Dean is correct when he says there are people over there who mean harm to the US. Every additional soldier we have sent to IrAfPak since 2001 has resulted in additional people over there that mean to do harm. The more the US occupies their nations, the more harm they will mean.

-"We fully agree with those sentiments. We congratulate you on the leadership you demonstrated earlier this year when you decided to deploy approximately 21,000 additional troops and several thousand civilian experts…"

You see, it is just the rabid left that is unhappy with Obama! Oh yee of little faith in hope and change.

Alas, Howard Dean is right--Obama needs to stay the course in Afghanistan until Afghan women have the choice to ban the bra. In fact, this objective should also be extended to Pakistan.

I'm so happy that the Israelites of the newly minted FPI are demonstrating such touching concern for the Muslim people.

Still, regime change, like charity, begins at home.

Thanks, Jeremy, for the report on PNAC's metamorphosis into the Foreign Policy Initiative, and the reminder how the neocons' incessant campaign to march on to Baghdad and bring the blessings of regime change to the people of Iraq ended up codified into the Iraq Liberation Act - which passed Congress with large bipartisan majorities and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

It should be mentioned, too, that largely symbolic legislative measures such as the Iraq Liberation Act statute can, and do, come back to bite you in the ass unexpectedly later on.

Early in his first term, Clinton was vigorously pressed by the Republicans to actually re-invade Iraq at the time of a thwarted assassination attempt against George H W Bush which took place while the former president was taking a victory lap as honored guest of US oil industry executives in recently liberated Kuwait. The Clinton White House team condemned the plot, escalated the no fly zone pyrotechnics a bit, but declined to re-invade.

The Iraq Liberation Act then later emerged as sort of a fall back position for the neocon true believers in exile. It did make regime change the official, declared goal of US foreign policy towards Saddam Hussein, as Scahill points out. For the Triangulator-in-Chief, signing on was also a politically expedient, cost-free gesture at the time. Why engage in a silly partisan food fight with the GOP over whether Saddam was an evil doer? Or so the conventional wisdom reasoning inside the DC beltway went at the time.....

But alas.

Fast forward to the fall of 2002.

Both the aborted assassination plot against Bush I (supposedly linked to Saddam's intelligence service) and the Iraq Liberation Act are hauled out, dusted off, and included in the grandiose laundry list of "Whereas" clauses justifying passage of the Congressional authorization for use of military force resolution enabling the Bush/Cheney White House to invade and occupy Iraq. To this date, the 2002 AUMF remains a part of the Code of federal statutes - including that use of military force resolution's repeated references to known Iraqi chemical, biological, and nuclear weaponry, and the Baath regime's known links to Osama bin Laden, the 9/11 attacks, and future clandestine 9/11-style terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction.

Sometimes for good but usually for bad, what goes around really does come around.

Bill from Saginaw

Whatever opportunity existed for "victory" in Afghanistan has long since passed, and the war has mutated into a Pashtun nationalist guerrilla war spearheaded by the Taliban. While a redux of the Taliban regime is not an option, neither is foreign troops tramping around, making enemies and winning converts to the forces of Mullah Omar. Thus the best that can be done is to equip as best possible those whom suffered previously under the Taliban and do not wish a repeat: the Hazaras, Uzbeks, & Tadjiks.

This is another great article from Jeremy. I watched that interview with Dean. It was Dean being Dean. He is the ultimate politician. While governor, he blocked Single Payer in Vermont. People who think he is anti-war have not followed his career.

Josh Frank has written a lot about Howard Dean - the real Howard Dean.
http://www.libertyunionparty.org/?p=23

Thanks again to Jeremy Scahill for exposing the scheming of these beastly arrogant pigs.

"I was very pleased to say the - hear the president a few months ago say, "Look, we can't win this war militarily."" So, Howard Dean and Barack Obama have both agreed that this war is NOT about winning because it IS very much about military escalation. The longer it can be prolonged, the more money for weapons manufacturers. The smug lack of creativity inside of Washington is stupefying.

As far as Dr. Dean is concerned, getting a second opinion may be a lifesaving choice.

Another point worth mentioning is that Al Gore was still advocating regime change up right up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His principle point of contention with the Bush administration was not regime change, but the lack of planning and coalition building.

Gore was one of the principle cheerleaders for the first Gulf War, Desert Fox, the decade of sanctions, and the continuous bombing of the "no fly zones" during the 90's.

Dafoe
The war lovers should be drafted to serve in Afghanistan, the problem is the big mouths, bigger egos with their limited brain capacity have never served this nation in any constructive fashion let alone served in the armed forces.
Peace never came about through victory but only through justice and there is no justice in the neo con crowd. It still seem surreal that the know nothing GWB was presdent, we must have been the laughing stock of the world, the neo con point man. Lets face it the Taliban and the neo con war lovers are just opposite sides of the same coin, they speak the same language, seek the same power to force others to conform to their view.
Afghanistan should be left to its own devices, if they want to be free let them fight for it to throw off their oppressors, unfortunately their oppressors are religious extremeists and speak for God, now that should sound familiar. its so "American".
There are times one could jump out of the basement window!! I think Vermont should go through with its secessionist movement, I'd emigrate.

John McCain was the Keynote speaker for the FPI coming out party some months ago when they advocated for more war In Af and beyond (wherever Arabs live?)

This is just Tel-Aviv pushing DC again. NeoCON was never anything but a polite non-way of saying Tel-Aviv. The FPI is the same. They perpetrated 9-11, "we need a new Pear Harbor, BANG!," and they're driving AfPak too-that is why so many posters ask, "whay are we there?" it is murky and unclear if looked at through an unfiltered lens.

Yawn and tears too.

This whole article is about stale thinking. Not to mention representative of the psychotic quip about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

We should probably readdress the issue with behind the scenes talks about redrawing boundaries. The Brits redrew these boundaries, I thought in the late 19th century but recently read 1945. Give the Pashtuns back their country and let Northern Afghanistan be another country. I don't think the Pakistanis would particularly miss the tribal areas that are Pashtun. Ethnic and cultural divisions are at the heart of the internal conflicts and outside pressure magnifies them.

First of all the fact that obomber is following a script done by PNAC/FPI is beyond revolting.

Furthermore the lanuge that they so love is totally insane. Try reading that stuff and tell me what part makes sense. Afghanistan is the only place in the world where any potential terror plot could be hatched? if we can get the Taliban under our thumb (we can't) there will be no more terror? somebody gave him al-Qaeda's (non-existant) address?

I'm serious. It's true madness. Political speech has always been maybe empty or meaningless. I know that. This is something else, and people are getting killed for it.

I don't know everyone who signed that letter. After I saw Kristol, and Paul Bremer, I pretty much knew we are in la la land.