Obama and his Democratic leaders in Congress have permitted themselves to be rolled often and easily by the determined Republican minority. Just the threat of a filibuster in the Senate was enough to make the Democrats quake in fear and pull in their horns.
When the Democrats took the daring step of confronting the Republicans frontally by slip-sliding away from the filibuster boogeyman and passing the health-care bill by majority vote, the Dems seemed to finally realize they had power and could use it.
This led to Obama telling the Republicans in the Senate that their days of total obstructionism were coming to an end. They had locked up nearly 80 nominees for important posts and refused those nominees up-or-down confirmation votes in the Senate, many of them for six months or more. So, during the recent Congressional break, Obama simply gave 15 of those nominee "recess appointments" for the life of the current Congress, which is to say until 2112. (Bush made 170 recess appointments during his two terms.)
In addition, the Democrats are feeling their oats a bit more, and might even go for majority "reconciliation" votes on upcoming major bills, including the Dodd bill calling for more oversight of financial institutions. This bill, by the way, is woefully deficient, and leaves all sorts of loopholes for the giant banks. What I'm talking about here is the Dems' willingness to confront the Republicans openly.
SURPRISING TRUTH FROM AFGHANISTAN
The U.S. plays down, or outright denies, the huge number of "collateral-damage" deaths of civilians in Afghanistan. "sh*t happens" seems to be the operative mode when raining down missiles aimed at Taliban forces, though on occasion the Americans have felt forced to apologize for the most embarrassing of such massacres of innocents.
So hearing the recent admission by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior U.S. and NATO commander, about those all-too-frequent mass-deaths at coalition hands could be a sign of a rift between the military on the ground and the civilian leadership giving the orders.
Here's what McChrystal said about a week ago:"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat." In other words, the U.S. is slaughtering innocent civilians on a regular basis, for no good reason.
His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops on the ground about civilian casualties. Such deaths were supposed to be much reduced in number under new rules ordered by McChrystal. If you need visual evidence about how the U.S. routinely targets civilians, check out the Wikileaks videotape from Iraq. (www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/06/iraq/index.html)
One can read McChrystal's startling admission as a pushback from the U.S. military in Afghanistan to civilian/CIA orders to continue aggressive actions against suspected Taliban hideouts, regardless of the civilian "collateral damage." Continuing such deadly policies do little but anger the locals (many of whom see these killings as "mass murder") and provide a major recruiting tool for the Taliban. No wonder President Karzai is so outspoken against the continuing campaign of the Americans/NATO.
One can hope that Obama and his military advisors will see that the American campaign in Afghanistan is a no-win situation, and get the hell out of there at relatively little cost rather than risk getting America sucked further into the quagmire for another decade or two. Especially fighting for a corrupt government in Kabul and in many of the provinces that really doesn't want the U.S. there.#
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: >>
crisispapers@hotmail.comCopyright 2010 by Bernard Weiner.
First published by The Crisis Papers 4/6/10.
>>www.crisispapers.org/essays10w/tippingpoint.htm
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