Tag: Afghanistan

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Note: Due to a deluge of editorial cartoons over the past week or so, I’m going to, time permitting, post Part II of this weekly diary in the next few days.  In addition to some of the issues covered in this edition, I’ll include more cartoons on the floods in Pakistan, the withdrawal of combat U.S. forces in Iraq, and Rupert Murdoch’s $1 million contribution to the GOP.

“The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan says he is not bound by the July 2011 date set for a troop pull-out. General David Petraeus said he could well advise President Obama not to go ahead if he believes it’s the wrong time. American public support for the war is at an all-time low, with July being the deadliest month for U.S. and NATO troops since 2001. With frustration growing about the occupation of Afghanistan, politicians in Germany have even suggested talking to the Taliban and terrorist organizations to avoid a further escalation of violence.”

RT talks with political economist and author F William Engdahl, author of “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” and “Full Spectrum Dominance”, about his thoughts on the Afghanistan occupation and the 30 year war scenario to prevent the independent economic development of Russia, China, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) states. Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Based in Germany, Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

A recent Army report released showed the rate of suicides has been on a steady increase with this past June being the worst with 32 active and reserve soldiers taking their own lives either while still deployed or after their return home. This past Sunday on This Week , Christiane Amanpour interviewed Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the general in charge of the U.S. Army’s efforts to reduce the epidemic of suicide among U.S. soldiers.

Of course the true solution to suicide prevention for the troops is to bring them home, all of them.

Listen to her interview with Gen. Chiaelli about the report, its causes and the solutions for prevention. Transcript link is here

Just what every Democratic President wants the approval of Karl Rove, aka Turdblossom, for the Afghanistan War

Turdblossom Tweets:

Victory in Afghanistan requires two things: the right strategy and the resolve to see it through. http://bit.ly/da0JrQ

The link is to his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and what he thinks is missing from Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan, “Victory” . LOL

Mr. Obama has acted impressively so far on Afghanistan. He changed strategy based on facts on the ground, increased our troops by tens of thousands, and picked exactly the right man to lead our military into battle.

The president has the right pieces in place. Now he needs to signal to the world that he believes in the cause with all his heart. Let’s hope he does.

As Glen Greenwald points out Karl  had 7 years to get achieve “victory” and is now “claiming with a straight face that he knows the key to “Victory in Afghanistan””.

Obama is so far down the rabbit hole that even Karl Rove is saying he’s doing a good job.