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New York, 12:50 PM
Wed Nov 25
49 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/23/09
Let USAID and the State Department get involved in whatever nation-building and aid (using the military to perform nonfighting functions is like using a hammer to paint your home), along with military training for the Afghan troops, a strike force and many, many Predator drones and Special Forces for military intel.
In the final analysis, 9/11 was about our vastly over-indulged intelligence services not connecting the dots or bothering to talk to each other, and a national command who thought erecting Star Wars in Poland was more important than reading that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the US. Because they wanted to prove how mavericky they were compared to those damn Clinton hippies whose policies ranked OBL as a top priority.
Afghanistan & Iraq were only secondary factors (and factors largely created by the Conservatives, who never met a despot they weren't eager to hop into bed with then shower with gifts).
Work smart, not just hard.
11/23/09
All the Pentagon ever says is "well, we need to stabilize the country so that we can hand over control to Afghan forces" but they never seem to consider that just maybe the presence of U.S. troops is making the situation there less stable.
11/23/09
[www.nytimes.com]
11/23/09
Plus that would be an awesome band name.
11/23/09
So, how did we get from there to here? It's like the history of the NFL. The games started garnering national television coverage and attention (although in this case it's rather negative). So they merged the leagues, set up conferences and divisions, and added some expansion teams. I just hope they start printing warlord trading cards to go with my collector's edition al Qaeda card deck.
11/23/09
The rest of the lying liar centrists and I are going to go buy some more gold now, thanks. The poor will surely be awash in dollars ere long.
[www.cnbc.com]
Zero sum, motherfucker.
11/23/09
The public option would probably have a long-term net effect of reducing the budget deficit. This is not my opinion, that's the opinion of the CBO, which is obviously a radical maoist splinter organization.
And I'm not sure what gold prices have to do with this, so....... yeah.
11/23/09
The CBO actually has a history of being a longtime pollyanna on economic activity related to revenue portions of bills - see Obama's first budget, cap and trade, or Iraq. That's why it was such an indictment when they crapped all over the spending included in the first healthcare bill to "reduce" costs. My money (literally, I invested this way!) is on them grossly underestimating costs based on my government-fearing ideology and the fact that I don't believe in touching hot stoves like Congressmen wielding economic projections more than once.
(Rapid gold appreciation is a no-confidence vote in the US Dollar. Dollar depreciation of this magnitude in concert with dollar appreciation typically indicate a lack of faith in fiscal/monetary policy. Fiat currencies are essentially dependant upon tax revenues and the fiscal prudence of nations. We're running the largest postwar budget deficit and the Fed (read: us) is laden with toxic assets marked at ridiculous valuations. See you in the bartering line.)
11/23/09
The guys whining about how expensive it is (which is itself a canard, as you point out) always conveniently leave out the fact that their plan will be even MORE deficit-fueling.
They must hate our children so, to want to burden them with so much unnecessary national debt.
11/23/09
@Unsolicited Advice:The point is, we have people who cry and cry about spending, but do it for unending foreign wars without batting an eyelash, then get upset when we try to do something domestically as "wasteful", when the ultimate aim is to reduce cost and help people (which if it will add to the debt is debatable).
Yes, gold appreciation is a no confidence vote in US Dollar, as is the crazy buying of guns is a sign of people thinking Obama is going to take them. They're both silly and paranoid, IMO. As the post said, "gut feelings".
11/23/09
11/23/09
Right, but Pareene's tactic is to say "these budget hawks are just discredited liars who actually want to spend money!" Which, considering the Bush regime and Reagan's national debt expansions, is true!
But the base ideology - cutting spending and reducing the size of the government - is necessary. We may vote every four years, but the market votes every day; either we stop spending or it's over.
11/23/09
11/23/09
Like I said at the outset: there are two sides to every trade.
11/13/09
I don't know what a shit storm looks like, but the more I read about Afghanistan/Pakistan and the marauding hordes that rule its nether regions, I am definitely getting an image.
And it is not pretty. #davidrohde
11/13/09
11/13/09
I, for one, wouldn't want Mr. Rohde's job, not so much for the obvious danger posed but because the act of communicating what he is learning as the result of being embedded as he is has to be beyond comprehension to most people. #davidrohde
11/13/09
11/13/09
I would hope that people like yourself would wait for Mr. Rohde to have the luxury of some time to distill the sheer viscerality of that experience, and then see what analysis he puts forth. Given what he has been through, it not only seems fair but necessary if we are going to learn anything beyond what he has already imparted. #davidrohde
11/13/09
I would recommend Seth Jones's book In the Graveyard of Empires for a much better understanding of our situation in Afghanistan right now, and how our actions along with local Pashtun culture and history have contributed to the rise of the insurgency in the last few years.
[www.amazon.com] #davidrohde
11/13/09
11/13/09
I didn't mean to imply that all Afghans are Taliban sympathizers. In this you are correct. But they're a lot more scared of the Taliban than they are of us. If the Taliban (and I'm using Taliban as shorthand for the various insurgent networks active in Afghanistan) tells them to never breathe a word when Americans are around or they'll kill their family, you can bet they're not going to be overly helpful. On top of this, the rural areas are still much more conservative and more likely to be sympathetic to the Taliban than they are to us. Our COIN strategy, if we choose to keep following it, has us supposedly withdrawing from these areas as they are so hard to control. These are the areas where you get your battles of Wanat or battle at COP Keating. #davidrohde
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
War stories are very exciting, aren't they?
Anyway, Lee received a blizzard of dispatches from one of his generals long before that worthy could have reached his outfit demanding instant reinforcements in great numbers or else all would be lost.
Lee considered it. Simply as a loss of nerve. All generals in panic mode demand ever more resources and troops. Never has it been enough, not at Antietam, not at Dien Ben Phu, and it won't be at News Corpse. #peggynoonan
11/13/09
Considering that these yahoos haven't been right about anything since Kurt Cobain's dental experiment, this is in fact a Good Thing. #peggynoonan
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/02/09
11/02/09
10/28/09
10/28/09
Nice one 'Procrastination_Stat!' #afghanistan
10/28/09
Regardless, yes, a sketchball. #afghanistan
10/22/09
10/22/09
10/22/09