Tag: Quagmire

Sometimes, people read what they want to read…

Sometimes, people read

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan.

What they want to read…

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan.

Rather than what was intended.

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan.

Sometimes, people read

Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.

What they want to read…

Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.

Rather than what was intended.

Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.

Read.

But under Republican questioning, Mr. Gates acknowledged that the surge troops could remain in Afghanistan longer if the American military and its NATO and Afghan allies failed to reverse the Taliban’s recent gains.

“It is our plan to begin this transition process in July of 2011,” Mr. Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “But if circumstances dictate in December, I think the president always has the freedom to adjust his decisions.”

Sometimes, people read.

War Party

“For a President, the unit of measurement is real life.” Der Speigel rips apart the tissue of lies served up to an increasingly incredulous public. The once pro-Obama daily called the speech his ‘least truthful address’. Boink. When we’re talking about politicians, ‘least truthful’ is saying a lot:

For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama’s re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free…It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.

This speech did not, however conjure up images of Jimmy Carter, or George H.W. Bush, although those comparisons will be made. Lebanon, battleships, high-jacked airliners, truck-bombs and dead marines, instead flooded back: pilots and passengers imprisoned in the heat.

Just how much damage this feckless narcissist is capable of wreaking on the world has yet to be seen, but even Republicans concede he’s off to a good start. Cheney isn’t yet content and doubtless won’t be until US planes are flying missions over Tehran, and maybe Islamabad.



Blackwater mercenaries
on the US payroll approved by a Dem Congress, with Dem oversight. The Dem White House authorizes private snatch and grab teams operating in Pakistan. This and the violence that 30,000 more US troops can generate will have to suffice. Of course, with all the firepower and troops on the ground, it’s hard to imagine a sudden outbreak of peace, but that could still happen. Well, it could..

The Taliban have a clear deadline when the US is planning to turn over power. Whether or not that deadline is binding is another question. Will the ‘situation on the ground’ compel merely a delay in withdrawal, or another surge, or perhaps even the draft. God knows Americans need jobs.

Republican Ronald Reagan took US Marines off the safety of their ships while launching broadsides from refitted ‘battle wagons’ cruising off the coast. Alert locals decided the right response would be to send a truck or two filled with explosives straight into the Marine barracks. Ronald Reagan needed to look tough and a whole lot of US troops ended up dead. But at least that part ended quickly.

Not my guy, Dems say. I oppose the Afghanistan surge, Dems say. Demonstrate against the surge, Dems say. The fact remains: Dems control the Senate and House. Republicans shut down government. Will Dems show similar backbone over war? I think we all know the answer to that question. The ‘progressive caucus’, tough on Fox, will bow and scrape; posture and preen in an orgy of pure CYA.

The speech at West Point truly was an historic opportunity. The speech could have been a clarion call to arms: we go in and stay to finish the job no matter how long it takes. He could have taken the boldest step and proclaimed: Campaign rhetoric is one thing, American lives are another; as President I’m authorizing the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. The days of the US being the region’s policeman are over. That didn’t happen Der Spiegel froze reality in time. The moment has come and passed. Even Eugene Robinson admits another US president stood before the American people and lied his face off.

No defense exists from a US President who can’t stand the thought of being seen as weak. And for that, I suspect, once again over the next three or four years we’re all about to pay a very heavy price.

10.07.09 Eight Years In: Chances Lost in Afghanistan

Afghanistan stopped being anything about 9/11 when the talk and the beating of the war drums started and got louder for invading an absolutely innocent people and country, a country led by our once good friend, and brutal dictator, that some wanted silenced.

Now we enter the ninth year of occupying a country that if we had really kept our promises, as we didn’t once before, and helped them might look and be a completely different country, for the innocent Afghans.

TeaBags in DC and Afghanistan: McClatchy’s Nancy Youssef

Yesterday, 9.12.09, in Washington, we had this: Tea Party Protesters March on Washington extending their purely political use of the tragedy of 9/11. I’ll guess not one at the podium or with the megaphones, nor any in the crowd, even mentioned this: 5 U.S. troops among 50 killed in Afghan violence Sat Sep 12, nor much was said about all the soldiers who’ve died, or are physically and mentally injured from the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ll guess also nothing was mentioned about the monetary, in billions and billions, cost of these still operational theaters of occupation!

A friend at facebook also asked the same I’ve {many have} wondered these past eight years:

Quagmires: 8yrs. After 9/11

Public Views Shifting on War in Afghanistan

Jeffrey Brown speaks with editorial page editors about the public’s view on the war in Afghanistan and increasing doubts over sending more troops.

JIM LEHRER: The prospect of expanding the American presence in Afghanistan ran into new opposition today. It came as the nation marked the anniversary of 9/11, the event that triggered the war in Afghanistan.

Ray Suarez has our lead story report……..Rest of Transcript Here

Deadliest Month {so far}

August Deadliest Month for U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

As August becomes the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, post-election tension continues to increase. A Washington Post reporter provides an update from Kabul.

Gen. David Petraeus and envoy Richard Holbrooke

Last night the News Hour carried a report and the discussion with Petraeus and Holbrooke.

This is the site page link where you’ll find the transcript as well as the links for audio and video.

This link will give you their Video Player to watch from here.

There is No win in this now debacle. One thing about warfare these last couple of decades, outside of the bloviated power hawks talking tough to each other as others are sent to do the actual fighting, is every invasion turns to Guerilla Insurgency. It’s lost as soon as the Bombs start dropping, the Missiles Destroy, the Military Invades, ‘Hearts and Minds’ turn to Hate as their countries are destroyed but more important as their Loved Ones and Friends and Fellow Citizens are Blown To Bits or Cut Down by the Bullets Sprayed, than add in the arrests of Innocents, the Blackhole Worldwide Prisons and most of all Torture, Innocents become Enemies Real Fast, Real Fast! They either fight back or support those who do! It becomes an extreme uphill battle to win back a majority of those ‘Hearts and Minds’!!

Just ask yourself “What would you do if you were them?”!

Just think how many here felt after 9/11 and how that was used to kill and destroy many times over since!

Afghanistan stopped being about 9/11, in their eyes and the worlds eyes and minds as soon as the drums started beating towards Iraq. Security and money Stopped coming in to Stabilizes after the Taliban were removed and al Qaeda were forced to run, It Became The Quagmire That Exists Today and has expanded into Pakistan thus Inflaming the whole region even more!

Can stability be brought back, it’s possible, but the Hate will be Deeply Embedded, especially in the children growing up in the destruction and death, the ones that survive, and will linger for their decades of life!!

The only way a Guerilla Insurgency ends is on their time Not The Occupiers, but it than can be inflamed when policy is perceived  to be against those common folks, and they’ve got the fighting experience!!!!!!!

Just an added note, the Escalation, not ‘surge’, did not bring down the death and destruction in Iraq, the Iraqi people, sects, did. And that situation is a match just waiting to relight at anytime, the world can only dampen that match so it doesn’t until the Iraqi’s decide. We destroyed that Pandora’s Box, it’s up to us to try and help rebuild a new one but only if they want the help, and ours is shit in that country, others will fill the void!!  

The ‘surge’ Working?? Take 1,2,3………..

All that’s needed is for something to happen to rile the ‘mahdi’ army and the ceasefire will end, as well as some Iraqi leader to demand “America tear down these Walls!” and the Real Purposes for the ‘surge’, i.e. Escalation, will be no more!

$600 million for Iraq police?

Found at McClatchy:

Bush wants $600 million for Iraq police; but cuts aid to U.S. cops

They Served Their Country Honorably

Seven veterans under VA’s care commit suicide

They served their country honorably but after risking their life in combat abroad, coping with coming home was too much. In the last three months seven servicemen being treated by Spokane’s VA Hospital have committed suicide.

“May Day! May Day! May Day!”

MAKE MAYDAY A “NO PEACE, NO WORK HOLIDAY”!

The following was written by Jack Heyman a longshoreman who works on the Oakland docks


Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

Basra Breaking?

A few days ago we get this:

U.S. Wants British ‘Surge’ In S. Iraq: Paper

And why, because:

It quoted an unnamed senior U.S .military source saying: “Three big militias are currently engaged in a particularly bloody battle in southern Iraq.

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