CARL HIAASEN: No reason for optimism about war in Afghanistan

[laststeamtrain]

No reason for optimism about war in Afghanistan

By CARL HIAASEN
[e-mail]

According to the polls, President Obama's speech announcing the U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan won over a majority of Americans.

Thomas H. Johnson was not among them.

``It sounded a lot like a George Bush speech, frankly,'' he said. ``There was nothing new. It's old wine in bigger bottles.''

Johnson is a professor at the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. I met him in September, shortly after he'd returned from four months in southern Afghanistan.

<snip>

The Vietnam comparison to Afghanistan, rebuffed by Obama in his speech, is in Johnson's opinion tragically apt: ``The reality on the ground is that Afghanistan is Vietnam redux.''

He goes even further to say that Obama knows this war is unwinnable, and that the surge is meant to provide political cover in advance of a full U.S. withdrawal before the 2012 election.

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http://www.miamiherald.com/418/story/1389539.html

[Ken Burch]

1. Carl Hiaasen wrote that? I'm pleasantly amazed!

I knew he spoke out on what was being done to the Everglades, but didn't think he had any particular views on foreign policy.

[bemildred]

2. Mr Hiaasen is OK. nt

[midnight]

3. $57,077.60 -- That's What We're Paying Each Minute for the Occupation of Afghanistan

http://www.alternet.org/world/144642/$57,077.60_--_that's_what_we're_paying_each_minute_for_the_

[Hawkowl]

4. Obama is a fascist

A fascist who gives a good speech and inspires a lot of people, but a fascist nonetheless.

[starroute]

5. You're rendering the word "fascist" meaningless

Try reading up on real fascists some time -- it isn't just a meaningless insult to sling around at anybody you're feeling grumpy about.

Call Obama a middle-of-the-road technocrat with corporatist leanings if you like -- but "fascist" just doesn't cut it.

It also makes it a whole lot hard to identify actual fascists and call them out -- or was that the point?

[Hawkowl]

6. Fascism is from the Italian....

fascio, a bundle of sticks generally signifying strength through unity. I refer to Obama as a fascist as a completely owned corporate tool doing the bidding of the corporations over the welfare of the people.

Maybe YOU should do some reading. Something like "Fascism for dummies"-- or Wikipedia, same difference:

Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism<1><2><3><4> with a corporatist economic system,<5> and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left-right political spectrum.<6><7><8><9><10>.....

In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.<17><18> This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Italian fascist leader Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state").<19><20> No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any concise definition.<21>

Now why don't you do some research on your own of post World War II fascists with some focus on maybe South and Central American examples? Would you call Putin a fascist? What about Saddam Hussein? What would you call Pakistan?

Obama fits the definition of fascist with his continuation of war mongering, unquestioning willingness to finance the War industry to the detriment of the economic well being of the country, and his giveaways to Wall Street while letting the finance and insurance industry dictate the laws--all the while having his surrogate Rahm, ridicule the popular progressive movement of people who put him into office.

[starroute]

7. I think you just defined yourself out of the park

Radical nationalism? Authoritarianism? Significant government control over business?

I think you may have wandered into the wrong reality.

My gripe with Obama at this point is that he's making far too many compromises with "the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism." Real fascism is a form of statism -- an attempt to round up everyone into a single industrial army under centralized control. Giving free rein to the corporations is not a good thing, but it's the exact opposite of fascism, as your own definitions show.

[Hawkowl]

8. Reverse the tautology

Can you see that as it stands now government = the corporations? We are already there.

Radical nationalism? What do you call the constant nonsense of "support our troops!" The constant flag waving and chest thumping while we slaughter goat herders and poppy growers with pilotless drone aircraft? Why do we occupy a nation that has virtually no influence on our national security but a large geographic influence on how the corporations can get their oil? Why do we have hundreds of military bases all over the world and Obama INCREASES the military budget (larger than the rest of the world combined?)

Authoritarianism? Obama supports warrantless wiretaps and the Patriot Act. What the hell do you call those egregious pieces of fascism?

Apparently you have a limited definition of fascism that exists only if their are swastikas and death camps involved? Really that's not what you are saying is it? If we are to stop fascism we have to stop it in the early stages. We are beyond the early stages but not yet at the deathcamp stages.

Self identifying? WTF? Of course I'm self identifying, what the hell does that mean?