Let me finish tonight with this.
Horrible things happen in war. Even at its cleanest, it's good people killing other good people, guys fighting for their country against other guys fighting for their country; now, women, too.
I don't know where we put this latest horror.
An American soldier on his fourth tour in a combat zone--who's spent most of a dozen years over there fighting our wars--gets up one day and heads around door-to-door killing people including nine little kids, killing 16 people in cold blood, and then burning them.
Is this this war's My Lai? Is this the dread story that comes up in any war, all wars, when the combination of guys at the front too long, then sent back too many times, for too many years, all the time away from home?
These are different kinds of wars. It's not heading for Berlin in tanks, island-hopping our way to the Japanese home islands, or turning back invaders like in Korea or, in a much messier way, in Vietnam.
It's about trying to keep people who are "of" a country from coming back to dominate a country, people of extreme nationalism and zealous religion to grab back power a decade after we took it from them.
How do you sell the fact that we are the good guys after things like this continue to happen: the Koran burnings; before that, the soldiers peeing on dead Afghans; before that, the "kill team"?
How do you win "hearts and minds" with that stuff, making the rounds with each new story adding to the fire?
Ask yourself: Is there a job in the world today that's easier than being a Taliban recruiter? Getting people to join up against the Americans who've been in Afghanistan all these years?
Vice President Biden said a while back we should get our big force out of Afghanistan and shift to a policy of anti-terrorism, focusing on Al Qaeda, the group we went into that country to get. It does no good to say what might have been had we followed that course. It does do good to consider it now.
The mission of counter-insurgency, which the president chose over that of anti-terrorism, is still the mission. Is it still doable given the course of these events? Is our presence in that country helping to turn the hearts and minds against the Taliban, or in the other direction?
A good question to ask, now more than ever.
From the Hardball blog archive:
- "The reason this war's gone on is that we have first-rate, highly-disciplines troops in the American military. They do what they're told. But that's all the more reason why we should have a mission that makes sense and justifies the total sacrifice these patriotic Americans stand ready to make." -Defining the US mission in Afghanistan (Aug. 9, 2011)
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Obama will let republicans bludgeon Him with the Bill Maher money until July when He finally gives it back. Then they'll bludgeon Him until November for giving it back. This one of many food fights, just drags the office of the president down into the mud with "All American Dirtbags" like Bill Maher. I'm waiting to hear about a twitter war between Obama and Larry the Cable Guy over farting in a public place !! Anita Dunn said if it wasn't for President Acorn's special treatment, there would be a lawsuit on behalf of the women in the white house. Fighting the "War on Women" with Maher and Letterman on Your side is Obama at His finest. I love five dollar gas !!!!
Markie, how come you're not beating us over the head with the Derrick Bell story?
Couldn't be because Bell's widow was on Ed Schultz tonight and revealed her late husband was a war veteran who served as an officer in the Air Force in Korea in the early 50's, could it?
And here we go folks. Here's a golden oldie of El Humbaugh® getting owned...
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJpebtIXROw
Letterman: "Do you ever wake up and night and say 'I'm just full of hot gas?'"
Best piece I have read so far about the most recent Afghan massacre
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/another-civilian-massacre-and-the-savagery-of-our-soldiers.html/comment-page-1#comment-433082
Nearly eight years ago, on April 1, 2004, former speech writer and Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, where she was a contributing editor. It began like this (emphasis in original):
The brutal, inhuman event she was referring to was the killing in the Iraqi city of Fallujah of four American civilian contractors, whose SUV was ambushed by rocket-propelled grenades the day before. The four men, all employees of the infamous mercenary outfit Blackwater, were shot, their bodies burned, mutilated, and dragged through the streets in celebration. The charred corpses of two of those killed that day were strung up on a bridge over the Euphrates River. The news, and accompanying photographs, sent shockwaves of horror and disgust through the United States and prompted endless editorialsfrom coast to coast.
Noonan described "the brutalization of their corpses" as "savage, primitive, unacceptable" and decried that the "terrible glee of the young men in the crowds, and the sadism they evinced, reminds us of the special power of the ignorant to impede the good." She wrote that the Iraqis responsible for such gruesome actions "take pleasure in evil, and they were not shy to show it. They are arrogant. They think barbarity is their right."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan condemned the killings as "despicable, horrific attacks" and "cowardly, hateful acts," saying, "it was inexcusable the way those individuals were treated." He called those responsible for the deaths "terrorists" and "a collection of killers" and vowed that "America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins."
A few days later in the San Diego Union-Tribune, editor Robert J. Caldwell wrote of the "grisly horror," the "shocking slaughter," the "barbarism" and "butchery," the "homicidal hatred," and insisted that "if we permit atrocities like the one in Fallujah to drive the U.S.-led coalition into retreat and premature withdrawal" and "[i]f we falter in Iraq, we let the mob in Fallujah win." Similarly, Noonan suggested,
In fact, in retaliation, savagery returned with a vengeance as United States Marines immediately bombarded Fallujah, killing over 600 Iraqis, most of them women, children, and the elderly in the very first week of the assault in early April 2004, eleven months after George W. Bush declared "Mission Accomplished." By the end of the year, after two massive assaults on the city by the U.S. military, over 2,000 Iraqis, including hundreds of women and children, had been killed by American soldiers, thousands more injured and at least 300,000 displaced.
what do you think the US military will pay those who have lost family members in this latest massacre? A few American bucks and a few goats? One family lost all 11 members. Amazing to listen to the descriptions of this massacre by US media outlets. This morning I heard NPR's Renee Montagne call it "awful" Wondering when the US MSM will describe as the piece does over at Mondoweiss killings of innocent Afghanis, Iraqis and others as descriptive as they do when an American soldier or contractors are killed.
We clearly have double standards in our foreign policy and military responses. But clearly huge double standards in the MSM's descriptions of these deaths and the destruction
We can't ever win in Afghanistan so we should pull out as soon as possible. The largest tribe there is the Pashtuns. That is where the Taliban came from. They put women in burkas long ago. It's a tribal culture and any thought of us wanting to have them become a Democratic culture is an illusion. We have to stop being 9-1-1 for any problem in the world and start rebuilding our roads, bridges, mass transit , and let all these clans, and tribes and groups figure it out themselves
The president finds himself in this dangerous situation in Afghanistan,largely because he is Remarkably"NOT INHERITABLE"man.The word"CANT INHERIT"is not one that is often applied to Obama,yet in his 3year passed WAR,it has become increasingly clear that"NON INHERITABILITY"is one of the President most marked CHARACTERISTICS@