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TechnoratiShouldn't MoveOn Oppose Obama on Afghanistan?
MoveOn.org became a meaningful force in American politics when it emerged as a muscular network of activists that was willing to challenge not just Republicans but Democrats when they were wrong about foreign policy.
Democratic leaders in Congress might have been willing to compromise with the Bush administration on Iraq back in 2002. But MoveOn said "no."
And MoveOn was right.
Now, more than ever, we need MoveOn to remain true to its historic mission.
We need MoveOn to be right about Afghanistan.
For that reason, I certainly hope that Justin Ruben, the new MoveOn executive director, was wrong when he told my colleague Ari Melber that he did not think the group would be letting President Obama know he is wrong to be surging more U.S. troops into Afghanistan.
Here's what Ruben said about MoveOn's agenda for the coming months:
And while MoveOn loudly led the battle against the Iraq "surge," Ruben said he not expect ending the war Afghanistan, where Obama is deploying additional troops, to make the priority list. The "overwhelming priority" is still Iraq, Ruben explains, and while his members are concerned about Afghanistan, they tend to 'differ on what ought to be done about it.'
Unless the MoveOn membership has lost touch with its values and its former allies, I am going to bet that they are a lot more concerned about Afghanistan than Ruben thinks.
Here's what Peace Action says:
Yesterday, President Obama announced his decision to send 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, on the grounds that ‘the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention'. Peace Action strongly opposes Obama's recent announcement and urges people to immediately call on Obama to choose diplomacy, not escalation.More troops won't solve our problems in Afghanistan...
We have seen the disastrous consequences of heading into war without a plan in Iraq. We are still mourning American and Iraqi lives lost, and struggling to rehabilitate our economy while spending billions of dollars on war.
Peace Action calls for the ‘rapid withdrawal' of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and a new commitment to a negotiated diplomatic solution involving all regional players.
The Obama Administration should:
-- De-escalate troop levels in Afghanistan and to reject the idea that there is a military solution to the region's problems;
-- Immediately stop military activities that indiscriminately impact civilians such as air and drone strikes;
-- Rapidly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan;
-- Commit to negotiated diplomatic talks involving all major regional players, including major international peace-keeping bodies;
-- Address the real needs of Afghans, which include health-care, clean water, education, and security.
Here's what the new www.stateupcongress.org network -- which has been organized by the group Win Without War and is backed by TrueMajority.org, the Council for a Livable World, Working Assets, Women's Action for New Directions, Faithful America, 2020 Vision, the American Friends Service Committee, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the Unitarian Universalist Association and NETWORK (the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby) -- says:
President Obama has announced a plan to send 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer. In the absence of a clear mission or exit plan, this troop escalation is more likely to fuel anti-American sentiment and the Taliban-led insurgency than provide any meaningful improvement in security.
Here's the Afghanistan assessment of California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the driving force behind the Congressional Out of Iraq Caucus:
We don't want to substitute Afghanistan for Iraq.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, the member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with the steadiest track record of challenging presidents of both parties when they make wrong moves on the international stage, adds:
After years of a failed foreign policy which distracted us from our top national security priority of defeating al Qaeda and its affiliates, I am encouraged by President Obama's focus on Afghanistan where the 9/11 attacks originated. But we need to make sure we have a strategy in place for Afghanistan that will actually work before we commit thousands more U.S. troops. A military escalation without a strategy to address the complex problems facing Afghanistan and the region could alienate the Afghan people and make it much more difficult to achieve our top national security goal of defeating al Qaeda.
Is MoveOn really out of synch with Peace Action, Win Without War and other major anti-war and religious groups and congressional allies of the peace movement?
Let's hope not.
110 Comments so far
Show AllImportant discussion.
I don't see much self criticism (criticism of progressives) at Common Dreams.
Would they take an article on the failure of half the progressive food and farm reform movement to understand the Commodity Title of the farm bill (leading up to the 2008 farm bill), their lack of effective positions against dumping and the food crisis (& for price floors with supply management, price ceilings with strategic grain reserves).
Nichols is a solid name, with credibility. He can get this kind of discussion to happen outside of the comments we make down here. (Of course, there is no shortage of self criticism here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
These organizations are already sounding old timey. Like all groups, MoveOn represents an agenda whose time has come and mostly gone. Like all institutions it has grown increasingly brittle with age. It will be replaced by the next generation, of course. We should acknowledge that Mr. Pariser pioneered internet political organization, and promoted democratic values when we were mired in a Republican swamp. Grass roots activism will have an easier time of it in the future because of MoveOn, as long as the internet remains free. But having largely accomplished their objectives (replacing repubs with democrats) they can hardly be expected to create a new set of goals. If they do not reflect the values of progressives or anti-war coalitions, somebody else will do it. I do not know why it is that new presidents get all starry eyed over their own pet war. They are always disasters, always tar babies, always a ticket to political oblivion. You'd think Obama would be smarter than that.
MoveOn = mouthpiece of the DNC. They will not dissent if Obama declared war on Pakistan AND Iran. MoveOn used the troops to hurt Bush, MoveOn did not care if it hurt our troops or country.
Many times more innocent people have died at the hands of US troops in Afghanistan than died in the 9/11 terrorist attack. To favor, or fail to oppose, further escalation of this war, which is obviously not going to do anything to stop terrorism (especially since it's precisely the sort of policy that generated sympathy for al Qaeda in the first place), is to say that Afghan lives don't matter as much as American lives. The point of view that MoveOn and other groups or individuals who refuse to oppose the Afghanistan war are taking is, therefore, racist. The same can be said of all the liberal opponents of the Iraq war who refuse to oppose Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. Racism is alive and well among many American liberals.
Bring America Back !!!!...Nichols answers his own question pretty much, but since Obama's consistent campaign statement was that Bush emphasized Iraq to the detriment of our troops in Afghan., then Move-on simply supports the shift of 17,000 troops to cover a shortage need created by Bush. This is being interpreted as an escalation by most lefties, but those who listened to Barak during his campaign realize it ain't, not yet !
....Therefore Move-On doth not protest Afghan at this point. Move-on polled its membership which indicated Obama's Stimulus, Bailouts, and Healthcare shold be priorities deserving its resource allocation==plus going after the confirmed political enemies like Limbaugh, FOX, etc.
....Move-On does have a couple very pronounced weaknesses...Zionism and the 9/11 Truth Movement. Move on does not have a distinction between the Zionist Israeli state and the interests of the US. Move-On has never embraced the
fact that most Americans feel , and 65% of New Yorkers feel the Truth of the happenings of Sept 11, 2001, has not surfaced to be recognized by our Public!
Recent example: what did we hear from Move-On about GAZA ???? Lebanon ??
...Eli Pariser drove Move-On away from Zionist issues, and 9/11 issues, and I expect Jason Reuben to drive the organization down the same roads. I am a MOve-On member and I don't like it, but I do see where Afghan is not their issue at this point.
Alot of great posts. There is a strong Obama failure /Obama good compared to anything else divide.
First, am I living in a parallel universe, or did Obama just announce a budget with a sweeping redistribution of wealth? Something we can all celebrate and support.
Second the right is not going to criticise Obama's military agression or royalist policies; so the progressives must. Just as they must defend his social and energy reforms.
Third Congress seems to be leapfrogging Obama to the left, this needs to be encouraged. Senator Kerry's Afghanistan oversight review.
Fourth anyone concerned about women and children would be screaming about the DRC and Darfur. Where's the noise?
Opium was nearly totally eradicated by the Taliban at the USA bequest( and aid incentive). One does not occupy a country to control narcotics.I believe the majority of USA heroin comes from Mexico( where drug lords are a larger problem). I suspect the same scenario is playing out in Afghanistan that played out in Vietnam concerning herion. The CIA/ USA military smuggled the heroin out and along the way many GI's got hooked( I believe it was a VC tactic to addict the GI's)
Finally Afghans are white as are Persians.
If you think that the policies Obama has supported thus far represent a "sweeping redistribution of wealth" in the direction of reducing inequality, you are indeed living in a parallel universe. That's especially so if the trillions of our tax dollars being doled out to the banks--a MAJOR redistribution of income UPWARD--are taken into consideration. Even the stimulus bill itself contains hundreds of billions in tax cuts that by no means leave the wealthy and corporations out.
I'm not sure it's enough to say simply that American should get out of Afghanistan. We need to offer a more credible alternative. Perhaps this one . . . Instead of sending troops to fight a war that cannot be won, America should offer to purchase Afghanistan's cocaine crop. Having done so, America can then destroy what it purchased. This keeps Afghanistan's economy going, keeps American troops out of Afghanistan, and keeps American streets "cleaner" because there would be fewer drugs. Kind of a win-win solution.
it's actually opium, but not a bad suggestion, except for the destruction part. why destroy it? opium is invaluable for medicine. turn afghanistan into the opium-producer for the medical world.
why not? first, you'd drive down the profits of Big Med (pharmaceutical co's, mostly), but more importantly, you'd be demonstrating an alternative to military responses to global problems. can't have that. (and you'd be sending the confusing message to our kids that growing opium is ok. can't have that either.)
(cocaine=columbia; but if we bought their cocaine, we couldn't test our bio-chem weapons on them, could we?)
Did you ever think that maybe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are just a distraction that prevents us from doing what we really need to do--fight our own internal war of liberation against our corrupt, decadent ruling class? Y'know, once we have seized power away from them, ending their imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be a "fait accompli." N'est pas?
Suddenly, unexpectedly, we have entered a new historical epoch. Are we fully aware of this and all of its implications, yet? The other side is launching a final assault to consolidate its power for the next century or more in a thirty year long, vicious class war against the rest of us, and most of us aren't even aware there's a war on.
The various "bailouts," of the Wall Street behemoth banks--totaling some 9.7 trillion dollars, so far--represent what is almost certainly the greatest robbery in world history. This handful of thieves, if successful, will use their money power to rule over America like feudal lords--exactly like feudal lords--for the next one hundred years or more. Are you ready to don your chains; or will you fight back to preserve the very possiblility of democracy?
"Neoliberalism," or "Supply Side Economics," or "globalization," or "Reaganomics" or whatever else you want to call the prevailing economic paradigm, is dead. And history is not calling to us from afar to act now, it's all but jumping up and down on our pointy, little heads! Stop worrying about whether Obama is going to do this or that for us, and start worrying about whether WE can fashion a world from the ashes of the prevailing orthodoxy that will be more democratic, egalitarian, and careful to preserve the human dignity of all peoples. Nobody is going to do it for us, save ourselves.
Obama's election is kind of a litmus test, dividing real progressive organizations, who take it as a sign to push harder and for more, from fake ones who roll over and play dead, showing that they were never really more than get-out-the-vote-for-the-Dems groups.
As I have no use for organizations of the latter kind, I'm glad to see them go.
Ya, I've heard Move On is actually some kind of gate keeping organization. If it wasn't so sick it would be comical watching all these "confused" "progressives". They got EXACTLY what they voted for: More Wars! O'Bama was clear on his stance and in his agressive words.
The 18 month withdrawl date from Iraq is another joke. Bush did this continuously from the time they invaded until he left office. It was always "Next Year' that the troop withdrawl was going to take place.
Anyone can see that the U.S. is not going anywhere but will stay in this area until all resources are secured(save for the grace of an total economic collapse, which I hope happens in the U.S.....because it may be the only way the blood letting stops).
Afghanistan's resources in Question: Poppies, Lithium, Coltran, Coal, natural gas, precious stones and other metals....
The biggest money maker of these is the Poppies, as they provide 90% of the worlds heroine and hundreds of Billions of profits that go directly to the Large Central Banks in Europe and U.S.
The Progressive response to Obama's outline of more wars is predictable. They are proving and showing that the death of children and other innocent people do not matter as long as THEIR GUY is in office.
Both wars reflect the epitome of American arrogance, and will contribute to our economic and social demise. What makes us think we are in any way qualified remake another country, much less by force of arms? And do we really think that terrorism can be stopped by blowing them all up?
The left is never so passionate and vicious than when they turn on their own. If only you Obama fanatics devoted half of the aggression you showed towards Hillary supporters to the REAL enemy; repugs.
Its time to WIN this WAR against repugs; they must be shut out and shut down. They are the ENEMY. Not everyone needs to be treated the same. All's fair in love and war. Let's treat Obama differently than Bush. Let's give him a complete pass on Afghanistan. Subscribing to an ideology of equal treatment for all will NOT ingratiate you to ANY repugs. It will only set us back in the fight against the evil repug swine.
Do not be KIND to your enemies. Be cruel, mean-spiritied, and outrageously biased. You want to WIN don't you? Lives literally depend on it.
If you don't have the heart to win a war, if you are a coward masquerading as an idealist, then at the very LEAST treat repugs the same way you treated Hillary supporters.
faster pussycat, kill! kill!
when the dems themselves pick up the hammer i'll be glad to (help) hold the stake over the vampire rethug's heart.
but that's never gonna happen.
drive a stake thru both their hearts.
Lesser Evilists are the real enemies. Your reasoning is insane, Democrats HAVE won "this war against repugs", they control everything. They can end the wars, end the mortgage crisis, tax the wealthy etc etc anytime they want.
The fact that they're not doing ANY of that and won't EVER do any of that is enough proof that they are just as corrupt and genocidal as Republicans, but of course little Dem Part Apologist brains can't understand that.
So, say we withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan, along with NATO's. What happens then? Any ideas?
smann. I can tell you exactly what will happen then.
We will no longer be occuppying the country, an occupation which has exacerbated Islamic extremism, instability in Pakistan, anti-Americanism globally and caused untold needless death and suffering.
Are you worried the Taliban would rule? Whose creation are they?
Karzai is history. The ISI has more influence in A than the U.S., and we have no clue who runs them
General Pasha?
Joe. Drop food not bombs to win hearts and minds. Build irrigation canals, give them blankets. Give them Korans, medicine and Love.
A year ago, the cost of the wars was estimated at $4.2 trillion. I will pencil in $2 trillion for a new, revived Afghanistan war, a new undeclared Pakistan war and an Iraq war that takes until the next election primary campaign to wind down.
Is MoveOn comfortable with this cash outlay? Isn't this where $2 trillion of cops and teachers and bridges and wind turbines are all going, down some hole in the other side of the planet?
sure you're right. but do you want to help the repug swine tear down obama and reduce his effectiveness? do you want to paralyze his broad based support? because thats the tradeoff. you KNOW the repugs and the repug controlled media will milk it for every drop of negative press.
Good point. Anney, you should listen to porkloin.
Why on EARTH "should" I "listen" to another Obama apologist?
Don't worry about who I listen to. Tend to your own politics, not mine.
Actually, the one I listen to is Obama himself, and compare his actions with those of his predecessor, GW Bush. On matters of war and the Constitution, there isn't much difference except style, and style doesn't cut it.
Illegal wars and violations of the Constitution are the two urgent matters that Obama must address if America is to return to her rightful place in the world. Obama has certainly indicated that he doesn't intend to undo the harm that GW did in these two vital areas of our country's welfare, not even torture that continues in US-sponsored and run prisons abroad for America's "detainees", and he even refuses to commit himself to the prosecution of war-crimes committed by the Bush administration. Sounds exactly like what John McCain would have done if he'd been elected. You'd be apologizing for him, too, no doubt.
But that's Obama's responsibility, not the responsibility of progressives. If he's very little different from Bush on matters of war and the Constitution, why would he think he'd be exempt from the criticism of those who criticized Bush for those things?
If Obama doesn't want "negative press" about his ratcheting up GW's illegal warmongering or criticism from progressives about his pigheaded stance on constitutional matters, he can do the right thing. Otherwise, he honestly earns progressive criticism. And he's getting far less negative press from the right than if he were actually committed to undoing the destruction of the Bush years.
I hope you all realize that this is only a symptom of what happens when groups are built from the top to the bottom instead of bottom on up. Moveon.org was created back when Clinton was facing impeachment over a mere sex scandal. This organization did not start on the local levels or else it would have been as strong as the labor unions back during the days of the Great Depression were.
moveon is a political weapon. do you want to employ a political weapon against obama? you'll just reduce his popularity, give the right wing ammunition to tear him down, and make him triangulate further to the right.
Since when are progressives responsible for Obama's moving right? Progressives are the ones he's been shafting all along by moving right. He did that ALL ON HIS OWN, with help from his center-right buddies that HE chose for his administration. That was HIS politics at work.
Sorry, but blaming progressives for his politics of the right just doesn't make it. You must be someone who says that victims of crimes deserve to be victims ("See what you made me do"), same principle.
Porkloin makes a good point. Anney, instead of being contrary, maybe you should stop and consider what he's saying. Do you want a President Palin in 2012? Because that's what is at stake.
Then it's up to Obama to do the right thing if he wants to be re-elected -- it's certainly NOT up to those who are critical about what Obama's doing if he refuses to listen. You must think his being a Democrat excuses everything he does, even if it's just what the Republicans have done at their worst.
Furthermore, you're trying to cast unearned guilt on those who champion America's highest principles and values. It simply doesn't fly.
We Independents WILL freely speak our minds, and no school-teacherish chiding and scolding by the likes of you will stop it. So, some advice: give it up. Take the blinders off.
Right on Anney. Until the Pentagon stops getting $1.2 trillion a year nothing will change. ($1.2 trillion was the aggregate last year with all the "emergency funding" tossed in).
Some people just don't want to admit they live in a warmongering state and think war and peace is a matter of degrees -- if we all just play along now it will all work out. What dribble. You support the wars or you don't. It's that simple.
It is a moral decision, not a strategic political decision. How many people should die before the machine stops? Can we really as humans put a quantitative number towards this question?
If what Nichols says about MoveOn is true, then when did they stick their heads up their collective behinds? How is pulling troops out of Iraq a "priority" for them but pulling troops out of Afghanistan is not?
Is MoveOn just really bad at multitasking? Only one agenda at a time?
Or have they maybe been bought out by the MIC?
Kudos to Peace Action and the others who still keep the flame alive.
MoveOn, if it ever was an agent of legitimate change, is now simply an appendage of the Democratic Party. "Leave no Democrat Behind" should be their new motto. They have no interest in confronting Democratic leadership so, yes, i think it's safe to assume that thet're "out of synch" with Peace Action et. al.
"confronting" the dem leadership will help the repugs. it will lend momentum to the anti-obama backlash that is sure to come. that would be an extraordinarily stupid thing to do, wouldn't it?
The living matrix of US foreign policy is now so infested with its own [bad] karma, boomerangs-rebounding, chickens-coming-home-to-roost, backfiring booby traps, etc. -- all set via Post WWII decades of hypocritical claptrap about 'building democracy,' political lies, economic colonialism, and bullying military interventions--- that even if an Obama-talking president was a genuine anti-empirist, there'd be no direct or quick way he/she could set any particular US-fed mess aright.
For example:
Having earlier enabled Pakistan to become a nuclear-armed power, the US is now hamstrung to militarily leave either Afghanistan or Iraq [despite never belonging in the latter country, even for a post-9/11 moment, to begin with] --- since the US's wholescale sudden departure could now arguably result in the following sequence:
..regional Moslem fundamentalists toppling Pakistan's shakey government, thereby coming to control its nukes;
...Pakistan then aligning with Iran and other Moslem states to directly challenge Israel and its neo-fascist/hair-trigger military;
...Israel then likely-quickly taking unilateral (possibly theatre-nuclear) 'defensive' actions against its empowered Moslem antagonists
...this in turn enraging and radicalizing even more citizens of the Moslem world;
...leading to still-further nuclear-war-potentiated instability
At this point, the US being a country virtually surrounded by fatally explosive minefields of its own making: any new, decent US president can a only begin by, first:
....spouting no further lies about, nor pursuing policies based on, what heretofore has constituted "US interests" in other peoples' countries;
...and second, simultaneously begininng to gradually, cautiously tip-toe out of its self-wrought mine fields, back to a position of self-interested stragetic sanity based on uniersal Do-Unto-Others decency.
If an enlightened US president - such as we'd like to believe Obama to be -- actually began to pursue foreign policies based on such ideas, he/she could only move forward very slowly -- out of the policy contradictions that constitute the US-casused, international mine field.
To say nothing of such a president's need to gradually outsmart those entrenched oligarchs at home who drive both the policies and the public hypnosis that allows them. In which case, by definition, we'd be unlikely to see decisive evidence of foreign policy change, right away.
How long should Obama be given, to prove his true intentions?
Some say he's already blown any credibility.
I say, he has a near-impossible task -- considering the always-subtending foolishness of human nature and the ultra-complexity of the present national/international situation.
And therefore, while holding his feet to the fire: give him the balance of this year.
JJ
Good post.
Yet you don't address other matters that are equally as crucial, and they are Constitutional matters. He could CERTAINLY have stopped the torture in all US-run prisons abroad with the stroke of a pen at the same time there was his big hullabaloo about shutting down Guantanamo (re: the Geneva Conventions which are incorporated into American law via the Constitution). Furthermore, the torture hasn't stopped there either.
He's real upfront about the economy and some domestic issues but apparently wants to protect Bush et al from any kind of finding of wrongdoing, in violation of his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It's hard to believe that he'd do that. He wants to protect the telecoms from prosecution from THEIR wrongdoing, another violation of the Constitution.
I think Obama HAS blown his credibility on some really urgently important matters, and we're all fools if we refuse to look at everything he's doing, not just what pleases us.
Seems to me that his support of the Bush administration's wrongdoing and his refusal to put Constitutional matters at the forefront of his agenda aren't very different than things would be if John McCain had won the election. He's just a better speaker than Grampa McCain.
jj apple;
Excellent post!
The Obama Administration should:
-- Rapidly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan;
This idea is ridiculous and an indication of why America can't make progress in Afghanistan or elsewhere. There is still this tremendous misunderstanding, this 'fog of war' that keeps us from seeing the path to peace.
America is at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. And when I say America, I mean the military and the government. The people ignore or misunderstand this war as much as possible (thanks, in large part, to the government's and military's awesome propaganda departments).
Wherever al-Qaeda and the Taliban are, that's where our troops will go (or stay) and that's where we won't be withdrawing from.
No President is going to withdraw troops in the presence of the enemy. And so the US military stays as long as al-Qaeda or the Taliban can be found (or invented) in Afghanistan/Pakistan/anystan/Iraq/Somalia/Yemen/Iran/.
Instead of calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, how about getting America to recognize the actual mess we are in? How about Congress getting involved again, since they started this mess?
Of course, I'm still waiting for someone in Congress to explain what they meant when they specified over seven years ago that the goal of unleashing our military might was 'preventing future terrorism'.
When do we know we're done 'preventing future terrorism'? If we don't know when we're done, we'll be at war forever chasing that mirage of victory.
"Preventing future terrorism." I wonder if that means preventing somebody from walking into a Unitarian Church and gunning people down because they are supposedly liberal? (Rhetorical question).
Not even close.
'We' are no more at war with the Taliban or al-Qaeda than we are at war against the Bolshoi Ballet. Al-Qaeda is in all kinds of places we will never even look at. The reason: no energy-related strategic value. Our poor troops are now pipeline protection troops. Iraq has the most coveted oil reserves on the planet and Afghanistan is on the eastern side of Iran, and the favored pipeline route for oil and gas from the Caspian to the Gulf on the way to Pakistan, India, etc.
Look up the word 'pretext'. The incredibly ludicrous expression "war on terrorism" is nothing more than a pretext to invade countries that have stratigic value to us, mostly related to energy.
Bush, Cheney et al were sucking up (and swallowing) with the Taliban as long as they were going to let 'us' put pipelines through their territory.
some good points dude/ette, but....and?
That's a good post, locust.
I guess I've been beaten down by the years (78) but I will be a little slow to judge Obama. I know he is a hell of a lot smarter than I am and has proved to be right when I thought him wrong during the campaign. I'm sure he knows Afghanistan is the grave yard of empires as well as you and I do so I feel quite sure he has a plan to avoid that happening to us.
Once Moveon was accepted into mainstream it lost its grassroots ideas. D.C. will mow down any new roots that might threaten the status quo. Don't look for help from within the beltway.
Hoa binh
We should stay the hell out of Afganistan. It's a money trap! We used it brilliantly to help bankrupt the USSR, and now we want to throw our empire into the same morass?
I wish my leaders had an adequate understanding of history, enough so they wouldn't repeat the same mistakes.
I don't care how 'workable' a strategy Obama has. It's no good. If we go in, we'll never 'win' there.
How callous! You can't put a price on human life.
And it isn't a game, it's not about "winning", it's about protecting both Afghans and Americans from violent extremists.
But we do put a price on human life -- it's called the Defense Budget. It's now at 52% of the discretionary federal budget (spendings not mandated by law). We most assuredly put a price on human life.
Isn't it odd that the 'other guy' is always the violent extremist. It's the same ole, they are bad, we are good dichotomy. Strip away the labels and human nature is the same. Presently we have the bigger gun. What do you think will happen if/when we lose that advantage?
You're almost cute in your spectacular naivety.
jesus joeh., are you for real? "can't put a price on human life." what planet are you living on? the price of the average human life to someone like bush or obama is
ZERO.
Bush maybe, I don't even think he's that callous, just that dumb.
But Obama, come on, are you for real?
Every Afghan is a "violent extremist" - they will defend their land from the foreign invaders to the death.
The only military solution in Afghanistan would be a "final solution", but then again, joehope supports a "final solution" in Palestine too.
---USAn---
Are you some kind of sick racist or is that a joke?
I don't think any of the young women who have been brutally mutilated by the Taliban would find it funny.
Does anyone remember 911?
If that had happened yesterday, would you still be suggesting we do nothing?
Iraq was a distraction from Afghanistan. We still must defeat the terrorists.
"We still must defeat the terrorists."
How about starting with the ones who occupy the White House?
Obama occupies the White House.
You're not calling him a terrorist are you?
Did you mean Bush?
Were you the father of a child killed in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan you might very well perceive Obama as a terrorist.
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Yes, I did oppose invading Afghanistan and I would today.
Afghanistan did not invade the US and it had no quarrel with the US aside from expecting it's sovereignty to be respected.
There were many alternatives to invading Afghanistan other than doing nothing.
---USAn---
"There were many alternatives to invading Afghanistan other than doing nothing."
Okay, I'm listening. Name them. Or can you?
The Taliban, and in fact the leadership of Pakistan also, offered to turn over Bin Laden if he would be tried in a neutral country. Was that too much to ask?
OH! But I forgot... justice is not the object here, just oil pipelines...
Actually, it's more complicated than that. There are three different stories: in one the Taliban offered to try Bin Laden themselves under Islamic law, in another they offered to turn him over to the US or a third country if evidence is shown, and in the yet another version they offer to turn him over without evidence if the bombing is stopped.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/17/afghanistan.terrorism11
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
The bottom line is that they weren't in a situation where they could issue demands. They needed to cooperate. If the police show up at my house, I don't get to negotiate. The Taliban forfeited their rights by aiding and abetting Bin Laden. Remember, this was not Bin Laden's first act of terrorism.
Are you too chicken to say that US authorities could not find OBL linked to 911?
=====
From the June 2006 Idaho Observer:
Bin Laden not suspect in 9/11 attack says FBI
Within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration publicly identified Saudi national Osama bin Laden as masterminding the attacks. The Bush administration’s official public position has never changed. But bin Laden has never been formally charged with crimes associated with 9/11. Though the alleged al Qaeda leader stands charged as a suspect in numerous acts of terror since 1998, FBI Chief of Investigative Publicity Rex Tomb told Muckraker Report editor Ed Hass. "...the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."
Sheridan was tipped off when he noticed that Bin Laden’s "Most Wanted" poster made no reference to 9/11. According to Tomb, "The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11."
http://proliberty.com/observer/20060625.htm
=====
Are you too chicken to say that there was no reason at all to invade Afghanistan in the first place if OBL was not the "mastermind" of 911?
http://www.september11news.com/2003KSM.htm
Are you too chicken to say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan as the mastermind of 911? And tortured at Guantanamo and is insane now? Most legal authorities say he cannot be brought to trial for 911 since he was tortured and confessions made under torture are illegal and most likely untrue, and because he is mentally unfit to stand trial.
Yes, OBL has been connected with other terrorist acts, but not 911. Now what was the reason GW illegally invaded Afghanistan again?
Excellent, good sources, good sound logic. You've made the case very well.
Plus, it's simply ridiculous that they can't get OBL. They could get him (or could have initially) in a New York second. In 1967, with methods and equipment that compares to the present situation as horse and buggy compares to rockets, the CIA used electronic devices to pinpoint Che Guevara's location in the mountains of Bolivia in terrain much more difficult than the 'empty' mountains of Pakistan.
OBL on trial in the US would be a farce and an incredible showcase for him and his ilk. Nobody wants any part of that and Bush admitted he had no interest in him as early as 2002. (The 'dead or alive' garbage was the usual empty posturing for effect on TV 'news'.)
The pretext of "war on terrorism" (abjectly moronic...but useful because of public gullibility) allowed the Bush gang to invade countries with perceived strategic value--mostly related to energy, and Israeli-connected geo-politics. To keep up the fantasy of "war on terrorism", the nasty boogie-men terrorists must be kept alive, and OBL has much more strategic value on the loose then in captivity...for whatever reason.
Afghanistan was to be the pipeline route for the vast amounts of oil and gas from the Caspian to be piped south to the Gulf for the markets of Pakistan, India, etc.
And Afghanistan conveniently sandwiches Iran on the east with Irak on the west. It was all supposed to be so easy.
I thought the reason Bush refused to go after OBL was because he's good friends with his family since he covertly rushed them out of the US on 9/12 and 9/13 -- this was before any of us knew that OBL was apparently not responsible for 911.
I DO think Cheney's Energy task force was behind the scenes pushing for an invasion of Afghanistan (and Iraq) for just the reason you mention, the oil pipeline in Afghanistan and Iraq's undeveloped oil fields. Both would bring them inconceivable riches.
The point being that most of us, including me, usually mention Bush by name as having done these things, but I really think those two invasions were Cheney's baby, with GW the willing father since he comes from oil as well. I also believe the oil giants that he met with in secret were in on it, too.
Those two invasions had nothing whatsoever to do with any high-flown moral reasons or even national security. They were BOTH illegal invasions intended to confiscate a huge chunk of those two countries' oil resources.
Off course, it's all Cheney, and those oil companies--the 4 that Saddam kicked out and are now back in there. Cheney was panicking that once the UN sanctions were removed, Saddam was ready to let European companies come in to develop those incredibly rich oil fields...with no US company in sight. I really believe that THAT was the main panic on Cheney's part to invade quickly to prevent that from happening.
I imagine that Cheney convinced Bush that everything would be rosy and Bush would go down in history as the President who started the US on their glorious 'full spectrum dominance' (global empire for the 21st century).
But yes, it's all Cheney and those oil companies, in my opinion. I agree.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
Taliban 'ready to discuss' Bin Laden handover if bombing halts
The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.
Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added.
But it would have to be a state that would never "come under pressure from the United States", he said.
Mr Kabir urged America to halt its air campaign, now in its eighth day, and open negotiations. "If America were to step back from the current policy, then we could negotiate," he said. "Then we could discuss which third country."
Large explosions caused by American bombs and missiles have been reported to the south and east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, this evening.
The sky above the city has been filled with tracer fire from Taliban anti-aircraft guns once again.
Before the start of the air campaign, the Taliban had demanded evidence of Bin Laden's involvement in the attack and had offered to try him before an Islamic court inside Afghanistan - proposals that the US promptly rejected.
....
So, Joe, what would have been wrong with complying with Mullah Omar's conditions and getting bin Laden before the bar of justice, any bar of justice frankly? Rather we continue a war which is guaranteed only to further the cause of radical Islam, the profits of a very few, the bankruptcy of our economy and our moral fiber, and, ultimately, cannot be won.
* note to admin* What the heck happened to posting active links?
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Am I surpised that MoveOn won't be criticizing Obama on Afghanistan---or anything else? Not at all. Right after the election I wrote a couple of weblog entries chronicling my personal encounters with the post-campaign fund-raising activities of that organization. http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=71 and http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=74 These writings described the evolution of the MoveOn campaign---like the Obama presidency---from a campaign organization to the huckstering of a cult of personality, as I like probably most other readers of this was offered "Victory" stamps and posters and asked to contribute funds to help MoveOn to "stand by the side" of Obama in enacting his "progressive agenda." As I point out there, MoveOn prides itself on its "tiny staff" (to reassure that money raised does not go to "overhead?") leading one to wonder with what personnel resources the organization would lobby on behalf of this "agenda." This rhetorical question highlights the transparent fact that post-election, if not before it, MoveOn existed to sell a "brand" (Obama) for its enrichment. If you're selling a brand, you're certainly not going to "criticise" it because it loses thereby its market value. If you want to imagine with Mr. Nichols that MoveOn would (or should) join other groups and individuals critical of their brand, be my guest, there's one born every minute.
What's with the allegation that 9/11 started in Afghanistan? I don't recall seeing that before. What is the evidence?
Aside from some cheerleading by a handful of Arabs foreigners from a remote camp in the Hindu Kush, Afghanistan and particularly their government, had nothing to do with the September 11 events.
The plot was planned largely in Egptian Mohammad Atta's apartment in Hamburg, Germany. The training was done at US flying schools and on US airliners where various flights were cased. The attacks were launched from United and American Airline's departure gates. The modest funding needed for the plot came from money wire-transfered from widely scattered sources - none in Afghanistan.
So why did we invade Afghanistan again?
---USAn---
There's this oil pipeline running through there...
What a wealth of geographical and historical knowledge you have.
Iraq for the Iraqis & Afghanistan For The Afghanistanis
"Based on?"
"There being nothing so precious as freedom and independence.*"
*Ho Chi Minh
I heard Obama's talk yesterday. What noone has commented on is the utter lack on concern for all the million innocents killed by our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan or the 5 1/2 million Iraqi refugees we refuse to do anything about(*) just about our 4200 dead military as if they were all that counted . The hubris marches on...and on.
Semper Fi - S___! As an retired Marine officer, I'm especially appalled at the USMC actions in Fallujah ordered by the KIC (Killers in Charge)
We finally allowed some 13K Iraqi refugees we worked with into the US. What about the other 5 1/2 million desparate stateless folks? We blame the Iraq guv for these and tell them to take care of it - with what?
Iraq’s War Widows Face Dire Need With Little Aid
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/world/middleeast/23widows.html?hp
President’s Corner: Addressing the Challenge of Iraqi Displacement
http://www.refugeesinternational.org/blog/president%E2%80%99s-corner-addressing-challenge-iraqi-displa...
http://www.refugeesinternational.org/iraq-videos
1. Iraqi Refugees: The View From Syria
2. Iraqi Refugees: "Khaled's" Story
yes. what to say....the dead, exiled, wounded, traumatized don't even exist for most of us......
This comment by DaveBronstein just cracked me up!
"What's amusing about this article is that Nichols himself (& much of The Nation generally) is also basically just an apologist for Democrats, most of the time."
As a long time reader of The Nation and an admirer of Nichols, I remember well the period from 1993-2000 when almost weekly editorials castigated Bill Clinton and the Democrats in Congress for selling out to the Republican agenda. There has also been a lot of criticism in that publication the past two years of the Pelosi/Reid leadership for not making a more principled resistance to the policies of George Bush. Say what you will about Obama, he was still a MUCH better choice than McCain, and I am hopeful that people are now waking up to the fact that they will not get what they want out of the Obama administration without applying a lot of pressure.
Move where? Ha, ha, ha, ha, etc.
Mo Vaughn... Is he still playing?
The only benefit I can see for MoveOn is using them as a technology usage modal; any remaining political relevance is in exciting one half in the divide and conquer equation, placing another veil of titillation over the atrocities of reality. To someone like John Nichols, as others have intimated here, I say look for strategic alliances elsewhere and thus "move on".
Perhaps Obama's strategy is to bring an end to the American empire, since all empires have found their end in Afghanistan. Then, we can convert to a peacetime economy and stop spending billions each year on the military-industrial complex.
I'm leaving Move-on behind. they are simply War Cheerleaders because they are Obama cheerleaders.
There is much to criticize regarding Obama's war strategy. Read on:
Obama's war budget: Another 600+Billion for the Pentagon and 140 billion extra for Afghanistan and Iraq. Count all the other goodies like homeland security, veteran's benefits, etc. and you come up with a 1 trillion budget for the military.
We already spend more than the rest of the world combined on the military. We have 30,000 nuclear bombs and nearly 1,000 military bases all over the world. Who is our enemy and what is their force projection? Do we need 12 aircraft carrier squadrons to fight suicide bombers and IED’s? We have a nuclear submarine fleet armed with nukes with enough firepower to destroy the world. They are impervious to a first strike attack! These subs alone can keep peace in the world, or, alternatively, insure that the USA rules the world. (which is more like it.)
Cut the military budget to half its size and we would still dominate the world. The 130 billion to Afghanistan and Iraq is money down the drain. Our insane mission impossible to right wrongs in the middle east and grab the oil while we’re doing it, proved impossible.
Pentagon money down the drain! Better spend the money here for stuff we can grow an economy on. And please no more bubble economies, no more globalized information age economies where our best and brightest bankers take in junk mortgages, slice, dice and collaterise them with a few clicks of the computer, then these elite schooled ,information-age, greedy, globalized bankers had the rating companies rate this junk as AAA securities , which were then leveraged 30x and sold all over the world as GOLD! (Causing Iceland and others to collapse!)This is a crime scene, not an economy! Can we go back to making things ?
Wise up folks, see Obama for what he is: a cold war/hot war centrist "liberal." His “State of the Union’ speech made a pitch for a new “American century.” (i.e. we must rule the world)! This does not bode well. See below:
What? the American Century Part II? Yes, Obama said it the other night, ("The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of healthcare; the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit.")
Here he was following up on Henry Luce's claim that the 20th century was America’s time to be the world’s good Samaritan and spreader of democracy. Add to that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's notion of America as “the indispensable nation.” Then go back in time to the Puritan idea that we are chosen people that will bring light unto the world and that we are a city upon a hill for all to see, a beacon of goodness. And don’t forget the neo-con Project for the New American Century which promoted American global leadership. Fundamental to the PNAC were the view that "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world" and support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.
Can this be? Is numero uno in our future?
No doubt, we were a can-do country during the 20th century –climbing out of the depression, winning the war, helping our friends with the Marshall Plan and surpassing Great Britain as the major economic and military powerhouse. But we suffered during the Bush years, with the Iraq war debacle, Guantanamo, the Katrina Debacle, the Wall Street melt-down.
Are there still customers for Brand America? Probably not and God seems to be looking at us with a jaundiced eye, and so maybe now’s the time to became a caring, peaceful country like Sweden, or Norway. Mixed economies with great social services. And perhaps a new UN , minus the likes of John Bolton, can become the new city upon the hill.
dr 1:54 ------ I see a dust cloud in the east, 15 Al Qeada are madly whipping their mules in this direction. How many nukes will it take to stop this gigantic threat.
China and Russia must be in revelry as they watch the USA ethnicly cleanse our former allies.
dr. Sweden though it has great social programs, and good foreign policy is not a good example of a peaceful nation because it is in the top five arms producing nations.
Sioux Rose
I am in transit, otherwise I'd quote what Yogananda said in an address given to the U.N. in l949 I believe. To paraphrase, he made it quite clear that very dangerous weather events (earthquakes, hurricanes, etc) would escalate if mankind did not learn to get along and dispense with all this effete and costly (on so many levels) war-making.
Thanks to certain astute voices in this forum, those able to separate the rhetorical wheat from the chaff, it was clear that Obama was just another PR man serving the elite. The U.S. elected to merge militarism with marketing on so vast a scale that as Nick Turse and others have pointed out, the tentacles of the monstrous MIC are embedded in almost every mundane industry, and located in most states. This of course fosters a kind of financial blackmail in that in tough times, "leaders" argue for the maintenance of jobs and so many tie into the MIC.
The U.S. has lost all sense of moral direction, an angry giant going about the world bludgeoning other peoples, the karma will come home. Even while Katrina landed a fatal blow, and droughts threaten the heartland (and West), and banks falter and industries close shop the same INSANE foreign policy, one that only appeases Mammon (the $ lovers) and Mars (the warriors and their patrons) continues on. This flawed direction, indicative of the moral blackhole from which it derives, cannot lead to ANYTHING remotely positive or profitable... I pray for the Afghanis... America has done enough to Iraq, for God-desses, sake. Sitting here among the majestic giant redwoods at Big Sur, the awe-inspiring mountains are beings of such greatness they inspire the soul. It's hard to understand how amid a geographical tapestry of such beauty American leaders can act on the call of destruction foremost. Tragic, to say the least.
sioux, always look forward to what you have to say here. don't always agree w/where you are coming *from* (not my background), but always (or almost) agree w/where you are going *to*.
rock on sister
Beautiful description... The paradoxic and quixotic and chaotic and chaordic all share time and place... Like frequency modulations of sound and light...
It is simultaneously humbling and empowering to be amongst arboreal ancestors that are older than Christianity...
Sioux and GoldenMean,
I remember reading a beautiful description (but I can't remember in what book, darnit) about how wrong humans are to believe it is we who are better and wiser than the trees.
THEY are our ancestors, and in a sense, they gave birth to us. They were the stewards of this earth before we were here, and they help watch over us and protect us.
I am truly not doing it justice. It was beautiful, and I wish I could remember where I read it . . .
Sounds like J.R.R. Tolkein writing about the Ents.
You're right, it does. : )
But that's not the reference I was referring to. It was from a non-fiction book, and i want to say it was "World Peace Diet" by Will Tuttle but I'm not all that sure of that. Man, I read so many books they tend to run together.
No creation, no destruction, nothing has ever happened; now as far as the madness of this particular dream.........
When action groups and political pundits and journalists decide to use their influence to elect candidates rather than support the larger mission of their credo, they suffer the political consequences of being tied to the politicians elected into power. When these groups or individuals elect not to restructure and return to the original mission, then the credo is dislocated from its foundation and suffers.
In the case of Moveon.org, its partial mission is to secure money and political capital to elect candidates. I am not unreasonable to view Moveon largely as a soft peddler of the Democratic Party. I just don’t understand why Nichols doesn’t acknowledge the reality of these circumstances.
The appearance Moveon is connected to the Party was publicly illustrated when the Democratic Party swiftly and effectively denounced and distanced itself from the “Betrayus Ad”. There is a direct correlation between the two and both powers are subjected to the other, however it is evident the Party is the power. The line was drawn and Moveon’s leaders willfully reverted to its more subservient role of campaign lackey. Nichols’ however is under a false belief Moveon.org is structurally designed to challenge officials. No, Moveon is designed to enlarge the political capital of Democratic politicians as it gravitates to the center.
The public supporter risks reverting individual political capital to the Moveon organization. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Nichols surely understands this better than anyone
Chuk-it has characterized MoveOn correctly as simply a money conduit to the Democratic Party. It is a puzzle why Nichols doesn't get that.
MoveOn's original mission was simply to defend Bill Clinton. The group advocated censuring Clinton for lying about sex and wanted Congress to move on past that issue. Given that Clinton was a right-wing corporatist - a product of the Democratic Leadership Council - it would be tough to get too excited about such a mission.
People should just forget about MoveOn. It's an irrelevant Astroturf organization. John Nichols should not pretend that it's some democratic rallying point.
The real way to pressure Democrats and their awful Bush-supporting policies is to support third-party organizations. The Democratic Party Inc. will not be reformed from within.
-TIA
"When these groups or individuals elect not to restructure and return to the original mission, then the credo is dislocated from its foundation and suffers."
Think about it--does anyone really know what the credo of the Left is?
A viable and effective movement has to be independent.
While, as ezflyer says, there have been some, umm, advances--e.g., cost-of-war-transparency--I'm unnerved whenever I see anyone say that they "trust" any politician. An avowed Naderite, I wouldn't even fully trust Ralph to "do the right thing," and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't want me to--endless citizen oversight is always required; and Ralph's not beholden to anyone. How can we "trust" anyone who's been funded to the extent Obama has by corporate interests, who apponted a freaking Raytheon LOBBYIST as second-in-command at defense? Obama's heart may be in the right place, he may be the most intelligent, even the most principled President we've had since god knows when--but the nature of the office means we can't trust anyone who occupies it.
And, too, "tust" involved not only faith in the person, but in the process. In this case, it means trusting that the assemblage of technocrats, the "best and the brightest," assembled by Obama can think their way out of the problem--as though they are beyond ideology, operating in a scientific, purely pragmatic sphere. But there's no such thing as ideology-free content, and the underlying premise of continued U.S engagement in Afghanistan is that the U.S. has the "right" to lumber about the globe destroying that which does not fit into the narrative of neoliberal empire.
MoveOn apparently does have any issues with the underlying paradigm.
Neither does the Democratic Party.
If you DO have issues with the thinking underlying the policies--or, rather, the "believing" (in this case, in the myth of "American exceptionalism")--then you can hardly expect that the Dems of pressure groups like MoveOn are gonna get it right. Hence the Green Party--a party which questions the premises, not simply teh strategy and tactics.
As for JN, to his credit, he's taken Nader and his message seriously--even in '08.
michael horan
http://www.nosuppertonight.com
m horan
http://www.nosuppertonight.com