The policy for Afghanistan is a looming problem and the GOP will spin reality to get their goals accomplished and will be greatly helped by having a mole in place. How many others are out there--in addition to the network of retired military analysts who follow Whitman's orders, and the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan General McChrystal?

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Historically, what happens to the US when it is at war?

The article “No Rush to Escalate” at

click here

states “At a White House dinner with a group of historians at the beginning of the summer, Robert Dallek, a shrewd student of both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, offered a chilling comment to President Obama.  "In my judgment," he recalls saying, "war kills off great reform movements." The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that "Dr. New Deal" had given way to "Dr. Win the War." Korea ended Harry Truman's Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson's Great Society to an abrupt halt.”

The article points out that Obama was elected to end wars, not elongate one of them and states “It's also enraging that those who insist on offsetting every penny spent to expand health coverage would never ask the Congressional Budget Office to score the costs of McChrystal's strategy. For the uninsured, they propose fiscal prudence. For war, they offer profligacy.”

Look, members of the GOP propaganda organs were ecstatic when Obama failed to get the Olympics for Chicago. They will howl that Obama is guilty of the pre-9/11 thinking unless he gets us buried in Afghanistan.  The article continues “Is this a situation in which Obama should commit tens of thousands more troops for a lengthy war?”

The article contains the criticism that the GOP will hurl at Obama: “There's a jelling conventional wisdom that if Obama doesn't go all in with McChrystal's strategy, he is admitting defeat and backing away from his earlier pledges.”  Phrases containing flip-flopper, pre-9/11 thinker, weak on terrorism will be run in an infinite loop by the GOP media allies.

With the information this article provides regarding war destroying American's reform movements Obama must consider what he wants. Does he want to be stuck in a quagmire and abandon his domestic reforms or does he want to reduce his losses in Afghanistan and have his domestic agenda prosper? The article concludes “Those most eager for a bigger war have little interest in Obama's quest for domestic reform. As he ponders his options, theirs are not the voices he should worry about.”

Obama's administration realizes that they shouldn't have minions complaining about leadership's policies. The article “McChrystal Faulted On Troop Statements-- Public Campaign Hurts Review, Aide Says” at

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states “National security adviser James L. Jones suggested Sunday that the public campaign being conducted by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan on behalf of his war strategy is complicating the internal White House review underway, saying that "it is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

Other superpowers have failed in Afghanistan and they had the goal of simply turning a profit there. What is our goal there? No one has an answer and that alone means that we have failed in meeting the requirements of the “Powell Doctrine of Engagement”, which is widely viewed as being the barest requirement for the US engaging in war.

The article dealt with the recent assault which resulted in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in a year and says, “The coordinated assault, resulting in the deadliest day for U.S. forces in a year, could factor into the administration's Afghan strategy review that so far has focused largely on McChrystal's 66-page assessment of the war"

In his report, McChrystal warned that a "failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum" in the next 12 months "risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

The Obama administration has not done a good job in describing that the superpower—in this case us, has never won 4th generation warfare--combat styles in which the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are adept at.

The article states “Among the questions being asked of McChrystal is whether a return of the Taliban to a position of political strength would automatically result in a new sanctuary for Al-Qaeda, the stated target of Obama's Afghanistan policy.

Military officials think the Taliban's return to power would mean a new haven in Afghanistan for Al-Qaeda, and a sanctuary for Pakistan's Taliban from which to stage attacks against that neighboring government.”

The article “Deadly Attack By Taliban Tests New Strategy” at

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details our losses and how al-queda is happy to use the conflict as a propaganda boon. “When soldiers from a new brigade took over the outpost earlier this year, one of their top priorities was to leave as quickly as possible, a process their commanders had begun planning as early as December 2008. Before the planned U.S. retreat, American and Afghan army commanders tried to strike a deal with a senior insurgent commander in Kamdesh, a man named Mullah Sadiq. He had been on the U.S. list of enemy targets for several years, and may have led or ordered Saturday's attack.

"Many civilians have been injured and killed during the fight, and I offer apologies to the Nuristani people for the bombings that hurt the innocent," Lt. Col. Robert B. Brown wrote in a letter to Sadiq dated Sept. 6. "We ask for your guidance in developing a plan that will improve security and development in the area."  Brown promised not to arrest Sadiq if he agreed to a meeting. But Sadiq, a local commander of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgent group, refused to meet with the Americans.”

We are apologizing for using the only methods we have superiority in. We don't have the support of the local inhabitants and the enemy can do what they want as they are in charge. The article states “The provincial governor, Jamaluddin Badar, said on Sunday that security had steadily deteriorated around Kamdesh. The Taliban leadership has appointed a shadow governor in the province, Mullah Dost Muhammad, and had opened a training camp in the forest, he said.”

Isn't the fear-- as articulated above, that they can open training camps and bases to attack Western interests the main reason we are there? According to this Mullah Dost Muhammad we've already failed.

The GOP can explode in ecstasy when their President fails in getting the Olympics for Chicago. The article “Krugman: Republican Party has ‘emotional maturity of bratty 13-year-old'” at

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states that Paul Krugman said "The modern conservative movement," Krugman declared, "which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

Krugman penned the line in response to what he called "puerile" tactics of GOP partisans who cheered the failure of Chicago to win the 2016 Summer Olympic games. "'Cheers erupted' at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine's staff, with the headline 'Obama loses! Obama loses!'" Krugman wrote. "Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated the Drudge Report.

What will they do if Obama doesn't follow the orders of his military? 43 put Petraeus in charge because he knew Petraeus agreed with 43's policy. Maybe that was a lesson Obama should have learned.

We will ultimately be saying who cares about the Olympics, but it showed that the Chicago style of politics that Obama adheres to is far from flawless. Another, more dangerous laxity in what Obama has done is that he has allowed cronies of 43 stay in his administration. Maybe their intentions were examined, but with the Olympics fiasco, the probability is that 44 was just lazy.

The article “Senior official in Bush domestic propaganda program remains Obama's Pentagon spokesman” at

http://rawstory.com/2009/09/bryan-whitman-part-1/

states “A key senior figure in a Bush administration covert Pentagon program, which used retired military analysts to produce positive wartime news coverage, remains in the same position today as a chief Obama Defense Department spokesman and the agency's head of all media operations.

In an examination of Pentagon documents the New York Times obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request — which reporter David Barstow leveraged for his April 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé on the program – Raw Story has found that Bryan Whitman surfaces in over 500 emails and transcripts, revealing the deputy assistant secretary of defense for media operations was both one of the program's senior participants and an active member.”

The GOP considers the US populace as being a likely audience for the propaganda as the article continues “Barstow's Times expose revealed a comprehensive, covert Pentagon campaign — beginning during the lead-up to the Iraq War and continuing through 2008 — that shaped network military analysts into what internal documents referred to as “message force multipliers” and “surrogates” who could be trusted to parrot Bush administration talking points “in the form of their own opinions.”

Now McChrystal is challenging Obama's view on Afghanistan. Do you think this Whitman brainwasher will help McChrystal for GOP advantage?

The article continues “But as Barstow noted in his report, in running the program out of that office rather than from the agency's regular press office, “the decision recalled other Bush administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism.”

How does it feel to realize that 43 brainwashed the populace of his country?

The article continues “Records reveal Bryan Whitman as an ever-present force in the retired military analyst program, whether utilizing the analysts to push back against negative news coverage on insufficient body armor for soldiers, the abuse of detainees, setbacks in Iraq, and other incidents and war policies.”

Different war, 43 is gone and 44 takes his place, but Whitman keeps up his misinformation. Maybe Obama's team should have told him to go sit in an office with no role other than collect his pay check until he retires.

They even tried to get Whitman to help them regarding DoD's response to Katrina. We'll be seeing a steady stream of retired Generals running down Obama on FOX and that topic will dominate Clear Channel Radio. The GOP doesn't need any advantages in this endeavor, but Obama's team's laxness allowed a propagandist to remain shading DoD events to the GOP's advantage.

Authors Bio:
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 them to facilities in which their welfare paid the bill and provided enough for a meager existence. We also referred people to vocational rehabilitation services. Many of the people who came to us were people who were clearly emotionally ill, but Reagan's slashing of the services for these people caused them to become homeless. One woman I dealt with-St. Jane, believed she was in direct communication with God, urinated freely without using the facilities and she had 47 bags of trash which were prized possessions. She got welfare and was sent to a facility were she could survive. The rule was that our facility could be used 1 time only as we had too many people who thought that the services that we provided we would lift them from the dire straights that they were in. Well, we provided our services for St. Jane around Thanksgiving. On Christmas Eve she was back with her 47 bags of trash and wanted to stay at our facility. I informed my superior of this situation, but we declined to provide services for St. Jane. She slept in front of our facility in a snowstorm. The local rag took the picture and excoriated us for what we did. The local welfare department asked her where she would like to live. St. Jane said Chicago because she liked the wind. She knew on one there. She and her 47 bags of trash of were carted onto a train for the windy city and never of again. The local welfare department was glad to get shed of her. Social welfare in the mid-1980's was geared to blame the victim. Ill people were sent home from hospitals were no one was going to help them because social welfare budgets were slashed by Reagan. Bush 41's â"thousand points of lightâ" was just another way to shaft the weakest in our society. Bush 43's faith based initiative was just another attempt to reduce social welfare services. Reagan's â"Just say Noâ" was the pinnacle of hypocrisy. No services for those who desperately needed them under the guise of tough love.

Obviously I became burnt out by too much indifference regarding our weak and weary. I couldn't look at desperate people and could not get myself to say that what I could offer them wouldn't really help themâ"”it would only get them out of my office to be another person's problem, until the local welfare department carted them away.

I had little interest in politics until the illegal Iraq War started. Growing up in the 1960's caused me to understand that the GOP used war to attract right-wing extremists to vote for them. When â"Tricky Dick'sâ" secret plan to end the Vietnam War unfolded into elongating our presence there for 8 years I knew that I would never believe a GOP war-monger again. I dislike Obama's plan to escalate our presence in Afghanistan and see it as a craven attempt to placate the GOP. Maybe he'll reduce the GOP's attacks against him, but it will at the expense of alienating his base.