USA citizens are to busy being indignant about 135 million in AIG bonuses and fretting over their pocketbooks to protest the ethnic cleansing of Pushtuns or the 4 billion a month to do it.

And once a real and strong anti-war movement does form and act, if this ever happens, then watch for escalations in violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and while the same may be what's going on in Iraq; increases in violence, or increasing reporting or "news" coverage on purported increases in violence, secretly and strategically used by the Obama admin., the U.S. govt and its ruling elites, that is, to try to get the U.S. public to support more years of their military forces in these countries.

I've been expecting increasing violence in Iraq with the Obama admin. claiming to want to withdraw, and increasing violence is being reported. Is it really new increases in violence, or only in the reporting of it? I don't know, but one of the two or both have been increasing.

I agree that Obama is making a huge, JFK-styled escalation mistake. I also find it most disturbing and disheartening how, now that the grand review of Afghanistan/Pakistan policy has been completed, the "new" regional approach squarely embraces one of the most shameful and objectionable features of the Bush/Cheney GWOT propaganda line - ie., that we kill them over there today, there so we don't have to fight them over here tomorrow.

This is warmed over schoolyard bully/clash-of-civilizations mentality. Even though the rapidly deteriorating, very precarious position of the US/NATO mission might well tactically justify some emergency reinforcements to prevent a Dien Bein Phu debacle during the Talibans' upcoming spring offensive, the unsettling long term message signifies a deep betrayal of the core values of the US antiwar movement on the part of the Obama administration.

No change here that I can believe in.

And you should dance with the date you came to the prom with, Mr. President.

Remember what happened to Hubert and LBJ.

Bill from Saginaw

Smells like he's following in Bush's self destructive footsteps.

Excellent and insightful article by John Nichols. John Podesta's web site Think Progress loves to beat up on such easy targets such as Bill O'Reilly but, as John Stauber notes in the article, always shills for Obama simply because, it would seem, he is a Democrat while unwilling to acknowledge that the Democrats are just as much a part of the war machine as are the Republicans [Lance Selfa drives home this point quite effectively in his must-read book The Democrats: A Critical History].

John Nichols is also right to wonder why MoveOn has not launched ads condemning Obama's aggressive actions in the Middle East. The hope, as I stated, is that liberal groups like MoveOn and Think Progress will ultimately recognize that it serves no useful purpose, especially for liberal organizations, to emphasize party over principle.

Considering the Terrorism chargers brought against the organizers planning a peaceful protest in Minn. during Democratic convention; protest in a police state is risky business.

Sioux Rose

The several articles recently published on CD that explained the strategic need (resource-wise) for acquiring a foothold in Afghanistan and Iraq are the real motives behind all the BS about stabilizing this "graveyard of warriors."

The US economy, like a hot air baloon, just has been given a FALSE infusion of new hot air, but ultimately this is not the substance of fiscal security. Between this balloon collapsing (in part due to the nature of gravity) and fossil fuels getting more expensive to harvest, the U.S. continues on in pursuit of control of vanishing resources, while squandering time, energy, and human resourcefulness that could be better directed at greener alternatives.

Apart from this, which is insane and self-destructive (on a collective scale) in and of itself, is the hubris that keeps asserting through war upon war upon war, with NOTHING learned! America could have taken a good look at itself, at its squandering of its fortunes on these imperial wars of conquest that are going so badly, a count rendered in the loss of a million human beings! Instead, it prepares for its next wars, as if the only voices that matter in public policy are those of big business/banksters (Mammon) and those conducive to the blood-soaked profits of the monstrous Military industrial complex (= Mars).

Although some ramifications are now felt in terms of the many gone homeless, the many struggling with illnesses and no secure health plans, the many incarcerated, the many broken from war... we have not yet seen the boomerang of karma for this nation's continued TRESPASS over others' lands, lives, and livelihoods. All awakened souls do what they can to rouse awareness in their sleeping fellow citizens, but at this point in time, lest there be a show of Grace so spellbinding as to turn the dial of time backwards, the momentum created by a ceaseless foreign (and domestic, just look at our incarceration rates and the use of isolation which simulates torture) policy of destruction is such that IMPACTS are inevitable and coming back our way. The best investment in personal safety is to live the precept: Harm none, and give of one's self even when no reward is forthcoming. It is a PAYMENT to the spirit of mankind.

Now you too can own Uncle Sam's Penis Enlarger. Buy a very heavy handgun, say a .44 Magnum, once described by no less than Dirty Harry himself as "the most powerful handgun in the world and can blow your head clean off." Tie the gun to your penis with some nylon thread and let it hang for, say, two months. You will then have a member like King Kong, like a cop's night stick. You can then swagger naked into Afghanistan and tour the country, frightening the bejesus out of the Taliban, the bandit gangs and the warlords. They will cower at your sight and flee into Pakistan's FATA. VICTORY!

Obama and the Democrats YES have successfully co opted much of the US Antiwar Movement, where DP voting liberals (like those running with the UFPJ and the liberal pacifist churches) refuse to engage in coordinated mass actions with more Left components, and mute their own actions into almost totally a religious oriented mindset talking about a vague 'peace' in the abstract. These groups have pretty much sat it out over the last year other than to vote for Obama and the Democrats, who we can now all clearly see never had any intention of opposing the military industrial governmental complex in the least. MoveOn was always nothing more than a totally Democratic Party tied apparatus.

I got a sense of how MoveOn was going to move right after the elections when I started getting a series of breathless messages that were a combination of "victory" celebration and an appeal for funds for the organization to work "alongside" Obama for such as universal health care (right!) and withdrawal from Iraq (right!), no mention of avoiding Afghanistan escalation. I wrote about these in my new weblog and, if you want some ancient history on a group that was obviously using the Obama phenomenon to make a buck for itself, you could open the history book (after you review John Stauber's early nailing of MoveOn) at http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=71 and again at http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=74. Seems that the more MoveOn changes, the more it is the same. Thanks, John Nichols, for the little road map of where the anti-war movement REALLY lies.

Here below is John Nichols shilling for Joe I am a Zionist Biden...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

John Nichols for Joe Biden: The best fighter, the most quick-witted.

(This article first appeared in the November 26th issue of The Nation magazine, and is published jointly online in collaboration with Huffington Post and OffTheBus. This is one in a series of eight essays by leading progressive commentators making the affirmative case for each of the Democratic presidential contenders.)

I'm not in the habit of making campaign endorsements, and if I was, I'd probably urge a write-in vote for Russ Feingold, Joe Biden's colleague on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who combines Biden's political smarts with a record on military adventurism and civil liberties that's far more to my liking. But I do endorse realism, and as such I can't buy the argument that Biden is significantly less acceptable than the Democratic front-runners. Biden maintains 100 percent ratings from Planned Parenthood, the League of Conservation Voters, Americans United for Sepa­ration of Church and State, Citizens for Tax Justice, the Children's Defense Fund and the NAACP; and 93 percent from the AFL-CIO--these numbers are every bit as liberal as his competitors'.

This Story to DiggBuzz up!I don't forgive Biden's wrong vote to authorize George W. Bush's attack on Iraq, but neither do I forgive those of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Unlike either of them, Biden tried to constrain the Administration when he and Senator Richard Lugar fought in 2002 to require diplomatic efforts before military options could be considered. As Foreign Relations Committee chair, Biden remains far more engaged than his opponents in the debate about how to address the Iraq crisis. That does not mean his "solutions" are better, but it does mean he is more agile than most Democrats when it comes to debating policy.

It is, to be sure, a hard-won agility. Biden has more bruises than his fellow Democrats because he has gotten in the ring more often than most of them. His bruises are the marks of experience and determination, which ought not to be underestimated. At a time when too many Democrats are prone to pulling punches, he knows how to throw them. No Democrat with an eye on the 2008 prize failed to thrill when Biden used an otherwise forgettable October debate to kneecap the GOP front-runner. While the other Democrats poked one another to uninspired effect, Biden ridiculed Rudy Giuliani for waging a campaign based on "a noun, a verb and 9/11." This was Biden at his best: fast on his feet, muscularly partisan, devastatingly effective at tossing barbs. These strengths have kept the Delaware senator on the national scene for thirty-five years, and they make him the most quick-witted of this season's Democratic contenders.

Of course, Biden is not always at his best, as a failed 1988 presidential quest and several false starts since then can attest. He's a big talker, and he's made some big gaffes. But no Democratic contender has been so steadily "on" during this campaign. And even if Biden's poll numbers remain soft, that October debate confirmed his ability to stir things up.
In the blood-sport competition for the presidency, Biden's flair for finding the GOP jugular ought to count for something among Democrats who grumble about their last two nominees' failure to play offense. Of an old breed of Democrats who fought their way out of the back rooms of urban East Coast politics, Biden beat an entrenched Republican to enter the Senate, held his seat during GOP landslide years, used his Judiciary Committee chairmanship in the 1980s to block some of Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominees and corporate-sponsored tort "reform," and not only wrote the Vio­lence Against Women Act but got it re­authorized by two Republican-led Congresses.

Biden is best understood as a relatively rare political archetype: a Democrat who pays less attention to internal party politics than to winning elections and governing. This skill makes him the one Democrat Republicans feel compelled not merely to attack but to answer. That's because Biden has so far been the one Democrat who has consistently understood the importance of taking the fight to the other guys.

John Nichols is Washington Correspondent for The Nation

"Siouxrose March 30th, 2009 1:05 pm

...

Apart from this, which is insane and self-destructive (on a collective scale) in and of itself, is the hubris that keeps asserting through war upon war upon war, with NOTHING learned!"

SELF-DESTRUCTIVE? Yes it is, but in multiple or various respects. It's self-destructive for the USA in political terms. The USA didn't have a deserved good reputation around Earth, for it doesn't have a history that deserves to be recognised with [respect]; it's always been an extremely genocidal, imperialist, ... beast, and this is without knowing a lot of the details of the true history of the USA. Add plenty of the detailed history that's not taught in schools and which we seldom find good resources on for (Wade Frazier at www.ahealedplanet.net provides a strong resource), and then we see all the more seriously that the USA has not had any deserved good reputation. By far most good reputation the USA had was [not] deserved.

It's also self-destructive environmentally, because technological wars are extremely destructive for our natural environments. It's self-destructive because much civilian infrastructure, including the most essential, gets very destroyed. It's self-destructive for it imposes tremendous financial costs. It's self-destructive because it all contributes to the omnicide that's going on with all of the ways these wars are extremely destructive in.

Siouxrose:

"America could have taken a good look at itself, at its squandering of its fortunes on these imperial wars of conquest that are going so badly, a count rendered in the loss of a million human beings!"

A million humans beings? At least that for Iraq, with several million more forced into extremely difficult refugee conditions, not receiving an even respectable small fraction of the aid they legally and morally are to be provided with.

But let's not forget the 6 million or more Congolese, the major genocide that's been going on there for many years now and as always, for natural resources, Big Corporation(s). Then there are the other severely affected African countries. There's Afghanistan. There are the many South Americans of various countries who were brutally oppressed, disappeared and killed or murdered very much for the U.S. govt to enrich its corporate buddies. There's Palestine, for which the U.S. is extremely guilty; rather very equally with Israel. There's Indonesia. And there are other countries, where the U.S. government is extremely guilty for the killings of many innocent people who were either defenceless, or else relatively so.

Just a "few" numbers to account for in the total tally. Oh, in addition to the continuing genocidal U.S. government and corporate conduct towards American Indians.

Siouxrose:

"Instead, it prepares for its next wars, as if the only voices that matter in public policy are those of big business/banksters (Mammon) and those conducive to the blood-soaked profits of the monstrous Military industrial complex (= Mars)."

Yep, and enough of those wars are actually already underway; just that they're not all overt. What happened in South American countries and what's happening in a number of African countries are very covert wars of the U.S. for U.S. corporations.

This, btw, is not to criticise Siouxrose's post, with which I highly agree. It's only to add some details.

Moveon.org lost its credibility a long time ago. Their only purpose was to be a simple bodyguard organization for the Democrats and nothing more. They're a closet supporter for AIPAC, they supported Gore, Kerry, and Barry over Nader who I proudly voted for thrice, they're very weak on protesting the Iraq War, and well someone fill me up the rest please. I'm sorry but moveon.org doesn't sound like a credible organization especially when they ignore real progressives such as Ralph Nader, Cynthia Mckinney, Cindy Sheehan, etc ...

Speaking of Afghanistan, Barry made his position clear but the electorate was too busy playing personality contests between Barry and McSame to give others a chance. I had to put up with hellish Obamabots and Bush diehards supporting Mccain throughout last years bloody election cycle time and again. Moveon to me is nothing but a cheat and an enabler of murdering Afghans. It's bad enough that the civilians especially women and children are being abused and murdered by the Taliban and drug warlords. Go ahead Barry. Just dump in more troops and mercenaries into Afghanistan and ruin their lives even more and put them and us peace lovers to tears. And then you wonder why Afghanistan HATES the US. If our future generations even have a chance to pull out of the ongoing war machine brainwashing, we will never ever be forgiven ! I feel a bit too upset at the way the peace movement was compromised and the doomed future of those Afghan civilians that I need to clear my eyes and catch my breath. :.(

But as I have tried to point out, neither is John Nichols's record any better really than MoveOn's. He and The Nation magazine he writes for spent most of their time in the last year and few months trying to convince us that Obama and his team would get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. They lied to us, didn't they? Worse, they continually lie to themselves! In short, Nichol's analysis of almost everything just totally sucks!

This is not new. Remember, liberal Democrats were responsible for the full escalation of troops in Vietnam and are always up for killing more gooks. Lyndon Baines Obama. And he'll be remembered as LBJ is remembered too -- there is no way to do guns and butter. When you try both, you screw both up in major ways.

There are a slew of groups that are arguing that this troop surge lacks meaning if it does not include an exit strategy. Remember those words? It does feel like "deja vu all over again."
Win Without War, a coalition of many groups, not all anti war, question strongly the reasoning behind this move.
WAND, Women's Action for New Directions, also doubts whether military might alone is what is needed. Protecting the citizens, especially women and girls, is questionable when provided by U. S. soldiers who are spread thin and whose mission is to find the enemy.
This war is complicated, but it does not have to be "America's war" alone. The enemy in Afghanistan and Pakistan has terrorized other countries as well, and if they are not engaged, then this could easily be another Iraq.

Re. my prior post:

The following paragraph, of which I'm snipping most out for the purpose of this post, was short a sentence.

Quote: "SELF-DESTRUCTIVE? Yes it is, but in multiple or various respects. It's self-destructive for the USA in political terms. ... By far most good reputation the USA had was [not] deserved."

The paragraph should've concluded with the following sentence, f.e.

"BUT what remains of good reputation for the U.S.A., even if none is really deserved, will diminish."

That would complete the otherwise incomplete and intended logic of the whole paragraph.

"SusanShaer March 30th, 2009 5:37 pm

There are a slew of groups that are arguing that this troop surge lacks meaning if it does not include an exit strategy. Remember those words? It does feel like "deja vu all over again.""

IT IS 'DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN', and the exit strategy needed to be for yesterday, or rather yesteryears ago; therefore, it needs to be for very, very soon, now, given it didn't happen when it should of, years ago.

SusanShaer:

"Win Without War, a coalition of many groups, not all anti war, question strongly the reasoning behind this move."

Funny. After all, ..., as stated just above.

SusanShaer:

"WAND, Women's Action for New Directions, also doubts whether military might alone is what is needed. Protecting the citizens, especially women and girls, is questionable when provided by U. S. soldiers who are spread thin and whose mission is to find the enemy."

NO; it's questionable whenever the U.S. has its forces at war; plain and simple. It's far from only questionable because U.S. troops "are spread thin and ...". They weren't spread all that thin in Iraq and consider very seriously what they did and caused there; for the ['gates of hell to be opened over Iraq'], as Saddam Hussein correctly stated this war on Iraq would be, and I had stated that the only thing the U.S. was bringing to Iraq was and is [hell], that the only liberation there'd really be for Iraqis would be from [life], etcetera.

Besides, the war on Afghanistan has [never] been about human rights, [at all]!

SusanShaer:

"This war is complicated, but it does not have to be "America's war" alone. The enemy in Afghanistan and Pakistan has terrorized other countries as well, and if they are not engaged, then this could easily be another Iraq."

IT IS complicated by the fact that, f.e., the 9-11 investigation must be re-opened and conducted by an [independent] group; because the "official story" that came out of the hell-hole known as the White House is full of lies, lies of omission, very much. But there weren't only lies of omission; there were also blatant lies and half-truth lies. It is a deceitful piece story the White House provided. And that's without saying that Saudis didn't hijack the 9-11 planes, for even if they did, then the "official story" is still full of deceit, lies.

But the war's also complicated for other reasons. One is that the war is one of aggression against a national or state government when it was not responsible for the 9-11 attacks, as Bush Jr himself had clearly stated that the Taliban had had [nothing] to do with the 9-11 attacks, that they weren't at all responsible for these attacks. If Usama Bin Ladin and Al Qa'ida were really responsible, hence guilty, then this would have justified working with the Taliban to have them hand over these others, but the Taliban did do that, so ... oops, bit of a complication herein we find. Yet let's just assume for the sake of argument that they hadn't accepted to hand over these others, then the situation would have justified the U.S. working with the UN and the Taliban to send some U.S. forces to Afghanistan to track down and grab UBL et al. In no way was war upon the Taliban government justified; and they did do what they could to try to hand over UBL and perhaps other high-ranking AQ members.

Continuing my prior post based on SusanShaer's post, while being redundant given what I've posted here at CD many enough times before:

Another complicated little bit is that when some U.S. military units, one anyway, was hot on the trail of UBL and plenty of high-ranking AQ members, they were required to back off; the Bush Jr-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration having wanted to ensure safe passage for these others, going from Afghanistan to Pakistan, with a comfortable air lift or flight.

I'm not sure to accurately recall this, but seem to recall that Pat Tilman's unit was a unit like the immediately above; hot on the trail of UBL et al. And he was "conventiently" disposed of because, evidently anyway, superstar pro-footballer that he was wouldn't be good news for the U.S. ruling elites upon returning to the U.S. and commencing to publicly denounce the war, telling the public that the war was [not] for the reasons stated by the Bush Jr-Cheney-Rumsfeld-et alia administration, and so on. Like with his brother Kevin, they enlisted following 9-11 in order to serve in defence of their country, the USA, but came to learn once in AFghanistan that the war was [not] for the reasons stated by the White House hooligans or gang. It would not have looked good for the White House, the USA's ruling elites, if someone with the fame of Pat Tilman returned while publicly speaking against this war.

Geesh, complications, eh?! These above ones are only a few among more.

As for the so-called enemy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, SusanShaer, do you work for the NYT or another U.S. propaganda of deceit machine or shop, by any chance (of misfortune)?

After all, the enemy in those two countries, in terms of the U.S.-NATO war there anyway, are the U.S. and NATO! Again, the Taliban did not attack the USA; and neither did Pakistani Pashtuns! They're fighting [defence]. The U.S. and NATO, and their leagues of interested corporate chiefs (and surely some shareholders), likely also some financial industry chiefs, are the enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan; as well as Iraq, African countries, and so on. Oh, and they're also the enemies, the within kind, of the people of the USA, btw! In briefer or summary terms, they are enemies of [all] of humanity!

Ever hear of "enemies from within"? They certainly exist and the USA has more than plenty of them. And, imo anyway, they're the very worst kind of enemies, for they always work covertly, are from within and therefore always employ tactics to try to [deceive] or fool the (geographically) immediate population from which support is sought and needed. People who do not carefully look for these enemies are people who are either very naive (gullible) or who [want] to be fooled, or who really and callously do not care, being anti-social, i.e., sociopaths. Among the people who want to be fooled there still too often are those who are silently aligned with the enemies from within, the top ones; I believe. If not aligned monetarily, like for profit, then still aligned by supporting these worst of enemies and this while realising that the support is hypocritical, hegemonious, ...; given it's in support of hypocrisy, hegemony, ..., which these really sociopathic (or worse) supporters do realise.

Of course people who are innocent and never aligned with any enemies at all can be fooled, but they need to come to wake up to the fact that enemies from within definitely exist and that we must carefully look for them. There are signs, indicators, and we just need to stay alert for these. After all, to err is human and it doesn't apply to or with only innocent people. And as a saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me!"

We need to start asking critical questions right up front, right away; instead of being unfortunately tardy about this.

The Bush Jr-Cheney-Rumsfeld-... gang, perhaps especially Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others, certainly made it very clear that they [are] enemies from within. But they're far from being the sole people in this category. There unfortunately are many others; inside and outside of government, both. Big Oil, Big MIC, Big Finance, ... chiefs are all or mostly all enemies from within; speaking of those who are U.S. citizens and reside in the U.S., that is. Their foreign ones obviously aren't from within; and it's the within kind that are the most dangerous, I certainly believe anyway.

70% or more of Canadians and Europeans want their forces out of this war! This is another little piece of complicated bit or matter; f.e., because in not being democratically represented by our governments we know that we do not have real democracies. We know our democracies are really fraudulent, hijacked and shelved ... and for surely the long term. It's not new, but this certainly doesn't make the situation or reality better.

It's not difficult to be able to realise that the war is damn wrong, criminal, and must be stopped, but the whole matter has complications. And the above may possibly be a consirable picture, but it still isn't a complete one.

Look for thine enemies, before they find thee(s) first. So beware of wolves disguised in sheep's clothing; like "news" media pundits, among other examples, including ..., well, like in much of the above part of this post, f.e.

Obama is doing a LOT of good but is BLOWING it in AfPak.

If the US withdraws totally & immediately from Afghanistan Mullah Omar and the Taliban will once again run it. Soon. I am for this. It is their country.

Then attacks will be based from Afghansitan & the Swat Valley down into Karachi & Islamabad. With ISI support the militants will gain more territory, maybe the country. There will be another military coup and Pakistan may or may not hang together. Cool! Let Pakistanis run Pakistan.

We should withdraw. Let the Taliban have Afghanistan back and Pakistan work itself out. Viva la Islam.

This won't happen though. BO is wrong, but more powerful than BO & more wrong too, the Zionists want the war escalated. Sorry world, that means it WILL BE. FPI-Kristol-Rham..MSM..McCain...Kolb..Controlling Tentacles.

Royce

This tiresome ranting is turning CD into Cynics' Diatribes.

It's good to see that John Nichols has finally discovered PR Watch.

http://www.prwatch.org/

Well, it's about time. John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton, and even John Nichols himself - I think they're all based in Wisconsin, or were.

If you're a liberal, you've probably never heard of PR Watch, nor have you read Stauber and Rampton's books. Reading them is a sure way to become a progressive. Stauber and Rampton expose the ugly corporate underbelly of the body politic, along with their necessary evil - the duplicitous PR industry.

At least Nichols is learning, although he still suggests - even in this article a little bit - that MoveOn was some sort of antiwar group. It isn't. Never has been. It's a money conduit for the Democratic Party that started with the right-wing Bill Clinton administration.

-TIA

I don't see this as Obama being JFK at the start of Vietnam. I see this as Obama being Richard Nixon at its end. He's escalating so as to withdrawal under acceptable terms.

GaryA

Comparing what JFK did in Vietnam with what Obama is doing in Afghanistan flatters Obama and does a disservice to history, generally, and to Jack Kennedy, personally.

Kennedy inherited a gung-ho military that was as intent on expanding wars in the Caribbean (Cuba) and South East Asia as it was in expanding the power and influence of the aptly described "military-industrial-complex" (MIC).

After foolishly giving the Pentagon the benefit of the doubt - i.e. (mostly) letting them have their splendid little way - at the Bay of Pigs, the resultant catastrophe radicalized JFK. "How could I have been so stupid?" he exclaimed afterward.

After that, Kennedy gave the Pentagon little quarter:

* JFK refused the Pentagon's request/demand to send troops into Laos.

* JFK pushed for adoption of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, to the amazed consternation of the "MIC."

* JFK stopped cold the crackpot Pentagon plan to commit acts of terrorism on innocent Americans as a pretext for war with Cuba in 1962 in the well-documented, loathsome scheme, "Operation Northwoods." http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

* JFK rebuffed Pentagon demands that he bomb the Cuban missile sites and invade the island to topple Castro during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

* And, relevant to Obama vs. JFK, it's now crystal clear that Kennedy would NOT have made Vietnam "America's War." Sure, he sent advisers; he sent diplomats; and he sent uniformed trainers who got themselves involved in military skirmishes. But he drew the line at sending combat troops into combat roles in Vietnam and he made clear his plans to withdraw by 1965, come hell (loss) or high water (victory).

Among respectable academicians, there's no longer argument that JFK had what it took to stand against the MIC's war plans for Asia and Cuba.

Alas, it's also becoming clearer and clearer that Obama doesn't have what Kennedy had. One should be forgiving and look on the bright side. Obama may live a little longer than Kennedy did in consequence of his unfortunate "deficiency."

For the curious, I wrote an essay on JFK and Vietnam with all the requisite citations - here: http://www.history-matters.com/essays/vietnam/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone/JFK,%20Vietnam,%20and%20Oliver%20Stone.htm

In sum, as much as I agree with Mr. Nichols' dismay at Obama's cowardice, Nichols does history a disservice comparing the courageous Kennedy with the (apparently) cowardly Obama.

Gary

There is naturally considerable question whether any counterinsurgency operation such as those being conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan is likely to suceed in the long run; whether it is possible to do "the job" properly at all.

The answer to the question is far more uncertain than is generally accounted for in the public debate that accompanies the war and the constant shifting of our stated goals, strategies and tactics reflects that underlying reality.

Though it rarely recieves any public exposure the central historical document in the whole debate is 'THE THEORY OF COUNTERINSURGENCY WARFARE' or the counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24 DRAFT, by Generals James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps and David H. Petraeus of the Army.

The best critique of the content and conclusions of FM 3-24 DRAFT is "Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice" by Edward Luttwak published in Harper's Magazine in February, 2007.

This is still available on-line at:

http://www.harpers.org/DeadEnd.html

Mission Accomplished!

Americans have no one to represent them. After the election the president and congressional members close their eyes and ears.
Move On has lost its way. It allowed itself to be usurped by the Democratic Party and become an instrument of betrayal to the progressive cause.
All the other little activist empires are just so many gnats that can be swatted away.
What is needed is a unified group of everyone, large enough and impressive enough to contend with Obama's coziness with the DLC.
The French have the right idea. A million of them took to the streets when they didn't like their government's economic policies. Workers have kidnapped a CEO who tried to lay off 700 workers. Vive la France!

"The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and left bankrupted and defeated after ten years."

We'll be there for a long time!