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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: coug who wrote (79319)	11/17/2009 4:25:30 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

For Obama It's One (Term) if by War, Two if by Peace by Harvey Wasserman Published on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by CommonDreams.org As the world awaits Barack Obama's decision on Afghanistan, a lethal myth has spread. It says that standing up to the military will doom him to be a single-term president. The "one if by peace" myth comes most recently from Garry Wills in the New York Review of Books. Wills mourns that Obama would commit political suicide by pulling out of both Iraq and Afghanistan because "the charges from various quarters would be toxic---that he was weak, unpatriotic, sacrificing the sacrifices that have been made, betraying our dead, throwing away all former investments in lives and treasure." Against all that, says Wills, "he could have little defense in the quarters where such charges would originate." Coming from an astute observer like Wills, this is a stunning analysis---and dead wrong. In fact, the only way Obama can begin to think about getting re-elected is to leave the Afghan quagmire and do the same from Iraq. The key phrase here is "the quarters where such charges would originate." The battle cries originate with the military which, as Will Rogers once put it, "never saw a war it didn't like." General Stanley McChrystal and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have spearheaded an unsavory, unethical media assault to force a quick escalation. Their core support comes from the Rogue/Rouge Right now shattering the Republican Party. This media-based Palin paramilitary has just driven the GOP to defeat in a New York Congressional district, Republican for more than a century. It's now assaulting Charlie Crist, the very popular moderate Governor of Florida, and others like him. Any Republican caught whispering that Obama is other than a baby-killing Muslim gay terrorist is being condemned in ways not seen since Salem, 1692. This might seem good for the Democrats. But Obama can blow it all by escalating in Afghanistan. His core support---a substantial majority of Democrats, and any number of moderate Republicans---wants out. The California Democrats have formalized the message. National health care and climate change remain hugely important. They are divisive and difficult. And there will be no meaningful progress on either without a draw-down on our overseas adventurism and the larger military budget. Thus Afghanistan towers above all. The decline of the Democratic Party and the US as a whole dates directly to March, 1965, when Lyndon Johnson escalated the war in Vietnam. The ensuing decade of futility overflowed with agonized analysis and absurd apologia. In the end, all the US could do was spend, destroy, kill, die and flee. So, too, Afghanistan. Be the motive geo-political, anti-terrorist, petro-chemical, feminist, humanitarian, or just plain not wanting to "lose," American bombs from the air and boots on the ground will simply dissolve and disappear in an ocean of shifting sands and ancient enmities. Whatever his admirers fear might be said about Obama "losing" this hopeless sinkhole will be screamed anyway by the Rogue/Rouge Right, no matter what he does. In their eyes, all ensuing terror attacks, economic downturns, human frailties, stubs of the toe and twists of inscrutable fate will be Barack Obama's fault, no matter what or why. Standing down in Afghanistan and Iraq would be truly historic. It could end the epoch---dating to 1492---when Europe continually marched throughout the Third World. More narrowly, it would acknowledge, at last, America's inability to shape every corner of the Earth to its overbearing whim. Perhaps it would finally curb this nation's addiction to squandering blood and treasure on these absurd, hopeless and ultimately suicidal military excursions. For Obama and 2012, it might make the dream of meaningful health and energy reform financially feasible. It could prevent the liberal base in this country from shattering, as it did in 1968, opening the door to Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush....and now to the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and Dobbs. Few things are guaranteed in politics. But one certainty is that an escalation in Afghanistan will again poison the Democratic Party and leave Barack Obama an empty political husk. The brilliant, good-hearted Garry Wills begs Obama to do the right thing for the sake of morality and sanity. But if Obama has any hope of guiding a coherent administration for the rest of this term, or of winning a second one, he has no choice. The Graveyard of Great Powers awaits yet another misguided imperial attacker. Let's hope, pray, work and fight to make sure that this time, we step aside. _______________________ *Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

To: coug who wrote (79319)	11/17/2009 5:52:03 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Stop wasting lives on a war we can't win mydesert.com By Art Copleston Special to The Desert Sun November 15, 2009 The Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan led to 11 years of destruction and carnage. The Soviets sent in 100,000 soldiers in their effort to subdue and control the country. In the end, the Soviet treasury was devastated, 25,000 of their best soldiers had been killed and another 25,000 crippled or injured. The Soviets were humiliated and withdrew in total defeat. In the wake of that carnage, the Taliban came to power. By 1996, they had taken control of Afghanistan, imposing strict enforcement of fundamentalist Islamic law and providing a haven for Osama bin Laden. Following the 9/11 attacks on our country, President George W. Bush gave the Taliban an ultimatum to hand over bin Laden. They refused, so Bush launched his war against the Taliban in an effort to “get bin Laden, dead or alive.” We allowed bin Laden to escape. Then we turned our focus on Iraq, while continuing our misguided and fruitless efforts in Afghanistan. Fueled by recruits and money from foreign countries, the Taliban have built their strength in recent years. They run a sophisticated financial network that raises hundreds of millions of dollars yearly from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings and extortion. And now we have the Karzai regime, tarnished by perceived illegitimacy, as our only choice in our efforts to “stabilize” that country. What chance do we have to do that when the Afghans don't see their own government as legitimate? What is the value in continued American casualties and huge costs in pursuing what amounts to a 35-year-old civil war between rural people who just want to be left alone? Is our goal still to “get bin Laden, dead or alive”? How many troops will it take to do that — 40,000 more? Another 100,000? The hawks are intent on framing the debate narrowly: Either give Gen. Stanley McChrystal what he wants or accept national defeat and humiliation. Either endless war or Vietnam capitulation. What would “victory in Afghanistan” be? The truth is that victory in this misguided venture can't be defined, nor can it be attained by pursuing our current course. Obama knows that. He listens to his advisers and he thinks. Former Vice President Dick Cheney calls it “dithering.” If we continue to pour countless billions of dollars and thousands of troops into this effort forever, what will it gain us? Will we simply continue to bolster a failing state, while promoting an ideology and system of government unknown and unwanted by the Afghan people? If bin Laden so easily evaded us in 2002 by escaping through the mountains, what makes us think anything has changed? Have the mountains flattened? And, if we do succeed in chasing al-Qaida from Afghanistan, are we then to start a new war in some other country on the pretext of getting them “dead or alive”? Are we to allow perpetual war to define America's foreign policy? Should unambiguous military supremacy continue as the ugly and feared face of America's relationship with the rest of the world? Is that what we want? I say no. Now is the time for a major change in strategy. People around the world are watching and waiting for this president to deliver on his call for change. There can be no greater change than to remake America's image in the eyes of the world. Enough! _____________________ *Art Copleston of Palm Springs is chairman of the Desert Foundation for Democracy. E-mail him at asavage@dc.rr.com

To: coug who wrote (79319)	11/23/2009 7:12:25 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

A One-Term President? Why Not, If He Ended an Endless War commondreams.org by Gary Wills Published on Monday, November 23, 2009 by The New York Review of Books I am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming a one-term president. I think that may be true. The charges from various quarters would be toxic-that he was weak, unpatriotic, sacrificing the sacrifices that have been made, betraying our dead, throwing away all former investments in lives and treasure. All that would indeed be brought against him, and he could have little defense in the quarters where such charges would originate. These are the arguments that have kept us in losing efforts before. They are the ones that made presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon pass on to their successors in the presidency the draining and self-lacerating Vietnam War. They are the arguments that made President George W. Bush pass on two wars to his successor. One of the strongest arguments for continued firing up of these wars is that none of these presidents wanted to serve only one term (even Lyndon Johnson, who chose not to run for a second full term). But what justification is there for buying a second presidential term with the lives of hundreds or thousands of young American men and women in the military? I have great hopes for the Obama presidency, even in his first term, and especially if he could have two terms to realize the exciting new things he aspires to do in the White House. But I would rather see him a one-term president than have him pass on another unwinnable war to the person who will follow him in office. I know how difficult it will be to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. We go into these places, now, trailing baggage of a deadly sort. There are more hired American contractors in both nations than there are military personnel. What to do with these unaccountable and corrupt bands? We have farmed out so many of our national duties that the contractors, like our banks, have grown too big to be dealt with. Who is to guard our soldiers if not our mercenary bodyguards? But we had a thousand soldiers wounded in the last three months-a quarter the number of wounded since 2001. These include many lives shattered forever. We sink deeper into blood, with no foreseeable end in sight. Qualified reporters and military officials foresee another ten years in Afghanistan-and their projections usually err on the short side. The American people now oppose the war, and it is folly to keep up a war without support back home. We will hear predictions of dire consequences if we don't carry out a commitment, and don't yield to demands of the military to expand forces. We heard that for years about Vietnam. But when we did withdraw, the consequences were not as fatal as those we incurred during the years that saw the deaths of over 50,000 of our soldiers and many more Vietnamese. Some leader has to break the spell before costs mount further while our wars are passed from president to president. Among other things, this will give our military a needed chance to repair the wear and tear on men and equipment that the overstretched regular services and the National Guard have suffered, and to make them ready for other challenges. It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be sustained without shame and defeat. If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching. Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost lives and limbs are not. *Garry Wills is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern. His most recent book, What Jesus Meant, was published in 2006.