The Lyndon of Afghanistan
We said this before the election. Obama has already painted himself into a corner; and that corner is named Cul-de-Sac LBJ. It all started with a fence-straddling, highly-gendered (I am a real warfighting man, too) campaign tactic that said, “Iraq is the wrong war.” Words take on force.
On Friday, President Barack Obama ordered an Air Force drone to bomb two separate Pakistani villages, killing what Pakistani officials said were 22 individuals, including between four and seven foreign fighters. Many of Obama’s initiatives in his first few days in office — preparing to depart Iraq, ending torture and closing Guantánamo — were aimed at signaling a sharp turn away from Bush administration policies. In contrast, the headline about the strike in Waziristan could as easily have appeared in December with “President Bush” substituted for “President Obama.” Pundits are already worrying that Obama may be falling into the Lyndon Johnson Vietnam trap, of escalating a predecessor’s halfhearted war into a major quagmire. What does Obama’s first military operation tell us about his administration’s priorities?
Obama’s first meeting with his team on national security issues focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the course of which the new president is reported to have endorsed the drone attacks. Friday’s were the first major U.S. airstrikes on Pakistani territory since Jan. 1, because…
Henry:
The link is missing at “Full Commentary.”
STAN: My bad. It’s fixed… I think.
26 January 2009, 7:18 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
If the US were to pull all of its troops out tomorrow what would happen in Afghanistan? Is it any business of the US? If all other NATO forces were to follow the US out what would the further consequences of that be?
27 January 2009, 6:43 amHow would events in Afghanistan affect nearby countries if US and other NATO forces withdrew? Are nearby countries justified in trying to influence the struggle for power in Afghanistan?
Stan:
This is the method of argument that bends public discourse to the maintenance of the status quo. The first hidden (and flawed) premise is that any action will have predictable consequences. The hidden premise-within-the-hidden-premise is that the current course is predictable even if the alternative is not. It’s an appeal to fear, and in many cases to an unrecognized but highly operant orientalism.
27 January 2009, 2:09 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Page Thirteen Of The Section “A. ”
An Entry Written By Tim Anderson, Jason Straziuso, and Donald Rumsfeld.
My local newspaper, on Sunday, Oct. 7, 2007, published a tragic/comic
news-article concerning the neglect of Afghanistan during the era
(2001 to 2006 ) when Donald Rumsfeld was the USA’s Secretary Of Defense. The news article was published on page A-13. That’s where
news is destined to be passed over …… passed over by some but not me………
On October 7, 2007, the tally of dead American military servicemembers in Afghanistan from Jan. 1, 2007 to Oct. 7, 2007
stood at 87. If history is gonna be accurate ( that’s the 64, 000 dollar question ) it will note that during the time that Rumsfeld was the USA’s Secretary Of Defense, the fatalities among American military servicemembers in Afghanistan INCREASED. If you really wanna study this, I recommend http://www.icasualties.org and please click on
the “Afghanistan ” section’s heading.
Anyhoooo, the stated goal of the Afghanistan “liberation” effort
was to eliminated a group of persons who are now, some seven-plus years later, more capable than ever.
If the stated goal had been to steadily increase the number of American military servicemembers being killed then Rumsfeld and Gates are totally successful.
I’d write more, but the irony of this is giving me a tummy-ache.
Timothy R. Anderson
27 January 2009, 2:27 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
“This is a method of argument”? Wow some people are really paranoid. Obviously normal humans can not travel through time and space but they can make educated guesses. But hey I guess I should not have asked because I can travel through time and space and I already know the answer and I am not going to tell you what it is. I can not read minds though, still I can guess that some smart Alex might axs me the answer. I guess that I can not even read my own mind because I thought that I was asking these questions to bring the status quo in to question.
27 January 2009, 3:12 pmDarn I do not understand how to communicate with people at all. No wonder I was unsuccessful at persuading even one soldier to defect to Iran last spring. I am going to have to complain to Darth Vader that the training I received on earthly behavior is totally outdated and did not include a definition operant orientalism. How can he expect me to corrupt the leftist movement if my motives are so obvious?
Stan:
Not directed at you, and I apologize for my hit-and-run blogging during my lunch today. But that question is the one that liberals do typically ask, with a preconceived answer hidden in the question. Again, not directed at you… and again, I apologize.
27 January 2009, 5:50 pmCharles:
If he must have the bad part of Lyndon, lets hope he reinvades poverty with a War on Poverty and Great Society social progams like headstart.
30 January 2009, 2:45 pmCharles:
I’m still concerned that if the troops are pulled out of Afghanistan, they are more likely to be sent to invade South America. Since US military forces are not likely to be 100% decommissioned anytime soon, I’d rather have them fighting actual reactionaries in Afghanistan, reactionary contras/counter-revolutionariesff, arch-misogynists, originally organized by the US and Pakistani intelligence agencies as Ronald Reagan’s “freedom” fighters; right wingers fighting rightwingers is best if there is to be any military at all. Our goal is to make Afghanistan the last US war in history.
US troops still occupy Europe,from the war they correctly fought against Nazism and fascism.
30 January 2009, 3:00 pmMichael Anderson:
An interesting article in the Guardian this A.M., which could definitely be construed as maintaining status quo, and also a reminder to the Obama true beievers that the forces that prosecuted exterminism from 2001-2008 (oh, hell, from 1776! Oh, hell, from the time we climbed down out of the trees!) are alive and well. A quote:
The former commander of the USS Cole, the American war ship that was struck by a suicide boat in Yemeni waters more than eight years ago, on Thursday slammed President Barack Obama’s orders to close the Guantánamo detention centre and reassess the prisoners being held there.
“We shouldn’t make policy decisions based on human rights and legal advocacy groups,” retired US navy Commander Kurt Lippold said in a telephone interview.
“We should consider what is best for the American people, which is not to jeopardise those who are fighting the war on terror – or even more adversely impact the families who have already suffered losses as a result of the war.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/30/guantanamo-closure-uss-cole-obama
Sigh….we all know WHICH “American people” he be talkin’ ’bout. The diseased pathological mindset of Capitalism never ceases to amaze me. Well, Stan, you said the closing of Guantanamo was a test….
30 January 2009, 3:53 pmStan:
Charles, I am absolutely shocked at the level to which you (and your Party?) have now stooped to apologize for anything Obama does or will do. Your comments about Afghanistan reveal a staggering ignorance of the actualities of that war, of war in general, and only remind me of how that same party (CPUSA) supported Roosevelt’s decision to put Japanese Americans into concentration camps during WWII. This is party discipline at its worst, or celebrity worship at its worst, but to hear a putative Marxist making this comment genuinely boggles my mind. If Obama is the commander of the armed forces, how does Latin America figure in, unless you think he would attack them, too. Troops have never decided where they will fight. This may be the most shameful post you have ever made here.
I’m outing you to Marxmail.
30 January 2009, 5:26 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
Charles,
31 January 2009, 8:32 amI do not think that your comments are stupid. Your first sentence that US forces could be used against Hugo Chavez is not totally off the wall. Your second sentence that you would rather have US forces fighting against the Taliban could perhaps use some more thought but it is not totally off the wall either. One does not have to be a communist to recognize that the Taliban period of rule in Afghanistan had some disgraceful policies even from the perspective of the conservative Iranian Mullahs. If I remember correctly before they were thrown out the Taliban instituted a policy of prohibiting education for females beyond the 3rd grade. It might have even been entirely I can not remember anymore exactly now. Maybe you can.
In any case I think that sending thousands of unenlightened US soldiers who have never read the Koran, who do not know even one of Mohammad’s (PBOH) sayings, and have never even heard of the word Hadith, may be counterproductive to say the least. Also even if the US and or NATO could destroy Taliban should they be the ones to do it? Also even if Taliban could be destroyed should it be destroyed or simply be reformed so that it changes some of its most anti human policies? Can it be reformed?
I imagine that we both consider all of humanity to be part of our extended family. The Muslims may not be our brothers but they are our cousins. If they are having a family feud we should not be the first to stick our nose in to it. Especially when we have no knowledge about. But the idea that we christians, communists, or whatever have absolutely no right to get involved in a Muslim dispute to me seems also somewhat extreme.
Now some people may use that arguement to defend US involvement in Iraq. But I do not see the situations as the same. Afghanistan was in a state of civil war before the US sent forces there. But even if that is not enough of a distinction it seems to me the level of abuse of human rights under the Taliban was much worse than under Saddam. But if I am wrong about that then we should not even have even a few hundred green berets, who have studied Islam for at least a year, 12 hours a day, and operating under the orders of the Afghan government.
Still with all of these conditions the US should not perhaps have any forces in Afghanistan because one could easily say, look no matter who takes power in Afghanistan they will not meet the standards of a left wing European political movement so it is not worth spending one cent getting involved.
So my position may not be clear to anyone reading this because it is not set in concrete just shifting sands and to summarize it, it would be that the US and NATO should have little or no involvement in Afghanistan.
And if you are a soldier and do not want to go to Afghanistan you could claim that participation in this war is a war crime because the reasons that the US used to get involved were lies, just as in Iraq. But since these lies were much less well known, especially at the time, I will not try to kill you for your Afghan service. I may try to kill you for your Iraqi service however. And I will certainly try to convince you that service in the US military today is not a service for your country or a service for truth and justice but service for a satanic like institution. If you do not believe me just ask Col. Theodore Westhusing when you see him.
I pray that you will be able to put that thought to good use.
Well i guess that I have rambled on enough for today.
Jeddi Hueber
AKA BuddhalovesPaine (trademark pending)
Timothy R. Anderson:
Thing about Afghanistan is, y’all, it is a difficult premise to sustain.
Something like this:
Why’s the international community not providing more support to rid the country of Afghanistan of terrorists ?
Likely answer: Terrorism and terrorists exist everywhere. Maybe
the USA’s government just is NOT persuasive enough.
Why’s the War In Afghanistan still on ? Didn’t it start, like,
five years ago or something ?
Likely answer: All kinds of ways to answer this ! The current War In Afghanistan started in October 2001 ; that’s more than seven years.
It is still on because it is NOT finished. Commander-In-Chief Obama’s Pentagon spokespersons are likely to use some version of ” It is still on because it is not finished ” repeatedly.
Why can’t the Afghanistan government run its own country without
outside “guidance” ?
Likely answer: What ? ! ? You mean let the non-terrorist persons
of Afghanistan have their own country ? After the progress
ALL OF THE PROGRESS that has been made ? ! ? The Afghanistan
government is really not a government, in the strictest definition of the word government. There’s not much ” Law And Order” in Afghanistan. Here’s a riddle: How many countries share the border
with Afghanistan ?
Why’s the USA’s military moving its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan ?
Likely answer: It is a marketing ploy. If one is convinced that “The Surge” in Iraq is successful then, heck, it only makes sense
to do “more” in Afghanistan !
Because, like, Iraq’s basically like Indiana, now, riiight ?
_- – / ______ — ///////// — /
Since January 1, 2006, more than 250 USA military servicemembers have died in Afghanistan.
The Democratic Party here in the USA suddenly is ” in charge”
of two wars. Perhaps it is time to roll out an abandoned phrase
a young person I once knew used to describe food that had
no one wanted to eat: ” Sloppy Seconds. ”
Timothy R. Anderson
31 January 2009, 3:18 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Jumbo-Sized Distractions ! An Essay By Timothy R. Anderson.
There’s an expectation that the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq will continue to be financed, thoroughly, even though the White House is ,now, not home to George W. Bush but Barack Obama. The persons who make money from the USA’s government’s funding of these wars are
the employees of Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Blackwater, DynCorp,
Raytheon, Halliburton, General Dynamics, Triple Canopy, Erinys,
Exxon, General Electric, and others. I doubt that President Obama will mention the WAR PROFITEERING that continues, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, because that’s really not what “suave”
politicians do.
The truth of the matter is that the USA’s military was fortunate to have survived to the degree it did over in Afghanistan from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. Another thing it is unlikely that you’ ll ever hear President Obama say, but is true !, is that it is
amazing that the USA’s military suffered fewer than 500 fatalities in Afghanistan from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008.
Get This Straight If Nothin’ Else …….. The terrorists have been
WATCHING the USA’s military’s servicemembers in Afghanistan since October 2001 ; the terrorists know what time the 1st Lt. takes
a bathroom break and they know how many minutes the guards spend
smoking cigarettes.
That’s a bad, bad strategy…….. staying in a country where
you are not, no matter how many times the claim is made otherwise,
WELCOME.
Timothy R. Anderson
2 February 2009, 2:12 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
I Am TRYING To Say THINK.
Next up is a news-article from page A -13 of the Fresno (CALiFOrNIa)
Bee newspaper, Sunday, October 7, 2007
” Bagram, Afghanistan: Six years after the first U.S. bombs began falling on Afghanistan’s Taliban government and its al-Qaida guests,
the United States Of America is planning for a long stay. ”
” Originally envisioned as a temporary home for the USA’s military servicemembers, the sprawling military base at Bagram, Afghanistan
is growing in size is growing in size is growing in size
by nearly a third. ”
” Today, the USA has about 25, 000 of its military servicemembers
in Afghanistan. Other NATO nations contribute another twenty-five
thousand military servicemembers, more than three times the number of
international troops in Afghanistan four years ago, when the Taliban
appeared defeated. ”
” The Taliban-Islamic militia has come roaring back since then, and 2007 has been the war’s bloodiest year yet.”
” Barnett R. Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University,
said U.S. leaders in Washington D.C. ‘utterly failed’ to understand
what was needed to consolidate that original Taliban rout, which
started on October 7, 2001 . ”
” Barnett R. Rubin said ‘ The Bush Administration did not see
Afghanistan as a long-term commitment, and its leaders deceived themselves into thinking that they had won an irreversible victory.
They did not consider Afghanistan important and always intended
to focus on Iraq ‘ . ”
source: news-article by Jason Straziuso, published in October 2007.
Now we are being told, by the Obama Administration, that
Afghanistan’s important. American taxpayers’ money needs to go to Afghanistan. Borrowed money needs to go to Afghanistan. American military servicemembers WHO HAVE ALREADY GONE TO AFGHANISTAN
“NEED” TO GO TO AFGHANISTAN AGAIN.
And what about what the non-terrorist civilians-of-Afghanistan think ? Does anybody EVER consider that ? Yeaaaaah, really !
There are, you know, persons in Afghanistan who are NOT terrorists. Persons who don’t like Bin Laden, meanwhile don’t like President Obama either. What say do they get in all this ? Thought so !
Within the most-recent 28 days, this item appeared on the ol’
computer screen:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Only-OneThird-of-Americans-bw-14157778.html
It should be framed as an indication of how President Obama’s emphasis on Afghanistan was rejected by numerous persons here in the United States Of America.
Pretty soon it’ll be time for another one of those MASSIVE war spending bills to smoooooothly promenade through the USA ‘s
Congress ; when it does, one would hope, that some persons here in the USA would be outspoken and loud-speakin’ about it, please.
I Am Just Sayin ‘ ……… Timothy R. Anderson
3 February 2009, 2:39 pmCharles:
?????
What about this source?
* * *
US-IRAQ: Generals Seek to Reverse Obama Withdrawal Decision
By Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (IPS) – CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus,
supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince
President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign
pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months
at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.
But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike
Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the
military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan,
according to two sources who have talked with participants in the
meeting.
Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended
the conflict between the president and senior military officers over
troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his
allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno,
now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure
Obama to change his withdrawal policy.
A network of senior military officers is also reported to be preparing
to support Petraeus and Odierno by mobilising public opinion against
Obama’s decision.
Petraeus was visibly unhappy when he left the Oval Office, according
to one of the sources. A White House staffer present at the meeting
was quoted by the source as saying, “Petraeus made the mistake of
thinking he was still dealing with George Bush instead of with Barack
Obama.”
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45640
4 February 2009, 12:39 amCharles:
Charles, I am absolutely shocked at the level to which you (and your Party?) have now stooped to apologize for anything Obama does or will do.
^^^^^
4 February 2009, 12:43 amSpare me the histrionics and redbaiting
Charles:
Your comments about Afghanistan reveal a staggering ignorance of the actualities of that war, of war in general, and only remind me of how that same party (CPUSA) supported Roosevelt’s decision to put Japanese Americans into concentration camps during WWII.
^^^^^
CB: It is absolutely certain that you know more about the direct actualties of war. What about the actual war in WWII ? That would be a better comparison than the Japanese concentration camps. A whole lot of people died or were maimed in WWII by Americans. Or how about the Soviet Army in Afghanistan;or the Cubans soldiers fighting on the African continent ? Those were actual wars. The Soviets were in the same Afghanistan.
My father fought in Italy in infantry in WW II. I was never shocked about his telling me about it. However, I know intellectually that war is horrible.
I’m not a pacifist, abstractly speaking, so, you’re not going to shame me, if that’s what you think. I’m not going to claim that I know the horrors of war anymore than intellectually, but in general I’m agaimst war,of course. On the other hand I don’t morally judge warriors. I politically judge the various wars. I do sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, attend the Memorial Day services for Black Union Army gravesites here. I don’t say there is no war I’d fight, although I can’t say whether or not I’d have the courage. I’ve just never been tested. I’ve been lucky.
^^^^
This is party discipline at its worst, or celebrity worship at its worst, but to hear a putative Marxist making this comment genuinely boggles my mind.
^^^
CB: Your analysis of O is ultra-leftist, childish. In that your mind is boggled , too. Your use of celebrity worship is dumb on this. Marxists aren’t pacifists. When I became a Marxist I specifically left MLK pacifism. I’m not a putative Marxist. I “am” a Marxist, or it to be the best general worldview.
Actually, the PWW has a front page article current edition that opposes US being in Afghanistan, and contradicts what I said above
http://www.pww.org/article/view/14383
http://www.pww.org/article/view/14383
‘Give diplomacy a chance’ in Afghanistan
So, ha ha ha I’m “breaking Party discipline”and _you_ are following the Party line. I don’t brag about it, because it’s too Kantian liberal, but I’m a fairly independent thinker, “think for myself” a lot. I probably think for myself about politics more than most people. I just don’t think it’s as much of a virtue as most American individualists do.
^^^^
If Obama is the commander of the armed forces, how does Latin America figure in, unless you think he would attack them, too. Troops have never decided where they will fight. This may be the most shameful post you have ever made here.
^^^^^
CB: Puleeasse. Don’t even try it. And _none_ of my posts are shameful, just for the record.
Of course it would be O who would order an invasion of South America if it happened during his Presidency. It’s an extreme worst case scenario, but it does worry me that somehow he might be boxed into it by the powers-that-be. The US military has troops in tens of locations around the world. I do _not_ expect Obama to be able to end very many of those “occupations”, if any , in his term. I think he might be able to avoid some new war. I’ll take zero new invasions as a success. I think he is the best chance for the shortest war in Afghanistan. I think he will _try_ to get out, and maximize diplomacy more than any other President would.
The main problem with Afghanistan is that the bin Laden group is claiming that they attacked the US (!). They are like confessing. That’s unique post-Pearl Harbor ,and 1812 before that. It makes Afghanistan qualitatively different than all US invasions since WWII. It is very difficult for Obama, as President, to just say, lets just forget about it. It’s highly possible that some section of the military rightwing would take him out, like Kennedy ,if he did that. I can say get out, but I’m not going to expect or demand that O say it.
Nor do I expect him to bring socialism domestically. He will reform the US system and empire as best as anyone could as an individual as Pres. That is all. If ,as he says, the “bottom”, the masses, somehow get movements going, he will be about the best we could get to “receive the pass” and take it farther than just about anyone else would. That’s it. This is not a revolution. We have a good chance for a reform, significant reform. I would be “shocked” if there is more.
^^^^^
I’m outing you to Marxmail.
^^^^
CB: I think I already said this on Marxmail. Marxmail is full of ultra-leftist anti-O’ism , and I contradict it all the time.
***
STAN: That PWW article was a news reprint from the Morning Star, and it did not editorialize against the occupation one iota. And neither Afghanistan nor the Taliban has ever attacked the US (until after the occupation). The attacks in the US were committed by Egyptians, Saudis, et al. No Taliban. No Afghans. The Taliban attempted to hand bin Laden over to the US twice in the year preceding the attacks, and considered him a dangerous political liability. The US bases there are posititioned in line for a once-fantasized oil pipeline, and Karzai’s “election” was put up because he is a former Unocal asset. I’ve looked over the Party website in vain to find anything that even remotely opposes the US occupation there. Just more breathless swooning over Obama. It doesn’t take military experience to understand that dropping bombs kills civilians, far more than it does any combatants; and this is why I consider the characterization of the war as “fighting reactionaries” to be shameful in general. Nor does it require a DD-214 to understand that Afghanistan is an imperial re-disposition of an imperial military in the wake of the dissolution of the bipolar Cold War era, when the focal points were the Fulda Gap and the 38th Parallel. Your hero killed at least 21 people two days after his inauguration, with children among the dead and maimed… in Pakistan! Nothing crosses that border wihtout explicit, real-time approval from the National Command Authority (that would be Obama). Hey hey, LBJ!
And I have not red-baited. Most reds would agree with me that the CPUSA has become a pathetic organ of apology to the rest of the left for the Democratic Party. I bait them because their positions and actions are so anything-but-red. Red-baiting is attacking someone as a “communist.” Your party is no more communist than the government of China. I’m not just a veteran of the army, but a veteran of the CPUSA, where “ultra-leftism” is the general-purpose rationalization for every outing of betrayal committed on behalf of the Democratic Party. Criticism of the Democrats and my interest in radical feminism, to which the party leadership was intensely hostile(“secondary contradictions,” blah blah blah), were what sent me packing.
4 February 2009, 2:05 amTimothy R. Anderson:
Uhhhhhhh, golllly, who is the opposition political party now ?
The Republican Party won’t oppose war-funding. The Democratic Party won’t oppose war-funding. Yes, individual members of both political parties might get “uneasy” about funding certain stuff, but let’s face it shall we, the wars make money for businesses and businesses get
to say what direction the USA ‘s “policies” are headed.
So, again, what IS ThE DEaL with One-Third of Americans
approving the USA’s military ‘s “surge” in Afghanistan ?
I Am Just Sayin’ Again, Timothy R. Anderson
4 February 2009, 1:15 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
Charles,
4 February 2009, 2:26 pmI had come to the conclusion that in the US the generals no longer took orders from the president but now gave them. The article that you posted above totally contradicts my belief. So I have to ask myself is it a bunch of theater designed to convince the US population that the Pres. is still the final decision maker, or am I a not merely a lunatic but a paranoid lunatic? The timing of the article hints to me that it is theater. But if I am insane I would not be able to properly evaluate evidence anyways so if I am right about anything it would be pure luck.
Charles:
BuddhalovesPaine,
We’ll have to wait and see who is really in charge, but from your posts here I don’t have the impression that you are insane.
Charles
5 February 2009, 6:55 pmCharles:
STAN: That PWW article was a news reprint from the Morning Star, and it did not editorialize against the occupation one iota.
^^^
CB: The PWW does not print articles that it has substantial disagreement with, so, The Morning Star is a good representative of the CPUSA’s opinion. I actully meant to send the following by Marilyn Bechtel who lives in California , I think
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/14357/
^^^^^^^^^
STAN: And neither Afghanistan nor the Taliban has ever attacked the US (until after the occupation).
^^^^^
CB: But the bin Laden group did , and they are sheltered there, which makes it a gray area.
^^^^
Stan:
The attacks in the US were committed by Egyptians, Saudis, et al. No Taliban. No Afghans. The Taliban attempted to hand bin Laden over to the US twice in the year preceding the attacks, and considered him a dangerous political liability.
^^^^
CB: Maybe they will try again. There’s been a _change_ in Presidents.
^^^
The US bases there are posititioned in line for a once-fantasized oil pipeline, and Karzai’s “election” was put up because he is a former Unocal asset.
^^^
CB: That’s under the previous admin. There’s plenty of potential for different responses from the new one.
^^^^
I’ve looked over the Party website in vain to find anything that even remotely opposes the US occupation there.
^^^^
CB: The first issue was what I said here is not the Party line. So, what I said here was not under discipline
^^^
Just more breathless swooning over Obama.
^^^
CB: All the while you were breathlessly ultraleftistly whining about O.
^^^
It doesn’t take military experience to understand that dropping bombs kills civilians, far more than it does any combatants; and this is why I consider the characterization of the war as “fighting reactionaries” to be shameful in general.
^^^
CB: If you didn’t understand what I said, I was saying even though I don’t have military experience, I understand that war is mass murder, even of the soldiers. even when you are fighting reactionaries.
It’s not a contradiction to say they are fighting reactionaries and killing civilians too. The US was fighting reactionaries and killing civilians in WWII and the Union was in the Civil War too. Remember Sherman’s March to the Sea ?
^^^
Nor does it require a DD-214 to understand that Afghanistan is an imperial re-disposition of an imperial military in the wake of the dissolution of the bipolar Cold War era, when the focal points were the Fulda Gap and the 38th Parallel.
^^^^
CB: Well, that stuff about the Fulda Gap and 38th Parallel may require a DD-214 to be clear on. I don’t necessarily agree with your analysis of the Cold War, so I don’t sign onto the Cold War aspect of what you say…but ,yeahh, Bush, Clinton and Bush and Congresses have definitely put some new hellified shit together as an excuse not to demilitarize. More directly the whole War on Terror is bullshit. But only ultra-left la la land thinking would expect O to dismantle it immediately, or the whole thing in four years. Get real.
^^^
Your hero killed at least 21 people two days after his inauguration, with children among the dead and maimed… in Pakistan! Nothing crosses that border wihtout explicit, real-time approval from the National Command Authority (that would be Obama). Hey hey, LBJ!
^^^
CB: Say “hero” and “celebrity” all you want. My support for O is founded in _the_ most politically right on and appropriate thinking there is. The O killed babies line is loopy.
^^^
And I have not red-baited. Most reds would agree with me that the CPUSA has become a pathetic organ of apology to the rest of the left for the Democratic Party.
^^^^
CB: Most “reds” are ultra-leftist and childish in regard to the DP. This is about _the_ biggest weakness on the US left. It keeps the left a sect. It’s sectarian.
^^^
I bait them because their positions and actions are so anything-but-red.
^^^
CB: But you are wrong about that, so your baiting is against the best interest of the working class and People.
^^^^
Red-baiting is attacking someone as a “communist.” Your party is no more communist than the government of China.
^^^
CB: The government of China is more communist than you are.
^^
I’m not just a veteran of the army, but a veteran of the CPUSA, where “ultra-leftism” is the general-purpose rationalization for every outing of betrayal committed on behalf of the Democratic Party.
^^^
CB: Helloooo, I’ve known you are a vet of the CP since about when I first “met” you eight years ago, or whatever. CP’s and my use of “ultra-leftism” is right as rain. I’ve been observing y’all ultra-lefts ( I’ve always worked with ultra-lefts a lot) and you’re obsession with opposing the DP, and I’ve been evaluating it for about thirty years now. It’s history goes back to the Trotskyists of the 30′s ,and now I just thought the especially the academic left. Especially with the election of O I am firmer than ever in the conviction that you are very much wrong on your position about the DP, and “inside/outside” tactics with DP , etc. Wrong, wrong, wrong, generally under the same (with update) analysis Lenin gave in _Leftwing Communism: an infantile disorder_ Childish political thinking, petit bourgeois revolutionism,dogmatism, sectarianism, bad anarchism.
One of the main reasons y’all are so intensely anti-O, thereby objectively allying with reactionaries, is his election makes mush of obsessed anti-DP tactics. The attitude toward bourgeois parties, “parliaments”, is a tactical, not principled question, pragmatic. It should be flexible, not dogmatic. Especially in the US with the outlawing and then delegitimizing of Communist out of McCarthyism and the Cold War.
^^^^^
Criticism of the Democrats and my interest in radical feminism, to which the party leadership was intensely hostile(”secondary contradictions,” blah blah blah), were what sent me packing.
^^^
CB: In doing so, you went backward, regressed politically.
_Radical_ feminism is giving feminism a bad reputation, unfortunately. It’s the Nation of Islam of feminism, sectarianism ,driving masses of women (and men) from “feminism”. But no matter, liberal feminism and just masses of women without the name have actually achieved a lot. Family law, reproductive rights, rape law, pay equity (Obama just signed a law; radical feminists aren’t even interested in pay equity), sexual harrassment, affirmative action, electing women as officials and women becoming lawyers and judges, city counsellors, ( I don’t know about other professions) have made enormous progress. Family law is more pro woman than man, a successful affirmative action. Women have a longer life expectancy than men, a fundamental measure of the all-around status and treatment of women that you poo-poo as unimportant. UhUh,you are dead wrong on that. There’s no way that men are happier in general than women. There has been more progress on your primary contradiction than on the old primary contradiction, and you don’t acknowledge it. Women are winning the struggle against male supremacy.
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/14357/
5 February 2009, 8:22 pmCharles:
Look ( as you know who says) , you are correct .Stan. We must raise the slogan “US out of Afghanistan” (smile)
9 February 2009, 12:50 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
A couple of links for those, yes yes there are some, who are still paying attention ………
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/07/world/main4851227.shtml?tag=main_home_storiesBySection
and this one here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29445216/
President Obama avoids talking publicly about Afghanistan. I’m gonna assume that that is by design….
Timothy R. Anderson
7 March 2009, 2:39 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
It is in the news today, waaaaaaaaay down the line under AIG AIG AIG AIG AIG AIG, that thus far this year 37 USA military servicemembers have died in Afghanistan. Furthermore, 33 non-USA , ” coalition”
military servicemembers have died in Afghanistan since January 1, 2009.
If I recall correctly, President Lyndon B. Johnson was completely terrible at assembling soldiers of other countries to help the USA’s military’s servicemembers in the Vietnam ” conflict. ”
I bring all this up today because the USA’s northern neighbor, Canada, evidently lost four Canadian military servicemembers in Afghanistan yesterrrrday …… / / / Interesting
to note, Canada’s military is smaller than China’s, and India’s, and Great Britain’s…………. yet the government of Canada delivers military personnel into Afghanistan.
To some Canadians, this is indeed annoying.
I Am Just Saying, Timothy R. Anderson ; USA civilian.
21 March 2009, 5:30 pmBuddhalovesPaine:
If these soldiers are in Afghanistan doing something important in the GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS the loss of 70 soldiers would be trivial. (OF course their loss is not trivial to their families but no one forced most of these soldiers to join the military. These personal tragedies are not the GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS) But having read that even within the Taliban, Mullah Omar has lost ground, to be replaced by other leaders, I have to wonder if the NATO soldiers in Afghanistan are doing anything important at all. They are told that they are helping to rebuild the country. That is implying that the Taliban leadership does not want the country rebuilt. So if all Afghans want their country rebuilt, then if someone is there without a weapon, but helping to rebuild the country, I can not see why they would need any security at all. Unless of course one faction in the Afghan power struggle did not trust them. Then rebuilding Afghanistan would seem to be a case of sending people to Afghanistan to rebuild the country who are trusted by all sides. Is there no one with the appropriate capabilities who are not trusted by all sides? Perhaps Islamic Indonesians and or Malaysians?
22 March 2009, 6:14 am