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Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp
Has it occurred to President Barack Obama that Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired — and thus rescued from the current March of Folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making?
McChrystal leaves behind a long trail of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations. For example, there is no real security, at least during the night, in the area of Marja, which McChrystal devoted enormous resources to pacify this spring. Remember his boast that he would then bring to Marja a “government-in-a-box” and thereby offer an object lesson regarding what was in store for those pesky Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second largest city?
It is now clear that there will be no offensive against Kandahar anytime soon. For the 500,000 people in Kandahar, this is surely a good thing, but it is a huge embarrassment for McChrystal and his former boss, now his successor, the never nonplussed Gen. David Petraeus.
When McChrystal and his undisciplined senior aides let a Rolling Stone reporter know what they really thought of the “intimidated” Obama and most of his national security team, Obama and his advisers took the bait.
They let McChrystal fold his tent in the night and steal silently away from the disaster he leaves behind. White House advisers then brainstormed the idea of replacing McChrystal in Kabul with the straight-arrow Petraeus whose is known for running a tight command. Done!
Master Political Stroke?
Since the announcement Wednesday, the Stanley-out/David-in move has been hailed by Official Washington as a political masterstroke. We shall see. There is, to be sure, some short-term cosmetic cleverness. In my view, however, future pitfalls and pratfalls are likely to far outweigh any political points Obama might score in the near term.
The conventional wisdom holds that Petraeus is the military genius who can still prevail in Afghanistan. But by now even the densest of Obama’s advisers know there will be no prevailing. They see a silver lining, though, in the fact that the choice of Petraeus as successor to McChrystal dumps into Petraeus’s lap a mess that he also helped create, along with McChrystal and Obama (not to mention, Bush, Cheney, et al).
Petraeus is given a mission that virtually everyone but Sens. John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham realizes is an impossible assignment. But it gets Petraeus out of the country and—the Obama folks hope—out of contention for the 2012 Republican nomination. In the view of the White House, Petraeus is now in direct charge of the mess in Afghanistan and will find it difficult to pin primary responsibility on Obama. This seems to me largely wishful thinking.
It is far too soon to count Petraeus out. He is politically astute, has powerful friends in Washington, and in testifying to Congress, he has collapsed only once, as far as we know. I believe Petraeus commands wider respect than Obama does—and surely more credibility and respect than the President’ national security adviser, James Jones, branded a “clown” by one of McChrystal’s aides.
The McChrystal circle has had it in for Jones because he pushed back against assertions by McChrystal and others last fall that the United States needed a major infusion of troops in Afghanistan. Dialing back fears stoked by McChrystal (and seriously undercutting the rationale for escalation), Jones chose to tell the press this on October 4:
“I don’t foresee the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan is not in imminent danger of falling … The al-Qaeda presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”
Does it sound to you as if Jones may have been hinting that the U.S. need not send 30,000 more troops to face less than 100 al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose numbers remain one of the deepest mysteries of the conflict? I am not suggesting that estimates on the strength of Taliban forces are being deliberately hidden from us, although this may be so. What I am suggesting is actually worse: I believe it more likely that no intelligence unit has yet been assigned the task of toting up the numbers. This would not be the first time; a considered look at the Viet Cong order of battle was put off until well into the Vietnam conflict.
Too Clever By Half?
The likely results of the White House shuffle of generals are, in fact, dangerous. The change makes the prospects dimmer for Obama executing a rapid—or even a measured—withdrawal from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011, as some in his administration had hoped. And the President may not yet realize how scandalized his political base has been at his penchant for Bush-like policies, rather than change anyone can still believe in.
Worse still for Obama, in replacing McChrystal with the popular Petraeus, who outnumbers Obama about 100 to zero in merit-badges-on-left-breast, he has given the sainted general the option of eventually calling for more and more troops and firepower lest we “lose” in Vietnamistan — sorry, I mean Afghanistan.
But where would the additional troops come from, and what would they be able to do that is not already being done?
For those old enough to remember a similar stage in the “counterinsurgency” operation in Vietnam, the ramrod image of Petraeus evokes shivers. He resembles much too closely the American commander in Vietnam, the late Gen. William Westmoreland, an equally handsome gent decked out with all manner of ribbons and medals with which to dazzle Congress in a way that President Lyndon Johnson could not.
A lawsuit after the Vietnam War proved that Westmoreland deliberately misled Congress by insisting that there were only half as many Vietnamese Communists under arms as his intelligence analysts knew there were. His hallmark was an insatiable need for more and more troops. Westmoreland’s periodic appeals for further escalation built U.S. forces up to 536,000—as he ploddingly pursued the light at the end of the tunnel.
Finally, in March 1968, President Johnson convened a group of more sober and honest advisers, who told him Vietnam was a fool’s errand. Johnson finally said “no” to Westmoreland’s request for a 206,000-troop escalation, but it was too late. Johnson wound up forfeiting the presidency as well as the war, opening the door to Richard Nixon and all that followed.
In his multiple mea culpas (that came far too late), Johnson’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara bemoaned the fact that as many as three million Vietnamese were killed, as well as over 58,000 American troops. But during his tenure as secretary of defense, McNamara acted as though he were tone deaf. And his current successor, Robert Gates, seems equally hard of hearing, though he is old enough to remember the hit song of the time, “When will they ever learn?”
Rock and Hard Place
Obama’s main dilemma will be how to say “no” when, as seems inevitable, Westmoreland — sorry, Petraeus — makes requests for more “surges” of troops into Afghanistan.
The dynamic of the occupation and feckless forays such as those against Marja suggest the following scenario: Late this year or early next, Petraeus is likely to warn Obama that, if the general does not get the additional forces he needs, he will go the way of McChrystal and invite removal. Petraeus would slide in a subtle but clear intimation that he might challenge Obama for president in 2012.
In that case, Secretary of State Clinton is likely to insist on giving Petraeus whatever he says he needs. Gates would bow to the prevailing winds, and Obama’s political advisers would probably advocate sending more troops from wherever they can be scrounged up.
Casualties would rise exponentially; there would never be enough troops; most of those NATO allies that have not already withdrawn their troops would do so. The remaining “coalition forces” would not “prevail” (whatever that means).
Such escalation would not be likely to help, and by the end of 2011, the Teflon, ribbon-bedecked Petraeus might well quit anyway and join McChrystal in blaming the carnage on the “clowns” around President Obama. W might well end up with either a President Petraeus or another President Clinton in the person of Obama’s hawkish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Clinton is the only, the only official who is praised by McChrystal’s wild-boy crew, because she favored giving the general whatever troops he wanted. A Chrystal aide is quoted as saying, “She said, ‘If Stan wants it, give him what he needs.’” For Petraeus, it is a safe bet she would say the same thing.
Is it possible that Obama can be blissfully unaware of the dangerous political kill zone into which he has maneuvered his presidency (not to mention the kinetic kill zone into which he has sent U.S. troops)?
The tragedy is that this is totally unnecessary. If President Obama could get beyond ill-conceived short-term political considerations, he already has available some well-reasoned guidance as to how to extricate the United States from the Afghanistan morass.
He got solid advice last fall from retired Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, his ambassador in Kabul, who knows more about Afghanistan than Petraeus, McChrystal, Gates, Clinton, and special envoy Richard Holbrooke do, put together.
Eikenberry served three years in Afghanistan over the course of two separate tours of duty. During 2002-2003 he was responsible for rebuilding Afghan security forces. He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of all U.S. forces stationed in the country.
Eikenberry’s knowledge and experience show through clearly in two highly sensitive cables Eikenberry sent to Washington on November 6 and 9, 2009. Oddly, the New York Times editorialists suggested yesterday that Obama should include Eikenberry in a “wider housecleaning” of the administration’s Afghan brain trust. Never mind that Eikenberry got it exactly right, as the events of the past eight months clearly show.
The news columns of the Times, however, do deserve credit for publishing a story on Eikenberry’s views as soon as it acquired the substance of two cables he sent from Kabul to Washington on November 6 and 9. The columns were printed well before Obama made his decision to escalate in Afghanistan. Better still, in January the Times posted on line the actual TOP SECRET NODIS cables (full text).
Sources of such material do not take lightly the risk of being discovered and punished. In my view, however, there are times when they are not only justified, but required in conscience to make sensitive material available. To the credit of the Times’ source (reportedly a U.S. official), he/she was willing to take this patriotic action, to ensure that those interested could learn what Eikenberry really thought, especially his doubts about the effectiveness of a military escalation. ( See “Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning,” http://www.consortiumnews.com/
Apparently, the Times’ source saw what ethicists call a “supervening” value in making this unauthorized disclosure—value that transcends and trumps the promise, customarily made as a condition of employment, not to divulge classified information. Promises are important; one does not break them capriciously. But unauthorized disclosures can be acts of courage—the kind of behavior that can prevent wars, and even stop ones already under way. Despite the fact that Eikenberry’s views were in the public domain last fall, President Obama apparently put his finger to the prevailing political winds of Washington and chose to go with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency “surge” rather than the advice from Eikenberry and from Vice President Joe Biden, who also opposed the escalation. Obama seems to assign the highest priority to being able to thwart any campaign—however disingenuous—to paint him soft on terrorism. And so the President sided with McChrystal, Petraeus, Clinton, and Gates, agreeing to triple the U.S. troop levels to about 100,000. In the months that have passed, the levels of American casualties have jumped but the prospects for victory (or some modicum of success) remain stuck in a deepening quagmire—in the deep muddy, so to speak. Now, with some indiscreet comments to Rolling Stone magazine, McChrystal has managed to get plucked from the swamp, as if a “deus ex machina” derrick suddenly appeared from behind the scenes of a Greek tragedy and magically hoisted the embattled hero out of an impossible situation. Obama now has turned to what might be called “Petraeus ex machina” as a rescue operation for the benighted U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. But this dusted-off, spit-and-polish human device is not likely to be able to lift the larger military campaign out of grave danger. Instead, many of the U.S. troops committed to this dubious plan—not to mention thousands of Afghans— seem doomed to perish in what has become a real-life tragedy.
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47 Comments so far
Show AllObama has not been maneuvered into a plan destined for failure.
Before the presidential election, Obama stated he would escalate the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Apparently, the Obamabots ignored that headline news.
He is only following his own plan for victory blind to reality, just like his hopeful Obamabots.
Good Grief Charlie Brown.
Obamabots never let facts get in the way of the good story known as brand Obama.
Meanwhile, General McC is looking forward to his lucrative book deal.
Yes, McChrystal did not want to be stuck with an unwinnable war. So he called in Rolling Stone for an ON THE RECORD trashing of his civilian bosses hoping to get fired.Thus better than being seen as a quitter. Remember he acknowledged that "the Taliban is not winning but neither are we".(aka stalemate).
Home Run. Grand Slam.
I can add nothing to your assessment. You are correct.
NO winners at war; bigger losers...fascist amerika; whose empire is now crumbling !
You took that right out my wife's mouth, just last night, in our kitchen!
As Ray McGovern implies, Obama seems intent, as George H.W. Bush was, upon having the U.S. once again attempt to kick the Vietnam syndrome. But as the article in today's Common Dreams by Tom Gallagher makes clear, the Afghans overwhelmingly want the U.S. out of their country. Obama and his generals still do not seem to be able to comprehend that the Afghans, like the Vietnamese, will continue to fight against the U.S. military until all of its forces [along with that of NATO] are finally driven from its soil.
Where is today's Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern who will condemn Obama's actions and call for the withdrawal of ALL U.S. forces, not in 2011, but NOW?
As Ray McGovern inquires, "when will they ever learn"? And why are the radio stations not playing that most relevant song from the 1960s today? Or is it that corporate radio frowns upon the youth of today getting any ideas if they were to actually hear the lyrics of that song on the airwaves today.
"when will they ever learn" Does anyone know the artist and name of song?? Everly Btothers??, Kingston Trio???? Pete Seeger????? Woody Guthrie????
Thanks,
OYE
Pete Seeger wrote "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and recorded it, as did Peter, Paul & Mary; the Kingston Trio; and many others.
Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" and "With God On Our Side", and Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore" should also be resurrected.
Muchas Gracias,
OYE
And don't forget John Prine's
"Your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore"
which is still apropos for today's religious led wars...
And the Country Joe and the Fish song, here updated:
Well it's one, two, three-what're we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn.
Next stop's Afghanistan.
Oye el Pensador
The name of that very moving song is Where Have All the Flowers Gone? which was written and originally sung by Pete Seeger though I happen to favor a little more the version sung by Joan Baez. But whoever sings it the message remains the same. Young girls, young men, soldiers, all dying for a less than noble cause.
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Yes, these robots [i.e. soldiers] willingly going to their deaths like something out of a Tennyson poem-into the valley of death rode the six hundred while foolishly believing that theirs is not to reason why, theirs is but to do and die. If these robots had an ounce of brains they would be emulating the example of their predecessors of some forty odd years ago, i.e. those soldiers who had the intelligence, common sense and courage to say NO to American aggression during the Vietnam conflict. But the robots of today seem almost totally unwilling to understand that being in the military does not automatically mean that they should leave their brains behind in the civilian world. I do not know if this is a generational thing but it appears to me that the soldiers of today are far willing to accept the orders that they are given than those soldiers who participated in the Vietnam conflict and who, unlike so many of the robots of today, understood that they were being used [as seen in the powerful documentary Sir! No Sir!] as cannon fodder by their less than caring government.
And one cannot claim that it was different back then because there was a military draft because, as David Cortright points out in his classic work Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, the majority of those who comprised the GI movement back then was not of draftees but rather of enlisted personnel which gives no excuse for the enlisted soldiers of today for meekly going along with American aggression.
Let us not forget CCR's Fortunate Son:
"Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! ..."
http://www.creedence-online.net/lyrics/fortunate_son.php
WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
©1961 (Renewed) Fall River Music Inc
All Rights Reserved.
Where is today's Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern who will condemn Obama's actions and call for the withdrawal of ALL U.S. forces, not in 2011, but NOW?
Umm... Check out Ron Paul at antiwar.com. He has articles in his archives going back to 2003. Some of these are:
Phony Justifications for War 7/24/2003
We've Been Neo-Conned 7/12/2003
Iraq: What Are We Getting Into? 6/10/2003
War Profiteers 4/08/2003
The Myth of War Prosperity 3/06/2003
deadfoot: Ron Paul, Barbara Lee and perhaps a handful of other House members have indeed spoken out.
If Ron Paul was not so anti-union, anti-labor, anti-social justice and a closet racist I would vote for him. He does speak the truth about the Empire.
Socialist
Very well stated.
The American people are getting what they deserve, they have no desire to give Ron Paul or Barbara Lee any power. I hope Palin get's elected, the more rotten the better.
I am not so sure about the closet racist, maybe,
certainly anti, anti, anti, anything labor.
I believe a lot of the racist tags are being
put out by Democrat journalists such as Scheer, Robinson
and EJ ect.
Ron Paul is still a better choise than any Democrat.
I don't know if I would ever vote for him, but it
is tempting to vote for someone that has preached peace
so long and against empire, labor is already lost.
And, of course, HRC and an inordinate number of female supporters will broadly (no pun) fly the First Woman Prez! banner.
I agree, but I believe they will run another phoney
peace candidate, like Grayson or Whitehouse.
It will be the same difference though.
Grayson has even admitted he is for the war,
just wants to fund it differently.
Baboon:
I call BS:
"Grayson has even admitted he is for the war,
just wants to fund it differently."
Link, please?
I asked for a citation last week and never got one. Grayson's website paints a different picture.
Joe
Visiting Prof -
Hillary Clinton got a pat on the back because she publicly sided with Robert Gates and the other soldier/spook Washington hawks regarding the big escalation surge in Afghanistan, proclaiming the Obama White House should "give Stan [McChrystal] everything he wants." Hillary backed Special Ops Stan when the fat was in the fire, successfully getting withdrawal "off the table" as a serious policy option during the "thorough" pre-West Point speech policy review.
McChrystal and his staff appreciated the Secretary of State's political backing. Therefore, they quite naturally sat around tipping back their Budweisers and dissing Eikenberry, Holbrooke, Biden, and Obama in front of a Rolling Stone reporter, but had nothing but kudos for Secretary Clinton. Death squad guys are fanatically loyal to those who helped the team.
I agree fully that McChrystal wanted out. He preferred to go down as a man's man indiscreetly speaking truth to his wimpish civilian superiors rather than being set up as the fall guy when things go down the toilet in the highly touted Khandahar campaign. He knew the deteriorating conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. There was a gallows humor quality to the coarse discussion of the floundering Af/Pak war with his closest staff which was captured well in Hasting's RS article.
As to your "pure speculation" -
To avoid a floor fight at the Dem convention as the bitter Obama/Clinton primary wars wore down towards the end, Barack gave Hillary Secretary of State as a consolation prize instead of the veep slot. Both camps kept their promises.
A year and a half into Barack's presidency, it's painfully apparent that Obama is a much more skilled campaigner than he is an executive or a player in the DC beltway turf wars. Everybody smells blood in the water. He's a one termer not because he doesn't enjoy the role of president, but because the handwriting is on the wall. It wouldn't surprise me to see him go the way of LBJ even to the point of channeling Johnson's proclaimed rationale for not seeking a second term in 1968. By Barack magnanimously standing aside, now we can really reach out to heal Washington's partisan divisions.
Hillary naturally slides in as the 2012 Democratic nominee - possibly even with Petraeus in the vice presidential position, unless the war in Afghanistan goes completely to hell in a handbasket of course. Such a transition may well maximize the right/centrist DLC's chance of clinging on to power in the two party system.
Like you say, it's pure speculation. I just think such events are shaped more by Obama's alienation of his party base and alienation of genuinely independent voters rather than by a cabal of corporate oligarchs in a backroom somewhere pulling invisible puppet strings.
Bill from Saginaw
Did McChrystal have final approval of what the Rolling Stone could run?
Obama is just the latest BS artist Chief Public Relations Officer for the Corporate Mafia.
Like Silvio Berlusconi said last year: he speaks much better than Bush and he has a better tan. Althogh this was a gaffe, Berlusconi describes best the differences between the two.
The title of this article is fitting.
Some choice back in November, 2008: Waz-monger Obama or War-monger McCain. It is sort like what Henry Ford used to say to people that were buying Ford cars: You can get any color you like, so long as it's black. War-monger A or War-monger B. Yer choice.
Exactly, that's how Democracy Inc.(TM) works. The world's most sophisticated and expensive PR stunt!
The greatest question is why Petraeus agreed to take the job? This article assumes he was ordered to take it and had no choice.
Untrue. Petraeus had to agree to the demotion and agree to take the job. If he hadn't Obama would not have fired McCrystal. Period.
So why would Petraeus agree to put his reputation, his career and his life on the line in Afghanistan.
Obama Misses the Afghan Exit Ramp
Obama didn't miss it. He has never had any intention of getting out of Af-ganef-stan. Obama is driving his camoulflaged Hummer over in the fast lane, wearing his leather A-1 Air Force jacket with the presidential seal on the left chest, occasionally checking himself out in the rear view mirror, trying out various sneers and scowls he thinks will frighten the Taliban into submission.
Obama is a weak leader and he's lazy. Rather than stand up for anything, he leads with a compromise. It's clear he has no confidence in his own abilities and is too lazy to inform himself or reason things through.
The GOP are in charge of policy, Gates runs the military, BP runs energy policy and EPA, and gives Wall Street the keys to the treasury. Except to actively undermine any populist impulse in Congress, his duties are limited to photo ops, propaganda and ribbon cutting.
Lazy?
Obama works for the empire. If they want lazy, he does lazy. When they want action, he does action. How about this war on the people of Afghanistan? Action! Do you remember how he worked to get the corporate health care bill passed? He even gave up campaigning for a time so that he could TWIST ARMS FOR BAILOUTS! He's a busy guy, just not working for your agenda.
There was a "Bridge Out" sign, but it was in Russian.
FREE AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY
I think that the comparrison to past wars like Vietnam, or even the American Revolution is all wrong.
We should go back farther than that. For example, ancient Greece and a play.
This one would be called" Oedipus Nynx" though.
On the road to the city, a candidate meets a chariot carrying the Mother Country. He accidentally kills her.
Next, he meets a sphinx, and answers the riddle: 'What goes on 4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 3 in the evening?
The candidate answers, " A candidate who is tough on terror."
"Correct, " said the Sphinx, so proceed past 'GO" and collect 200 gazillion troops."
The candidate, on entering the city, finds a saddened Fatherland, and ultimately, THEY are married.
However, and you know the play, the candidate now, the ONE, finds that he has murdered the Mother of the Mother Country. His three children, Economy, Unemployment, and Hope have a real family spat, and only Hope remains with him.
When the ONE realizes what he has done, he sets off with HOPE, and finally is reduced to putting his AYES out for all of the compromising with the Corporates and Chamber of Commerce.
What happens next? Well there is another play, Oedipus at Colonous... which could become Oedipus at Bogus, but we'll just have to wait and see.
The last honest military man was probably Smedley Butler. Protests, schmotests, the newspapers are the problem. Circle the Times building every day until they write ONE article advocating PEACE. Won't happen, the Knesset in Washington wants war, needs war to hide the expenditures.
Sorry Ray. Obama did not miss the exit ramp because the ramp is closed indefinitely for repairs.
George Orwell wrote in his book'1984' about perpetual war and we are now seeing it, part of the picture of the American Empire.
You should read this book. Very depressing, as it seems so prophetic. It fits with the logical conclusions of mercantile capitalism because it allows continual expansion of exports of war material, and no imports. It will end with exhaustion of physical assets, hyperinflation and revolution. I expect to be in my grave before it gets too bad but I could be wrong.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
The true nature and purpose of these Bush/Obama colonial wars is a natural extension of the Unitary Theory of unlimited Executive wartime power. The extra-Constitutional "Unitary Theory of Executive Powers" during wartime is clear: Any president subscribing to this rogue State lawlessness believes that their powers are UNLIMITED during "wartime"--regardless of whether or not a president has chosen to wage a war in violation of international law and regardless of whether or not the U.S. government has hard EVIDENCE of a "clear and present danger" posed to the U.S. by a known or perceived enemy.
The Bush Doctrine changed the U.S. war trigger from EVIDENCE of "clear and present danger" to SUSPICION of a threat to national security. Suspicion of a threat can be easily fabricated by any presidential maladministration or gaggle of corrupt Congresspersons fronting for corrupt corporate and/or military-industrial/CIA interests.
The illegal assassination program as I understand it also targets American citizens based on suspicion of a threat (including hearsay) and I am unclear as to what standards of evidence, IF ANY, this program also might or might not take into account. Either way it is still un-Constitutional and a blatant violation of international law as well. No nation has the right to declare the entire planet a battlefield and even the most insane of Roman emperors never dared proclaim such madness as the Bush Doctrine, which declares endless American global military supremacy that will never brook any challenges anywhere in the world. The Supreme Court, even such as it has been since 2000, has twice rebuked the Executive Branch to say that presidential powers even during wartime are not unlimited and the Executive Branch since Bush continues to ignore these rulings--another clear sign in a long list of many that the U.S. is now a rogue State.
The criterion that rogue Unitary Theory presidents like Shrublette or Obysmal refer to to make decisions regarding the extra-legal assassination(s) of American citizens is SECRET CRITERION, which means it can be altered at any time in any way to suit any political or economic purpose. Just as our nation's war trigger of SUSPICION is an all-purpose legalistic tool to "fix the intelligence and the facts around the policy" any time any rogue president wants to massage a corrupt Congress (with dozens of complicit members as we saw during the Bush/Cheney Junta) into going to war.
Several years ago I was doing research on the origins of this mysterious "Unitary Theory of Executive Power" and discovered that the shysters who fabricated it were very possibly influenced by Nazi "judicial theory" that used marshall law powers extended to Reichschancellor Adolph Hitler as the basis for granting him unlimited powers based on the idea that what mattered most during wartime was not the rule of law, BUT THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE OF LAW. The condition of wartime itself, regardless of its justness or legality, became the all-purpose exception to the rule of law for the nation's leader.
One major difference in the relationship between the Nazi Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) establishment and military-industry and their infamous Reichschancellor, and our rogue presidents and the U.S. military-industrial complex and Pentagon culture is that many senior German generals believed that to even dare to question der Fuhrer would be to dangerously interfere with the sublime self-confidence that he needed as a naturally gifted dictator to effectively rule Nazi Germany with absolute authority. In our post-2000 Unitary Theoretical misgovernment, the presidents dare not ever question the military-industrial complex and its most powerful adherents in the Pentagon and Congress.
The MIC and its presidential and Congressional toadies are insisting on the present illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq despite the salient facts that (1) They have about a fifth of the troops they need to wage a victorious counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq or Afghanistan according to the numbers laid down in the book written on counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies and tactics by the Army's expert on counterinsurgency warfare, General David Petraeus (now in command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan where he has 120,000 troops and needs around 600,000 to do the OFFICIALLY STATED job), (2) The official policy formulation for "victory" in Afghanistan states that to be successful, the U.S. must have a responsible and fully engaged partner in the Afghan government, when, in point of fact, Hamid Karzai and his "administration" have always been riddled with corruption, ties to the illegal drug trade, and Karzai himself has early, consistently and publicly opposed the U.S. administration to state his support for negotiations with ALL the Taliban (which he is now said to be conducting in secret).
The Afghan war, even more than the Iraq house of cards, is being deliberately run as a militarily half-assed and therefore endlessly self-protracting, oil & pipeline operation (part of Rumsfeld's "Long War") with with U.S. and mercenary forces bribing local Taliban not to attack critical road checkpoints, bridges, intersections, etc., so they can keep the operation going--in lieu of actually rebuilding the country or its economy to create legitimate jobs, or establishing a secure government that need not be run as a garrisoned colony. A lucrative colony needs armed colonizers and Obama is already back-pedaling from his 2011 "withdrawal" lip-service because the MIC and Big Oil have told him to.
You do have a point about UTEP and Hitler Germany. However UTEP in Germany had been a principle of the Kaiserreich and was re-established by Hitler long before his armies invaded Poland: when he declared himself President in addition to Chancellor after Hindenburg died and after he changed the command of the German armed forces to become the de facto supreme commander of the army. Anyone politically/militarily active who would have tried to stop Hitler then would have either landed in a concentration camp or lost his/her life. One might even argue that the road to UTEP in Germany began with the "Reichstagsbrand" of 1933 and was mightily paved by the murder of the SA leaders in 1934.
PS: For Hitler, his "Fuehrerprizip" (UTEP) was not established to conduct the war beginning in 1939 but a necessary precondition to go to war which he intended to do even before he became Chancellor.
Of course the exit ramp was missed. War is the most profitable of all businesses. The ruling elite are having it their way. They don't care whose or how much blood is on their money, nor can they seem to ever get enough.
How can they be shut down?
What consumers can do is make changes on their own such as quit driving everywhere. Bike, walk or buy an electric golf cart.
Do we want to bury the USA in arrogance and debt to other governments?
President Obama should have replaced Robert Gates on day one for brother Bob is a war monger. He'll never end the war. He is among the Bush familiy of politicians. Notice how the war has expanded instead of winding down.
CIA Veteran: How Robert Gates Cooked the Intelligence
http://motherjones.com/politics/2006/12/cia-veteran-how-robert-gates-cooked-intelligence
In some home town meetings across the nation on Saturday sponsored by conservative republicans 51% of participants said cut defense spending. The meetings entitled "America Speaks - Our Budget Our Economy spoke very clear on this matter.
The dead bodies and trillions of dollars as a result of war need to stop!
Isn't it odd. The USA provided weapons to the Taliban to chase out Russia who wanted the same thing our war mongers want --- the oil.
So why is it okay for the USA to wage war on countries that did NOT attack the USA when it was NOT okay for Russia to wage war?
President Obama is wayyyyyyyyy too concerned about bi-partisanship. Republicans do not give a damn and haven't for 30 years.
Our economy and image is far more important than bi-partsisanship.
Thank you for writing this article, well put. When I heard Gen. McCrystal was interviewed for the Rolling Stone, the very first thought I had was that he did it on purpose. Time may play this out to reveal the truth, but for now, I continue to think he wanted out so he can write that book.