Let's Be Patient
President Obama in Iraq:
This is going to be a critical period, these next 18 months.
Three Friedman Units.
from Wikipedia:
The term [Friedman Unit] is in reference to a May 16, 2006 article by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) detailing journalist Thomas Friedman's repeated use of "the next six months" as the period in which, according to Friedman, "we're going to find out...whether a decent outcome is possible" in the Iraq War.
President Obama also said:
It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis. (Applause.) They need to take responsibility for their country and for their sovereignty. (Applause.)
And in order for them to do that, they have got to make political accommodations. They're going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means. They are going to have to focus on providing government services that encourage confidence among their citizens.
All those things they have to do. We can't do it for them. But what we can do is make sure that we are a stalwart partner, that we are working alongside them, that we are committed to their success, that in terms of training their security forces, training their civilian forces in order to achieve a more effective government, they know that they have a steady partner with us.
And so just as we thank you for what you've already accomplished, I want to say thank you because you will be critical in terms of us being able to make sure that Iraq is stable, that it is not a safe haven for terrorists, that it is a good neighbor and a good ally, and we can start bringing our folks home.
"We can start bringing our folks home." When? Silly me, I thought that was going to happen right away. (Obama also said the Iraq war "is an extraordinary achievement," but we'll let that go, not without noting the million deaths and the four million displaced.)
"It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis." (Applause.) Gotta love it.
Memories of General George Casey, March 8, 2005:
Casey had high praise for Iraqi security forces, saying they are growing in competency as well as numbers. Today there are more than 140,000 trained and equipped Iraqi troops and more than 90 operational combat battalions engaged across Iraq, both with coalition forces and, in some cases, independently.
And George Bush, Nov 30, 2005:
Our commanders on the ground see the gains the Iraqis are making. General Marty Dempsey is the commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command. Here's what he says about the transformation of the Iraqi security forces: "It's beyond description. They're far better equipped, far better trained than they once were.
"The Iraqis," General Dempsey says, "are increasingly in control of their future and their own security. The Iraqi security forces are regaining control of the country."
As the Iraqi security forces stand up, their confidence is growing. And they're taking on tougher and more important missions on their own.
As the Iraqi security forces stand up, the confidence of the Iraqi people is growing, and Iraqis are providing the vital intelligence needed to track down the terrorists.
And as the Iraqi security forces stand up, coalition forces can stand down. And when our mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will return home to a proud nation.
Donald Rumsfeld spoke (a lot), November 29, 2005:
Could I just -- stop right there. Please, let me just -- stop right there. Anyone who takes those three words and thinks it means the United States should clear and the United States should hold and the United States should build doesn't understand the situation. It is the Iraqis' country. They've got 28 million people there. They are clearing, they are holding, they are building. They're going to be the ones doing the reconstruction in that country --
Think of it. We've gone through four Iraqi governments in two and a half years: the Governing Council, the Transitional Government, the Interim Government, the next government. That's a lot of turbulence and turmoil. They have a chance to get them in place and provide leadership in their country. It's their country. They're going to have to grab a hold of it and run it.
Our problem is that any time something needs to be done, we have a feeling we should rush in and fill the vacuum and do it ourselves. You know what happens when you do that? First of all, you can't do it, because it's not our country, it's their country. And the second thing that happens is they don't develop the skills and the ability and the equipment and the orientation and the habit patterns of doing it for themselves. They have to do it for themselves. There isn't an Iraqi that comes into this country and visits with me that doesn't say that. They know that. They know that they're the ones that are going to have to grab that country. And it's time.
"And it's time," over three years ago. Where have I heard that, recently? "It is time for us to transition to the Iraqis. . .The next 18 months are critical."
This isn't the first time that force has been applied to the Iraq government.
George Bush again, Jan 2007:
I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people – and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.
Over two years ago. I guess we'll just have to be patient.
--------
Don Bacon is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, war is a racket. Other articles by Don Bacon may be found here and here.
From Frances Fitzgerald's Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam:
"There was a timeless quality to the American effort -- which is not to say that it was static but that it was constantly moving over the same ground. Each year the new young men, so full of vague notions of 'development,' so certain of their own capacity to solve 'problems,' so anxious to 'communicate' with the Vietnamese, eagerly took their places in this old, old war. ... Only the faces of the young men and the numbers of hamlets changed year after year. For those who stayed in Vietnam long enough, it was like standing on the ground and watching a carousel revolve."
Of course, one can go even further back in America's twentieth-century history to see the same mindless military carousel revolving madly in another foreign country that eventually solved its own problems without the need for any further "assistance" from America. As Barbara Tuchman put it at the conclusion of Stilwell and the American Experience in China:
"Would the fate of China have been different if [General Joseph] Stilwell had been allowed to reform the [Nationalist Chinese] army and create and effective combat force of 90 divisions? 'I myself firmly believe,' wrote General William R. Peters, who as a colonel had served as chief of the OSS guerilla unit in Burma, 'that had Stilwell’s plan for equipping, organizing, and training the Chinese ground forces been carried through to completion, Japanese infantry would not have been able to overrun the air bases in south China in 1944 … nor would the Chinese Communist ground troops have achieved their ends after the war against the Japanese was over.'"This assumption might have been true if Asia were clay in the hands of the West. But the 'regenerative idea,' Stilwell’s or another’s, could not be imposed from outside. The [client government's] military structure could not be reformed without reform of the system from which it sprang and, as Stilwell himself recognized, to reform such a system 'it must be torn to pieces.'
" ... Stilwell’s mission was America’s supreme try in China. ... Yet the mission failed in its ultimate purpose because the goal was unachievable. The impulse was not Chinese. Combat efficiency and the offensive spirit, like the Christianity and democracy offered by missionaries and foreign advisors, were not indigenous demands of the society and culture to which they were brought. ... China was a problem for which there was no American solution. The American effort to sustain the status quo could not supply an outworn government with strength and stability or popular support. It could not hold up a husk nor long delay the cyclical passing of the mandate of heaven. In the end China went her own way as if the Americans had never come."
While I find the image of the endlessly revolving carousel an apt metaphor for the American military's maladroit misadventures in the post-WWII period, I think a much simpler analogy to a one-line computer virus in BASIC will do just as well: namely,
START: GO TO START
Personally, I do not counsel patience when confronted by America's endemic Warfare Welfare and Makework Militarism. The American government has already had twelve Friedman Units to withdraw our military forces from their needless and pointless deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq. But I do acknowledge that most Americans worry more about their collapsing economy than they do about Afghanistan and Iraq and that this fact has encouraged America's career military and their corporate camp-followers to think they can squeeze out another year or two or three of exhorbitant rewards for yet more colonial failure.
As well, I do not suggest passively accepting more Manufactured Mendacity and Managed Mystification designed specifically by our government to deceive us. But having gotten my hands dirty voting for flawed Democrats so as to boot venal and vicious Republicans from office, I now have to find some way to convince President Obama and the Democratic Congress to bring America's twin revolving carousel's in Iraq and Afghanistan to a timely (which to me means less than six months) stop. Not surprisigly, it doesn't look like many people in the corrupt American government -- most certainly not the embittered and deranged Republicans -- share my views. I can criticize President Obama's native caution as well as anyone else, but I have to make certain that in doing so I do not in the slightest imply that letting the rabid Republicans back into office even remotely warrants serious consideration. The Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they simply love every minute that President Obama leaves our military forces marooned half a world away at the end of precarious, easily disrupted supply lines. So America certainly cannot expect the unmentionable ones to offer any conclusion to the quagmires they initiated and continued for so many years.
I've seen every American president from Dwight Eisenhower to Dick Cheney, and I've only seen one of them -- President Eisenhower -- run for office as a "peace" candidate and then actually deliver peace within a very short time. But as a former general and a Republican, the conventional American political wisdom let Eisenhower get away with his wimpy peace-mongering in Korea whereas any Democratic Party President -- which now means President Obama -- has to first dodge the conventional canard that Democrats "hate" the American military and cannot effectively "keep America safe" from whatever bogeyman closet monster the Republicans can invoke at a moment's notice. I did not invent this rank double standard, but anyone who does not acknowledge it will utterly fail to understand one thing President Obama has to do in order to actually achieve a peace that Republicans won't immediately attack as "surrender" to the bogeyman closet monster du jour. Personally, I think the Republicans will just attack anything President Obama accomplishes, no matter what; so I really wish he would just tell them to go get screwed and do what he needs to do.
Of course, none of this "conventional wisdom" stupidity would need explication and/or debunking except for the notorious fact that the American public, on any given day, usually prefers to believe in closet monsters -- and frequently votes accordingly. President Obama has to keep this unfortunate truth in mind, as well.
So I don't want anyone to "patiently" abstain from criticizing President Obama. I just want the criticism to achieve the intended result of ending our Lunatic Leviathan's latest two ruinous rampages. Peace in Iraq and Afghaninstan will depend upon the Iraqis and Afghans, in any event. No American president can guarantee peace in a foreign country when the people of that country want to fight over power and natural resources until one of the foreign factions wins. I do not approve of President Obama's political calculation that the American people will accept one "little" war in Afghanistan in order to terminate a "big" war in Iraq. But, then, Barack Obama won election to the Presidency by calculating his political possibilities that way -- and I didn't. Recent polls show that most Americans -- like most Europeans -- don't really want much to do with Afghanistan and don't care if anyone declares America "the winner" in Iraq. Americans just want out. President Obama will either recognize this or his presidency will go down the tubes like the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon did. Time will tell.
Cheez, Michael, you're never happy. When I jump on Obama for not doing anything you say give him more time and when I suggest patience (with a large dose of obvious sarcasm, at least I hope it was obvious to others if not to you) you want action.
Obviously there are all kinds of reasons for not being patient. I tried to highlight your 'mindless military carousel' aspect with similar quotes from the past. Nothing changes, even when change is promised. There is also the financial aspect, what is it, twelve billion a month when we have a severe financial crisis and Americans dying from lack of medical care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3GOfdkqyjQ&feature=player_embedded
I love that Frances Fitzgerald quote, especially relevant with the recent photos of exuberant young military people in their cammies embracing President Obama in Iraq, celebrating their "extraordinary achievement." War is a drug (and a racket) and too many Americans are hooked on it.
It's amazing to see the supposedly progressive democrats turn partisans, praising Obama's every word. They are as wrong as it's possible to be. When we let Obama get away with praising the Iraq war, we smooth our path to the next war(s). The logic that normalizes the Iraq war (all's well that can somehow or other be made to seem to end well) can be applied to ANY military aggression. And believe me, we WILL have more wars. The Global War for Resources has only just begun.
It's amazing to see the supposedly progressive democrats turn partisans, praising Obama's every word. They are as wrong as it's possible to be. When we let Obama get away with praising the Iraq war, we smooth our path to the next war(s). The logic that normalizes the Iraq war (all's well that can somehow or other be made to seem to end well) can be applied to ANY military aggression. And believe me, we WILL have more wars. The Global War for Resources has only just begun.
They're going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means.
Legal and Constitutional means... like aggression, invasion, and occupation?
They are going to have to focus on providing government services that encourage confidence among their citizens.
Encourage confidence among their citizens... like doubling and redoubling the national debt and burning the money borrowed on Wall Street, Camp Victory, and Afghanistan?
Obama ought to read these things before he delivers them.
One can only hope that Obama is just talking to please the crowd and that in his heart he knows better. He hasn't shown any real signs of that yet however. Actions, Barak, actions!!
Thanks for the Fitzgerald quote MM. You could quote a score of other books about the US and French in Viet Nam and it would be the same. So much of the truth of Viet Nam is appropriate today it isn't funny. MM, we might not agree on another day, but your comment this day I support.
Politicians seem to be scared stiff of issung the faintest hint of reducing military appropriations. Balderdash. The US military is a bloated ogre that is sucking the blood from America and it needs to undergo an aggressive diet and downsizing, beginning cold turkey with the fountain of dollars. The founding fathers, the people who thought up what we now say we hold dear, didn't think America needed a standing army period and counselled in the strongest terms against it, in the interests of ensuring freedom and liberty. Freedom and liberty are not a function of the size of a nation's military.
The US military was supposed to have taken a tremendous body shot in Viet Nam that, through diligence and soul searching over twenty years, it managed to recover from. After the past six years, it is clear that it didn't learn very much, and that it made almost all of the same mistakes it made a generation before. I really wish it weren't so, but the military has managed to totally destroy my confidence in its decision-making.
JamesL,
Right on.
There is currently no need for a standing army, much less an expanded one.
The least the US might have done to honor all the teenage cannon fodder it exploited in Vietnam was not to do it again -- but here we are, doing it again, watching a carousel revolve.
James,
I owe Don a response to his complaints about my unstable "happiness" but I'd like first to address your mention of the real cause of America's current economic and political stagnation: namely, our bloated and bureaucratic career military establishment and the way it has insidiously woven itself an impervious security blanket using the carefully unravelled threads of the very institutions designed specifically to prevent such self-interested aggrandizement. Your mention of our Founders and their design of our Republic bears especially upon this fundamental point. (We can discuss our military's mad misadventures in China and Vietnam -- precursors for similarly doomed crusades in Afghanistan and Iraq -- a little later.)
As Alexander Hamilton pointed out in Federalist No. 8:
"Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free."
America has now unquestionably become the nightmare result of those creatively conjured "threatening" forces which Hamilton described: what we these days accurately label THE NATIONAL INSECURITY STATE. When Gore Vidal called Americans "among the most easily frightened people on earth," he may not have had Hamilton's specific comments in mind, but he certainly amplified their truth for our times. In fact, America's standing career military has "defended" perennially petrified Americans right into the arms of despotism. This sorry state of affairs has not happened overnight. It has taken many decades for the malignancy of imperial militarism to metastasize. But the self-inflicted cancer now theatens the life of the nation.
You put the case succinctly when you correctly say that "[our] politicians seem to be scared stiff of issuing the faintest hint of reducing military appropriations." This comment goes right to the heart of the matter as we can see from the instant, bleating uproar in Congress to Secretary Gates' recent call for cancelling certain weapons systems (in favor of continuing others). Our corporate/military/political establishment has worked long and hard to assure the maximum political support for every terrible toy in their fantasy candy store by spreading contracts for building these weapons throughout as many Congressional districts (and Senate states) as possible. Natural, pork-barrel proclivities then take over and make downsizing the Lunatic Leviathan a practical impossibility. So much for our founders supposing that making Congress revisit military appropriations every two years would suffice to prevent perpetual military entitlements to both the public purse and America's (formerly) cherished individual freedoms.
I don't know how President Obama will deal with this obvious political barricade to national recovery and rejuvination, or if he even thinks it necessary to deal decisively with our career military at all. (Of course, we have two other branches of government who could weigh in here, but they don't seem any longer alive and/or relevant.) Right now President Obama seems almost obsessed with proving that he, as a Democrat, doesn't "hate" our military like "some people on the Left" (like me) supposedly do. But those of us who have actually served in the monolithic American military -- and who have survived to tell the tale -- owe it to our young President to educate him on the legitimate differences between "hate" and "fear." I don't hate the American military, although I do fear it as any good sailor fears embarking on a long and dangerous voyage with an obese, drunken captain busy counting his medals in his stateroom instead of watching out for the icebergs looming dead ahead at present course and speed.
Barack Obama, who made his first official visit to the country yesterday, is now trying to disengage from Iraq without appearing to scuttle or leave anarchy behind.
And as muchas Mr Obama would like to treat the Iraq war as ancient history, the US is still struggling to extricate itself. The very fact that the Democratic President had to arrive in Iraq by surprise, as George Bush and Tony Blair invariably did, for security reasons, shows that the conflict is refusing to go away.
The Iraqi Prime Minister and President remain holed up in the Green Zone most of the time. The American President could not fly into the Green Zone by helicopter because of bad weather but the airport road is still unsafe and Baghdad remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The Iraqi political landscape too was permanently altered by the US invasion and it will be difficult to create a stable Iraqi state which does not depend on the US. Opinion polls in Iraq show that most Iraqis believe that it is the US and not their own government which is in control of their country.
One change which is to Mr Obama's advantage is that the American media has largely stopped reporting the conflict because they no longer have the money to do so and a majority of Americans think the war was won. But the danger for the President is that if there is a fresh explosion in Iraq, he may be blamed for throwing away a victory that was won by his predecessor.
Mr Obama's effort to make a U-turn in American policy towards the Islamic world will ultimately depend on how far he changes US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians, the occupation of Iraq, the confrontation with Iran and Syria and the war in Afghanistan.
Can Obama turn rhetoric into the reality of peace with the Muslim world?Patrick Cockburn The Independent Wednesday, 8 April 2009
tabetha1515 wrote in respond to Patrick Cockburn article:
As an American, I was taught to fear muslim Jihadists... But after some time has passed I have tried to make up my own mind, and what I found when I removed all the propaganda was that there are many young muslim men fighting not a holy war, but against foreign occupation... Im a young woman told to trust blindly in her government... But how can you stand behind your government when people are being tortured daily by the very same people that I am supposed to trust?
Now back to Don and his complaints about my unstable "happiness" vis-a-vis his posted opinions in this discussion venue. Where to begin? Perhaps with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Self Reliance:
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall."
I have said many times that I do not disagree with your critique of imperial militarism, Don; only at times your manner of arguing against it. Specifically, I objected to two of your posts: namely "Black is Black, I want my Barry back" and "Play it again, Barry" for good and numerous reasons which I have already laid out in my responses to those posts. I either made my point or I didn't. I won't repeat it here.
As for your use of "sarcasm" -- a term I consider inferior to "irony" -- I have not failed to detect it when offered. I just think it defeats your purpose to employ it in ostensibly arguing for "patience" when the average reader can easily infer that you mean to denigrate the term. Understanding, then, that when you ask for "patience" but sarcastically mean precisely the opposite (say, "action") it does not then constitute an inconsistency on my (or any other reader's part) to take note of your sarcasm, appreciate that you desire action instead, and then advocate action un-sarcastially. Can you follow the logic? Sarcasm tends to burn those not sufficiently practiced in its refined execution. Simple, outright mockery often works better because unencumbered by the conceit of cleverness.
I mean, a simple, unsarcastic "thank you for your support" would have done just as well.
I have many criticisms of my own to level at President Obama, although I have no problem with also acknowledging his successes here and there. He has had some, and probably more than many presidents can boast of accomplishing in their first 30-60 days on the job. He has, for one thing, managed to get passed a huge budget very heavy on domestic spending priorities. The American people hugely approve. So if took issue with you saying that President Obama "hasn't done anything" -- especially in the realm of diplomatic/foreign affairs -- I have my reasons.
At any rate, the two quotes I supplied above -- from Frances Fitzgerald and Barbara Tuchman (although I should have cited them in reverse, chronological order) come from two books that I used as sources for a college term paper I wrote back in 1973 while a foreign-exchange student in Taiwan. The professor of our Sino-American Relations course knew that I had only recently returned from Vietnam and so he assigned me the task of doing a comparison between America's intervention in the Chinese Civil War and America's subsequent intervention in the Vietnamese Civil War (or Second Indo-China War, as most objective historians called it). When asked to briefly summarize my thesis, I said something like: "Subsitute some Vietnamese names for some Chinese ones -- and it doesn't even matter what American names you use -- you will notice nothing but ritual repetition leading to one predictable failure after another." A former reserve army officer in our class took me to task for not concentrating on the "real" issue of "communism," which he claimed America had every reason to "fight" in both China and Vietnam. In answer, I repeated Barbara Tuchman's succinct judgment that "in the end China went her own way as if the Americans had never come" and predicted that the Vietnamese would soon say the same. Two years later an exasperated American Congress just cut off the funding for any more of the mindless nonsense.
Natually, I have demanded for two years now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply refuse to allow a spending bill anywhere near the floor of the House (the only place one can Constitutionally originate) if it contains any provision whatsoever for funding further needless and pointless military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Congress did its job once before and Congress can do its job again, irrespective of who occupies the Oval Office. Only Congress has the Constitutional authority to declare war begun, continuing, or over. The President has nothing to veto and the Senate has nothing to fillibuster if the House Speaker will simply do nothing about military spending that the country does not need and cannot afford.
Yes, I realize that Congress has done its utmost for decades to avoid coming anywhere near doing its Constitutional job of refusing to tax the people to pay for ruinous foreign military misadventures that the executive pursues for no other reason than to increase its own political power. Yet, as Hamilton said of the Congress in Federalist No. 26:
"They are not at liberty to vest in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence."
From the very outset of America's disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, I have essentially repeated what I said in that classroom in Taipei, Taiwan thirty-seven years ago. Substitute some Afghan and Iraqi names for the Chinese and Vietnamese ones -- and it doesn't even matter what American names you use -- you will find nothing but ritual repetition leading to one predictable failure after another. Yet, in the end, Afghanistan and Iraq will go their own way as if the Americans had never come. Better to get out now before the Afghans and Iraqis cut our precarious supply lines and leave President Obama commander of an army that has suddenly run out of fuel, food, and water.
James,
After reading your references to what our Founders intended regarding the menace of a large standing army, I dug into to my library and retrieved an old, dog-eared, heavily annotated copy of The Federalist Papers, just to refresh myself on what has gone so wrong in America and why. In a way, I found it touching that our ancestors would have such confidence in us, their posterity, to use wisely those freedoms and well-considered government institutions which they designed and bequeathed to us. On the other hand, I found it profoundly depressing that we have surrendered, in our own time, so much to so few for so little.
As just one example of what I went through this morning, I read again Alexander Hamiltion's many extended dissertations on why a standing army would not pose a problem to our Republic. In Federalist No. 24, for example, he argues that the several state militias would form a defense against over-reaching national military campaigns because:
"The militia would not long, if at all, submit to be dragged from their occupations and families to perform that most disagreeable duty in times of profound peace. And if they could be prevailed upon or compelled to do it, the increase in expense of a frequent rotation of service, and the loss of labor and disconcertion of the industrious pursuits of individuals, would form conclusive objections to the schemes."
As we know, our corporate/military/political class has gotten around that particular defense by making the several state militias, or National Guards, an integral part of the national standing army (or Foreign Legion) -- and no state governments have raised much more than a peep, if that, about having their own state militias dragooned and deployed repeatedly halfway around the world chasing monsters of our own creation instead of at home in time of local need (as per their designed function).
Then, too, Hamilton argued (in Federalist No. 26) for not fearing the menace of a standing army by posing a series of rhetorical questions which -- in his day, perhaps -- the informed reader would ostensibly have answered in the negative. As something of an exercise, I see where I had put numbers next to these "questions" (several years ago) and then answered them in the margins of my copy. The depressing results came out something like this:
"Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community require time to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. [1]Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? [2]Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? [3]Is it presumable that every man the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? [4]Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold and honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought to be at once and end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person."If such suppositions could even be reasonably made, still the concealment of the design for any duration would be impracticable. It would be announced by the very circumstance of augmenting the army to so great an extent in time of profound peace. [5]What colorable reason could be assigned in a country so situated for such vast augmentation of the military force? It is impossible that the people could be long deceived; and the destruction of the project and of the projectors would quickly follow the discovery.
Answer key:
[1] Yes
[2] Yes
[3] Yes
[4] Perhaps Dennis Kucinch
[5] "Monolithic World Communism" and "Global Terrorism"
Again, how utterly depressing to see how obvious our Founders considered the precautions they thought they had taken against the menance to our liberties posed by a standing army -- and how just as obvious our pathetic surrender to our own "protectors" who "proactively" rob us of our freedoms in order to save the "communists/terrorists" the trouble of doing the job themselves. As the much-lamented-and-lampooned previous President George "Deputy Dubya" Bush basically put it:
"The evildoers hate your freedoms. Therefore, if I take your freedoms from you myself, the evildoers will have nothing to hate and no reason to attack your for what you have already given up voluntarily."
I have no intention of seeing this deplorable state of affairs continue under yet another imperial president. President Obama has not irrevocably crossed any Rubicons yet, and so he still has the time and political flexibility to dodge the trappings of tyranny before he becomes ensnared in their awful, seductive essence.
But those of us who have actually served in the monolithic American military -- and who have survived to tell the tale -- owe it to our young President to educate him on the legitimate differences between "hate" and "fear."
I'm sorry, Michael, but what, in my opinion at least, you owe to your "young President" is what anyone owes to any president of the USA, if democracy would mean anything: distrust and skepticism towards Power. Your president, irrespective of his age, is the president of an aggressive, warlike Empire, using its military forces, the instrument of its domination, to occupy and wage war in different places on the globe, and to bring death and destruction to innocent men, women and children - your young President no less than the older one he replaced.
Your young president is a president of drones and rockets, of death and destruction, like his Army is, which does the occupying, killing and bombing in his name, and which he adores so much (and praises with such intensity), that he - like his predecessor - tend to hold major political speeches in military bases before an audience of jubilant "men and women in uniform", as if he, like many Roman Emperors, was proclaimed by the Legions, instead of voted in office by the citizens of the USA.
Your young President is not only King of Drones, he is also Emperor of Arrogance, an Emperor who, whenever he opens his mouth, tells other countries what to do and how to behave, and that, now he is president, the USA, this epitome of freedom, liberty, and democracy, will once again take up the reigns of leadership in a world that is yearning for American leadership, or so he tells us all the time.
And all he gets for his horrible talk and his horrible policies is the deepest respect, the highest adoration, and an almost total acceptance for whatever he wishes to do (I'm not talking about you here, I'm just describing the general mood in the USA and elsewhere).
Michael Murry,
Better to get out now before the Afghans and Iraqis cut our precarious supply lines and leave President Obama commander of an army that has suddenly run out of fuel, food, and water.
former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems not at all concerned about Obama’s vision for Iraq. “It is not a question of when American combat forces withdraw,” Rice said recently. “The distance between what the Obama Administration is talking about and what we negotiated is very small, but Iraq is on its way to becoming a strategic asset.”
Think about that -- a “strategic asset.”
Thank you for the Federalist comments MM. MH, I think you are trying too hard to change a difference of degree (skepticism) into a difference of substance. I have enthusiastically greeted some of Obama's actions, and been significantly alarmed at others. His winning of the presidency, and the inclusive hope he has voiced have proven he is an extraordinary man. Reviews of his recent European tour were certainly not all positive, but Obama has never the less shown that he has seamlessly moved onto the international stage and generated something the US has managed to avoid for two presidential terms: good will. George and crew couldn't manage that after eight years, not that it was ever a goal. Compared to war, good will is really really inexpensive. If, however, one believes that Obama has not done well and is just another clone in the works of America's destruction, I suggest an hourly mantra of "President McCain" and "Vice President Palin" to establish some buoyancy to the current administration, as we await time to reveal Obama.
I voted for Obama but I don't owe him anything. He owes me as servant of the nation the actions he stated and implied in his campaign, and he owes me allegiance to the Constitution. I particularly believe he owes me, as an individual human American citizen, more attention than he owes corporate entities. As President, I believe Obama, or any other person in that office, is simultaneously cloaked and laden, no less ornately than the Pope, with the heavy trappings, inertias, and intrigues (the MIC being but one) that can begin to be comprehended only upon assumption of the office. The election of Obama offered a degree of hope that he would be less compliant to those pressures than the sclerotic McCain and vacuous, plastic Palin.
The honeymoon is over
CNN: President Barack Obama is seeking $83.4 billion for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was senator and George W. Bush was president.
WSJ: President Barack Obama is requesting new funding from Congress for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he risks a backlash from antiwar lawmakers.
Mr. Obama is seeking congressional approval of $83.4 billion for the wars, including $75.8 billion for the military and more than $7 billion in foreign aid, the Associated Press reported. The issue is already raising tensions on Capitol Hill, especially among liberals who are sympathetic to the president's broader agenda but voice concerns about his timeline for withdrawal of troops from Iraq and his plans to beef up forces in Afghanistan.
"I can't imagine any way I'd vote for it," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a California Democrat and leader in the 77-member congressional Progressive Caucus. It would be her first major break with this White House.
Don, the honeymoon was over for me when, within less than one day, he signed off on bombing Pakistan. One of his first official acts was to kill people. This is not what I want.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey: "As currently proposed this funding will do two things -- “it will prolong our occupation of Iraq through at least the end of 2011, and it will deepen and expand our military presence in Afghanistan indefinitely. I cannot support either of these scenarios.
Instead of attempting to find military solutions to the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Obama must fundamentally change the mission in both countries to focus on promoting reconciliation, economic development, humanitarian aid, and regional diplomatic efforts."
-------
You go, Lynn. Let's NOT be patient one minute longer.
One of the more challenging aspects of this short visit was communicating with the outside world. I normally send out notes of what the president is saying and what he is doing in real time via email on my Blackberry. Its convenient and all five networks receive the information at the same time.
But cell signals are intermittent at best in Camp Victory. I suspected there may have been signal jamming devices in place for security during our visit. We also tried using a satellite phone. When you use a satellite phone you have to be in an open sky environment and stand still. We were often in thick walled marble palace locations and or on the move so this technology was of limited value. And it was nearly impossible to get any calls out on cell phones.
Of course, I reminded myself that not so many years ago - before there were cell phones and blackberries - journalists relied on pay phones to get news to the outside world. The experience reminded me just how immediate the spread of news has become and how powerless I felt without my normal communciation devices working.
The whole visit to Iraq only lasted about four hours. It was a fascinating end to a marathon trip that left those of us lucky enough to be a part of it both exhausted and exhilarated.http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/04/08/world/worldwatch/entry4929601.shtml
"the problems we face in Iraq and Afghanistan"
The problems the U.S. faces in Iraq and Afghanistan are entirely of the U.S.'s own making.
Shirin, the US has been seeking stability in those countries (they say). The stability of the grave, methinks.
US military admits killing mother, children
KABUL (AFP) – The US military in Afghanistan admitted Thursday that four people its troops killed in a raid were not "combatants", after Afghans said they included a mother and her children, with a baby dying afterwards.
Like this was unusual.
from an al Jazeerah correspondent who was in Fallujah, Iraq, 2004:
There's a picture that I cannot forget. An old woman with three children, I saw her on the street and took a picture of her and the children.
She said: "We don't have any men here, can anyone help us?" Many of the men from Fallujah worked in Baghdad, once the city was sealed off they could not get back to their wives and children.
So, some men helped her, I decided to film the scene and then I sat down to smoke.
Ten minutes later, an ambulance came down the road. I ran to follow the ambulance and when they opened the door, I saw the same woman and her children - but they were in pieces.
I still remember the nurses couldn't carry the woman because she was in too many pieces, people were jumping back when they saw it. Then, one nurse shouted: "Hey, she looks like your mother."
In the Iraqi language that means: "She could be your mother, so treat her like you'd treat your mom." Everyone stood up and tried to carry a piece because they needed to get her out quickly, because the ambulance was needed for other people.
I agree that President Obama's deserved honeymoon has unfortunately ended early -- at least with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. This unfortunate situation has come about thanks solely to President Obama's own extortionate, fear-flogging demand for yet more unwarranted expenditures of public money for yet more nebulous military adventurism in Afghanistan and Iraq. He could have proceeded otherwise, but he didn't. Too bad.
In any event, excellent work as usual by Representative Lynn Woolsey of California for loudly refusing to vote for any more of these so-called "emergency" supplemental war appropriations. I only wish that she and others of her caucus had expanded that refusal to include any appropriations for undeclared, executive "war." But we have to take whatever morsels of sanity we can get from our normally corrupt, usually inept national "government."
Truly effective political action, though, lies with Speaker Pelosi and not Representative Woolsey, much as I regret to have to say this. Speaker Pelosi alone has the power to prevent any spending bill from reaching the floor of the House, and with no spending bill in the House, the President has nothing to veto and the Senate has nothing to fillibuster. Therefore, by design of the Founders of our Republic, the House of Representatives can bring America's twin debacle quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq to an expeditious end by simply doing nothing at all when the Imperial President begins demanding more public money for presidential "wars" that the public's Congessional representatives have never declared. But Speaker Pelosi has a Machiavellian problem that I don't know how she can solve -- or even if she wants to solve it. Consider:
Under the previous mal-administration of Regent Dick Cheney and his ditzy Dauphin, Deputy Dubya Bush, Speaker Pelosi brashly announced that as the "New Sheriff in Town," she would not permit further funding of Dubya's Debacle in Iraq. But Cheney told Dubya to call Pelosi's bluff, and he did. Speaker Pelosi caved in and ponied up not only the money that previous Republican Congresses had, but even more besides. She wound up looking not only foolish but weak, too. A really bad combination, that.
So after meekly swallowing her (and therefore, the House's) humiliation at the hands of two truly discredited Republican co-Presidents, Speaker Pelosi will now do exacly what in response to a similar set of extortionate demands from a President of her own party? I tried many times to get through to Speaker Pelosi, reminding her of how a previous Democratic Congress had put an end to the country's trauma in Vietnam by simply cutting off funding for it. As well, I tried to point out that by ending the Iraq war/occupation on the watch of those Republicans in the White House who stupidly began it, the next president -- a Democrat for sure -- could start out his/her administration with one less albabross hung around their neck on inauguration day. Obviously, my exhorations met with absolutely no response.
Anyway, I applaud Representative Woolsey's principled stand against more mindless Warfare Welfare and Makework Militarism, but I can only wait with others to see what Speaker Pelosi will do -- or, more importantly, not do. If she caves again, President Obama will have then officially hung not one, but two albatrosses around his own (and the country's) neck while not even pretending that the stench of the decaying birds bothers him in the least.
the answer just come to those who believe in Obama change.
Obama honeymoon cost $83.4 billions ....
"The Obama administration on Thursday asked Congress for quick approval of $83.4 billion to pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other overseas initiatives through Sept. 30."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/us/politics/10military.html?ref=us
Speaker Pelosi's recent statement on war funding:
"The first priority of Congress and the President is to protect the American people and to provide our men and women in harm's way with all the resources they need.
"The President has presented a clear plan to end the war in Iraq and to defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
"In the coming weeks, Congress will carefully review the President’s request and will engage in a dialogue with the Administration on appropriate benchmarks to measure the success of our investments."
http://speaker.house.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1103
COMMENT: There are so many bogus arguments in this statement that one hardly knows where to start. Should we begin with the idea that our "investment" in Iraq protects the American people? Or the tired "harm's way" meme? Or that the US is fighting not the Taliban but al Qaeda in Afghanistan (and increasingly in Pakistan)? Or that this funding request, after seven years of war, needs careful review? Or that there is a "clear plan" (involving three Friedman Units)?
our "investment" in Iraq.???
Humm, which investment in Iraq?
but al Qaeda in Afghanistan (and increasingly in Pakistan)?
That's why then Obama went and BOW to al Qaeda creator and breeder kissing their bloody ugly hands with killing One millions Iraqi in Iraq.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gJtIss7xso
Colin Powell used to talk about the US "investment" in Iraq:
Powell. . . said the huge U.S. investment in Iraq in lives and money would be at risk if France prevails in its proposal for an early transfer of authority from American to Iraqi control. "We have invested too much to consider such a proposal," Powell said. --September, 2003
In July 2005, Powell joined Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, as an investment advisor.
Colin Powell used to talk about the US "investment" in Iraq:
Huhhhh...... the "black" Lair.... of UN WMD and his very tiny container to kill millions of people...
Keep you with your lairs Don this your investment then