danielet's Comments (87)

“My personal disdain for Gen. Petraeus-- whom I considered the MEDIA GENERAL-- with little of great strategic thinking or results to show for in his Iraq "surge"-- came to be matched by my outrage at the intellectual shallowness of Gen. McChrystal's report to President Obama.

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf

As the three accounts whose URLs are below indicate, it wasn't a matter of accord amongst men of good will that led to 33,000 mom and dad soldiers sent to Afghanistan intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb to needlessly risk producing more orphans and widows on the homefront

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121063974
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL10Df04.html
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/12341-how-we-got-to-zero-general-eikenberrys-hail-mary.html

For contrast to the military hype you hear from Petraeus/McChrystal agitprop civilian "military experts" here are two European experts who really know Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective:

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/fixing_failed_strategy.pdf
http://www.crisisstates.com/download/seminars/GiustozziDec05.pdf

Yet I keep wondering: WHAT IF I'M WRONG? But whether fooled by the generals or right about them, we don't know because we just have their monologues instead of the MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE we had from teach-ins during the Vietnam War. We owe to our soldiers risking their lives for us to engage in MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE.”

“My personal disdain for Gen. Petraeus-- whom I considered the MEDIA GENERAL-- with little of great strategic thinking or results to show for in his Iraq "surge"-- came to be matched by my outrage at the intellectual shallowness of Gen. McChrystal's report to President Obama.

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf

As the three accounts whose URLs are below indicate, it wasn't a matter of accord amongst men of good will that led to 33,000 mom and dad soldiers sent to Afghanistan intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb to needlessly risk producing more orphans and widows on the homefront

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121063974
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KL10Df04.html
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/news/1/12341-how-we-got-to-zero-general-eikenberrys-hail-mary.html

For contrast to the military hype you hear from Petraeus/McChrystal agitprop civilian "military experts" here are two European experts who really know Afghanistan from an Afghan perspective:

http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/fixing_failed_strategy.pdf
http://www.crisisstates.com/download/seminars/GiustozziDec05.pdf

Yet I keep wondering: WHAT IF I'M WRONG? But whether fooled by the generals or right about them, we don't know because we just have their monologues instead of the MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE we had from teach-ins during the Vietnam War. We owe to our soldiers risking their lives for us to engage in MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE.”

“America's chief assassin McChrystal is in no position to offer the Taliban anything in its own country. Do we still beleive in sovereignty or not? Must the woerld now bow to the mediocre cognitive capacities of its military command? I though Obama was made Commander-in-Chief so he can keep these careerist shoot-em-up guys in line. Dplomacy deals with Taliban not military. I don't think any of them proved to be up to the task. Better let seasoned diplomats from many countries do their thing, not professional assassins or the world will think that, coming from Chicago, Obam is a new capa, not president of a sovereign state in a world of sovereign states.”

“BRAVO Adrienne! Obama was stuck unable to pull out because he couldn't articulate that if we leave the SHANGHAI COOPERATIVE ACCORD-- Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, all the "stans" around Afghanistan-- would have stopped Taliban takeover (knowing we would leave Karzai has been negotiating with Moscow to protect him then). Of course, when Obama was in China, Beijing could have said: we'll lend you more to pay your healthcare reform only if you send more troops to stop Taliban that is supporting Uygur Muslims revolting in Western China. If so-- AND I PRAY NOT FOR I LOVE OBAMA-- then that would make our mom and dad soldiers mercenaries for China. Still, politically you can see what BS this all is from the way Sen. McCain berates the same Obama SecDef Gates that he so praised when he was Bush's SecDef last year. Our nation is broke and Wash DC is full of political prostitutes. Meanwhile, most Americans' pride calls for "victory" as they suffer from "ain't my kid going to war" disconnect syndrome. If Obama reactivated the draft, you'd see a lot of people, Republicans included, calling for a pullout. Obama is president at a time when Americans are at their moral lowest, all shoppers of Chinese trinkets.”

“Please don't attribute to me more than I said. When South Vietnam urbanized from 15% to 75%, the Viet Cong Infrastructure collapsed. In 1984, Le Duc Tho, then top propaganda leader of Vietnamese Communist Party declared that Viet Cong was a mere "nuisance" to the Saigon Government and Hanoi had to carry the war to victory with its regular troops. In the end, all counter-insurgencies succeeded in the cities, not the countryside where only insurgents can win because they are of the peasants. When Hanoi had to use its troops in the South, it used terror, not persuasion, lobbing Soviet Katshka rockets at the village market places at 10AM when most crowded with peasants selling and townspeople buying. That made possible Phoenix extermination of the Viet Cong Infrastructure over ALL of the Mekong delta safe. In fact, as Saigon fell the ARVN Command recommended moving to the Delta where they could holdout against Hanoi indefinitely. Similarly, in Afghan countryside Taliban isn't popular but it is family and we're invaders. In the cities we are saviors.”

“If we have to continue Afghan War consider this: For a while it looked like Viet Cong was winning but as peasants became refugees in the cities CORDS gave them an economic assistance so, in the words of Radio Hanoi, they became "petit bourgeois." In effect, the guerrilla "fish" were left high-and-dry by the peasant sea" as South Vietnam went from 85% rural in 1963 to 75% urban by 1967, hence the desperate Tet Offensive. After that there was no more VC, only an invading North Vietnamese army. So if we must stay in Afghanistan then let's concentrate on creating safe and economically viable clean cities that attract the rural youth to jobs and education. The remittances they send to their families in the villages will speak louder than any Taliban propaganda. Urban modernization is the only way we can change our status as hated invader. Consider the following papers by these top European Afghanistan experts:
Gilles Dorronsoro:
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/fixing_failed_strategy.pdf
and Antonio Giustozzi:
http://www.crisisstates.com/download/seminars/GiustozziDec05.pdf”

“Some year back, on the CHARLIE ROSE Show Sir Jeremy was the first to ever admit that the US KNEW ALL ALONG THAT SADDAM HAD NO WMDS NOR CONNECTION WITH 9/11. Yet none of the media picked up on it and Bush, Tenet and Powell got away with DELIBERATE LIES. Other authors told the truth too-- PUBLICLY-- so it was always out there. The people who should be prosecuted for this monstrous lie are EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN suffering from the "an't my kid going to war" disconnect syndrome. They saw it at one time or another on TV, on computer or in press but DID NOT CARE!!! Unlike Germans who lived through Holocaust under totalitarianism, Americans ALWAYS lived in a democracy and could have stopped Bush. Yet they preferred hypocritical handshaking of a vet and "thanks for your service" than dealing with truth. THAT'S HOW DEMOCRACY BECOMES FASCISM: when people will not defend the nation's patriotic moms and dads-- OUR KIDS-- in combat from having to do what Americans would not allow forcing their biologic kids to do. The "me" coke generation of 1970s became the scummy old farts that just don't care. But God used Wall Street to punish you all. Don't feel sorry for yourselves at Christmas but for the widows and orphans who cry over OUR losses. You have met the enemy and he is YOU,. Mr&Mrs America!”

“On the show Freedman was high on Freedman, if not something else, screaming and gesticulating about how Americans have "creativity" and the Chinese don't so we will ALWAYS beat them. After that bit of racial exceptionalism he downcast everyone but himself as "sub-optimal"—but all could be saved if only they bought the new edition of his book. Throughout history every nation in decline celebrates simplifying oracles who insist that they have the answer. Nice gimmick to stand up to Copernicus and insist the world is flat. It's a gimmick like all the gimmicks media "clown" like Glenn Beck and Limbaugh dream for ratings so they can get rich while America gets poor. How "sub-optimal" is that? EJ Dionne said of the Bush Era: America is on a long vacation from complexity. Freedman cut into his slice of the audience insisting, like McChrystal, that we are losing but all is well because we have "creativity," our enemies don't, so in the end we will prevail-- opium for “sub-optimal” masses: IT'S BAD BUT WE CAN *STILL* WIN, comes at a time when we continue to flirt with doom as each media guy tries to feather his nest with his sophistic alchemy, turning doom into success if we buy his book.”

“The Soviet troops went into Afghnaistan to stop the killing, for land reform and to modernize Afghanistan. I saw it, I was there. But they turned into hateful killers because they didn't understand Pashtuns, who in turn turned into vengeful killers, making for lots of needless deaths on both sides but defeat for the invader, like us. We're turning peasants into hateful guerrillas wanting revenge for all our killing. Like Soviet generals, ours want high body-counts (theirs) and low casualties (ours) to build careers. That calls for dumping a lot of firepower. In his worthy book on Soviet Afghan War, Gregory Pfifer writes:
"Most Americans view the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a naked act of aggression by a ruthless, totalitarian state. The reality was for more complex. For more than a year, Soviet leaders rejected please from the Afghan communist government to send troops to help put down rebellion by the rural population protesting the regime's merciless modernization programs. After Moscow did invade, it found itself locked in conflict-- essentially a civil war-- it could barely comprehend. While it can be said that Afghanistan triggered the Soviet collapse, it did project and image of a failing empire unable to deal with a handful of bedraggled partisans in a remote part of its southern frontier."
Would you put YOUR kid into McCrystal's hands so 20 years from now historians will say the same about your kid?”

“Americans suffer from the "aint my kid going to war" disconnect syndrome and so will not protest the sending more heroic volunteer moms and dads to invariably produce even more widows and orphans on the homefront. In his report McChrystal tells us that's fine, can't be helped. Real issue: TO WHAT END? In my view, you can't call yourself an American unless you won't allow Obama to do with "our" kids what you won't allow him to do with your BIOLOGIC kids. So, at the very least, read McChrystal's report and see if you would be willing to send YOUR BIOLOGIC KIDS where you're ready to send OUR heroic kids, moms and dads all:
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf
Sent to fight guerrillas intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb our troops are turned into PDSD freaks by "STOP LOSS" repeated tours. The lawyer of a soldier prosecuted for executing bound Iraq captives said: "We sent them to be soldiers and cops but they are only soldiers." That's the problem I saw repeatedly since Vietnam, including with Soviets in Afghanistan. This is a war for cops, not for soldiers. McChrystal has no strategy other than more of the same. Read his report, a lot of hot air for moms/dads to die for. Think, Obama!”

“Have you all forgotten that NY POST is the rag that displayed the monkey Obama shot by the cops? Have you all forgotten that NY Post is the NY PRAVDA for antiObama types? This is just the kind of poison pill they like to spread to stir the doubts in the White house and in the public. It seems now that even relieving yourself can get on the front page if you do it in the right spot. None can afford investigative journalists to get the "real stories" anymore so rumors are turned into scoops. Soon, it is not rumors that become scoops but plants. As a former Conservative activist and leader let me tell you that Bush/Rove measured their manhood from their ability to deceive media. What more can you expect from the cheerleader made captain of the football team. What's amazing that while in a Communist country and then on the US Right Wing I came to really understand what the term "identical twins" means politically. Imagine how willing to spread destabilizing untruth Murdock is at a time when the economy is in tethers. Buy the NY Post, it's great for lining your biohazard wastes containers. Whatever truth to that story, and there is some, look for a responsible source at Treasury, not the "desperado media."”

“Obama is victim of his own campaign rhetoric: to hold his base called for quitting Iraq and not to be seen as weak he called for escalation in Afghan War Bush abandoned. Well, the enemy is MOBILE over the globe, we’re stuck in Afghanistan because Petraeus/McChrystal don't want career ending loss. But, as Tom Ricks, WashPost military expert, argues, the Iraq Surge is "UNRAVELING" and, if one reads the declassified McChrystal report there's nothing there but repeat of Vietnam and Iraq errors. He argues that COIN warfare is 80% civilian and 20% military but our expenditures are 80% military, 7% civilian and a lot wasted on private corporations. We're not learning from Iraq failure because we can't face failure so we pretend that troops SURGE IS MAGIC. We must stop making orphans&widows on homefront as soldier moms and dads needlessly fall. Clinton congratulating Karzai on his "electoral victory" is embarrassing. Obama was warned by China that it won't extend endlessly US credit line; yet we spend $100 million to kill each Taliban. If you want healthcare and green revolution and economic recovery at home, you need SAVINGS. Now we're going to expensively fly in troops&supplies!!!”

“I appreciate how you guys feel; I felt much the same as I hobbled out of the WTC on 9/11; since then my life has never been back to "normal." I feel for all those innocents trapped as I did at every event where a shooter kills people. That's why we should make sure that we don't ADD to the destruction of these psychos by acting ourselves psychotic. Insanity is when you disconnect from the facts. The greatest chance to go insane is before you have enough of the REAL facts properly aligned to get a clear picture. I hold no brief for Maj. Hasan but I do think that if we don't understand the RATIONAL steps that preceded the IRRATIONAL ones, we may be just as irrational in our reaction. Fact is, from binLaden on 9/11 on all we see if the REACTION to our intervention in their part of the world because we want their oil cheap while protecting Israel as it expands. And still, many Muslims, like many of us other refugees here, see America as their wondrous homeland. If you destroy their dreams by connecting 2+2=5546, you are going to lose them and it will cost you just as it would to turn against the Jews. Both peoples are jewels to our society.”

“If he were Maj. Goldberg would reporters dare scoop a conspiracy on such flimsy info? I would hope not. God knows there's more than enough reason for the PTSD pus to “transfer” to Maj. Hasan, making him insane from listening to all these cases without being in on a plot. We are so understanding of how the Columbine shooters and the Virginia Tech psycho went insane in reaction to bullying and rejection, but when his name is Hasan it must be a Muslim conspiracy. Muslim-Americans have disproportionately risked life and limb in missions for US over the last several decades. Nevertheless, they are suspected of conspiracy with every incident. Sen. Lieberman and Bill Krystol, leaders of the HATE MUSLIMS MOVEMENT, neocons calling for WORLD WAR IV against Islam are there too spewing hate, slander and suspicion in service of their efforts to force them out of the US. This is not good, for without our Muslims we would be deaf, dumb and blind in the Mideast. Our bombs have blasted innocent Muslims to smithereens and there’s more to come. Stressed by repeated redeployment-- moms and dads all—many soldiers must be going mad. Imagine Maj. Hasan listening day in and out to the PTSD rage against Muslims that he both had to treat and suffer at the hands of fellow officers. The man went mad under these circumstances and it’s understandable.”

“Primary care used to be done by a "general practitioner" with only one year of post-graduation internship. His job was merely to direct patients to specialists. The "internist" with three-and-a-half years of residency was the prince of healthcare because his job was to coordinate the advice of each specialist about his favorite organ, based on the internist's knowledge of the WHOLE patient. Now the latter has been reduced to to the status of the former who disappeared. Furthermore, the Institute of Medicine will establish "best practices" based on the self-serving data provided by Pharma, device makers and hospitals. While internists forced to diagnose and treat each patient in only minutes will feel relieved of liability by best practices, the insurers will soon conclude that nurse practitioner or physician's assistance can follow the Institute of Medicine's "best practice" algorithms more cheaply than the internist. As a result, the revolution in individualized epigenetic medicine will be set aside as mediicne becomes a one-size-fits-all paradigm a la 1950s. The Obama plan thus throws healthcare backwards, not forward into the scientific revolution where we need to be; all patients will be treated statistically rather than individually. Pay internists to study molecular medicine so they can treat patients as individuals, not like lab rats, updating internists on the science, not just the art of medicine, making healthcare cheaper and more effective.”

“NUTS TO FRANK LUTZ! Sorry Frank, Americans are really not that superficial that you can get to them with manipulation of words. They look at actions and your actions have only been self-promoting and self serving advancing the corrput neocon type Republican Party. Americans want MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE-- emphasis on "meaningful"," not words gauged by your "peter-meter." Our nation suffers from writer's diarrhea where so many scribes seek to keep eachother from the advertizement pie so they can make a living of advertizement dollars still left. We need people with ideas, not gimmicks, ideas that lead to clear results. Your praise of Obama is devious and dirty way of insinuating that he duped us with what YOU called "teleprompter reading." You never recognized the motives and CONCRETE efforts of Obama and Polosi to make America FAIR to the Middle Class again. Over the last eight years that of your contineous Bush-it orgasm when the rich got richer as BUSH-IT "ENTEREPRENEURS"-- French for the taker in the middle that manufacture nothing-- just rip money out of the hands of hard working Middle Class Americans. Since you like words, remember that you can fool some of the people some of the time but never all of the people all of the time. Get a REAL job making somethinmg real instead of being just another "campaign extert" poluting the discourse on where we Americans go next with deception and word gimmicks.”

“Thank you. I hope you are a native American (LIKE OBAMA, born in the USAAAA) for it is you guys that I would love to remind that while you have done great things as Americans, you and your nation were also were payed back in more than full with the affection and loyalty of all of us tired and poor teeming on your shores despearate for a chance to prove our love and our abilities in devotion to making America great again. No matter what Bush-it it gets to be like in America, Rep. Cao is living proof that in return we AMERICANS BY CHOICE, NOT CHANCE will hold principle above "connections" and personal advantage. So let's salute this beloved fellow American, Joseph Cao.”

“Betty Nguyen and Joseph Cao talking together go to show how, with time, we the huddled masses yearning to breath free, come to contribute to the Mosaic of greatest that makes American a global dream. Americans should remember that Maj. Hasan is one man with mental problems and to attack American Muslims because of him is as foolish as to attack Vietnamese refugees because of our defeat in Vietnam. We are a nation of old and poorly educated "natives" who followed the foolish consumerist call of GW Bush after 9/11 to shop until we drop. The result was a giant deficit and a monumental Wall Street fraud, proving once again that while the honest and grateful for the chance to make new lives America gave them helpled make America great, those who believed that America owes them a silver spoon in their mouths from cradle to grave turned out to simply be foolish crooks and mindless spend-aholics. Our economy, based on dumb commercials, sought to make Americans who wanted only a chance to prove themselves, the victims of greed of those who lived high on the hog off their labor. Rather than decry "immigrants," Americans would do well to learn from them thrift, modesty and devotion to country in order to bring America back on its feet together with the refugees and immigants for whom hard work is a solemn duty to nation and a joyous right. Bravo Rep. Cao!”

“Corrected

Senator Lieberman ought to consider running for Vice President again on a Republican ticket led Orley Teitz as the first female US President from space. Given that she was hatched from an object left near the same spot on the moon where our astronauts planted the flag, I'm sure she can make the legal case that she is the first extra-terrestiral Ameircan "born" on US territory!”

“Senator Lieberman ought to consider running for vice President again on a Republican ticket led Orlet Teitz as the first female President. Given that she was hatched from an object left near the same on the moon where our astronauts planted the flag, I'm sure she can make the case that she is the first extra-terrestiral Ameircan "born" on US territory!”

“I remember generals in Regan's Pentagon insisting that he is crazy for wanting to decrease defense spending. But Reagan wanted to increase arms spending so he could convince Soviet to DECREASE it. Nixon previously tried to do the same and it was Democrat Senator Jackson (the God-father of the neocons) who insisted on spending more for the West Coast Defense industry that supported him. Republicans did not want a massive defense budget. It was only Democrats from down South where there were no industires that did and Congressmen in Southern California-- many of whom are in jail. So Ron, remember that your dad loved you even when you went for ballet and he thought Gaffney a fool. Ask him why he left the Pentagon.”

“Gaffney and neocons are paid handsomely to say what they say. If not peddling war they would have to work as minimum-wage nightwatchmen. A whole class makes millions selling war because it's our only industry not gone to China. Generals were offered a quid-pro-quo: you use your authority to buy our weapons systems and we give you a high salaried coushy job when you retire. Too many in Congress become such Lobbyists devoid of dignity and respect for truth. For them America's motto was not "Don't thread on me," rather "There's a sucker born every minute." Gafney and neocons are payed to peddle bringing Pentagon spending back to Cold War levels. Are you therefore surprised that those who saw a Commie under every bed now see a terrorist? Like General Eisenhower before him, General Powell now warns us of the equally putrid massive bureaucracies of instant-antiterrorism experts seeimg Muslim suicide bombers under every bed. These mediocrities too could only find other emploment as nightwatchmen and there are not that many of those jobs available. It is up to the media to go for the most informed rather than for the most insane as commentators.”

“What means this "apologized"? I would say, thank you. For nothing is as hidden as the danger of an American Krystalnacht. Americans like scapegoats and it could soon be that the very Israel so many "Christian Zionists" hold high and holy gets blamed for the rising price of oil and the War on Terror. Why? Because it makes an easy deflection from the fact that our "shop until you drop" definition of "American" is the sole source of our economic demise. Why point the finger at all of Wall Street (so much harder to get your hands around) than just at Madoff and "his type." A recent trip way down South and into the Southwest made it clear that for a lot of folks there it was the Jews who shoved the "ni--ers" down our throats with civil rights. Indeed, I heard, Rohm Emmanuel controls Obama, our "Muslim un-American" President. DON'T LOOK FOR LOGIC, the only issue is: people scapegoat because they can. As things get worse, angry uneducated people's whose paleocortex comes to dominate their neocortex, all the progress we made as a nation will swept away by racial- ethnic violent surges showing that the scourge of Europe has been here waiting for its time. As American education gets dummer, the hate gets stronger and scapegoats are made to face evasion of self-responsibility. It's the American Way, alas.”

“Why does the Teitz story have legs? So many people desperate to warn us about extra-terrestrial invasions are treated with ridicule. They know because they were ABDUCTED and had a command chip placed in their brains. They are desperately struggling with their last ounce of human will to resist the chip's commands to warn us...and who pays them any mind except to injuriously ridicule them? Jesus is back in the form of so many Americans that Bible in hand give struggle to transmit to us their message of Paradise and salvation. And then there are alchemists whom in their lonely labs turn led into gold-- something we so desperately need as a country to escape from China's dollars strangle. NOPE, ALL THESE WONDROUS PEOPLE ARE DISMISSED AS "WHACK JOB." Ah but no, NOT ORLEY TEITZ. Like Sasha Cohen she has invaded America's shores and, though not funny but larcenous and destructive, she came all the way here misrepresenting herself to demand that President Obama prove TO HER SATISFACTION that he is American born. Was she discarded to the waste side like those above? NO! SHE WAS FETED BY THE MEDIA-- NOW EVEN HUFFUNGTON POST-- for she is here as the neocon's secret weapon to destroy "this Muslim anti-American" terrorist, Barrack Obama and save America from "evenhadnedness" in the Mideast. Thanks Orly!.”

“A big kiss for Polosi. When Tiananmen Square was awash in blood, all the Chinese bioscience students in my university-- lured there by a chance to work as "research coolies" in liberty-- were trembling in fear of being sent back to face Red Justice. As a Republican I was sure that my Reaganite fellow anti-Communist President GHW Bush would never return these students to the tender mercies of Beijing to face a shot in the head and all transplantable organs quickly shipped to Japan for cash. But my party's President and my fellow Republicans, so "shocked" by events in Tiananmen Square, just didn't give a damn. Chinese scholars were not worth enraging China over, causing trouble to American investing in China-- especially to the neocon slave labor bonanza for garment entrepreneurs, having to move to China after Romania had overthrown the Red slave master Ceausescu that made them rich. Moving their most profitable enterprises to China, where they made an even bigger "killing" manufacturing clothes using child labor slave simstresses. Bush was all for profits over principles. But there was one ravishing beauty of a Congresswoman who stood up to both Bush and Congress until she forced America do right by the Chinese students giving them refuge here. You're older now, baby, but you're still a ravishing moral beauty, so “hot” standing by Congressman Grayson....Love ya Nancy!”