Dana Perino and Junkyard Wars

By Capt. Fogg

So Dana Perino still isn't bowing out of her mission to defame the president who employs her. It's too breathlessly important to talk down the America that pays her salary; pays her excellent medical and dental plan that she would deny us, to bother to be consistent with what she just finished saying or with objective reality. Why should she, after all? She's preaching to her own demented and dishonest choir, none of whom is any smarter or more honest than she is.

A few days ago, it was wrong for President Obama to play golf because "there's a war on." Yesterday it was just fine to call him to task for not calling a shooting "terrorism" even though "there's a war on." Criticizing the President in time of "war" is only treason when the President is of their tribe, you know and it's never treason when Fox does it. Anything goes, you see, when you're blond and perky. Anything -- even forgetting that the 9/11 attacks were not only on George W. Bush's watch, but that George W. Bush wasn't actually watching and had effectively shot down those who were. But hey, that was history and history is a junkyard from which you take parts and assemble your own truth.

We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during president Bush's term,

Perino said to Sean "Insanity" Hannity on Fox last night. The old Fox with the botox face didn't even flinch. She went on to politicize the shootings at Fort Hood by accusing Barack Obama of "politicizing" the shootings at Fort Hood by not calling the act of an American officer "terrorism" in advance of any evidence to back that up other than the man's religion.

So why is it so important, other than for reasons of creating a religious war, to label the Fort Hood murders terrorism? So that she can pretend Bush was a protector and Obama is not. She needs a "terrorist" attack to create a false equivalence no matter how outrageously unequal it may be. In her little mind, your little mind will accept that the billions of dollars of destruction and the 3000 or so lives is equivalent to an American officer going wacko and shooting up his fellow soldiers and therefore Barack Obama is a failure.

What's in a name? Everything, it seems. The difference between death by friendly fire and terrorism is all in the politics of the beholder, whether or not the fire is friendly. If someone "fragged" his commanding officer, it's not terrorism and if Pat Tillman was shot by his own men, that's not terrorism either. Charles Manson isn't a terrorist, even though his mission was to strike terror into the hearts of white people and start a war. David Berkowitz wasn't a terrorist although he terrorized New York -- and why? A political football is not a football until someone kicks it and the Grand Old Fox has no interest in doing so unless it serves their need of supporting Republicans and toppling Democrats.

I've seen famous comedians booed off the stage for making mild jokes about George Bush, I've had death threats for saying Reagan had serious flaws. Where is the outrage now? Where is the response to such amateurish, clumsy and wildly dishonest propaganda coming, like foul breath, out of the mouths of Fox?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Asi se mueve una madurita con experiencia

What's the point of the Afghan War?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It is being reported that President Obama will send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan as part of his soon-to-be-announced Afghan War plan.

He has called the Afghan War "a war of necessity," in contrast to the war of choice that was, and is, the Iraq War, and he wants now to "finish the job" in Afghanistan.

Which begs the question, what exactly is the job to be finished?

Here's how I put it back in May, when McChrystal replaced McKiernan and Obama, in replacing the old guard with the new, moved the war decidedly in the direction of counterinsurgency:

I'm not sure what to make of the move. The war has certainly been in desperate need of refocus, and perhaps a renewed focus on counterinsurgency objectives will get it back on track, or just on a track. The problem all along has been the utter lack of clarity. Has the war been about defeating the Taliban and hunting down al Qaeda? Has it been about nation-building? Has it been about bringing freedom and democracy to the Afghan people? Has it been about regional stability and security? Or has it been about something murkier, about American hegemony in the region, and perhaps about American access to oil and gas?

This lack of clarity has led many of the war's early supporters, including me, to turn against it -- or, I should say, it is one of the reasons I have turned against it. And while a counter-insurgency war may be no more defensible, and no more worthy of support, than the war without clarity, the war as it has been waged thus far, but at least a focused war, a war with a clearly defined purpose (and perhaps also with clearly defined victory), will allow for an honest and open debate about American objectives and about the possibility for success.

Obama is likely to announce his new plan in a prime-time address next week. Calling the eight-year-old war a war of necessity and defending the troop increase won't be enough. He needs to explain clearly what the goal is, how progress will be measured, and when the U.S. and its allies can pull out for good.

It's not enough just to send more troops, after all. The key questions to be answered are what those and other U.S. troops will do there, what the focus of ongoing U.S. and allied military engagement will be, and what will constitute, if not quite victory, reasonable success.

Otherwise, we can only hope that Obama opts for a middle course that emphasizes realistic expectations and achievable goals.

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As for the troop increase, I think my friend Steve Hynd is right:

[34,000, including 23,000 actual troops, 7,000 members of a command HQ in southern Afghanistan, and 4,000 military trainers] is just about the number everyone was expecting and exactly enough to keep both the pro-war and anti-occupation camps dissatisfied. Obama must have decided he'd just piss everyone off equally.

*****

So Obama has apparently split the difference, not just on troop numbers but on opposing domestic viewpoints. Those troops already on the ground are there to hold the domestic political line with their blood while Obama sets up the conditions both in Afghanistan and at home for a proper phased withdrawal. It's what he should have done in the first place and doesn't need extra troops to do so -- but extra troops are seen as a domestic political necessity because Obama and his administration are wusses afraid of the electoral effects of being called wusses by Republicans and their own neoliberal hawks. They're going to be called wusses anyway. As is too often the case, foreign policy is domestic politics that gets inflicted on foreigners.

Very well put.

Obama's policy will be meant to show strength, resolve, and determination. In reality, it just shows fear and cowardice.

I understand the demands of domestic political considerations, and that for political reasons -- and perhaps also for personal ones, as he may believe the whole "war of necessity" nonsense -- Obama doesn't want to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan simultaneously, but it is disturbing, if predictable, that such short-term electoral concerns are allowed to guide foreign and military policy.