New Developments III

[Greg]

Bill Moyers, who was Press Secretary to Lyndon Johnson, has some thoughts on Obama and Afghanistan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGmzen5X-s

[Greg]

Here's a video of someone who "punked" a tea party. He gave an anti-immigration speech where he came out against European immigration and led the crowd in a chant of "Columbus go home!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66qDqfZm7k

[OscarGuy]

I don't necessarily think this is a "we must fight Al Qaeda so they don't attack us" war...and I don't think the Administration believes that either. They may hint at or outright say that, but that's because the small-minded American public is probably too stupid to understand the truth.

Bush and company helped destabilize the region with their ill-funded, ill-conceived war. Now that Obama has inherited that, he is attempting to fix what we fucked up in the first place, hopefully attempting to bring some measure of order to the chaos. At least, I'm going to hope that's the case.

And regarding the nose thumbing of Republicans I say that it is more of a side benefit of the whole thing. While trying to fix the region, Obama has the capability of earning victory and showing that he's not as weak on foreign policy matters as the Republicans claim. I doubt he would stay in there for simply that reason, but it's an added benefit and that was my point, not that it was their internal justification of the action.

[Greg]

I see no legitimacy in the claim of, "We have to fight them there so we won't fight them here," whether there is Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other place out there. For Al-Qaeda, the organization responsible for 9-11, there is no there there. They are not a country. They are not a government. They are a roving band of thugs that are only too happy to set up shop in a small portion of any country that has a central government too weak to keep them out, like many countries in the region.

If the U.S. military defeats Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, they will simply move to the mountainous region of eastern Pakistan; if the U.S. defeats Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, they will move to Yemen; if defeated in Yemen, then the Sudan, then Somalia, then Rwanda.

Additionally, there is no evidence that Al-Qaeda can make an attack on the United States from outside the borders of the United States, such as pushing some buttons and launching some bombs. It appears to me, then, that the most effective way to confront the terrorists is through domestic law enforcement, with more metal detectors, police officers, video cameras in public places with large numbers of people gathering, etc. The best way to protect Americans is truly to fight them here rather than fight them there.

[Heksagon]

Heksagon, there will never be enough troops to make a significant difference in acheiving the desired end result (whatever that is). Eventually, the Taliban will reorganize, unless our intention is to maintain a strict military presence in Afghanistan for a century or so.

That is probably true. There are really no good alternatives here; pulling out may well be the least evil. I have no idea what the U.S. government can hope to achieve by staying in the country. What I'm trying to emphasize is, there are two alternatives: pull out, or establish some military objectives (whatever they are) and then try to achieve those. The former might be the "leave" option and the latter the "blood and tears" option. This may not be a good way of putting this, but staying there with too few troops would be the "first blood and tears, then we leave" alternative. If the U.S government cannot commit itself to specific objectives, then it should probably start pulling out now, not later. Staying in the country without sufficient troops to fulfill any military objectives would be inviting disaster. That is the point I'm trying to make.

There is also the issue that besides American troops, there are also many "Coalition" troops in the country. Except for British, French and Canadian (?) troops, they are used mostly to garrison the northern parts of the country. Even if the Unites States decides to stay, if it does not commit itself with adequate troops, the Coalition troops may decide to pull out on their own. It is difficult to say what would happen then, but it would possibly force the United States to pull out anyway.

[Sonic Youth]

Except the White House is denying they made any decision on Afghanistan

So it was either a mistake or a trial balloon. For all we know it'll be 38,000 additional troops anyway, but they didn't want to announce until after the holidays. Anyway, Bush isn't the only president who draws things out.

Heksagon, there will never be enough troops to make a significant difference in acheiving the desired end result (whatever that is). Eventually, the Taliban will reorganize, unless our intention is to maintain a strict military presence in Afghanistan for a century or so. Is that what we want?

Despite what pundits like Alexander Cockburn says, pulling out isn't an attractive alternative either. The repurcussions would be potentially disasterous. There is no viable civillian government. The U.N. doesn't seem to want any part of this. Nor, for damn sure, do Afghanistan's regional neighbors. There is no good answer here, but that includes increasing troops. Will it decrease casualties? Maybe, but to what end? To maintain a puppet government? We've had several opportunities to oversee fair elections. What a joke that turned out to be.

And if one of the reasons to send more soldiers to die is to rebuke the Republicans and tell them to stfu, then I'd be happy with impeachment right now. No responsible leader should ever use spite as a reason to make serious life-or-death military decisions. This is not a playground tantrum.



Edited By Sonic Youth on 1257866524

[Heksagon]

Indeed, no surprise.

It is properly understood that the only sensible alternatives are to pull out or send more troops. If you want to pull out, that's fine, as far as you're prepared to live with the consequences. But if you're going to stay and fight, it would be completely insane to try and do so with insufficient troops.

It was one of Bush and Rumsfeld's many mistakes that they tried to stabilize Iraq with troop levels that they knew were inadequate. It is disappointing - but not surprising - that some Democrats would now want to repeat that mistake with respect to Afghanistan. It is illusory to believe that operating with lower troops levels would be politically cheaper. In purely financial terms, it is of course true that fewer troops cost less, but that makes little difference. The fact is that more troops results in fewer casualties, and a better chance of achieving military objectives - whatever they happen to be in Afghanistan.

[OscarGuy]

Until things stabilize in Afghanistan, I expect this. It's also a way to "give the commanders what they need" in a way to rebuke the Bush administration for not doing that and thus drawing things out...see what happened in Iraq when fully operated? Things are finally winding down there.

I'm not saying I don't want these wars to end, because I do, but I think Obama's doing things reasonably and in a way that tells Republicans to stfu.

[Sonic Youth]

OH NO!!!

What, you were expecting a pull-out? This shouldn't come as a surprise at all.

[Greg]

OH NO!!!

Obama's Afghan Plan: About 40K More Troops
CBS Exclusive: Sources Say Force Will Grow to 100,000 - Nearly Filling Gen. McChrystal's Request; Long-Term Stay Planned

By David Martin

Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says "that's close to what [McChrystal] asked for." All the president's military advisers have recommended sending more troops.

But they also have warned that troops alone will not win the war unless Afghan President Hamid Karzai cleans up his government.

"He's got to take concrete steps to eliminate corruption," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said last week. "That means you have to rid yourself of those who are corrupt. You have to actually arrest and prosecute them."

The first combat troops would not arrive until early next year and it would be the end of 2010 before they were all there. That makes this Afghanistan surge very different from the Iraq surge, in which 30,000 troops descended on Baghdad and the surrounding area in just five months.

Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute says a slow motion surge will produce slow motion results.

"If they're going to be sort of trickled in very slowly over the course of a year than it's unlikely to have a very decisive impact in the course of 2010," he said.

The buildup would be expected to last about four years, until McChrystal completes his plan for doubling the size of the Afghan army and police force.

With 68,000 Americans already there, the Afghan surge would mean there would be 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of the president's first term.

The president is not expected to announce his decision until after he returns from China the week before Thanksgiving.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/09/world/main5592551.shtml

[Sabin]

We're very proud in Arizona...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC9lWoI43Qo&feature=related

[OscarGuy]

And, if I read the article correctly, it also contains a rider that prohibits insurance funding of abortions except in the cases of rape, incest and woman's life endangerment. That will probably be stripped out of the final legislation. Why restrict something that's already covered in normal health insurance plans?

[Mister Tee]

Health Care passes the House.

History awaits.

[Greg]

A point of irony is that the shooter, who was killed by SWAT police, was an army psychiatrist.

[Sabin]

Oh, this is bad.