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Take Your Sweet Time, Obama
David Guttenfelder / AP Photo
The landscape has changed dramatically since Gen. McChrystal called for a major surge in March. Andrew Exum, who helped draft that report, on the strategic upsides of Obama taking his time.
President Obama is entering the final stages of his deliberations of Afghanistan. He’s deciding whether to send more troops, or reframe U.S. policy to allow for something less than the counterinsurgency campaign he promised in March. As he ponders, it’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for the commander in chief. He and his administration are trying to find a path to victory in a difficult war in Central Asia while at the same time navigating treacherous political terrain at home.
Popular support for the war has fallen rapidly over the last six months—the product, in part, of a near-decade of constant war that has left large portions of the American public drifting toward neo-isolationism. At the same time, the president is coming under pressure from political opponents and concerned moderates who worry Obama’s caution is wasting a very short window of opportunity in which the United States can affect the situation in Afghanistan through the application of more resources to both train Afghan security forces and protect population centers targeted by insurgent groups in places like Khost and Kandahar. “Obama is dithering on Afghanistan” was the headline for the normally temperate Financial Times columnist Clive Crook Monday, and my colleague Tom Ricks, an Obama supporter and seasoned observer of military affairs, has expressed similar concern about the administration’s decision-making process.
As long as Afghanistan’s ruling politicians—Hamid Karzai especially—think the United States might reduce its commitment to Afghanistan, they could be willing to accede to U.S. demands on key ministerial and provincial-level appointments.
But there are two very good reasons why the Obama administration should take its time on its decision with respect to our Afghanistan policy. There are also reasons why both sides in the current debate should give the White House the time to do so.
First, any strategic planning process starts with a series of assumptions. If any of those assumptions prove false, the plan has to be revisited. A combination of the disastrous Afghan presidential elections and the bleak assessment of the war effort delivered by Gen. Stanley McChrystal have perhaps convinced President Obama and his advisers that some of the assumptions they used to conclude in March that a counterinsurgency strategy represented the best path forward were no longer valid or perhaps never were. (In the interests of full disclosure, I served on the team that researched and helped to craft Gen. McChrystal’s report. My comments here do not reflect the opinions of either Gen. McChrystal or his command.)
• Leslie H. Gelb: At Last, Obama’s Afghan Plan
• Shirin R. Tahir-Kheli: Obama’s Pakistan Problem
• Patrick Hennessey: Of Course More Troops Are Needed Second, while working in Afghanistan this summer, we quickly arrived at the conclusion that the weakness or predatory behavior of the Afghan government represented as great a threat to mission success in Afghanistan as do any of the country’s insurgent groups. The Obama adminstration has, I believe, some leverage at the moment, which it could use to affect the composition and behavior of the next Afghan government. As long as Afghanistan’s ruling politicians—Hamid Karzai especially—think the United States might reduce its commitment to Afghanistan, they could be willing to accede to U.S. demands on key ministerial and provincial-level appointments. Just as an Afghan government consisting mainly of those politicians thrown out by the Taliban in 1996 would spell continued insurgency and mission failure, a more inclusive and competent Afghan government would enable the success of a counterinsurgency strategy.
As Steve Biddle and others have noted, though, the primary weakness of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine is its assumption that the interests of the host nation will line up with those of the United States. In Afghanistan—as in Iraq and Vietnam—U.S. military officers and diplomats have dealt with host-nation governments whose composition and behavior has often been at odds with U.S. objectives and interests. So while countless memoranda and manuals exist instructing U.S. servicemen on how to wage counterinsurgency campaigns at the operational and tactical levels, there is currently little guidance for how U.S. policymakers should use leverage over its Afghan partners. The Obama administration, if it's clever, will try to figure out the best way to use its leverage over Karzai and other Afghan politicians. And in that effort, they deserve time to succeed.
Andrew Exum is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He served in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army in 2002 and 2004.
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President Obama does not have a clue what to do. He inherited his dilemma, but that is not an excuse.
This is the Afghanistan Solution, what Obama should do, the strategy we need to make Afghanistan a favored nation and great trading partner; what we should do, how to do it, and why.
I am an independent candidate for president. Regardless what Obama does, this is what I am going to do, to settle this issue upon election to our highest office, an electoral happenstance that cannot be ruled out.
The American people are liable to agree with every thing written here as this proposal is nonpartisan approach to "win" the war with minimal loss of life! My purpose is minimal loss of life!
We must adopt this opium poppy strategy, explained below, or risk another terrorist attack in America, greater than the 9 / 11 attack. White House officials involved in the ongoing Afghanistan deliberations should ignore my candidacy for president, instead of attempting to suppress my posting, and consider this clearly stated, well thought out solution!
The key to winning Afghanistan and Pakistan, to dissolving al Qaeda and Taliban, is Afghanistan's home grown opium.
On good ship Mother Urf, opium is the big papa, the Holy Father over all opiates. Morphine, and codeine are manufactured from heroin which is distilled from opium.
That dirt-cheap heroin readily bought on the streets Kabul, by the gates to where our troops are billeted, and on the streets of Manhattan and Washington DC began a sleepy Pashtun poppy, milked in Afghanistan, oceans away.
That hardly cut heroin bag; available on select street corners in every major city in the western world, started out an opium poppy grown in Afghanistan. You first saw the rich Afghanistan poppy fields in The Wizard of Oz.
93% of the world's opium is grown and refined into heroin right on the Afghani farms! They are not such a backward unsophisticated country as rigid status quo bureaucrats paint them. The farmers grow the highest quality most potent opium that yields the most heroin, world wide!
Bill Gates must marvel at Afghanistan opium / heroin market share. Monopoly! Irreplaceable, worldwide; a blessing for all sides, especially us, because controlling the opium poppy fields means we will have taken over the main source of income for all the barbarian Taliban, the terrorist al Qaeda operations in all the neighboring countries, and all of the Western Hemisphere cartels and subtle European drug dealerships.
The key to the heroin smuggling and financial life blood of all these illegal forces is the opium poppy growing in Afghanistan.
The heroin lifeblood for terrorists and drug cartels is smuggled throughout Europe, with tons, tons going by plane and ship to South America where, repackaged, its origin is disguised so no one gets wise; and from there, routed to Mexican cartels, and from Mexico, into our country, to be sold in our ghettos, suburban streets and school yards.
For the Columbian and Mexican cartels this wholesale heroin represents billions of dollars in USA retail distributorship business. Billions of underground criminal, and terrorist dollars!
The key to disbursing Taliban and al Qaeda, eradicating all of their corruption of Afghanistan, is to choke the supply of opium the Afghan farmers are world wide famous for; choke the supply which would wipe out the opium / heroin smuggling trade; and choke their criminal customers on our side of the sea, in the Western Hemisphere.
We don't have 68,000 troops in uniform, stationed in South America, chopping down the Columbian jungle to get at the cocaine plantations. That is not happening, and won't. But we do have 68,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, with the needed more possibly on the way. The opium poppy strategy carefully explained here will SAVE MOST OF THEIR LIVES.
One of the prob limbs is our troops are under order to stand down when convoys carrying a couple tons of heroin are passing bye. Whoever instigated that order is a fascist in our uniform who must pay with court martial and sentenced for the attempted murder of one million American kids in public schools being tempted every day to try the white powder.
Surely, you, the reader, besides, hopefully a White House official involved in the deliberations over what and how to proceed in Afghanistan do not want to see any more American blood shed, especially blood shed over here from a military failure to act over there.
The Taliban's and al Qaeda's end in the opium/heroin trade nets them many millions of dollars, yet peanuts in the big picture, falafel on the table for Taliban's "freedom fighters," living over the border, in Pakistan; and money for the families of al Qaeda's suicide bombers throughout the region.
But without the opium / heroin trade, al Qaeda and Taliban would be decimated. The Western Hemisphere drug cartels would lose hundreds of millions of dollars and be facing their own recession. Illegals, all over United States building networks of street dealers for their heroin would get laid off and have to sign up for unemployment insurance.
All of the illegal heroin in the United States would dry up as the pipeline for the heroin would be destroyed! That is exactly what we want, a take down of the heroin pipe line.
In Iraq, whoever is running the roads, wins. In Afghanistan, the opium dollar is fueling both the war and the Taliban structure, enabling them to strike! Afghanistan is a poor country with a rich culture. Whoever controls the opium harvest will have battled for that right. The hardy farmers get only enough to live decently and plant their fresh poppy.
The Taliban "freedom fighters" would leave for home in a heartbeat, were they not getting fed and allowed to while away their days smoking the black Afghani hashish. No food no money no fight go home. The newly chosen Taliban "leader" has a payroll he must meet. The opium proceeds cover that payroll!
President Obama is our Commander-in-Chief, the civilian boss in charge of our ribbon shirts, but his military bureaucrats, and the retired cable news talking heads are all misreading and misleading the war.
The Wall Street Journal recently in an article:
"White House officials familiar with deliberations said that while some elements of the Taliban were inclined to harbor al Qaeda, which operated freely in Afghanistan through 2001, other members were focused on Afghanistan's internal politics and much less likely to support the international terror group."
Oh! The Taliban is more interested in securing seats on the local neighbor hooded school boards. Get reel.
The Taliban differs from al Qaeda in one respect. Taliban are criminal drug dealers hiding behind religion and oppressing the local people they believe is the key to continuing success in controlling the opium / heroin, whereas Al Qaeda smuggles heroin to fund senseless political attacks throughout their region, and to plan another 9/11 which they cannot accomplish without millions of dollars swapped with Goldman Sachs Laundromat.
A few years ago a Taliban leader, Mullah Omar came to Texas. The official reason for the "trip" was to meet with Texas oil barons to discuss an oil or gas pipe line. That was the cover. The real reason was to have lengthy conversations on throw away cell phones purchased in WalMart, with Mexican and Columbian Cartel officials about the details for shipping refined heroin over here instead of tell tale smelly opium, and paying a higher price. The Columbian Cartels got into the act because the Mexicans felt no one would suspect that heroin originating in far a way Afghanistan would be round-about smuggled into South America.
In fact, Fascist Bureaucracy Ink taps every telephone in America, but those conversations, on throw away cell phones were missed!
We don't need to build an Afghanistan army. The unaligned unofficial Afghani militias know how to fight.
With a little structure and dollar support at the bottom, at the farm level, the Afghani's will protect themselves. Abraham Lincoln established a sea embargo to win the Civil War. Without supplies by ship from Europe, the Confederate Army was doomed.
Our troops get killed on border patrols between Pakistan and Afghanistan to protect our way of life across the ocean. Yet a stone's throw away, Mother Nature's opium is grown for the criminal and international terrorist's gain? How can our military be so dumb as to allow this to go on, creating millions of terrorist jihad dollars?
The only thing going across that Pakistan / Afghanistan border are paid fighters and convoys of drug smugglers hauling their cargo. The Afghan opium trade is key to everything happening there!
We own the opium and that country is ours to develop as another favored nation and great trading partner from that part of the world. Opium control means renegade Taliban, al Qaeda terrorists, and warlords are on the road again. Skedaddled or killed.
(I like the idea of not killing anybody.)
The White House failure to respond to this openly published letter will lead to loss of American lives, and seal the possibility of Barack Obama being reelected to a 2nd term in our Highest office. As the person who created the Vehicle for World Peace, I can promise The White House that much. My presidential candidacy is not the issue here, winning Afghanistan is.
The opium production and our clear ability to control that opium, is the only issue.
Our guys must begin digging foxholes in every opium field, making CIA Cash In Advance deals with the Afghanis that we are purchasing their opium crop for top dollar, in raw opium form. The farmers don't have to brew the black opium milked from the plants into a dangerous snowy heroin powder, so they are poppy plentiful, an ounce or two for the house, compliments of us.
Raw opium isn't dangerous. You won't kill yourself smoking opium the way you can so easily overdose from a heroin syringe, so we want their whole crop raw, just like unrefined brown sugar, and we will pay the refined opium heroin price which is similar to tacking on an additional 65 cents to a bushel of Iowa corn.
The war momentum will immediately shift! Instead of Taliban's "freedom fighters" picking us off every other day as we patrol the dangerous Afghanistan border, we will occupy the opium poppy fields and wait for Taliban to show up, our invited, come-and-get-us guests.
The key to Afghan quality of life for Taliban, thugs without a country when we defeat them, to them shipping their kids off to the Ivy League is based on who gets to stash the cash from Afghanistan's opium crop.
Would Karzai and his drug dealing family in Kabul be participants? How could they not be in for a slice of the action. The Afghanistan drug lords have lobbyists.
At the same time, on the diplomatic front we ought to push to reunite Pakistan with India. This will initiate a total eviction of Taliban by the Pakistani people. For Pakistan, rejoining India means freedom, food, jobs, education, and a better life. Only their military bureaucrats are opposed to this idea, and their minds could be changed with a passport, an SUV, and forty acre guarantee in Montana.
Instead of knee jerk reactions to my "Hunt For The Red October" reference to "Montana," just get creative and plant that idea in their newspapers above the fold! Now is the time to wag the Pakistan India dog!
Sad, these policies, purchasing Afghanistan's opium, piecing off the Pak military, and reuniting Pakistan with India may be too progressive for president Obama, and for his Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintstone, but maybe not.
Certainly wagging this Pakistan-India dog will be incentive for the Paks to evict the Taliban and that is what we want! The Paks have nothing going for them under the Taliban gun.
Don't you know originally Taliban bribed the Pak military for long-term safe journey with the opium money. That is how Taliban established their foothold in Pakistan! Opium money! President Obama is surrounded by bureaucrats who wouldn't know the scent of an opium house were they standing at the door.
Many Taliban soldiers will change colors of their turbans and meld into the crowd as soon as they understand the opium harvest has been taken away from them. It isn't about religion, or the neighbor hooded school board, or how many times a day you pray to Big Al (Allah to you), it is about the opium / heroin and millions of dollars in cash! You can eat three hot meals a day in the streets of Mumbai for total 60 - 75 cents plus 25 cents for a couple hookahs full. One million dollars = one million days divided by x number of Taliban soldiers.
In Afghanistan, we need to get busy, prepare the fields, create comfortable foxholes on every poppy acre, booby trap the brush surrounding with a wide safe swath to the farmhouse, and make it clear to the farmers, by CIA shelling out Cash In Advance, we are purchasing their whole raw opium crop but paying top refined heroin price, so the farmers are with us! This is a super incentive for the farmers. Less work more money.
Taliban, Al Qaeda and warlords will have to exit their caves and cross the poppy fields instead of picking us off with remotely detonated roadside attacks. Retired military will be opposed to this poppy war, but hard pressed to tell you why because they support that opium trade just the way it is.
We are purchasing the Afghanistan poppy crop, and negotiating fair and square and in advance how much sticky black sap can be extrapolated from each plant. CIA stands for Cash In Advance but these cash negotiations are a job for our enlisted soldiers in the field - to negotiate with the farms where they are dug in, not a job for CIA officers who are from Kabul. The CIA role is to safely deliver the money!
The plants, ripening by day, are the draw for Taliban, al Qaeda and warlords to show, the only way for them to go, taking on our troops in the poppy fields where we will defeat them!
When they come down the yellow brick Afghanistan trails we can sting them from above. A couple drone attacks will turn them all around in their tracks. No opium harvest for them no paychecks.
The extra virgin first milk is scheduled to start the day after tomorrow. Our enemies know that. The farmers are out of the picture as they are already paid in advance. At 4:00 a.m. we begin snipping every plant two inches above ground with two handle bush trimmers, chop chop, just like that. At dawn, we start stuffing wood chippers and spread the soil with the chopped up results to fertilize next year's crop.
So good-bye Taliban grunt, and don't step on any land mines going home.
A couple million heroin addicts in Europe will be going cold turkey! The Mexican and Columbian drug cartels will be out of heroin, and lose hundreds of millions of criminal dollars in projected sales.
Regardless the Washington DC bureaucrats will be viciously against this operation. The status quo is how the rigid government's bureaucrats want to go.
But with a cash infusion at the farm level, Afghanistan will begin to flourish. The Afghani people will start rebuilding their own country, without corruption from above, roads and schools decided by tribal leaders in the farm districts, with a helping hand from us.
We must also purchase their whole marijuana and hashish crop, and bring each of the harvests to USA, to California and other states where medicinal marijuana is legal for medicinal purposes, else we run the risk that that crop, too becomes an income for the terrorists. Afghani marijuana is the most potent in the world, best for relief of anxiety besides chemotherapy's side effects.
Regardless what the president's surrounding bureaucrat advisors say, we occupy the opium fields, purchase the whole crop, and all the heroin sold every day in our country will dry up! Young kids in poor neighborhoods will not become addicted to heroin.
Don't we want that? The opium / heroin dry up is guaranteed because all of the other countries where opium grows, they only have planted enough for their own home land and neighboring clientele.
The opium pays al Qaeda's world salary. But who controls the opium wins the terrorist war, world wide! The poppy strategy expressed on this page will accomplish our mission! Those opposed want things the way they are. Follow the money. In the event we ignore the terrorist's cash cow, and leave, al Qaeda, opium rich, will have the funds to execute all of their murderous plans. Wasn't the twin towers brought down and their Pentagon attack enough! Obama inherited that issue! The opium trade paid for the 9/11 tragedy, not bin Laden's personal millions! We cannot risk allowing 9 / 11 to repeat. We cannot!
Ignoring what I say guarantees Obama is a one term president.
michaelslevinson.com
Time to put a limit on comment length DB.
Agreed, also applies to Mikey L's lengthy say nothing blog responses.
Appleseed!
Throughout human history there have always been nasty minded people who despise creative inteligence. You are one of those, absent the decency to address the author by his name, reminescent of a school yard punk.
At 2:19 pm Oct 25, in the afternoon, one of your fascistic narrow minded buds posted the following, quoting one of my posts:
"I promise in advance, to spout a delicate sensible, mull tie ling well rhyme, in every line, so all on the planet, our good ship mother earth, feel they are participants."
He wrote:
What the hell does just that one sentence mean? Before you get to LostPatriot and asking about the word "sheeple" which I assume is a play on people following like sheep, define you lame ass remarks or better yet, stop posting your bullshit. Or better yet, get back on your spaceship and go somewhere else.
Here is the Oliver C Kerr response, posted @ 3: 27 pm Oct. 25
"I promise in advance, to spout a delicate sensible, mull tie ling well rhyme, in every line, so all on the planet, our good ship mother earth, feel they are participants."
What the hell does just that one sentence mean?
A good "quest yin" is where you quest your chin and take it all in, a creative way of saying that when faced with something you don't fully understand, and understanding, the word, comes from the Greek and means, 'to get beneath,' you prop your head up, to get a head's up, by cupping your chin with your index finger and thumb. It's the human condition: You quest your chin and take it all in:
Wen you slip frum
Her slime you cry out
In ang u ish not
Wer or why Ra
Ther Adonoy.
Ego's the band in
Frunt of the eyes
E goes up stairs
To go to sleep
and dreams night mares,
Be hind the eyes
In bac of yer he*d
Id ha pens ther
Wher all the myths
Live on and please
The above is part of the first column in the Television Scripture. Because the words are broken down into "silly bulls" the Script (shure, in American (Amer eye can) lingo) almost demands to be read out loud, so there are four modes of apprehension: What you see, what you say, what you hear, and then putting the 'silly bulls" and lines together to "read" between the lines.
cry / why / Adonoy . . . stairs / night mares . . . he*d / id / wher / ther . . Ra in Egyption mythology is the sun god, the supreme Egyptian deity, worshiped as the creator of all life and typically with a falcon's head bearing the solar disc. From earliest times he was associated with the pharaoh.
"Adonoy" is Hebrew, the first half of the unsayable LAN Lord uh pin Heaven's name. The God of Moses whose voice you heard in The Ten Commandments who answered Moses, "iamb that eye amb. (The original tongue spoken by man was iambic. The first time you popped your nuts, inside your mind you said, "iamb coming.")
(This is way too deep for you, Johnny the Appleseed of orchard mental rot.)
"Yoo" is your eyes signified by the double "o." The "u" in "you" is open signifying your mind is a chalice taking in information from G-d . . . a normal revelationary experience all people have.
'e' is a letter for G-d. Hey you! . . . Who me. . . as your finger goes to your chest because the House of God is in your chest and the letter e is symbol for God. The letter E is half of the Egyptian symbol for fertility. The capital i stands for God, the I behind the eyes inside the mind where vision happens. The lower case i is man beneath G-d.
My understanding of every letter in the alphabet comes from the gut. I have not studied any of these things, but found them out after I wrote down the Television Scripture, my "spoken poem" written down to perform from dusk until dawn, with every line a delicate sensible "mull tie ling well" rhyme. Ling is short fror language. Mull is to mull around. Tie is to tie the words multi. Do i do it well? That is for the people to decide. The concept of all the worlds' peoples doing the same thing at the same time should count for a Nobel Prize.
Your defintion of "sheeple" makes sense. I asked because i didn't know. As far as sheep go, "you gotta treat sheep just like a girl, take 'em way out in the woods so's nobody sees ya." A fellow nicknamed Mulldoon said that to me in the galley while we were on a coffee break, on a ship we were on in 1969. He was a very funny kid.
michaelslevinson.com
One more thing; this Television Scripture I characterize a "Vehicle for World Peace is c. 1971 and has the first Persian Gulf War (Bush 41 war) carefully explicitly spelled out - when, where who would do the fighting - how it would turn out. Find that in video on my web site and youtube.com/poetprophet
Nixon is explicitly described leaving the White House in disgrace; the Italian name of the Pope who followed Pope Paul (John Paul 1) and then thirteen pages later a clear description of him dying. The arctic ice caps melting is also described and more.
The Book ov Lev It A kiss is a prophetic work, another reason people may be willing to give me a chance. Glad you asked.
michaelslevinson.com
The post (above) was removed by The Daily beast editors and my access to posting was also blocked! Evidently, Tina Brown has someone to oversee these editorial decisions and it was decided to reinstate the poet.
Getting back to the removed post:
I forgot to mention i flunked my senior year in high school. Flunked out. I went to summer school instead of repeating the year.
"This is the good ship Mother Urf. whatever deck you live on, the cards are dealt out evenly. When it comes time to change the course of human history, on the good ship Mother Earth, all the world cries out for is a spokes man, to turn the wheel."
For the record, a couple kids interrupted me when i was writing the Television Scripture and wanted me to go to a rally. They announced that the rich were getting richer, the poor poorer and I had to drive them to the rally. The above paragraph is what i simply answered them, right off the top of my head.
I am the only person on this planet able to create a "spoken poem for all mankind," having written down 112 pages in double columns, I thought as a proof because talk is cheep. It don't cost nuthin to listen. During that time i was good friends with H. Marshall McLuhan. He said i had eclipsed James Joyce and my work would be around forever. We were really good friends. I loved him. He told me I was years ahead of my time and i would have to wait for the world to catch up to me. He told me that 39 years ago.
j. edgarina the pharoah of fascists personally marked me down as a person of "special" interest in 1970. His people have harrassed me, destroyed my friendships, ruined people's careers because they were friends of mine and master minded two Hoover inspired failed attempts on my life. The first was in 1980. The second very recently. They just won't get off the stick.
Coincidently, Appleseed, you, like your friend who seems to be absent (as he phyically threatened me) fit their Fascist Bureaucracy Ink attack attac attack profile: Never a comment about what "eye' say, always an attack on the sayer. You are not dumb. I do not under estimate anyone.
michaelslevinson.com
I added that to the post at 3:49 pm October 25
So a "delicate" sensible rhyme is more subtle than what you are accustomed to.
Too bad you, appleseed, are opposed to the concept of world peace beginning with a world wide cultural event, from dusk until dawn, with every line a delicate sensible rhyme.
michaelslevinson.com
O.K. crazy man.
Wow that was as long as the actual article. Some good ideas, but i'd like to see the numbers behind what your saying.
I actually checked out your website, you need something a little more cohesive and please stop with the "cute" little spellings you'd be much more believable wothout them.
I am working on a major web site remodeling. Some people are rankled by my word refractions: economy becomes e con oh me, a couple Washington DC players on a golf corse. scheming a way to sliver themselves a piece of my take homempay.
I may start writing a Lev-Shin-Airey, an actual dictionary of my word refractions - my "silly bull" sense. Younger people love. Older people are not so sure. Mine is a sense of words, world orders, and word hors d'oeuvres, a new word order.
Glad you visited my web site. You inquire about the numbers. What numbers? Do the math. It is public knowledge 93% of the world opium is grown in Afghanistan. So it is a billion dollar business, being sold world wide, especially in Europe, Russia, and United States. Iran they grow their own poppy. South East Asia they grow their own. Every where else the heroin originates from Afghanistan grown opium poppy.
So we occupy all the poppy fields and all of the billion dollar cartels will be without a product! We want that!
Richard Engel was interviewed by Rachel maddow on MSNBC last night. He is a foreign correspondent over there. He made some interesting comments. He said the military goes after drug bazaars where the drug trades are for kalishnekov rifles and ammo, but a straight up convoy carrying a couple tons, tons of heroin is allowed to pass.
Engel did not use the word heroin. He said "opium products." Who instructed Engel to use the cloudy blank phrase, "opium products."
The fascist confuses reality. The remark was fascistic. This is NOT TO SAY Richard Engel is a fascist. The fascist is that military person who instructed Engel on his language - what the military advisor preferred.
Who ever it is that instigated the order to allow convoys of drugs to be allowed to pass is a traitor to our nation. That heroin, some of it, will go by boat to Columbia, to the Columbian drug cartels where it will be repackaged to appear South American in origin, then shipped to the Mexican cartels who will smuggle it over the border to their network of illegals who are in every city developing a retail network of dime bag drug dealers, some of whom hang by our school yards.
A couple million kids (at least) are being turned into heroin addicts, which almost guarantees a lifetime of addiction when the addiction begins at the beginning or at pre-teen.
The military person who established the policy and gave the order to "hands off" the drug convoys is either a fascist, on the take and getting a slice of the proceeds, or both, but in any case, a traitor to our nation, an eenemy within who should be prosecuted and given the ultimate penalty, which is death by a military firing squad.
As president of United States, as Commander-in-Chief, I promise to uncover the fascist who is contributing to the murder of our children, to the destruction of their souls, and he or she will be prosecuted and sentenced.
I will personally give the order: 'ready . . aim . . . fire!'
michaelslevinson.com
Censorship in cyberspace. Dull.
michaelslevinson.com
Agreed.
crazy person
crazy person
Stop it oliver, you are boring the hell out of us. We don't want to read your 'book', just a pithy comment.
You seriously need a psych consult or an increase in your medication. It's not helping.
Fuck Man!
NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR LONG FUCKING POSTS!!!
YOU ARE INCREDIBLY BORRRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGG!!!!!
It's time to put a limit on comments....Obama needs to explain why he's delaying in sending the 40,000 more troups to Afghanistan...Sending Kerry out to give his version doesn't do it....Another 8 US troups were killed yesterday in fire-fights. It seems he's sacrificing those already in the battle rather than send the additional troops. How many does he plan to kill off of our own troups before sending what General McChristal requested? Office war isn't going very pretty.
How does Obama sending saying he'll send troops save the lives lost yesterday. There are casualties of war and that's a fact.
What is the mission in Afghanistan? To stop the Taliban? We cannot even figure out how the Taliban are being financed much less stop it. So what we have is a bunch of rag tag, home grown terrorists who are running a $500 million dollar a year enterprise right under our noses and we are powerless to do anything about it.
That does not give me a lot of confidence in continuing with the ground game. As long as they are financed, they can keep fighting and recruiting.
He needs to explain why his lack of decision is justified to the FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES OF THOSE KILLED over the last 2 months he has had to make this decision.
Well, here's a new flash. Gates stated weeks ago that we do not have 40.000 additional troops to send and won't have before the first of the year at the earliest. We are still in the process of deploying the 21,000 authorized last Spring. New boots hit the ground this week but the final deployment will not take place until December. Pretending that additional troops would somehow prevent helicopter crashes or road bombs is ludicrous. The decision isn't about troops. It new has been. The decision is about strategy and making the wrong decision about strategy will cost far more than the lives of 8 U S troops. The longer we stay, the more troops involved, the more lives will be lost because that is what happens in war. There is no such thing as a war without casualties. The Taliban pose no international threat other than giving aid to Al Qaeda. For the most part they just want us out of their country. We weren't invited.
Comment too long. Allow me to sum up. US service deaths are way since McChrystal took over. Clearly he and Petreaus should be relieved of duty.
I don't know about Petraeus, he has been recovering from prostate cancer and although he gave McChystal luke warm support, McChyrstal's failure to follow military protocol may have been his own ego and ambition asserting itself. McChrystal is unfit to entrust with our national interest and treasure.
crazy person
This is just too long, archaic, and lacking rhetorical umph to answer in depth, since the post itself is so shallow. Does michaelslevinson.com not know the golden triangle in Thailand with Chineese growing poppies under the tutelage of a known intelligence agency? This poppy was later sold to supposedly pay for the war against communism in French Indochina aka Vietnam, and we knowhow explosivel drug use became when operations could not even be mounted because units' forces were not totally fit to fight. It is stupendously ridiculous to assume that a complex situation such as AZfghanistan can be resolved be controlling just one thing, poppies! Incredible simplicity and boring reiteration of us as a warrior nation ascending to further military glories. I will point out that after WWII, our Country has not won a single war, not a one. And in all cases, we simply did not havelk the right strategies nor tactics to fight forces that weremotivated on their needs and nationalism and not on the Star and Stgripes. Rememb e4r the injunction of our first president, Washington told us to beware of foreign entaglements and that is exactly what we have not done. We crossed the Rubicon a long time ago, and as an absolute dominant State in the world is only a wrenhching dismal look at us as the Second Roman Empire. (Sorry, this post came out too long.)
My guess is that ignoring what you have to say guarantees nothing. You are far more enthralled with your own opinion than anyone else will ever be.
We didn't need to read all that ( and I didn't) to know that the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable and not necessary to 'win'. We must get out as soon as possible since there is NO reason for us to be there. I hope the President makes the right decision and soon.
Iran and Pakistan,there's two reasons.Has there ever been a war that was worth fighting in too you?
Very good article - thank you
Regardless of what some of the spinning, angry comment-bangers on TDB might use to diffuse this and other arguments for careful deliberation, i think the Administration has a right to do what Bush never even got close to doing....think this thing out.
He may be right, he may not, but this isn't some geo-political chess board he's playing with.... it's modern security and precedent-setting for the coming 2 decades.
And the majority of the American people are finally snapping out of the conditioning we had the last 8 years - the 'just fucking do it' policy.
Agree
Andrew, I'd like you to meet someone named Matthew Hoh.
Mr. Exum,
Your analysis is appreciated, and your book is terrific.
You make penn look good
Fair enough Andrew. But at some point our deliberations will be interpreted by the people we are trying to "save" as hesitations. Hesitations of will and commitment.
It goes without much further debate that the Afghans are not a people which we really have much of an inclination to care about. And, whether they are corrupt or not, they understand that. They are also not so stupid as to have missed several of our past performances (notably Viet Nam) where we left those who sided with us twisting slowly in the wind.
At some point the continued "testing" by us of their willingness and worthiness to be "saved" by us will come to be understood as simply a delay on our part to avoid making unpleasant decisions. Given our short attention span and fickleness, it would serve the Afghans well to simply blow us off altogether, side with the Taliban, and tell us to butt out.
The real issue is not Afghanistan's worthiness as a military and diplomatic "project" for us. It is whether we are fit to undertake Afghanistan (or any other place) as a "project".
No matter how desperate Afghans might be, they would be stupid in the extreme to look to us for help. It will not be there.
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Hey, I didn't say that it was our mission to "save" anybody. We simply have to make up our minds who we are and stick to it. Morally, going into these countries to me is kind of like going into a china shop -- you break it, you buy it. Bush got us in. Obama confirmed the importance of some kind of vague but worthwhile objective and people are dying. For what, I don't have a clue.
The last administration was reasonably criticized for its cowboy, rogue foreign policy. It appears that this administration is determined to reverse that. And that is good. What is not good is a flip-flopping, dithering policy which erodes our allies confidence that we will do what we say we will do.
Is 8 years a short attention span? It is if you have undertaken a 20 year job. Is it worth 20 years? Maybe the jerkwaters that lead us should think about that before we break the china.
So far we have, in big or small ways, flipped the bird to the U.K., France, Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Israel. There is no doubt in my mind that we will blithely watch Iraq go down the tubes. And Afghanistan is about to get it's "rectal". That is certainly our prerogative. But I am convinced that our desire to be thoughtful and to "be fair" to everybody as it is being executed by this administration is simply putting us in a place where nobody in their right mind would join us in even a penny ante poker game, let alone something really serious.
In short we are moving from being a wildly crazy "ally" to a reliably untrustworthy ally. We are moving from "stupid" to "crappy".
Change.
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"I also don't think Obama is "flip-flopping". Now there is a different mission (or many possible missions) and the situation on the ground has changed. It is a good time to think long and hard. I hope we draw down."
Baloney. In March, Obama, with the fanfare that accompanies his every word, laid out our objective in Afghanistan in crystal clear terms. He fired a general and replaced him with a general ordered to prepare a plan to achieve those objectives. If you take the time to read his speech you will find that the was absolutely unambiguous.
Now McChrystal has come back with the bad news and Obama says the conditions have changed. Afghanistan is corrupt. Shocked, Shocked he is. What a crock. Afghanistan is corrupt, was corrupt and will be corrupt long after we leave. Afghanistan's corruption is simply a pretense for a leader who doesn't want to stand by his earlier pronouncement.
I personally don't give a hoot in hell what the jerkwater does. We can stay or go for all I care. But whatever we do, we need to be clear about what our objectives and expectations are and we need to have a policy which does not further waste American lives.
This is not the Three Bears. Splitting the difference (as Obama is most likely to do) to keep one foot in the world of "real men" and one foot in the world of "real compassionate men" will be useless. This is his war now, he can do anything he wants with it. But if he wastes more American lives and comes home with nothing more than we have now it will be a first class crime against America.
Obama supported the war in Afghanistan during the election to prove his bona fides as a "real man". He was wrong. It did not fit him well then. It is even more ill suited to him now. Its time to quit the kabuki and put the interests of the American people above his boundless ego. Time to get off the pot -- whatever he wants to do.
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We are bankrupting our country by fighting constant wars. The chickens are coming home to roost. We can't take care of our own, let alone, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. Wake up America.
I think that the point is that interpreting hesitation of commitment might be leverage with the Afghanistan government. Apparently, it made Karzai rethink the run off. We did not go to Afghanistan to save anyone. We went to destroy Al Qaeda. We lack the resources to save ourselves right now. Has anyone asked China how interested they are in continuing to finance our war?
Yeah, well, taking his sweet time to play golf just cost the lives of 8 more American soldiers today. This administration is immoral and shameless
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Really? What you are saying is if Obama didn't play golf then the 8 Americans would be alive.
Do you realize that the lead time between giving the order for more troops and the troops actually arriving on scene is 9 months to a year? The 8 Americans that died were casualties of war.
That is why this Doofus in Chief needs to make his mind up NOW ---- he knew what he was getting into when he took office ----- he just never had to make a hard decision, can't vote present, which is what he wishes he could do.
BTW, if he cannot be rushed into the Afghan troop decision, just what is the rush to pass health reform in the dead of night, no time to read 1500 pages, by the end of the year?
What an adolescent, inane comment?
Rushing into healthcare reform? It's been at least 30 years to try to get reform. You think that is rushing, peppermint?
Did you complain when Bush played golf and took many vacations? I think not since we all believe a president needs some relaxation. Give President Obama the same consideration.
President Bush stopped playing Golf out of pure consideration for the men and women that were in harms way in the Iraq war. Bush deserves so much more credit than you ungrateful liberals will ever give your anointed Obama. Bush gave up his favorite pastime for his principles. What is Obama willing to sacrifice? Nothing!!!
"There is simply no evidence that these 8 lives would not have been lost even if more troops had been deployed."
Right. It's nobody's fault.
Death happens.
Eight people dying for nothing is far, far worse than eight hundred people dying for some worthwhile objective. Our leaders have got to stop dithering and figure out why the want to kill our young people. It is impossible to know right now whether our losses are serving any useful purpose whatsoever.
It is up to the Commander-in-chief to explain to us why he wants to kill our soldiers. The country deserves an explanation and the soldiers whose lives are on the line daily deserve an explanation.
Its time to convince the nation that the administration's calculus is about more than proving that the president is smart and/or has testicles.
Its time to fish or cut bait.
He's trying to figure it out, and these things, believe it or not, takes time. If you possess the mental acuity to figure out this giant mess in, oh, a week or so, could you please lend your insight to the President?
Andrew Exum - Lovely bit of writing. The three main points come across well, and makes the main point that Obama needs to make a well informed decision.
TELL THAT TO THE FAMILIES AND LOVED ONES OF THOSE WHO HAVE DIED IN THE PAST TWO MONTHS !! Your nothing but an intellectual elitist pin head.
You aren't making sense. We do not have 40,000 troops to send and will not have before the first of the year. What about that do you not understand? When you utilize reserve and national guard, you have to prepare them to enter a war zone. There is a difference in sitting behind a desk doing accounting, or driving the UPS truck, or working in community mental health than in being prepared to fight a war. Of course, feel free to volunteer to go yourself. The nature of war insures casualities so if you aren't prepared for that then you position best be to bring them home.
Remember, these men/women VOLUNTEERED. They knew the dangers. Wars are about death and destruction. Did you think otherwise, jg90210?
Bring back the draft, then this war would be over YESTERDAY.
THAT'S CALL PLAYING POLITICS WITH THE LIVES OF OUR SOLDIERS. DISGUSTING.
No, you are trying to play politics with the lives of soldiers. Being able to clearly define what the mission the soldiers have been sent to do is essential to sending them.
See the previous remark, jg90210. I dislike false patriotism.
My God there are morons on this site. This is military strategy, it takes time this isnt a video game or deciding what color shirt to wear. We've seen what rash non-thinking in regards to military action can get you. I mean do you honestly think the soldiers are sitting there with their arms in the air waiting for orders? No they are still following the previous strategy until they administer a new one. But acknowledging that would cause the kro-magnons to admit the cheney way was a complete failure
Nine months is plenty of time to come up with a strategy.He came up with a way to conquer 1/6 of our economy through Government healthcare,surely he could have came up with something for Afghan. by now.Besides, he told us he had this all figured out during his campaign.
What grade are you in? He came up with a strategy in March. Per Gates, it was the first military strategy we had had in Afghanistan in 30 years. However, the situation on the ground changed and after 90 days on the job McChrystal decided that in order to implement the strategy both far more man power and a much longer committment would be required. In June, when taking over he warned that there would be far more casualties involved in implementing his strategy. His prediction has proven to be correct. Are you willing to send soldiers to die in Afghanistan for the next 25 years?
Gee ,I wonder why our enemies in Afgh. became emboldened right around the first of the year?They smell weakness.A first grader can figure that out.
Good thing you elected a community organizer/lawyer to be president,instead of someone actually qualified to make these types of decisions.What's your solution,cut and run?It's an ugly situation that has to be dealt with eventually.We shouldn't put off for tomorrow ,things that can be done today.
President Obama=Jimmy Carter.Buy Oil Futures,you'll make money guaranteed!
1/6 of our economy? That is Rep propaganda.
Gen. McChrystal didn't take over in Afghanistan until June. I didn't remember it being him advising the surge in March?
At this point in time I think Obama has to get all the best information from all sources in order to make the right decision for the United States. As he told the members of the military, he needs to make sure of what he is asking them to risk life and limb for. It's his duty to them. He needs to be sure of what is happening. With the election fraud in the Afghan election, he needed to see what Karazi would do.
I think the problems in Afghanistan were allowed to become what they are when Bush decided to ignore the just war in order to go to Iraq. We had every right to be going after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden in Afghanistan but we went to Iraq based on lies and misinformation designed to make people fearful. Saddam was bad but we should have concentrated on the original mission before starting another fight. We lost so much support from allies when we invaded Iraq when we had them for Afghanistan. Additionally, the troops in Afghanistan didn't get everything they needed for the fight they were supposed to be waging. The support was all going to Irag.
Now it is hard to keep the American people and Congress behind the fight in Afghanistan. Iraq burned out the will of so many who were firmly behind the original Afghan operation. However I did just see a new poll showing more people are willing to support additional troops being sent. And most seem to support the president taking his time to make the decision. Waiting until the Afghanistan government is settled is something a majority seem to think should happen. So I think the president is on the right track, no matter what the detractors like Cheney say. For me, Cheney has absolutely no credibility anyway. I would like to see him get water boarded for real and then say it isn't torture. And his daughter should be right there getting it done too.
Iraq and Afgh. I believe are part of the same mission,to contain Iran and establish a base of operations for action ,if necessary, in unstable Pakistan.McCrystal told the President we need more troops,whats he waiting for?He's only concerned about his personal political agenda at home.Bad polling numbers shouldn't decide the course of action in Afghanistan,but I get the feeling every decision he makes is based on what's good for the Democrats,not the country.Cheney's not concerned about what peole think of him anymore,that's why his opinion is more trustworthy to me than President Obama's.
Obama was all about dropping bombs on Pakistan and Afgh. during the election.But now that the problems in his lap ,he no longer seems to have any of the answers.But that's what you get when you elect a showman,all flash,no substance.He like a deer in the headlights,"dithering" just gets you ran over .
But all the while our troops are sitting over there lacking the manpower to protect themselves adequately and our presidents out fundraising and golfing.Would you let Bush get away with this kind of incompetence?
And by the way,if waterboarding a scumbag terrorist 1000 times saves one american life, i'm all for it.America's gone soft,I'm glad there's men like Cheney who have a pair and are willing to do whats needed to protect the people,not there polling numbers.
I thought obama was also going to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden? I don't hear those words anymore from Mr. hope and change.
Your remarks are so juvenile and so full of venom for the President. Who cares what you say, Win?
Winston1 isn' t the one who said he was going to capture Bin laden,President Obama said that.How is it juvenile to hold a pres. responsible for things he said he would do?Your hero has proven himself to be just another lying,scheming politician and your having a hard time coming to grips with that.Saying "who cares what you say" and calling anything that falls outside your narrow world view" propaganda" is a clear sign of an intellectually lazy and overly defensive person.
Obama's as big a liar as Bush ever was and he's taking you for a ride.
to Oliver: Duh.
Thank you.
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