Today the NY Times reveals there's no need to focus on the Summer of 2011 as a significant period in our occupation of Afghanistan. We can still afford the loooong haul....
In a move away from President Obama’s deadline of July 2011 for the start of an American drawdown from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all cited 2014 this week as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves.
NY Times
There must be no damn budget deficit in the U.S. We should all stop lying about it. The catfood commission is worried about nothing. The absolute proof that there is no budget deficit comes right from our political & military leaders who plan for us to be in Afghanistan in 2014.
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014...still in Afghanistan.
Year in & year out...sinking our budget and shedding our blood in pursuit of holding up "the white man's burden" in the 21st Century.
There's no financial crisis. If there was, the first thing our "responsible" leaders would do would be to cut out an unnecessary & extremely costly foreign adventure.
Lest you think that there is some great hidden masterplan for successfully concluding this war in 2014, it should be sufficient to see from what military & political "genius" that date comes from.
Administration officials emphasized that the 2014 date was first set by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who mentioned it in his inaugural address last year and again at a conference in Kabul this past summer.
NY Times
Karzai came up with that date (no doubt after first consulting all family members & his investment bankers in Switzerland).
Karzai...the most dependable, uncorruptable and honest Quisling since President Diem.
It is a stupid adventure & a dumb war that is no longer supported by the American people.
Bluntly, the war is
- Morally evil
- Financially catastrophic
- Pollitically stupid
I can honestly no longer take seriously anyone who claims to be concerned about the "budget deficit" who doesn't see the first thing that needs to be cut out is our occupation of Afghanistan.
We can't afford it.
It is a constant and daily burning money pit whose flames are not extinguishable by buckets of American or Afghani blood. Not before. Not now. Not in the remainder of 2010, and certainly not in-
2011
2012
2013
2014
Think of the years between now and 2014-and the elections-while we go through the absurd Kabuki of pretending to care about our economy even as we immolate our financial resources in Afghanistan.
Stop supporting this stupid war that was stupid the first 10 times it was done in history. You can't afford to support Drang Nach Afghanistan: not morally, not politically, and not financially.