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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (181817)	12/5/2009 5:39:47 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361853

The Afghan Ambush _______________________________________________________________ by Michael Winship Published on Saturday, December 5, 2009 by CommonDreams.org The decision has been made. The months of meetings and briefings are over.Tuesday night, the President made it official: 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. Along with Friday's announcement of an additional 7,000 from our NATO allies, and after all those weeks of debate and consultation, the result's pretty much exactly what our commander over there, General Stanley McChrystal, asked for in the first place. As they used to say in the old war movies, we're in it now, up to our necks. More than ever, this is Obama's War. The mess he inherited from the previous administration is now his mess. And while many Republicans may don their helmets, rattle their empty rusty scabbards and shout that escalation is the only way to go, their temporary declarations of support are just that -- temporary. Pats on the back are simply their way of finding the proper place to stick the knife. Last week's Gallup Poll showed that while 65 percent of Republicans support sending all the troops McChrystal wants, only 17 percent of Obama's own Democrats do; 57 percent want a troop reduction. In other words, ignoring the entreaties of a majority in his own party Obama is going to war cheered on by the opposition that will do everything in its power next fall to bring him and his fellow Democrats down. Friday's New York Times reported, "President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan over the objections of fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill is straining a relationship already struggling under the weight of an administration agenda that some Democratic lawmakers fear is placing them in a politically vulnerable position." Next year's midterm elections could be a disaster for the Democrats. That's what happened to Lyndon Johnson. After winning by the largest plurality ever in 1964, bringing with him huge majorities in the House and Senate, in 1965 he escalated the Vietnam War. The next year, Democrats lost 50 seats in Congress. That's just one of the possible effects of this fateful decision, one that could scuttle Obama's campaign promises of social and other reforms just as surely as the Vietnam War did President Johnson's. Guns and butter, LBJ said; for a time he thought we could pay for both. We could not. Money that could be spent generating jobs, improving education, fighting global warming and world hunger is poured into this bottomless chasm of war. Some estimates put the ultimate cost of occupying Afghanistan at a trillion dollars. Add that figure to the mind-numbing numbers we've already spent on the occupation of Iraq. It keeps mounting even as our cities and states are running out of cash, unemployment benefits are drying up, and we're trying to figure out how to pay for health care reform -- which some politicians are suggesting we back burner so that we can "focus" on the war in Afghanistan. Yet nothing is certain about our objectives there. The original goal of capturing Osama bin Laden was lost long ago, and so scattered now are our motives and so shaky our rationale that, prior to President Obama's speech, the Pentagon was asking the public to Twitter what "points and/or issues" they thought the President should highlight. Nor is there any real evidence that the administration is serious about the 18-month timetable for withdrawal that the President announced in his West Point address. As The New Republic's Michael Crowley wrote, "The pledge is a largely empty one: In a conference call, White House officials made it amply clear that the extent and pace of any drawdown would be based on conditions on the ground. Theoretically, Obama's promise tonight could entail withdrawing 100 troops in July 2011 and pulling out the rest ten years later. Much as the White House wants to deny it, what we've got here is an open-ended commitment." Our own military says Osama bin Laden's true believers have been reduced to a relative few, chased across the border into Pakistan or scattered as far as Yemen and Somalia. As for the Taliban, there seems to be a growing belief among many generals that at least certain factions can be bought off, much as the support of certain Sunni insurgents was paid for in Iraq, fueling the so-called "surge" that's increasingly mythologized as victory. But what part of "take the money and run" does the Pentagon not understand. And when it comes to training the Afghan police and army, and continuing to support the corrupt and dysfunctional government of Hamid Karzai -- such a wager has all the makings of the sucker bet to end all sucker bets. Toss into that pot disputatious warlords fueled by self-interest, the opium trade and hostility toward any outside occupier, and the already slim odds fade to mathematical improbability. You've made your decision, Mr. President, and good luck with it. But turn back as fast as you can. It's an ambush. *Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program "Bill Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (181817)	12/5/2009 10:41:28 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 361853

5 Reasons that Corporate Media Coverage is Pro-War survivalstation.org

To: cosmicforce who wrote (181817)	12/6/2009 12:58:17 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361853

War veteran: Afghanistan fight is a 'charade' timesargus.com December 6, 2009 CHARLOTTE — Edward Everts spent three days drifting in the Pacific Ocean in a raft among swirling sharks after his plane went down during World War II. He was on board a bomber, dropping tons of bombs with the U.S. Army Air Corps (today's Air Force) when his plane crash-landed into the ocean. Three days later he and the seven other survivors were rescued by a Navy destroyer. Four men perished in the crash. Today, the 90-year-old Everts is engaged in a more protracted battle. The California native is a member of Veterans for Peace and says he believes the war in Afghanistan — like the war in Iraq — is an immoral foreign-policy blunder, pushed by those who profit from war. Calling the fighting an "Afghanistan slaughter, where innocent civilians by the thousands are dying," he said, "I don't think any of the troops belong there because they were lied to." The U.S. war effort in Afghanistan was born out of "deception and misinformation," just like the war in Iraq, Everts said during a two-hour interview at his country home. "I'm against it," he said of the war in Afghanistan. "The whole thing is a charade to show that we are a military power. There's always money to be made in war." About 1,500 Vermont National Guard troops will be deployed to Afghanistan early in 2010, the largest deployment of Green Mountain Guard soldiers since World War II. 'Obama's war' Everts belongs to a chapter of Veterans for Peace out of Burlington. He said the group has about 70 members, with some six to 12 members meeting once a month. Drafted into the Army Air Force in 1942, Everts served as a weather forecaster in the Pacific Theater. A mechanical problem after a bombing run over Japan forced the crash landing at sea. "We floated in a leaky raft for three days with sharks all around," he said. Upon being rescued, several of the men were taken away in stretchers, but "I walked off," Everts said. After President Obama approved a plan to add 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, Everts said what was once Bush's war "becomes Obama's war." President Obama is looking more and more like Lyndon Johnson as the former president escalated the war in Vietnam, Everts said. "I think he's painting himself into a corner and he won't be able to get out of it," Everts said of Obama. A retired lieutenant colonel, Everts has traveled to Vietnam and Iraq as a peace representative. He went to Iraq in 2000 with the Veterans for Peace to help establish a water purification project. In 1980, he traveled to Vietnam with a group of peace proponents, staging "the first demonstration for peace" by Americans in that country, he said. A retired film director, Everts obtained a degree in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. He has lived in Vermont since 1972. Dual addictions Everts said both wars in Iraq were about America's dependence on oil, to prop up a friendly regime as a guarantee that plenty of oil will continue to find its way to the States. "I'm against any of our troops being sent to the Mideast," he said. "The whole thing was a rigged affair to get oil." Describing the war in Afghanistan as "an occupation," Everts said the fight there is only another in a long list of unwinnable, "immoral" wars. Lacking a military draft, the United States can continue to wage war with impunity, Everts said, because the vast majority of Americans are untouched by the consequences of war. The government, he said, is "quite clever" about running two wars "without stirring up the American people." But with the current economic crisis hurting so many Americans, Everts said he believes the time will come when Americans will grow tired of sending troops abroad to places like Afghanistan and Iraq. "I think there will be more resistance to the wars," he said. "The wars are going to break us." Everts said he believes that the American "war machine" is driven by the Pentagon and by those corporations that manufacture arms, munitions and goods used for warfare. Every state has companies under contract by the Pentagon, Everts said, "so every state has an addiction to war." The United States has grown into an empire, with military bases located throughout the world, Everts said. "We have 700 bases of one kind or another around the world," he said. "We've had some military force being applied somewhere since the 1880s." Military force should be used only as a last resort, according to Everts. "I'm against committing our troops anywhere, except for protecting our shores," he said.