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TechnoratiObama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops for Afghanistan
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy.
![[ESCALATION OF OBAMA'S WAR: Barack Obama salutes as US soldiers carry the coffin of US Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin at Dover Air Force Base on October 29, 2009. Obama is leaning towards sending 34,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.
(AFP/Mark Wilson)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/dover-obama.jpg "dover-obama.jpg")
As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.
Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the U.S. is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional U.S. trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.
The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional U.S. troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops.
The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a "low-risk option" that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan.
It splits the difference between two other McChrystal options: a "high-risk" one that called for 20,000 additional troops and a "medium-risk" one that would add 40,000 to 45,000 troops.
The officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss internal administration planning, cautioned that Obama's decision isn't final, and won't be until after administration officials discuss it with the NATO allies at a Nov. 23 meeting of the alliance's North Atlantic Council and its Military Committee.
Coalition forces now include 67,000 U.S. and 42,000 troops from other countries. The Army's counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops.
Although the administration privately is holding out little hope of persuading Canada or the Netherlands to abandon their plans to withdraw combat troops, much less getting additional allied troops, it wants to avoid creating the impression - at home and abroad - that the U.S. "is going it alone" in Afghanistan, said one military official.
In an interview last week with The New York Times, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner complained that the American administration is leaving its NATO allies in the dark about its new strategy.
"What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?" Kouchner asked, according to the Times. "Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem . . . . We need to talk to each other as allies."
The officials said that Obama also wants to complete his Nov. 11-19 Asia trip and a state visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, the arch foe of Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war on terror, before he announces his Afghanistan plan.
Administration officials also want time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress - which must agree to fund the administration's plan - that the war, now in its ninth year and inflicting rising casualties, is one of "necessity," as Obama said earlier this year.
"This is not going to be an easy sell, especially with the fight over health care and the (Democratic) party's losses" of the governors' mansions in New Jersey and Virginia last week, said one official.
Generating public, congressional and international support for a troop increase will require heavy pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to crack down on endemic corruption and drug trafficking, surrender more power to provincial and local governments and improve public services, the officials said. Karzai won a second term last week when his first-round election opponent bowed out of a run-off.
"Another reason for the president to hold off for a bit on ordering more troops to Afghanistan is that we can tell Karzai that if he doesn't act firmly now, there won't be any support for a troop increase," said one official. "That has the added advantage of being true, and it's easier to hold off on sending more troops than it is to threaten to pull them out once they're there."
U.S. allies already have begun applying pressure. On Thursday, Kouchner called Karzai "corrupt," and the next day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that if Karzai's government didn't attack corruption, international support against the Taliban-led insurgency would evaporate.
"Sadly, the government of Afghanistan had become a byword for corruption," Brown said in a speech. "And I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against corruption."
As McClatchy reported last week, the Obama administration has been quietly working with U.S. allies and Afghan officials on an "Afghanistan Compact," a package of reforms and anti-corruption measures that it hopes will boost popular support for Karzai and erase the doubts about his legitimacy raised by his fraud-tainted re-election.
The officials said that as of Friday, when Obama's top military advisers met for at least the seventh time to discuss the strategy in Afghanistan, the president had spent nearly 20 hours in meetings on Afghanistan. The planned troop increase may be his best hope to balance the competing political, economic and international pressures his administration is feeling.
Republicans have pressed for a decision, and many at the Pentagon and in conservative political circles argue that Obama, who has little experience in military affairs, should back his commander and send him whatever troops he's requested. The president, they note, called McChrystal the best general the military had to tackle Afghanistan when he appointed him to his post last summer.
Other military officers, particularly in the Army, warn that committing more troops to Afghanistan could risk "breaking" the force by reducing the time soldiers can spend at home between deployments, overtaxing equipment and destroying families. Those problems could worsen if Iraq's January elections are delayed or disrupted, and with them the administration's timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from that country.
Many Democrats, meanwhile, are urging Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan. Some in his own administration, notably Vice President Joe Biden, aren't convinced that more troops would guarantee success and advocate instead more drone attacks and more training for Afghan forces.
Training Afghan troops, police and border guards, however, is proving to be a slow and frustrating process, hampered by corruption, illiteracy, ethnic rivalries and logistical problems, and carried out in the shadow of doubts about what kind of government the troops are serving.
Finally, Obama must reckon with domestic economic pressures. The unemployment rate reached 10.2 percent in October, the highest since 1983, and there are growing fears that changes in the nation's health care system could send the federal budget deficit even higher.
Obama campaigned saying that he'd fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from the defense budget, but Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that the Afghan war - which some administration officials privately concede could cost $700 billion to $1 trillion - might require a supplemental funding bill next year. Among the cost estimates the Pentagon is considering is $1 trillion over 10 years, two senior defense officials told McClatchy.
Because of these pressures, it's become "highly likely that the administration would send more troops," said Paul Pillar, the director of Strategic Studies at Georgetown University. "Then it is a matter of degree," particularly given the struggling U.S. economy.
For all the debate and deliberation, however, the proposed new deployments still may not answer the fundamental question about Afghanistan, Pillar said: Would a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan pose a threat to the United States?
71 Comments so far
Show Allto amfortas, exzile, teddy:
I have a child who emigrated to France. He recently visited the US for a family matter and commented on the palpable depressive atmosphere here, which I had noticed but not so strongly as you, or my son. You are right in that there has been an extreme power shift. We are openly and massively robbed by banks and insurance companies, sent to kill and die to enrich the war industry, laid off from jobs, watch the devastation of the biosphere, see the overall decay of our schools, conditions and infrastructure, and there is no effective response. The health care bill which is causing so much joy in certain liberal circles will drain most people who need health care and enrich private insurance companies.
I believe that we agree that we have to stop waiting for our elected officials to come to our rescue. They will not, as they are almost completely aligned with those we need to oppose. The rescue illusion is paralyzing and keeps us distracted as the military and financial powers consolidate power and continue to rob us.
Most of us do not have the cash or family connections to emigrate in this crashing world economy. So it would accomplish nothing to sink into the kind of nihilism you express. We can acknowledge how bad things are, but reject the corollary that nothing can be done. "We" have to put the "we" back in "we". We have to understand we are essential to the country, and not the parasites currently in charge. We need a new consciousness about our numbers, importance and role. And we need to figure out what to do next.
You may be ready to pack up, move away and write us off, but you are talking about our families, our neighbors. You are talking about policies that have an impact on every part of the globe, even remote paradises. Striking a pose of disaffection in the midst of so many problems would not fit my definition of responsibility.
Joe
I'm sorry to say this but there is much more trouble ahead and not just in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Israel/Palestine not to even mention internal problems in the US. It has been pointed out before but it is worth repeating: the US is expanding aggressive war preparations in South America. US has rights to use eight airbases in Colombia against Venezuela. Here is one link:
Chavez Says Venezuela to Prepare for War as Deterrent
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aZuAU4StKAQY
I suppose it has been coming for a long time especially since the Soviet Union is no longer a counter balance to US aggression. The US leaders are almost totally insane and vicious and most of the US public is mindless, insane and vicious. Very upsetting. Like watching the clouds of massive war forming much like what preceded World War II. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop it - - who would stop it? Who would come to their senses? We leave for SE Asia and perhaps India in three days. I feel like I'm dying. I have a lot of respect for the majority of posters here on Common Dreams. So sad. Tragic. I knew Obama was a disaster before he became president but I didn't expect him to be this nasty, stupid and brutal.
"We leave for SE Asia and perhaps India in three days."–(ekzile)
My boyfriend, daughter and our new, future child will be leaving for South East Asia as well after the holidays for our home in Northern Laos. This is for much the same reasons as you state here. I consider ourselves lucky.
Re-patriating back to the USA is becoming increasingly difficult, in ways those who have not lived in other countries may not understand. Were it not for work opportunities and extended families the choice of where to live would remain obvious. France is another option that becomes increasingly practical for us.
The malaise in America is palpable and unremitting with no end in sight; one can seemingly rot here and not know it. The reality of cultural, spiritual and certainly political toxicity is now no longer merely metaphoric.
It no longer seems a wretched 'exaggeration' to characterize America in these terms. What is worse (is as you say) the ambient anxiety and the ominous, portentous signs of more theaters of war opening on the horizon. If not in South America, then perhaps in East Africa, if not both.
War is now the exigent 'event horizon' of all things American. That is all it can do and ultimately is constitutive of what it is: A malignancy, a death state.
The hopelessness and dread is implacable.This perspective stands out in greater relief as our family has 'yo-yo'd' back and forth for 4 years now, every 8-10 months. The sense of eeriness upon returning to America is paradoxically stranger now that Obama has been elected, more so than even under the regency of Bush.
There is more a sense of the pure 'finality' of hopelessness than before. It is as if things have been 'resolved.' The historical dialectic of America has been finally reconciled and settled. Reform or 'change' is no longer an option that can be generated from within a dead state.
Fascism is no longer a 'figure of speech' in America but has attained a material, totalizing immanence one institution at a time. The destiny seems tragic in that it seems inevitable, almost Oedipal in its intractable fatality.
–(Jill Bains)
you echo my thoughts too; I have long adviced people close to me :
"NEVER , EVER, *dream* of america...it is NOT worth it".
i was so relieved years ago when relatives who "shopped" to compare which country to resettle in chose canada and i never stop reminding them of it and in any manner they can as canadians they should be very wary of the "conservatives" that are now trying to imitate the "USA".
a few years ago an acquaintance asked me , quite seriously, what my opinion was and what I would advice him about a "life-changing" decision: whether to stay in the USA , to finish his Doctorate in internet technology architecture or go back to Hongkong and get started working in a company that was interested in him and where his girlfriend was waiting and already working . I told him : "MY opinion is..from what you are telling me about yourself..you are ALREADY too good for america professionally..that is one reason you are frustrated with your professors in your doctoral program because they seem petty to you and offer you nothing to learn much more...and if you are very attracted to the new york life or american life....do you realize that you are STILL going to be a stranger regardless if not for your skills?...on the other hand - your family which is comfortable in hongkong , willing to put you up in a business if you so wish , or a very good high position in a company there waiting for you , and you can always continue your advanced education there OR europe or japan if you wish....
don't you think that THAT is where you should be? you will always be able to travel..BUT on YOUR terms ..rather than be trying to finish here - just because some people think, including in asia , that a US education is somehow more desirable...but that is no longer really the case, isn't it? especailly in YOUR case...ALSO - think ahead...CHINA. YOUR own mother culture from the mainland can not be stopped...THAT is where you should be training your eyes on...if you wish to sample the western life - there is ALWAYS europe which needs asia more than asia needs europe..YOU are in a position to do whatever you wish - IF YOU GO BACK and be what you ARE...ASIAN."
he went home. and he is obviously much happier.
Thanks Teddy. I think you understand what I was trying to say as it is a difficult perspective to communicate unless one shares my vantage point.
But then you must understand, with an American father and having been raised for the most part in America, I am not Asian or American.
Since Northern Laos is amongst the most beautiful places I have visited or lived it is always with great relief that my family and myself return there. The people too have an unearthly quality and seem almost alien and other planetary in their beings. They seem to communicate almost by extrasensory perception. They are omnivorous and eat large insects too. It is also somewhat close to where we work in North Vietnam.
In America one is scared. Even people who think they are not are scared. Goes with the territory. Too many ghosts and skeletons in closets and more arriving everyday from the American death sites and various 'Golgotha's.' Ghost world. The coming dread.
I return to America as it too is my home and most of my work is here, but it does not get any easier to do so. Time to maybe set up shop elsewhere.–(Jill Bains)
I used to think America was the worst and perhaps it is because it has the most resources and power to do evil. Nevertheless, I am afraid, the world is headed for a bad place if not war, deprivation, then environmental destruction. I don't even mention these things to my 31 year old son - - he knows. Europe is completely messed up - - EU supports US in just about everything. India is crazed - - buying nuclear material from US as well as massive military equipment and bringing their "indigenous " people to heal with military operations. We came back to US after 5 months in SE Asia, flying from Hanoi to Hawaii but I couldn't bear returning to the mainland so we turn around again. Keep running, hiding. I never got over the American War in Vietnam even though I was a draft resister. I suppose it started with the first micro-organism that devoured it's cousin and evolution has brought us here without much change.
Yeah come on all you big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again,
Got himself in a terrible jam,
way down yonder in Afghanistan.
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lot of fun!
My apologies and compliments to Country Joe McDonald,
so here we go again.
Why do conservatives of both parties say no to a health care bill that helps Americans costing one trillion over ten years, and yes to another MIC bill to kill Americans costing the same over the same time?
Don't worry! It costs a million dollars to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for a year. The dollar will tank to such an extent and the economy will bottom out that we will not be able to afford to keep many soldiers anywhere. Besides they will probably be needed at home to keep the unemployed under control.
I get goose bumps when I think of how the world could be different if the Germans had been blessed with a leader like Barack Hussein Obama in those dark days of the previous century. Would he have ordered the army of the fatherland to invade the Soviet Union with the same vast armies as Hitler did and to continually engage in wide-ranging genocidal acts? No, of course not. He would have ordered half as many troops to invade and told them to engage in genocidal acts only on odd-numbered days. Would he have ordered the 24/7 mass murder of Jews and operation of ovens in the concentration camps? No way! He would have ordered only the mass murder of Jews with names beginning from A to M and would have stopped executions on holidays and weekends and only allowed them from 8 to 5 on other days. Barack Obama is a man of moderation who knows how to split the difference to keep everybody (everybody who counts) happy.
He is the best kind of ruthless, rapacious, bloodthirsty imperialist -- an incompetent one.
Progressives have repeatedly tried to talk to Mr. Obama about the 'war in Afghanistan'.
Mr. Obama speaks of 'Our war' against al-Qaeda.
Progressives have to speak about the same war that Mr. Obama does, if they want him to hear what they have to say.
it ain't my fukkin war!
True, you obviously did not want nor do you support these wars. Nevertheless the rockets and bombs dropped on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan are dropped in my and in your name so I and you cannot simply argue that we have nothing to do with it.
One commentator below said Obama is an intelligent person so why is he further militarizing his approach to Afghanistan when this approach has failed for 8 years.
The answer is our nation since Vietnam has seen a militarist bordering on neo-fascist ideology infect our democracy, civilian leadership, and armed forces leadership, which sees a subserviant delegation of civil decision making authority to "the generals" and the military.
Recent subserviant "hero-worship" of the troops where t.v. pundits and the public are expected to thank the troops for their sacrifice and repeat the false claim that our bloated, finacially and socially wasteful military empire is defending "our freedom", is only making the militarist, neo-fascist ideology much worse...time to reign in the "the generals" and the military.
"Recent subservient "hero-worship" of the troops where t.v. pundits and the public are expected to thank the troops for their sacrifice..." –(CrazyLiberal)
There is nothing at all "recent" about subservient hero worship of "the troops." It is an indelible, all pervasive and unchallenged feature of American life. All political sectors have succumbed in one way or the other to the tenants of imperial, militarist fascism.
Such vulgar and obscene 'hero worship' of the troops is not merely confined to the usual suspects on the troglodyte right, but pervades liberal and progressive sensibilities as well. That worship of the troops for the 'progressive' left is expressed with less emphasis on the explicitly 'patriotic' is scant relief.
The common denominator here is a sentimentality where militarist crimes are rationalized and explained away by 'contingencies' of circumstance rather than vainglorious appeals to American patriotism and obdurate jingoism. The troops qua 'troops' can do no wrong.
The incoherence of the American anti-war consciousness is that it claims to be pro "the troops" and anti-militarist at the same time, not realizing it succumbs to a contradiction in terms.
What is the alternative for, as you say, "thanking the troops for their sacrifices?" Apparently there are none. The alternative is to see the troops as willing, voluntary agents of imperial fascism and as enemies of the larger human project.
And the American 'left,' not really being truly 'left' at all–or sufficiently internationalist in vision– is not prepared to go there. It prefers, despite its entreaties to the contrary, to refuse to sever itself from the dominant imperial ethos by continuing to ride on the coattails of 'pro-troop' sentimentality.–(Jill Bains)
BRILLIANTLY stated!
Obama doesn't have the guts to do the right thing and withdraw our troops from Afghanistan. I also doubt he will have the guts top send 34,000 more troops.
Leaders lead, cowards equivocate...........Its beginning to look like he is just one more that wouldn't serve, wouldn't fight but will give a pretty speech.
I'm growing sick of this sort. Stand up or get out of the way.
Administration officials also want time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress..
----------
Everything is a Public Relations campaign.
There's no reality anymore.
And because there's still no Fairness Doctrine, nor have the too-big-to-exist media megaliths been broken up, the public will be blown away by an F-5 Tornado of propaganda that'll push us deeper into Afghanistan.
We must reclaim our access to the public's airwaves or else we'll continue to suffer one crushing defeat after another.
Of course you remember these successful public relations offenses:
- Iraq had WMD and mushroom clouds will be seen above major American cities unless we invade.
- The world economy will implode unless we hand over $13 trillion to the criminal bankers who should be going to jail.
- Iran has a nuclear weapons program and is an imminent threat to Israel.
- Single-payer healthcare will put a government official between you and your doctor and lead to the death of your grandmother.
If access to the nation's media was open, honest and representative of the people these propaganda campaigns would be EASILY defeated.
The greatest tool of the corporate fascist is his ability to control the discussion.
Until we take away the oligarch's ability to frame the topic we will continue to be bled dry of our freedom and fortune.
There's no issue more important.
-------------------
Whoever controls the media controls the country.
Obama and this Congress have in eight months murdered more Afghan Civilians than Bush did in eight years (source Maya Joya (sp?) former Afghan Jurga member interview Democracy Now!).
The factory making the stormtrooper attack vehicles especially designed for Afghanistan is contracted to make 1000 per month( source CD).
1000 per month!!! What does that tell you about the war plans?
1000 killer robot tanks or somesuch item per month? Another nightmare scenario. glenn ford can you provide a citation, as I missed the article?
But you see what we are up against. The corporate tycoons making such items could get very very nasty if their income stream were to be threatened.
Joe
www.army-guide.com/eng/article/article_1460.html
"Oshkosh Corporation, announced today that through its Defense division, it has received two contracts valued at more than $28 million for spare parts and support of its MRAP All Terrain Vehicles (M-ATV) in Afghanistan."
Is this the correct vehicle?
This is exactly what Osama's ghost wants.... Custers revenge.... or not.
Obama is said to be "holding off " on an official announcement of his escalation campaign in order to "talk with" US "allies".
Get ready for the second coming of the "Coalition of the Unwilling."
Recall that before the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush/Cheney gang went around bullying and blackmailing a collection of tiny, vulnerable countries into sending token forces to join in the assault so that it could claim that the invasion of a sovereign nation was some kind of international effort, and not what it really was: an example of rank, illegal aggression by the world's only Superpower. Bush called it the "Coalition of the Willing," but we later learned that there were secret threats of a withdrawal of US aid, and other threats made to force the likes of El Salvador, the Maldives and the Phillipines to send "troops" (usually just support personnel in non-combat roles.
Now we hear that Obama is trying to "rally support" for the cause among US "allies" even as several countries, including the Netherlands and Canada, are preparing to pull their troops out of Afghanistan (even Britain, where the war is hugely unpopular, is considering ending its participation). So expect to see more behind the scenes extortion, bullying and threats to concoct a fake "coalition of the willing" to make it look like this latest imperial project by the US is somehow international cooperation in action.
Dave Lindorff
Visit Dave Lindorff's website at www.thiscantbehappening.net
Yes, Dave, it does appear that the 'fix' is in.
Even this 'story' by McClatchy is fishy (as in smells like one).
McClatchy was a bit more honest and probing than the other MSM media whores (like the NYT), but this sounds like they are now 'in the tank' with Obama's war -- and Obama's war Expansion to the whole ME and Central Asia:
"As McClatchy reported last week, the Obama administration has been quietly working with U.S. allies and Afghan officials on an "Afghanistan Compact," a package of reforms and anti-corruption measures that it hopes will boost popular support for Karzai and erase the doubts about his legitimacy raised by his fraud-tainted re-election.
The officials said that as of Friday, when Obama's top military advisers met for at least the seventh time to discuss the strategy in Afghanistan, the president had spent nearly 20 hours in meetings on Afghanistan. The planned troop increase may be his best hope to balance the competing political, economic and international pressures his administration is feeling."
"The planned troop increase may be his best hope to balance the competing political, economic and international pressures his administration is feeling."? "best hope"??
GMAFB!
Smells like the torch is being lit for the main attraction: the Afpakran War.
Let's 'hope' not. Maybe someone can 'change' the plot line.
Today's "Coalition of the Swilling" maybe smaller, but no less powerful.
And besides all the right international guests are here for the Grand Opening Nite.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Obama must know that MLK would be turning over in his grave --- in shame of what you are about to do.
Barack, take some time tonight to re-read the Riverside speech, "Break the Silence" yourself.
"(even Britain, where the war is hugely unpopular, is considering ending its participation)"
not according to Friday's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/06/gordon-brown-fight-taliban-afghanistan
see also: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/brit-n07.shtml
(and I prefer the more accurate "Coalition of the Swilling")
Pot calls kettle black. Al Gore won the election in 2000. George Bush was installed as President by a narrow Supreme Court majority which included Justices appointed by Bush's father in a matter over which the Federal judiciary did not have jurisdiction.
The vote in Ohio was stolen in 2004 by a Republican who was Secretary of State in Ohio. John Kerry was actually elected, but George Bush remained President.
The entire 9/11 matter has never been honestly investigated and the explanation we have been given doesn't make sense.
http://AE911truth.org
A Senator from Montana, population 800,000 (less than half the population of Fresno, CA) receives a million dollars from the drug and health insurance industries and then blocks universal Medicare coverage to preserve the $800 billion raked in by the same for profit industries while 45,000 American citizens die every year for lack of access to health care. That's a death every 7 minutes!
Meanwhile we spend hundreds of billions on a military expedition to Afghanistan. It's hard to think of a more absurd scenario. The Afghan government is a function of Afghan geography and culture. Infidels (that's us) are not going to change that.
I saw an ad on TV last night proclaiming that we have "100 years of Natural Gas" right here in America! So I guess that explains why we are not seeing progress in harnessing the free fuel of the Sun. The coal, natural gas and oil guys have enough money to block the threat of electrical generation with free fuel and you can be sure they are bribing the Congress every way they can think of to block the threat to their profits.
Meanwhile the carbon level in the atmosphere moves ever further in the red zone and if we do burn all that natural gas for the next hundred years the planet will become uninhabitable.
Obama should start by firing all the Generals and Robert Gates and then do a complete housecleaning of anyone who stands in the way of the real energy and transportation conversion we so desperately need. Don't hold your breath.
Heavyrunner writes: "Obama should start by firing all the Generals and Robert Gates and then do a complete housecleaning of anyone who stands in the way of the real energy and transportation conversion we so desperately need."
We should start by firing Obama.
Since we didn't get single payer, at least we can pay back Obama with Single Term. And the next president (republican or democrat) who keeps us in the war and with no health care should get the boot as well, until we get a president who is representing basic tenets of democracy and justice.
Just don't do it.
So what do we do now, folks?
I had a little meeting with the IRS yesterday about those missing back tax payments and I enquired if they'd kindly let me pay it into a non-military fund of some sort. No such luck, my choice is either to pony up the taxes or suffer the consequences, I'm not sure what they would be since I don't own any property they can sieze.
It truly makes me sick paying taxes to these monsters.
The IRS will generally accept $1 a month.
I think the tax collectors are targeting vocal progressives now.
"Would a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan pose a threat to the United States?"
LOL
Destination? Pakistan; 200 nuclear weapons controlled by Allah & the ISI. It will require an "incident," then a thousand special forces teams will jump; triggers & warheads separated? So much the better.
Iran and Pakistan are our (Israel's,) ultimate targets. Afghanistan is a holding action. Only Russia & China have deterred us.
As I have predicted this leak was made on a Saturday/Sunday break. Even more despicably at a time when our country is grieving the murdered soldiers at Fort Hood.
I also predicted that Obama and McChrystal would go "halfies". If 80,000 was the military's main demand then the 34,000 is pretty close to one-half of zero plus 80,000.
If George Bush were to do this, there would be unanimous condemnation from the left and many others who are blessed with common sense.
Obama has managed to paralyze or postpone action by the peace movement. Some are loathe to appear like the stupid teabaggers and birthers, so they hold back. Sensing this, Obama plays on his charm. Obama is a stringer-alonger and a seducer of the public as he inexorably and inevitably feeds the war machine. Meanwhile he pretends to be engaging in critical thinking and caring.
Obama is supposedly waiting for this and that in order to make a decision. He wants Ourguy Karzai to change his corrupt ways. Not going to happen. That's why we chose Karzai in the first place. Karzai is a ho who will sell out his own country to foreign invaders or drug lords or anyone if he gets paid off.
Obama says he wants our allies to support us. Nonsense. It doesn't matter that much what they think. The French foreign minister complains of being left in the dark and asks "What is the goal? What is the road? And in the name of what?" Obama cannot provide a believable answer. The goal is perpetual war and cash infusions for our only growing export industry - arms production.
Obama is stalling to give the appearance of thoughtfulness. Nonetheless the die is cast and he is obviously planning to continue and escalate this criminally stupid venture in Afghanistan.
Unless we stop being charmed by outward appearance and stop giving Obama a pass on egregious actions, this war juggernaut will never be turned back.
Joe
"Unless we stop being charmed by outward appearance and stop giving Obama a pass on egregious actions, this war juggernaut will never be turned back." –(jclientelle)
Joe,
I think what you may be forced to realize really sooner rather than later, is that "we" no longer matter. The tipping point has been reached and those dice have already been rolled.
It has little to do with who is President, Obama or anyone else. The real game has now moved into dimension of negation or 'non' politics, for there are presently no real politics in America. In fact, there isn't a real 'public' in America.
Responding or not responding to Obama's personality affectations or his "charms" matter not a whit. It is no longer that kind of a country if it ever was.
Confronting unflinchingly the reality of a hopeless pessimism is paradoxically a necessary first step in creating a politics of the future. Nothing is worse than believing there is hope when there is none as in the present circumstances.
What must emerge is something commensurate with the very overwhelming darkness that it now confronts, and be equally as overwhelming in response. In short, a total negation of politics as we know it.
The old rules no longer matter. That game is played out.–(Jill Bains)
see comment above
Joe
Obama doesn't have the guts to do the right thing and withdraw our troops from Afghanistan.
I suspect he doesn't have the guts to send 34,000 either.
Please don't confine your remark on "egregious actions" to the war. Thjis may be the worst President ever.
JClientelle
Very well stated. One expects any day now for Obama to echo those famous reassuring [though false] words that were said by another Democratic president more than forty years ago when LBJ proclaimed that "Victory is just around the corner" and that he could "see the light at the end of the tunnel" in a place called Vietnam. Unfortunately for the Afghans, they are not seeing light but rather misery and despair by another militant Democratic president.
Well as long as it isn't 34,001. If it were to be 34,001 I would be upset. Somewhere on a Rez, a city, town, burn, and Indian merely shrugged their shoulders as the planet orbited going nowhere getting nowhere doing their time in an insane world.
There isn't anything to figure out about an insane world. An insane world is merely an insane world. An insane world will proceed to it's own conclusion brought about by it's own hands.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
u know what is REALLY "annoying" about obama?...
it is this itsy-bitsy, push-me-pull-you-but-stay-the-course,
pathetically transparent acting of trying to look "decisive" after a loooooooooonnnnnggggg
period of "considered, thoughtful" contemplation about things that are ALREADY long ago decided: escalate wars, more financial shenanigans, torture, spying, blah,blah,blah
and a round-about way of "coming to a decision" that was already Decided....
what a WASTE of resources, people, time , and attention.
why doesn't he just get it all over with ---
send 500,000 thousand american soldiers...and hasten the American FAILURE and DEFEAT? rather than this long protracted PROCESSION?
he is getting SO TIRESOME.
"Training Afgan troops, police and border guards, however, is proving to be a slow and frustrating process, hampered by corruption, illiteracy, ethnic rivalries and logistical problems, and carried out in the shadow of doubts about what kind of government the troops are serving."
Take out the word "Afgan" and put in the word "American" and you are closer to the truth.
Let's stop blaming the Afgans for being what we are.
p.s. I wonder how much time was spent teaching Obama how to salute most "effectively"?
Obama is Pathetic....
The Democratic Party Are Pathetic!
No more Democrats who are as EVIL as the Republicans!
Been there. Done that. Vietnam.
"hamster"
But, does your father smell of elderberries?
Too much Monte Python?
Your 12:31 comment made a lot of sense. But I do not get this one at all.
Joe
WTF are you talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about-- almost every substantial point in the article is not just "eerily reminiscent" but a dead-on repeat of every step taken in Vietnam. The corrupt puppet government that had no control in the countryside, the gradual ineffective troop increases, the random burning of villages and innocent civilians. Draw your own conclusions.
The ruling elites of the US have but one central agenda: keeping the Wall Street criminal bankster/gangsters in business and continuing the global US empire of control via any means necessary and endless wars, costing trillions and the lives and communities of the victims. Unless and until these are ended, the people of the US will never have a decent national healthcare system, an efficient rail mass transit system in cities and across the nation, direly needed repairs to the decaying water, transport, energy infrastructure, a decent system of public education for all, or any other basic needs of the ordinary people. Instead the wealth will continue to pyramid to the upper 10%, and be squandered in wars and rescues of casino capitalism. With further descent into the quagmire of wars in the Middle East, the decay and degeneration of domestic society will quicken--and end up where? And how long will US creditors in China, Japan, the oil emirates soverign wealth funds continue to finance the bankrupt US operations?
Please stop referring to these parasites as "elite".
Just another reason I voted for Nader.
You can always count on Obama to do the right-wing thing!
Thats alot to prop up a corrupt unpopular dictator.
Obama is not a real leader. He is a classic front man for special interests which is what the hated George W Bush was. The difference between the two is that Obama is a fancy speaker who managed to fool millions with his rhetoric, while Bush was obviously a shill for his rich country club buddies and made no real effort to hide it. I'm proud to say that I was never fooled by Obama and voted for the real statesman in the last election--Ralph Nader. Now it appears that Obama has set up his administration for catastrophe and that he will take down his fellow democrats with him. Since the left is hopelessly weak in the United States the way will be open again for the right wing authoritarians who are champing at the bit to grab power back in Washington. They know how to organize their followers--Just look at the big rally against health care reform last week in DC. Clearly we are in for more bad times in the United States.
"Obama is a fancy speaker who managed to fool millions with his rhetoric"
YES WE CON!
Right on!
I'm so sick of these republican warmongers starting endless wars. All they can do is get us embroiled in foreign conflicts.
I sure hope the democrats win control of the congress and white house in the coming elections so they can end the wars and bring peace like they promised.
Oh. Wait a minute. My watch stopped in October 2006, just before the election. What year is it?
It's 2013, Sarah Palin is now President, having won vowing to end Obama's Afghanistan quagmire.
Then in 2014 President Palin resigns because she once again feels she is going with the flow, (and as she informed us once before, only dead fish do that). She turns the reigns of power over to Vice President Mark Sanford via a phone call to his remote office in Argentina. Sanford says he needs a break but he'll be back in a few days to take the presidential oath.
Secretary of State Lindsey Graham was vacationing in P- Town at the time of the resignation, and was unavailable for comment.
Press Secretary Limbaugh hands out a press release stating why President Palin's resignation was the result of a great left wing conspiracy headed by Chelsea Clinton.
President Palin's last act as president is to change the national emblem from the Bald Eagle to an oil well. She also has the Latin phrase on the seal changed from "E Pluribus Unum" to the Pig Latin phrase, "Ill-Dray, aby-Bray, Ill-Dray!"
....eeeeeekk!....Halloween is over...stop with the haunting of the house!
I think that it is now up to the people to pressure Obama not to, I hope.
Who cares anymore? There simply is no stopping these people.
In 2008, when the Afghan War still belonged the GWB, the cost was about $2.7 billion a month. Since The One took office and increased troop levels, the monthly costs has doubled, with some months even higher with June 09 costing $6.7B and August 09 costing $5.4B.
Obama got $130B authorized for the year, but in April he already needed emergency funding (all three wars?) for an extra $83.4B. He said that was "the last planned." Now he is already back for a $50B supplement, and if he gets his troop increases he will be back for more.
While some may find it crass to be focused on the money when it is, in a sense, the least of our problems, the cost of this war is juxtaposed against the failure of our economy. While unemployment rises, the financial industry that picked out this president for us is being floated on a tide of tax dollars. They will recover. We will not. While defense contractors can afford healthcare, those trying to survive in what is left of our economy cannot. These defense contractors writing themselves blank checks in Washington are destroying the very country whose protection was the rationale for their existence. Same with the healthcare industry. Healthcare used to be nonprofit until the Republican Revolution convinced people that competition would provide better services. The field was opened up to profits because they were supposed to provide a good to society. Now they profit from our misery and we serve them instead of them serving us. With some of their folding money, they bribe our government.
The funding for the wars appears to be coming in at about $23B a month(?). I'm not sure how many wars and what kind of wars that covers--whether it includes the cost of propaganda or what--but whatever it is there is nothing left of the non-global war on terror economy left. The defense industry should congratulate itself on having destroyed America to save it.
Good comment. No, it is not crass to focus on money, pitch fork. Money represents people's lives spun out in work and it represents the products of the earth. It can be shared and used for the common good or it can be hoarded by usurers and or used to fund organized crime at various levels. Use of money, whether in the family, the neighborhood, the nation or in the world, always has moral and human implications.
Joe
Pitch Fork, "These defense contractors," and from here you do hit the ball out of the park.
The machine is feeding off it's own progeny. Like a mother consuming it's child.
viva la mfing rev
We are now living in Orwell's 1984.
The illegal oil wars of agression will continue, unabated. The American sheople, I mean people, no longer do they have a say in the matter. We're neck deep in fascism an tyranny.
I'll bet though that EXXON is happy? They just found a huge oil deposit in Iraq, while the people of that country still don't have clean drinking water. But they're the bad people, the "evildoers" who attacked us on 9/11. "Remember?" It was all in "The Newspeak." Or was it the Afghan people who attacked us? It is so dam confusing isn't it?
"War is now Peace," get use to it. And there's plenty of "black gold," "Texas Tea" in dem there hills of Afghanistan. Or is it poppie? So confusing, and so dam sad seeing our country crumble from within. A mendacious and contrived crumble at that!
Raising my mug of milkless Victory Coffee
Talking about the money isn't crass at all. It is staggering and it is choking us to death. No money for health care, no money for our infrastructure or education or anything else, but the the billions for war keep flowing to destroy life on a massive scale, mentally and physically.
Brother, brother, brother; we don't need to escalate ... for only love can conquer hate. Make this November's a true Thanksgiving ... bring them home.
The article states that "Administration officials also want time to launch a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress" that the "war is one of necessity." One would think that if the American public were that skeptical that they would be flooding the streets in protest regarding Obama's impending military decision. Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress has not become so wary that they might actually take the bold step of cutting off the funds for Obama's imperial adventures.
Meanwhile, we have V.P Biden apparently attempting to display his humanitarian side by declaring that the U.S. does not need to send in more soldiers into Afghanistan as the United States can make the carnage of even more Afghan people seem more antiseptic and impersonal by having drone missiles do the killing of all those terrorists being disguised as Afghan children and grandmothers.
As the song goes, when will they ever learn?
"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it."-Joseph Chamberlain [1836-1914], British politician
"a public relations offensive to convince an increasingly skeptical public and a wary Democratic Congress"
–I like this. A "wary Democratic Congress?" As if they all lose sleep at night wrestling with their consciences and their 'doubts.'
They are so 'wary' that they will be climbing over the backs of one another to see who can be the first to sign the appropriations bill, as they clamor for even more troops. The same goes for the 'skeptical' public.
One must understand unequivocally that there is no "public" in America.
It was never a question of sending troops, only how many more above and beyond the requested figure.
When the Pentagon, or for that matter Obama says "34,000 more troops" they really mean more like 60,000 or 80,000.
Let's hope the Afghani resistance drives the fascist emissaries of the imperium into the ground. There is the true "humanitarian side."
–(Jill Bains)
Obama is supposed to be an intelligent person. So, it's time for him to sit in a dark room and begin wondering what Hell is going to look like. The strategy, the timing, the exact contours of the coming escalation, the trips to meet with our bullshit "allies" . . . it's all political and geostrategic masturbation, with the end point being the meaningless deaths of Americans, Afghans, whoever.
Obama is supposed to be an intelligent person.
Ha ha ha ha.
I'm not worried about how intelligent Bush or Obama are. I'm worried by how unintelligent the Bush and Obama supporters are.