The president's announcement of his decision to send 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan has hit many of us hard.
Shades of reaction are varied with many sublteties among each of us. Quite a few are caught between the supposed two main camps of rejection or support. Some have said they support the president's decision, but wished he'd reached a different conclusion other than escalation-but will support him nonetheless. For some it is about economics. For some of us it is a gut-wrenching moral issue.
The MSM is presenting the escalation as a done deal ever since the president's announcement. Some people have since expressed further alienation from the Democtratic party &/or the president. However, it is not a done deal. The escalation does not have to be followed through to its forlorn conclusion. There is a secret weapon to prevent it. The weapon is at hand-we just need the access code.
For all of us who wished the president had reached a different conclusion, there is a secret weapon that we can activate. That secret weapon is the president himself.
With good reason both progressives and the Right have expressed displeasure with the president. Progressives are not pleased that the president hasn't been as great as he could've been-or that he's benefitted corporate and MIC interests too much. The Right, for all their clamoring over whatever thing the president has said or done in any given week, are really in fear of that which he MIGHT do in the future-in few words-yield to the concerns of the progressives. They fear, in their heart of hearts, that somehow the progressive base will activate him.
If we activiate him-he becomes out not-so secret weapon.
In terms of Afghanistan, the president needs to be activated to halt the escalation-and immediately begin drawing down troops. The way to do that is to activate his conscience. To activate that he needs to see something he hasn't yet seen-not photographic evidence of the war's cost in lives-he's seen that. He doesn't need evidence of how the cost of the war prevents needed money being invested here-he knows that.
The evidence the president has not seen yet & which will activate his conscience-is when he sees Americans respectfully and non-violently (hello Ghandi) sitting down in front of troop convoys here on the news in order to prevent their transportation. When that happens, along with the ongoing lack of success of the escalation at what ever point it is at that week, his conscience will be activated.
That's what he meant by, "Push me."
If, on the other hand, that segment of his critics who claim he cannot be weaned away from the will of the MIC are correct-and his conscience is not activated by seeing Americans protesting escalation in force-then it would still be the moral thing to do-and yet still may alter the political cost such that he acts as though his conscience were activated-and halts the escalation.
If there's another exit strategy for Afghanistan-I haven't seen it.