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It is Obama's war and his tactics are criminal and making us less safe!

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Message winston smith

According to Obama the big threat is Al Qaeda, but they aren't currently in Afghanistan. Prior to 9/11 the Taliban protected Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but there is a zero % chance they would repeat that now. Our war in Afghanistan is creating more terrorists than it kills, and Obama is intimating that Afghanistan won't be the end of his imperialistic campaign. Obama likes to give the impression that he is an intellect. Why isn't he at least attempting to avoid recent mistakes in Afghanistan? If he was then he would have more credibility, which Admiral Mike Mullen is also impugning.

The article The Shame and Folly of Obama's War in Afghanistan, reminds us that Al Qaeda isn't in Afghanistan as it states we know Al Qaeda is not there, because US intelligence reports that there are "fewer than 100" Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan at most at this point, and probably a good deal fewer.

Back before 9/11 the Taliban protected Al Qaeda. Would that happen again? The article states But would Al Qaeda come back if the Taliban, ousted back in 2001 by US Special Forces, were to return to power in Kabul? Not likely. As the New York Times reported in last Sunday's paper, the Afghan Taliban have convincingly broken with Al Qaeda, because of the latter organization's targeting of the Pakistani government, which has long had a supportive relationship with the Afghan Taliban. Besides, the Taliban in Afghanistan have a clear goal of ruling Afghanistan, and the US has already demonstrated both that it can live and work with a Taliban government, as it was doing before the 9-11 attacks, and that it will punish the Taliban if they allow Al Qaeda a free hand inside their country. So the odds of a re-established Taliban regime in Afghanistan inviting Al Qaeda to move back in and set up shop are somewhere around zero.

The article Obama's Drone Attacks Inhuman, Illegal and Self-Defeating astates In fact, the Bush and Obama administrations have decided to be judge and executioner, skipping the prison warden part. There's another word for these drone attacks. Murder.

The Kroc Institute's Mary Ellen O'Connell says it best:
The U.S. is perceived throughout the world as acting lawlessly with respect to Pakistanin killing innocent people and in disrespecting Pakistan's sovereignty.

These perceptions are fueling anti-American feeling, which may well be fueling recruits to terrorism. Taking the moral and legal high road is the best strategy against terrorism.

What is the goal of the Obama administration in Afghanistan? The article The Audacity of Ethnic Cleansing; Obama's plan for Afghanistan talks about an article that Zoltan Grossman wrote, "Afghanistan: The Roach Motel of Empires" and states "If Grossman is correct, then Obama's professed commitment to Afghan liberation merely masks a vicious counterinsurgency strategy that will ethnically cleanse areas in the south while driving tens of thousands of innocent people from their homes. This is essentially what took place in Baghdad during the so-called 'surge'; over a million Sunnis were forced from the city by death squads and Shia militia under the watchful eye of US troops. US counterinsurgency wunderkind Gen Stanley McChrystal played a pivotal role in pacifying Iraq, which is why he was chosen by Obama to oversee military operations in Afghanistan."

Why is Obama doing this? The article states Obama's escalation is not aimed at strengthening democracy, liberating women or bringing an end to the brutal, misogynist rule of religious fanatics. It is pure, unalloyed imperial politics, the rearranging of the map and its people to serve Washington's interests.

Maybe Obama isn't interested in global US hegemony. Maybe he's only afraid that the GOP will label him as a pre-9/11 thinker. In any case, how can we be squandering our youth and treasure in Afghanistan when we can't provide jobs or health care for our citizens?

What happens after Afghanistan? The article states The President must be frank about the fact that any form of victory in Afghanistan and Pakistan will be part of a much wider and longer struggle. He must make it clear that the ideological, demographic, governance, economic, and other pressures that divide the Islamic world mean the world will face threats in many other nations that will endure indefinitely into the future. He should mention the risks in Yemen and Somalia, make it clear that the Iraq war is not over, and warn that we will still face both a domestic threat and a combination of insurgency and terrorism that will continue to extend from Morocco to the Philippines, and from Central Asia deep into Africa, regardless of how well we do in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The article US repeating Soviet mistakes states that Andrey Avetisyan, the Russian ambassador to Afghanistan, says Moscow supports the continuing presence of international troops in Afghanistan. However he worries that the international community, especially the US, are committing the same mistakes made during the Soviet occupation.

He said, "This moment seems to have come because in Afghanistan we see, at last, not only fighting but efforts to revive this country, to rebuild its economy ... to do something for education.
These are positive developments because we have been telling our Western friends you cannot win in Afghanistan by fighting terrorism alone."

I guess that Andrey Avetisyan would be against Obama's apparent plan to ethnically cleanse areas in the south of Afghanistan.

Historians claim that Russia's defeat in Afghanistan led to their downfall. The article, quoting Andrey Avetisyan, states "I don't think military victory is possible in Afghanistan in the sense of a conventional war or traditional war, like the Second World War and such. In the end, international forces will leave Afghanistan but the war or the fighting will not stop immediately."

Historians in the near future might also claim that our defeat in Afghanistan led to our downfall. Our scholar President ought to pay heed to this.

Andrey Avetisyan has a hidden agenda in this. He doesn't want our occupation of Afghanistan to fail because it is so close to Russia. The article, quoting Andrey Avetisyan, states "Unfortunately, as we say to our American partners, they are repeating the same mistake. Which is a pity, because they have an advantage to learn from our mistakes. But many mistakes are repeated. We are not very happy about it because we are now partners."

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Winston Smith is an ex-Social Worker. I worked in child welfare, and in medical settings and in homeless settings. In the later our facility was geared as a permanent address for people to apply for welfare. Once they received that we could send (more...)
 
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