I was so moved by what Rep. Massa (D-NY) said re: Afghanistan that I transcribed it from Tivo for DU

[BigBearJohn]

I was almost convinced to go along with the President's decision on Afghanistan
until I heard what Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), Armed Services Committee, had to say
to Ed Schultz about Afghanistan and the President's speech tonight. Schultz also
quotes what Bernie Sanders had to say as well:

---

ED SCHULTZ: "Has the President said anything tonight that might warm you up to what he is
trying to accomplish?

REP. MASSA: "NO. And I would have to ask a question:
Why 30,000 troops and not 40?
Why 30,000 troops and not 20?
Why 18 months and not 16 or 24?
These are artificial time lines and numbers
that have no true military significance
as planners sit down and develop
what's called "troop to task" requirements.
There is nothing that I heard tonite that
would convince me that we are embarking
on a strategic mission that is both vital
and necessary. We invaded Afghanistan with less than
1,000 special forces personnel and killed or captured
over 98% of all the terrorists that we could identify.
And now with the remaining few, less than 100 according
to the national security adviser, we are going to deploy
an army of 100,000 to rebuild a nation?

"The President says, as one of his major points, we are
going to act as a partnership with the Afghan government
and yet we all know, anyone who has studied it,
anyone who has his eyes and ears open, that that government
is corrupt beyond malice. I think and I hold strong
objection to sending American soldiers into harms' way
and combat to prop up a government that is more corrupt than
Tony Soprano and his lieutenants. And so, no, I heard nothing
tonight that would sway me against my absolute objection to
what I consider to be a fool's errand.

========================

ED SCHULTZ: "Why shouldn't the President be given an opportunity to
fix this? He didn't create this. He inherited this and
his generals have now come to him with plans that could stabilize
the country. Shouldn't the progressive caucus give him the benefit
of the doubt and let him make his mistake on this if it is one?

REP. MASSA: "Ed, no, because we are dealing with a mistake that deals with the
lives of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And so, no, the
answer to that is very clear in my opinion. My life's experience,
24 years in the United States military is yelling at me.
Telling me that is impossible to build a nation where there is
fundamentally no Afghan identity. We hear over and over and over
again from Afghan nationals that they are going to be there with
whoever is there with them. We cannot stay forever and I think
it objectionable and wrong to send Americans to fight and die for
that which the Afghan people will not fight and die for. You just
saw a series of interviews. Able bodied military aged males. Why are
they not in uniform? Why are they not standing and fighting for their
own freedoms and why do they expect us and our men and women in uniform
to do it for them? This is not an issue about politics. This is not an
issue about standing with the President, one president or the other.
It's about deploying 5, 6, 7 times American military personnel to do
what is militarily impossible. And I think that we must raise our voices
not as liberals or progressives or conservatives or Republicans or Democrats
but as thinking common sense Americans who have seen this movie before and
we know how it is going to end.

ED SCHULTZ: Let's look at what Bernie Sanders had to say tonight, the
Independent senator from Vermont:

"Why, in the midst of a severe recession with 17% of our people unemployed
or under-employed and one out of four kids on food stamps -- are we going to
be spending $100 Billion a year on Afghanistan when have so many pressing needs
at home?"

ED SCHULTZ: Do you think that's where the American people are tonight? The populace
view of this?

REP. MASSA: I think it is certainly a view that's worth understanding. The President
has said that we are going to operate in partnership with the Afghan government. Then
we hear behind the scenes that we are talking about bypassing Kabul and the corrupt
Karzai regime and going directly to inject money into the villages and towns in the
countryside. We can't get money injected into the villages and towns and cities back in my
home district to get people back to work. Why are worried about building an infrastructure
in a country that neither wants one or will do one for themselves?

ED SCHULTZ: Because the President said tonight that our security is at stake. You don't
believe that?

REP. MASSA: Well, I disagree with that analysis. If our security is at stake to the extent
that we must rebuild a nation because there are 100 terrorists in Afghanistan, then we better
be willing to occupy every single nation on the face of this planet and do the same. Our mission
is to identify, locate, kill or capture, with malice of forethought any terrorist anywhere.
That does not call for a standing army of 100,000 people executing an occupational strategy
in a foreign nation. We have tried this over and over and over again and it has never once
worked. You cannot achieve this militarily. PERIOD.

[charlie]

1. Thank you for doing that

Want to get my appreciation in before Massa, Sanders, you, me, and everyone else in hearing range gets called simpletons.

[BigBearJohn]

3. Boy, you said a mouthful. Thanks.

:toast:

[Why Syzygy]

2. I've reposted this OP many times. (It is not mine.)

alohaspirit (1 posts) Sat Jan-31-09 10:20 PM
Original message
Afghanistan is not a country
What everyone is calling "tribes" are nations in the eyes of most of the people who live there-- Afghanistan is an arbitrary collective of ethnic groups pulled together unwillingly under a nation-state. Taliban is simply a word that refers to they who study the Koran devotedly and literally, but it has become an empowered force to reckon with, thanks to our sloppy and deliberate covert activities based on greed, imperial desire, and meddling in others' business. The idea that bombardment from the air somehow extinguishes a people's passion is not only absurd but proven wrong. And the idea that one could ever fight a war on something as vague as "terror" is even more twisted than trying to fight a war on "drugs." Both are poorly-defined concepts, when, in the case of the former GWB was referring actually to resistance fighters who resorted to criminal means like attacking the WTC; or, in the case of Ronald Reagan, when he was actually not referring to drugs themselves but to their channels of distribution and those who abused them.

I am hopeful that Obama has taken a hard line in this regard throughout his campaign in order to convince his critics that he was willing to take a tough Bushlike stance on certain foreign policy initiatives and create a sense of contiguity in the Middle East. But now it's time for him to tack and change course. If the US really does care about the future security of our world, and about the welfare of all human beings--be they "women and girls" or anyone who deserves to live life with dignity and human rights--then what we should be doing instead of dropping bombs is listening to ALL sides, and that means taking a better inventory of who all these sides really are and what they are wanting. I'm sure each side is wanting something very legitimate, very reasonable. Before "death to all Americans" was mouthed, I am sure a US bomb fell somewhere and someone was hurt or killed-- and before that there was probably something much more understandable-- much deeper pain and suffering that was decades, centuries, even millennia old. We are blind to this-- completely ignorant of it in fact. I am disappointed that Obama, with all his education and wisdom, is not more appreciative of this complexity.

We could begin our listening process and our facilitation of peace by helping to convene (but not dominating, or even presiding over!!) a major international peace conference in Central Asia, aimed at letting the different peoples of different nations (and by this I mean the actual ethnic groups throughout and across the false boundaries imposed by various regimes, including our own) voice their own desires and their own hopes for the future. It would only be through this kind of constructive process that we can actually remediate the incredible damage that the Bush administration has done and provide a solid foundation by which we attract less terrorism and anti-US sentiment. What is the point of seeking out bin Laden anyway? He is indeed a criminal mastermind, but what will capturing him do when terrorism is a phenomenon unto itself? To do that would be like trying to capture and quarantine the first person who spawned the HIV virus, as if that would stop the disease from spreading further than it already has. The only way to reverse this process is by fighting fire with water, not fire... disempower this anti-American movement by changing what "America" IS abroad-- show that America is growing up, willing to listen, willing to facilitate dialogue, willing to support human dignity and the lives of civilians who are committed to peace-- not some contrived idea of "liberty" for the few and "democracy" only for those who play by our rules.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4954319

[BigBearJohn]

4. We need more discourse like this. Thanks for posting.

[ipaint]

11. Grayson said the same thing.

I think that the basic premise that we can alter afghan society is greatly flawed. Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English in the Great Game. It's not a country; it's not even a place. It's just an empty place on the map. It's terra incognita. People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.

All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, and they don't even call themselves Afghans. They're Tajiks or they're Pashtuns, or they're Hazzaras or someone else. The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.

And the idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid I think is entirely questionable. I've never seen it happen; probably never will happen. If you go to the Stan countries north of Afghanistan, and I've been to all of them; what you find is that the way that the Russians altered that society was by crushing it. Stalin killed half a million Muslims in Kazakhstan, in Turkmenistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan.

He simply sliced off the head of that society in order to remake it in the image that he wanted. And I think that we would have to do no less if we wanted to remake Afghanistan in our image. We'd have to destroy it in order to save it, and I don't think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody. So I think that the underlining premise is simply wrong.

I've been to 175 countries all around the world including Afghanistan, including every country in that region, and what I've seen everywhere I go is that there are some commonalities everywhere you go. Everywhere you go people want to fall in love. It's an interesting thing. Everywhere you go, people love children. Everywhere, they love children. Everywhere you go, there's a taboo against violence. Every single place you go. And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that's the best foreign policy of all. Just to leave people alone.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/alan-grayson-on-afghanist_b_315087.html

[tblue37]

25. Well, if people want to be left alone, they shouldn't live in places that have oil or that

could serve as a convenient location for an oil pipeline.

Do I need this?
:sarcasm:

[BigBearJohn]

27. Excellent write-up. Thanks.

[OneGrassRoot]

5. Thank you for sharing this. n/t

[medeak]

6. thank you bigbearJohn..

your effort is appreciated

[PHIMG]

7. He's just a Leftbagger, with Obama Derangement Syndrome

I mean, clearly he just wants Obama to fail.

:sarcasm:

[Delphinus]

8. He (Massa)

brought out some excellent points. Thanks for posting this.

[lildreamer316]

9. TRUTH. Ah; it smells so nice.

OMG, this is just the clearest declaration of where I stand that I have read yet.

[mmonk]

10. Thank you for your efforts.

[bdamomma]

12. I hope more Reps and Congressman buck the idea of escalation

in Afghanistan, our nation is crumbling and we are putting billions into another country.

[lumpy]

17. Yea verily

nt

[TornadoTN]

13. Is there a video/audio link to this?

I'd love to post this on my blog and get it out there. It really speaks to the heart of the problem.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. A backstory lesson in missed chances

Eric Massa defines "Stand Up Guy". Do you know he is the ONLY rep in Congress who has refused to accept his congressional health care because "if my constituents can't have it, then neither should I".

Eric was a close aid and adviser to Wes Clark when Clark was in charge of NATO and during the start of the war in Bosnia. Eric was ultimately ordered home when he was diagnosed with a deadly, life-threatening cancer (a diagnosis that now turns out to have been just plain wrong).

So what is the back story missed opportunity?

He and Wes Clark share quite a bit of the same political view. The missed opportunity, in my view, was a Wes Clark presidency.

Sorry to hijack your thread. But when anyone talks about Eric Massa, I think about Wes Clark, too. And then I think of what could have been.

[Ninga]

19. On the Senate side, Ohio Sen. Sharrod Brown has not taken his health care benefit for many years.

:hi:

[tblue37]

26. Wes Clark was the candidate I was dreaming about all along.

I was very disappointed when he didn't run, and even more disappointed when Obama was not wise enough to bring him into his cabinet.

[tomp]

40. obama preferred colin powell. nt

[Mimosa]

43. Me, too n/t

[dgibby]

15. BBJ,

Thanks so much for posting this. I caught part of it last night and was absolutely blown away! Massa and Sanders both nailed it! Wish we had more like them in Congress.

[BigBearJohn]

28. Agreed!

:hi:

[Forkboy]

16. K&R

:kick:

[slipslidingaway]

18. Thanks for taking the time, video is now on youtube, link ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3dH3F4HzyM

Other videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/CongressmanEricMassa

[chill_wind]

21. Thank you!

[slipslidingaway]

45. You're welcome :) n/t

[arcadian]

20. Thanks for taking the time to do that.

K&R

[chill_wind]

22. K & R and thank you. A lot.

[Ruby the Liberal]

23. Thank you for this. A voice or 3 of sanity.

[thereismore]

24. Right. Which makes me think that it really is about the Pak nukes that are

in imminent danger of being obtained by the Taleban. We are there to prevent THAT from happening, but the President is not telling us that. Otherwise I don't understand anything anymore.

[NoSheep]

36. I think that was pretty much stated in the speech last night

Obama did everything but draw a picture.

[BigBearJohn]

29. posted this on DKOS too AND REP. MASSA RESPONDED. Here is what he said::

Thank you all for your comments


I've had an extremely busy day meeting with other members of the Armed Services Committee and we're going to dig into this over the next few days in committee hearings. I wanted to make sure you had the chance to see the video of this appearance and I look forward to reading all of your comments throughout day.

Thank you,

-Congressman Eric Massa

His video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3dH3F4HzyM

[glitch]

30. Gratifying! nt

[seafan]

33. Big hat tip to Big Bear John for posting Massa's response to Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan

Rep. Eric Massa responds to President Obama's speech on Afghanistan, December 2, 2009


I agree with Rep. Massa, and with a heavy heart.



MISSION CREEP: US Military Presence Worldwide


Digby:

.....

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the standoff with Iran and all the other obsessions with the mideast are at least informed, if not entirely motivated, by larger geopolitical efforts to maintain stability at a time of impending competition over resources and access to them --- oil. Sure that's simplistic, but it's at the "heart" of what's going on in the leadership's "minds."

We don't talk about any of that because it might lead us to get serious about changing our way of life and evidently nobody important thinks that's the right way to deal with the problem. And frankly, among many of our elites, maintaining a military presence everywhere is necessary to preserve American global dominance. Period.

.....

That's the debate we never have.

And another observation by Digby:

(Obama's) doing exactly what the sainted Generals want him to do and it's a fundamental requirement of freedom loving conservatives everywhere that the nation put itself wholly into the hands of the military and never question its judgment about anything.

But can they force themselves to join Obama en masse on anything? Perhaps. Most people believe they will. But I think it's a hard road for many of them to take regardless of the policy and I suspect that many of them are looking for a way to oppose it. The only thing I've seen so far is the George Will approach, which is almost frighteningly rational, and the Tony Blankley/Fred Thompson approach which basically says we should get out because Obama is too much of a wimp to fight the war properly no matter what. (I would suspect that at least some Republicans might glom on to that one.)

If the Republicans can find a reason to oppose Obama on (Afghanistan) they could theoretically form a coalition with liberals who are opposed to the war for principled reasons and defeat any further requests for funding. I have no doubt that they would love to see Obama defeated on something at this point, but whether or not they'd be able to stomach doing it on national security is unknown (and probably unlikely.) But it's something to keep an eye on.

Now the president can do this unilaterally so the congress doesn't technically have anything to say about it. But David Obey is trying to force a vote with his tax proposal. And according to some sources the White House is going to go back on its promise to not use the supplemental process to fund this escalation with a request in early Spring. (Murtha said they can't pay for this escalation without one.)So congress will likely be weighing in in some fashion.

So Obama should worry about Republican support because if he still thinks he is dealing with a rational opposition on any level he's deluding himself. They could very well be willing to blow themselves up in order to ruin him. And frankly, I don't know that they would be blowing themselves up. Republican voters hate him so much they couldn't care less as long as he loses --- and they'll buy any excuse if it's coming from the right people. It's not that hard to see them at least split on it. (Indeed, the cracks are already beginning to show.)

And that would mean Obama would have to get nearly every Democrat to vote to escalate the war, a task which Emmanuel is putting his whole heart into doing in any case. But it may not be that easy.

I am sympathetic to many of the difficult decisions Obama has to make. This one, I have little doubt about. Escalating the war is a mistake. There is no "winning" and establishing another imperial outpost in the area is provocative and dangerous. This is not like health care where you have to weigh whether it's better to take half a loaf than nothing at all --- it's a crystal clear issue of liberal principle.

.....

Seymour Hersh: Army is “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in.”




I honestly do not comprehend the logic we have been given for this massive troop escalation in Afghanistan. It will only create more tension, more instability and inevitably, more sorrow.

Last night was a critical moment in Barack Obama's presidency. And I fear, now for the second time, that we are taking the wrong road.



In a time of great need in our own country, the failure to shelter, feed, clothe, protect from natural disasters, employ and educate our own people instead of only sending them to war, is an unspeakable tragedy.

[waterscalm]

48. Thanks for the post.

[kestrel91316]

31. Excellent, Rep. Massa!

[John Q. Citizen]

32. Thanks for posting this.

[bullwinkle428]

34. Wasn't he the best? I was literally cheering and punching the air

with my fist, as he had me so fired up with his comments!! K&R!

[David Zephyr]

35. K&R.

Thanks for the transcript.

[NoSheep]

37. God damn it this is bullshit right here:

MASSA: If our security is at stake to the extent
that we must rebuild a nation because there are 100 terrorists in Afghanistan, then we better
be willing to occupy every single nation on the face of this planet and do the same.


Did Obama not say that this was NOT the point? READ the SPEECH!



"But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended -- because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own"

[BigBearJohn]

39. If this is NOT the point, then WHY is he doing it?

[NoSheep]

46. Here is why I think he's doing it: (posted before)

Pakistan, a nuclear power, earlier this year, allowed the Taliban to implement Islamic law in the Swat Valley (until we were blackmailed into giving them more money to prevent further encroachment by these extremists)then they started fighting them again. Remember that from this past summer? I think we are trying to make Afghanistan more stable so the two countries can stand up to the extremism. Two-thirds of the new troops are intended to train Afghans in security. I think we are trying to help them get a vital security force so the Taliban can't take over and the fact that there is an imaginary line drawn between the 2 countries doesn't seem to matter much. There are no plans on the table to continue that indefinitely which was explained very clearly last night. We can't afford it. That's exactly what Obama said. It isn't simply about "not liking" the Taliban and wanting to kill Afghans. I think it's about stabilizing the region as much as possible without going way further into bankruptcy. We do need to keep Pakistan from becoming vulnerable to enemies because they are a nuclear power now.

I understand the Taliban to be a fundamentalist extreme right wing Islamist group who, because they do not recognize the laws enacted by governments, destabilize the areas they are in. They actually provide some services apparently that lead folks in a place such as these impoverished areas of the Middle East to join up and fight for territory with them. al Quaeda is an international terrorist group that while started in this region, finds safe haven as well as recruits in many destabilized areas. In the Middle East, they are kind of existing side by side. There are many who join these groups due to having ZERO security otherwise. These areas are extremely poor and led by rival tribes. This is why things are kinda murky there to say the least. If we can pull enough citizens away from the allure of marginal security the Taliban provide and allure of seeming purpose that al Quaeda provide, we may be able to train them to keep stability in their region, HOPEFULLY making it safer for everyone, especially because of Pakistan's nukes. We have to prop up Pakistan otherwise we could have nukes in the hands of the Taliban. Instead of paying them bribes all the time I think we are sending our people in there to train them to take care of themselves or at least we are going to try. We could go on and on like this or go over ourselves in earnest and try to deal with it by training the poorer people in the region to provide their own security because the Bush administration DIDN'T DO THAT. (they had no interest in it because they wanted the war to continue. It made them richer) I think we are trying to get SOMETHING for the money we spend over there and then get out. That's what I think is happening.

[Jim Lane]

44. Your beef is with Schultz, not Massa

Howzabout quoting what came immediately before your excerpt:

ED SCHULTZ: Because the President said tonight that our security is at stake. You don't
believe that?

REP. MASSA: Well, I disagree with that analysis.

Massa was asked to respond to the national security argument, and he responded to it. There are certainly people other than Obama making the argument, so it's one worth addressing. The extent to which Obama himself is explicitly or implicitly invoking U.S. security (e.g., through mentioning 9/11) is a separate and less important question.

[NoSheep]

47. I see a difference between "nation building" and what Obama said. That's my beef.

[debbierlus]

38. Beauty

[Greyhound]

41. An even +100.

:kick: & R

[omega minimo]

42. I hate Ed's voice, but he's provided a platform for important newsmakers on this issue.

:thumbsup: