Obama's War...

[Ben]

Wednesday, December 2, 2009 by Creators Syndicate
Obama's War

by Jim Hightower

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!

Wait, wait, wait — hold it right there. Cut the music, slow the rush, and let's all ponder what Barack Obama, Roberts Gates, Stanley McChrystal and Co. are getting us into ... and whether we really want to go there. After all, just because the White House and the Pentagon brass are waving the flag and insisting that a major escalation of America's military mission in Afghanistan is a "necessity" doesn't mean it is ... or that We the People must accept it.

Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain about war-whooping generals and politicians: "Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."

How many more dead and mangled American soldiers does the government's "new" Afghan policy deserve? How many more tens of billions of dollars should we let them siphon from our public treasury to fuel their war policy? How much more of our country's good name will they squander on what is essentially a civil war?

We've been lied to for nearly a decade about "success" in Iraq and Afghanistan — why do the hawks deserve our trust that this time will be different?

Their rationales for escalation are hardly confidence boosters. The goal, we're told, is to defeat the al-Qaida terrorist network that threatens our national security. Yes, but al-Qaida is not in Afghanistan! Nor is it one network. It has metastasized, with strongholds now in Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Yemen and Somalia, plus even having enclaves in England and France.

Well, claims Obama himself, we must protect the democratic process in Afghanistan. Does he think we have suckerwrappers around our heads? America's chosen leader over there is President Hamid Karzai — a preening incompetent who was "elected" this year only through flagrant fraud and whose government is controlled by warlords, rife with corruption and opposed by the great majority of Afghans.

During the election campaign from July through October, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 wounded to protect this guy's "democratic process." Why should even one more American die for Karzai?

Finally, Washington's war establishment asserts that adding some 30,000 more troops will let us greatly expand and train the Afghan army and police force during the next couple of years so they can secure their own country and we can leave.
Mission accomplished!

Nearly every independent military analyst, however, says this assertion is not just fantasy, it's delusional — it'll take at least 10 years to raise Afghanistan's largely illiterate and corrupt security forces to a level of barely adequate, costing us taxpayers more than $4 billion a year to train and support them.

Obama has been taken over by the military industrial hawks and national security theorists who play war games with other people's lives and money. I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.

So, we must look elsewhere, starting with ourselves. The first job of a citizen is to keep your mouth open. Obama is wrong on his policy — deadly wrong — and those of you who see this have both a moral and patriotic duty to reach out to others to inform, organize and mobilize our grassroots objections, taking common sense to high places.

Also, look to leaders in Congress who are standing up against Obama's war and finally beginning to reassert the legislative branch's constitutional responsibility to oversee and direct military policy. For example, Rep. Jim McGovern is pushing for a specific, congressionally mandated exit strategy; Rep. Barbara Lee wants to use Congress' control of the public purse strings to stop Obama's escalation; and Rep. David Obey is calling for a war tax on the richest Americans to put any escalation on-budget, rather than on a credit card for China to finance and future generations to pay.

This is no time to be deferential to executive authority. Stand up. Speak out. It's our country, not theirs. We are America — ultimately, we have the power and the responsibility.
Copyright 2009 Creators.com

National radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the book, Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow, Jim Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.

[Coroner]

He´s trying to impress and accommodate the Republican fascists. Now, the pressure is on European governments as well who are not in the mood for sending more soldiers into a failed war and country like Afghanistan.

[hippifried]

There's an old political saw:
If everybody's mad at you from both sides of an issue, you probably got it right.

[El Nino]

Yah, that must be it, fried...

[Ben]

Obama's folly...
Rather than trying to salvage Bush's policy in Afghanistan, the president should show real courage and just pull the plug.

By Andrew J. Bacevich
December 3, 2009

Which is the greater folly: To fancy that war offers an easy solution to vexing problems, or, knowing otherwise, to opt for war anyway?

In the wake of 9/11, American statecraft emphasized the first approach: President George W. Bush embarked on a "global war" to eliminate violent jihadism. President Obama now seems intent on pursuing the second approach: Through military escalation in Afghanistan, he seeks to "finish the job" that Bush began there, then all but abandoned.

Through war, Bush set out to transform the greater Middle East. Despite immense expenditures of blood and treasure, that effort failed. In choosing Obama rather than John McCain to succeed Bush, the American people acknowledged that failure as definitive. Obama's election was to mark a new beginning, an opportunity to "reset" America's approach to the world.

The president's chosen course of action for Afghanistan suggests he may well squander that opportunity. Rather than renouncing Bush's legacy, Obama apparently aims to salvage something of value. In Afghanistan, he will expend yet more blood and more treasure hoping to attenuate or at least paper over the wreckage left over from the Bush era.

However improbable, Obama thereby finds himself following in the footsteps of Richard Nixon. Running for president in 1968, Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War. Once elected, he balked at doing so. Obsessed with projecting an image of toughness and resolve -- U.S. credibility was supposedly on the line -- Nixon chose to extend and even to expand that war. Apart from driving up the costs that Americans were called on to pay, this accomplished nothing.

If knowing when to cut your losses qualifies as a hallmark of statesmanship, Nixon flunked. Vietnam proved irredeemable.

Obama's prospects of redeeming Afghanistan appear hardly more promising. Achieving even a semblance of success, however modestly defined, will require an Afghan government that gets its act together, larger and more competent Afghan security forces, thousands of additional reinforcements from allies already heading toward the exits, patience from economically distressed Americans as the administration shovels hundreds of billions of dollars toward Central Asia, and even greater patience from U.S. troops shouldering the burdens of seemingly perpetual war. Above all, success will require convincing Afghans that the tens of thousands of heavily armed strangers in their midst represent Western beneficence rather than foreign occupation.

The president seems to appreciate the odds. The reluctance with which he contemplates the transformation of Afghanistan into "Obama's war" is palpable. Gone are the days of White House gunslingers barking "Bring 'em on" and of officials in tailored suits and bright ties vowing to do whatever it takes. The president has made clear his interest in "offramps" and "exit strategies."

So if the most powerful man in the world wants out, why doesn't he simply get out? For someone who vows to change the way Washington works, Afghanistan seemingly offers a made-to-order opportunity to make good on that promise. Why is Obama muffing the chance?

What Afghanistan tells us is that rather than changing Washington, Obama has become its captive. The president has succumbed to the twin illusions that have taken the political class by storm in recent months. The first illusion, reflecting a self-serving interpretation of the origins of 9/11, is that events in Afghanistan are crucial to the safety and well-being of the American people. The second illusion, the product of a self-serving interpretation of the Iraq War, is that the U.S. possesses the wisdom and wherewithal to guide Afghanistan out of darkness and into the light.

According to the first illusion, 9/11 occurred because Americans ignored Afghanistan. By implication, fixing the place is essential to preventing the recurrence of terrorist attacks on the U.S. In Washington, the appeal of this explanation is twofold. It distracts attention from the manifest incompetence of the government agencies that failed on 9/11, while also making it unnecessary to consider how U.S. policy toward the Middle East during the several preceding decades contributed to the emergence of violent anti-Western jihadism.

According to the second illusion, the war in Iraq is ending in a great American victory. Forget the fact that the arguments advanced to justify the invasion of March 2003 have all turned out to be bogus: no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction found; no substantive links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda established; no tide of democratic change triggered across the Islamic world. Ignore the persistence of daily violence in Iraq even today.

The "surge" engineered by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq enables proponents of that war to change the subject and to argue that the counterinsurgency techniques employed in Iraq can produce similar results in Afghanistan -- disregarding the fact that the two places bear about as much resemblance to one another as North Dakota does to Southern California.

So the war launched as a prequel to Iraq now becomes its sequel, with little of substance learned in the interim. To double down in Afghanistan is to ignore the unmistakable lesson of Bush's thoroughly discredited "global war on terror": Sending U.S. troops to fight interminable wars in distant countries does more to inflame than to extinguish the resentments giving rise to violent anti-Western jihadism.

There's always a temptation when heading in the wrong direction on the wrong highway to press on a bit further. Perhaps down the road a piece some shortcut will appear: Grandma's house this way.

Yet as any navigationally challenged father who has ever taken his family on a road trip will tell you, to give in to that temptation is to err. When lost, take the first offramp that presents itself and turn around. That Obama -- by all accounts a thoughtful and conscientious father -- seems unable to grasp this basic rule is disturbing.

Under the guise of cleaning up Bush's mess, Obama has chosen to continue Bush's policies. No doubt pulling the plug on an ill-advised enterprise involves risk and uncertainty. It also entails acknowledging mistakes. It requires courage. Yet without these things, talk of change will remain so much hot air.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

[Cuchulain]

Wednesday, December 2, 2009 by Creators Syndicate
Obama's War

by Jim Hightower

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go! Pound the drums loudly, stand with your country proudly!

I always got a kick out of Jim Hightower. He's a down-home populist and a real character. I enjoyed his book 'Thieves in High Places'.
http://www.jimhightower.com/

What a mess. I don't see how 30k more troops will matter in a giant country filled with superstitious illiterates, run by a gang of crooks. Our troops and equipment are worn out and where's the money coming from? When Rep. David Obey suggested we employ a war tax to cover the costs of these military adventures, the Repukes screamed bloody murder and the President remained conveniently mum. I'm thinking America would have a lot fewer Hawks if we actually passed such a tax.

I'm sure the Presidents' main worry is Pakistan's nukes, and since we can't just march in there, he figures Afghanistan is the next best thing.

I'll admit Barry O gave a hell of a speech, or as Ben Mankiewicz from The Young Turks ( http://www.theyoungturks.com/ ) put it, he "really got his Obama on". He probably swayed enough of the public to buy a little time.

Does anybody really think this will end well? What do you guys think of the war surtax? Why would anyone trust that weasel McChrystal? We know the family of Pat Tillman doesn't...

[hippifried]

What a mess. I don't see how 30k more troops will matter in a giant country filled with superstitious illiterates, run by a gang of crooks.

Does anybody really think this will end well? What do you guys think of the war surtax? Why would anyone trust that weasel McChrystal? We know the family of Pat Tillman doesn't...

It's not really all that gigantic, but it's rugged country. The people there are neither illiterate or stupid, & really no more superstitious than we are. Don't think so? Try getting elected to something in America without claiming a faith.

As for the gang of crooks: They run Kabul, & not much else. They're just getting rich off Uncle Sam. Afghans are tribal. The closest thing they've ever had to a homegrown central government is the Taliban. Every centralized system they've ever had has been imposed on them at the point of a gun, & nobody's ever bothered to ask them what they want. After 20 some odd years of civil war, at least the Taliban were Afghan & didn't answer to a foreign power. That's why they were tolerated for a while. Everybody was tired. But when the CIA & other coverts approached the Mujahadeen with more weaponry & air support, it was all over in a week or 2. The Taliban was out of power & on the run before any NATO troops hit the ground. Here we are, 8 years later... Who's the enemy? Al Qaeda? A couple hundred clowns, max, scattered & hiding all over Hindu Kush? Good luck seeing any of them before the spring thaw.

This whole thing is a loser, & has been since the beginning. The military's the wrong tool for the job. They're not police. It's a totally different mindset. Al Qaeda are criminals. The military doesn't catch criminals. They engage the enemy, & we've already established that we really don't know who that is. Same goes for the Afghan central government. They don't need a big army. We're the only invaders. They don't need more fighters. They need people who can step between the fighters & diffuse the situation. That's a police function. You can't get credible advice from generals about operations that should be civilian. Different mindset. They don't understand or deal well with finesse.


Change the mindset & you change the world.

[Cuchulain]

What a mess. I don't see how 30k more troops will matter in a giant country filled with superstitious illiterates, run by a gang of crooks.

Does anybody really think this will end well? What do you guys think of the war surtax? Why would anyone trust that weasel McChrystal? We know the family of Pat Tillman doesn't...

It's not really all that gigantic, but it's rugged country. The people there are neither illiterate or stupid, & really no more superstitious than we are. Don't think so? Try getting elected to something in America without claiming a faith.

You're right. I checked the map and the country is not nearly as big as I thought. A bit of googling does suggest a very high adult illiteracy rate and a low percentage of kids enrolled in school. No argument about the silliness of American politicians having to mention God in every other sentence.

As I've come to expect, I actually learned something from your post.

[hippifried]

They have a literacy rate over 40% for males. That's easily comparable to colonial America. We take this shit for granted nowadays. As a baby boomer, I'm the first generation of Americans who were expected, just because I'm an American, to continue my education past the elementary level. So,,, Compared to what?

Now women fare much worse over there. They're treated as property. Islam is a very conservative religion & the sexes are rigidly segregated. The Shia are actually the more tolerant & liberal of the 2 major divisions, & Afghanistan is 80% Sunni. Now figure a total dearth of schools, along with 3/4 or more of the population out in the hinterlands scratching the ground: Who do you think will get preference at getting taught to read? The literacy rate of women is barely above 10 or 12%. That drops the average. I keep hearing that that's changing & girls are going to school in droves. My stats are from 2000, so I would hope there's been a major leap in literacy all around in the past 8 years.

The stats are wierd. The median age is 17 & a half, with an average life expectancy of less than 45 years. 43% of their GDP is services, but 80% of the labor force is in agriculture. They have a 40% unemployment rate, a 50% poverty rate, & a national debt they'll never get out from under. Must suck to be Afghan.

Now add to all of that, the fact that most Afghans have never known anything but war, military occupation, or Taliban rule Why is anybody surprized that they're cynical, uncooperative, & a tad pissed off? The Taliban gets stronger daily. It occurs to me that we could have crushed the entire Taliban movement years ago by inviting them to participate in the electoral process.

Source:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/af.html

[trish]

Gee, it sounds like the perfect libertarian paradise: no government interference or entitlement programs. Fantastic. Why are we trying to improve it?!