and I think he is making the wrong decision. He is in a unique situation where ending a war will make him more popular, not less.

Maybe they meant Bolivia, as it is in the Andeas. The President Evo Morales is also a very bad man trying to look out for his people instead of US interests.

You know Woody, you could call Bolivia a “Caribbean nation” and say that its just a two day drive from Brownsville, Texas… and keep the bits about the SAM missles and the AK-47′s

Now you haven’t said a word about the Saharan nation of Colombia who gets more military aid than anyone else except Israel…plus it gets a handful of military bases.
Not a peep in your article from Forbes which publishes from the Asian nation of New York.

Mr Woody doesn’t see these types of arms being sold to Venezuela as threatening to the US or its interests, does he?
Mr Woody should regale us with the US ships sold to Brazil.

Finally, the right-wing blogosphere should really take a stab at geography:

“Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation”

So, Woody, the helicopters are being dropped shipped to…er, Peru…Bolivia… or is just a simple case of moving the (Andean) mountains to Chavez?
The topic at hand is the quandry of the Afgan campaign handed to Mr Obama in dealing with the Taliban staltwarts hiding in the Andes mountains surrounding Kabul, sent by Chavez with Russian rubles to locate the mysterious Obama birth certificate.

Russia building arms plants in Venezuela

Russia is building arms plants in Venezuela to produce AK-103 automatic rifles and cartridges and is finalizing contracts to send 53 military helicopters to the Andean nation….

In recent years, Venezuela has bought over $4 billion in weapons from Russia, including 24 Sukhoi fighter jets.

When Chavez he returned from his latest trip to Russia in September, he said Russia had agreed to lend Venezuela $2.2 billion to purchase 92 tanks and an S-300 missile system that can shoot down fighter jets and cruise missiles.

Between 2006 and 2008, Moscow delivered a total of about 59 military helicopters to Venezuela….

Russia was also providing “a complete range” of military spare parts to Venezuela…. It is also transferring technology and building technical maintenance centers.

When I see articles like this, I reminisce about all the threads in which you guys try to argue with me and always turn out to be wrong, like these on defense: Cheneyland and Obama’s Trippin’

(One non-defense related comment from September that I liked: Marc Cooper: Come on, Woody. Give it a rest, pal. I have no doubt that ACORN, like most organizations that consist of human beings, has the taint of corruption.)

This obscene nation building does not work in a country like Afghanistan, where there is no educated class or history of central government. At least Iraq is strategic, because of it’s Oil Wealth, WMD aspirations, geographic location, and educated class.

In 2001, we gave the Taliban leaders a choice: Turn over Al-Qaeda or die, which they told us to pound sand. At that point in 2001 we should have stormed in and killed every Taliban and Al-Qaeda we could find and then leave.

Setting up bases and playing patty-cake with the locals does not work and we are not there to give women the right to vote, work and be educated. We just need to leave.

Biden has the most realistic plan of the current administration. – “to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan (remotely or small strike forces)”.

Obama appears to be just another CYA politician.

Doesn’t matter what we think or even what Obama thinks…long term economic/political game plans have been in place and we will do the gig as outlined til it wears itself out.

As I added, I had forgotten about the dirty oil exploration dealings which we have all paid for, gone to war for and then there is the global chess game between China, US etc.

Its repulsive. Maybe Icke was right and its the lizard people who run the show or rather we made deals with them.

I posted that Gary McKinnon story and the Jon Ronson interview with him. Riveting stuff. I think we should talk about whether or not the US military is fooling around with “non terrestrial officers”.

I’m guessing Cheney is the hefe lizard.

“Mortenson said he was originally critical of the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he’s changed his views: ‘The U.S. military has gone through a huge learning curve. They really get it. It’s all about building relationships from the ground up, listening more and serving the people of Afghanistan.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1

I don’t think this can be “won” without a whole hell of a lot more of what Mortenson is doing, but it’s unlikely he could continue to do it for long if we just pulled out. This isn’t an easy call for more than short-term political reasons, given the claims we’ve made by our presence in the country.

As for Gloria Allred’s appearance on behalf of the accused mistress…this is her current specialty. Recall her representation of Amber Frey, girlfriend of Peterson. It requires an ability to put a quasi-feminist spin on the situation on behalf of a person who would disappear from the celebrity screens much faster if Gloria did not offer her help. And it requires no legal analysis at all. It’s a shame in a way…her partners Nathan Goldberg, Dolores Leal et al. are exceptional lawyers.

The critical piece is this (as it is For. Every. Other. Choice. Obama has to make):

If he does the full metal neocon as he is being urged to, he should not be deluded in believing the GOP will in any way support him. They will oppose him every step of every initiative. They will call him incompetent if Afghanistan deteriorates, they will call him a terrorist-lover if he withdraws, they will call him a traitor if he does not do everything they want, and they will eventually turn on him and demand withdrawal, just as they did in the Balkans with Clinton. Obama’s middle way, I fear, is deeper and deeper into a trap, and the abandonment of a historic opportunity to get out.

Obama can pretend, or his handlers can fantasize, that this decision to escalate insulates him from political blow-back. But. It. Won’t. How many additional demonstrations of the reality of the loyal opposition, whose position is endlessly propagandized by our media, does Obama need before he “gets it?”

If I had any fantasies, any fantasies at all, of riding Obama’s political coattails in 2010 this would disabuse me of all of them (scroll down to Voter Likelihood.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23431

Perhaps why Mr Obama is paid the medium bucks.