Comments on: President Obama’s Afghanistan Speech

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:56:26 +0000

More eloquence yesterday in Scandinavia and on the surface, the oratory was better than the average sort and included a little poking the locals in the eye for our defending europe against her own lunatic Fascists but then we arrive at a minor problem. Most of the lecture…and it was a lecture….was on the Just War and that a Peace Prize could be awarded to the Commander in Chief of a Just War because, well….because. Concurrent with the President’s stirring exhortation that one must never sully one’s traditions no matter what hazard…his own Justice Department is defending and protecting the patsy John Yoo who, just following orders like an eager puppy dog, gave legal cover to violating certain august traditions and laws . To add further discomfit, this Justice Dept, actively sullying any number of traditions, it is doing so for Yoo on the anniversary of the Nuremberg trials when the United States insisted upon prosecuting certain Nazi Legal Experts for providing safe legal harbor for their leader’s perfidious acts. It is a fine and enjoyable thing to possess the definition of morality and tradition held by winners everywhere.

Change, be it ever so humble.

By: Siarlys Jenkins

Siarlys Jenkins — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 01:36:38 +0000

OF course AML, one of the funny things about current events is that they do not wait for the schedule of presidential campaigns. Carter would have loved to get the hostages freed from Tehran in October 1980, but it didn’t happen until November. The government of Iraq told GWB in no uncertain terms that the American troops were getting out, soon, and there was a treaty to renegotiate. So, McCain couldn’t campaign on “stay the course” anymore, the democratically elected government we were upholding as the fruit of our sacrifice was telling us to go. Obama could have said, see, I was right, even the Iraqi government wants us out. But nobody wanted to hear it, and he knew it. He wanted to talk about the economy.

By: AML

AML — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 00:37:47 +0000

By the end of the campaign, there was really no fundamental difference between Obama’s Iraq policy and McCain’s.

By: rex

rex — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:24:13 +0000

“war on terror”, which war is that? Is that the one where the Empire invades a sovereign county to ensure that their oil becomes our oil while lining the pockets of a corporate sponsored elite that has liberated themselves from the burden of considering the common good? I hope so, those arrogant Mohammedan bastards! Thinking that they could somehow impede me from driving to 7-11 and poking Twinkies down my diabetic pie hole. Frankly, it makes me sick. Fortunately I have the “healthcare system that provides the best healthcare in the world.” Of course since I lost my job I don’t have any access to it, but by dangy I too “question the increasingly populist flavor of American politics.”

(Do you ever read this blog?)

By: D.W. Sabin

D.W. Sabin — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:39:04 +0000

I suppose this is what happens when a person is elected on the basis of their eloquence when compared against the previous President who, to his credit, described his own mouth as “where words go to die”…(this assumes they were ever living a few inches aft and above his mouth) but, I am waiting for a little of that touted eloquence and am not too confident because the World’s longest run of Goethe’s Faust has come home to roost in Washington D.C.. Eloquence is hard to muster when you inhabit a dung heap.

Then again, we can simply adjust the value of the word “eloquence” and be happy with what we get.

By: Bruce Smith

Bruce Smith — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:56:53 +0000

On the one hand you have the Taleban and Al Queda who the West perceives as having prostituted their virtue by trying to impose a theocratic dictatorship and on the other hand much of the Middle East sees the West as the Great Satan where the rich have prostituted their virtue by greedily corrupting government and generally being responsible for maintaining a faux democracy in many aspects of life. Commonsense dictates that you refuse to believe in either deranged mind-set thrust at you by the media and most certainly don’t support money being wasted to support either sociopathic ideology.

By: Siarlys Jenkins

Siarlys Jenkins — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:27:45 +0000

Oddly, those who would have distrusted him if he didn’t show that he could be a tough commander in chief are among the voices who question what we are doing in Afghanistan. There is nothing in electoral politics that requires voters to be consistent in their demands.

He probably couldn’t simply pull out. There are real dangers — especially if our departure destablizes Pakistan, with its nuclear arsenal, and the presence of al Qaeda and a home-grown Taliban. But if people can’t stomach a long war, he can’t commit to one — he’s only the president, not the monarch, and he knows it.

It would be a mistake to think we can bring “democracy” to Afghanistan. It would also be a mistake to think we can keep troops on the ground if people in Afghanistan don’t see some benefit in terms of the quality of their life. Working with existing tribal loyalties and customs while weeding out the worst corruption is a delicate balancing act.

I definitely support Rep. Dave Obey’s proposal to impose a surtax to pay for the war. Fighting wars by deficit spending was on of Bush’s worst choices. Its part of why soldiers rotating in and out of a war zone, while most of the civilians are partying like “War? What war?” are going insane. If we ask them to put their lives on the line, the least we can do is pay what it costs to keep them there, not in the future with interest, now, to share a little of the sacrifice.