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Democrats in Revolt Over Obama’s Troop Surge
Barack Obama's much-vaunted eloquence faces the biggest test of his presidential career this week when he takes to the stage at West Point military academy to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan.
Anti-war activists take part in a rally near the U.S. embassy in Seoul November 18, 2009. (REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak) After almost three months of agonizing, nine war councils and endless leaks, the president will finally make his views known on Tuesday when he is expected to announce that he is sending about 30,000 more troops. This will push up American forces to 100,000 and the total number of allied forces to almost 140,000, as many troops as the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan.
The carefully chosen backdrop cannot disguise Obama's dilemma. Somehow he has to convince his own public that the United States has an exit strategy and will not become bogged down, as it did in Vietnam, while making clear to the Taliban and Pakistan that it has not lost its resolve and will stay as long as it takes.
Obama's toughest challenge will be to win over his most loyal political supporters. He is facing a growing revolt in the Democratic party over why the US needs to be in Afghanistan at all when the real threat - Al-Qaeda - is in Pakistan, and over the spiraling cost in both lives and dollars.
"I think the operative question is why we're there," said Anna Eshoo, a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the House intelligence committee. "That's what I'll be wanting to hear from the president."
Eshoo, who represents a seat in California where unemployment is at a post-war high of 12.5%, is one of a growing number of voices in the party questioning whether the nation can afford the war.
The annual bill for the extra troops is estimated at $30 billion (£18.2 billion), on top of the $10 billion-a-month the war is costing. "We're still not out of Iraq and we're getting deeper into Afghanistan, both of which are hugely expensive," she said.
She has joined David Obey, a Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, to introduce legislation that would impose a surtax on all taxpayers to fund the war. "It doesn't seem fair that the sacrifice is being made only by military and their families," she said.
In a sign of White House concern over the issue Obama invited Peter Orszag, the budget director, to sit in on his final round of deliberations on the Afghanistan strategy last week. "There is serious unrest in our caucus ... can we afford this war?" said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker.
Obey's proposal would impose a 1% surtax on anyone earning less than $150,000 a year, and up to 5% on those earning more. It was an idea put into practice by President Lyndon Johnson, who brought in a temporary 10% surtax to help pay for the Vietnam war.
Democrats fear that stepping up the conflict at a time when unemployment is at a 26-year high of 10.2% will rebound on them in the mid-term elections next November.
"I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. "That's what a lot of other Democrats like Pelosi are worried about right now."
For this reason Obama's speech will emphasize that sending more troops does not mean a never ending commitment to the war. "The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict," said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
Obama has come under much criticism from the military at home and abroad and both sides of the political spectrum for the amount of time he has taken to decide whether to back recommendations made by General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to send more troops "or risk failure".
Obama is expected to back a compromise proposal from Robert Gates, his defence secretary, to send 30,000 troops. This is less than the 40,000-plus requested by McChrystal, but he hopes to make up the shortfall with 10,000 extra soldiers from NATO countries. NATO defense ministers are meeting this week but an official admitted its contribution is likely to be more like 5,000.
There is still more backing for the war in the US than in Britain - a poll last week showed slightly more Americans in favor of escalating the war than cutting troop levels. But this support comes largely from Obama's political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be crucial to re-electing Democrats in Congress next year are skeptical.
"Voters, particularly women, thought they had elected an anti-war president to get them out of Iraq, not to get them deeper into Afghanistan," said Karen O'Connor, director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University in Washington.
With the 21,000 extra troops Obama agreed in February, he will have authorized more than 50,000 this year.
The situation in Afghanistan was far worse than he realized during the campaign and has deteriorated since his election last November.
The president will need all his resolve in the coming months. Military commanders admit that sending more troops will mean more casualties, though they hope that the McChrystal strategy of pulling troops back to the main cities and highways will show some results. The Americans are anxious to avoid getting entangled in remote valleys and villages fighting the Taliban.
The biggest obstacle to success may be the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who started his second term in office earlier this month after a deeply flawed election.
Officials will be watching closely to see whether he brings in warlords to his cabinet and what he does about his brother, Ahmed Wali, reputed to be heavily involved in opium smuggling.
Wali was in Mecca last week. "He went to repent," laughed a close adviser to Karzai. "He thinks that's enough."
- Posted in
109 Comments so far
Show All- can we afford this war?" said Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. -
...said the person who allowed Bush to start this madness, and who has never passed up a chance to escalate.
Amen!!
"allowed Bush to start this madness ..."
That was so last year!
I was already angry at Bush for the death of my son and son-in-law in Iraq. For this past year, my husband and I have gotten bitter over Obama making it worse in Afghanistan. To all the mothers and fathers who will lose your children in Afghanistan, the two of us extend our deepest apologies for voting for Barack Hussein Obama when we should have voted for a real anti-war leader such as Ralph Nader or Cynthia Mckinney. :(
...or Dennis Kucinich.
I hope he challenges Obama in 2012. He ought to consider challenging him in the primaries and if that fails, run as a Green Party candidate and be himself. I've had it with both parties and feel no harm in voting Green.
I am so sorry for the loss of your son and son-in-law.
I am so sorry for your losses and applaud your humanistic and rational reaction to them. Cowardly war mongers could learn a lot from you.
I wished that war mongers would but my pro-war neighbors keep yelling that my kids were heroes to serve. Heroes for what? None of them or their children ever served and were lucky not to be pushed into long term unemployment and then they have the nerve to tell us and our children to serve ! I don't think that they will learn until they get thrown into the battlefields or end up losing their homes and going homeless just like some of my former neighbors who were just as rowdy finally faced eviction due to foreclosure. I met some of them who were homeless from 2007 and 2008 and most of them are now enlisted and visit occasionally. I told some of them that I apologized for voting for Obama but they dismiss it coolly saying that Mccain and Obama are patriotic ! I don't know when this will end but I'm not holding my breath.
It's all so insane. There is no longer a working press in this land. Information is withheld and distorted, so your neighbors, like many millions, simply respond to you the way they were programmed to, like robots--even when you're telling them the awful truth.
Important to keep talking, as I do, but don't take it personally when the response is irrational. Take care, Marlene.
Marlene - First, I am deeply sorry for your losses. Secondly, I noticed you mentioned both Bush and Obama as being responsible for the initial / continuing crimes.
I would then ask you this: were your lost family members in favor of these wars? If so - that is okay - that is a personal choioce - I understand that. Or, did they pursue the military as a 'career option' but not necessarily in favor of the past two administration's policies on the war? Was it out of economic necessity that they joined the military?
Marlene I am a Vietnam vet, and I don't want you to misunderstand my intent here - my heart breaks for you and your family. But if we are to continue to struggle against these insane wars, this cancerous world-wide empire building this country is now put upon - we have to begin to starve the beast that feeds it. We take away the money, the soldiers, the politicians who support such crimes. That is the only way to prevent other mothers and fathers from suffering the fate that you and your family are now experiencing. The people who perpetrated these crimes cared nothing for your son or your son-in-law, except to use them as tools to further the interests of the military / industrial complex. That is the big secret they continue to try to hide from the people; they continually blah about terrorism - they continually refuse to talk about oil contracts, pipelines, world domination, secret agreements with other governments,corporate control of the US government - a government for which your kin died.
I have friends whose names are on the wall in Washington, D.C., and I haven't yet summoned the strength to visit them. I pray your pain passes more quickly than mine. And I hope your loss gives you the strength to confront the system that took the lives of your loved ones.
Odoco, my son and son-in-law joined a few years ago out of desperation after being unemployed for nearly a year and unable to find their next job. Job interview after job interview they got turned down. 7 months before they joined was the first time one of them was given a recruitment offer. I did not find out until 6 weeks before they joined when I visited my daughter's apartment. I tried to ask both my son and son-in-law about their planning to sign up but they didn't want to talk about it. It was bad enough that every time I visited either one of them, they were in angrier moods and we were more worried about their lives. The night before they left us, they argued against my husband and had gotten into a shouting match. We tried everything we could to get them out of joining but the more we tried, the more hostile they got and the more they just wanted to join and tell us that being soldiers would make them tougher candidates for future employment. At that point, there was no hope. We never heard from them again. They wrote letters but we were so angry we refused to read them until I decided to give it up a couple of years later and read one of the letters one of them had sent. Ironically, that was the last letter he had sent two weeks before he lost his life. The other one lost his life a week later. Our daughter was hurt the most having lost a loving husband and her one and only loving brother. My husband and I not good parents as you can see. We tried to stop them but we failed.
The only success I can talk about is that we helped our daughter overcome some of her grief and pull her out of her madness. Despite the benefits, her life was never the same so she gave up her apartment and moved back with us. We decided to continue helping her and her children out the best we could. I can only hope that my grandchildren won't make the same mistake out of desperation and anger that my children made. Who knows what wars the USA will have next when they get to be our childrens' and possibly our ages?
The more bad news I hear on rising unemployment and preparing for sending more troops to Afghanistan and putting Iran on the table, the more I regret my vote and my husband's vote for Obama all in the name of getting the Bush cabel out of the White House. I fear more families ending up broken just like mine and that is what troubles me.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This really is the core tragedy of our times: We were already so militarized as a nation before Bush II stole office in 2000 that locking in the march toward a full-on Military Police State that completely abandons the concept of a peace time domestic economy became de rigueur for our political and media class. They are, after all, "re-educated" by extreme corporate prejudice (as the crucial step in their rise toward perceived political and cultural power) regarding our ruling oligarchs' urgent addiction for other nation's resources at any domestic cost.
Marlene; re your last couple of sentences, par. one; You and your husband were and are great loving parents. Do not second guess your hearts. The world is wrong. Not you.
Signed, A Father who lost a Son to this world. Needlessly.
Marlene, I am so sorry for the loss of your son and son-in-law.
Thank you for sharing your story here. It is very brave of you.
My question to you would be: what can we do to help families like yours? I feel like we are expected to blindly "support the troops" whatever that means, unless they come back injured or maimed physically or emotionally, or do not come back at all. Then, that is swept under the rug.
To help countless families just like hers, society will have to learn to overcome the militarist attitude. Even when soldiers survive, some of their own children or relatives refuse to learn those lessons and some will in fact argue against them saying that the military is better now than it was then when it has actually deteriorated ever since Vietnam. I can't stand it when I hear soldiers on the rightwing radio parroting the neocons even as they are seriously injured. Training in the military was bad enough back in the Vietnam war era but it has probably gotten worse to the point that soldiers get trained to not only accept getting injured but look at it as "victory" and ask for more. This is self-defeatism at its worst and that kind of training must be reversed.
Marlene, you and your husband are not bad parents. Your kids were put through societal pressure thanks to our broken economic and military system. Even for those of us employed, most jobs are directly or indirectly tied to the Military Industrial Complex and until the system is counter-infiltrated to remove the cancer that is the MIC, we're due for more wars and more such sorrows such as what you have shared.
Whoever flagged your comment is probably a neocon or a jealous Obama troll who does not want people to stand up to these wars and speak out.
The flagging by some unknown troll wannabe happens at times. The CD admins read the comments carefully so I think that it is safe to assume that they will remove the flag once they read her comment. I too think that her reply was wrongfully flagged. I would go further to say that it was actually on-topic and relevant to the article. Here we have another president who has no regards for the lives or well being of the troops or their family members, relatives, friends, etc... When troops get killed, it is their family members who bear the brunt of pain and suffering for the loss for the rest of their lives. Maybe that troll who flagged Marlene's comment should do some math. Multiply 30,000 by 2 to 10 and see the range of family members who are made to suffer because of our reckless leaders carelessly dropping troops in harms way and with poorer military training than ever before.
You're on the right track in your decision to vote Green or other third party in the elections. To prevent your grandchildren from falling in the Pentagun trap figure out how to turn them on to local small-scale industry. Take them to visit small farmers producing for the local market, small machine shops doing small jobs for the local market, and show them how the public service sector works so well at the local scale, e.g. schools, utilities, libraries, local government, infrastructure works. Mom-n-pop restaurants and retail. Teach them to associate national/international media and corporations, and federal government, with monsters, godzilla, king kong, etc. Teach them never to trust anyone wearing a monkey suit. Teach them that when they embrace localism, they will be the survivors as the globalists/imperialists crash and burn. They already crashed and burned so badly they are practically charcoal. You can point out the smoke and the flames.
I see that this is flagged. I have to suspect that someone flagged it for the quantity of personal narrative.
If so, my two bits: though this is certainly personal, I do not find it irrelevant to topic.
Whatever the reason, whoever flagged it could have at least replied and kindly requested Marlene on controlling the quantity of the personal narrative if he or she had that kind of a problem with Marlene's post which none of us did rather than act like a coward hitting the flagging button. Flagging a comment should be reserved for seriously offensive comments. I still think it was a paid neocon Obama troll kiddie who did it. I have seen posts with longer personal narratives on this site and nobody ever flagged them. I guess some people on this site come and go or change for the worse. I'm glad somebody had the courage to remind the audience that it's not just the troops who are at stake but their loved ones too. Sorrow and depression can spread really fast the more troops there are losing their lives for unneeded wars.
Mr. & Mrs. Davis, please accept my condolences. The grief will never pass. The anger and bitterness can be put to good use. Do not stop speaking out. Talk to everyone you can so they might come to understand what is being done in the name of the People.
Speak out against the unconscionable contract that our children as honorable people are honoring; and, the profiteers will not.
Parasites who have never served infest our government and take advantage. Speak out against them whenever you can. It is honorable to do so.
Mrs. Davis I am so sorry your beloved children were sacrificed to this insatiable behemoth.
Please do not allow the guilt we all share to destroy your loving soul.
If I may use this trajedy for a teaching moment.
I have been advocating that besides oppossing the warmongers we need to prevent citizens from enlisting. Your family obviously could have used help in preventing your desparate adult children from enlisting.
It maybe unrealistic but perhaps a fund to help the unemployed, resist making such fatal decisions.
Perhaps one could appeal to wealthy activists, as Jane Fonda, Gates or others who are anti war.
I hope I have not offended, personally making your tragedy known may lead to saving others, think of brave relentless Cindy Sheehan.
My heartfelt condolences.
Ms Davis,
I am so sorry to hear you lost a son and a son-in-law in Iraq. That is more than any family should ever have to endure. I wish there was something more that I could say, but there are no words to describe you losses. What you have gone through is truly heartbreaking.
Tom
The title of this piece is extremely misleading because if the Democrats were truly in revolt concerning Obama's troops surge they would not be discussing a surtax but would actually be doing something constructive to end the occupations and that is by cutting off the funds for these idiotic occupations. Obey and the rest of these alleged antiwar Demcorats who are supposedly up in arms against Obama know that they have the power to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but they refuse to do so.
Also, neither the article nor Obey nor any of the other alleged antiwar Democrats ever explain why those people who are against the occupations should have to pay a surtax. I have a button which proclaims:
Draft the Rich-It's Their War
There should be a comparable button which would point out:
Support Your War-Pay More Taxes.
Good point! If they want the wars, let them fight and pay for it.
Obamalevolence: Bush Twol.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Obamalevolence. That's a good one. The most politically, even racially correct, smooth, cool, calm and collected form of malevolence so far achieved here on Planet of the Apes.
Wars are fundamental to the continued growth of the military / industrial / media / Congressional complex. Human rights, international law, just war doctrines, and democracy itself are all secondary (or tertiary) considerations when profit is at risk.
The present US government is nothing more than a hollow box, overwhelming void of any ethical substance (with only a handful of exceptions), and lacking any real independent governing authority actually tied to democratic principles. We are closer to fascism today - open fascism - than ever before. The "Right" glories in it - and the population at large is too ill-educated, too ill-informed, and too parochial to understand that those who ring the bells of nationalism, nativism and malignant capitalism (corporate communism) are the same ones who will eventually turn on those that now, out of ignorance and fear, support them.
It is a tried and true formula - and it is happening now, here.
This is not an "Obama problem." This is a systemic problem that is so entrenched, so well camouflaged, and yes, so powerful, as to threaten the very existence of democracy as we have known it - however imperfect that has been. If a majority of the populace do not react to this threat very quickly the game will be over. That is what the masters want - they care nothing of rules, or majorities, or legalities. Any avenue, fact or fiction, that will enable their cause is justified. Most Americans cannot even comprehend this devastatingly cancerous situation, and if they could, most would likely react as many of the Germans did during WWII - either bury their heads in the sand or become passive supporters of a system they can no longer control.
"A systemic problem that... threaten(s) the very existence of democracy as we have known it - however imperfect that has been."
Over my lifetime I have witnessed the triumph of real politik, the idea that politics is dirty and real politicians do whatever it takes to win - Machiavelli-style. Of course, the neocon triumph of that philosophy never stopped to consider that Machiavelli's advice was to princes - not to a people who aspired to find a way to be free. Big difference.
All the pragmatism, the supposed gravitas in Washington is so much sauce to disguise the s**t burgers they've been feeding us. Freedom is something you either believe in or you don't. You can't believe in a democratic republic and our right to decide our own affairs, but then use power as an authoritarian, "the people don't need to know, we know what is best, they need war whether they like it or not, we'll tell them what to think, we'll elect the right politicians for them"... this isn't realism so much as corruption. Being free is like being pregnant- you either are or you are not. You can't be a little bit free but then need a bunch of corporations and their puppets make a fraud of the very thing that made you free. Can't have the Kissingers and Cheneys usurping power and expect to end up as anything but enslaved.
Obama said that when he thought about running for president, the first person he talked to was James Crown, of General Dynamics, the most profitable defense contractor from the Iraq War. (This isn't your father's General Dynamics; they do a lot more than tanks.)
Maybe we could skip the war and do a direct bailout of defense contractors. Because this article implies we SHOULD be in Pakistan. And if we go to Pakistan, al-qaeda will be in Uzbekistan and so on and so forth until there is nothing left of the "homeland" this new corporate empire was created to protect but peasants and misery from sea to shining sea.
I write through tears...the post above;
Where does the Wind come from?
The Wings of Angels beating.
Sunlight? Our children's eyes;
Re-opening to Heaven's second womb
and birth and life.
Peace? Their reassurances received.
This obscenity, these attacks, occupations and stealing the sovereignty of other nations autonomy, has got to stop. SOMEONE, ANYONE, Please help us end this regime which started with a fixed election--primed with a false flag event from Israel--stoked with hatred directed at the indigenous people's power, land, and resources. This has been the crime of the Millennium--and absolutely no one has been caught or punished. There is not one reasonable or rational purpose for us being in other peoples land stealing their stuff--and then having the audacity to make up false cases against them. I'll tell you this, I will never pay a cent to do evil to others--what we have here is murder, torture, theft of power of legal governance, illegal occupation and many other lesser charges--some of these crimes call for the death penalty under existing law--I wish no part of this international crime. Thank you but NO, NO, NO. Pay for your own dirty work and leave me the hell out of this evilness!
But the Democrats believe in your right to assert your conscience, and that is why they are purposing a Stupak amendment for the stupid war. People like you and me who are beyond outraged to see the fruits of our labor feed this endless war machine are going to have a tax REBATE. Just check the "I have a conscience" box on your income tax form and receive a 30% rebate on your taxes. Go, Nancy. The rebate is on the table.
Democrats--revolt? That's an oxymoron. If they really wanted to revolt, they'd vote against funding these two illegal and immoral wars, not imposing a tax to pay for them. Shared sacrifice? Don't talk to the base about sharing the sacrifice for wars we tried to stop. Don't tell the base to sacrifice more than Wall Street sacrifices. Don't tell the American people to share the sacrifice but give up all the profits to banks and corporations. Americans sacrifice everyday because we're in hock to one of the greediest, cruelest economic systems in history--thanks to the Democrats and Republicans who sacrifice NOTHING.
For all of you who voted for Obama--were you mesmerized by the pretty words and perhaps missed the part where he said that Afghanistan was the right war? If you don't want war, then don't vote for a warmonger. Kucinich and Nader are the only two peace candidates in the political arena.
Kucinich and Nader were the only two white male peace candidates - don´t forget Cynthia McKinney. She has proven to be the strongest peace candidate there was, braving Israeli warships to get supplies to Palestinians as she did. IMO she is clearer in politics than any of them - check her out!
"Kucinich and Nader were the only two white male peace candidates"
and Mike Gravel?
he was brave enough to declare his intention to disown the nuclear option.
please pay attention.
Donna:
Its not true. The Democrats are revolting, disgusting, and amoral. They have been for all of my 66 years.
In Peace
"I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially,"
------------
Obama's agenda is to continue to hollow out the country and explode the deficit forcing drastic cuts to domestic programs.
Be prepared for a shocker in his State of the Union speech in January.
It's being leaked he'll signal IMF like austerity measures aimed at the duped masses who pulled the voting lever for him.
Yes, big cuts are coming to domestic programs to support military madness around the globe.
Obama is Grover Norquist.
We're all going to drowned in that infamous bathtub courtesy of liberal community organizer from Lincoln land.
"to explain to a nation that thought it had elected an anti-war president why he is escalating the conflict in Afghanistan."
0 had to keep at least one campaign promise.
(although, to be fair, the rest was just devious insinuation)
come next election - please pay attention!
The Forever War
Goodby Healthcare
Goodby Education
Goodby Retiremant
Goodby Infastructure
Goodby Happiness
Goodby Hope
Goodby America
Obama saluting corpses and wandering amid tombstones is disgusting theater.
This is the only campaign promise he is keeping, to escalate Afghanistan.
To focus on whether it is 34,000 or 40,000 is a propaganda ploy as if Obomber is moderating the crime.
Also I am again greatly dissappointed by so many citizens being distracted by having their attention aimed at Karzai.
If the USA was not attempting to gain total control of Afghanistan through slaughter and destruction no one would pay the least attention to Karzai.
Paying attention to Karzai is a replacement for the Burqa ploy which fooled alot of people to support slaughtering a population to improve civil rights.
This article suggests we should be attacking Pakistan instead, what has the USA become, a country of ignorant bloodthirsty ghouls?
Obomber will speak alot about an exit strategy but he will not propose a definite timetable.
Withdrawing to the cities, has me mystified. Does that mean the USA is giving sovereignty back to the Afghans other than the cities. I am sure the USA will continue to bomb anyone anywhere they decide should be murdered.
Glenn - 11:24
"Obama saluting corpses and wandering amid tombstones in disgusting theatre." Excellent description of the managed media Obama is performing. His photo-op with the caskets reminded me so much of Bush's use of the military as political backdrops to subliminally reinforce the messages of nationalism, militarism and empire. Really - not much has changed.
Be assured that I don't want this speech / or the resultant action emanating from it, to take place at all, but I do find it instructive that the POTUS is not giving this 'momentous' speech on escalation in Afghanistan from the civilian seat of power - the White House, but rather from one of the military academies.
"come next election - please pay attention!"...
...and spread the word about Dennis Kucinich and his dedication to peace, health care, and "We the People" in a never-faltering, never-fearing voice!
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The problem isn't Kucinich's personal politics. The problem is the Democratic Party of which he is still mysteriously a part.
Obama may believe that he can control his generals, that he can control Wall Street. But he could miscalculate and be controlled by them. Given the choices I'm glad I voted for Obama rather than McCain-Palin. But Obama needs the influence of progressives to counter the pressure of the military-industrial complex.
sach 11:31 ------ True story.
I meet a young woman who was hired by a dude ranch to brace the butt of a feeble old stud horse as it was doing its job on mares.
If Obomber wanted the help of progressives he would not obstruct every attempt to obtain incriminating evidence ( as with ACLU filings) with his State Secrets injunctions.
shach - in too many instances, the 'generals' and 'Wall Street' are one and the same. They are irrevocably linked. One person - albeit Obama or anyone else, will not succeed in 'managing' anything while the war-makers and the war-financiers openly collude for empire. It is the system. Obama is but a player. Change the system.
Odoco
Your observations are backed up by former General Smedley Butler who noted that he ended up being a muscleman for the gangsters that inhabited Wall Street in order to promote their imperialism during the early part of the twentieth century. C. Wright Mills did basically the same thing in his classic work The Power Elite in the mid 1950s.
Odoco, you may be right. We'll see.
Who wants to be the last man to die for the mayor of Kabul? Come on, speak up, all you warmongers!!
Lefties (as the founding fathers did) gotta get over our sqeamishness with the second amendment. Otherwise...