COVER STORY: It's His War Now.

[Bluebear]

[Nikki Stone1]

1. "Downsizing the War on Terrorism" ? WTF?

Time is such a rag.

[Hydra]

2. Isn't that the MSM's job now?

:evilgrin:

[bvar22]

3. !

Meet Hamid Karzai
or as Obama calls him, "The Government of Afghanistan".

He was appointed by Bush the Lesser to run Afghanistan.
He was one of the most despicable criminals in The World,
But NOW we like him so much
that our children will be dying to keep him in power.

[Cirque du So-What]

5. Tinpot dictators of countries in which the US is involved in a shooting war

have life expectancies that don't exceed their usefulness. Ask Ngô Đình Diệm.

[bvar22]

24. ..to be replaced by another puppet.

Smooth Talk.
Chump Change.



"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[patrice]

4. It's Our War. TPB, who own us, only find it convenient to hide behind President Obama, hence,

the conventional talking point, "It's Obama's war now."

[omega minimo]

6. Men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, Men!

[Bluebear]

7. men, men, men, men, manly men, men, men...

sorry, lapsed into song. but you are correct!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZJQlddwuvY&feature=PlayList&p=87AE95D118E05946&index=0&playnext=1

[omega minimo]

8. Wasn't there a Monty Python sort of march on the fours, Men men men men Men men men men..?

[patrice]

9. Ambitious young men on a fast track to ultra secure, gold plated MIC jobs

through revolving doors between military and civilian TRANSNATIONAL corporations,

accelerated by combat experience,

and financed for decades with appx 50% of revenues, on the backs of disadvantaged Americans.

[omega minimo]

10. No women?

:shrug:

[patrice]

11. Majority and Historically - men, but yes, some women too and

if it isn't sexist to say so, there IS, on an average, a hallmark male personality tendency for behaviors that lead to aggression and thus, by their majority in certain social strata, encode our cultural processes with the elements of a certain self-fulfilling prophecy referred to as War.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. Technically

Wasn't it HIS war since he took office? Also, let's not lose sight of the fact that we should've already been out of there by now. Personally, I am a little more concerned with the neglect of the previous CIC that made our continued involvement likely/necessary. Obama was left with some tough/unpopular choices about which he deiberated about for a good while. History will ultimately be a judge of whether it was the right choice but nobody can say it was a rash one- unlike many of Bush's were.

[patrice]

13. "We" wanted it. We got it. We voted the f-ers who gave it to us back in office. It's Ours.

The right-wing benefits no matter what the President does, in or out, hence the rovianesque meme "It's Obama's war now" and he's just trying to control how much they benefit, while pulling something (?) out of the fire for the rest of us.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. I'm sorry. I don't quite follow what you are saying?

:shrug:

[patrice]

16. It's obvious that "we" didn't want this war over enough to deliver a functionally strong enough of

a majority in the Senate. That means whether Obama pulls us unconditionally out or stays, Republicans can benefit, especially if international money markets decide to punish us for the trouble we have caused ON CREDIT without delivering the goods, Pipelinestan. At least the course he has chosen gives us a chance of delivering the goods.

Republicans benefit from the course he has chosen too, but he's trying to control HOW exactly they benefit and to what extent, both of which factors would be considerably LESS controllable under an unconditional and immediate withdrawal.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

18. Oh I see what you mean

Thanks for the clarification. I think that you are right about President Obama trying to control the terms of our continued military involvement. Seeing that they are very unhappy with the limitations that he has placed on the scope of our continued involvement, I'd say that he is accomplishing that goal. I expected the kind of "middle-of-the-road approach he ultimately took.

[patrice]

19. I'm NOT happy about any of this. I have been active against this war since 2002.

The time for a quick unconditional withdrawal passed a long, long, long time ago.

Domestically our majorities are too thin with such a strong a push from 3rd partyers. And there's just so much you can do with popular "opposition" in the mid-to-high 40s, even real opposition around the 30s would be significant. That's where the anti-War movement started out this time and look where "it" is now.

I just don't think I would go there either, with HC and the Environment and Financial Reform on the table.

[Sherman A1]

25. Well Said!

It became his war as of taking the oath of office along with all the rest of the problems left by the previous administration. That MSM is just catching up on this little tidbit of fact is sad, but not terribly surprising.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. Good

We finally have someone competent running this thing.

[bridgit]

That was my thought

[Thickasabrick]

17. I still blame the whole thing on Gates - Obama trusts him too much nt

[NoPasaran]

20. Good thing you "progressives" stopped that warmonger Hillary, eh?

[Bluebear]

21. How was I supposed to "stop" Hillary any more than "you" "could"?

[patrice]

22. There are warmongers and then there are "warmongers". The deal would probably have been

different terms.

Time will tell.

[JTFrog]

23. Well we could have obliterated Iran by now I guess.

:shrug:

[patrice]

26. You're right. No matter how absurd their whole campaign was, McCain was NOT kidding.

[JTFrog]

27. That was bomb Iran, and yes, that was fucking absurd too.

[Swamp Rat]

29. yep... where would we be today if he got in?

:think:

[patrice]

34. I was also alluding to what some people were saying about electability.

Yes, my main issue with HC was the plausible deniability that Bush's letter certifying WMD gave her and, yes, I realize that plausible deniability DOES make the answer to this question 50:50, but part of what happened was also due to a significant number of people being concerned about whether HC COULD win and if she had run and lost, McCain would have bombed Iran by now.

[JTFrog]

37. And I was replying directly to the poster alluding that Hillary was somehow not a warmonger.

:shrug:

[patrice]

38. My apologies!

:blush:

[JTFrog]

39. No apology necessary.

I did reply to one of your posts, but only because I was trying to get my point across.

Sorry I have the flu and my head is fuzzy.

[Swamp Rat]

28. a Palin presidency would already be in its "this totally sucks and we're all gonna die" phase by now

As McCain died from the stress of the first 3 months of his presidency, he'd throw a hail mary pass to Palin, the nookular football.

[NNN0LHI]

33. +1

[patrice]

35. Your stuff just keeps getting sharper and sharper, Swampy! This is GREAT work!

[treestar]

30. It was his war on Jan 20

Pisses me off how some people are willing to let the Chimperor off the hook, though.

[tekisui]

31. Yeah, take that up with Holder and Obama.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. And, like Nixon, he'll "Take the resposibility but not the blame."

"The Buck stops here." Is no longer operable.

[patrice]

36. The blame belongs to the collective known as "we" the U.S.

As someone who has been responsible for what happens with groups, when a collective is generating indeterminacy and confusion, it is necessary for someone to assert, over the group, a direction and you risk more by going against what you think is best, even when there's great pressure otherwise, because you're in charge not only of the decision itself, but also of all of the as yet un-defined adaptations to the decision. And the difference between what someone like Bush thinks is best and what someone like Obama thinks is best is in that verb "to think" and to think honestly.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

40. What would you point to as evidence of this?

Barack Obama, ever since the campaign, seems to be pretty good about admitting when he screwed up (even those times when it was debatable) and tried to apologize for it. I don't think that, if Afghanistan goes badly (which I hope it won't), he's not going to take responsibility for it. I'm sure the decision that he made this past week weighed VERY heavily on his mind. I know it would on mine.