Kerry on Afghanistan

I’ll start this out with a short clip of a speech Senator, and brother ‘Nam Veteran, Kerry gave on his return from a fact finding and diplomacy trip to Afghanistan. In this clip, in just a couple of sentences, he lays out the reality as to what one leading ‘chickenhawk’, and to many war criminal, has been blathering lately. Though Kerry doesn’t mention it also speaks as to what that chief ‘chickenhawk’s’ spokesperson, his daughter, fast becoming the leading ‘chickenhawkette’, has also been spreading around, allowed to and rarely, if ever, challenged.

Kerry, like many especially us who served in Vietnam, have had some four decades to better understand how extremely wrong government policies, especially as to invasions leading to occupation, can go wrong and in the video cut above states how the recent past was built on failed policy after failed policy after failed policy……….. as well as ignoring the original intent policy of why we sent our military into that region of the world. It all stopped having anything to do with the criminal terrorist attacks on this country as the civilian and military leadership set their sites on Iraq, many feel was their main purpose to begin with, and they were given a reason to engage.

After Senator Kerry’s speech he had a sit down discussion that aired on the PBS News Hour last night giving more insight to his fact finding visit to Afghanistan.

Sen. John Kerry  

“If are you going to ask some kid to put his life on the line…I think we all have an obligation to make certain we have maximized the ability to be successful.”

Kerry: Afghan Troop Push Goes ‘Too Far, Too Fast’

Margaret Warner speaks with Sen. John Kerry about his recent trip to Afghanistan to persuade President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff election.

Snip

MARGARET WARNER: You said in your speech today that General McChrystal’s plan goes too far too fast.

Are you talking about the troop levels or his basic overall strategy of counterinsurgency?

SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-Mass.: The breadth of the reach of the counterinsurgency that he wants to start with and the number of troops to do it immediately. That doesn’t mean you might not get there, ultimately, Margaret.

But I think you have got to show people like me and others that we have the civilian capacity to come in under underneath those troops, and the governance that’s going to allow us to hold on, and the Afghan army members who will be in there with you, so it’s not an American face; it’s an Afghan movement immediately.

I think those three ingredients are critical. And we just don’t have that sufficiently there to say, oh, boy, let’s just go deploy this number of troops now.

MARGARET WARNER: So, are you suggesting to the president that he simply defer a decision on additional troops? Are you…

SEN. JOHN KERRY: No, I think the president could conceivably make the decision with — and in many ways. He could put in some troops. He could put in a lot of troops. He could do, you know, any number of options.

But I’m trying to suggest that the standard that you use before you put them out into combat and clear an area and start to hold an area and actually implement the counterinsurgency component itself, I think you need those ingredients, or you are going to fail.

MARGARET WARNER: But the ingredients you lay out, some kind of effective local and national governance, Afghan security forces, a much better coordinated U.S. civilian effort, I mean, those are big projects, aren’t they?…>>>You can watch or listen to and read the rest of the transcript at this link

Or watch the discussion in this player {it’s just shy of eleven minutes}:

There’s a meme used far to often to justify the wants of the few who seek to enhance their power, wealth or extremist views or whatever goes on in their heads by using military’s, ours especially, to force those views on others, even including those they supposedly represent. That meme is “Freedom isn’t free!”, frankly it is,freedom is found within each of us supposedly intelligent human beings, freedom doesn’t come by extreme force and terrorizing others, invading and occupying, dictating policies they must follow, creating more hatreds thus enemies seeking retaliations, especially from the young who grow up during the destructive occupations.

This morning we get this report:

U.S. official resigns over Afghan war

Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting

Snip

“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”

The reaction to Hoh’s letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.

U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer,” Holbrooke said in an interview. “We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him.”…>>>Rest Found Here

Matthew Hoh is seeing what many of us saw during our years of Vietnam and many have started to see over these past years as to Afghanistan and Iraq, especially in Afghanistan after we left to invade Iraq. What purpose is there still occupying that country, there’s only one purpose that can be sought, giving security to the people, who don’t want us there, and try to give security to NGO’s coming in to help rebuild though under a corrupt government and lax Afghan security, lax mainly because it’s their own countrymen they will be forced to fight.

The Taliban are growing, or those we label Taliban, in numbers because of the rise in hatreds towards us especially due to our now nine year destructive occupation of Afghanistan, our bombing in Pakistan by robot planes killing and maiming more civilians then so called high value targets, our creation of hatreds from invading and occupying Iraq causing the hatreds to grow towards us in the whole region, we are no longer seeking out nor fighting the ghost enemy al Qaeda, or those we label as belonging to, though their numbers are also growing and probably seeking what the Taliban aren’t outside the region terror attacks!

This Country was left with a huge host of problems and failed policies by the previous administration, very difficult problems that really can’t be corrected but can be minimized, Hopefully. Even as CiC these extreme failed policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are not only up to President Obama these were laid at our feet qwith the blood on all our hands, we are the ones the hatreds are being lashed out at not just our government nor it’s leaders, it is what the next generations will be left to deal with, these are the legacy and world we are leaving them!!

If interested Laura Flanders will be airing a discussion tonight at Eight PM on her Grit TV stream which then will be archived:

GRITtv with Laura Flanders » EVENT: WOMEN AMONG WARLORDS: Rebuilding Afghanistan

We hear a lot about women in Afghanistan, but their voices too often are silenced. On Tuesday, October 27, join GRITtv host Laura Flanders at CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics with Afghan activists Malalai Joya, the first female Afghan parliamentarian, Awista Ayub and Nasrine Gross to discuss their work rebuilding their country.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 3:00 PM

Skylight Room (9th floor)

If you can’t make the event, don’t miss our Tuesday show on Afghanistan, featuring Malalai Joya and Nasrine Gross, right here at 8 PM.