Oct 28 2009
The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice!
On October 27th a forum was held at the CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics. After the forum Grit TV’s Laura Flanders held a discussion with some of the women at the forum and with Malalai Joya who wrote “A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out”
Oct 28 2009
Cross-posted at Daily Kos, Prarie State Blue, MyDD, Open Left, Firedoglake.
From WaPo, October 27, 2009:
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
“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.”
Oct 28 2009
Congressman Pens Book About Iraq War Regrets
North Carolina Republican Walter Jones’ conscience is really bothering him! Back in 2002, he enthusiastically voted for and supported Bush’s call to invade Iraq. Not only that, he also ridiculed France for not supporting the U.S. effort. Remember “Freedom Fries?” Jones and fellow Republican Bob Ney waged a successful campaign to have “French Fries” renamed “Freedom Fries” on all the House cafeteria menus. But that all changed when he attended a funeral for a young sergeant killed in Iraq and listened to the fallen soldier’s last letter to his family which was read at the service. Jones began to write his own letters to the families of those killed in Iraq and came to strongly regret his 2002 vote.
Now Jones is writing a book called “My Daddy’s Not Dead Yet” as he ponders yet another vote on another war, he will soon have to cast. Jones talked to George C. Wilson who wrote a very moving article for Congressdaily.com called “Atonement.” In his article Wilson explains how Jones chose the title for his book…>>>
Oct 27 2009
I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. 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.
That’s Matthew Hoh, an Iraq combat veteran who spent most of this year as this country’s senior civilian in chaotic Zabul Province. He just quit the State Department, despite pleas and offers from his superiors, in the full realization that he is putting himself in the hot seat.
Most of the Afghanistan discussion here and in the broader left-liberal blogosphere focuses these days on the administration’s “policy review” and the known unknowns of Cabinet and Pentagon debates. Unfortunately, the “sides” in these debates seem to ignore the people of this country who in increasing numbers tell pollsters they want the war over with, most ricky-tick (to say nothing of the wishes of the people of Afghanistan).
There are those of us who have been arguing, some with restraint and patience, some hollering like our hair is on fire, that the job of progressives is not to speculate on those debates, nor to defer to officials who are said to know more than we, nor yet to mute our criticism of the President lest his enemies take comfort from our words.
Now Matthew Hoh, fresh from the battlefield, says he quit because he knows what must happen if this quagmire is not to claim more thousands of lives, more billions of dollars:
I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, “Listen, I don’t think this is right.”
As we say in the Iraq Moratorium: It’s Got To Stop. We’ve Got To Stop It.
Crossposted from DKos.
Oct 27 2009
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.
Oct 23 2009
Justified Honor and Remembrance for not only Sgt. Yarosh but all who served and are serving in these two theaters, burned soldier portrait to show at Smithsonian!
This is and will be for a long time a great tribute to this soldier, and all the Fallen and Maimed of these two continuing occupations. And like “The Wall”, until we can build a Memorial for the Fallen of both these conflicts, it should be a Reminder to this Nation of what We Allowed “In Our Names!”!!
Oct 23 2009
President Obama will soon decide whether to send as many as 60,000 additional U.S. soldiers to the war in Afghanistan. [1]
Let's urge Obama to live up to his 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Tell him to withdraw troops from Afghanistan — not send more.
The U.S. military has been in Afghanistan for more than 8 years. Enough is enough.
It's no surprise that 59% of Americans now oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan. [2]
We need to remind Obama that Lyndon Johnson's choice to escalate the Vietnam War doomed his domestic agenda to failure.
Tell President Obama today to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan.
Notes:
(1) Peter Spiegel and Yochi Dreazen, “Top Troop Request Exceeds 60,000.” Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2009.
(2) Paul Steinhauser, “CNN Poll: Will Afghanistan Turn Into Another Vietnam?” CNN, October 19, 2009.
Oct 20 2009
Some Four Plus Decades of, Enough is Enough
We’ve been going through this for some four decades now, and it’s gotta Stop Now, but I doubt it will, because it comes mainly from those that don’t serve as they wrap themselves in the banner of a political party that’s “Strong On National Defense” while condemning all others as not! It’s in their political ideology to be used and accepted by those that claim that ideology, like they found great enjoyment wearing and laughing about “purple heart bandages” not long ago. Even some who serve, and do so in our wars and occupations of choice will use it, strickly as their political meme, disgracing their own service as they attack their brothers and sisters, never having real facts to back up their claims, and never apologizing especially to their brothers and sisters!
Oct 19 2009
Crossposted at Daily Kos
War is Peace.
The Military Industrial Complex meets the Terroism Industrial Complex.
In his widely reported London speech earlier this month, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, described how people constantly offer him ideas for fixing that country’s problems. One of the more unusual recommendations, he suggested, came from a paper that advocated using a “plan called ‘Chaosistan.’ ” McChrystal said it advised letting Afghanistan become a “Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside,” but there was no further explanation of its origins.
Bold added by diarist
Much more below the fold
Oct 19 2009
Cross-posted at Dkos, MyDD, OpenLeft, and FDL.
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In today’s WaPo, Ike Skelton, Chair of the House Armed Forces Committee, teamed up with everyone’s favorite former Democrat, Joe Lieberman, on an op-ed for more war in Afghanistan called Don’t Settle for Stalemate in Afghanistan.
The president was right to call the war in Afghanistan “a war of necessity.” Now it is time to treat it as such and commit the decisive force that will allow Gen. McChrystal to break the Taliban’s momentum as quickly as possible.
And
Here at home, we must stabilize public support by convincing an increasingly skeptical American people that the Afghan war is in fact winnable.
. .
It comes as no surprise that Ike and Joe are in favor of treating our Armed Forces to more $#!t sandwiches and crap burgers in Afghanistan. Ike and Joe have been talking it up for quite a while.
Oct 17 2009
Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis wrote that American troops are viewed by Afghanis as occupiers. Increasing troop levels, as proposed by General McChrystal would only increase resistance. He recommended cutting combat forces.
“Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted,” writes Davis.
Providing the additional 40,000 troops that Gen. McChrystal has reportedly requested “is almost certain to further exacerbate” that problem, he warns.
Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis wrote a 63 page report on his own time advising against the strategy proposed by General Stanley McChrystal. Lt. Col. Davis is highly experienced in Afghanistan after serving as liaison officer between the Central Command and the Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan (CFC-A) in 2005. Moreover, in 2008 & 2009 he commanded a transition team on the border of Iraq and Iran.
Successful counter insurgencies require the support of the population. After 8 years we don’t have that support. Therefore, Lt. Col. Davis proposes a change in strategy to a “Go Deep” strategy.
The “Go Deep” strategy proposed by Davis would establish an 18-month time frame during which the bulk of U.S. and NATO combat forces would be withdrawn from the country. It would leave U.S. Special Forces and their supporting units, and enough conventional forces in Kabul to train Afghan troops and police and provide protection for U.S. personnel.
Oct 16 2009
KO visits an interview with Colin Powell in GQ from 2007 that most overlooked and shouldn’t have, while many were saying or thinking the same, as to what was happening in the previous administration, Powell says it using Eisenhower’s words and warning of the growing “Military Industrial Complex” with the slight change describing the now not “Cold War” fears once used to enrich the Defense Contractors now tuned to “Terrorism”, Criminal Terrorism, but as a force to destroy us all and our beliefs, just like nukes but adding in the beliefs to make it even scarier.