Same Shit, Different General

General McChrystal is out. General Patraeus is in. And a general state of malaise continues.

President Obama made a shrewd political calculation that in picking General Patraeus to run the war in Afghanistan, he has given himself plenty of cover in rightly accepting General McChrystal’s resignation on the grounds of gross  insubordination. Patraeus is the darling of the Hawks in Congress, who will confirm his nomination quickly. The prevailing thought is that if Patraeus can’t win this war, nobody can.

And that’s the political “out” that Obama needs. I was enormously disappointed that the President caved in and decided to apply the surge strategy in Afghanistan, with a pull-out target of mid-2011. If we haven’t “won” (whatever that means) in 9 years, why should one more year make a difference? It won’t.

So now we have a new General, and the clock is ticking on getting out next year. By then, how many more US and coalition soldiers lives’ will be lost? How much more money will be wasted? How much more violence and corruption will the Afghan citizens endure? How much more political division will continue to crush the American spirit? And how exactly will this counter-insurgency strategy prevent terrorists from attacking us?

We will find out soon enough, but we will not like the answers to those questions. We must get out of Afghanistan as soon as we can, and go on the defensive. We need to put the lives, resources, and money allocated to the Afghanistan War to better use here at home. Protect the borders and the shipping ports. Spend more energy keeping our enemies out of our country because they want to fight this war on our turf, not theirs. Al Qaeda doesn’t care how many Afghans get killed or continue to live in the 12th century, as long as our attention is diverted to that blighted land.

The Christmas Day/Underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber didn’t come from Afghanistan, and they almost wreaked havoc IN AMERICA. The real war is here, not “over there”.  Please President Obama, end the war in Afghanistan and bring home the troops. Defense is the right offense in the war against terrorism.

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If This War Was Mine

The other night I sadly watched my President deliver his Afghanistan speech on TV at West Point. It was probably one of the lowest points in his entire career. Here is a man who has just won the Nobel Peace Prize, telling the world he is going to escalate a war. This is Barack Obama’s “Sophie’s Choice”: ramp up the war and become the next LBJ, or bring home the troops and join the ranks of world leaders who have been defeated in Afghanistan throughout history.

This is a lose-lose proposition no matter what. At the end of the day we are still at war. But I knew Obama was gonna catch heat from all sides no matter what he decided to do, and that’s what is already happening: the left is mad because we’re sending in more troops, and the right is mad because we’re talking about time-tables.

The reality is that Obama is doing EXACTLY what he said he was going to do in the 2008 campaign–pulling out of Iraq (a “war of choice”), and getting serious in Afghanistan (a “war of necessity”). I think that W/Cheney took their eyes off the ball in Afghanistan when we foolishly invaded Iraq, and now we need to do what should have been done years ago. However, it’s now really too late to do “what we should have done” because after eight years of neglect, our real enemies in Afghanistan–the Taliban and Al Qaeda–are probably in Pakistan, doing everything possible to overthrow the government there to get their hands on the Pakistani nukes. That’s what scares me.

I’ve said all along that after 9/11 the US military should have surrounded two countries–Afghanistan (don’t let anyone out) and America (don’t let anyone in). Defense is the best offense in this situation, because I don’t believe we can go overseas and stop terrorists and jihadists where they live and breathe and where they have a cultural connection to the people there.

If this war was mine here’s what I would do:

1. Pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq TODAY. Tell the world that we can no longer do this on our own, and that we need to focus on nation building back home in the USA, which has been devastated economically by the last eight years of endlessly fighting two wars.

2. Take our military and monetary resources and beef up our own borders, immigration services, CIA/FBI intelligence gathering, domestic anti-terrorism forces, and guard our turf locally. I am tired of the argument that we need to go where the terrorists are plotting against us to disrupt their plans. Bullship (I promised my mom I wouldn’t curse in this blog anymore)! Let them plot and plan all they want from thousands of miles away. If they can’t carry out their plots on American soil because we stopped them from getting in, then we will be much safer than ever before. Remember, 9/11 was successful because the terrorists were already here for a long time freely plotting their mission.

3. Commit every remaining dollar and personnel to recovering and securing loose nuclear weapons and materials around the world. This also means somehow working with the Pakistani government to make sure they help us. If this means financial aid then let’s cut them a check. If it means diplomatic support, then let’s give Pakistan the biggest hug we can. Keep our friends close and our enemies closer. We need to lead the world in non-violence and diplomatic solutions to gain back respect and end anti-American hatred around the world. We need Pakistan to be concerned about terrorists overthrowing their own government and keeping their nuclear weapons secure. If the terrorists can’t get them, and if they can’t get inside America, then we have nothing to fear.

4. Once and for all we need a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I am a Jew with Israeli relatives, and even I believe that the Palestinians need their own country. I believe that this issue is at the heart of what caused 9/11. Islamic Jihadist groups hate America for allowing Israel to continue shutting out the Palestinians and denying them their own homeland. I can’t say i blame them. Many Israeli’s are sick of the conflict and the effect it has had on their lives as well. Peace in the Middle East means peace–period.

Maybe I am simplifying things, but this is what I wish we could do. I know it’s neither politically nor practically possible, but it makes more sense to me than what Obama may have ultimately been forced to do.

Remembering W

Remember this guy? He used to be the POTUS. Remember how we were first introduced to this jamoke as “W”? Remember how adorable that Texas charm and aw shucks humility seemed like exactly what we needed after Bubba and his antics? Remember how W was the kind of guy voters wanted to have a beer with–except that he gave up drinking precisely because he used to be too much of that kind of guy.

Remember how it took all those judges at the Supreme Court to promote W to President? Remember hanging chads and people down in Florida counting votes just to make sure we elected the “right guy”. Remember Al Gore’s concession speech? Remember how Al had this bizarre smile on his face? He was smiling because he realized that America had become Bizarro World.

Remember how W used to pronounce “nuclear” as “nook-yoo-ler”? Remember how that was okay–how for EIGHT YEARS the man with his finger on the button couldn’t (wouldn’t) even correctly pronounce the physics behind the most powerful weapons on earth? Remember how it undermined his scary “Axis Of Evil” speech and almost made you giggle whenever he said nookyooler? No? Am I the only person who giggled?

I remember how excited W got whenever he went on vacation to the “Western Whitehouse”. Like it was a fucking Presidential Spring Break or something. Or World Leaders Gone Wild. Remember W out in his Texas ranch brush chopping cedar wood and driving ATVs? Remember watching football, choking on a pretzel, and passing out? No? Maybe you were too busy fighting his wars. Or scrambling in the shambles of W’s destruction of the middle class. Or getting depressed watching his ridiculous, color coded, Terrorist-threat-level warning system change colors more often than an old RCA television from 1981?

Remember Torture? Remember W’s scary little friend whom he called Cheney? That guy never said anything. He just had his secret meetings in his secret locations with his secret CIA pals and he never said anything. At least not until he got out of office. Now he won’t shut the fuck up!

Remember how W would get all up on his hackles whenever he talked to that guy over in North Korea–how W always seemed to like to call Kim Jong Il’s bluff and refuse to talk until he wanted to follow W’s rules of engagement? I remember how the whole world hated America and how I started working on my Canadian accent.

Remember Iraq and Afghanistan? I do because we’re still dealing with it. W isn’t but we are.

Remember how W took all those trips to Texas, and he only went to Israel once? W only went to Israel once. At the end of his Presidency. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is at the center of the main reason why Al Qaeda attacked us on 9-11. And W only went to Israel once. Remember how nobody said a goddamned thing about it?

Remember Katrina and New Orleans and the Gulf Coast? W forgot all about them. But he remembered to tell Brownie that he was doing a “great” job.

Remember how the economy started to implode just before W went away? Almost like he knew it was coming and he was just gonna slip out the back door before the shit hit the fan?

I remember W. For eight long years I was embarrassed to say I was an American because of W. For eight long years I felt like an outsider in my own country. For four long years I counted every day until the 2004 election…then for four more years I dreaded the 2008 election, fearing we were destined to elect another moronic, obnoxious, elitist, corrupt jerk like W.

Let’s remember W, so we never make a mistake like him again.