Could We All Give Up On This Idea Now?

Different people, different organizations, all with the same idea, the same "solution."

Maybe we all should try a new strategy.

The Common, Repeated, Everyday Use of Fear in America

It's gotten old.

Really old.

We should be smarter than to let anyone do this to us.

Dear Religion,

One more reason the world can no longer afford the luxury that is war

"In this increasingly interdependent world, we have few pure “enemies” anymore: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Al Qaeda, the Taliban. But we have many “frenemies,” or half friends/half foes. While the Pentagon worries about a war with China, the Commerce Department is trying to get China to buy more Boeing planes and every American university worth its salt is opening a campus in Beijing; meanwhile, the Chinese are investing in American companies left and right. President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is the biggest thorn in America’s side in Latin America and a vital source of our imported oil. The U.S. and Russia are on opposing sides in Syria, but the U.S. supported Russia joining the World Trade Organization and American businesses are lobbying Congress to lift cold war trade restrictions on Russia so they can take advantage of its more open market."

--Thomas L. Friedman, The New York Times

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/opinion/its-mitts-world.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120905

Some Muslims, at least, don't seem to get PR

From the Star today: TERROR TERM: "A Massachussetts man convicted of conspiring to help al-Qaida was sentenced Thursday to 17-1/2 years in prison after giving an impassioned speech in which he declared his love for Islam and predicted one day his trial would be viewed differently. His family and supporters gave Tarek Mehanna a standing ovation as he was led from the court." See? Here's the problem--the problem isn't, for me, with Islam or Muslims at all. The problem is with people who support terrorist groups. You and I could believe in everything political but if you support a terrorist group to gain your goals, we part ways. And this, like I say, is what at least some Muslims don't seem to understand. In the case above, if he simply practiced his Muslim religion, good for him. Supposedly there are words of peace in the Koran (Quran). Terrific. That's as it should be. But if you stand up and cheer for someone who gave money to a terrorist organization, you have definite public relations problems at least in the country where the case took place, if not in the world. It reminds me once again of the question: "Can't we all just get along?"

"Preventive detention"? From a former Constitutional Law Professor?

Are you freaking kidding me? This from a constitutional law professor? No proof of guilt first? No trial by jury?

Quote of the day

"If..." President Obama's..."troop to al Qaeda militant ratio in Afghanistan had been employed during World War II in fighting Germany and Japan, the United States would have deployed 3.5 billion military personnel abroad..." --Bruce Fein, Author, 'American Empire: Before the Fall". Links: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-fein/president-obamas-politica_b_889539.html

Training Afghanis for war? Really?

Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer. If there is one thing Afghan males should not need to be trained to do, it’s to engage in warfare. That may be the only thing they all know how to do after 30 years of civil war and centuries of resisting foreign powers. After all, who is training the Taliban? They’ve been fighting the U.S. Army to a draw — and many of their commanders can’t even read. --Thomas L. Friedman, columnist, The New York Times Link to original story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/opinion/23friedman.html?src=me&ref=general

Like Vietnam, we need to get out

I've been reading several articles in the last few days about Afghanistan and the Afghanistan war the previous administration got us into.

It seems everyone is talking, lately, about our status there now and what, exactly, we should be doing in the short- and long-term.

I think if we consider a few basic statistics and some raw, hard data about Afghanistan that we can see the only sensible thing to do is, as I said above, treat it like Vietnam and get the hell out and as soon as possible.

The following information comes from Frank Rich's article in The New York Times today:

--"the number of Qaeda insurgents there has dwindled to fewer than 100, according to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones";

--"American intelligence officials now say that 'there are few, if any, links between Taliban commanders in Afghanistan today and senior Al Qaeda members'”;

--"we will never build a functioning state in a country where there has never been one";

--we cannot "score a victory against the world’s dispersed, stateless terrorists by getting bogged down in a hellish landscape that contains few of them", describing Afghanistan;

--"The Congressional Research Service estimates that the war was running $2.6 billion a month in Pentagon expenses alone even before Obama added 20,000 troops this year";

--"The existing Afghan “army” is small, illiterate, impoverished and as factionalized as the government;"

--"Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is poorer, even larger and more populous, more fragmented and less historically susceptible to foreign intervention." Thinking that we've had "success" in Iraq is virtually completely unsupportable in my view and many others and even if you do think we've been "successful", the war and difficulties we face in Afghanistan are far more vast and troubling than Iraq;

This is the big one, for me:

--"Gen. David Petraeus stipulates that real counterinsurgency requires 20 to 25 troops for each thousand residents. That comes out, conservatively, to 640,000 troops for Afghanistan (population, 32 million). Some 535,000 American troops couldn’t achieve a successful counterinsurgency in South Vietnam, which had half Afghanistan’s population and just over a quarter of its land area";

This all, for me, brings up the following questions which Mr. Rich wrote of today:

--Why are we dealing and working with Hamid Karzai who is known to be part of greedy, corrupt and graft-laden government that is benefitting mightily from overseeing this country, which is in such a mess? and

--Why are we doing anything but writing scenarios to get out of Afghanistan as quickly, safely and intelligently as possible, given even these few facts, above, other than to "save face" for America?

--Are we too proud to do the right thing for our soldiers and our country?

The Soviets had to do it--and did--and somehow survived. If it's the right thing--in this case, withdrawing from Afghanistan, you just do it, eventually.


Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11rich.html?th&emc=th

Addendum:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/143097/the_human_cost_of_war%3A_the_images_the_corporate_media_doesn%27t_want_you_to_see/

More proof they lied

Okay, before we had the Downing Street memo, remember? It proved that the Bush White House was "cooking the books" about intelligence in and about Iraq, so they could take us all to war.

Now, here comes a book from Pulitzer Prize winning author Ron Suskind, saying that the Bushies lied to us further and that he has proof.

In his new book, '“The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday,' Mr. Suskind 'claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.'

See the entire, original story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080805/pl_politico/12308

But wait, there's more!

Indications are that Mr. Suskind's information may, in fact be valid and not dreamed up, as the White House, Republicans, the neocons and Fox "News" would have us believe:

'The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”'

The original article has a great deal more information to it, too, than I will relate here. Suffice it to say, it's pretty condemning and indicting of this administration.

So bury your head in the sand if you wish, but this seems to be further, strong proof that y'all were duped into this high human and financial cost war. Check it out, by all means.

If anything, this should embolden Senator Kucinich, in his quest to impeach the current occupant.

Stay tuned.