In his scheduled speech tonight at West Point, President Obama will make one of the biggest mistakes of his short presidency. Obama has accepted General McChrystal's recommendations on Afghanistan in their entirety. Those recommendations are unrealistic and have more to do with military testosterone, ego, and the Empire's military industrial complex than the interests of the American people…or reality.
Briefly….Obama is going to imitate George W. Bush tonight. He will send over 30,000 new American troops into an 8+ year directionless quagmire inside a country whose leaders are totally untrustworthy. Obama is doing this to create a perception of strength back home. Ironically, it will be seen in restrospect as just the opposite.
After having thrown most of his foreign policy campaign promises in the trash in less than a year, President Obama will add insult to injury tonight by sounding exactly like the guys we threw out last November. Bush/Cheney told us that by wasting troops and money in the middle eastern "theater", they were keeping America "safe." Obama will tell us the same thing tonight. The former Terror Twins constantly insisted that their reckless, foolish and sometimes fraudulent military strategies were for the purpose of reinforcing American national security. Obama will tell us the same thing tonight.
The evidence proves just the opposite. In brewing even more Islamic extremism and hatred for America during Bush/Cheney, we were told America was more secure. Obama will tell us that by sending even more U.S. soldiers into a corruptly-governed Muslim country, he is making us safer. It wasn't true under Bush….it won't be true under Obama.
The very reason Osama Bin Laden raised up his group of suicide-bombing Islamic extremists was because western powers interfered with and militarily occupied Muslim countries. That dynamic plus the U.S failure to help bring about a fair two-state solution in the Palestinian-Israeli situation led directly to the 9-11 attacks.
Bush often told us he was deferring to the "commanders on the ground" as he foolishly dithered in Iraq and Afghanistan, running out the clock on his own presidency with no resolution of either multi-year quagmire. Obama, tonight, will follow in W's footsteps. General McChrystal, the man who purposely covered up the truth about Pat Tillman's death, has requested 30,000-40,000 new U.S. troops for Afghanistan. Radical American neo-cons have been banging their unquenchable bloodthirsty drums for Obama to do what the "commanders on the ground" requested. Obama has decided to send some 35,000 new U.S. troops into Afghanistan. Trusting McChrystal and the neo-con nuts at this point is indefensible. Indeed, it's reprehensible.
Obama will not set any "timetables" for leaving Afghanistan. Where have we heard that before? Obama will insist on "benchmarks" as he announces his own escalation of an already-incoherent Afghanistan "plan." "Benchmarks" was a favorite term of our former "war president." Same old.
This new Obama-directed escalation will cost $30-50 billion. More of America's future pissed away for no identifiable purpose. Money that will undoubtedly be borrowed……because in America, we can't borrow money to benefit Americans' lives directly, like with health care reform….but we can always borrow money for the purpose of killing Muslims in foreign countries. It's all so disgusting.
I have given Barack Obama almost a year to prove his leadership. I did the same with George W. Bush. I don't think it is fair, or realistic, as fools like Limbaugh, Beck and FOX have done, to attack a new president right out of the box. Obama's first year is almost up.
When it comes to state secrets, military commissions, the Bagram gulag, holding obvious war criminals accountable, and now, escalating a military conflict in a foreign country that we occupy…..Obama is proving himself to be the furthest thing from change we can believe in.
He is simply a Bush/Cheney retread. A reluctant neo-con, perhaps….but still a neo-con.
