I personally don't care if you're for or against the Afghanistan escalation...

[Richardo]

....just stop acting so surprised and outraged and betrayed by it. Candidate Obama spent 14 months telling us exactly what his plan for Afghanistan was.

So, to review:

Like it? don't like it? ...debate your asses off. Just stop telling us you voted for something else. Not if you voted for Obama, you didn't, not for Afghanistan.


-------------------------------------
On edit: To clarify MY position, I think it's a mistake - in my view he should start an immediate reduction in force and train the Afghans to keep their own security. I think when he made that pledge in 2008 Karzai could still be seen as a somewhat honest broker. Not now.

But, I'm not surprised it's come to this.

[mike_c]

1. and that makes crimes against humanity all better now....

:puke:

THAT reasoning is just about the worst justification for war I have EVER heard. I can't believe that otherwise intelligent people are offering it.

[Skittles]

3. I don't think that is what Richardo is saying at all

he's saying DON'T BE SURPRISED and he is right - if you really listened to Obama back then you should not be surprised by anything that has happened

[mike_c]

5. OK, that's fair-- I heard him during the primaries and didn't support him then...

...and don't support him now, so I'm not at all surprised. But I'm still EXTREMELY disappointed. If the democrats can't end unjust wars when they control the WH and both houses of Congress, who the HELL is running this country?

[Skittles]

9. oh, I hear you

indeed I do :(

[Skittles]

2. a lot of people never really listened to what Obama was actually saying

that is very evident these days

[PuraVidaDreamin]

4. I heard exactly what he said, but voted for him anyway

because McCain/Palin.

I should have written in Kucinch- when will I ever learn.

[Naturyl]

12. We will probably have that chance again in 2012

I, for one, will probably make use of it.

[Bobbieo]

8. Why don't we wait for him to tell us why he is doing it.

[Skittles]

11. what does it fucking matter?

it's wrong, wrong, wrong

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. I don't care WHY he's doing it. I only care that he is and it's WRONG!!!

[Rick Myers]

13. Skittles is correct.

Expecting miracles in 9 months is a very unrealistic goal... The damn war has gone on for twice as long as WW2... And he didn't start it.

[Skittles]

33. actually

I think nine months is plenty enough time for an exit strategy to be crafted - which is what SHOULD be happening, but won't

[anonymous171]

6. Most thought that Obama was just being a politician and that he was really against the wars.

[Shell Beau]

37. Well he is a politician.

He wasn't pretending.

[Naturyl]

7. This is true

We were warned, so no one should be surprised.

That being said, the policy sucks. It was a problem with Obama in primary season and it's a problem now. But we held our noses and voted in hope of significant change elsewhere. I think the fact that we aren't getting that is what bugs people above all else. No change, just the promised escalation in Afghanistan. Of all the things Obama could have kept his word about, this is the last one anyone wanted.

[DJ13]

10. I think signaling a hesitation to escalate a week back hurt

That gave some a false hope that Obama was considering winding down the Afghanistan conflict.

[G_j]

14. it was just a desperate long shot of a naive hope.

too bad he turned out to be not wise at all in his final decision.
IMO, he kissing the Pentagon's ass.


He's the President, if he escalates a war, he brings outrage on himself,
Democrat or Republican. look at LBJ and Vietnam.

[anonymous171]

15. Obama runs the Pentagon. He doesn't need to kiss anyone's ass.

This is Obama's war. He is not being controlled by the evil men behind the curtain or the evil baby killing fascist generals. This is his decision.

[G_j]

20. of course, it's his war!

I thought I had inferred that but,

:shrug:

there has been tension between Obama and the Pentagon according to Seymour Hersh:


http://www.heraldsun.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Hersh-+Military+waging+war+with+White+House%20&id=3974209-Hersh-+Military+waging+war+with+White+House&instance=homethirdleft


Hersh: Military waging war with White House

By Neil Offen ,
[e-mail]

DURHAM — The U.S. military is not just fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s most renowned investigative journalist says.

The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.”

In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military leaders want Obama to fail.

“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.

“If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The journalist criticized the president for “letting the military do that,” and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.

“He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency.”

..more.

[anonymous171]

23. If he doesn't have the balls to stand up to those guys, then that's still his problem

Obama has the authority to dismiss all those fuckers, and yet he does not. I am tired of weak ass democrats and their "compromise." I want the total and complete annihilation of anyone who stands against our ideas or policies.

[G_j]

absolutely, for example, Truman, who fired McArthur

http://www.opednews.com/articles/McChrystal-to-Obama-Fogh-by-Ray-McGovern-091120-443.html

November 20, 2009 at 23:23:00

McChrystal to Obama: Fogh You; McChrystal Testing the Limits
by Ray McGovern

It is not too late for President Barack Obama to follow the example of Harry Truman, who fired Gen. Douglas McArthur in 1951 for insubordination. Then, as now, the stakes were high. Then it was Korea; now it is Afghanistan.

No more slaps on the wrist for Gen. Stanley McChrystal. In my view, Commander-in-Chief Obama should fire him for cause.

Then

In the Truman-McArthur showdown nearly six decades ago, the President and his senior advisers were preparing to engage North Korea and China in peace negotiations, when MacArthur, commander of the U.N. forces in Korea, issued an unauthorized statement containing a veiled threat to expand the war into China.


McArthur had been playing a back-channel game to win the support of like-minded Republican congressmen to widen the war, when Truman faced him down. With the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the secretaries of state and defense, he rose to the occasion and fired the distinguished “old soldier.”

Now

Today, Gen. McChrystal is conducting a subtler but equally insubordinate campaign for wider war in Afghanistan, with the backing of CENTCOM commander David Petraeus. It is now even clearer in retrospect that the President should not have appointed McChrystal in the first place, given what was already known of his role in covering up the killing of football star Pat Tillman and condoning the torture practices by troops under McChrystal's earlier command in Iraq.

..more..

.

[alcibiades_mystery]

46. You're aware that truman didn't end the Korean War, right?

:shrug:

[G_j]

49. no, it was a disaster

like every war since

[tekisui]

16. I'm not surprised, I don't feel betrayed.

I knew what I was voting for, but I reserve the right to be angry about the decision. We were offered no viable candidate who wanted to end the War in Afghanistan. I knew that it would be a contentious issue. I thought Obama was wrong then. I think he is wrong now.

Plus, he's been in for almost a year. He has seen the negative consequences of his first surge. I hope that his campaign rhetoric doesn't put him in an untenable situation, but I think it has. Politics are on the line now. He has to 'win' to back up his rhetoric. Or, admit that what he thought and what he tried didn't work.

It is no longer about campaign promises. The metric changes daily. Since he was making campaign promises, Karzai has made deals with the Taliban (some of the bad ones even) and stolen an election. Eikenberry, members of Congress and other brass have expressed their opinion that more troops will worsen the situation.

We have watched Afghanistan get worse daily. I am not surprised at Obama's want to produce a 'win'. But I am disappointed that he is going to double the force size and make it that much harder to leave.

[L0oniX]

17. I will only say that it doesn't make sense to spend money on war when we have huge problems here.

[Autumn]

18. I'm not surprised, outraged or betrayed by it.

There was nothing else to vote for.

He was the only alternative to McCain. :shrug: I didn't like either war when they were Bush's and I don't like them now that they are Obama's wars. And why he is continuing on this path, now, is completely disappointing to me.

[MadMaddie]

19. You know I would like everyone to really think about McCain/Palin

in office right now.

Where we are isn't perfect but we can almost guarantee

-McCain/Palin would have escalated in Iraq without a plan
-They would not pay anymore attention to Afghanastan then the previous administration did.
-The economy would have flatlined....because their plan was more taxcuts
-There would be NO international relationship building
-There would be an outright war against Muslims in America and around the world
-The Lilly Ledbetter equal pay law would not have happened

There's more but no apparantly thinks those things are important.

Is he perfect no, but he also has a Democratic Congress that is weak, Pelosi did her job but Harry Reed refuses to pull the chairmanship from loser Joe Lieberman, instead of punishing the 4 dems who are bent on stopping reform he cowtows to them. This should not be as difficult but Dem Congress people are making it difficult.

[G_j]

21. It's that bad eh?

that we need to think of those wing-nuts running the country to feel better?

[Stinky The Clown]

22. I'm sorry. But that's really a strawman.

[anonymous171]

26. All of those things would have hurt america and reflected poorly on the GOP

Instead we have Obama enacted RW policies that hurt America but are reflecting poorly on the democrats (the "leftist" party) and helping the reich wing garner support.

[QC]

27. And just think how bad Pol Pot would be!

:scared:

[anonymous171]

29. Or zombie Raygun! nt

[QC]

32. Or Charles Manson and the severed head of John Wayne Gacey!

Just imagine what a scary ticket that would be!

[arcadian]

50. Or a jar with Hitler's brain in it!

[QC]

51. Yeah, I bet you'd rather thave that than ourr dreamy prez!

You must be wunna them Tropskyites I keep hearing about.

[mike_c]

31. so that makes THESE injustices all right, huh?

Tell that to the people who die, on both sides of the conflict, because Obama wants to get Bush/Cheny's neocon "job" done. Tell it to the permanently maimed. Tell it to the folks who go hungry, and the folks who die without healthcare, because Obama spent the national treasure killing poor people on the other side of the world rather than helping poor people in America.

Escalating pointless, ill conceived wars for the sake of chest pounding rights is just wrong, NO MATTER WHO DOES IT.

[MyPinkPrius]

24. I think Obama should

Put on a beret and some combat boots, cause ohhhhhh child is that man sexxxxy.

[gleaner]

25. Sad to say ....

I'm not surprised by Obama's actions in Afghanistan. He said during his campaign that he would continue that war. I didn't want it and I didn't like it, but the alternative was McCain, and the other promises Obama made were a lot more palatable to me.

For me, the surprise and outrage comes in on the fact that he has not done anything he promised to do except to continue the war in Afghanistan. Now he wants to enlarge it. I didn't hear that as a campaign promise.

So here we are with no robust health care plan, troops still in Iraq, prisoners still detained in Guantanamo, a possible sharp escalation in the war with Afghanistan, his support of parts of the Patriot Act which anyone would be hard pressed to find constitutional or necessary, his refusal to sign off on a treaty to ban land mines which most of the nations in the world support and his use of drones to make incursions into Pakistan where they already hate us.

I reserve the right to feel "outraged" and I reserve the right to feel betrayed. I reserve the right to say so. It really isn't up to anyone else to tell people how to think and feel. It's been done. Bush did it very well; do we all want to go back to that? I have had to type this so often that I am getting closer and closer to making a Robo Post out of it. It all boils down to the fact that you have your opinion, and I have mine, and others have theirs and within the rules and parameters of this board we are entitled to say what we think and feel, just like you are. I can't speak for anyone else, but that is exactly what I am going to do. Anyone who doesn't like what I say, or what they perceive my affect to be is able to skip my posts or block them. If this is the case, I urge them to do so. I am not big on being told what to think or say. I am not big on censorship period.

[Stinky The Clown]

28. Its funny you menation that .... have read this post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7077881

Particularly the part about saying noting, excatly, but trading in ideas.

Your observation in your OP is factually correct. He said he was going to do this. That doens't make it right.

And what other choice was there? McCain? In the end it came down to Obama or nothing.

[branders seine]

30. who is acting?

:shrug:

[Richardo]

Ah.. les mots juste

Pardon my French :D

[QC]

34. It figures that escalating the war would be the one promise he actually kept.

I would rather have had him break that one and maybe keep the one about not letting lobbyists take over his administration.

[Richardo]

38. Yes, the *one and only* promise he's kept.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

[DailyGrind51]

35. I hate to admit it, but you're correct. "We" were never deceived on this one.

[QC]

52. Some of us knew early on what he was all about

and watched in awe as otherwise intelligent people fell for the most transparent hype imaginable.

[HopeOverFear]

36. Thank you Richardo n/m

[Richardo]

48. You're welcome

:patriot:

[bevoette]

40. word (nm)

[SHRED]

41. so that makes it OK?

[Richardo]

42. No, what is wrong with you?

"I don't think you ought to be surprised at how things are developing, therefore I'm OK with thousands of more casualties."

Try and use your brain just a little bit.

[stray cat]

43. Some people evidently vote without looking at issues; I guess they think D -means agrees with me

on everything.....

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[grasswire]

45. of the pentagon AND the bankers

He serves more than one master. It just ain't us.

[tekisui]

47. Gotta serve somebody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzIp5yQhx8&feature=related

[Mari333]

53. many people did listen, HELD THEIR NOSES AND VOTED FOR HIM

didnt want him to begin with, but even a turd on a hot sidewalk would have been better then McCain.

so we voted for a better turd.

now, we dissent.

[bigtree]

54. who cares if it's a surprise or not?

What's that got to do with the initiative's soundness? That's the main point of contention, not whether he said he would do one thing or not. It's to be expected that some folks are basing their support of him on this issue. It's a big deal. The issue of what he said in the campaign is not as big a deal as the issue itself, and, is in many ways, irrelevant to the choices our legislators have to make on this, and to how we should direct our feedback on the initiative.

[bdamomma]

55. terrible decision, but this plays right into Cheney's plans.

if the Bush administration focused on Afghanistan instead of Iraq, maybe our troops would be long gone from there, but then again, Russia did not learn either and they lost their country and we are pretty close losing ours.