Congressman Ted Poe had tough words for Pakistan yesterday: “Isn’t Pakistan supposed to be with us in this war in Afghanistan? And if they’re not our ally, why are we giving them billions of taxpayer dollars? Now, in light of the illegal release of classified documents, Pakistan also appears to be taking our money and supporting our enemy, the Taliban. Maybe Pakistan isn’t the loyal ally we pay them to be. We should not be giving money we need here at home to countries that are friends in public and thieves behind closed doors. As my colleague Louie Gohmert says, ‘We don’t have to pay these people to hate us. They will do it for free.’ And that’s just the way it is.”

Is that just the way it is, Representative Poe?

If that’s just the way it is, why didn’t Ted Poe vote for H. Con. Res. 301, a bipartisan bill that would require the withdrawal of the U.S. military out of Afghanistan?

Can you find the missing 8.7 billion dollars the Pentagon was supposed to be managing? That’s the amount of money in a batch that auditors have announced the U.S. military has lost track of in Iraq.

What did Congress do yesterday to deal with the problem? It voted to send the Pentagon tens of billions of additional dollars. Sure, this money hasn’t brought us the kind of victory we promised, but then, what do we have to lose? (besides the money, I mean)

Two Democratic voices, speaking about the leak of a huge number of documents, showing profound corruption in the Afghanistan war:

Barack Obama: “I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations.”

Dennis Kucinich: “We can no longer look the other way, or pretend that the war is something that is it not. Occupying Afghanistan does not help further the freedom of the Afghan people. It is not the leak of documents that endangers the lives of American troops and our allies, it is the belief that occupying Afghanistan will make us safer. Congress must say no to war funding, bring our troops home, and invest in the American recovery.”

Should we have worked to elect Dennis Kucinich President in 2008? Should we work to encourage him to challenge Barack Obama in 2012?

Herbert London isn’t the sort of person to describe subtle nuances in cultural and political issues. As a commentator leading the right wing Hudson Institute, he writes of “self-described progressives who possess an eviscerated memory and are steeped in existential depravity. Having lived only in a debased culture, they have no standards on which to rely, except perhaps the popular dogma of environmentalism and the reflexive obligation to denounce all forms of ‘discrimination.’ For these people, rap is music—even art—and manners are unnecessary, arbitrary rules. Because they believe that knowledge is only a mouse click away (confusing it with mere information), they don’t memorize poems or sonnets, capitals, or mathematical formulas.” There’s not much question of where Mr. London stands.

These days, Herb London stands at the edge of the Middle East, eagerly hoping for war. London plays foreign policy psychic in a recent article he wrote for Family Security Matters, a right wing group that claims to be “engaging America’s families in our nation’s security”. How can America’s families be engaged in our nation’s security, when there’s no threat of any actual invasion across America’s borders? The model of security promoted by Family Security Matters consists mostly of the effort to ensure that American families remain as fearful as possible. The idea seems to be that scared American families will support extreme security measures.

London warns that expanded war in the Middle East is now inevitable: “It is no longer a question of whether war will occur, but rather when it will occur and where it will break out.” London writes as if America hasn’t been at war in the Middle East already, but never mind that. He’s speaking of a new threat.

London describes a “slide into warfare” that he says can only be stopped by forceful American intervention in Middle East affairs. But, what slide into warfare is London talking about?

London claims that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt are teetering on the verge of collapse. “Should either fall, all bets are off in the Middle East neighborhood,” he warns, and could lead to “the possible annihilation of Israel”.

These are ominous words, but they’re actually not describing any substantial current danger. Herbert London’s “slide into warfare” is entirely theoretical. It depends upon the collapse of either the government of Egypt or Saudi Arabia, which does not actually appear to be likely anytime soon, followed by another series of events that London supposes could only be counteracted by the United States.

I might as well write about a “slide into warfare” caused by a collapse of the government of the Ukraine. It would be pure speculation.

Why does Herbert London choose to speculate that a series of hypothetical events in the future has already made a new war in the Middle East inevitable? It seems to suit his ideological needs. If there wasn’t some big new threat, requiring American military action, what would Americans need to fear?

At a Brookings Institution panel discussion entitled “The War in Afghanistan: Is it Over?” Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon urged Americans to be patient, saying, “As for the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, trying to root out the remaining elements of al Qaeda and the Taliban, I think this mission at this point is going about as well as we can hope. I think it’s the sort of thing where you’ve got to be patient, you got to expect your results will not be particularly productive at any given moment… I think we’re going to have to keep them off balance, expect relatively modest and occasional tactical battlefield successes. That’s still an accomplishment in and of itself. The problem is it doesn’t lead you to an exit strategy very easily and we may have to keep up this kind of pressure with 7,000 Americans in Afghanistan and 10,000 to 15,000 more in the vicinity, and a number of allied troops well into 2003, 2004.”

Yes, you read that correctly. O’Hanlon worried that up to 7,000 American soldiers might need to remain at war in Afghanistan through 2004. The Brookings Institution panel discussion I’m referring to was held eight years ago.

Today, the Brookings Institution got an answer to the question that it asked long ago: No, the war in Afghanistan is not over. Today, two American soldiers were taken captive by the Taliban, and five others were killed. 56 Americans have been killed so far this month.

There are nearly 100,000 Americans fighting in Afghanistan right now. Eight years after Michael O’Hanlon urged patience with the war in Afghanistan, what reason do we have for following his advice?

The most nibbly bits from Ron Paul’s latest speech before the House of Representatives on the subject of war in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“For most Americans, we are at war, at war against a tactic called terrorism, not a country. This allows our military to go anyplace in the world without limits as to time or place. But how can we be at war? Congress has not declared war, as required by the Constitution, that is true. But our Presidents have, and Congress and the people have not objected. Congress obediently provides all the money requested for the war.

People are dying. Bombs are dropped. Our soldiers are shot at and killed. Our soldiers wear a uniform; our enemies do not. They are not part of any government. They have no planes, no tanks, no ships, no missiles, and no modern technology. What kind of a war is this anyway, if it really is one? If it was a real war, we would have won it by now. Our stated goal since 9/11 has been to destroy al Qaeda.

Was al Qaeda in Iraq? Not under Saddam Hussein. Our leaders lied us into invading Iraq and deceived us into occupying Afghanistan. There is still really no al Qaeda in Iraq and only 100 or so in Afghanistan, and yet there is no end in sight to the war. Could there have been other reasons for this war that is not a war? A military victory in Afghanistan is illusive. Does anyone really know who we are fighting and why?

Why has the war not ended? Nine years, and it continues to spread. Some claim it is to keep America safe, that our soldiers are fighting and dying for our freedom, defending our Constitution…

The harder we fight a war that is not a war, the weaker we get and the stronger becomes our enemy. When an enemy without weapons can respect an army of great strength, the most powerful of all history, one should ask, who has the moral high ground?

Military failure in Afghanistan is to be our destiny. Changing generals without changing our policies or our policymakers perpetuates our agony and delays the inevitable.

This is not a war that our generals have been trained for. Nation building, police work, social engineering is never a job for foreign occupiers and never an appropriate job for soldiers trained to win wars.

A military victory is no longer even a stated goal of our military leaders or our politicians, as they know that type of victory is impossible.

The sad story is, this war is against ourselves, our values, our Constitution, our financial well-being and common sense. And at the rate we’re going, it’s going to end badly.

What we need are honest leaders with character and a new foreign policy.”

In an hour from now, the House Armed Services Committee will meet to conduct a hearing entitled, Wind Farms: Compatible with Military Readiness?

What possible conflict could wind farms have with military readiness? Down in Texas, the Del Rio News-Herald reports on how military officials at Laughlin Air Force Base are getting consternated about plans to place a wind farm up in the Anacacho Mountains. It seems that the Air Force is getting worried that tall wind mills could get in the way of its flight paths. Lauglin Air Force Base student pilots could find it difficult to fly their fighters and bombers with tall turbines turning in the breeze.

The witnesses for today’s hearings confirm that it’s this sort of conflict that will be discussed. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee will be Major General Lawrence Stutzriem of the Air Force, who works with the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and Nancy Kalinowski of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The discussion at the hearing this morning will hinge around our nation’s values. If we have to choose between training flights for bombers and farms growing our clean wind energy infrastructure, the choice is clear. Let’s ditch the bombers and embrace the wind.

Update: Solomon Ortiz, Chairman of the Readiness Subcommitte used the hearing to go tilting at windmills. He began the hearing with the following comment: “Is there anything that we can do to preserve the military capabilities threatened by wind farm developments at Naval Air Station Kingsville and other military bases? In the short term, no. Am I concerned? You bet I am.”

I was getting ready to watch the trailer for the documentary Countdown to Zero a few minutes ago, when I was struck by the standard Motion Picture Association of America advisory statement at the beginning. The preview had been approved for “Appropriate Audiences” only.

The documentary is about a call for a worldwide nuclear disarmament. The Motion Picture Association of America didn’t think that message ought to be seen by children.

Why not? There was no nudity or profanity.

And so what if there was? What kind of world is this in which we censor previews of documentaries about nuclear weapons from the eyes of children, but our own government won’t promise not to detonate those nuclear weapons in cities filled with children?

Postscript: YouTube says that the video most related to the Countdown to Zero trailer is the trailer for the horror movie I Spit On Your Grave.

While the number of Americans attacked by terrorists has long since flatlined at zero, the number of Americans killed in Afghanistan, to support the mission of propping up the corrupt government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is continuing to increase.

These statistics come from iCasualties.

This weekend, at a meeting of leaders from the world’s most economically powerful nations, President Barack Obama took a moment to talk about the war in Afghanistan. “There has been a lot of obsession around this whole issue of when do we leave,” he said, with a sense of irritation.

Obsession – is that a fair way to characterize Americans’ concern with the question of when their country’s military will leave Afghanistan? American soldiers have been in Afghanistan now for almost nine years. It’s been over eight years since we were told that the Taliban had been defeated. Yet, the Taliban are still growing stronger, and American policies for creating a solid, alternative, more friendly government there still don’t make much sense. Both the Afghan government we’ve established and our own system of military occupation have proved to be at the same time corrupt and thoroughly incapable of controlling most of Afghanistan.

President Obama says that he doesn’t think about when to take the American military out of Iraq because he’s focused on pondering “how do we make sure that what we’re doing there is successful, given the incredible sacrifices that our young men and women are putting in”. However, American plans for success now include reintegrating much of the Taliban into the American-established Afghan government. I don’t think that most American soldiers in Afghanistan believed that their “incredible sacrifices” were directed toward bringing the Taliban back into a governing coalition.

When I hear Obama talk about this supposed “obsession” with when to finally get the American military out of Afghanistan, I get a picture of President Obama camping out for two years in a condemned building he inherited from George W. Bush, promising to restore it to a sound condition. Like Bush, Obama keeps on spending more money on the building, year after year, but every time one thing is repaired, something else falls apart. There’s a large crew in that building, listening to it sway and creak around them, without any more confidence than when they started that it won’t collapse completely on their heads.

That feeling that it’s time to get out of that building, I wouldn’t call it obsession. I’d call it profound concern.

Around Washington DC, there is bipartisan consensus that because “the military is subordinate to the civilian command,” President Barack Obama was right to fire General Stanley McChrystal for his insubordination. What keeps America from falling completely into the structure of a warlord nation is the strict rule that elected representatives set policy and the military is constrained to follow that policy.

Why is the consensus in some circles around Washington, DC that when it comes to the repeal or maintenance of the discriminatory Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, “you ultimately have to listen to the military authorities”? I have the suspicion that in this case a substantive position generated the procedural stance.

It’s been nine years since George W. Bush and Congress told us that we would go to war in Afghanistan. That’s a long time, so it’s difficult to remember exactly what we were promised would result from that war. I think I can remember with some clarity, however, that handing over millions of dollars was not one of the objectives. Yet, that’s just what’s happening in Afghanistan, where American companies have been funneling government money to Taliban warlords in payment for guarantees of safe passage.

In a sense, I’d prefer it if our government could just send over a few ten million dollars to some Taliban warlords every now and then. We would save a lot of money, given that the occupation and fighting in Afghanistan costs us hundreds of billions of dollars of every year. There wouldn’t be people killed by the money exchange, either. We’d have peace and prosperity.

The problem with the revelations of payoffs to Taliban warlords in Afghanistan is that it’s combined with killing. It’s a duplicitous foreign policy of shooting people with one hand while buying them off with the other hand.

The invasion of Afghanistan was based upon the idea that the Taliban were terrible people who could not be negotiated with. Here we are now, though, literally dealing with the Taliban, sending them money in order to prevent attacks. The payoffs suggest that a military solution in Afghanistan has proved unworkable. Yet, our military and our civilian government haven’t been willing to admit it.

Even worse, combining the military activities with the financial strategy ensures that neither approach can work. People who are shot at one day won’t feel an allegiance if they’re paid the next day. Neither will they be motivated by the sense of a genuine, intimidating opponent. Who can take seriously the force of an army that pays its opponents not to fight?

The Taliban is taking our money in compensation for temporarily withholding its attacks, but then using that money to fund attacks elsewhere. The Taliban have learned now that military attacks from the Americans won’t prevent them from getting payoffs, and that the payoffs need not prevent future animosities. It’s a sign of how corrupt the adminstration of this unwinnable war has been from the start.

Longer than the War of 1776. Longer than the Civil War. Longer than World War II. Longer than Vietnam.

The war in Afghanistan is now the longest war in the history of the United States of America, and what have we got to show for it? Osama Bin Laden remains on the loose, and the Taliban are getting stronger every month, now negotiating with the American-established Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to re-enter the national government.

U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey marked this sad milestone yesterday, saying:

“The war in Afghanistan is now 104 months old, passing Vietnam, to make it the longest war in United States history. And as it reaches this dubious milestone, it’s hard to imagine things going much worse. The much-hyped military campaign in Kandahar is now way behind schedule, with the Secretary of Defense saying it’s more important to get it done right than to get it done quickly.

That kind of plea might have worked 80 months ago, Mr. Speaker, but do they not see the irony or the disconnect in preaching patience about a war that is now the longest the Nation has ever fought? Do they not see that the American people, who have given a thousand or more of their best young people and a quarter of a trillion dollars to this war, are long past the point where they are willing to cut some slack and take a wait-and-see approach?”

Mother Davis opens up her piggy bank and notes,

Last week, Representative Lynn Woolsey noted the passage of a dark milestone in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: One trillion dollars has now been spent on the fighting. Woolsey commented:

“A week ago Sunday, at approximately 10:06 a.m., after the House had adjourned for recess and Americans were enjoying their holiday weekend, the Nation reached a truly disturbing milestone. At about that moment, according to the National Priorities Project, the combined amount of taxpayer money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reached a staggering $1 trillion. That’s trillion with a “T,” Mr. Speaker.

That’s a breathtaking amount of money to spend, even on something that works. But that kind of spending on two bloody wars that have taken thousands of American lives, destabilized other parts of the world, and done nothing to achieve national security goals, well, it’s positively shameful.

That trillion dollars doesn’t even include some bills that haven’t yet come due, like future medical costs for returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, a commitment we absolutely must keep. Nor does it include interest our grandchildren will pay on the debt we have racked up to finance these wars.

What I can’t help thinking, Mr. Speaker, is the lost opportunity costs that we should be taking into account. What could we be spending that kind of money on if we weren’t wasting it on immoral wars?”

Setbacks continue in Iraq, where violence remains pervasive. In Afghanistan, the freedom that would justify the invasion and decade-long occupation of that country has yet to materialize, as the government holds peace negotiations with the Taliban at which women are not allowed to speak.

But still, some in the US government see the potential to turn a little profit. A US government study has found that Afghanistan has a trillion dollars in mineral wealth. Is that why it’s proving so difficult for our military to pull out?

Closing her piggy bank without dropping anything in,
Mother Davis