Here's a dead giveaway. When you have to rely on surprise to visit a country which you've supposedly controlled for almost a decade, you're not winning anything.
Barack Obama made his own surprise visit to Afghanistan on Friday. He was flown right in, unannounced, wearing a jaunty, classic A-2 leather flight jacket.
Obama's people staged the obligatory, photo-op bull session with the troops at which the POTUS assured the soldiers, "you will succeed." Obama then told his audience they were breaking the momentum of the Taliban.
Mr. Obama's words suggest he still sees the conflict as a military war. Somehow I'd thought he was brighter than that. Guess I was wrong. Then again he merely assured the troops they would succeed - succeed at what he didn't specify. If he meant succeed in defeating the Taliban, actually getting them to surrender, those troops can expect to be in Afghanistan until Hell freezes over.
"Somehow I'd thought he (Obama) was brighter than that." I thought so too but he is a great disappointment so far. He is too busy to please Repugs in the name of bi-partisan that his own agenda is drowned in that.
ReplyDeleteMoS: when you are waging a war for absolutely nothing, and you need to preserve the appearance (at least) of empire, and keep the populace afraid and thus agreeing of the need to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here", and also keep on feeding the gluttonous mouths of the military-industrial complex ... well, what other choice do you have?
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I have become persuaded by the late Chalmers Johnson and by Andrew Bacevich that America has far more than an appearance of empire.
ReplyDeleteAs Bacevich points out there has been a profound repositioning of American overseas military power since the demise of the Soviet Union. Where the US military formerly had a very light footprint in the Middle East and even less presence in South Asia these now mark the focal point of American military power.
Mentarch, I have reviewed at some length two Bacevich books, "The New American Militarism" and "Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War." Just search "Bacevich" on this blog and you'll find the entries.
A retired, career Army officer turned academic, Bacevich connects the dots to show how America's military came to be enmeshed with Christian fundamentalism, the neo-conservative movement and the 21st century military/industrial/warfighting complex.
In his final years, Chalmers argued that America's neo-imperialism sows the seeds of the Republic's destruction.
I don't believe Obama would have the power to dismember American militarism nor am I sure he would even want to. With a divided, "bought and paid for" Congress and a citizenry that identifies their military and police as their most trusted institutions, America seems doomed to remain militarily muscle-bound.
That hissing, popping sound you hear is the fuse steadily burning.
I hope that some will wake up and see that we have already lost in Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteThe Wikileaks exposure show that privately at least, foreign governments know that Kharzai is corrupt and incompetent. But more importantly, we cannot win there.
When will politicians have the fortitude to tell citizens that this is fucked... After all, the people are funding this "war".
It's good to finely see that the left is beginning to learn that their main man is in fact a fool, and electing this idiot was a major mistake.Now,you liberals elected this character,get rid of him-post haste.
ReplyDelete@Anon8:15. Why do they allow computers into the hands of right wing morons like you? Do you ever actually think before you rant or is blathering like a fetish with you people? Imagine if "bomb, bomb, bomb, ...bomb, bomb Iran" McCain had won, the geriatric fuckwit and his even duller sidekick. Christ, you would still be waging war in Iraq, banging away endlessly on Afghanistan and watching the world economy collapse after Iran sealed off the Persian Gulf in retaliation for American air strikes. Your rank stupidity is genuinely breathtaking. Oh yeah, he would also have "deregulated" those banks and brokerages that have already left you in a ditch. One final point for you trailer trash types - idiocy is not supposed to be a religion. Oh, and did I mention that you should fuck off?
ReplyDeleteNumbnuts (anon 8:15) suffers form the delusion that Obama is a lefty. Noting could be further from the truth.
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