http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/06/27
"We're F**cking Losing This Thing"
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/06/28-1
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In case Americans care: Afghanistan war “will not miss a beat”
Libertarian Minds
by Steven Handel
06/26/10
It’s hard to imagine that the recent change in personnel will have much effect on our current efforts in Afghanistan. Apparently — to Obama — this is a good thing. After announcing McChrystal’s resignation Obama insisted that ‘The strategy hasn’t changed,’ and ‘we will not miss a beat.’ Yippee. But perhaps missing a beat — or rather ending this old American interventionist song-and-dance for good — is exactly what the United States should do...
http://tinyurl.com/34ug6gy
Obama vs. the US Army
Human Events
by Patrick J. Buchanan
06/24/10
In confiding to Rolling Stone their unflattering opinions of the military acumen of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, Dick Holbrooke and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff were guilty of colossal stupidity. And President Obama had cause to cashier them. Yet his decision to fire McChrystal may prove both unwise and costly. For McChrystal, unlike Gen. MacArthur, never challenged the war policy — he is carrying it out — and Barack Obama is no Harry Truman...
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=3766
Why do we care about countries we’ll never go to?
The New Republic
by Adam Kirsch
06/24/10
An obscure but unsilenceable instinct makes us always want to be on the right side. This instinct is the beginning of morality in foreign policy, but it can also be the beginning of moralizing, which obscures and distorts reality. Recently, the Guardian website devoted its top headline to an ‘exclusive’ about the publication of a scholarly book documenting that Israel, thirty-five years ago, discussed sharing nuclear technology with South Africa, but didn’t. The news value was practically nil, but the story fed into the current English conception of Israeli wickedness — it confirmed the reader’s sense that he was rooting for (or against) the right side in the Middle East...
http://tinyurl.com/2uk3nvv
What, me McWorry?
AntiWar.Com
by Jeff Huber
It’s obvious from information above and below the radar that Petraeus has been hiding in the background behind his phony laurels for the past year or so, hoping to let his little buddies McChrystal and Ray ‘Desert Ox’ Odierno take the falls for the Bananastans and Iraq. That’s been Petraeus’ standard operating procedure throughout his meteoric career: take charge of a situation, slap a band-aid on whatever troubles exist, let the underlying problems fester, and then bail out in time for the disaster to erupt on his successor’s watch. He played this stratagem three times in Iraq...
http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2010/06/28/what-me-mcworry/
Petraeus holds Obama hostage
The American Conservative
by Patrick J. Buchanan
06/28/10
By firing a fighting general, beloved of his troops, Obama just took upon himself full responsibility for the McChrystal Plan. The general is off the hook. As of now, the plan is not succeeding. And given the inability of Kabul to deliver the ‘government in a box’ to Marja, after Marines supposedly de-Talibanized the town, the McChrystal Plan is failing. The Battle of Kandahar has not yet begun, though the June D-Day has come and gone. Should we be in this same bloody stalemate in December, Obama will be blamed for having fired his field commander who devised his battle plan, and was carrying it out, over some stupid insults from staff officers to some counterculture magazine. More critically, Obama just made himself hostage to a savvy general who is said to dream of one day holding Obama’s office...
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2010/06/28/petraeus-holds-obama-hostage/
Endless occupation?
Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman
06/28/10
So Gen. Stanley McChrystal is out and Gen. David Petraeus is back at the helm in Afghanistan. I don’t like hackneyed phrases, but if this isn’t rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, what is it? America’s occupation of Afghanistan has no end in sight. The July 2011 date for the beginning of withdrawal is something that even President Obama doesn’t want to talk about. It is clearer than ever that the date was a crumb thrown to the American people so they wouldn’t grumble when Obama announced the troop buildup last year...
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1006h.asp
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
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McChrystal's Bleak Outlook
By Jonathan Owen and Brian Brady
President Obama lost patience with Runaway General's failed strategy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25827.htm
Why Petraeus Won't Salvage This War
By Gareth Porter
Pro-war Republicans, led by John McCain, are hoping that Petraeus will now insist that the July 2011 time frame be eliminated, creating an open-ended commitment to a high and perhaps even rising level of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25834.htm
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The Pentagon's Threat to the Republic
Melvin A. Goodman, Truthout: "The New York Times' David Brooks minimized General Stanley McChrystal's remarks in Rolling Stone magazine as 'kvetching.' For the Times' Maureen Dowd, McChrystal and his 'smart-aleck aides' were merely engaging in 'towel-snapping' jocularity. The Washington Post editorial board noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai called McChrystal the 'best commander of the war,' and concluded that the general should be retained as the Afghan commander."
http://www.truth-out.org/the-pentagons-threat-republic60849
Afghan War Lumbers On; Representatives Push for Withdrawal
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "The United States invaded Afghanistan nine years ago to topple the Taliban and weed out terrorists, but the world's richest military has failed to pacify a network of scrappy militants who continue to provoke chaos and bloodshed as the war lumbers on."
http://www.truth-out.org/the-afghan-quagmire-and-push-withdrawal60935
Summer in Iraq
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "Afghanistan has been getting all the ink lately, and for good reason. General Stanley McChrystal's act of self-immolation by way of Rolling Stone magazine kicked off a genuine no-bones-about-it constitutional crisis over civilian control of the military, until President Obama sacked him at pretty close to the speed of light."
http://www.truth-out.org/summer-iraq60901
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
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http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Joe+Biden
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