Happy Hour Roundup
* It’s officially Obama’s War.
* Roughly 30,000 more troops; Obama to make his pitch to Congressional leaders tomorrow.
* He’s back over 50% in Gallup’s daily tracking.
* But public opinion overall, and among independents in particular, is tilting against health care reform.
* A strong post from Steve Benen tackling Politico’s warning that Obama may not be enough of an “American exceptionalist.” Note the Obama quote on this topic that Benen dug up:
“I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.”
* Cue up the media handwringing: HuffPo has now joined the White House press pool.
* A preview of the GOP strategy of painting Dem dissent on Afghanistan as disrespectful of the brass: The NRSC is calling on Jennifer Brunner, a Dem Senate candidate in Ohio, to apologize for these remarks opposing an Afghan surge and questioning McChrystal’s association with detainee abuse, saying she “attacked” his “esteemed military career.”
* Weigel rightly notes the echoes of the GOP response to “General Betray-Us.” Lots more like this coming.
* The White House thinks questions about what will constitute “Obama’s Katrina” are just so much cable catnip.
* Republicans are gaining on the economy in a poll by a respected Dem firm. Poll also finds that voter intent to boot incumbents if the economy doesn’t turn around is “most-pronounced” in Dem-held districts.
* Larry Sabato tells Eric Kleefeld that even passing big ticket items like health care might not be enough to close the “enthusiasm gap.” Hmmm…
* And Mike Huckabee is getting carpet-bombed by conservative bloggers over his granting of clemency to the suspect in the shooting of four Washington State cops. Bad, bad scene for anyone eying the 2012 GOP primary.
Got anything else?
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“He’s back over 50% in Gallup’s daily tracking.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Now you are trumpeting a statistically insignificant increase to an “astounding” 51% as something newsworthy? What a joke. If you are familiar with Gallup’s tracking poll, you know it always fluctuates during the week. It will be below 50% again later in the week, guaranteed. And even if it stays at 51%, that is still pathetic for this point in a presidency. It is not as if Obama has done anything within the past few days that made his approval rise by 2% points.
Benen’s been really on a hot streak.
“”I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. I’m enormously proud of my country and its role and history in the world…. I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we create partnerships because we can’t solve these problems alone.”"
I remember that and I remember I broke down and cried when he said it. It’s such plain damn truth – how can anyone argue with just the honest truth? The Repugs do not have one honest argument to their names and they know it.
They know it. It’s just shameful that they’ve turned everyone of them into trolls who will say ANYTHING.
HuffPo hardly needs any help from anyone in the hand-wringing department.
IMHO sending 30,000 more troops will be Obama’s first REAL mistake. We all could nitpick about how he’s handled the Repubs..the gang of six..and the rest during the long and tedious HCR debate…there was the abortion coverage flareup..and several other issues at the margins that could all be carefully handled and repaired. But overall Obama has not really blundered…until now!
This doesn’t mean I’ll stop supporting him, it simply means I am incredibly disappointed that he could blow such a truly obvious decision. He had cover in the form of the Ambassador’s position as well as the terrific and principled resignation from Matthew Hoh and polls showing that the American public would have backed him if he had elected to go the other direction… and so I cut him no slack on the political front. He has simply f’d this one up completely…screwed the pooch totally…now it remains to be seen how he fixes the mess he has made. And make no mistake…after tomorrow night it won’t simply be the right who will correctly insist this is Obama’s war…it will be the entire nation because by adding 30,000 more troops OBAMA has made it HIS war. Good luck Mr. President, you’re going to need it!
rukidding – I’d think so too if I hadn’t read this absolutely killer article I cannot find now about all this.
DAmmit = who had the link? I have tried and tried to find this again but the author said that he would send exactly this number and it would make progressives mad but that there was a whole lot more going on here that was good but was not public about how he’s changed the entire structure and point of view on the military, the CIC and Afghanistan.
Someone linked to it weeks ago – and I can’t find who. I mentioned it before and I think Imsinca remembered it and we both looked and I cannot find it anywhere. But it made the difference for me.
Greg, I thought it was great that Benen quoted your astute observations from this morning as well, you really nailed it.
This Huckabee clemency thing may be the death knell for him as far as 2012, we’ll see. I don’t necessarily think he did the wrong thing because the guy was so young for his early offenses and got an unusually harsh sentence. Having said that, it’s clear now he is both a repeat offender and his crimes grew worse over time. Hindsight is a tough one to live with sometimes.
I wouldn’t call it “Obama’s War” rather “Obama’s Fixing of Bush’s War.” He is taking responsibility for more of the mess he inherited. It’s still a relatively difficult thing for the Village to grasp.
We have been dithering there for eight years. The investment has been far too great and it would be impossible to simply withdraw.
It will be interesting to hear the strategy and whether he stresses an end to the war.
No matter what the GOP will act like he is selling America’s soul
“Frank Chow | November 30th, 2009 at 05:43 pm
I wouldn’t call it “Obama’s War” rather “Obama’s Fixing of Bush’s War.”
I was going to say the same thing.
“. Hindsight is a tough one to live with sometimes.”:
Yeah. Funny thing – this probably will do him in and it’s the very last thing I’d ever be opposed to Huckabee on account of. I rather like this error and what it says about Huckabee as human being. It sure beats the hell out of Commander CooCoo standing there 3 hours before Karla Faye Tucker was executed and making a face and mocking her in a ‘comical’ voice: “please don’t kill me” and then laughing.
ruk, I don’t know what you think of Michael Moore, but he wrote an open letter to Obama that really agrees with what you’ve been saying for weeks.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-moore/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_373457.html
BTW…The figure bandied about for the cost of Obama’s excellent war adventure…one million for each soldier. If you do the math you’ll see that is 30 BILLION with a B each year. Of course this does not include the cost of paying for the VA expense and prosthesis required for those injured by IED’s.
It doesn’t include the cost for mental health practicioneers needed to take care of Post Tramatic Stress. It doesn’t include the cost for municipalities to manage the segment of homeless and addicted substance abusers who will invariably show up in our city…..AND FOR WHAT?
How many new jobs could 30 BILLION create? Someone please check my math..but divide 30,000,000,000 by $100,000 and you get 300,000. That’s right we could simply hire 300,000 people and pay them each 100,000 for just the money Obama is ready to spend on a foreign invasion. Imagine the “TRICKLE DOWN EFFECT” if we took that money and the rest of the billions being pissed away in Iraq and Afghanistan and hired our own fellow Americans!!!.
Tena, I wish one of us could find that damn article about Obama and Afghanistan, it’s still bugging me. It left us both with a strong impression that he may be doing the right thing, but I can’t justify it without the information the author posted. I am very wishy-washy on Afghanistan and wish we could just pull out.
@Imsinca…I am not opposed to…nor do I always support Michael Moore’s positions…but I read that post earlier and in this particular instance I find him to be dead on target.
@Tena…I do wish you could find that link because I have yet to see even ONE valid reason for this blunder.
Republican’s failures in Afghanistan over the course of years has started with Republican Bush’s failure to put adequate troops in to capture Osama bin Laden.
Republican Bush’s failures in Afghanistan went beyond his letting bin Laden escape into the nuclear armed country of Pakistan, Bush then invented his Iraq War Lie and ignored Afghanistan throughout the rest of his Presidency.
Afghanistan is a problem eight years later because of Republican’s failed military “leadership”.
@Tena…you know I respect your opinion and you are obviously the farthest thing from a war monger…and so I’ll pay attention when you can produce those arguments for MORE military involvement.
We all agree with that News Ref, but what to do about it is the question?
I found it:
” « AP Poll: Fund Health Reform by Taxing Rich | Main | Don’t Count Out Cost Controls Yet »
Democrats – Don’t be misled. The media is going to call Obama’s new Afghan strategy a “betrayal” of the Democratic base – but it’s not. It’s actually a decisive rejection of the Republican/Neo-Conservative strategy of the “Long War”
Print Version
When Obama presents his new strategy for Afghanistan in the next few days it is inevitable that many in the press will describe it as a profound betrayal of the Democratic “base”. Obama will face fierce criticism from many progressive and anti-war Democrats who will consider his decision to significantly increase the number of troops as representing a complete capitulation to the military and Republican neoconservatives.
This reaction is understandable, but it is actually profoundly wrong. At the same time that Obama’s plan will authorize additional troops, his new strategy already represents a powerful repudiation of the fundamental Bush/neoconservative strategy and a historic reassertion of civilian control over the military after 9/11. ”
[snip]
http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2009/11/democrats_dont_be_misled_the_m.php
@Tena….Thanks for digging up the link. I can’t wait to read it….alas the wife is mean hungry and it’s time to head out for dinner. I’ll read it afterwards and get back to you later. Thanks again.
I do support Obama and I hope this gives me some pause about what I believe to be a huge mistake.
I’m not happy about sending more people to Afghanistan, but at this point I’m willing to let him show me that he isn’t going to continue the pattern with these damn wars. And it sounds as if he most definitely isn’t.
I can’t believe that Obama is some kind of war monger when I know he listens to people like Kerry and he listened to Ted Kennedy and he voted against the Iraq War.
I am hoping that he is looking for the exit and that he means it and until I am shown that isn’t the case, I am waiting.
I’m not going to turn on this president. He’s our best goddamn hope for getting out of most of the messes Bush and the Repugs got us into.
I support him. I †rust his intellect and his judgment.
I have looked for that article for about a week.
Thank god I finally snapped to the fact that I was going to need to go through the archives in a few places. I got lucky – it was in the archives in the first place I tried.
Re the “exceptionalism” item from Harris…
This is a central pillar of modern conservative movement ideology particularly within the Christian right, the neoconservative camp and likely the military as well. And beneath all of that sits the corporate entities who are most happy to move about the rest of the world with a minimum of opposition, institutional and moral. We can note that the right has continually tried to wound Obama with this one since before he took office. It’s pretty much a daily feature of their PR campaign.
I don’t think Harris was wrong to include this one as a potentially dangerous narrative for two reasons. First, it does help to motivate the conservative base (who tend to believe this nuttiness) which can have consequences in activism and thus, elections.
Second, there’s a very real tendency for the media (individually and institutionally) to forward such a simplistic framing with little or no critical reflection. And that is in no small part because it is unacceptable within that class or sphere to honestly confront certain realities of America’s footprint in the world. Matt Yglesias and Alex Massie look at Friedman as a manifestation of this convenient blindness… http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/11/an-empire-of-self-delusion.php
Obama’s statement on “exceptionalism” is nuanced and saner than almost anything else one might hear from a contemporary politician.
And it may well be the case that most citizens (and most independents) are more mature in their thinking than the Friedmans, the Boltons and the Palins on this but I don’t think this is a benign issue.
Thanks Tena, after reading it again, I too will wait and see what his actual strategy is and how we’re going to get the hell out of there and if possible, when.
What I really liked about the article was that he was turning the “long war” strategy of the Repubs on it’s head.
“What I really liked about the article was that he was turning the “long war” strategy of the Repubs on it’s head.”
That and that he said it’s his “sacred constitutional duty as CIC” to thoroughly review the situation and get advice and think about it before he does anything.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the relationship between Obama and Congress a bit differently. I do truly believe that the Democrats are working hard at putting this government back in order the way it’s supposed to work – 3 independent branches.
thank the gods and the goddesses
JEEZUS. @ TPM:
Remember all the Republican demands that Democrats’ health care reform bills be posted online for at least 72 hours before a vote for everyone to read?
Well, forget about that. Republicans shot down an effort today by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) to post proposed amendments to the health care reform bill online for before a vote. That would effect how many amendments the GOP could offer in hopes of gumming up the works, so they refused to go along.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/republican-interest-in-transparency-trumped-by-interest-in-obstructionism.php
Oh yeah and LARRY SABATO can kiss my a$$.
So while half the liberals defend Obama’s (supposed) belief in exceptionalism, the other half condemns exceptionalism.
Ethan – they are simply obstructing and stalling any way they can.
“By a wide margin, Americans consider Rush Limbaugh the nation’s most influential conservative voice.
Those are the results of a poll conducted by “60 Minutes” and Vanity Fair magazine and issued Sunday. The radio host was picked by 26 percent of those who responded, followed by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck at 11 percent. Actual politicians — former Vice President Dick Cheney and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — were the choice of 10 percent each.” http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091130/ap_en_tv/us_poll_influential_voices (h/t Steve Benen)
Bernie – I’m not sure what to think about those results except – man, they really are that wack, aren’t they?
Republican Party leaders: Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, & Cheney.
It’s only through their combined deceitfulness that a significant portion of the country doesn’t understand how badly Republican’s failed our country: Failed wars, failed economics, and rampant unlawfulness.
Tena and NR – yes and yes. The politics and discourse in the US would look very much different less FOX and talk radio. I’m just reading Sam Tanehaus in the New Yorker right now (h/t Andrew Sullivan)…
” The worlds of media and politics have been steadily merging, and today they seem all but interchangeable. When Anita Dunn, until recently the White House communications director, labelled Fox News “the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party,’’ she got the power dynamic backward. As the Republican Party, leaderless and rudderless, struggles to build a new identity based on more than lockstep obstructionism, people like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have claimed the role of ideological enforcers, turning up the heat on some suspected moderates, such as Governor Charlie Crist, of Florida, and extracting pledges from others.” http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/12/07/091207crbo_books_tanenhaus?currentPage=all
Bernie – how the mighty have fallen.
The Permanent Republican Majority -
That’s what happens when as a principle your political movement rejects intellect. You ignore Euripides and the Erinae and Promethius Bound…
Tena – it is possible that Palin missed Euripides but she was busy with Pascal. It was Pascal, wasn’t it? Sure as phuckk wasn’t Victor Hugo.
Here’s a bit from Tanehaus I wanted to underline…
Her [Palin's] operating principle seems to be an observation made by Richard Hofstadter in 1954 that “the growth of the mass media of communication and their use in politics have brought politics closer to the people than ever before and have made politics a form of entertainment.””
1954! If any of you folks aren’t reading Hofstadter, for shame.
“The investment has been far too great and it would be impossible to simply withdraw.”
Sorry Frank but I do not follow your syllogism. I totally agree the investment has been far too great. But that does not lead logically to it being impossible to simply withdraw. Have you ever heard of the old cliché of throwing good money after bad? Alas it’s worse in this case because we are talking about human lives. We are talking about placing an incredible economic strain on a nation whose economy is in the ******* with double digit unemployment! So YES it is possible to simply withdraw.
@Tena & Imsinca. Alas I’m afraid the Democratic Strategist does nothing to assuage my fears. The point about Obama not buying into the “Long War’ or the neocon’s carping about let the generals dictate policy may sound good but let’s look at reality.
McChrystal asked for 40,000..he’s going to get 30,000..75% of what he requested. McChrystal pulled a McArthur by going around proper channels and leaking HIS strategy publicly before Obama had a chance to even formulate much less articulate his…this is an absolutely horrid example of the military tail wagging the civilian leadership’s head. Like McArthur before him..McChrystal deserved to be called in and fired!!! He barely got a knot jerked in his tail. This was an example of Obama cowering to the military not exerting civilian commander in chief leadership. So I don’t buy the Strategist’s point about how Obama has reclaimed civilian leadership over the military.
For me it’s not about Obama versus Bush policy. At this point Bush/Cheney are so disgraced, so obviously wrong in their decisions, that hindsight renders them inconsequential. I realize Obama has to fix THEIR messes but 30,000 more troops are not the answer! I don’t view this as neocons against progressives but pragmatism versus futility.
Let me end with points I think we agree upon. I believe LBJ was a great president that Texans can be proud to call a native son. He did many wonderful things for this country. However he made a huge and tragic mistake in Vietnam. The Domino theory was WRONG..just as trying to fight a criminal conspiracy…terrorism…with the military is wrong. Again I refer you to Matthew Hoh’s resignation letter as he articulately points out the futility of our Afghanistan strategy. Michael Moore and others have added points but I believe Hoh’s letter to be the most concise and prescient statement of just what a blunder Obama is making. Is he emulating Bush and the neocons…NO! Is he running the risk of following LBJ into another quagmire…possibly..but that’s not my worry either. Our nation is at a fragile point right now…fighting for a basic necessity like HCR. Trying to rebound from the worst economy since the Great Depression with double digit unemployment! We simply cannot afford to keep throwing good money after bad and I won’t keep haranguing about the human costs because they are so obvious.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in one’s mind at the same time. I can’t really say I’m intelligent…but I can say that although I think Obama is completely mistaken on this issue…like you Tena I still support him.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald said intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in one’s mind at the same time.”
Funny thing about that – that’s a Buddhist tenet. That is one explanation of what enlightenment is: the ability to hold two opposing thoughts completely in focus in complete balance.
Something makes me think Fitzgerald knew that – it was the 20s.
I’d like to think he knew it Tena…he led a challenged life…I guess the primary challenge being his wife…but Buddhism could have certainly provided a measure of comfort!
@Tena…as a Texan and a progressive would you agree with my assessment of LBJ as a great President who made one huge and tragic mistake? He accomplished a lot a great things for this country despite that one big mistake.
rukidding – yeah and he knew it immediately.
So I guess we’ll find out right quick.
You don’t have to be assuaged, but as much as I understand your outrage, it’s yours.
Perception is reality, too.
Another thing the MIC holds the american government at gunpoint literally is the jobs. I presume it employs hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people with a high level of skill, either directly or through vendors. And these jobs will not (or could not ?) be outsourced to China or Mexico. So if the frakkking long war is shelved, big MIC’s like GE, Raytheon et.al., will kick these skilled people out to the streets adding to the unemployment line ? Just another thought.
I just hope this prez knows what he is doing.
Because no matter how many times someone says this is Obama’s War, it’s not and what should always be remembered is:
“# News Reference | November 30th, 2009 at 05:54 pm
Republican’s failures in Afghanistan over the course of years has started with Republican Bush’s failure to put adequate troops in to capture Osama bin Laden.
Republican Bush’s failures in Afghanistan went beyond his letting bin Laden escape into the nuclear armed country of Pakistan, Bush then invented his Iraq War Lie and ignored Afghanistan throughout the rest of his Presidency.
Afghanistan is a problem eight years later because of Republican’s failed military “leadership”.
” So if the frakkking long war is shelved, big MIC’s like GE, Raytheon et.al., will kick these skilled people out to the streets adding to the unemployment line ? Just another thought.
”
The thought crossed my mind. I have no idea, but it did occur to me. It occured to me that right now is a very poor time to dump a whole huge number of vets into the job market cause they won’t find any.
And BTW Greg, another framing fail. It’s not frakking Obama’s war just because he is finishing up wars started by cowardly and deliberately inept neocons. Sheesh….
I co-sign that “sheesh.”
Afghanistan has now become President Obama’s war. He took plenty of time to evaluate the situation, and he has decided that he can win the damn thing. I do not believe that is possible, but the President has staked his chances for a second term on it.
Tomorrow night he is going to explain what his plan is. I expect him to say something like this:
Afghanistan and Pakistan are in our vital national interest, and therefore we must stay the course, because if we do not defeat the Taliban, the terrorists will grow stronger and stronger.
He will mention about how he expects the Karzai government to become born again, honest and competent leaders.(Hah)
He will state firmly that if the Karzai government does not clean up it’s act, then we will start to take the off ramps; and there in lies the entire contradiction in what President Obama is going to announce.
In a nutshell:
The place is a hell hole now, and we can not pull out, because it would endanger our country, but if we do not like the way Karzai and the Afghan army trainees are shaping up, then we will pull out. What? What? What? Didn’t he just say that we could not afford to pull out, because of the danger to our national security, so how can we do so, even if things are not getting any better, after we have given the Generals the Troops and the time to turn it around.
President Obama has just jumped on the back of the Tiger, and he will not be able to dismount, because he would get mauled by it.
This is a huge and Tragic Mistake by President Obama.
I’ve been re-reading Krugman’s The Great Unraveling. The amount he got wrong was pretty insignificant. Which makes the following a sobering read… http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/things-to-come/
Bernie,
Krugman toured around the country drum up support for the Iraq invasion. I remember him being every where, selling the hell out of what great benefits which would be derived from the Iraq invasion.
That was not insignificant.
edit;
drumming up support……
Ed Kilgore on the Tanehaus piece… http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/
Bernie,
I want to correct that. It was not Krugman that was selling the Iraq invasion. It was Tom Friedman. Got my Times correspondents mixed up. Time for my nap.
Holding “two opposing thoughts in one’s mind at the same time” is also referred to as “cognitive dissonance”.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22cognitive+dissonance%22
You might want to read up about it. It’s a bad thing. (If there is anything good about it, please, enlighten me).
Liam – No problem. Definitely two people one doesn’t want to confuse however. When you’ve got half an hour, check this out…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdsymLhCDbE&feature=player_embedded
“they are simply obstructing and stalling any way they can.”
Totally. They have so many lies up in the air at the same time, inevitably things conflict. I guess, in this case the “let’s torture the bill with amendments” stalling agenda beats out the “let’s post all amendments online for the public to see” stalling agenda in terms of outright delay. So nice of them to show us yet again that they have nothing but the country’s best interest in mind. Clown show.
The ever acidic Greenwald on Friedman:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/29/friedman
Tom Friedman might be a perfect example of cognitive dissonance: He simultaneously glorifies things he condemns.
Paul Krugman has been startling prescient for years.
This deserves a second link and a careful read:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/things-to-come/
I can’t think of a thing News Ref, unless rationalization as a way of life floats your boat. One or the other beliefs held at the same time needs to be rationalized in some way in order to explain oneself to oneself or others.
Bernie, this from the Krugman/NYTimes piece is the most interesting. I’ve been saying for months that progressives need to keep the pressure on Obama, otherwise he will take the middle road. We all know the stimulus wasn’t big enough and was weak in some respects, just as the HCR public option has been watered down, and now his decision in Afghanistan is in question. I don’t agree with everything Krugman says and he lacks the practicality of getting some of his ideals accomplished through realistic legislation, but I always read what he has to say for perspective.
“What can the rest of us do? Progressives have to keep the pressure on. The time for trusting the administration to do what’s necessary is past — all indications are that it won’t, not on its own. But maybe, just maybe, the president can be brought to see the danger he’s running by playing it safe.”
Earlier on Olbermann, Jon Alter said that the left of the Democratic Party is just a step away from being pacifist. That made me wonder how many people who’ve already decided Obama is making a mistake before hearing tomorrow’s speech actually agree with him on not being against all wars but against dumb wars. Personally, I can assume we have some residual responsibility and vulnerability in Afghanistan because of the mess Bush left and that there’s an inevitable complexity in untangling ourselves. But I couldn’t take that position if I were a complete pacifist. Instead, I’d insist we have to pull out completely and immediately regardless of the consequences.
I’m curious about other commenters and the broader outlooks that inform their feelings on Afghanistan.
Certain…I think Liam and I have been the most strident critics of the two wars. I am against the wars for moral and pragmatic reasons…however I’m not literally a pacifist. I certainly think WWII was moral..we were defending ourselves against the Armies and Navies of aggressive nations.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan attacked us. A group of religious fanatics masterminded a criminal conspiracy to attack us on 9/11. Those attacks were largely planned in the U.S. and Western Europe. Given that the leadership was living with impunity in Afghanistan I was not against the original action there up to and including Tora Bora. Once Bin Ladin escaped I felt as if Afghanistan was over. To those who say if we don’t stay the Taliban will return and Al Qaeda with them…I refer you to Capt Hoh’s letter…Al Qaeda is like the Mafia and if we keep them out of Afghanistan forever they can still operate out of a dozen different spots.
At any rate my largest objection is simple pragmatism. Again just because religious extremists plot and execute criminal conspiracies that we call terrorism and then refer to it as jihad or a war…doesn’t make it so….they are still simply a bunch of criminals and are best stopped by good police work.
We lost the battle of 9/11 not because of what was happening in Afghanistan…but because of our own failure to connect the dots of our police organizations discoveries. We can’t possibly afford to invade and occupy every sovereign nation that poses a threat. N. Korea and Iran represent greater threats as nations than Afghanistan. Why haven’t we invaded them? How many battalions, brigades, corps and armies has Al Qaeda massed in Afghanistan? How large is the navy or air force that will transport them here. We simply can’t eliminate every cesspool of bad behavior around the world.
The saddest aspect of 9/11 to me is the fact that simple bars securing the cockpit doors of all airliners would have stopped ALL hijackings. Since hijacking has been popular since the late 50’s how did we not figure that one out?
ABC, as far as I’m concerned, Obama campaigned on AfPak. Pakistan is finally stepping up to the plate and attacking in in Swat Valley and the Waziristan regions. If we pull out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan will have room for an unimpeded retreat back into Afghanistan. Now is the time to put pressure on them from both sides. If we can stabilize that region it’ll be a good thing. I think if we pull out now it’ll be chaos.
What I find entertaining is Sen. Kyle is now out saying a time line of any sort will give let the terrorists know when we are going to give the country back to them. Kinda sounds like the noise Republicans were making about Iraq until they made their own time line for our withdraw.
I’ve always suspected Obama dropped a hint to the Iraqi’s to make the time line for American withdraw. I expect similar demands from the Afghanistani’s after a year or so of us being there with this expanded military force which will give cover to this admin to pull out and not be fully responsible for what may become of the country upon our withdraw.
As the USSR found out the hard way it is not possible to “win” in Afghanistan because of its tribally fractured culture and the corruption it breeds, lack of any valuable resource other than poppies, and for the military, the terribly inhospitable conditions presented by the terrain they must fight in. Rolling through a flat desert with totally superior troops and equipment and control of the air may have worked in Iraq, but success in Afghanistan requires ground troops fighting in conditions where superior technology will be less effective. This means more troops must be used and in the long term when they leave tribalism, corruption and poppy growing will still be going strong.
Now if Clinton had just taken out bin Ladin when he had the chance…
Imsinca, is there any parallel at all in the collapse of the USSR due to its inability to finance guns and butter and the U.S. government creating an even larger deficit than the current 1.2 trillion that cannot be supported by taxes, borrowing or simply printing money? I suppose you think we can tax the “rich”, most of whom are small to mid-size business entrepreneurs, but what happens when they cut jobs? They do provide about 70 percent of the jobs in the country you should know. There was way too much political payoff in the first stimulus and small business was pretty much left out in the cold. Is the next one going to take that into consideration? Probably not because these are the “evil” rich, right?
ruk–I think that’s a very well reasoned and interesting answer and persuasive on most levels. But I also wonder about the issue Mike from A raises with regard to the lack of stability in the region. That has certainly been exacerbated by the haphazard way in which this war has been waged and it’s something that’s difficult to ignore.
All, morning roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/afghanistan/the-morning-plum-21/
@Imsinca – I agree. A strong citizen push to move administration policies in a progressive direction is necessary (not just now, but always).
The other side to this equation is the self-defeating position that if Obama doesn’t move as far and fast as hoped, then he has been false or is a failure and so deserves no further support. That’s the sort of “Look how principled I am!” trumpeting which we hear from the rightwing “purity test” people. A saner and more prudent stance would be, I think, to hold that progress is being made and we want more of it, so we’ll continue to support and push.
This will possibly sound to some (perhaps to Greenwald or Kos, say) as a sort of pussified liberalism or as insufficiently moral and I can acknowledge the strength of their argument without adopting it as the only valid argument/position. Ve can’t all be first violin. Somebody has to play the tuba. And somebody has to count votes – particularly when the alternate electoral choice is as grossly corrupt and destructive as we see at present.
@ABC – I heard that comment from Alter as well and though I normally like the fellow’s viewpoints, I thought that statement a bit silly. I’m not sure if I know anyone at all who is the sort of pacifist he presumes populates ‘the left’ and I grew up in a Mennonite family (conservative Mennonites tend to be strong pacifists while more liberal Mennonites are less so – no irony there, it’s just the relative tendencies to adhere to strict doctrine or to nuance them).
As regards what to do right now with Afghanistan? Ya got me. I don’t know nearly enough of the realities in this to have a smart opinion. My rough guess is that our presence in the middle east, particularly our zest for oil and our consequent military presence (along with our stupid and immoral position on Palestine) has created much of the problem in the first place, then it would follow that we probably ought to fundamentally change what we do there. But again, there’s a long distance between then and now.
I do think that this President is well-intentioned, mostly honest, and very smart indeed. And I think he has the capacity to be a truly transformative figure. I really don’t see anyone else on the political horizon in the US who I’d rather have in this position right now. But there’s no question that what he is up against is enormous.
actuator
We are small business owners ourselves, admittedly very small, and I don’t disagree there was too much pork and not enough actual job creation in the first stimulus. I also believe that the Administration is looking at ways to help small businesses create jobs through tax credits or incentives as a way to get the job market going.
I have also been a critic of the Administration’s financial preference being given to the Banks and Wall Street, and not enough given to Middle Class Americans or Small Business Owners. I believe Obama has realized that he has an achilles heel problem with jobs right now and hope he and his advisors will come up with a plan using the TARP money left over to stimulate the jobs market.
The only reason I see right now for raising taxes is to pay for the continuation of the War in Afghanistan, although I don’t believe it will ever happen. I don’t care who they tax, but I believe that because of our dire economic situation the only way to escalate or finish this “long war” would be to finance it. The Bush Administration made a huge mistake with his politically motivated tax cuts during a time of two wars.
I also fervently believe that a strong HCR bill will benefit small businesses who are drowning under the weight of the effort to provide coverage for their employees. Many of us are left out of the large group market and have absolutely no leverage when it comes to small group premium prices. Will there be some new taxes to pay for this, yep, but hopefully the benefits for small businesses will out weigh the negatives. Everything I’ve read so far suggests that both the Senate and the House have dealt with these issues equitably.
And BTW, it would not be in me to call the “super rich” evil, as a practical matter people take what is offered and work with what they get. I believe we need some new rules of the road after decades of “look the other way” financial regulations.