Obama doesn't need to escalate the Afghan Occupation now that Abdullah Abdullah dropped out

[zulchzulu]

http://media.npr.org/images/ap//AP_News_Wire:_Politics/2_Afghanistan.sff.jpg

Abdullah Abdullah getting out of the November 7 Presidential Election run-off against Hamid Karzai allows Obama to not have to escalate the Afghanistan "War", which is actually becoming an Occupation, via General McChrystal's fairly inappropriate announcement that Obama needs to send in over 60,000 new troops to what many consider a quagmire and a war mission without clear goals and a mystical exit strategy.

It has been stated in various media channels:

This year's election — the first run by Afghans since the ouster of the Taliban — was supposed to affirm the government's credibility. Instead, the massive fraud raised questions about the Karzai administration just as U.S. officials are debating whether to send more troops.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091031/ap_on_re_as/un_un_afghanistan_election

The Presidential Election run-off was going to impact the choice whether to put in more troops or not. Now that the Afghan people, who are highly distrustful of Karzai, have no choice whether to make their voice known for better or worse for Karzai's political future:

Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Abdullah Abdullah, former Afghan foreign minister, said he will withdraw from the Nov. 7 presidential run-off election against Hamid Karzai.

“Afghan people deserve a better election,” Abdullah said in a televised address broadcast live by CNN. Addressing supporters in the capital, Kabul, he said a transparent election was not possible. Abdullah called on his supporters not to boycott the runoff, the Associated Press reported.

A partial recount, backed by the United Nations, of the Aug. 20 vote found more than 1 million ballots, most of them for Karzai, were suspect, putting his tally below the more than 50 percent needed to win the first round triggering a run-off.

Allegations of voting fraud have complicated President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to increase the number of troops in Afghanistan beyond the extra 21,000 he approved earlier this year. About 68,000 troops are in Afghanistan today, the administration’s current goal, according to Pentagon data.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aW05W3oX2c8k&pos=8

It has been obvious that the Presidential Election run-off could not more important in making an upcoming decision on escalating the Afghan war and the proposition of having what has been termed a "McChrystal-Lite" version was pending on the results:

"I would imagine that he will be coming to a decision sometime after the Afghan election is finally resolved," Clinton told a group of Pakistani journalists during an interview in Lahore.

(snip)

The stripped-down version of McChrystal's plan still would adopt the commander's overall goals for a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at turning the corner against the Taliban next spring.

But that pared-down approach would reflect a shift in thinking about what parts of the war mission are most important and the intense political domestic debate over Afghan policy.

A majority of Americans either oppose the war or question whether it is worth continuing to wage, according to public opinion polls dating to when Obama shook up the war's management and began a lengthy reconsideration of U.S. objectives earlier this year.

Any expansion of the war will displease some congressional Democrats. If Obama does not meet McChrystal's request, Republicans are likely to accuse Obama of failing to give McChrystal all of what he needs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33538233/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

I would conclude that Obama DOES NOT need to follow ANY McChrystal strategies at this point and should look at the long-term arc of a destabilized and continued corrupt Karzai administration that doesn't have the faith of the Afghan people.

With Abdullah Abdullah's decision to drop out and essentially keep Karzai in power, there is no need for American troops to have to die for a country full of people who don't trust their own government. Keeping American troops in Afghanistan as an occupying force will only make the Taliban stronger and get more support for Afghans, who now are on their own.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I tend to agree.

I hope you're right.

They need to define success and then articulate, within the real circumstances there, a road map to achieve that success.

Karzai & Co. constitute a corrupt government, so we ought to act accordingly and not play into his plans.

:patriot:

[vaberella]

4. I agree wholly with your views on this. n/t

[Stables2010]

2. Dont hold your breath, get ready for the next 8 years of war

[PurityOfEssence]

3. He will do what he always does:

Appease the warmongers by escalating, while trying to appease others by not escalating that much.

When you're in the middle of the road, you get shot at from both sides.

[PretzelWarrior]

5. and yet, that is how Bush ultimately governed.

the actual amount of rightward or leftward leaning has been relatively slight since Reagan left office.

[Cha]

13. No, you have it wrong.

PO does what he thinks is right for the situation at hand.

[Hutzpa]

6. Here is how I see this

they need to isolate this whole region, what I meant by that is to circumvent
that region and their attitudes, they need DEA agents over there to work with
the military to prevent any drugs from leaving Afghanistan and surrounding areas,
since one of the main reason behind the violence is drugs.

Brute force is not going to work as we have seen and if they insist on using force
they will fail miserably. Something we should have at the back of our mind is that
military personnel are always going to propagate using force and the issues over
there is not necessarily brute force but smart innovation approach.

The more you bomb these people the more they build up animosity toward America,
looking at the rate East Asia and the rest of the world are progressing this is a
disadvantage to America, because the world is progressing while the United States
is focusing on a never ending war.

All this is just a distraction, the dollar keeps losing it value while the most recent
currency euro is gaining value. Time to be smart....

[zulchzulu]

9. We can't go make the Afghan-U-Pation a "War on Drugs"...

We have already tried to get rid of the poppy and pot farms and replace them with farms producing potatoes and onions and the farmers are broke.

The poppy trade goes all the way back to thousands of years; so say when the Egyptians started producing poppies for various drugs. How dare we as an occupying force try to stop what is an ancient livelihood in that and many other regions. Is that the mission? Control their farming traditions because too much heroin comes into our country? If anything, stopping them would only make heroin more expensive, produce more violence and have more control from the Russian Mafia.

The main reason for violence against our troops is our occupation. It helps Al Qaeda, it helps the Taliban and it helps making a wonderful recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to bring jihad.

You cut off one head off a hydra and think all is OK.

We need to help Pakistan in the Pushtan region, get an international force to help build the TAPI gas pipeline that would go through the southern, less hilly regions of Afghanistan and end our mistakes as an occupying force. Not one more American soldier should die for a hapless military policy and a corrupt Afghan government.

[Hutzpa]

12. You suggesting we leave

the poppy region and let them run amok? I'm not so sure about that, if we concentrate on
Pushtan region then the Taliban will return to Afghanistan, I think isolating the whole
region will be a better strategy than killing everyone, once we isolate them, we then know
what we are dealing with and can be in a better positing to monitor the situation a lot more
instead of worrying about keeping our troops alive. We can also focus more on clandestine
maneuvers which will limit the amount of lives lost.

[zulchzulu]

21. Are you suggesting we destroy the poppy farms because we can't handle being addicted to drugs?

The poppy seed is a crop that is used by Afghans and others and they make money to survive on it. We have gone to certain parts of the country and told some Afghans to grow vegetables and guess what... they are broke and go back to farming poppies.

Look at what happened in the Nangahar province! We "eradicated" poppy farming and told farmers to grow vegetables. They were told they would make money and get reimbursed by the government. Guess what! The province is now fully growing poppy again.

We tell the Afghan farmers to grow wheat, which requires a lot of water. Whoops! They barely have ANY potable water for their own consumption.

Watch this video:
http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/english/2008_05/Video/wmv/AfghanPt3NangaharPoppies-vb.wmv

I know it also sounds easy to "isolate the whole region", but have you even a basic understanding of the terrain in Afghanistan? It's not Toledo, Ohio. There are areas in the country where the ancient drug routes go through terrain that is like the Himalayas. There are no roads in many areas. The Afghanistan/Pakistan border as well as the Iran/Afghanistan border are very porous. So we would need hundreds of thousands of troops playing cop in treacherous surroundings.

We need to get out before we get sucked in and have to then leave due to spending too much on lives, resources and even enabling Al Qaeda by being seen as occupiers. It couldn't be any more clear than that.

[Life Long Dem]

26. There's something not exactly clear here.

Why tell them to grow something else? It's illegal sounds like an excuse. Drug companies having a say, would be another excuse (a greedy excuse at that). So what's stopping the government from buying? And then Kerry brushed off the leaders brother having any relation with the CIA, and the drug trade. So I don't know what's going on here but I'm suspicious about the whole thing. And my suspicions usually lead me in the right direction.

[Life Long Dem]

7. I would think with a corrupt administration things would escalate in Afghanistan.

The more reason to send more troops. But I'd first want to know where exactly the CIA stands in this. It's counter productive if the CIA is involved in the drug trade in Afghanistan.

[Hutzpa]

8. Send more troops to do what exactly??

at the moment the United States troops out numbered the Taliban 12 - 1, so
how would more troops solve the underlying problems of Afghanistan.

We have all seen how corrupt the Afghanistan government is, how would more
troops help solve that corruption(?) by shooting a corrupt official? :shrug: How?

[zulchzulu]

11. Who are the troops defending and dying for when a corrupt government who hates us is in place?

The only reason you would want to send more troops in that situation is if:

• You sell weapons to the highest bidder
  
• You sell coffins
  
• You are clueless about war strategy
  
• You think throwing troops into a battle zone will "fix things"
  

[Life Long Dem]

15. I already pointed out the war strategy.

It depends on the Afghan government. I wouldn't pull out with a corrupt government unless you plan on going back in some years later with a lot more than the 40,000 troops. Or is that what your all about?

[zulchzulu]

20. The Afghans have a 1000+ year history defeating occupiers... I guess we can be next

Do we send troops to "win the hearts of the Afghan people" by occupying them? Do we send troops to "nation build" what we perceive as corrupt governments?

Sure, it only costs hundreds of billions of dollars and uncounted death and injury, but this country is doing so well that we can just spend our resources like drunken crackheads in Vegas. Heck, what a better way to fail than to fight for a corrupt government who doesn't give a fuck about you and wants you to leave. It's only lives, resources and dignity.

[ieoeja]

23. Name two?

The Greeks ruled for centuries til they were kicked out by ... Persia.

Persia ruled for centuries til they were kicked out by ... Arabs.

Arabs ruled for centuries til they were kicked out by ... Mongols.

Mongols ruled for centuries til they were kicked out by ... Indians.

Indians ruled for centuries til they were kicked out by ... Brits.

Brits ruled for a century til they were kicked out by ... Afghans (finally!).

Afghans have ruled for a century, about half of which they have spent fighting each other with one side or the other occasionally getting help from an outside force.


So your invincible Afghans have ruled Afghanistan just about 100 years of the last 2300 years. And have only ever defeated one invader. But that only after the invader managed to rule Afghanistan for as long a period as the Afghans themselves have ruled the country.


Afghanistan: Where Empires go to Thrive

[zulchzulu]

27. It's about the region....

Surely, you know about the Soviet Union and Britain. Ask Alexander The Great or Marco Polo or the many Chinese dynasties why they left that region with their tails between their legs.

Before the region was called Afghanistan, it was indeed where those who tried to occupy it were defeated.

[Life Long Dem]

24. Name one?

:P

[flyarm]

10. Four Major bailed out US banks finance cluster bombs with taxpayers money

don't count on no escallation..

Four Major bailed out US banks finance cluster bombs with taxpayers money


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

***A Big Thank you to DU member Ichingcarpenter for bringing this to my attention!


The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sach from your link..and thank you for that link !!

Top banks fund cluster bombs as ban nears -
LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded cluster bomb-makers to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years despite an international accord to ban the weapons, a study said on Thursday.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sachs , the study said on Thursday.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.

Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate comment.

Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so. Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

now why does this not surprise me?? and what group here has many in this current administration??

oh yeah Goldman Sach's..

and does anyone really believe Obama has any intention of stopping the perpetual wars??????


you get bullshit for health care reform and the big boys get money to finance Cluster bombs!!

wooo hooo..is that ever change!!

[flyarm]

14. Well, come on mothers throughout the land,Pack your boys off to AFGANISTAN

Just subsitute Vietnam with Afganistan!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiWcDt8566g

Country Joe ..it is as real today as it was in my youth!!

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in AFGANISTAN
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is AFGANISTAN ;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go out and get those reds —
The only good Afgan is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is AFGANISTAN ;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Huh!

Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on AFGANISTAN .

And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is AFGANISTAN .
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to AFGANISTAN .
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is AFGANISTAN .
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.


Gotta keep Obama's Goldmen boys happy , don'tcha know and of course the bankers too..he has to get re-elected with that money they won't spend on health care for Americans dying for lack of health "CARE"

But cluster bombs you ask?? and where your tax dollars have gone??..no problemo!

Four Major bailed out US banks finance cluster bombs with taxpayers money


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

***A Big Thank you to DU member Ichingcarpenter for bringing this to my attention!


The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sach from your link..and thank you for that link !!

Top banks fund cluster bombs as ban nears -
LONDON, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded cluster bomb-makers to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years despite an international accord to ban the weapons, a study said on Thursday.

The top five loan providers were Bank of America , Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays and Goldman Sachs , the study said on Thursday.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.

Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate comment.

Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so. Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

now why does this not surprise me?? and what group here has many in this current administration??

oh yeah Goldman Sach's..

and does anyone really believe Obama has any intention of stopping the perpetual wars??????

[RepublicanElephant]

17. your revised song is perfect, except...

this time we DO know what we're fighting for:
gas pipelines and dope.

and while we're distracted spending our blood and treasure, china makes-off with the goods.

[Vidar]

16. I only wish Obama would follow your advice. Recommended,

[smalll]

18. Defeatism! Fuck Yeah!

:hide:

[zulchzulu]

19. To stay IN Afghanistan is to be defeated...

I'm tired of empty excuses why we need to "win"... as the saying goes... "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

[harun]

29. Try to define "winning" in Afghanistan, then rethink your statement.

My point being this is not a win or lose situation.

You can either help the people there survive and rebuild or not. Helping them would be a "win".

Objectives destined for failure would be:
Trying to turn this in to a drug war to stop the opium trade.
Trying to turn in to Pakistan's policeman for if people get out of hand in Afghanistan.
Trying to occupy Afghanistan to control natural gas pipeline routes.
Trying to occupy Afghanistan to keep pressure on Iran.

We don't need to occupy the country with an army to help the people survive and rebuild.

[zulchzulu]

22. Karzai declared elected president! Wow!

What a surprise!

Hamid Karzai has been declared president of Afghanistan, after election officials scrapped a planned second round of voting.

The announcement comes a day after Mr Karzai's sole challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out of the race.

Dr Abdullah, who had demanded the removal of key poll officials, said the vote would not have been fair. The first round had been marred by fraud.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8337832.stm

Here's a great assessment of the victor and why many more troops will die for the peddlers of this delusion:

Talking to Afghanistan experts in Kabul, Washington and Berlin, a picture is emerging: The Karzai government has a lot in common with a Mafia family. Where a "normal" government raises revenues from the people – in the form of taxes – and then disperses them to its local and regional institutions in the form of budgetary allocations or patronage, this Afghan government operates in the reverse. The money flows upward from the countryside in the form of payments for offices purchased or "gifts" from cronies.

What flows from Kabul, experts say, is permission for unfettered extraction, protection in case of prosecution and punishment in case the official opposes the system or gets out of line. In "Karzai World," it appears, slots are either sold (to people who buy them in order to make a profit) or granted to cronies, or are given away to buy off rivals.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-friedman_15edi.State.Edition1.2be9f1d.html

[IndianaGreen]

25. Obama put the peace option off the table, and he is surrounded by war hawks

I'll say that we have more of a chance of Obama embracing Single Payer than we do in Obama disengaging from Afghanistan and the Karzai narco regime.

[Whisp]

28. I so hope so....

and too I hope, behind the scenes, he talked Abdullah into opting out. yes for this reason, for this kind of thing I truly believe influence and even goddamn trheats, are all for good in the end if less troops are sent and a different and better and less violent approach to Afghanistan is taken.

crossing fingers toes eyes