When peace is not a priority of a Peace Laureate, it is time for a change.

[seafan]

2009: Obama expands covert ops to a dozen countries in Middle East, Central Asia, Horn of Africa

Gareth Porter:

.....

The CIA directorate and the two major figures in the Iraq- Afghanistan wars, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, lobbied Obama in 2009 to expand covert operations against al Qaeda to a dozen countries in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Central Asia.

In spring 2009, McChrystal, then director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, persuaded the White House to give U.S. combatant commanders wider latitude to carry out covert military operations against al Qaeda or other organisations deemed to be terrorists, according to a May 25 report by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic.

Based on the Obama decision, on Sep. 30, 2009, Petraeus issued an order creating a Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force to plan and execute covert intelligence gathering in support of later covert military operations throughout the CENTCOM area.
The Petraeus order was followed within weeks by an influx of surveillance equipment and as many as 100 SOF trainers, as well as additional CIA personnel in Yemen, according to the Post Nov. 7 report.

.....

Seymour Hersh: McChrystal was Cheney's Chief Assassin, May 16, 2009


Gen. McChrystal, Grim Reaper: Obama's New Afghan Commander, May 22, 2009


Seymour Hersh: Army is “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in.”, October 19, 2009


It appears that "neutrality of Afghanistan" is losing ground to "permanent military presence".

July 25, 2010

..... on the eve of the expected award of a contract by the US Defense Department to build a sprawling US Special Forces base in northern Afghanistan near Mazar-i-Sharif. The US is undertaking the project on a priority footing at a cost of as much as US$100 million. The base, in the Amu Darya region straddling Central Asia, will become operational by the end of 2011, or at the latest by early 2012.

According to available details, the 17-acre (6.8 hectare) site of the new American military base is hardly 35 kilometers from the border of Uzbekistan and it seems set to become the pendant of a "string of pearls" that the US is kneading through Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan along the "soft underbelly" of Russia and China's Xinjiang.

.....

US to Spend $511 Million to Expand Kabul Embassy, November 2, 2010


US involvement in Yemen edging toward 'clandestine war', November 3, 2010


U.S. Tweaks Message on Troops in Afghanistan: Expected to be in Afghanistan in 2014, November 10, 2010


The Stimulus Package in Kabul (I Was Delusional -- I Thought One Monster 'Embassy' Was the End of It), November 15, 2010




And, perhaps the most telling:


Juan Cole on why we heard nothing about Afghanistan in the run-up to the November 2010 election:

(see the piece for multiple hyperlinks included)


November 16, 2010

Not only is it unclear that the U.S. and NATO are winning their war in Afghanistan, the lack of support for their effort by the Afghanistan president himself has driven the American commander to the brink of resignation. In response to complaints from his constituents, Afghanistan’s mercurial President Hamid Karzai called Sunday for American troops to scale back their military operations. The supposed ally of the U.S., who only last spring petulantly threatened to join the Taliban, astonished Washington with this new outburst, which prompted a warning from Gen. David Petraeus that the president was making Petraeus’ position “untenable,” which some speculated might be a threat to resign.

During the past two months, the U.S. military has fought a major campaign in the environs of the southern Pashtun city of Kandahar, launching night raids and attempting to push insurgents out of the orchards and farms to the east of the metropolis. Many local farmers were displaced, losing their crops in the midst of the violence, and forced to become day laborers in the slums of Kandahar. Presumably these Pashtun clans who found themselves in the crossfire between the Taliban and the U.S. put pressure on Karzai to call a halt to the operation.

That there has been heavy fighting in Afghanistan this fall would come as a surprise to most Americans, who have seen little news on their televisions about the war. Various websites noted that 10 NATO troops were killed this past Saturday and Sunday alone, five of them in a single battle, but it was hardly front page news, and got little or no television coverage.

The midterm campaign circus took the focus off of foreign affairs in favor of witches in Newark and eyes of Newt in Georgia. Distant Kandahar was reduced to an invisible battle in an unseen war, largely unreported in America’s mass media, as though it were irrelevant to the big campaign issues—of deficits and spending, of taxes and public welfare. Since it was President Obama’s offensive, Democrats could not run against it. Since it is billed as key to U.S. security, Republicans were not interested in running against it. Kandahar, city of pomegranates and car bombs, of poppies and government cartels, lacked a partisan implication, and so no one spoke of it.

In fact, the war is costing on the order of $7 billion a month, a sum that is still being borrowed and adding nearly $100 billion a year to the already-burgeoning national debt. Yet in all the talk in all the campaigns in the hustings about the dangers of the federal budget deficit, hardly any candidates fingered the war as economically unsustainable.

The American public cannot have a debate on the war if it is not even mentioned in public.

.....

If our leaders continue to endanger America by pursuing a doomed course, the people must issue a course correction in 2012.

[spanone]

1. the pentagon has rickrolled Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0&feature=related

[blindpig]

3. Come on.....

Are you saying the guy is incompetent? I don't believe that.

The pattern of priorities makes that conclusion extremely unlikely unless he is a complete chump who could be busted by any 3rd rate three card monte hustler. Don't think that is so, therefore one must conclude that he knows what he is doing(as best as that can be)and the implications thereof.

[jaxx]

2. Peace is a goal.

The Dalai Lama has been promoting peace for years and it still isn't there.
Patience is a virtue.

[seafan]

4. When our president asserts the right to assassinate anyone deemed a threat, peace isn't in sight.

Neither is patience, because passive inaction will perpetuate these crimes against humanity.



Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority to Kill Americans Outside Combat Zones, November 8, 2010

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. Government lawyers made that claim in response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging that the administration's asserted targeted killing authority violates the Constitution and international law. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard arguments from both sides today.

.....

The ACLU and CCR were retained by Nasser Al-Aulaqi to bring a lawsuit in connection with the government's decision to authorize the targeted killing of his son, U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi. The lawsuit asks the court to rule that, outside the context of armed conflict, the government can carry out the targeted killing of an American citizen only as a last resort to address an imminent threat to life or physical safety. The lawsuit also asks the court to order the government to disclose the legal standard it uses to place U.S. citizens on government kill lists.

"If the Constitution means anything, it surely means that the president does not have unreviewable authority to summarily execute any American whom he concludes is an enemy of the state," said Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU, who presented arguments in the case. "It's the government's responsibility to protect the nation from terrorist attacks, but the courts have a crucial role to play in ensuring that counterterrorism policies are consistent with the Constitution."

.....

These actions by our president do not inspire patience for many people.


How about you?

[jaxx]

7. It's sad when a person threatens his country and its people.

Patience is a necessity.

edited to fix '

[seafan]

8. 'Patience is a necessity' for what, exactly, in this imperialistic foreign policy context?

What we are seeing is escalation; ongoing and extended occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; authorization by Obama of covert ops in at least a dozen more countries; errant bombs falling on innocent families; continued despair of the Iraqis and Afghans as they try to exist without electricity, drinkable water, adequate sanitation or any glimmer of a benevolent governing body.


Let's ask these people whether their patience is all that should be required to improve their lot.



Chris Floyd: "We have met our responsibility!" No, Mister President, we have not., September 1, 2010


William Dalrymple:


22 June 2010

.....

After the jirga was over, one of the tribal elders came over and we chatted for a while over a glass of green tea. "Last month," he said, "some American officers called us to a hotel in Jalalabad for a meeting. One of them asked me, 'Why do you hate us?' I replied, 'Because you blow down our doors, enter our houses, pull our women by the hair and kick our children. We cannot accept this. We will fight back, and we will break your teeth, and when your teeth are broken you will leave, just as the British left before you. It is just a matter of time.'"

What did he say to that? “He turned to his friend and said, 'If the old men are like this, what will the younger ones be like?' In truth, all the Americans here know that their game is over. It is just their politicians who deny this."

During lunch, as my hosts casually pointed out the various places in the village where the British had been massacred in 1842, I asked them if they saw any parallels between that war and the present situation. "It is exactly the same," said Anwar Khan Jegdalek. "Both times the foreigners have come for their own interests, not for ours. They say, 'We are your friends, we want democracy, we want to help.' But they are lying."

“Whoever comes to Afghanistan, even now, they will face the fate of Burnes, Macnaghten and Dr Brydon," said Mohammad Khan, our host in the village and the owner of the orchard where we were sitting. The names of the fighters of 1842, long forgotten in their home country, were still known here.

“Since the British went, we've had the Russians," said an old man to my right. "We saw them off, too, but not before they bombed many of the houses in the village." He pointed at a ridge of ruined mud-brick houses.

“We are the roof of the world," said Mohammad Khan. "From here, you can control and watch everywhere."

“Afghanistan is like the crossroads for every nation that comes to power," agreed Anwar Khan Jegdalek. "But we do not have the strength to control our own destiny - our fate is always determined by our neighbours. Next, it will be China. This is the last days of the Americans."

Again, please state what simply stating 'patience is a necessity' connotes in this context.

[jaxx]

10. It says being patient is necessary, nothing is instantly solved.

[seafan]

11. While you are being patient, many more are dying.

There is absolutely no justification for this continuation and escalation of George W. Bush's murderous actions.

A prominent Texas writer hired to help President Bush construct a candidate's autobiography said the president talked at length a year before he was elected about the possible prosecution of a war and the benefits of being perceived as a strong military leader.
Mickey Herskowitz, who has written dozens of books and covers sports for the Houston Chronicle, described the president's feelings in a taped conversation with freelance journalist and blogger Russ Baker.

.....

"I'll tell you, he was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," Herskowitz told Baker. "One of the things he said to me, is 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it.

"He said, 'If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.' "

----Houston Chronicle, October 31, 2004

Obama had true political capital in 2008, given to him by the people, to change our nation and world for the better.


He has inexplicably thrown it away, as he follows the path of ruin, ripped open by George W. Bush.


While you are being patient, many more are dying, and war criminals still walk freely among us.

[Romulox]

5. In the meantime, let fly the drones!

:puke:

"The Dalai Lama has been promoting peace for years and it still isn't there. "

Quite a little racket he's got there, huh?

:puke: :puke:

[rusty fender]

6. If Karzai gives the U.S. too much trouble

Petraeus will 'get rid of him' and replace him with a more reliable puppet. Could the fact that the MIC is in charge of this country be more obvious?:grr:

[xiamiam]

9. bet its the last time that honor will be given to someone for potential and possibility

instead of accomplishments

[leftstreet]

12. K&R