MoveOn To Call On Obama To Develop Exit Strategy For Afghanistan
In its first direct pressure on President Obama over a major war-and-peace issue, MoveOn will call on the president today to develop an exit strategy for Afghanistan, a MoveOn official confirms to me.
MoveOn will blast an email to its massive list later today calling for members to write to the White House and demand “a clear exit strategy,” the official confirms.
The move is significant, because the major liberal groups had, until now, largely refrained from pressuring Obama on Afghanistan, partly to give the new president breathing room to tackle major domestic challenges, partly to preserve good relations with the new administration, and partly because public opinion wasn’t exercised about the war.
But a host of new factors — the sudden media focus on Afghanistan, the public’s swing against the war, the administration’s internal debate over a a troop increase, and pressure from conservatives for an escalation — means MoveOn must now engage the issue, even if it means exerting direct pressure on the President.
“U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment,” MoveOn’s email will say. “President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there’s a big debate happening right now about what to do.”
“Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the admistration — including John McCain and Joe Lieberman — are calling for a big escalation,” the email will continue. “Can you write to the White House and tell them we need a clear exit strategy—not tens of thousands more US troops stuck in a quagmire?”
The move means the left will no longer grant Obama room to maneuver on Afghanistan, and will insist that he stand up to the hawks and even to his own commanders, escalating the confrontation over the way foward.
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Update: The full email is here.
Update II: We now have the second poll this week finding substantial opposition to a troop increase.
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Smart move. Even if precipitous withdrawl is not supported by anyone, demanding a sensible Exit Strategy is brilliant. It puts the Progressive community on board with popular opinion and the hardline neocon hawks (McLame, etc) on the wrong side of history yet again.
Every time McCain and Dearman suggest escalation, ask them if they are willing to introduce to Congress a 5% tax hike on the wealthiest to pay for it.
Hear Hear! End the war! Bring them home!
I don’t see how Obama can reconcile his previous words about Afghanistan with a commitment to withdraw prior to achieving victory. I realize that strategies must be flexible, but Obama considered this war FUNDAMENTAL to our defense just a few months ago:
“This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is a — this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”
Voice of a fool:
“I don’t see how Obama can reconcile his previous words … I realize that strategies must be flexible”
Kinda unrelated, well actually, really unrelated but…Republicans must be livid at Snowe. I’m watching these hearings in the background and she bucks her party vote after vote on amendments.
@Ethan: I wrote FUNDAMENTAL in upper case just for people like you.
Get it? Strategies changes – fundamental truths don’t.
It’s been being fought for 8yrs.
Afghanistan is and always has been a failed State. There are no roads, no infrastructure. It is absolutley a quagmire – he can very easily reconsile his words.. campaign rhetoric – he’s done it with other subjects, gitmo springs to mind. End it – bring them home.
Obama SPECIFICALLY ran during the campaign on escalating the war in Afghanistan so this is NOT something new. MoveOn KNEW that Obama was going to increase forces in Afghanistan.
IMO, pressuring Obama right now really isn’t that helpful.
Ethan, in the political world, you are correct. Politicians, especially those as slick as BO, feel no compuntion to reconcile their words. They just look at the poll results and say the words that they believe will influence the public in their favor. That is the flexible strategy they apply with great rigor and the primary FUNDAMENTAL is doing whatever it takes to get re-elected.
“He can very easily reconsile his words.. campaign rhetoric.”
Except the words I quote came not from a Senator campaigning for president, they came from our Commander in Chief, President Obama, AFTER he had been elected.
sbj, How the “fundamental” dictates that the troops had to be there in Afghanisthan to beat “them” ? Is carpet bombing the only way to win that “war” ? Time to pull the troops and do a strategic rethink, which this Prez is capable of.
sbj, you are a fool on a fool’s errand. Get it?
@amk: Are we carpet bombing?
At what point do you begin to question the judgment of Obama? – he made these statements not six months ago. How can I trust a commander who so wildly miscalculates?
Sherrie – “Obama SPECIFICALLY ran during the campaign on escalating the war in Afghanistan so this is NOT something new. ”
I totally agree with you. He did run strongly on that idea.
How erratic Obama looks touting his new Afghanistan strategy and then walking away from it when the time came to implement it. What a joke.
sbj, ha..ha..ha.. you’re funny. At what point did you question the judgment of the “decider”, who didn’t have any calculations for shite ? Obama is still cleaning up his mess and so you should just stfu.
“At what point do you begin to question the judgment of Obama? – he made these statements not six months ago. How can I trust a commander who so wildly miscalculates?”
At what point do you STOP doubting him?
Mr. Sargent:
“In its first direct pressure on President Obama over a major war-and-peace issue, MoveOn will call on the president today to develop an exit strategy for Afghanistan, a MoveOn official confirms to me.”
This comes as no surprise at all to any conservative.
Those traitorous pukes push the chicken-button every chance they think they get.
They are only trying to ditch Afghanistan because the side they were backing, the Mooj, LOST in Iraq.
All their baloney during 2003-2008 about “Afghanistan should be the priority” is shown for the mendacious lie to the weak-minded that it was.
Here’s their chance to make Afghanistan the priority, and they want to balk the pitch.
You buffoons fool nobody but yourselves.
sbj. Who miscalculated what exactly?
Heck, McCrystal miscalculated if anyone did. He just came out now saying he didn’t realize what bad shape Afganistan was in.
Plus, why are we still in Afganistan after 7 years. Should we be out by now. Wouldn’t you call that a miscalculation?
Maybe you expected that the President should have had 20/20 foresight and should have predicted the recent elections turned out to be such a farse.
Situations change.
Fvcking trolls.
Oh and before Liam can fire up his canned response:
You better start thinking about an “clear exit-strategy” from the Confederacy. Spoils of a really and truly Illegal War and all that…
If a few rag-tag semi-paleolithic beggars who live in caves can make you cut and run, imagine what WE can do.
“Fvcking trolls.”
Word.
I was reading a piece last night at HuffPo about the GOP strategy to bring down this president or indeed, any Democratic president, and one of the main tactics is to destroy the loyalty of the president’s supporters.
“Who miscalculated what exactly? Heck, McCrystal miscalculated if anyone did.”
President Obama is the Commander in Chief.
“If a few rag-tag semi-paleolithic beggars who live in caves can make you cut and run, imagine what WE can do.”
Thanks for that – I haven’t laughed that hard for quite awhile.
my feeling is move on should shut and stop dictecting to the president he is listening to the generals on the ground and the pentigon and the def secreatary who know better then move on
Give me a break sbj.
Conservatives have been crying non stop Presidents need to listen to their commanders on the ground.
Now all the sudden their bad judgment doesn’t reflect on them anymore?
You can’t have it both ways.
CLEARLY MoveOn’s tactics are going to work. Look at the trolls undermining the President — left with TWO quagmires — for political expediency. MoveOn is clearly absolutely right on this one.
A mendacious lie? I like the other kind of lies better.
“You can’t have it both ways.”
O but they are convinced they can.
@mike: Who’s trying to have it both ways here? I’m sure you were constantly making excuses for Bush II…
Give ME a break.
The problem here isn’t really Obama’s, the problem here is for every liberal out there who cried chicken hawk or blamed every American death on an “incompetent” CiC Bush.
the president should only take advise from the milatary generals or the anti milatary members in congress speciall rep lee and wolsey who must be defeated next year
“The problem here isn’t really Obama’s, the problem here is for every liberal out there who cried chicken hawk or blamed every American death on an “incompetent” CiC Bush.”
Would the right PLEASE quit making these false equivalencies – Obama did not lie about Afghanistan. That’s where Osama was and that’s where the Bush Administration dropped the damn ball.
There’s no damn comparison at all – Bush LIED and abandoned Afghanistan for a wholly unnecessary war in Iraq.
Tena – yup, that particular racist POS troll is all full of pathetic false braggadocio. What an idjit !
All we need out of the Afghanistan mess, is to have a region that does not harbor those who want to keep attacking us.
We can not go around the world fixing every country, so that they function just like ours.
We have accepted that we can not do that in China, Russia, Burma, N.Korea, Vietnam, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and you get the picture. We should view Afghanistan in the same way.
Our goal should be just to defeat Al-Qaeda, so that they can not keep attacking us, at home and abroad, as they did, leading up to 9/11.
We can not fix Afghanistan. All we can hope for is to make it a place where Terrorists can not find sanctuary, and launch attacks from.
Since Karzai is corrupt, and into stealing elections, we should give up on him. Let the Taliban know that all we want, is for them to purge their selves of Al-Qaeda, and we will stay out of how Afghanistan sorts itself out.
Keep in mind, President Bush asked for the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden, and we would not then invade.
Let us get back to that objective. We need to get those who hit us on 9/11, and who want to hit us again.
Let us focus on what would be the most efficient way to accomplish that.
Everybody
Obama hasn’t changed his strategy yet as far as I know, so you’re arguing a hypothetical as fact. Just because Move On wants a clear exit strategy as I’m sure many Americans do doesn’t mean Obama has lied to anybody. Why don’t we wait and see what his possibly re-evaluated strategy will be before we argue the point.
My Dem friends, we need a more aggressive strategy like this MoveOn is showing now. Not only does it put stupid fearmongers and Republican domestic terrorists on the defensive, but the key is they really have NO answers for hard questions and their positions are always ALWAYS based on POLITICAL STRATEGY (or greed).
Keep up the fight my friends and don’t let them frame the subject or change the topic. We need to hold these pathetic fools accountable for nearly destroying this country on every level. The games are over.
American troops are being killed in Afghanistan right now. Many folks here are claiming that the war is unwinnable, that Afghanistan is unsalvageable, that troops on the ground are not required. The undeniable conclusion that results from these arguments is that these deaths are unnecessary and are directly due to the incompetence of our CiC. Tena – you aren’t arguing with the right people – I’m on your side. You disagree with Ethan and amk and mike, not me.
Is there really such a thing as a “Democratic Party”? I’m not really sure there is… “Democrats” just seem like a nebulous grouping of people who kinda have similar ideas. People who are willing to “hang tough” as long as things are going well. But, as soon as things even start to get the slightest bit difficult, they stab each other in the back.
From healthcare to financial regulation to taxes to Iraq & Afghanistan, and virtually every other issue, there’s no party unity — just a bunch of people ready to stab someone else in the back as soon as they “need” to or as soon as they get a chance to…
Good luck with your grand plans to “consolidate power” with such a destructive approach to people in your own party.
No wonder the Republicans are excited about 2010. They don’t even have to do anything. They can just sit back and watch the internecine Democratic bloodbath.
You’re correct Tena. sbj’s entire goal is to turn people against the guy they voted for.
See, they will never be able to accept the fact they, twice, voted for the biggest disaster of a Presidency in the history of the United States. Now, this is how they deal with their inability accept responsibility for supporting a completely failed presidency. They know deep inside their president was a failure. They want us to consider our president a failure too.
Problem is this.
Obama is about to pass landmark legislation every President that gave a damn about this countries well being since Teddy Roosevelt has tried to pass. In 8 months, he’s already began to unite Global leaders together to stand against Iran. Terrorists are dropping left and right in this country and around the world since he’s taken charge. Our roads and infrastructure is having a complete makeover as we speak. Our electrical grids are now in the process of turning into smart grids that will allow individuals to generate their own energy efficiently and sell back at competitive rates. Our cars are going to be completely transformed into a system less reliant on oil which we don’t have enough of. The list goes on and on and on.
Bush, what does he have to show?
Two unfinished wars.
A global economic meltdown that started in Wall Street on his watch.
3/4 of a million jobs were being lost a month when he left.
A world that hated us.
Stagnant middle class pay for the last decade.
1.3 trillion deficit.
10+ trillion in debt.
There will be no comparison in 8 years. Obama will go down as the transformational figure he came across as while Bush will go down as a complete disaster.
I suppose we have Bush to thank though for the huge majorities in the House and Senate. If it wasn’t for him it wouldn’t have been so blatantly obvious how pathetic Republican leadership is.
I just want to know what our objective is in Afghanistan. Hillary was talking about a threat to the government of Pakistan a few months back, but I haven’t heard a word about it since.
“No wonder the Republicans are excited about 2010. They don’t even have to do anything. They can just sit back and watch the internecine Democratic bloodbath.”
Dude, you are mistaking what is said on a blog board for real life.
sbj, stop blabbering. It’s embarrasing.
Excerpt from the piece at HuffPo I was talking about:
“Secondly, destroy the loyalty of your opponent’s followers. The Republicans are superb craftsmen at chipping away at Obama’s policies and all the actions he has had to take such as the bailout emergency package, a package initiated because of a bank collapse under Bush. They are geniuses at shifting blame and making the public forget the policies and blunders of the past. And of course, that touch of racism is present in listening to people in the street as they scream out their mistrust of the bailout policy.
Third, create suspicion and disharmony among the public. This destroys the loyalty of the public and no leader can succeed without the support of the public. Make the public suspicious about every policy, every statement, and every action your opponent initiates, even speaking to school children about succeeding with their studies.”
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caroline-myss/republicans-and-the-art-o_b_299062.html
He has no argument whatsoever. Get ready for the personal attacks, because that’s all he has when his attempts to undermine the President fail.
My 1st time on this site. Wow…some real wackos…
Hey, you all anointed Obama as your savior.
I did not vote for him because I knew he was just a radical socialist that will lie to cover his tracks.
“I did not vote for him because I knew he was just a radical socialist that will lie to cover his tracks.”
First time here and you destroyed any credibility you might have had right out of the gate with the “socialism” remark.
Yeah, mh, here’s a hot bowl of Who Gives a Sh*t. Go back to freeperville fool.
Just end it & bring the boys (& girls) home. Use the predators, use the satellites, keep a quick-reaction special forces type force in-country.
The threat to the region is Iran.
The fighting and dying for nothing… no territory gained – is horribly reminiscent of another war, Vietnam. Just bring them home.
Your anointed one sat in his church pew for 20 years and never heard the sermons of a raving lunatic. Please,and you all can dismiss his years promoting a socialistic agenda.
Part of our “socialist agenda” is stomping out domestic terrorists like you.
“I suppose we have Bush to thank though for the huge majorities in the House and Senate. If it wasn’t for him it wouldn’t have been so blatantly obvious how pathetic Republican leadership is.”
Blaiming bush for a security lapse that happened on Clinton’s watch (which started these wars)
Blaiming bush for a financial crisis that happened while dems controlled the house and senate. By doing so destroying millions of lives all for the sake of bringing a socialists to power and passing legislation (energy & healthcare) that will cripple the USA !!
You libereal trash thought you could destroy our country and then throw a couple of trillion dollers worth of corrupt governent programs at your messes and fix them……. Well sorry, they didnt work and the blood of this nations collapse is on your hands, and when you trash pull our troops out of Afghanastan and Iraq without laying the groundwork for allowing them to protect and govern themselves…… The blood of another terrorists attack will be on your hands as well/ AGAIN!!
Perhaps we will see this sort of bipartisan agreement .. from today’s WP story that Guantanamo will not close as promised ..
Then in May, the Senate decided, by an overwhelming vote of 90 to 6, to block funding for shutting Guantanamo Bay — Obama’s first major legislative setback as president.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/24/AR2009092404893.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009092405277
“Blaiming bush for a security lapse that happened on Clinton’s watch (which started these wars)”
Say what? August, 2001, PDB to Bush: Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US how is that Clinton’s breach?
Our roads and infrastructure is having a complete makeover as we speak. Our electrical grids are now in the process of turning into smart grids that will allow individuals to generate their own energy efficiently and sell back at competitive rates.
Do you really believe this?
In conversations with the U.S. Department of Energy officials, he said he learned Wednesday that of $11 billion awarded to states for energy efficiency projects, just $300,000 has been spent.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/breaking_news/Nevada-officials-unsure-of-number-of-jobs-created-by-stimulus-aid-61308577.html
Bravo to MoveOn for finally making this statement.
When Will They Ever Learn?
http://havegonedc.blogspot.com/2009/09/oh-when-will-they-ever-learn.html
Good Lord, some of you like Mike are seriously trippin.
So much so that you are oblivious that your glowing Messiah President a few months ago still said prevailing in Afghanistan was fundamental to our security, and was within two years ago on the bandwagon ridiculing the idea that Iran posed a potential nuclear threat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…. Obama said we had to prevail and W. said he was going to have a “humble foreign policy” and we saw how that worked out. How about we forget campaign promises (should be easy for the politicians, especially concerning foreign policy) and focus on “what works”, eh?
Obama (also) during the campaign: “We’re still having the same argument… It’s all around culture wars and it’s all … even when you discuss war the frame of reference is all Vietnam. Well that’s not my frame of reference. My frame of reference is “what works.”
Simply put…HE LIES
Shocker.
America should stop playing around and take either of two definitive steps:
1) just nuke Afghanistan and Pakistan out of existence. End of problem.
2) just nuke the terrorist nation Israel out of existence. End of problem with the ragheads.
And either will make the MoveOn a-holes happy to have something to P&M about for the next 30 years.
What does Obama, personally, have to gain by doing that?
Nothing. So it won’t happen.
MoveOn needs to move on and shut the hell up. Afghanistan is the war we should have been focused on from day one and we should not stop fighting there until Osama bin Laden is dead or captured. That MoveOn would want to exit before the job is complete makes me wonder who is behind that group. Maybe they need to be investigated for ties to terrorist groups since they evidently want them to have a safe haven to launch attacks on US citizens and our allies.
When we leave Afghanistan are you prepared for the return of the Taliban to power? Are you prepared to see young girls denied education because they are female? Are you prepared to see women beaten by religious police for offenses such as exposing their hands from a burka? Are you prepared to see Buddhist, Zoroastrian, or Hindu Religious shrines blown up? Are you prepared for the blowback that will descend on Obama for loosing Afghanistan? Geez, idealogues can be so naive.
reading these comments I have to wonder how we made it as far as we have in this country The GOP because it lost an election has continually blasted any and all plans put forth by any democrat.You sur can tell who the Faux noise viewers are.
Geez, idealogues can be so naive.
Geez, rubes can be even more so. Are you prepared to waste lives in an effort that won’t succeed no matter what we do?
Mike from Arlington–How long did you think it would take to win in Afghanistan? You have no spine or will power. You think everything should be easy. You *****.
-RichardEugene
Uhm, how does nuking afghanistan/pakistan and killing scores of innocents solve any problem? Funny how Americans who are so scared of 3rd world nations possibly having one nuke- are so eager to use one of their many 10,000 nukes to kill millions of innocents. How about you like most americans who talk about foreign policy lose the bloodthirsty attitude and FINALLY leave these people alone. How many times does afghanistan have to defeat foreign invaders, whether its the british, the soviets, or the US for you guys to get that they don’t want you involved in their damn business.
-Secunda
You’re the idealogue. You’re naive enough to believe that young girls aren’t denied education, and people aren’t beaten and raped by police right now during the American occupation. The US hasn’t changed a damn thing except adding more people to the body count and making sure Afghanistan is an even more dangerous place to live. You don’t receive blowblack for withdrawing troops- you get blowblack for INVADING. Everyone can see through your warmongering, enough death is enough, and you cannot wash blood with more blood.
No suprise the Left in this country wants America to surrender, just like in Vietnam, Korea and pretty much every other war. Then they can go around saying, ” IRAQ WAS ANOTHER VIETNAM”. The fact is America could have won the Vietnam War and it was pretty close to winning it, but Americans seem to lack the will power needed to conduct a war properly. Even the Vietcong General admitted in his biography that it was the LEFT and it’s propaganda in America that helped the Communists succeed. Rot in hell Jane Fonda, John Kerry and the traitors of their kind. Now they want America to leave Afghanistan. The Left in America always sides with the enemy. If you leave Iraq or Afghanistan without a proper infastructure, I guarantee American troops will being heading back their again within the next 50 years to put down another terrorist regime. You can’t leave a job half done. It’s hard, war is hell, nobody wants to do it, but it has to be done or it was all for nothing.
Also, i’m tired of all the B.S. of this is an illegal war. Both the Republicans and YES DEMOCRATS voted to authorize war, so shut it you leftist ********.
I voted for Mr Obama and expect him to close GITMO in January. If congress fails to fund the closeing, just walk away any how. 4 to 8 years and no trials of any kind makes me as an American sick. What goes around comes around.
@jacka$$, how did that short & sweet, supposed-to-be-a-cake-walk of Iraq war go ? You neocons had about 8 years to “win” that one and yet got buttkicked. Amurika is no more the super cop thanks to shrub, darth, dumbsfeld and other clueless morons. What an idjit and a rube !
To succeed in Afghanistan, only one strategy can work:
1) Oblige Hamid Kasai to form a national unity government including all opposition parties, with the representation of all the significant tribes and regions of Afghanistan including even non-alqaida talibans such that they hold a stake in the national unity government
2) Then, a surge fighting together with local Afghan troops and even talibans who have changed sides!
It is one thing to say this, another to carry out ….