Obama's Isolation Grows on the Afghanistan War

[tekisui]

Source: USA Today



WASHINGTON — Afghanistan has become a lonely place for President Obama.

One year ago today, the president delivered a seminal speech at West Point, N.Y., announcing the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. servicemembers to Afghanistan and setting a timetable to begin withdrawing them in July 2011 — a combination calibrated to reassure those who saw the conflict as critical to U.S. security and those uneasy with an open-ended military conflict.

Now, the administration is playing down the date combat troops will begin to come home and focusing instead on 2014 as the target for the pullout to be completed, conditions permitting.

The new end date leaves Obama at odds with his Democratic base, which wants troops out faster, and with newly empowered Republican critics in Congress, who oppose deadlines and timetables altogether. It guarantees the war will be ongoing when Obama presumably runs for re-election in 2012.

And if the military and political situations fail to improve in Afghanistan, the president could face a revolt in his own party and unrelenting fire from the GOP as he defends his leadership on what is already America's longest war.

Just one in five Americans in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll agree with the 2014 timetable, one of Obama's lowest levels of support on any policy position.

more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-12-01-1Awar01_CV_N.htm?csp=34news

[Skittles]

1. couldn't see that one coming

I mean, oh why bother

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I am not surprised.

He chose to do this, and now the consequences are coming home to roost.

[Catherina]

3. As well it should. We Americans need to make them stop their wars n/t

[rhett o rick]

4. This is lose-lose for Pres Obama. nm

[truedelphi]

5. I used to see Obama as the Jimmy Stewart character in

"Mr Smith Goes to Washington."

But then it became obvious that Obama was scared of the possiblity of any of his suggestions resulting in the Oh! Noes! dreaded filibuster.

Now I see him as the 'Terry' character, portrayed by Marlon Brando, in "On the Water Front."

Someday soon, he will be screaming "I coulda been a contender."

And he could have, if he'd been his own man, and not invested in following orders from the
Powers That Be.

[Union Scribe]

11. Ain't that the truth!

[COLGATE4]

14. Very insightful. Great analogy.

[Lorien]

6. What are the "U.S. Objectives" that they are trying to achieve?

Bin Laden obviously isn't there anymore.

[truedelphi]

15. To figure out what the people in charge of our National Security have as

Objectives, go to YouTube and search for vids featuring Bolton.

You'll see all the many faces and spins that our behind the scenes folks put on our wars.

According to National security types, Iraq was about Saddam Hussein, bringing our wonderful democratic way of life to a foreign nation, freedom and liberty.

Also about getting rid of the nefarious weapons of mass destruction. But by the end of bush's two terms, TomBolton can only say that, "Hey we needed to get Hussein, and it's not up to us to put the nation on the road to democracy."

There is even a chilling YouTube excerpt where Bolton admits he is willing to throw a few books atthe Iraqi people on the way out, including our Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.

As though people with no utilities would or could care abut democracies, when one group of Iraqis is busy killing off another group of Iraqis.

PS I know full well that Bolton is no longer in the government, but the same mentality is guiding us through all the hot spots we are defending, including Columbia. And whatever is going on with regards to Venezuela.

[Clio the Leo]

7. You do realize he didn't do this to pad his Gallup rating? nt

[tekisui]

10. Of course. There are a wide range of poor reasons to expand and escalate

a lost war.

[truedelphi]

12. And many of those reasons have to be a result

of who Mr Obama really is.


John Pilger, the Australian journalist now receiving fifteen minutes of fame for his reports on Julian and Wikileaks, has long offered references as to how Obama is a CIA asset. Whether those accusations are true or not, i don't know. But how curious is it that someone who by the average reporter's account grew up on Food Stamps actually had a mom who worked for the Ford Foundation, and who probably knew Tim Geithner's dad, as he worked for Ford Foundation also?

Sort of funny that we got the one person in all of America in office who would (and could) appoint Tim "The Wall Street Person's Best Friend" to office just when Wall Street needed him as Secretary of Treasury to help carry out the Eleven Trillion dollar swindle.

[ProSense]

8. That's a hell of a title and spin

"Just one in five Americans in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll agree with the 2014 timetable, one of Obama's lowest levels of support on any policy position."

I'm sure everyone polled wants the war to end, but how did they get isolation from this poll:



40% want the troops to remain until U.S. objectives achieved
38% want the troops withdrawn faster
20% agree with 2014 timetable

The plurality (40 percent) done care about a timetable.

And the reality is that 60 percent would accept a 2014 withdrawal.

[tekisui]

9. The headline, while technically accurate, is spin. Arguably, it is also the least

important point of the article. Obama is losing Democratic support and support of the nation at large. As for the 40% who would like to remain until US objectives are achieved, I bet you would be hard pressed to get an actual coherent answer as to what our objectives are.

I thought this part was the most promising. Hopefully the more liberal Democratic caucus, with a handful of repugs/teabaggers, will say enough and cut funding.

Last year, when the House considered war funding, 32 Democrats voted no. This year, that number more than tripled, to 102, and Democratic leaders had to twist arms on the House floor.

With the defeat of many centrist "Blue Dogs" in this month's elections, the House Democratic caucus will be more uniformly liberal and more consistently anti-war. Democrats now hold 255 of the House's 435 seats; in the new Congress, that number is likely to fall to 193.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and nine other House members sent an open letter to Obama as he left to meet with NATO leaders in Lisbon last month expressing "grave concerns that the current course in Afghanistan is compromising our national security interests and is unsustainable even in the short term."

"Amongst the Democratic base, the war is a big issue, and the opposition to this war is going to intensify," McGovern said in an interview. "Every time we hear a speech — not just this president but his predecessor — we're told 'another year,' 'another two years,' and then a year goes by and we hear 'maybe another four years.' I don't think we should be there another four years."

Karen Bass, a former California House speaker who was elected to Congress last month from a liberal Los Angeles district, supports Obama but heard constituents express concerns about war costs at a time they see big needs at home. "I do want to see us get out of Afghanistan as soon as we possibly can," she says.

•Some of the newly elected Tea Party Republicans are skeptical.

Many new lawmakers weren't asked to take positions on the war in campaigns dominated by opposition to the health care law and warnings about the national debt, but some in the Tea Party movement have expressed opposition to foreign entanglements generally. About 40 of the 84 new House Republicans have ties to the Tea Party movement.

"If it continues to be defined as it is now, which is a nation-building mission — and that's what we're doing — then I think there is some segment of the conservative caucus that isn't going to like that very much," says Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "Over time, as it looks more and more like Barack Obama's war, they'll ask, 'What are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan?' "

[truedelphi]

13. One can outline our shifting "objectives" regarding Iraq

By viewing YouTubes of the rather hard to stomach Mr Bolton, as he goes back and forth, depending on which day of the week it is, as to what our objectives are and were in that torn apart nation.

He ends up saying that the USA had the right to go in and tear the nation apart (if that is what it took) to get to Saddam Hussein, and then to basically throw a few books such as the Federalist Papers and the American Constitution at the Iraqi people as we pull out.

But before an American official comes to releasing that viewpoint, so many other viewpoints were offered:

1) Weapons of Mass Destruction
2) Bring democracy and the excellent American way of life to the poor uneducated sand eaters

and so on.

Now the same arguments will be made for our efforts in Afghanistan. In the end,it is all about what resources we can extract, in both nations. As well as what American companies we can install to replace the companies we bulldozed by war out of existence.