Saturday, July 2, 2011
Heads or Tails, Obama-Style
As he tends to do with a lot of things, Mr. Obama seems to have split the difference on his "phased withdrawal from Afghanistan". He's not exactly staying the course like a lot of his critics on the neocon right clearly want him to. But, then again, neither, either, is he putting forth an aggressive enough withdrawal plan to please his critics on the left (and some of the more libertarian members of the right). As someone who saw his initial surge strategy through a somewhat cynical lens (the fact that he boxed himself into a corner on the campaign - Afghanistan, the good war, yada yada), I'm not at all surprised by this. As for my opinion on it, if it were up to me, I'd have gotten the bulk of the troops out of there by mid-2003. So, no, Mr. Obama's timetable isn't even remotely fast enough for me....And, yes, me-buckos, screw that dink/son of a bitch, Karzai, too - frigging douche-bag.
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9 comments:
Unique insight. Another angle is what the troops themselves are saying...I saw a report the other night where some of the troops wonder why they are still in Afganistan. Moreover, Afghani security forces are now trained and outnumber Taliban forces by some jaw dropping ratio...time to let them decide their own fate.
Agree - 100%. And the fact that we're spending over 8 billion a month there. It's crazy.
I do not think we should have ever illegally invaded. There was no need, given the fact that the Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden shortly after bush gave his ultimatum.
Now that we're there though... I think we need to get out ASAP. Why continue to fight for a corrupt government?
As for the "fact", do you have any links to concrete factual news stories, as opposed to opinion pieces?
A) According the Guardian, the Taliban offer only came AFTER the bombing started. B) The Taliban was asking for "evidence" that bin Laden was involved (something that possibly could have involved sensitive security information). And C) the Taliban wanted to hand Mr. bin Laden over to a 3rd party to have him tried, one of their suggestions being; The Organization of the Islamic Conference.............We were totally within our rights to reject what was obviously a cynical offer by this absolutely repressive regime.
The real mistake by Bush was not going after bin Laden tenaciously enough and allowing him to escape to Pakistan or Jalalabad.
"We" were within "our" rights Will? I don't recall this information being reported to Congress and Congress discussing whether or not the offer should be accepted.
The offer was never given any serious consideration because The bush administration had already made up it's mind that there was going to be a war. GWB said, "They must have not heard. There's no negotiations" in response to the offer. He did not say the offer was rejected because of the concern for "sensitive security information" or because the offer was "cynical".
Also, the offer being discussed in the Guardian is the FIRST offer. There was a second offer says Gareth Porter (an investigative journalist and historian specializing in US national security policy).
According to Gareth Porter the Taliban "said they would turn bin Laden over to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which is a Saudi-based international organization of Islamic countries.
It is a moderate Islamic organization. I believe it is a fair presumption that bin Laden being tried by an OIC international panel of jurors would certainly result in a guilty verdict for the 9/11 attacks.
Had George bush seized upon this proposal -- the process [his trial by an Islamic organization] would have arguably reduced the appeal of bin Laden and al-Qaeda enormously throughout the Islamic world. Having Osama tried by Islamic jurists and by an Islamic international organization would have been an enormous advantage [in that the Islamic world would have accepted the verdict as legitimate]. Source: My blog.
The Gareth Porter bit is an opinion piece, not actual serious journalism. It falls well below any real journalistic standards
florid language such as "...But Bush brusquely...", wild conjectures/guesses (the first paragraph), wild dubious statements "The Bush refusal to negotiate with the Taliban was in effect a free pass for bin Laden and his lieutenants".
Any real journalism that backs this up?
dmarks: Any real journalism that backs this up?
I take it that to qualify as "real journalism" the author has to be in agreement with the decision to invade Afghanistan? How convenient.
What if I said that any article where the author says the invasion was justified and legal isn't real journalism? I think I would have to say that, because real journalists don't ignore facts (which someone who agreed it was legal would have to do to reach that conclusion).
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