He owns it now:
President Obama has conducted a final meeting on his military review for Afghanistan, administration officials said, and he is planning to explain his decision in an address to the nation next Tuesday.
“After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Tuesday morning.
For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council. The session began at 8:13 p.m., aides said, and ended at 10:10 p.m.
The president’s military and national security advisers came back to the president with answers he had requested during previous meetings, most of which focusing on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?
The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of whom would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy.
I hope the liberal caucus does demand tax increases to fund this escalation.
gonzone
A war tax is a reasonable idea whose time has come.
Pretending that war has no costs, financial or otherwise is foolish.
joes527
I hate this. But he made it clear that he would swing this way before the election.
My only hope is that an escalation surtax will result in the bottom falling out of war boosterism.
Autboy
Interesting perspective from Rory Stewart
Max
I think it’s important to consider what the strategy and exit plan is, rather than focus on the number of troops. And, until I hear it from Obama directly, I’m not going to speculate. I trust him. I’m an O-bot.
Also, I appreciate that Orszag is in the room.
Obama owns everything at this point and he knows that, hell, before he was sworn in, people were looking to him for answers because W was such a fuck up.
Brick Oven Bill
Barack Obama = The University of Chicago, Harvard, and Columbia
It is a fear of accountability. Thus we will fight George Bush’s war for the next eight years, or until the currency disintegrates.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Cue WhingeNut screaming about the War on the Rich.
OC
I’m not thrilled about the troop increase but I knew this was possible when I voted for him. I agree on the war tax issue. If we’re so gung ho about a war we should pay for it. The wingnut reaction will be quite a sight. You’ll either see them advocate for withdrawal (because tax increases make the Baby Jesus weep) or you’ll see spectacular hypocrisy on deficit spending. They’re screwed either way.
PeakVT
Has Obama consulted with Presidents Snowe, Nelson, Landrieu, Lieberman, and Lincoln on this?
The Grand Panjandrum
Yep. Let’s add $1-$2 a gallon tax to pay for the war and pay down the deficit. Let’s find out how much we’re all willing to pay for the policy we inflict upon ourselves and the world.
Comrade Alan
Raising taxes to pay for it would go against the starve the beast conservative principle that grew out of the 80s. Reckless spending is fiscal conservatism. Eventually, after the house of cards falls, we’ll have to cut back on policing the world. It’s a win win strategy for also too.
The Grand Panjandrum
@The Grand Panjandrum: Oops. Meant $1-$2 gallon gas tax in case it wasn’t clear.
cleek
for some reason, i’m thinking of this song… Albatross
JasonF
Instead of a regressive gas tax, why not bump the top income tax rate? Better yet, add a new bracket or two above the ones we already have and raise taxes on those.
Da Bomb
@gonzone: This. @Max: This also too.
He has owned everything since he got elected back in November. Remember the economy failing was his fault on November 5th.
I think it says something, that he is at least thinking about an exit strategy. He doesn’t want to stay there forever. Plus he knows that we don’t have strong allies or a government official we could honestly trust in Afghanistan to just leave things in such a craptacular fashion.
We are going to have to pay for this damned disaster of war somehow, and it will definitely be interesting to see what the wingnuts say about it.
ploeg
Something like this was inevitable, the only question was what sort of plan Obama gets out of the generals. If the generals prove to have too rosy an outlook, Obama can pull out and rightly claim that he listened to the generals, they were mistaken, and there’s nothing more that he can do.
David Hunt
Uhmm…
A war tax as an idea and a practice probably goes back at least as far as the Egyptians. It was the absolute standard operating procedure even within my lifetime (I’m 42). When we pulled out of Viet Nam, the budget ran at a surplus for a year or so because were still taxing based on wartime expenditures. GWB and his cronies are about the only modern example that I can think of that thought they could have two invasions and occupations without have to raise taxes at home.
For fairness’ sake, I will mention that there have been times in history when warfare didn’t require the raising of taxes. To the Romans, war was a profit-making enterprise. Their wars really did pay for themselves. Of course to achieve this, they thoroughly looted the nations they conquered and enslaved very large portions of the populations. I don’t think that this is (quite) what the Bush Administration meant when they said the invasion of Iraq would pay for itself.
Col. Klink
Wars pay for themselves John. Didn’t you read the latest AEI study? “How we learned to stop worrying and love the Laffer Curve” It even has a new forward by Paul Wolfowitz. Get with the times man.
kay
I think he made it his war in the campaign. No other candidate spent as much time talking about Afghanistan as Obama.
But, definitely his now.
bayville
Now that Obama has withdrawn our troops from Iraq, I guess he feels it’s a good time to escalate the Afghanistan War for the first time in eight years.
Makes sense to me.
Autboy
vietnam- the gift that keeps on giving
TaosJohn
Fucking idiots. I have no more tolerance for the alleged constraints of “political realities,” etc. What’s wrong is WRONG, period.
Utter madness. To hell with them all.
Ugh
Dear Afghans: We will continue to drop JDAMs on you and your children’s asses until you love us. That is all.
Love,
The United States of Baby Jesus
Karen
It was in a couple of spots this morning on the ABC news, that an increase in troops will take all of what would pay for his changes here. Hopefully, they will tax something or someone & not stop the changes he has in the works here.
But what do I know, as I’m one who knew W’s choice of Iraq was just that, his choice.
donovong
@The Grand Panjandrum: THIS.
DougJ
He pretty much had to do this after bowing to the Japanese emperor. You know, to show he was still the man.
PeakVT
Instead of a regressive gas tax, why not bump the top income tax rate?
Because the ultimate cause of the Iraq War and a major cause of the Afghan War is America’s inability to kick its petroleum addiction. (And if regressiveness is a concern, some of the revenue can be used to cover FICA on the first $5-10K of income and/or to pay for healthcare for the poor.)
Amanda in the South Bay
Its my watered down hope that we can get rid of terms like “war council.”
Bulworth
Wars are free, they fund themselves through oil, etc.
Ash Can
Yup, it’s his, all right. But I still have the utmost confidence that he’ll handle it much better than his predecessor did. I realize that this isn’t saying much, but after the clusterfuck of GWB, it’s a relief to see our political leaders to be even one step up now.
In the last thread I said that given all the red herrings in the press to date, I’d believe that there’d be an escalation when I saw it actually happen. I’m still wondering whether this is in fact the final decision, and I’m looking to the actual announcement for the final word, but this seems to be more detailed anonymous information than in the past. We’ll find out in a week if it’s accurate.
And if Obama were to announce a war tax of some kind at that time too, making wingnut/glibertarian heads and pants explode coast-to-coast, I’d do a happy dance.
Maude
Gibbs clearly said the discussion was also about exit. I bet the strategy changes to civilian. I just want us out of there.
Obama owns WWI as well.
If I were him, I’d propose a draft.
Xanthippas
So I see “war tax” and immediately think it’s politically unfeasible. But why? How would pro-war conservatives defeat the argument that the war is so important that we must find a way to pay for it?
(Yes, I know those opposed to the war are substantial in number, but war opponents are never taken as seriously as the pro-war crowd by either big media or politicians in power. It sucks, but it’s true.)
cleek
after we’ve conquered Afghanistan, I hope Obama opens up the territory for settlement. i’d really like a nice mountain cabin.
D-Chance.
Add in additional support, and that number will rise to the promised 40K.
Somewhere, Vladimir Putin is snickering up his sleeve. Stupid Americans repeating Soviet mistakes of a generation ago. Afghanistan = graveyard of empires.
cleek
“We don’t need new taxes! We need fewer entitlements!”
repeat until dead.
Corner Stone
@cleek: I also would enjoy 40 acres and a mountain cabin. Preferably one with a view of the poppy fields in bloom.
Rock
If Obama wants to do this, he needs to either raise taxes to pay for it or forget about health-care and carve out the money to pay for the war from existing social programs. He shouldn’t continue to hide the cost.
Corner Stone
@OC:
As I’ve previously stated, they killed “hypocrisy”. Took it right out back and shot that fucker dead.
Citizen_X
AP reports that a war tax on the wealthy, which Gibbs was asked about, was “unlikely to pass Congress.”
They did not give any reason why they thought this.
donovong
I will believe this stuff when I hear it coming from Barack’s mouth. Until then, it is all mindless speculation, no matter how good the sources are supposed to be.
And, if he tells us that he believes this to be the best path out of Awfuckistan, I will believe him. He has been faced with a combination of nothing but awful choices, and I have faith that he will make the least worst decision.
wilfred
How about war bonds? Remember those? Then all the patriots here who voted for Obama knowing full well this would happen can put some of their money in the game, too.
Health care for dead gooks/American kids – same as it ever was.
Corner Stone
@donovong:
The least worst decision *for who*?
Col. Klink
@ 34 cleek = right answer!
Corner Stone
@Xanthippas:
The correct answer is: “No more Cadillacs for Welfare Queens and their Bucks buying Steaks & 40’s while their kids ride Busses to Our Schools and learn about State’s Rights.”
Corner Stone
@joes527:
Yep. He came out full tilt in favor of The Good War(tm).
That’s what made him so Serious(c).
bayville
I do to. History shows that countries invading that portion of the world have had so much military success. The key has been to just keep sending more troops and spend more $$$$.
This is just a case where Obama is so much smarter than the rest of us dupes. He’s playing 11-dimensional chess while were only plugged into checkers mode.
And remember, he’s only been Preznet for about 11 months now so let’s not rush things.
Face
This is an unbelieveable stupid move.
Kiss 2012 goodbye, IMO.
Corner Stone
@Max:
Exit plan? We’ll reconsider our Exit Plan in 2 more F.U.’s. IOW, the Exit Plan will be to kick the nearest can.
As for Orszag, he’s a hawk, and was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Ed Drone
GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT, GOD DAMN IT!
And may I say, GOD DAMN IT!
I was born at the start of WWII, and watched as the country fought the good war (WWII), the inescapable war (Korea), the unnecessary war (Viet Nam), the Oops! war (Desert Storm*), the unintended consequences war (Afghanistan**), the chosen war for oil (Iraq), and now the rerun*** of the unintended war (Afghanistan).
Notes: * our own “Solve it yourself, Saddam” advice bit us in the ass with his invasion of Kuwait; ** our response to 9/11, which itself was the consequence of our support for the Mujahadin; *** from the back burner, our choices are to turn up the heat or take it off the stove, and we’ve decided to cook it some more.
And now we are at our rope’s end. The economy is screwed, the environment is about to bite us back, big-time, and the costs of the last two wars haven’t been paid. Yes, I think a war tax is inevitable. The tax will either be a tax in normal terms or a tax in karmic terms, and if the ninnies who run this asylum don’t choose well, unemployment and health reform and education and infrastructure and a myriad of other aspect of our lives will go by the board as the world turns its back on us.
Ed
Amanda in the South Bay
I think its premature to write 2012 off just yet, though you have to admit, it was (marginally) more acceptable to be anti-war back in 2006-2007, before Obama and his merry band of centrist, serious experts started to emerge.
General Winfield Stuck
@Max:
I agree. Until we know what mission changes, if any, are included, the number of troops is secondary, imo. Though the reported cool billion per 1000 troops for a year is not chump change, and I fully support a war tax, if we are going to continue this for very long. We all should pony up and become involved, including a draft to relieve the inhuman stress on the troops we have. The only way to get a rational policy on making war is the old credo, we all go to war as a society, or none of us do, should dictate these decisions.
If the 34,000 new troops is what Obama ends up sending, as opposed to the at least 40 thou requested by wonderkind wingnut Gen,. Mcchrystal, then of course the winger chorus will declare Obama lost Afghan. for shorting the War Department. Helluva country to govern, when 40 percent or so of it’s citizens are lying lunatics.
O-Bot over and out.
Lupin
Aaahh… The sweet smell of the Gorbachev era and empires crumbling…
JGabriel
Jeff Zeleny @ NY Times:
Well, I can see why Obama is getting pissed about leaks. The leak about sending 30,000 troops is fine, since, presumably, Obama will be announcing that in a week or two anyway.
But the stuff about time of arrival and place of deployment is ground tactics. Shouldn’t people be a little more careful about discussing that?
.
Sloegin
8 years later and it still blows my mind that Bush started two conflicts *and* cut taxes. I can’t think of any other country in the history of the world that did those two things together. Wars are treasury drainers.
Are there *any* historical examples we can refer to? I hate using the word, but I think we’re unique here.
Leelee for Obama
Just heard an older woman, maybe my age, say that we should draft anyone 18-44 who is on unemployment, and not a main breadwinner! Talk about rich man’s war, poor man’s fight. I almost choked on my coffee.
A war tax is a great idea, make them put THEIR money where THEIR mouths are.
As for an escalation, I expected it-just hope the exit strategy is iron-clad, AMAP, so we don’t keep extending the draw-down date. Obama is going to be strong about his intentions, or he’d never have brought it up in the campaign.
The NATO countries have to start kicking in more help, also.
And Karzai best get his head out of his ass and clean things up, otherwise his own people will topple him.
Cassidy
But 70% of the American population is doing their part by putting little, yellow magnets on their cars.
sparky
a bunch of smarter people executing a crazy policy doesn’t somehow convert the crazy policy to a good one. though perhaps the US will kill more efficiently, so there’s that.
/nauseous
Brachiator
I guess this would be nice as a symbolic gesture. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean very much.
Yep. The president now has ownership of the Afghanistan issue. I want to know what he thinks our purpose for being there and continuing the fight is supposed to be. This is also important to our Allies, the British and others, who also have troops at risk. And certainly, he owes an explanation to the people of that region.
And for me, the policy and strategic objectives are far more important than a discussion of “exit strategy,” which presupposes either that there are no objectives or that anything that is said is mere window dressing for “how soon can we pull out.”
When the president does speak, I will be interested in looking at the BBC News, the Times of India and other regional reporting to see what the local reaction to Obama’s speech may be.
On the other hand, the inevitable squeaking noise from the White House press corp and the Village pundits will be about as meaningful as Fox News or the inevitable post-speech President McCain interview.
Legalize
War tax and draft please. No one is exemptions from either.
Legalize
No exemptions from either, rather.
General Winfield Stuck
No mo money to shop.
drag0n
Nato will be in Afghanistan for many years to come. The ‘exit strategy/speed bumps’ are there to put pressure on Karzai to smarten the fuck up. If we are lucky we may be able to get out by the end of Obama’s second term.
My guess also is that, yes, it will be paid for with a war tax – one that hopefully sticks to cover part of the defence budget afterwards.
Face
@Face: Wow, and my spelling is unbelievable as well. Give us back our damn edit funkshun, dammit.
Maude
@Leelee for Obama: I mentioned the draft as that would wind up a lot of folks.
That woman-the children need to work 12 hours a day in the factories.
Britain has been calling for a withdrawal plan and an exit date. The US may be going along those lines.
There’s a lot of so called leaks about this and that makes me suspicious that it’s pressure being put on Obama.
We have to wait and see what McCain has to say, after all, his word is final.
wilfred
How about a left wing caucus that says fuck the escalation? Is anyone going to ask taxpayers if they even want the goddamned thing?
When I see the alternative as ‘no tax increase, no escalation’ then it makes sense. Otherwise it’s shearing dead sheep for a slaughter they didn’t want.
It’s Hobson’s Choice.
General Winfield Stuck
I propose a Moran War Tax. Then sit back and watch wingnuts hold Tommy Chong Reefer Rallies.
Punchy
This. Becuase he hasn’t send what President McTillmanCoverup wanted, when shit fails, it’s all Obama’s fault. And shit will fail. Ask the Rooskies.
I cant wait to see how many Republicans vote against this, after about a month back saying…..BRAGGING….that they’d vote for it if only he’d agree to raise troop levels.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
A protracted engagement in Afghanistan was explicitly expected by nearly everyone who follows these things, on both sides of the political fence, going back a year or more.
Now that it has a (rather ordinary and predictable) number and face on it, it’s a big “controversy?” We could have easily predicted this a year ago, and then, as now, it would have appeared as the most likely in a set of not very appealing choices.
Proving that the blogs are just as useless in these situations as the silly punditry that lives at FoxNews or anywhere else. Sometimes the blogs would be better off without a comments section, and this is one of those times. This is like reading the “comments” in your local paper at the end of a car accident story. All the drunks and the hyenas come out and start barking at the moon.
Blah de fucking blah.
Next topic please.
JGabriel
Brachiator:
Well, with all of the people and media complaining about US debt, (barely measurable) inflation, and (still low) interest rates some increased governmental income might be a way to offset those concerns.
Of course, they’ll just complain about higher taxes instead — but it would provide yet another illustration of their hypocrisy, if any is needed.
.
soonergrunt
Wow. Groupthink much?
drag0n
I think Michael Yon outlined a lot of thinking behind this in a piece he wrote last month:
General Winfield Stuck
@soonergrunt:
How so?
Brachiator
@JGabriel:
RE: I guess [tax increases] would be nice as a symbolic gesture. Otherwise, it doesn’t mean very much.
The US debt, though significant, is even more abstract than the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the typical citizen. People want to know when their own life if going to get better, when the economy is going to get better for them, when they are able to get a job or feel more secure with the job that they have.
A return of the draft would get people’s attention. A war tax, not so much.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think you meant “How now, brown cow.”
General Winfield Stuck
Nope. Meant what I said.
gopher2b
The smartest way to end these wars is to demand tax increases to pay for them. No one can argue against that on principle and no one wants to pay for it. Pass a tax that ceases when the last soldier leaves Iraq and Afghanistan and these wars are over in 9 months
(Sorry if anyone wrote that above already; I didn’t read through the comments)
V.O.R.
“GWB and his cronies are about the only modern example that I can think of that thought they could have two invasions and occupations without have to raise taxes at home.”
In WWII Germany invaded both France and the USSR, and occupied (to the extent possible) both without switching to a true “wartime economy” until rather late in the war.
That’s right – BAM! – Bush is like Hitler.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Okay, that’s unexpected.
But I can adjust to this new behavior.
Just give me a couple of days. I’m a meat god, I work slowly.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Actually, my version would work better. It’s wittier.
Not Whittier. Wittier.
When your’re a meat animal, you have to work harder.
D-Chance.
Your in-depth journalism for the day.
Why oh why
He’s playing 11-dimensional chess while we’re only plugged into checkers mode.
No, that was during the campaign. Now he’s playing 11-dimensional Risk. After Afghanistan, Obama will conquer China, Mongolia and Siberia.
D-Chance.
edit: Seriously, that had to be a parody piece:
The frequency and secrecy of the president’s golfing has infuriated some of his basketball fans. This love of the links can’t be for keeps, they moan, for he who plays secretly must surely play badly.
…
“The fact that he isn’t playing [basketball]…is a metaphor for those people who think he’s gotten soft, backed off of his promises, sold out,” says Claude Johnson, Baller-in-Chief’s founder and owner of Black Fives Inc., a basketball merchandising firm in Greenwich, Conn. “When President Obama goes back to basketball, that will be a sign that we haven’t lost the original guy.”
Oh, my… this was a parody piece… wasn’t it?
General Winfield Stuck
We have been in Afghanistan for going on 9 years, and what has been accomplished? A lot of dead Afghans and American GI’s. There is a typical and intractably corrupt government that most citizens ignore, and have little respect for, and an American General requesting 40 thousand more troops in a report that he also says it would likely take 500,000 or more to accomplish what he has in mind is highly dubious at best. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to compute that something is really wrong with this picture. Especially given this country’s centuries long reputation, well earned, as a graveyard for empires. It also doesn’t take a genius to figure a small number of troops is going to pacify and turn Afghan into anything like what our western brains would consider a democratic success.
There are less than 100, count em, AQ members currently in the country which is why we went in the first place to disrupt their wholesale terror factories, that has been largely accomplished. It would be foolish to leave completely and let that return, but it is equally foolish to think we can do little more with that country than has been done. And it is not foolish to argue about or debate as citizens what we now need to do to accomplish the original self defense mission of fighting AQ. And it is not accepted logic by many experts that what we are currently doing, nor that more troops will accomplish that goal. See Eikenberry, and many others who agree with this position.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
But I thought you had my number.
Tsulagi
Okay, that’s kinda funny. Poor dumb bastard, or the female version, walks into an unemployment office to pick up their check and instead finds their ass on a bus to the nearest base. “Sweet Jesus what a fucked year I am having!”
AngusTheGodOfMeat
We entered the war in October of 2001.
It’s been eight years and a month.
But who’s counting?
Aside from the fact that this sentence is not decipherable, I don’t see where “democratic success” was a goal of our entry into Afghanistan in the first place. Why would it be a goal now?
A fly on the wall (and I say this as a friend to flies, as all meat animals are) would have to conclude from the blathery over time that our goal there has become (a) a stable government of some sort, and (b) a safe place for long term US military presence. Just based on what the combined appearance of rhetoric and action has been there lately.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Obviously you changed your password.
Brachiator
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
That’s funny. I was hoping that an Obama Administration would go beyond the conventional wisdom of the Beltway and the Village and come up with a new approach to Afghanistan.
Some of the facts on the ground have changed. For example, there is a new government in Pakistan, and the civilians are taking fitful steps to take full control of the government from the military. Taliban splinter groups have broken away from their Pakistani sponsors and are intent on destabilizing Pakistan itself, in addition to their actions in Afghanistan. India has shown a good deal of restraint in the face of terrorist attacks and the howls of their own nationalist-fundamentalists and have sought to keep at least a back channel dialog going with their Pakistani counterparts. Meanwhile, in a little-noticed maneuver, China is flexing its muscle as the new big regional power on the block by agreeing to sell advanced fighter jets to the Pakistanis, who in turn are using this to up the ante for US military assistance (and some of you naively believed that the Pakistani military industrial complex really gives a rat’s ass about US predator drones killing civilians).
Against all this, we have a new, rock star Secretary of State, along with a seemingly forgotten promise of high level diplomacy focusing on the entire region, and not just narrowly on the Afghanistan conflict absent a larger context.
Instead, the promise of a new approach has possibly shrunk into the standard “when do we escalate and, oh by the way, do we have an exit strategy” that’s not much better than the tough guy posturing of the Dubya-Cheney Gang.
gwangung
Do we know this for sure, or is this the by product of a mass media too stupid to figure out what’s really happening in China during the President’s visit (because if they missed that, it’s pretty damn easy to miss things in less developed parts of the world)?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Mwhuh? And I was hoping that I’d get a puppy but my parents got me that fucking chemistry set instead. My heart is still broken. I still get heartburn over it, but then I have four stomachs and I eat constantly. Okay, four digestive compartments, not really four separate stomachs. But anyway, that is me, fourth from the right, with his snout in the hay all the time. Heh.
But anymoo, I see that you want a “new approach to Afghanistan” and go on to talk at length about something or other, without suggesting anything that looks like a new approach to Afghanistan.
What would that new approach look like? Have you talked to Barack about it? Maybe you should not hide your light under a BJ. I mean, a BJushel.
drag0n
Obama on his decision:
General Winfield Stuck
Or going on 9 years.
Aside from the fact that this sentence is not decipherable, I don’t see where “democratic success” was a goal of our entry into Afghanistan in the first place. Why would it be a goal now?
General Winfield Stuck
Well that post came out fucked to hell.
soonergrunt
@General Winfield Stuck:
As of the time I posted that, I’d yet to see one single comment so much as “well, maybe it will work.” or “maybe it’s the right idea.”
I think one guy posted that we had been under-resourcing Afghanistan for years and were now going to actually fight there, or words to that effect.
Look, I don’t want to fight there, but for reasons that I’ve already articulated, I don’t see that we have a choice if we have certain priorities for that region. If we should have other priorities or it’s not worth the cost, that’s one thing, but that’s the question that people should be asking in the first place.
FWIW, I think the idea of a war-tax is just freaking great. I think the people at home should not be insulated from decisions of their leaders that lead young people to being maimed or killed. Since we don’t have a draft anymore, the only way to make the country feel the war and have to deal with it is to tax them directly for it.
$1.50/gallon gasoline tax or raise all marginal tax rates by 5%.
Brachiator
By the way, I had forgot that Obama has just met with the Indian prime minister, the first official state visit of his administration. It is very significant that Obama said “the U.S and India are natural allies,” in light of the previous bias toward Pakistan seen in previous US administrations (Democrat and Republican).
There will also be a state dinner for the prime minister. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is on the invite list.
This reception and dinner, in advance of Obama’s speech on Afghanistan, is a darned interesting play. I give him props on this.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
No, on Day One the stated goal was to drive out the Taliban, and to capture Osama Bin Laden.
That was pretty clear. Nobody mentioned anything about a “successful democracy.”
And I don’t know of anyone who knows the subject who has suggested that “successful democracy” is our unambiguous goal in the country now. The closest thing I can find to it is that we need a government there stable enough to permit us to safely continuing our military operations there, although the purpose of those is much less clear than it has seemed in the past. Maybe the president will clarify those goals next week?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Ha, try being a bovine and having to type this shit with a hoof.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
When you google “Bush’s goals for Afghanistan” this is the first of many articles describing them.
Brachiator
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Dude. Obama promised health care reform. You, me, and everybody else can only look and say, “OK, I like it” or “OK, I’m a tea bagger.”
Obama boosted Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State with tremendous fanfare, and the Beltway swooned with all kinds of expectations. Obama also announced his intention to focus more on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and to have a high level diplomat focus on the region.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist with a crystal ball to expect that the build-up over new diplomatic opportunities might lead to some new Obama initiative here, or at least some speech about it.
Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton’s internal State Department memos on Afghanistan have been masterpieces of Zen nothingness, and I think I saw Special Representative for the region Richard Holbrooke’s picture on a milk carton.
General Winfield Stuck
@soonergrunt:
I think it is hard to argue, even with the under sourcing for years, and maybe because of it, that a lot of hope is justified to turn that country around with a meager 34,000 troops. It is certainly not impossible, but given Macrystals further statement that many many more troops would be needed for a very long time, I personally don’t have much hope we can achieve anything lasting, aside from the necessary anti terrorist actions that will be needed for the long term. And it doesn’t take a large number of troops to accomplish that. Though I do appreciate and admire, as i’ve stated before, the can do attitude of our military. I think you guys are the best, but you can’t achieve miracles, I don’t believe.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
No, sorry, I am not taking the brain farts of Bush, who talked that happy horseshit talk about democracy all over the world where there was, and is, no prayer of achieving it, as a policy or military goal now. Not until the present government says I should and lays out a vision for it. Bush’s approach was to wax happy over that nonsense until he was challenged, and then say things like, “That’s a problem for the next president to deal with.”
Okay, here we are, and the only goal out there is a stable enough non-Taliban government to permit us to maintain our military operations there because we are chicken to pull out. There is no way Afghanistan is going to become something called a “thriving” democracy, whatever the hell that is. The only term I know for success in that department is “liberal democracy” which refers to a democratic structure that permits unfettered change at the top, initiated by the citizens without fear of reprisal and without interference with the lawful processes. It remains to be seen whether any Arab-Muslim country can get there.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Dude, if you think that magic fairies will give you those results, you should vote Republican. That’s the party that operates that way.
We are Dems, this is the real world. Afghanistan is a fucking trainwreck of a country and has been for generations. Our presence there cannot fix that. At the same time, we are chicken to pull out because the region is so unstable and we think we need the presence there.
Do the math. What “new approach” do you think has a magic solution embedded in it?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
That’s right, and it never has been on the horizon, not even when Bush was pulling those phrases out of his ass. There never was a viable policy or strategy in place for it, and nobody in the government more than fifty feet from the Oval Office paid any attention to it. Not even WRT Iraq, where the chances for it are better than they are in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is still in the stone age in some districts. And apparently likes being that way. And hates our occupation there.
gypsy howell
Obama’s “exit strategy” is called The 22nd Amendment / 2016. That’s when he will be “exiting” from the Afghanistan mess.
As for the rest of the country…. oh well, too bad.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Sigh
@General Winfield Stuck:
The realization of this to Obama is true, but recent. The rest of what you say is what I and some others said from the outset. We don’t know yet about any change of mission to go along with the new troops, that are secondary to a revised strategy in importance. I am not for pulling out of Afghanistan completely at this time.
General Winfield Stuck
That it has failed and likely to do so from the outset, is different that actually creating a successful democracy in Afghan as a goal. And one that was US/UN led with a full court press for 7 years, and still is, but with little expectation for success.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
There has never been a stated policy or (political or military) strategy for OEF-A that included a “thriving democracy” as a goal there, nor will there be unless some miracle has happened that we don’t know about yet.
While Bush was making his nonsensical happy speeches, the Taliban were in the process of making political and military inroads and leveraging the backward tendencies of the people to their own advantage, yet again. Karzai was corrupt, and the country is still awash in drugs and drug money.
Again I say, the only goal on the table so far is a stable enough government to permit our continued military operations because we are afraid to pull out. (Whether that fear is justified or rational, I am not prepared to say at this juncture. Pakistan confuses the fuck out of me, and mind you, I have all day to chew my cud and think about it).
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Whatever
Brachiator
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
You have no idea what you are talking about. None. Nada.
Afghanistan has been a trainwreck of a country for generations? What a bunch of condescending BS. Much of the current misery in Afghanistan is the indirect result of the US and the Soviet Union using it as the battleground for a proxy war, with a little side action by the Pakistani military and intelligence services, using various factions there for various functions, especially in India and the Kashmir disputed territories.
If we stay or pull out, will we change anything? I don’t know. Neither do you.
But here is the hard cold facts. When the Taliban took over the first time, they invited Al Qaeda to set up shop and promised them a safe haven. Would this happen again? Odds are yes.
Al Qadea elements have moved on over to the welcome arms of Pakistan. Does it matter whether we do a damn thing to discourage this?
Now, others in this board have posted the feverish wet dream that the US just pull out of the region because we are bad, have done bad, will do bad, and anyway swinging our military genitals does nothing. The fantasy is that we will just leave the Afghans to work out their own problems, and nothing will ever again spill over onto the US.
I noted that China, which ain’t exactly a tiny province in the middle of Afghanistan, is selling fighter plans to Pakistan and cozying up to the military. They are signalling that they are perfectly willing to take our place as military suppliers to that country. And the past Pakistan government, along with our eternal buddies, Saudi Arabia, have been sponsors of Al Qaeda.
Now, if your “We are the world, we are Dems real world” fantasy is that no other country has national interests in the region or even delusions of grandeur, then you are truly smoking some strong stuff.
And unlike the neo-cons, I am not going to make China into the next inscrutable enemy that we must face. Hell, I don’t even care whether we pull all our troops out of Afghanistan tomorrow. But this is not the same thing as believing that a US pullout is going to return anything to some calm status quo.
Pulling the troops may save us some money. But your neo-isolationist fantasy does not mean that no other country will not seek to fill the vacuum caused by our leaving. And it certainly doesn’t mean that Al Qeada and the Taleban will just say that bygones are bygones and leave us, or the rest of the world, in peace.
What would you do if a resurgent Taleban takes over Afghanistan again and starts a new round of mischief? Lecture them on your knowledge of the “real world?”
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Whatever, as in, you pulled that “thriving democracy” thing out of your ass and just can’t admit it.
Even if “thriving democracy” were to be taken seriously because Bush might have said it in some context or another, it stopped being relevant to our future there about a year ago when our election was held.
We don’t hope for a thriving democracy there, we hope for a government that doesn’t rig its elections and probably runs drug money behind the curtains. What resources are in place to build a “thriving democracy” there even if that were the stated goal, which would be absurd to do? Are we going to legalize heroin so that they have an above-board economy over there?
What I said is correct. Our goal is some kind of stable government that permits us to safely continue our military presence there. That is it. There is no plan in place to do anything else at the moment. If there is, we will both hear about it next week.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
No, it was to not argue with a knucklehead who can’t admit being wrong. I gave you many links to find something out that most anyone who knows anything about afghanistan would already know. I just am not going to crawl down into your mendacity pit for another pointless flame war. Maybe Brachiator wants to.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Brachiator:
No, you diarrhea of the mouth specialist and lying piece of crap, you are dead wrong.
You are writing cover copy for the fact that dropped a lameass “I would have hoped for a new approach to Afghanistan” turd in here an hour ago and since then have been writing a bunch of unrelated crap that does not describe even remotely what some “new approach” would be about, or what it would sound like coming from the Obama administration.
You also go on at length putting words into my mouth that nobody here has said. I’ve said basically one thing, and that is that there is no goal in Afghanistan that I’m aware of beyond (a) a stable enough government to permit us to continue our military operations because (b) we don’t know how to get out of there without creating a bigger problem than the one we have. That is it.
Afghanistan is a fucked up mess, and you have no clue in the world what to do about it, and have no business writing that you “hoped for a new approach.” All the rest of your posts is just a bunch of crap, and you know it.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Sorry, the facts are out there for anyone to read. Neither the policy nor the strategy of the US has ever been to establish something you call a “thriving democracy” in Afghanistan. Nor will that become our policy or goal now, unless there is something new don’t know yet.
You pulled that out of your ass, the way you always pull things like that out of your ass, and you just won’t let it go.
Propping up the delusional former president’s wistful hopes for democracy in the world doesn’t feed the bulldog. Unless you think his “that’s a problem for the next president” solution was a real strategy. Write more about that, if that’s what you think.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
reposted because, believe it or not, the word ‘speciaIist’ gets trapped by a moderation filter ….
@Brachiator:
No, you diarrhea of the mouth speciaIist and lying piece of crap, you are dead wrong.
You are writing cover copy for the fact that dropped a lameass “I would have hoped for a new approach to Afghanistan” turd in here an hour ago and since then have been writing a bunch of unrelated crap that does not describe even remotely what some “new approach” would be about, or what it would sound like coming from the Obama administration.
You also go on at length putting words into my mouth that nobody here has said. I’ve said basically one thing, and that is that there is no goal in Afghanistan that I’m aware of beyond (a) a stable enough government to permit us to continue our military operations because (b) we don’t know how to get out of there without creating a bigger problem than the one we have. That is it.
Afghanistan is a fucked up mess, and you have no clue in the world what to do about it, and have no business writing that you “hoped for a new approach.” All the rest of your posts is just a bunch of crap, and you know it.
General Winfield Stuck
Not my quote, but taken from an NPR article I linked to, among many others saying the same goddamn thing. You can’t even get that right. Now blow it out your wrinkled ass.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
So somebody wrote it on NPR, and that makes it US policy?
Point to the policy, political or military, that has ever identified such a thing as a goal in Afghanistan.
For that matter, try imaginging an Afghanistan that would be a “thriving democracy” and explain how it would go from here, to there, in our lifetimes. Go ahead, I dare you. Remember, you either have to replace the heroin economy, or else incorporate that into your, uh, model. How does Afghanistan become this modern country you are talking about?
What US policies, strategies, tactics or actions are consistent with that vision? Right now we apparently can’t cobble up a government that doesn’t rely on rigged elections and have ties to drug money.
I know, by “thriving” you meant awash in heroin money and able to pay its own way.
Brachiator
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
You’ve said one thing, and you’re wrong about it. You’re wrong because you are uninformed.
It doesn’t matter what goal you think you might be aware of. What matters is what policy goal is articulated by the administration. The speech is next week. Watch for it.
ksmiami
Um – Hi there. One of my good friends – a photographer for Christian Science Monitor spent 5 weeks on assignment in Afghanistan and note this is a woman who has been in the Congo and other dangerous parts of the world. She said basically that Afghanistan today is one of the filthiest and most savage places on earth and any of the progress we’ve made there is a mirage. No amount of schools, or hospitals we build will make a damned difference because there is no history of reliable governance and all loyalties are tribal. I think Obama will pursue the Biden strategy of at least holding the major cities as a hopeful stepping stone, but unless we are willing to engage in total war which would have the drawback of becoming a conflagration in the far east, the prospects for Afghanistan are pretty dismal and we are broke. My guess is that we will transition to a Nato peace-keeping force in a couple years.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@Brachiator:
I’m wrong about it? Then how about making a coherent argument that would indicate that, instead of writing one blathering essay after another about everything going on in the world except for addressing the issue of Afghanistan?
You think Afghanistan is a solvable problem and that the Obama administration should come up with a “new approach?” Because that’s where you started.
So, what would a new approach look like, and why would it work?
Put it up or shut it up, asshole.
soonergrunt
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: the word that gets trapped contains within it the name of a drug that is a frequent subject of spam.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Well said, and IMO, the gospel truth about that bunghole of a place.
But don’t tell Brachiator or Stuck, they both want Bushpuppies.
Those are similar to Hushpuppies, except that they won’t stay on your feet.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@soonergrunt:
I know, it’s aggravating.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Bad troll/
D-Chance.
Suicide.
Um, yeah, right.
scott
And all of you who voted for Obama own it, too.
As a Nader voter, when can I expect a heartfelt apology from the Obama supporters who told me he was going to bring our troops home? Can I haz flowerz with the apology?
Booze also works.
General Winfield Stuck
@scott:
Obama didn’t say that about Afghanistan. But if you ask Godmeat, he might agree, or not. The point is you’ll have someone to wank with.
ksmiami
Thing is, we are talking about Afghanistan in our terms when our terms don’t even apply. We have a western mindset that is completely impractical when dealing with ancient tribal warriors. Our real strategic goal should be to defund the middle east and isolate our enemies until the time comes when they decide they want to be part of the modern world. I just htink of all the soldiers who died in Vietnam and had we left them alone we would have had a better outcome.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Wow, that’s a pretty complex assertion there. Are you sure you thought it through? I might agree, or not?
Yeeowch. No wiggle room. Agree, or not. Whew!
( beads of sweat )
Help! I need another Brachiator essay to understand all this stuff.
gwangung
@AngusTheGodOfMeat: All I’ll say is that it looks to me that you and Brachiator are talking about two somewhat different things.
geg6
@scott:
Fuck you, asshole. Without useful idiots like you, we’d never have gotten to this point because we’d never have gotten W.
Fuck you forever, asshole. And where’s my apology for that? And that which you owe the nation, the troops, and the dead of Iraq?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
“It is my intention to finish the job,” he said of the war in Afghanistan that has been going on since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Obama held his 10th and final war council meeting Monday night. In response to a question about his upcoming announcement, he sketched out the areas — but not the specifics — of what he will talk about after Thanksgiving.
He suggested he intends to explain in some detail not only troop deployments and the other civilian and diplomatic elements of an overhauled strategy, but also how the U.S. might ultimately leave Afghanistan. When he ordered advisers to rethink the options presented to him, it was mainly to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.
“It’s going to be very important to recognize that the Afghan people ultimately are going to have to provide for their own security, and so we’ll be discussing that process whereby Afghan security forces are properly trained and equipped to do the job,” Obama said.
Obama must not only sell his plan to the public, but to foreign allies whose additional resources the White House wants in Afghanistan. The president bluntly said Tuesday he would talk in his announcement about “the obligations of our international partners in this process.”
The timing of his address is timed in part to come before a NATO foreign ministers meeting, taking place in Brussels, Belgium, at the end of next week.
Obama also must pitch his plan to Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will be asked to fund the effort.
Among those likely to take part in congressional hearings are Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, as well as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. All four were among about 20 officials and advisers participating in the president’s final deliberations Monday night — one of the biggest groups gathered for these sessions in some time.
“It is in our strategic interests, in our national security interest to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas,” Obama said of the Afghan war. “We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks.”
–// Associated Press
Meanwhile, Obama is on the phone with Stuck and Brachiator, getting some last minute tips on how to turn Afghanistan into a “thriving democracy” and turn it into something that doesn’t make our commenters cry.
General Winfield Stuck
This is almost BoB quality trollery. Keep practicing, you will get there, I’m certain. Also. Too;
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@gwangung:
Heh, no shit. He’s talking about how he hoped for a “new approach” to Afghanistan, and I am talking about the basics of what the approach appears to have been up to now.
At least I can describe my position. I still haven’t heard what a “new approach” might look like. Unless we consider Stuck’s “thriving democracy” to be a new approach.
Drive through Heroin shops? I’m trying to think outside the feed trough here.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
“So’s your old man” is not really an argument, Stuck.
Seriously.
Shawn in ShowMe
The only Nader supporter that I heart is Phil Donahue. He’s the only one I know of to admit his support was misguided.
General Winfield Stuck
@gwangung:
When Zone man gets into troll mode, he argues for against and with only himself and the FSM. Counterclockwise.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Ahmed’s H-To-Go.
I like this entrepreneurial approach to the new Thriving Democracy in Afghanistan.
Who wants to photoshop up a nice little design for the Heroin Huts?
Whaddya think, Stuck?
Or how about, for Brachiator, “Where’s My Poppy?”
Ideas, ideas.
Da Bomb
@geg6: I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
You are not arguing dude, You are trolling right now. Maybe I have your number too.
Seriously
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Oh, you’re way too good for me, Mister Thriving Democracy.
Really, the ideas are really flowing now.
“In-N-Out Speedballs”
Now we are getting somewhere. The heroin isn’t cut until you order it. Always fresh.
Stuck? Anything?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
@General Winfield Stuck:
Arguing? I’m making fun of you, you lame motherfucker.
Afghanistan: The Thriving Democracy.
Kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
General Winfield Stuck
You don’t need me to interfere. Quite the performance on the dancing stage. Bravo, brown cow.
Shawn in ShowMe
I love me some Stuck but I haven’t seen a beat down like this since the Sugar Ray Leonard “No Mas” fight . Jeezus Christ, Angus.
General Winfield Stuck
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
And yet you always end up making an ass of yourself. Lame motherfucker. Not that original.
But someday, whoever pushed you around as a runt will get his, right?
licensed to kill time
I wish Dick Cheney would hurry up and have that last and fatal heart attack already.
Cheney, draft dodger extraordinaire, opining on how the troops feel.
Tsulagi
@geg6:
Geez, kinda harsh. I was thinking that, but in the spirit of Dem bipartisanship outreach was just going to let it go.
Yeah, maybe those really smart Nader voters can work their magic again. In 2016. Howard Dean running on a platform to fix fubared bipartisan health care against Quitter Palin with Zombie Cheney as her running mate. Nader voters of course would instinctively recognize Dean was too corporatist. They see the big picture, and they can’t be fooled again.
matoko_chan
And bring back the draft too, please.
That is the only way my generation can resist Big White Christian American Bwana’s passion for farming us for spare parts for their neo-con interventionism and their Superawesome World Police fantasies and war-porn masturbation.
bayville
@Shawn in ShowMe
Yeah, this is obviously all Nader’s fault. I blame him for the wars, the housing bubble and the ongoing, never-ending financial crisis.
soonergrunt
@licensed to kill time:
I was about to ask just how the hell he’d know anything about what ‘the troops’ feel or what our perspective is?
Mike in NC
This Christmas Eve would do nicely!
AngusTheGodOfMeat
The Stuck-Brachiator AfghanFan Handbook?
No, the CIA Factbook. Afghanistan, home of the world’s next Thriving Democracy.
This is their list of Afghanistan’s agricultural products, in order by share of GDP:
opium, wheat, fruits, nuts; wool, mutton, sheepskins, lambskins
Yeah, let’s not be condescending towards this beacon for the future. Right Brach?
licensed to kill time
@soonergrunt: I know, it’s so infuriating. He has his finger on the pulse of America (hint – they’s askeered!), the feelings of the troops (they’s doubting!), the motives of Obama (show trials in NYC!) – my heart just withered when I heard him hissing on my teevee this morning and I said a little prayer for his heart (O Lord, make it fail for good this time, please pretty please?)
gypsy howell
Cheney, draft dodger extraordinaire, opining on how the troops feel.
“They feel good, but they taste even better. Mmmmm…. gruntmeat….”
— Darth Cheney
Tsulagi
@licensed to kill time:
Sure he knows, he just mis-chose one preposition in this part of his statement…
He meant in the line day in and day out. As in for each one of his many deferments. He put his life at risk in the line as future RSSF troops were trying to run over him to make sure they got theirs.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@licensed to kill time: Rattlesnakes don’t commit suicide
ksmiami
Cheney really proves the point that “only the good die young, doesn’t he?” But I am amused by the Brachiator-Angus red meat- Stuck war going on here. Hmm – maybe we should really promote the opium trade full bore and that way the Chinese will mellow out again like they did in the late 19th century… though the Boxer Rebellion end result kind of sucked.
licensed to kill time
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: But the FSM can smite them with a noodly appendage. Smite on, FSM!
Poopyman
I agree that congress should say:
No further escalation without:
– A war tax to pay for it
– A draft of ALL physically fit citizens between 18 and 22
Nobody has the guts to propose such a thing, of course. The tax is contentious enough, but the draft is a career-killer, according to conventional wisdom.
But is it? Aren’t people in this country waking up to the cost of these wars? Did they not vote for Obama because he promised to get us out?
(Yeah, yeah. No need to point out that many voted for him just to keep Crazy White Guy and Goofy the Beauty Pageant Contestant out of the WH. But really, did we not vote FOR Obama more than AGAINST McCain?)
Brachiator
@AngusTheGodOfMeat:
Are you still here going on about nothing? And where, by the way, did I say that Afghanistan could be turned into a “thriving democracy?”
I’m really impressed by your yanking crap out of the CIA factobook. Was this meant to support your condescending nonsense about Afghanistan being “a fucking hell hole?” I mean, this would be a lot more interesting if you could talk about how US over-reaction to Dubs, starting with Jimmy Carter and continuing with the insane Reagan Doctrine, helped insure that Afghanistan would become a war zone.
But what is your point? What is all your blather about? Where is your “real world” perspective supposed to get anyone?
As far as I can see, in this entire thread, you’ve done nothing more than regurgitate a news summary of events leading up to the president’s upcoming speech.
So, what is this mystical position of which you speak?
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Already asked and answered, butthead, more than once. Read the thread.
Following up on your stupidass essays from earlier, speaking of being codescending to the noble country of Afghanistan ….
I like the way Bill Press put it today on MSNBC. Paraphrasing slightly (because I don’t have the transcript, but this is pretty close) …
“Democracy in Afghanistan? Are you kidding me, this country has never even had a successful central government!“
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Fuck this non-editable post bullshit!
“Condescending.” Thank you.
International Playboy
@Ed Drone:
Typical left wing conspiracy theory garbage. Unbelievable that people still give that nonsense any credance. Saddam was set on annexing Kuwait. Period. Whatever some random diplomat said in a last minute memo to him played exactly zero role in his thinking. None. Nada. Zippo.
Far more significant was the very clear “memo” he got from the UN Security Council to leave Kuwait or face military action. He had six months to get out and he told the UN to go fuck themselves. His own generals have since revealed that he knew all along that the US would be pissed if he invaded but though he could get away with it. He thought that he would gain sympathy from the left in the US and that Americans would place pressure on their government to end US involvement in SW Asia. In other words he was counting on folks like you to undermine the US military. That was his plan.
I’m not happy to hear of this development, for personal reasons. I just finished my second tour in Iraq two months ago. As a Guardsmen, I get one year off before I am eligible to be redeployed. I am supposed to get out in the spring of 2012, which means that when my year of dwell time is up I will have 18 months left in. Stop Loss is over, so if they’re going to try to squeeze one more deployment out of me, they’ll have to do it next fall. I have a bad feeling that I’ll be spending next Christmas in someplace bad.
While I would have prefered that this could be addressed without committing more ground troops, I will do what I can to support the success of this effort. I certainly hope the mission succeeds. We wouldn’t be in this pinch now if Bush Jr. had listened to Colin Powell and not occupied Iraq. That was a huge blunder. But we are where we are. Spreading bullshit conspiracy theories and screaming that the sky is falling helps no one. It may make you feel better, but it changes nothing.
Either way, it’s not the end of the world. Obama is a smart guy. He knows what he’s doing. Things are going to work out.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
Oh yeah, I’m in that tiny minority of people who are foolishly stubborn enough not to think that with a little effort and a few billion dollars and a few schools and Petsmart Stores, AfghanistanTheThrivingDemocracy(tm) can be turned into Monaco.
Ed Drone
@General Winfield Stuck:
I recall that same phrase (“President of Kabul”) BEFORE the war, which shows how much effect our eight (“going on nine”) years of treasure and blood have been.
Our exit strategy shouldn’t depend on a foreign people! It seems to me that if we say “stay till there’s tranquility” (or some substitute condition), we make ourselves hostage to groups with their own aims, aims which do not coincide with ours.
And that is stupid.
We saw it in Iraq, and we’re still paying that butcher’s bill. Let’s don’t do it anymore, shall we?
Ed
licensed to kill time
I will shoot Dick Cheney with my reply arrow if I can get it back from the WP overlords, thankyouverymuch.