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Afghanistan

The Runaway War: Why Firing McChrystal Won’t Help

So I finally got a chance to read the Rolling Stone article that brought down a general.

It is said that General Stanley McChrystal was fired for his contemptuous attitude toward his civilian bosses. However, McChrystal’s conduct isn’t the most damning aspect of the piece.

Michael Hastings paints a bleak portrait of the adventure that is the longest war in US history. The Counter Insurgency strategy (abbreviated COIN) advocated by McChrystal and sold to Obama isn’t working, and isn’t likely to work.

The article leaves me repeating the same question I’ve been asking for years: “What’s the point? Why are we at war in Afghanistan?”

Take this assessment from the article:

After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there.

Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. “Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem,” says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. “A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we’re picking winners and losers” – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population.

So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word “victory” when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible.

And if winning isn’t possible, then why continue to waste American treasure and lives?

When are the American people going to get fed up and demand that our president bring the troops home?

Click HERE to read the full article – “Rolling Stone: The Runaway General”

The Runaway War: Why Firing McChrystal Won’t Help

So I finally got a chance to read the Rolling Stone article that brought down a general.

It is said that General Stanley McChrystal was fired for his contemptuous attitude toward his civilian bosses. However, McChrystal’s conduct isn’t the most damning aspect of the piece.

Michael Hastings paints a bleak portrait of the adventure that is the longest war in US history. The Counter Insurgency strategy (abbreviated COIN) advocated by McChrystal and sold to Obama isn’t working, and isn’t likely to work.

The article leaves me repeating the same question I’ve been asking for years: “What’s the point? Why are we at war in Afghanistan?”

Take this assessment from the article:

After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there.

Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. “Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem,” says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. “A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we’re picking winners and losers” – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population.

So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word “victory” when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible.

And if winning isn’t possible, then why continue to waste American treasure and lives?

When are the American people going to get fed up and demand that our president bring the troops home?

Click HERE to read the full article – “Rolling Stone: The Runaway General”

Drowning in the Politics of Torture

Now playing:
Guantanamo by Nadir’s Distorted Soul

Let’s make this torture debate absolutely clear:  I’ve got cousins, a good friend and a nephew who are all in the military.  If any of them was captured on the battlefield and tortured, I would want the lower level interrogators who committed the act to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.  I would want the high level officials who authorized the use of illegal methods (not enhanced interrogation – TORTURE) to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.

This is not politics.  This is justice.

As mainstream media talking heads like Joe Scarborough and John Meachum do their best to dissuade the public from demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder do the right thing, the rest of us should not lose sight of the principles that are supposed to be  the foundation of this nation: that all men – including alleged Islamic radicals, prisoners of war, members of Congress and US presidents – are ALL created equal, should enjoy the same rights and deserve the same punishment for their crimes.

How is this debatable?  The law is the law, right?

Well, apparently not in the United States. Continue reading

Drowning in the Politics of Torture

Now playing:
Guantanamo by Nadir’s Distorted Soul

Let’s make this torture debate absolutely clear:  I’ve got cousins, a good friend and a nephew who are all in the military.  If any of them was captured on the battlefield and tortured, I would want the lower level interrogators who committed the act to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.  I would want the high level officials who authorized the use of illegal methods (not enhanced interrogation – TORTURE) to be prosecuted and convicted of war crimes.

This is not politics.  This is justice.

As mainstream media talking heads like Joe Scarborough and John Meachum do their best to dissuade the public from demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder do the right thing, the rest of us should not lose sight of the principles that are supposed to be  the foundation of this nation: that all men – including alleged Islamic radicals, prisoners of war, members of Congress and US presidents – are ALL created equal, should enjoy the same rights and deserve the same punishment for their crimes.

How is this debatable?  The law is the law, right?

Well, apparently not in the United States. Continue reading

Bill Clinton, Barry Sanders and the Future of the NAACP

Originally posted by Nadir at LastChocolateCity.com

Billed as the biggest sit down dinner in the world, the 52nd Annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner attracted 10,000 to Detroit’€™s Cobo Hall on April 29. Dinner itself was unremarkable. (Reports confirm that each entree – cajun beef, some unidentified fish or a mushroom pasta – was equally mediocre.)

What was most important about this dinner though was the guest list. The governor, both of Michigan’€™s US senators, several congress members, the mayor and other public officials, business and union leaders, entrepreneurs and preachers all joined grassroots activists to honor and support the nation’€™s oldest and largest civil rights organization.

During the three and a half hour event, Lifetime Achievement awards were given to Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, attorney and politician Joel Ferguson and former NAACP head Ernest Lofton. But the main attraction was the keynote address from the man described by several of the night’€™s speakers as “€œour president”€, William Jefferson Clinton. Continue reading

© Nadir Omowale