comment #1

vansmith says ...

Look, and dont act like you dont know this, the military is the biggest dog in the US, in any country for that matter and you have to feed the big dog all the time, all the time. war forever pal. the last prez to attempt to put the military on the side lines was JFK and you know how that turned out...

comment #2

Eloi Manning says ...

It was a sensible speech last night.

comment #3

joncro says ...

vansmith is right about the US but it's not that way in EVERY country. The British military gets crumbs from the table.....

comment #4

Ryansi51 says ...

Does anybody sense any happiness from Obama anymore? I mean, the guy is obviously an idealist, and i think he's figuring out this whole presidency thing ain't that great a deal.

here's to hoping he figures out a way to do what he wants to do without constantly getting tripped up by repubs and even some dems who are pretty much only focused on political aspirations; whats best for our nation is what's getting the scraps.

comment #5

allstar397 says ...

Gotta love it. Even when The One runs astray from the liberal will, its STILL not his fault. It's those evil right wingers that aren't in the white house and dont hold majority in congress. Right? Should the slogan be "First 350 days, nothing changes"?

comment #6

DeafBrownTrashPunk says ...

What the hell are we supposed to do? Have an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and leave the country in shambles? Which it WAS already in shambles before Bush and Co. decided to invade Afghanistan for no fucking reason, by the way.

What about Iraq? Can Americans just leave Iraq burning in its own self-destructive turmoil?

Granted, Afghanistan was already a nation in ruins (thanks, Soviets!), but Americans came in and fucked it up even more. Let's not even go there with Iraq.

I'm really glad I'm not the President of the United States. This ain't no easy job.

comment #7

Eloi Manning says ...

"What the hell are we supposed to do? Have an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan and leave the country in shambles? Which it WAS already in shambles before Bush and Co. decided to invade Afghanistan for no fucking reason, by the way."

The invasion of Afghanistan made a lot more sense than Iraq, given that it was actually linked to 9/11.

But the left are being very silly this morning. Calling Obama a "warmonger" on some blogs. Fuck off. It's quite clear you can't just withdraw all at once and hope everything will be hunky-dory. This seems like a sensible approach to a fucked-up situation that he inherited from his predecessor.

comment #8

vansmith says ...

afghanny is a parking lot and will be after we leave, alot of the disorganization you see in countries has to with terrain, pockets of people here and there, easy to fragment, nothing will change but we'll feel like winners...

comment #9

York "Budd" Durden says ...

Obama, he's a made guy, has been from the outset. Of course he's bailing out Wall Street, continuing a far-off for-profit war, invoking 9/11. Meet the new boss.

comment #10

dinther says ...

And do what, Jeff? What would you do?

Honestly, why do you submit to this cartoonishly simple worldview that there is an easy solution to this? Just as the right wing gave George Bush credit for the sunrise every morning, you blame Obama for the sunset.

Any serious student of this region - and the administration is full of them - will tell you that there is no ideal "answer." Those suggesting that immediate withdrawal would solve the problem fail to appreciate the import of bin Laden's 1998 fatwah, or its effects. What were the 1998 terrorist attacks on US embassies Tanzania and Kenya -- happy coincidence?

In short, this problem isn't going away simply by wishing hard and going to your happy place.

No, Obama has turned water into wine -- he hasn't even taken a tough enough stance on health care. He deserves criticism, no doubt. But his approach to foreign policy is nuanced, open, and thus far, eminently reasonable.

comment #11

rayciscon says ...

Jeff, I don't understand how you can blame the "right" for this.

What did the President say in his speech last night that didn't jibe with what he said on the campaign trail?

Don't you remember Obama referring to the Afghan war as a "War of Necessity" before and after the election?

The way I see it, this is something Obama can put in his "Mission Accomplished" column of his promises/deeds list.

My only worry is that by proclaiming an "end date", the amalgam of bad guys there will just go to ground and wait until the good guys leave.

Your argument about needing to kill all the U.S.-hating terrorists is specious. We only need to do enough to make attacking the infidel seem to be a bad idea.

This appears to have worked in Iraq, but then again we don't hear much about Iraq anymore, especially since Bush's "Surge" appears to have worked.

comment #12

le corbeau says ...

Michael Barone summed up American politics in one sentence: "There are more conservatives than Republicans, and more Democrats than liberals."

When you read this thread, keep in mind that it's almost entirely coming from the far end of that spectrum. The 10% or so at the far end.

The other 90%, for instance, can think of a fucking reason why we invaded Afghanistan in fall 2001, for instance.

comment #13

Art says ...

Of course the right runs the country, there is no left in American politics.

And the U.S were planning an attack on Afghanistan long before 9/11. "No reason" is a bit misleading.

A better question to ask here would be, what exactly is he sending 30, 000 troops in to do? There ain't much difference between the U.S backed Afghans and the Taliban to the average local.

comment #14

bill weber says ...

"mean, the guy is obviously an idealist"

Thanks for the chuckle.

He might as well be the Manchurian Candidate, indeed:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11302009.html

comment #15

dogcatcher says ...

Over the past two or three years the left "crashed the gate" and made themselves a force in the Democratic Party and now wish to act like mindless barbarians once inside that gate. They just want to burn everything to the ground.

I'm convinced that the left are now hell bent on destroying the Obama Presidency because to them this is all just a game. Nothing they say anymore even makes sense. They have become nothing more than a parody of themselves. They live in this fantasy world where they believe that they'll elect some liberal President who will pull out of Afghanistan/Iraq immediately (regardless of whatever committments may have already been made), who will nationalize the banks at the first sign of trouble, nationalize Health Care to cover the 15% or so not currently covered, etc.

Guess what Wells and libbies America over, NO U.S. PRESIDENT IS EVER GOING TO SUPPORT THAT. Even if one did, which he/she won't, NO CONGRESS WOULD EVER APPROVE OF IT!

Meaning: it's NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN! So even if you hold out for such a person, the only thing you'll accomplish is electing idiots like George W. Bush. The funny thing about these liberal assholes is they ask themselves, and others, HOW COULD SOMEONE LIKE BUSH EVEN WIN? Then they accuse people in America of being so stupid for electing him. Well, the stupidity, unfortunately, begins with them. For they are the reason that idiots like Bush win elections. Why? Because they create impossible litmus tests that no Presidents or Democratic Leaders can live by.

Liberals, like Jeffrey Wells, is the reason that the progressive movement --- and whatever issues they support (or more accurately are outraged by) week after week never advances.

Why are these people so hellbent on destroying their own fucking President for not doing what NO FUCKING PRESIDENT IN HIS RIGHT MIND would do?

Were these liberals paying attention AT ALL during the election? Did these fuckwads not listen to anything Obama said when he was running for President? They're attacking Obama for doing things he said he was GOING to do.

The problem is that liberals don't know how to govern at all. This is the strongest argument conservatives have against us. All the liberal knows how to do is criticize their government for whatever percieved oppression they pretend their living under that week. They need issues to complain about ad nauseum because they have NOTHING to offer in the way of constructive solutions.

I think now that gate may be crashing back down on the left, i'm afraid. The BLUE DOGS will be the big winners when all is said and done, just you watch. All that work WASTED, by the willy nilly few who can't stop fucking complaining about everything without so much as a hint of an alternative solution (not counting Kucinich's ridiculous Dept. of Peace).

No President in his right mind would listen to crackpots like the liberals on these stupid message boards...

comment #16

Travis Crabtree says ...

The speech was like that one scene in "The Hurt Locker" where...............

So, if you're an Obama supporter and you were saddened by his speech last night are you then saying that you thought (and were comfortable with the thought) that he was lying during the campaign when he said he was going to do exactly what he's doing now regarding Afghanistan?

I liked the speech, btw.

comment #17

markj says ...

I think The Onion said it best:

"Black man given nations worst job."

comment #18

markj says ...

Good speech btw. What else is he supposed to do? At least there's some kind of exit strategy on the cards.

Deep down Obama knows this war is unwinnable. No foreign country has ever won a war in Afghanistan, especially a war against shadows. Do the best they can, provide some sort of democratic framework and get the hell out. That's all they can do now.

comment #19

Eloi Manning says ...

Obama could cure cancer and Wells would still be disappointed.

"I'm ready to throw in the towel; a President less mezzo-mezzo would have cured AIDS by now too."

comment #20

Abbey Normal says ...

Jeff, our politics are more aligned than not, but this is an embarrassing post that I can only hope was written under the influence of a mind-altering substance (or at least a hangover).

I have serious reservations about Obama's call here, and reasonable people can disagree on how to deal with something as complicated and tragic as Afghanistan. But to say something like "guys like Barack Obama can't finally think of anything to say or do except 'kill the Islamic wackos and keep killing them until further notice'" is just fucking ridiculous. Did you listen to anything he said last night?

And yeah, that's another thing: Why did you vote for the guy if you don't support the policies he very clearly stated he would pursue during the campaign? Your expressions of shock and protest now make you seem slow-witted, like you lack comprehension and/or listening skills.

You're better than this. I hope.

comment #21

dangovich says ...

Can't complain about the speech. He emphasized Afghanistan during the campaign, so he wasn't breaking any campaign promises last night.

But dogcatcher, your continued attempts to portray positions held by the left as representative of the lunatic fringe are quite remarkable. Do you read public opinion polls? The majority of people have turned on both wars. Are they all nutty lefties? How about the vast number of people who support some type of govt-run health care?

comment #22

THE MovieBob says ...

The problem is that, in our minds at least, the West and America specifically cannot get out of the mindset that "war" is a declared, organized thing that has a definative endpoint. It used-to, back when "our" enemies were other large organized nations fighting over mostly tangible things (land, resources, wealth.) But that's not the case of this "war."

There's no real central leadership that can be knocked-out with Al Qaeda or any other terrorist organization. Find and kill bin Laden? Sure, it's probably do-able... but then what? They aren't going to surrender - he'll become a martyr and someone else will immediately become the new boss. Same for all the other sub-sects. There has always been terrorism, there always will be. Being at "war" with it is like being at war with "crime," "hunger" or "poverty." Hell, compared to the "war on terror," the "war on drugs" looks emminently winnable.

No president of either "side" will ever admit this. No liberal will admit that no matter how much aid we give, schools we build or appologies for interference we issue there will STILL be enough crazed men to continue terrorism (9-11 took fewer than 20 guys, remember?) No conservative will admit that no matter how many of them we kill, there will always be more.

It's like a disease - the best anyone can do is accept that it will still happen but that we can minimize and even localize it by being CONSTANTLY vigilant... and nobody wants to hear that. They want a "war" that's over when you kill the top guy, and that's not this. These guys are mosquitos - best-case-scenario you can guard against them to the point that they aren't much more than a nuisance, but they're always gonna be there.

But, of course, if Obama or anyone else said that, that would be "surrender." So on we go.

comment #23

bents75 says ...

"This is the strongest argument conservatives have against us."

Us?

Speak for yourself Dogcatcher. Just because you sound like a psychopath doesn't mean every other liberal is.

comment #24

nightheat says ...

The truth is, we need either a president (and government) on the extreme left or extreme right to solve all the problems facing this country. And we need it fast.

America is going down... face up to it. Repuplican/Democrat are both corrupt. Face up to that. Obama won and suddenly millions of people started paying attention to how government is run, and we're seeing how corrupt and devoid of any true solutions it is.

Eh. Whatever. Let's enjoy the american dream while it lasts because its dying and close to death

comment #25

Emmanuel_Goldstein says ...

Why does everyone act like a foreign policy guru on this thread and completely wash over the reality that is Hamid Karzai and his cronies. This dude is overtly corrupt where he has power, and powerless with everything else.

Sending a billion more troops wouldn't achieve any lasting change for Afghanistan unless there was a legitimate, honest and widely recognized government there to provide stability and services.

Staying in Afghanistan and adding the 30,000 troops is to "finish the job" and not let our previous 8 years' commitment of blood and treasure go to waste, while achieving some kind of lasting stability to the region. Butit is this very goal that cannot possibly be achieved, with any number of troops, without a proper and legitimate Afghani government in place to lead. Without it, the country will revert to its current condition within 10 years.

comment #26

DeeZee says ...

Deaf: "Granted, Afghanistan was already a nation in ruins (thanks, Soviets!),"

Actually, that's our fault, too. And I was all for saving the place until we let a drug-dealer steal the election. Where's the democracy in that?

dinther: " Those suggesting that immediate withdrawal would solve the problem fail to appreciate the import of bin Laden's 1998 fatwah, or its effects."

Actually, that had more to do with the Saudis, but we don't actually want to come up with alternate fuels, so...

ray: Obama also criticized Bush for getting us into a pointless war, which he's doing now.

"My only worry is that by proclaiming an "end date", the amalgam of bad guys there will just go to ground and wait until the good guys leave."

Actually, I think they'll do the opposite, and be more brazen, because we've already acknowledged our breaking point to them, but we're trying to put on a front of coming off tougher than we really are right now.

Art: The Collapse guy claimed he was taking advantage of the drug trade there.

dog: "They live in this fantasy world where they believe that they'll elect some liberal President who will pull out of Afghanistan/Iraq immediately (regardless of whatever committments may have already been made),"

Didn't seem to bother Ford and Eisenhower much.

"who will nationalize the banks at the first sign of trouble, nationalize Health Care to cover the 15% or so not currently covered, etc. "

It's a lot more than 15%. And if we can subsidize and pay kick-backs to the corrupt fucks at Halliburton and Blackwater, I see no problem with taking over corporations which are destroying our country.

"Guess what Wells and libbies America over, NO U.S. PRESIDENT IS EVER GOING TO SUPPORT THAT. Even if one did, which he/she won't, NO CONGRESS WOULD EVER APPROVE OF IT! "

Not the current people in charge, anyway. But we're getting there. If Gingritch, Lieberman, Hillary, and McCain can go down, then there's nothing stopping the rest of these scumbags, especially when Americans actually get off their asses to vote, as they did last year.

"They need issues to complain about ad nauseum because they have NOTHING to offer in the way of constructive solutions. "

No, our problem is we have constructive solutions, but the other side thinks letting the "free" market binge and purge until it takes us down with it is a better alternative.

"The BLUE DOGS will be the big winners when all is said and done, just you watch."

The blue dogs will be the losers, because they're going to be expected to be able to justify the invasion of Afghanistan at the expense of health care reform.

Eloi: Please. Obama hasn't even passed legislation which makes treating cancer affordable, which was also one of his promises, in regard to health care in general.

Abbey: Um we voted for the "change" Obama, not the military industrial complex Obama.

comment #27

le corbeau says ...

"The problem is that, in our minds at least, the West and America specifically cannot get out of the mindset that "war" is a declared, organized thing that has a definative endpoint."

Exactly. By the same logic, we might as well take all the police off the streets, because despite our declaring a war on crime, somebody's car stereo still got stolen last night. It's unwinnable! Might as well put all our valuables in the street!

comment #28

David says ...

The right-wingers voted down gay marriage in New York. How did they pull that off when there were more Democrats than Republicans? Did their votes count twice? They are tricky people, I tell you.

comment #29

Emmanuel_Goldstein says ...

This is sort of what I'm trying to get at when it comes to the issue of Karzai and his rule...

comment #30

Emmanuel_Goldstein says ...

whoops, forgot the link, haha. Anyways too late now but its on newsweek.com

comment #31

Ray says ...

Obama is a fucking pussy who has reneged on every promise he made to get elected. Gay rights ... public option ... troop withdrawal.

God I wish Ron Paul had managed to get elected. He is simply the only guy in Washington with any fucking brains or balls.

It's time for a second American Revolution.

comment #32

Colin says ...

Ha ha ha, ray, too funny.

It's hilarious how often the unhinged psychopaths of this country decided their pissed off so there is going to be a a violent overthrowing of gov't to make it all better.

What do you think Ron Paul would do differently? He wouldn't even have enough votes in Congress
to scratch his nose.

comment #33

Colin says ...

*they're not their

comment #34

David says ...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Ron Paul would have pardoned at least someone in the United States this far into a presidential term. Imagine having that kind of power to do good, looking at the entirety of convictions in the United States and shrugging your shoulders. "Yep, all guilty."

comment #35

DeeZee says ...

Ronald: "By the same logic, we might as well take all the police off the streets, because despite our declaring a war on crime, somebody's car stereo still got stolen last night. It's unwinnable!"

Well, definitely in the name of the War on Drugs, anyway. But I love that you're using that same counter-argument to the twisted logic that government is only bad when it's meant to benefit the public at large to support endless war, since endless war is what's forcing states to lay off cops.

David: "The right-wingers voted down gay marriage in New York. How did they pull that off when there were more Democrats than Republicans?"

Because homophobia's the new slavery and segregation? [I.E. something you pass along to the next generation to sort out.]

Colin: "It's hilarious how often the unhinged psychopaths of this country decided their pissed off so there is going to be a a violent overthrowing of gov't to make it all better."

Because the right never does that, except for Oklahoma City, and the Jewish Community Center shooting, and...

comment #36

DeeZee says ...

*at large, not to support*

comment #37

mccool says ...

Thankfully Jeff Wells is just an oscar blogger and not a person of influence.

comment #38

frankbooth says ...

Don't worry allstar397, Palin has captivated the public and McCain will win this thing by a landslide.

What? Oops. Sorry -- when I read the phrase "The One," I thought we were somehow back in the summer of '08.

Meanwhile, for everyone in the here-and-now:

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/richardson-report/obama-timeline-110309

http://www.slate.com/id/2236708

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

That should keep y'all busy. Agree, disagree, furiously post links, chew up the carpet...

comment #39

Outdoor Lighting says ...

Obama has allready send 30000 troops to Afghanistan and also told Poland to send additional troops to the affected area to to maintain peace, Thanks for posting nice vedio.

comment #40

DeeZee says ...

frank: I generally appreciate those accomplishments, but those aren't the issues which affect us as a public. For example, the stimulus was clearly under-funded, as Krugman predicted, but Obama has not acted on it. And Obama keeps flipping around on a public option. Plus, even if health care reform passes, it might end up denying family planning coverage to women and still allow insurance companies to continue to screw us over-especially if we get stuck with a trigger. As for the CIA, no one's being held accountable for torture and rendition, and any evidence is being covered up. And prisoners in Gitmo who've been cleared are still being detained.

comment #41

Gordon27 says ...

"By the same logic, we might as well take all the police off the streets, because despite our declaring a war on crime, somebody's car stereo still got stolen last night. It's unwinnable! Might as well put all our valuables in the street!"

That isn't actually logic; the fallacy you're committing is that the political jargon which declares the police's job to be a "war on crime" is the actual definition of war, completely identical to an international incident requiring a Congressional vote and military deployment. They're two different things, much like the media uses the word "tsar", but it isn't actually a governmental position, let alone identical to the use of "tsar" formerly related to Russia.

comment #42

le corbeau says ...

There seems to be an impression that I used an analogy to burglary accidentally and without realizing how it disproved my case. I used it quite deliberatelty. We do not intend to win in Afghanistan, in the sense that we do not intend to take the territory, put up pictures of our king in all the classrooms, take their women to be our dancing girls, etc. What we intend to do is very much like what the police do in a bad neighborhood: disrupt gang activity, reduce violence to levels where businesses can operate, kids can go to school, etc. We don't lose if the bad guys score once in a while, we win if there was X amount last year and this year we've got it down to Y and a lot of them have said fuck it, I'm going back to farming. That is exactly what happened in Iraq with the surge, and it can happen in Afghanistan too, which was in fact a relatively stable place in its own tribal/primitive way until the Soviets, yes, the Soviets, not us, wrecked it 35 years ago.

comment #43

Colin says ...

DZ, I would really appreciate if you read my posts instead of scanning it briefly and making an assumption. I was referring to Ray's posts as an example of the right's movement to try to overthrow America, because a black man is in office.

comment #44

DeeZee says ...

Ronald: "What we intend to do is very much like what the police do in a bad neighborhood: disrupt gang activity, reduce violence to levels where businesses can operate, kids can go to school, etc. "

It sounds more like what corrupt cops do, which is
keep certain gang-members in charge, while taking a cut of the dope profits. Besides, the last time we tried to do what you suggest, we had our asses handed to us in Somalia.

"We don't lose if the bad guys score once in a while, we win if there was X amount last year and this year we've got it down to Y and a lot of them have said fuck it, I'm going back to farming. "

But we'll never get it down to Y, because the Afghanis are not united on anything, other than getting us the fuck out of there.

"That is exactly what happened in Iraq with the surge,"

So why are we still there again?

" which was in fact a relatively stable place in its own tribal/primitive way until the Soviets, yes, the Soviets, not us, wrecked it 35 years ago."

Wait, who funded and trained the muhajideen, the Taliban, and Bin Laden again?

Colin: Fuck, my bad, again.