US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort

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AnimusRex -> US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 11:56:29 AM)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews Mathew Hoh, a former Marine and Foreign Service civilian authority in Afhganistan, retired his post, and sent a blistering 4 page letter to command stating that we have no plan or purpose in Afghanistan, and our presence there is only making it worse. Which is exactly the problem. We went into Afghanistan for no other reason than to capture Bin laden. Now that we have failed at that, we have become entangled in a war against the Taliban, which poses no danger to us whatsoever, and for the most part is fighting us only because we are in their country, the latest in a long line of foreign occupiers that they want to drive out. We supposedly are fighting to stablize the country, to prevent terrorists from plotting another attack; but as Hoh points out, the 9-11 plotters did most of their plotting in Europe. And I would add, a terror attack can be plotted anywhere, by nearly anyone with a boxcutter and guile. We have spent 8 years dithering in Afghanistan, and are in no better position than when we began. And yet we are being told that with another 60,000 troops victory can be gained. We are told that America's vital interest lies in social engineering on a gargantuan scale- building schools, hospitals, roads and bridges in a remote and desolate corner of the world; that establishing health care clinics and voting rights and a civil, corruption-free government in a nation that has never had a functioning central government is not only possible but essential and well worth the $1 Trillion price tag. Yet we are told that providing even the most modest and limited universal health care for our own citizens is an outrageous enlargement of government, an encroaching tyranny and foolish boondoggle. This is madness. Comments/ flames/ personal attacks/ questions about my orientation and patriotism are welcome.

kittinSol -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 12:23:50 PM)
On the DR show on NPR earlier today, someone was explaining that the Washington Post made a storm in a teacup out of this person's resignation - apparently, he wasn't doing much more than manning the photocopier. Otherwise, I agree with you. This war is morally reprehensible (what war isn't?).

servantforuse -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:16:45 PM)
NPR, A very biased news organization. Kitten, you need to expand your news sources. Listen to Rush once and a while

mnottertail -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:27:36 PM)
who cherrypicks other liberal media sources and comments jockularily on them......oh, a fuckin font of hard hitting nitty gritty news stories he is.......... take a fuckin hike on rush being any more than an imbicile. he cant even find his own news

servantforuse -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:30:55 PM)
Why can't PBS stand on it's own ? Why do tax payers have to support it ?

mnottertail -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:33:26 PM)
Cite the taxpayer involvement in PBS news. Then and only then do we talk. they dont pay a dime, hows that? lets see how big a deal this is. Ron

servantforuse -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:37:20 PM)
Are you saying that not a dime comes from taxpayers to support PBS ?

mnottertail -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:39:59 PM)
are you saying one does?

servantforuse -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:48:52 PM)
Yes. Everyone knows that it does. Where does the title come from ? Public Broadcasting System ? They get federal money and they always have.

mnottertail -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/27/2009 8:52:39 PM)
If I were to doubt the veracity of your claim, could you prove it somehow? How much do taxpayers give to PBS and how is it harmful?

alwayssummer -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 12:08:38 AM)
I completely agree with the OP and all points he made and those cited by the resigning official. I do not know what the real reason is for being in Afghanistan now - since bin Laden is probably not there & they estimate only 100 of his followers are still in that country. (Not that invading Iraq or Afghanistan was either intelligent or moral to begin with.) So now do Americans really want to pay 100 billion dollars a piece for each of these enemy soldiers? Not to mention the thousands of potential American casualities and the hundreds of thousands of Afghanistan America Haters who will result from this idiocy. BTW - General McCrystal gives me the creeps...I understand that he was the point man for the Pat Tillman friendly-fire cover up. Not a credible advisor.

kittinSol -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 5:15:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: servantforuse NPR, A very biased news organization. Kitten, you need to expand your news sources. Listen to Rush once and a while Notwithstanding your [sm=offtopic2.gif] comment, my life is too short to populate it with toxic people that spout complete nonsense, thank you very much. When I want to hear the news, I switch on the news on the radio, or I listen to intelligent and unbiased commentary, which excludes the Limbaugh clown de facto.

rikigrl -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 7:46:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: servantforuse NPR, A very biased news organization. Kitten, you need to expand your news sources. Listen to Rush once and a while Rush?? as a news source??? HAHAHAHAHAHA....toooooo funnnnnyyyy

Termyn8or -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 7:51:35 AM)
The real news ended years ago. Example : Perpetual war for perpetual peace. Still stands today, it is not what they are going to do, it's just a matter of when. The market crash was almost predicted by Thomas Jefferson. What he said would come to pass if we adopted an international based fractional reserve has happened. There are many examples throughout history, some mentionable, other not. In the Bible : Men shall seek death but not find it. Let's see, statewide votes enabling euthenasia passing then overridden by the US govt. Between that and air bags in the cars, GFIs in the bathrooms and the fact that it is hard to get a gun or even a good size butcher knife, I would say that this is coming to pass. I won't even get into the Communist Manifesto and what IIRC Stalin said. It's planks are all coming into reality. Whoever it was said the Americans will embrace Connumism without even realizing it. I said decades ago that the rest of the world i.e. Russia will become freer and we will be more oppressive. Having met some Russian immigrants and hearing about how things are in Russia now, this is holding true. Men of vision and foresight have been replaced by the storytellers of today, and even when they tell the truth, all you get are the current details. There is no really valid discussion about the way things are going, have gone and will go. Also, if PBS gets public money, there must not be many strings attached to it. They aired Loss Of Liberty. This is a documentary illustrating the collusion between the highest levels of the US and Isreali governments. That is a no no around here. Rush Limbaugh is a poor excuse for a schill for the republicans, and a trustee of modern chemistry. I doubt even Hunky agrees with most of his assertions and conclusions. The rest, the more radical ones like Alex Jones, Micheal Moore and the like. Well they do present facts, and would really do well to keep their mouth shut and let the viewer come up with his own opinions. But they poison the well like anyone else. Thus whatever truths they may uncover are regarded more skeptically. I never read it in the Bible, but I have been told that the forces of evil will mix the truth with lies. Well duh ! If anyone could ever say another always lies, we could just derive the truth by considering the exact opposite of what they assert. That would make the lies useless. Making a big deal over one guy quitting his job is the epitome of operating in a very small micro-universe. That is, and has been the trend for at least 100 years. It is key to manipulating the masses. While that goal is kept hidden, it is the PRIMARY goal of government and industry. Always has been. The main problem is that the ultimate goal of this manipulation has become much more sophisticated and sinster over the years. And I don't see how it will get any better in the near future. One guy quits, he makes a statement. Perhaps he has satisfied his conscience, but is his resignation going to change anything ? They are still going to do what they do, until and unless the masses act, and display a hell of alot of resolve, in numbers too big to ignore. You know how to fix that ? First you gain control of the media. The hell you say. It was a simple matter for big business to buy airtime. To bid on it, to fight over it. This inflates the price, if not the actual value of access to the public ear. The average guy can't get access, even local leaders have a hard time without some big money support. And there was never any way to stop the process in a supposedly free market. The best bet in understanding all of the shit going on today is to look at the big picture. And the targets are chosen quite effectively. When I worked in a far eastern suburb, I heard there was a guy actually crying because his TV was broken. Crying ? Sure I got a chuckle out of it, but thinking of it, this is not very encouraging. So he quit. Good. I hope he sleeps well and gets another job. If I worked for an outfit that screwed people over I would quit also. I like money too, but not that much. T

rikigrl -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 8:02:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AnimusRex http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews Mathew Hoh, a former Marine and Foreign Service civilian authority in Afhganistan, retired his post, and sent a blistering 4 page letter to command stating that we have no plan or purpose in Afghanistan, and our presence there is only making it worse. Which is exactly the problem. We went into Afghanistan for no other reason than to capture Bin laden. Now that we have failed at that, we have become entangled in a war against the Taliban, which poses no danger to us whatsoever, and for the most part is fighting us only because we are in their country, the latest in a long line of foreign occupiers that they want to drive out. We supposedly are fighting to stablize the country, to prevent terrorists from plotting another attack; but as Hoh points out, the 9-11 plotters did most of their plotting in Europe. And I would add, a terror attack can be plotted anywhere, by nearly anyone with a boxcutter and guile. We have spent 8 years dithering in Afghanistan, and are in no better position than when we began. And yet we are being told that with another 60,000 troops victory can be gained. We are told that America's vital interest lies in social engineering on a gargantuan scale- building schools, hospitals, roads and bridges in a remote and desolate corner of the world; that establishing health care clinics and voting rights and a civil, corruption-free government in a nation that has never had a functioning central government is not only possible but essential and well worth the $1 Trillion price tag. Yet we are told that providing even the most modest and limited universal health care for our own citizens is an outrageous enlargement of government, an encroaching tyranny and foolish boondoggle. This is madness. Comments/ flames/ personal attacks/ questions about my orientation and patriotism are welcome. Well spoken AnimusRex, madness indeed AR, madness indeed. my personal opinion is that the powers that be are lingering in Afghanistan in the off hope of somehow, someway, by some stroke of luck, coming across Osama bin Laden. What a pretty bauble that would be to stick in one's political and/or military bonnet.

popeye1250 -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 12:33:22 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AnimusRex http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews Mathew Hoh, a former Marine and Foreign Service civilian authority in Afhganistan, retired his post, and sent a blistering 4 page letter to command stating that we have no plan or purpose in Afghanistan, and our presence there is only making it worse. Which is exactly the problem. We went into Afghanistan for no other reason than to capture Bin laden. Now that we have failed at that, we have become entangled in a war against the Taliban, which poses no danger to us whatsoever, and for the most part is fighting us only because we are in their country, the latest in a long line of foreign occupiers that they want to drive out. We supposedly are fighting to stablize the country, to prevent terrorists from plotting another attack; but as Hoh points out, the 9-11 plotters did most of their plotting in Europe. And I would add, a terror attack can be plotted anywhere, by nearly anyone with a boxcutter and guile. We have spent 8 years dithering in Afghanistan, and are in no better position than when we began. And yet we are being told that with another 60,000 troops victory can be gained. We are told that America's vital interest lies in social engineering on a gargantuan scale- building schools, hospitals, roads and bridges in a remote and desolate corner of the world; that establishing health care clinics and voting rights and a civil, corruption-free government in a nation that has never had a functioning central government is not only possible but essential and well worth the $1 Trillion price tag. Yet we are told that providing even the most modest and limited universal health care for our own citizens is an outrageous enlargement of government, an encroaching tyranny and foolish boondoggle. This is madness. Comments/ flames/ personal attacks/ questions about my orientation and patriotism are welcome. Rex, I can't argue with you because you're right! We have some 50 million people in the U.S. with no healthcare and some of their Taxdollars are going to build hospitals in foreign countries! We have many people out of work in the U.S. and our govt wants to build roads, bridges in foreign countries? This is bad management, bad policy and bad thinking! Why can't we go into a country militarily (if we have to at all) and just do the job without "giving" them things? I remember in the early part of Clinton's admin. when one guy in the State Dept "resigned" because of Bosnia/Kosovo and the Press made a big deal about it, cranking him up to be some wonderkind, of course he had a "degree" or two and it was "such a waste" and of course he had that "save the world" disease. He was probably rehired "quietly" I wish I could remember his name. Funny, people like that are always described as "indespensable", "brilliant" and other accolades. Problem is there's a few million other people with "degrees" who describe themselves the same way. There's certainly no shortage of people like that. If they are in fact those things what the hell are they doing in the state dept shuffling papers? People like that always try to "run their own show" and ignore the constraints of their job descriptions. Can you imagine working at a car assembly plant putting on fenders and then deciding all on your lonesome that you start installing windshields instead? Bosnia and Kosovo had nothing to do with us! I think in 1992 there were 59 differant wars and conflicts in the world. Why would we want to get involved in any of them? Now it seems that the magic word is, "genocide", all these conflicts have become "genocides" in hopes that the U.S. will get involved and of course,.....our $money. Some said that Clinton had a deep seated guilt for not going to the military and Vietnam and that Bosnia/ Kosovo was "his war", remember he tried to say he was "in the military" as "Commander in Cheif?" Guys like him and Geraldo Rivera could have gone into the military instead of to law school in the '60's but they chose not to because they might have gone to Vietnam. It's fairly obvious that they are "psyhically wounded" because of that decision. As an American, Taxpayer, Voter and Veteran I'm sick to death of this kind of crap! I want my government focused solely on our problems, not foreign countrie's problems. We need to get out of Afganistan and Iraq. You don't need whole Army Divisions to go after Bin Laden and al qeada, all you need is a few thousand commandos, spies and assasins. And you make that $50m bounty on his head available to anyone who gets him and we'll get the prick in a few months. You need to think outside the box when going after assholes like Bin Laden. You don't go rolling in with helos overhead, a thousand Troops, and field bases all over the place so that everyone knows where you are! When are we going to get some good "management" in our govt? I think a president should be a quiet, efficient manager who's rarely on t.v. I couldn't care less what kind of dog they have or if they even have a dog! Who TF cares! And we really need to be closing embasseys not opening more of them like that $1B monstrosity in Bagdhad! Hell, we can't even get "volunteers" from the State Dept to staff it without threatening to quit! We simply do not need to have embasseys in every country on earth! They should pick about 30 countries and close the rest. They're useless. If you get in trouble in a foreign country you're on your own, they don't do anything for you. Nice gig eh? Eighty grand a year for shuffling papers! And, they call you "brilliant" and "promising." (Or maybe *"potentially"* "brilliant" and "promising.") I was working class and went into the U.S. Navy during Vietnam and volunteered to go to Vietnam but they put me on a Tanker (fleet oiler) and we did a few Med trips. Later I went into the U.S. Coast Guard for many years and retired. Coast Guard "code" for the State Dept was "white collar welfare." I never had a "degree" until I was 40 years old and I was totally unimpressed by it.

thornhappy -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 8:43:37 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: mnottertail If I were to doubt the veracity of your claim, could you prove it somehow? How much do taxpayers give to PBS and how is it harmful? The CPB is federally funded for 440 million this year. This is how NPR is funded: "NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 860 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. " On average, this is how a local station's funded: On average, public radio stations (including NPR Member stations) receive the largest percentage of their annual operating revenue (31%) from listener support. For FY07, the most recent data available, the average station's revenues came from the following sources: 31% from listeners in the form of pledges, memberships, and other donations 20% from businesses via corporate underwriting 11% from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is federally funded* 10% from licensee support 9% from foundations and major gifts 5% from local and state governments, and 14% from all other sources. All the info's from npr.org and www.cpb.org.

umustbkidding -> RE: US Official resigns over Afghanistan war effort (10/28/2009 8:49:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol (what war isn't?). many of them

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