WikiLeaks Bombshell Docs Paint Afghan War as Utter Disaster -- Will We Finally Stop Throwing Money a

[unhappycamper]

US Army Sergeant Dostal adjusts the scope of his sniper rifle as he scans for enemy activities during a mission to the nearby village of Laui Kalay in the Korengal Valley, eastern Afghanistan in 2009. The top US commander in Afghanistan defended Friday his decision to pull forces out of the notorious Korengal Valley, despite Taliban commanders claiming victory there.


WikiLeaks Bombshell Docs Paint Afghan War as Utter Disaster -- Will We Finally Stop Throwing Money and Lives at This Catastrophe?
Consortium News / By Ray McGovern

July 26, 2010 | The brutality and fecklessness of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan have been laid bare in an indisputable way just days before the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on whether to throw $33.5 billion more into the Afghan quagmire, when that money is badly needed at home.

On Sunday, the Web site Wikileaks posted 75,000 reports written mostly by U.S. forces in Afghanistan during a six-year period from January 2004 to December 2009. The authenticity of the material -- published under the title “Afghan War Diaries” -- is not in doubt.

The New York Times, which received an embargoed version of the documents from Wikileaks, devoted six pages of its Monday editions to several articles on the disclosures, which reveal how the Afghan War slid into its current morass while the Bush administration concentrated U.S. military efforts on Iraq.

Wikileaks also gave advanced copies to the British newspaper, The Guardian, and the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, thus guaranteeing that the U.S. Fawning Corporate Media could not ignore these classified cables the way it did five years ago with the “Downing Street Memo,” a leaked British document which described how intelligence was "fixed" around President George W. Bush’s determination to invade Iraq.

The Washington Post also led its Monday editions with a lengthy article about the Wikileaks’ disclosure of the Afghan War reports.



unhappycamper comment: Will our congresscritters approve the $33 billion dollar 'emergency' supplemental today? Unfortunately, we do not have 218 votes to stop it.

This 'emergency' supplemental shit needs to stop. If you're going to have two ongoing occupations put them on the books, just like any legitimate expenditure.

[rurallib]

1. Probably an excuse to ask for more money ............

[bif]

2. Nope. They'll spin it and say they weren't reliable sources

Nothing can stop the war machine.

[upi402]

3. We ignored General Eisenhower's warning

of a shadow government. They are in control, it seems.
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. We are doomed to repeat history because there's no profit in learning from it.

[txlibdem]

4. Recent finds of mineral deposits worth $$$ Trillions

We're not leaving until China has mining contracts in hand to get at the Afghan minerals.

[pberq]

5. K & R nt

[L0oniX]

6. They're going to cut SS so they can continue to spend on the war.

[SammyWinstonJack]

9. I can't begin to say how much this PISSES me off!

:grr:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Maybe when Obama finds it to be no longer a "necessary" war. K&R

[earth mom]

8. Ain't gonna happen. Obama is doing damage control on the View today.

Obviously, he's gotta keep the show on the road. :argh:

[gratuitous]

10. Funny thing about war as opposed to other problems

Throwing money at schools, or roads, or poverty doesn't do any good. But throwing money at the military, thrown in great big gobs and by the pallet-full, by the armored truck-full, by the Treasury-full, solves every problem you can imagine. It only seems counter-intuitive.

[bigtree]

11. probably not

But this Democratic president could be in as much political trouble as Johnson was if the public actually absorbs the details of these documents. We aren't nearly at that point today, so the funding passes. At least they're actually debating it though. I can't imagine they're getting many calls supporting continuing. Opposition is building, like with Iraq. Problem is, the Afghanistan debate centers more on 'national security' than Iraq's debate did. Plenty of room in that for political posturing and flag waving. No way this WH is going to want to be seen as doves on Afghanistan. It's going to be a hard political slog for anti-war advocates. Most we can hope for, I think, is for the president managing to frame the 'security' effort he's defined in Afghanistan as a 'success' and begin walking his escalation back a few steps next year. That's the point where we push him. I'm not a fan of undermining him politically, because whatever posture he assumes (and the success of his promised drawdown) is going to be the totality of the results of all of the politicking in the end, considering the ultimate opposition from the right wing in the political debate.

[amborin]

12. K&R