROTEST OVER WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.
>>"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
There it is in a nutshell...one of those PROUD Marines who think its fun to whack a bunch of guys.
He was never happier then when he was killing people and they gave him a job in teh State depratment so he could fit right in.
Yes, according to Hoh, happiness is a good kill.
And he proudly states that in public. He somehow thinks that gives him special credentials, that it heightens his credibility.
" why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"
In other words: what is your price? We know you're doing this because you want something; you want more. What more can we give you to make you shut up and go away? This may be true, or perhaps Mr. Hoh really believes what he says.
First they will ridicule you.
Then they’ll try and change your mind, to see reason.
Then they’ll try to buy you off with a better opportunity to be “committed" to the system.
Then they’ll give you enough rope to hang yourself.
They either are sure you’ll jump or they have something up their sleeve to push you so as to be confident that you go down with the losers in the debate.
If it is in the WP it has to be part of the set up, because this opinion is not NEWS.
The anti hero in George Orwell's 1984 was treated for his inappropriate behavior with reprogramming. THX1138 is a movie that deals with the same issue.
Maybe he should have done as the Japanese warrior and turned his sword on himself. I think a sword is still part of the official uniform of the Navy.
Reality finally knocked some sense into this heretofore servant of, and killer for, Empire. Why I say 'some sense' is indicated below, in the last two paragraphs.
We'll see whether he sticks by his new realization that the U.S. has no business being in Afghanistan.
Let's note that he does not seem to regret his murderous and criminal activities in Iraq.
Let's also not forget this quotation from our tough guy: "I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love..." That seems to mean that Hoh has yet to graduate to a thoroughgoing critique of U.S. imperialism and its militarism (and the deep pathology that the latter represents). He has taken a step, but he isn't there yet.
I strongly recommend reading Lucitanian October 27th, 2009 9:11 am, below.
the peacenick reference seemed to be a phrasing addressing the marines still in service. One recalls that decharacterization of human beings outside of the military context is a substantial cultural aspect of the armed forces. More a listen-up guys, your capacity to think is being messed with.
"...this is their problem to solve".
When you stand back and look at it, US presence constitutes not only war, but ideological colonization, ethnocide and genocide.
Throughout history, when colonized peoples resist in recognition of the horror of what is being done to them, they are further dehumanized, decharacterized, decontextualized and criminalized.
In 'successful' cases, of ethnic cleansing, the society is pointed to in scientific/technical/historical terms and litanies of how they are "no longer" identifiable as what they were (which is not permitted to be known in the first place).
Just as Hoh finds himself naming a way of being as having become a situation of "valley-ism", there is not the slightest attempt by our government to try to inform in the cultural terms used by the people of those valleys, much less allow that naming and history to stand as as legitimate. Because US presence is INACAPABLE OF DOING SO.
Occupation denies legitimate voice, process, understanding and thus human rights of the peoples there. Life is no longer human individuals and communities.
Here at home we are denied the right by the major media, dependent on 'product' sponsorhip/sales, to the marginalized 'product' of prior and informed consent. A people who are denied full access to information in the hands of the state are at the time they exercise their rights, by definition, not free. We are denied the collective fundamental right to make informed decisions.
The arms industry does not have as its mandate the achievment of human engagement - but only the supply of the means to perpetual dehumanization and death of people who are ancestrally rooted in these regions.
This is something that can never be 'avoided' from within the system because the job of the system is to perpetuate the system. It can only be prevented. To do so requires the courage of people like Matthew Hoh, Anne Wright and the increasing number of people of conscience who choose to face the unknown to help justice unfold.
War is not the answer
"..OUr Foreign Policy has always been geared towards gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others. The TRUE purpose of our ARmed Forces is to make the world Safe for our Big Boss: our Supernationalistic Capitalism and OUr Cultural and Economic ASSAULT..we are a nation of Money and War Racketeers...and Gangsters for Capitalism"...
GENERAL SMEDLEY BUTLER..US MARINES . 1933
Bring America Back !!!!....!!...I agree with the recent posts that our associates here are being too harsh on Mr Hoh.
***I say Hoh has paid his dues==serving as a Marine was not exactly going to Baghdad for vacation !!!! He was limited on freedoms while under the UCMJ of his enlistment.
***I dont think our naysayers quite read this script, about what this man has done already rattled the windows at 1600 Penna Ave==and we sorely know those windows need bad
rattling===Trick of Treat !!!!
***Let us welcome Mr Hoh to our tables, jump on his little red wagon, and chime in to his conclusion that the MI Complex just keeps multiplying itself===war war war
senseless and it is way past time we bring our troops HOME!
***The Neocons and the Pentagon are war machines and war cheerleaders===They have no Concept of PEACE !!
Please help Mr Hoh tell the Powers to get out of Iraq, get out of Afghan, and stay out of IRAN !!!!!!
Do you have to be so stupid as to go to hell, take us with you and come back to tell us, who “believed” in the first place, that it is hot?
I’ve given the reference above but as Rory Stewart put it earlier this year in an interview with the Financial Times: "It's like they're coming in and saying to you, 'I'm going to drive my car off a cliff. Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?' And you say, 'I don't think you should drive your car off the cliff.' And they say, 'No, no, that bit's already been decided--the question is whether to wear a seatbelt.' And you say, 'Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt.' And then they say, 'We've consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart and he says. ...'"
"Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting"
What, he never heard of Union Oil Company of California, once fronted by President in Corruption Karzai?...now merged with Cheveron? Or the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline?
How are they ever going to build that natural gas pipeline unless they kill off all those pesky Muslims?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Bring America Back !!!!.........!!!..And, how could you, mujeriego, of all people forget the biggest Afghan cash crop==The Poppy Fields==and the Opium Factorys !!
***Let your mind be a thoroughfare, just as the Opium is a thruway right into
the US demand for contraband==just like water over the dam. 300 arrested accross
the Nation last week for drug distribution in many major US cities.
****If you think Oil is the apple of the eyes of the MI Complex, then don't forget
the Dope Dealers who are paying off the dirty Cops in the USA, who are letting the poison flow into our Homeland, our kids and adults alike. You need to learn
something from the Mexican Cartel 'La Familia'---probably a real life size
business partner of the Afghan poppy farmers.
WAKE UP AMERICA !!!! IT'S DRUGS NOT OIL !!!!
Back in the 70's in San Francisco, we would go to indoor concerts and sit way up in the balcony and get the benefit of all the pot smoke. It was so pervasive that eventually the nose adapted and you were not even aware of its presence. Opium historically was used by the Chinese in a culturally defined way as smoke. I've wondered if crowd control might be achieved with such smoke bombs inside buildings or over wide areas such as football stadiums or even war zones. The war starts and all the combatants are hit with mellow yellow and space out. We don't need mace, we want cans of MJ and opium smoke. Back in the civil war, after a day's shooting, the North and South would meet in no man's land and exchange stuff. Grey guys had smokes and I think the Blue had coffee or something. We should just jump ahead of the shooting and stuff and get straight to the smokes.
Less than 2 cents of every dollar paid for heroin remains with the poppy farmers. They have no power. Please don't bring them into your imperial fight. They would plant any crop that would feed their family and keep them safe. What crop would that be? Perhaps that is the question that should be asked?
This week, Hoh is scheduled to meet with Vice President Biden's foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken, at Blinken's invitation.
This is a positive sign, that they are listening to someone who had enough and quit in protest.
I hope this will tip the balance towards ending this insane waste of blood and treasure.
I never heard of "Blinken" before, so when I came across a comment about Hoh meeting with "Blinken", I assumed the writer was sarcastically referring to Biden himself.
I figured Obama must be "Wynken", but I couldn't figure out who "Nod" would be.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Hamster, You are delusional if you think that the debate hangs in a "balance".
There is no balance; It is your blood, your treasure, their PROFIT.
And if there is any debate it is only to make you "think" that you have had a say in matters; and so to resign you to the realization that you are in the minority camp, the losers, the group that do not grasp the bigger picture.
For Hoh to meet the VP's policy advisors, must be the closest one could get to beating your head against a brick wall with ceremony, when not in agreement with the status quo.
Disagree, Lucitanian. I think there are some among the rulers who see that this Af/Pak occupation will sink the empire in just a few years. They are trying to find a way out - whether they have the power to overcome the MIC hardballs and the neocon crazies remains to be seen. But this is exactly the kind of ruling class fight where the people might be able to make a difference.
On studying the two following items I'm coming round to agreeing with you, and it becomes more clear why this letter has been planted in the WP:
Quoting from Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired): http://zenhuber.blogspot.com/
----quote
Like Rome, we are about to become captives of our Praetorian Guard, our military elites, the likes of Stan McChrystal and his mentor Petraeus and their puppet boss, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
As renaissance political scientist Niccolo Machiavelli noted, the ascendency of the Praetorian Guard caused the fall of Rome. As he noted in The Art of War, the Praetorian Guard became “insolent and formidable” and “put many emperors to death and then disposed of the empire as it pleased.”
We’re at a perilous point in the American experiment. Unless Obama can get control of our Praetorians, our republic will become, once and for all, a militaristic oligarchy. That would sadden our founders no end.
----unquote
Also instructive of this possibly unseen coup d’état that may be well advanced in progress unbeknown to most is the recent interview at Real News with Ellsberg 25th/10: From Vietnam to Afghanistan, Ellsberg: As President Obama decides what to do in Afghanistan he must learn the lessons of Vietnam…. Listen till the end you'll be surprised.
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4375&updaterx=...
There were a number of retired Generals who spoke against the wars under Bush and they were ignored. They haven't been in evidence much lately-- good to see this fellow Huber speaking up.
Hoh's resignation is a significant development, not because he somehow speaks truth more than the tens of thousands, or millions, of ordinary citizens who have spoken to their congresspeople, or voted, about getting out of AfPakIraq; but because military people who have commanded in the field have more weight in the halls of power than you or I.
Hoh speaking to a national policy meeting probably carries as much, or more weight than 10,000 people marching in New York or Washington.
Hi, Green Dragon. You may be right and I might be missing something here or I’m getting paranoid because I see this as some exception designed to prove a rule somewhere. Unfortunately I see this guy being set up as a cause fatal, which is to be revealed when the other shoe drops, after great suspense in the next few days probably by the Dear Leader and not so quick decider Commander in Chief Obama.
According to the electronic WP this is the most read article today. So, I have to ask why? Why is the Washington Post and no one else, blowing this simple resignation up into a watershed event. What did Amy Goodman say? “He is the first US official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war.” For the WP that spends so many column inches beating the drums for the empire’s home team it seems to be an unlikely pitch to go with a mid-ranked functionary’s resignation on principle, on apparently the uniqueness of his position, the true patriotism of his service career and the quality of the letter to his superiors, unless there is something more that they want to get across.
Are we to see his, as the epiphany of a nation or the division of the camps in power, when what he is saying is in fact what everyone has known all along, that it is the presence of a foreign occupation that is causing the insurgence and fuelling a civil war? That the US is in a no win dead end street is also a no brainer. But, hey since when do we bring reality into it.
Do those people in high places want reality to take an exceptional seat at the table and carry some weight for a change? Now that would be refreshing, but highly unlikely. We are being softened up for something. I can feel it in my water!
It took courage to face the horror and stupidity of what we are doing in Afghanistan after being so intimately involved. The State Dept tried but had no luck in dissuading his decision. Another step toward peace.
Iceman, Love your irony. It was irony, right?
This goon worked in the State Department...the organization that is to promote diplomacy????
This goon worked in the State Department...the organization that is to promote diplomacy????
This goon worked in the State Department...the organization that is to promote diplomacy????
So nice to know he had a "pristine flak jacket." And so nice to know that he is not "some peacenik pot-smoking hippy who wants everyone to be in love."
So this red neck has read a couple of books opened his eyes and now comes to the conclusion that the use of force and occupation is counter productive and is at the rout of the growth of violent insurgency. In short he has come to the same conclusion as most anti-war, and anti imperialist activists had right at the beginning, before offensive wars of aggression where started against Afghanistan and Iraq; those same peace activists which he in his myopic generalization insultingly tries to demean as “peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love”.
Here is a man who is considered somehow unique because despite being the gun toting, tough fighting, marine hero-type he can also think and apply logic to arrive at the most obvious, despite being brainwashed into the mentality that he feels he has any business in Iraq or Afghanistan in the first place, where he finds : "There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," as he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys." ... Who the hell does this blockhead and those like him in government and military think they are? This is exactly the attitude and actions that are spawning the reaction.
I read the entire article and the comments made in the WP, calling this guy a hero and patriot….. because he has some principles, my God, since when is that to be considered as “special”, and how is it “bravery” to stand up for them, rather than being bought-off by the corrupt and murderous powers that be.
The really sad thing here is that this knuckle-head that they tried to shut-up and kick up stairs is so unique among the zombies that populate the military, state department, their contractors and politics that the WP feels it must write this article. Poor America. Perhaps I should put it in the vernacular at a level Matthew Hoh and the like will comprehend, … duh!
Meantime here is someone else who came to a similar conclusion and didn’t even carry a gun in Afghanistan.
http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-t%E2%80%85e-lawrence-afghanistan
As Paul Woodward of Warincontext.org points out : Readers who have been following the extraordinary career of Rory Stewart may be interested to hear that yesterday he took the first step in the next chapter: he was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the English constituency of Penrith and The Border. This is a safe Conservative seat and with the Labour Party struggling in the polls, Stewart stands a good chance of not only entering Parliament after the next general election in Britain but quite likely gaining a position in the next British government. Talent is no guarantee of success in politics, but it will be interesting to see how far Stewart advances and what he might accomplish.
You talked about a blockhead and a red neck. Wow you were really brilliant. As for being stupid, did you notice how to jumped from one extreme to another. You chided a Marine hero and built up some shithead in the weak ass British parliment. What mirror were you looking in? One from across the bar?
The finest posting on this thread.
Conclusively, one should note here that Glenn Greenwald's choice to valorize such an individual says more about the shortcomings of his OWN politics than anything else: It reeks of the opportunism bred of convenience.
Certainly if Matthew Hoh was–for example– a militant Trotskyist, desirous of an American military defeat in Afghanistan, the choice would not have been so auspicious. In fact, it would never have been a choice at all. It helps to have been an imperial 'killer.'
Starved for examples of 'resistance' from within the war establishment, Greenwald 'legitimizes' Hoh's choice by assuring one he is an imperialist killer, after all. This 'reassuring' information will some how make Hoh's subsequent defection and apostasy all right and of 'real' value.
And that is supposed to sanction his credibility? Glenn Greenwald remains one of the handful of essential commentators. But his politics are safely 'centrist,' as this somehow errant piece seems to divulge.
As for Matthew Hoh? All defections from American imperial fascism should be applauded. But they remain discretely singular isolates, nothing more than acts of anomalous and individual conscience.
–(Jill Bains)
It's because defections like Hoh's are so rare that we should support him in promoting his views and story. We're not endorsing him as a person or electing him to office. It's this one heroic action and the honesty of his statements that we need to support.
"We're not endorsing him as a person ..." –(GreenDragon)
–Your point is well taken and I can't argue with it. My objection was that Glenn Greenwald chose to make a point of using Hoh's military persona (and quite a specific one) to give him credibility. I think you and I are in agreement. –(Jill Bains).
Very well said, Lucitanian. My thoughts exactly.