The Great Bush Balk: How We Got Nowhere
In my post from yesterday, I already expressed my disappointment in Obama’s decision to sink us that much deeper in Afghanistan. Maybe I will be surprised when he actually delivers his speech and he offers a better glimpse of an authentic exit strategy…though I doubt it. But let us not forget just how we got into the rat trap and who got us there.
My good friend Tim at Biped Twilight highlights the Senate Foreign Relations Committee report just released that details how the Bush administration literally balked when it had Osama Bin Laden in its sights:
The report outlines how it was precisely the Rumsfeld-Cheney axis that ‘dithered’ about going up the mountains to get the architect of 9/11 or even to close off escape routes into Pakistan with more U.S. troops. It attributes this failure of nerve to their reluctance to commit large numbers of troops that might then get bogged down in a ‘protracted insurgency’. This was the famous Rumsfeld Doctrine that would soon be put to the test in Iraq—with the well-known brilliant results.
In fact, the report makes clear that the White House was already charging top Pentagon brass to forget Afghanistan and cook up the next pretty little war in Mesopotamia and that they didn’t care about anything else—an ironic conclusion considering their non-stop pandering to American outrage over the Twin Tower bombings.
So by failing to finish the job in Afghanistan, Bush and Cheney allowed bin Laden to use his local contacts to escape to Pakistan and fight another day. His main ally, Mullah Omar, now directs one of the greatest military comebacks in modern history with the Taliban reoccupying much of the country.
Tim also remind us that though this committee is chaired by John Kerry and dominated by Democrats, the ruling party doesn’t have the will to properly politically exploit this tragic mistake.
Instead, we must prepare for ourselves for a policy that will undoubtedly sound like a scratchy replay of the old Light At The End Of The Tunnel standard.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:59 am
Marc Cooper writes:
Tim also remind us that though this committee is chaired by John Kerry and dominated by Democrats, the ruling party doesn’t have the will to properly politically exploit this tragic mistake”
—————————————
Anecdotal evidence that there is no opposition party in the USA.
Buttressed by the fact that the DEMS are afraid how the Right will politically exploit the issue should Obama withdraw from Afganistan.
(in translado) “My political existance is more important than the lives of others”; excusable in america only because we are served cake and have become fixated on the sugar.
My soapbox aside..did anyone else catch these theatrics quoted from above?
.
” His main ally, Mullah Omar, now directs one of the greatest military comebacks in modern history with the Taliban reoccupying much of the country.”
Mullah Omar, the new desert fox?….
Not a very satisfying explaination for the re-emergent Taliban.
I will posit this about the american response to the horrible crime of 9-11:
There is a cultural fixation to find both a state actor and an individual poster-child to blame; a construct from which the rage of the nation might be directed. This has had the desultory effect akin to swinging at a home-run pitch and completely missing the ball.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:45 am
Please not link I posted in former thread that deals with the oil exploration deals and chess game with China…I suspect the “dithering” was a cover for needing to keep the excuses going for creating wars and running amok all over the region.
It was all about oil. Was only ever about oil. There was a hair raising report ages ago from troops first down in Iraq who were told the job was to secure the oil fields and fuck the Iraqis basically. Had nothing to do with toppling Saddam other than to remove impediments to securing access to a region with still un exploited oil reserves.
These are monolithic vested entrenched interests.
And I hope, Marc, you are not one of those people who still thinks Bin Laden is actually alive!
December 1st, 2009 at 9:48 am
Old article but still haunts the present conundrum.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7008
December 1st, 2009 at 9:52 am
oooh just a taster from the link above.
“…Iraqi Oil Law: Made In USA/Britain
It should come as no surprise that the infamous oil law, which will effectively hand over the country’s national resources to private foreign interests, was not an Iraqi invention. Rather, it was concocted in the U.S. and long before the bombs started falling on Baghdad. Dick Cheney, in his incarnation as executive of Halliburton, back in 1999, told the Institute of Petroleum in London: “By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is this oil goin to come from? … While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two-thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost is still where the prize ultimately lies.” (quoted by Muttitt, p. 7). Soon therafter Cheney became head of the Energy Task Force, whose secretive meetings put Iraq and its oil on their agenda.
As documented in an article by Ed Spannaus, in Executive Intelligence Review (September 12, 2003), Cheney and co. had detailed plans for seizing Iraqi oil after the war. Paul Wolfowitz, then Deputy Secretary of Defense, had told the House Budget Committee Feb. 27 that the costs of the war could be defrayed easily by Iraq’s “$15 billion to $20 billion a year in oil exports,” adding, “There’s a lot of money there.” Cheney himself, told Tim Russert of NBC’s “Meet The Press” March 16, that since Iraq had “the second-largest oil reserves in the world,” there would be no problem with financing, once production levels had been restored.
Cheney had done his homework. As Spannaus reported, Cheney’s task force came out with a report specifying that the Persian Gulf region, with 67% of proven world oil reserves, “will remain vital to U.S. interests.” The task force secretly developed a map, showing precisely where Iraq’s oil fields were, where the refineries and terminals were located, and what projects were already on the agenda for oil and gas, including a .list of “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts.” The existence of the map, Spannaus reported, was made public due to the efforts of Judicial Watch, a watchdog group which got the informaiton pursuant to a court order in July 2003. Interesting is the fact that the charts and maps dated to March 2001–long before the invasion!
There were a number of initiatives launched by the Bush-Cheney administration, to secure control over Iraq’s oil. These included a plan by Halliburton and Bechtel, among others, to “mortgage future Iraqi oil revenues to pay for their reconstruction efforts” whereby the Ex-Im Bank would issue bonds covered by future revenues. To protect the oil multis against legal snags, the U.S. drafted U.N. Resolution 1483, which gave legal immunity for revenues from oil deposited in the Development Fund for Iraq, controlled by CPA Administrator Paul Bremer at the time. Bush signed an Executive Order 13303 on the same day as the U.N. resolution (May 22), which granted U.S. oil companies and contractors immunity from any complaints dealing with Iraqi oil. Yet, even such imperial decrees could not guarantee full protection from international law. Thus, the need to put through a law in Iraq itself.”
December 1st, 2009 at 11:07 am
Anna, do you have specific information that OBL is dead?
December 1st, 2009 at 11:46 am
I want to hear President Obama’s speech from West Point with my own hears, before trying to figure out if it’s the right to do or not.
In the meantime, this might a useful interview to chew on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/interview-with-ahmed-rash_b_371239.html
December 1st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Let’s not forget India:
http://www.slate.com/id/2236951/
I think Hitch makes some good points in this article. Pakistan consists of divided loyalties (to put it charitably), and I don’t think this will change anytime soon. In fact, the sentiment among the Taliban and Pakistani sympathizers appears to be one of confidence in weathering the storm: eventually the outsiders will leave. So why not also plan for the long term, but rather than bribery and games with a corrupt Pakistani regime, why not work more closely with India?
December 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Rob, there have been credible reports. One, in particular, by the French.
But common sense says he was dead years ago.
Like when his ravings were no longer a video but only a voice and if you heard the initial rhetoric from when an image stopped being broadcast it wasn’t really his style…
That all of a sudden it was far and few between we got the videos when there would be no problem getting them out and to Al Jazeera they seemed to come at opportune times to tweak up the hysteria factor on “our” side.
If he were alive he would be having a field day broadcasting.
The subsequent bulletins from him have just really been naff.
This is MY assessment not based on any cracked website reports.
However, CREDIBLE reports have come out that its pretty certain he is dead.
You can believe what you like.
I’ll bet you a years supply of the cat’s prescription food OBL be dead.
He’s dead, Rob. Dead. Dead. Dead.
Get it.
Dead.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:56 pm
http://www.infowars.com/dead-or-alive-osama-bin-laden-a-marketing-tool-for-us-nato-military-operations/
She does source her comments from mainstream news outlets like Guardian and CBC etc.
This is just an aggregate of the various research done around what would logically suggest the man be dead. Dead.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
#
Is Bin Laden Dead? – TIME
Sep 23, 2006 … Is Bin Laden Dead? By Timothy Burger/Washington and Scott … newspaper L’Est Republicain cited a report by the French intelligence service, …
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1538569,00.html – Similar
#
Officials say no evidence bin Laden dead – Terrorism- msnbc.com
Sep 24, 2006 … Report claims bin Laden is dead. Sept. 23: French and U.S. officials were caught off guard Saturday by a leaked report claiming that Osama …
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14963302/ – Cached – Similar
#
Is Bin Laden Dead?
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. Report claims bin Laden is dead. Sept. 23: French and U.S. officials were caught off guard …
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/…/sociopol_binladen05.htm – Cached – Similar
#
French newspaper suggests Osama bin Laden may be dead – Wikinews …
Mar 25, 2008 … French newspaper suggests Osama bin Laden may be dead … Katie Turner, Pam Benson “Conflicting reports: Bin Laden could be dead or ill”. …
en.wikinews.org/…/French_newspaper_suggests_Osama_bin_Laden_may_be_dead -
And this anecdotal nugget: 2002 ish while still living in Brighton a friend celebrated getting qualified as an architect by taking time off to work cabin crew for short hauls around Europe. Part of training included being briefed by a big security honcho. At that time he said one probably would not want to fly if it were known Bin Laden were dead (the security briefer noted wryly) but that if he were– from an intelligence stand point IT WOULD NOT BE ANNOUNCED.
By the way…he also said American airlines security was crap and after the Israelis flying a British airline the safest. I knew someone else who got hired by Lufthansa going all over the world. I got the impression they were quite secure and certainly employees had a better deal that what was going down with other airlines. Remember here pilots doing long haul are treated like street sweepers. Brits are very good at casting a net. Mind you they have been run ragged given the demographics now living in the UK and colonial history backlash.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
OBL dead?
I think so.
Dead physically:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.html
Dead metaphorically:
Unable to conjure, fund, or carry out a terrorist attack anywhere.
.
.
Alive:
As a symbol only; a brand, a franchise and a poster-child.
.
McCain (at the third debate): “I have a plan to catch BinLaden”
.. but the best laid plans usually have funding.
Alive?:
(somebody said) “There are less than 100 AlQueda in Afganistan”,
not that there is OBL and 99 others.
Capture & Trial?:
No way, Jose.
(In other words, breath and pulse are no longer at issue…like Col Sanders..or Sitting Bull)
December 1st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
IS OBL dead? You decide…
http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2009-09-14-voa4-68708982.html
December 1st, 2009 at 5:27 pm
All this crap made me think about Blake.
I’m going to get Prophet Against Empire to read again.
December 1st, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Osama bIn Laden = Immanuel Goldstein.
suckers.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:25 pm
I had to Google Goldstein.
“…Each member of “The Brotherhood” is required to read the book supposedly written by Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Each person is said to have three or four contacts at one time which are replaced as people disappear, so that if a member is captured, he can only give up three or four others. Goldstein is always the subject of the “Two Minutes Hate,” a daily, 2-minute period beginning at 11:00 AM at which a purported image of Goldstein is shown on the telescreen (a one-channel television with surveillance devices in it that can not be turned off). The reader may surmise that a political opposition to Big Brother— namely, Goldstein— was psychologically necessary in order to provide an internal enemy posing a threat to the rule of the Party; the constantly reiterated ritual of the Two Minutes Hate help ensure that popular support for and devotion towards Big Brother is continuous.
It is never revealed whether Goldstein really exists. In fact, Inner Party member O’Brien adamantly refuses to reveal whether or not The Brotherhood truly exists when asked by Winston in the torture room:”
———————————————————-
Fantastic aggregation of comments on Orwell. Really recommend reading it:
http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/orwell.htm
December 1st, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Chris Matthews just called Cheney the troll who comes out from under the bridge…
December 1st, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Anna. You are getting nuttier and nuttier. Infowars? Really? That is a worthy source?
December 1st, 2009 at 10:24 pm
On this day of more cutbacks in public education, I’m doing research on one of my heroes, Dr. Stephen Krashen of USC.
What do I run across? Jill Stewart attacking him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Krashen
She graduated from Stanford.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stewart
Emperor Obama graduated only from private schools.
I guess we public school people must suck.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:50 am
GM look at the source notes– which I pointed out. Time, CBC etc etc.
Give it a rest. And what source do you have that says Bin Laden is alive?
Use common sense.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:51 am
By the way, you conveniently ignored the slew of other refs to the Bin Laden issue they all refer back to the same source you idiot…French intelligence and a witness in the hospital where he was brought for treatment.