Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009 10:06 PM
Press release on Afghanistan from Tom Hayden
The president's proposed Afghanistan policy is not a product of intelligent
rethinking so much as it is a predictable Obama preference for an imaginary
centrism.
On the one hand, he is sending 30,000 more American troops, who have been
dying at a current rate of more than 500 per year.
On the other hand, he is attempting to placate growing anti-war sentiment by
pledging to limit the duration of the war.
As with all compromises, this one will satisfy only the few. It is what
President Bill Clinton called kicking the can down the street.
The antiwar movement will continue to support Rep. Barbara Lee's bill
cutting off funds for the troop escalation and Rep. Jim McGovern's
resolution calling for the administration to offer an exit strategy.
Sending 30,000 or more American soldiers to die for the Karzai government is
a waste of valuable American lives, which at the present rate will exceed
1,000 in two years of bloody battles under President Obama. Spending one
million dollars per American soldier will mean a waste of one trillion
dollars on this war by the end of the President's term of eight years.
These costs in human lives and tax dollars are simply unsustainable.
The president is tragically jeopardizing his domestic agenda by this
expenditure of tax dollars without any tax increases. Like President Johnson
before him, President Obama is squandering any hope for his progressive
domestic agenda by this tragic escalation of the war.
As I committed myself during Vietnam, I am committing myself to do
everything possible to turn our nation's priorities around and make
President Obama's domestic agenda a possibility. Just as President Johnson
could not pay for guns and butter, President Obama cannot possibly pay for
Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Pentagon's projection of a "long war" of
fifty years duration.
I am afraid to say that President Obama is even risking his presidency by
this decision. From this point forward, he will lack the support of the rank
and file Democratic majority and become dependent on the very Republicans
whose highest priority is to defeat him in 2012.
***
http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/6599
Hitting the Brakes on Afghanistan
By John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus: 11/23/09
Imagine finding yourself in the driver's seat of a car heading directly at a
brick wall. You panic: What to do?
Fortunately, there are three people in the car with you, and they all have
very firm advice. The person in the passenger seat tells you to push the
pedal to the metal. Right behind you in the back seat, your friend is urging
you to accelerate only modestly. And the fourth person in the car recommends
that you maintain your current speed.
You might be thinking: These are my only choices? I'll hit the brick wall
either really quickly, rather quickly, or pretty darn soon. The end result
will be the same. The car will be destroyed and all four of you will be in
the hospital.
Since these are the choices now being presented to President Barack Obama
for his Afghanistan policy, who can blame him for being slow to make up his
mind? His top general is telling him to send 40,000 troops. His vice
president is telling him to send 10-15,000 troops. And his secretary of
state and Pentagon chief are urging the middle course of 30,000 troops.
Isn't anyone out there telling the president that he has more levers at his
disposal than simply the gas pedal? Isn't anyone pointing out the obvious?
The brake, Mr. President, the brake!
Frankly, the car metaphor isn't precise. It's actually a bus heading toward
that brick wall. A really, really big bus. And we're all on board, the
entire U.S. population. The president's advisors are all clustered up at the
front. Their voices are pretty loud. But we can all make our voices heard if
we all shout together from the back of the bus.Call the White House at
202-456-1111 and keep the message simple: Don't send more troops to
Afghanistan, Mr. President.
Peace groups around the country are coordinating this call-in campaign in
these few days before Thanksgiving so that the president knows, before the
expected announcement of his Afghanistan policy next week, that there are
other choices. Here's a link to some additional talking points about
different congressional options.
"It is unlikely that we will soon have another president with the moral and
rhetorical force to talk us out of a foolish commitment that cannot be
sustained without shame and defeat," writes Garry Wills in The New York
Review of Books. "If it costs him his presidency, what other achievement can
match it? During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he would
rather be a one-term president than give up on his goals. Here is a goal no
other president we can imagine would have a possibility of reaching.
Presidents who just kick the can down the road are easy to come by. Lost
lives and limbs are not."
The crash can be avoided. But we must call the White House and let the
driver-in-chief know that we're here, we're clear, and we don't want this
war no more.
***
US Army Suicides Hit New Record
Washington, Nov 18 (Prensa Latina) Suicide rates among US soldiers matched
the 140 record of 2008, and 42 in the Navy alone, Vice Chief of Staff, Lt.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli told USA Today.
The release coincides with President Barack Obama plans of sending fresh
troops to Afghanistan, so the numbers could further soar if the aid programs
are not effective.
One third of the victims were war vets from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering
brain injuries and PTS in non-combat missions.
=========================================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
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