The Evidence Is Overwhelming: We Aren't Getting Out of Afghanistan or Even Iraq

[unhappycamper]

A US Army soldier walks through a cell block at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base in Guantanamo, Cuba, in 2004. A US federal judge has ruled that a Mauritanian accused of links to the 9/11 attacks should be released from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the court said Tuesday.


The Evidence Is Overwhelming: We Aren't Getting Out of Afghanistan or Even Iraq
Tomdispatch.com / By Tom Engelhardt

November 14, 2010 | You must have had a moment when you thought to yourself: It really isn’t going to end, is it? Not ever. Rationally, you know perfectly well that whatever your “it” might be will indeed end, because everything does, but your gut tells you something different.

I had that moment recently when it came to the American way of war. In the past couple of weeks, it could have been triggered by an endless string of ill-attended news reports like the Christian Science Monitor piece headlined “U.S. involvement in Yemen edging toward ‘clandestine war.’” Or by the millions of dollars in U.S. payments reportedly missing in Afghanistan, thanks to under-the-table or unrecorded handouts in unknown amounts to Afghan civilian government employees (as well as Afghan security forces, private-security contractors, and even the Taliban). Or how about the news that the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter,” the cost-overrun poster weapon of the century, already long overdue, will cost yet more money and be produced even less quickly?

Or what about word that our Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has officially declared the Obama administration “open” to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq after the announced 2011 deadline for their withdrawal? Or how about the news from McClatchy’s reliable reporter Nancy Youssef that Washington is planning to start “publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to de-emphasize President Barack Obama's pledge that he'd begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011”?

Or that bottomless feeling could have been triggered by the recent request from the military man in charge of training Afghan security forces, Lieutenant General William Caldwell, for another 900 U.S. and NATO trainers in the coming months, lest the improbable “transition” date of 2014 for Afghan forces to “take the lead” in protecting their own country be pushed back yet again. ("No trainers, no transition," wrote the general in a “report card” on his mission.)

Or it could have been the accounts of how a trained Afghan soldier turned his gun on U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan, killing two of them, and then fled to the Taliban for protection (one of a string of similar incidents over the last year). Or, speaking of things that could have set me off, consider this passage from the final paragraphs of an Elisabeth Bumiller article tucked away inside the New York Times on whether Afghan War commander General David Petraeus was (or was not) on the road to success: “'It is certainly true that Petraeus is attempting to shape public opinion ahead of the December review ,' said an administration official who is supportive of the general. 'He is the most skilled public relations official in the business, and he’s trying to narrow the president’s options.'”

[LARED]

1. If this is news to anyone, they have been asleep. nt

[BlueIris]

2. Nice to see a moderator recognize this. nt

[LWolf]

8. OP has been a DUer calling for troops to come home

a lot longer than he's been a moderator, if my memory serves.

[w8liftinglady]

10. Um,yeah...op helped me get through my son's war injuries in 2005..and ever since

[Bonobo]

3. Untrue! I read it right here on DU that Obama made a "simple" promise!

And it was from one of those dungeon guys! You know, the ones who "debunk" conspiracy theories!?

So I know you MUST be wrong!

[yellowwood]

4. Lost Soul

Do you ever feel like a lost soul crying in the wilderness?

Iraq and Afghanistan are like the elephants in the living room. Threads like this often die out because they are so unpleasant to think about.

A dead cat gets more attention.

[Catherina]

7. Yes. OP rec'd n/t

[soryang]

5. The so called "defense department" is completely out of control

The President can't even appoint a "defense secretary." The defense secretary and Petraeus are insubordinate.

Not only do the unnecessary wars which the majority of the public oppose show this but take a look at the totally ineffective missile defense system. Bush abandoned the ABM treaty which protected us from an uncontrolled arms race moving into space. We will spend hundreds of billons on missile defense systems that most experts and physicists say cannot work and have never been demonstrated to work. Now, we are exporting it to the new NATO partners in eastern Europe.

The megalomaniacs in Washington and the defense industry are trying to dominate the world at the expense of the entire American people.

The truth is that we are not defending the world but involved in aggression. Our missile defense system is an offensive system. A few kilograms of bbs sent into space by our rivals will completely nullify "the defense system" sometimes called full spectrum dominance and deny the human race the commercial use of space forever.

[vi5]

6. Not true. It was on a list I read on DU..

Of course most of the things on that list started with "Pledged to..." and "Committed to..." and "Began to.....", but what the heck. Let's count it as a win anyway!

[Gravel Democrat]

9. well it's not exactly a new phenomenon

No one talks about this at all, even though there
are reports it's like a new Gitmo



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Bondsteel

No one will be able to say that "no one knew" thanks to the intertubes.

So that's good.

[madrchsod]

11. thia massage women.....

[Poboy]

12. Somebodies' 'blue link' list needs editing. This administration is a failure.

[old mark]

13. After we get out of Korea - one country at a time....Do we still have troops in Germany?...nt