I can sure appreciate the President engaging Karzai and our troops face-to-face

[bigtree]

IT'S a credit to President Obama that he's willing to invest time in personally thanking and encouraging the troops he's subjecting to his escalated Afghanistan offensive. Those who assembled to hear his words of praise and determination to press on to a 'win' certainly appeared enthusiastic and pleased with his personal touch.

It's also creditworthy to see the President personally engage in discussions with the man those troops are fighting and dying to defend and perpetuate in power and authority. I'm certain this President gave the Afghan leader an earful of his objections and admonitions. I'm certain the Afghan leader gave his benefactor his full attention and respect.

The reports the president received from both of those critical entities of his Afghanistan stand were undoubtedly positive . . . prompting the President to proclaim 'progress'.

“The United States is a partner but our intent is to make sure that the Afghans have the capacity to provide for their own security, that is core to our mission,” Pres. Obama told the troops. “Progress will continue to be made … but we also want to continue make progress on the civilian front,” he said.

“All of these things end up resulting in an Afghanistan that is more prosperous and more secure,” Pres. Obama said after meeting with Karzai. In a statement reflective of the 'Orwellian' tone of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance, the President insisted that his warring would bring Afghanistan the peace it is lacking.

“The Afghans have suffered for decades,” he said, “decades of war but we are here to help the Afghans forge a hard-won peace.”

That 'peace', however, will have to wait for a bit more war.

"The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something. ... We keep at it," President Obama said. "We persevere. And together, with our partners, we will prevail. I am absolutely confident of that."

"All of that makes America safer, and we are going to keep them on the run," he said. "Because that is what is going to be required in order to ensure that our families back home have the security that they need."

Despite the continuing reports of Afghan President Karzai's ongoing peace negotiations with Taliban leaders, there was no mention of any such outreach from Pres. Obama. Indeed, in responding to reports of high-level talks last month, our man-in-Af/Pak, Richard Holbrooke, suggested that more blood must be shed before any concessions with the Taliban leadership would be seriously considered.

"Negotiations and military operations, however you define negotiations, can run in parallel...(but) success in military operations will affect whatever the discussions are, Holbrook insisted."

True. The escalated military campaign the President is determined to wage against the resisting Afghan Taliban is expected to get even bloodier on all sides in the near future as the NATO military offensive presses deeper into the Helmand Province. That U.S. initiated violence threatens to overshadow any diplomatic or political objectives and dominate the impression of whatever we intend to accomplish there.




related:

Afghan war remains 'absolutely essential,' Pres. Obama says
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/28/obama.afghanistan/index.html

Pres. Obama in Afghanistan: 'Progress made'
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/03/obama_in_afghanistan_progress.html

(broke my wrist last night at work, one finger typing . . . instead of two)

[tekisui]

1. Sure, give him points for saying it to the troops' faces,

but I don't think what he said is true or honest. He said that the war is necessary to protect American lives. He said that if we left, the Taliban would return and that would lead to harm to Americans.

I don't believe any of that.

He also said the Taliban is on the run. Which sounds like the same thing we have heard for 9 years now.

[bigtree]

2. I'm with you on that

It's a convenient set of excuses posing as justifications for staying militarily engaged and on the offense.

Notice the use of the word 'region' in identifying where that threat is coming from. Not enough from the President about the role the Karzai regime is to play in that 'regional' defense, and what effect the offensive against the Taliban there will have on their political objectives. I get the impression they've convinced themselves they're correct, though.

I'm also not convinced that the bulk of the violent resistance can be properly lumped into the Taliban's lap. I think they've conflated a natural resistance to their imperialistic-nation-building with their convenient 'Taliban' nemesis; further conflating them with the 9-11 fugitive terrorists in the 'region'.

[Nikki Stone1]

3. +1

.

[sabrina 1]

4. Maybe Obama should speak to THESE people and hear

what they have to say:

Rethink Afghanistan

The reporting in this series of videos produced by Robert Greenwald was provided free for the public so that some truth about that war would reach ordinary people, especially the truth about the victims, whose voices will never be heard by the average American.

He released his reports before the election in 2008 hoping that a new administration would change course, would stop this war that is so devastating to the people there. They did, they have made it worse for the ordinary people whose suffering is indescribable.

The video is disturbing, the pain of the people is palpable, expressed tragically by one of the women as she begs god to let them die rather than continue the lives they are forced to live.

The broken-hearted father whose desperation has reached a point where he has no more hope of saving the children, he tries to sell his little daughter before she dies of starvation and cold. 'But nobody wants her' he says, 'what can I do, I have no blankets, no food'.

I read in another report that the little girl did die.

I agree with you, what he said was not 'true or honest'. The people of Afghanistan are telling the truth because they are living it. But few will ever hear them. They have no power.

And the request by most of the people to the U.S. 'please go home and leave us alone'!

I will never ever be able to feel, as so many democrats now appear to feel, that there is anything good about this war. The people of Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when we are allowed to hear them speak (thank you Robert Greenwald and the reporters, like Robert Fisk, who refuse to allow only the propaganda to reach the people) are the ones we hear the truth from.

I doubt too many will watch these reports. Things are probably worse now than when those videos, real news, not propaganda, were made.

It's easier to watch and cheer for the photo ops. and ignore the suffering people, whose suffering is only likely to increase as the U.S. and its allies forge ahead and 'shed more blood' for what??

[KG]

7. +infinity

[bigtree]

5. .

[bigtree]

6. .

[unhappycamper]

8. I wish the House would grow some balls and stop this shit.

They have the power to stop it.

The alternative? We'll be coming home after the money runs out.

[bigtree]

11. the bulk of them

... look to be settling in behind the cover the WH is offering with their mix of old republican-style fearmongering about al-Qaeda and their contradictory, nation-building ('we don't want to own Afghanistan', just fix it) appeal. There is a question of just how far this President would hang forces out to dry there if the funds were dwindling? I know Bush didn't care about them beyond the politics he was promoting.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Karzai Does Not Look Amused...GOOD!

He got comfy with boooshie coddling to him and doing all his dirty work, President Obama isn't playing that game. He didn't alert Karzai until an hour before landing (shows how me he trusts him) and methinks Karzai got some choice words about the "morale" of his Army and that the days of his little fiefdom could be at an end.

[bigtree]

10. there is some room to trust this President

. . . that he wants an Afghan government which will translate the U.S. objectives against 'al-Qaeda' (and by extension, the fight against resisting Afghans he conveniently conflates under the Taliban moniker) in a way which causes Afghans to take-up and assume our terror war as we, presumably, stand-down.

My impression is that our present escalation and offensive against that disparate resistance to Karzai's corrupt rule (and battles against resistance to the U.S.-led NATO advance across sovereign territory) is doing more to deepen and expand the conflict and resistance among Afghans than it is to end or stifle it.

Our nation is working to impose the authority of the corrupt and American-compromised Afghan government on the mostly tribal regions in that country behind the force of our military. It's understandable there would be an effort to cajole and bully the imposed regime back in line with our own set of objectives. But, it doesn't take a expert to see that the President was being patronized on this trip; both by the Karzai regime, and by the U.S. military command. He was told what he wanted to hear, and, undoubtedly, gave them a piece of his own mind.

That's about as much 'pressure' by the President as if he was poking his head in their rooms unannounced, told them to clean their rooms, and left after a sufficient amount of 'yessirs'. Not much of substance in all of that to report, imo, save the photo-op and the temporary morale-boost to the troops he's hung-out there.

[KharmaTrain]

12. Cleaning Up Messes...

In many ways, I saw the escalation as a means to take pressure off our NATO allies that had been handling much of the fighting in that country while our military was wasting away in Iraq. The previous regime and its simplistic look at the region conflated Al Queda with Taliban...who are not the same and got our military and our "allies" stuck in a civil war...one that not only we weren't "winning" but was re-energizing the Pashtuns who ARE the Taliban. This President knows the difference and wants to put the focus on Pakistan where whatever remnants of Al Queda hang out but the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated that he felt (I don't agree) that a surge was needed to reduce the Taliban's effectiveness and to get them to negotiate...and this is where I see us headed.

There have been some reports of back-channel talks between this administration and the Taliban to work out some kind of truce to allow us to start getting out troops out of that quagmire...and methinks Karzai is not the least bit happy about it. But we're "all in" with this loser and the fear is that pulling the rug on Karzai would create a power vacuum that would create more chaos...thus to create a stalemate of some sort where something can be brokered (then when our troops leave, Karzai won't last much longer).