VoteVets.org sent me an email this morning telling me to
Support President Obama's Afghanistan Strategy
Thanks, but I had other plans.
Most importantly, this President has given up the pipe dream of setting up a European-style democracy in Afghanistan, and instead has refocused our goals on a more urgent mission – protecting America and the world from terrorism.
President Obama has got it right.
Isn't this how the whole debacle started? Wasn't this our (stated, on-the-surface) reason for going into Iraq?
9 comments:
I didn't get this email - instead I got one from the SEIU urging me to phone my Congresscritter to support "President Obama's plan to fix healthcare." Yup, I'll be sure to do that. ;-)
"In 2007, after President Karzai opened up his country to foreign investment of natural resources, China Metallurgical Group won the rights to develop the world’s largest undeveloped copper field in Anyak for $3.5 billion. China’s state-owned companies are also likely to pursue Afghanistan’s untapped oil, gas, and iron resources."
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=22735&prog=zch,zgp&proj=zsa
"The site (Anyak) was discovered by an Afghan-Soviet team in 1974. However, in the face of armed resistance during their 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviets were never able to develop the site or harvest the ore."
"The main challenge to MCC is the Taliban, who moved into Kabul's southern fringes after China clinched the deal, prompting the January deployment in Logar and Wardak of more than 2,000 troops from the Army's 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y."
'A January 2008 report by Integrity Watch Afghanistan, a European research group, said MCC extracted more copper than expected from a mine in Sandaik, Pakistan, but the project has "had virtually no spillover effect on the local economy to date."'
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008833710_copper10.html
More U.S. troops required so China can strip Afghanistan of its assets? Is this the way that the U.S. will be repaying its debt to China? I guess this is what was meant by all those articles on how Obama will bring an "internationalist" vision to the White House - that it just won't be (nominal) U.S. companies doing the pillaging while our military sacrifices. Doesn't Obama know or care what happened to the USSR? And, honestly, we just can't afford this.
I'm sure the Afghans must be just thrilled to learn the whole notion of reforming and improving their country has just been termed a "pipe-dream", and that the US from now on is only going to be looking out for Number 1...
Almost forgot: not to mention to fact that political and economic development are essential to defeating terrorism. Something tells me this new strategy will leave a whole lot more Afghans dead...
Joe, when I seek the opinion of Vets, one of the places I look is the
RANGER AGAINST WAR
blog, which has a self-description of
Military commentary from retired Special Forces officer. Expresses views against the Iraq War and the War on Terror. Sees this administration as undertaking unjustified military responses to terrorism.
The U.S. should be out of Afghanistan--just provide security for Kabul and the government so they don't get overrun.
What's needed is international cooperation... China, Russia, Iran... and a main focus should be stopping the opium trade. (Russia and Iran both have huge problems in their nations from it.) I think Hillary and Richard Holbrook are working toward the international cooperation thing. They are supposed to pull their thinking and planning together into a policy statement sometime soonish, yes?
Good interview with Holbrook on his return from the region some weeks ago on Charlie Rose. Bottom line, it's a mess, but it may be do-able, will take care and time.
I was disappointed their was little or no mention of the drug trade in the interview. Seems key to me.
Also read in passing recently that when PM Brown of the U.K. was denied a press conference by Obama on the occaision of Brown's visit, it may have had (partly) to do with differences over Afghanistan policy. I haven't taken the time to see what the current differences are.
Here, I think, is the policy statement I referred to in comment above. It's just 6 pages of fairly large, openly formatted type--a quick read [PDF file].
http://allthatnatters.com/documents/afghanpaper.pdf
It's not a continuing of Cheney-Bush neocon policy.
Perhaps more interesting some discussion of it and U.S. Afghan policy at link below (the author /owner of the blog, Col Pat Lang writes in the comments too):
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis...
Long link made short - http://tinyurl.com/cxcz4x
The above blog article and comments well worth the hardly-challenging or time-consuming read for anyone who wants to know what they are talking about re Obama administration policy on Afghanistan.
In a comment farther above, I mis-spelled this gentleman's name and did not include link for this discussion re U.S.-Hillary-Obama- Afghanistan:
A conversation with Richard Holbrook, U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Feb 20, 2009 -
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10094
The dark night of his [Bush's] presidency is over. accept it - Col Pat Lang
"...a main focus should be stopping the opium trade."
I always figured the main reason we invaded Afghanistan was to protect U.S. interests in the opium trade. Isn't that how the Federal government finances a lot of their "black bag" operations?
Peter, Short answer to what you've just spurred me to realizing is a huge huge topic little understood: No, it's not. Narco-terrorism is not U.S. nor CIA operation.
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