FIRST DRAFT

Codetalkers

This: 

The only people who find Alinsky's writings radical are the Haves, because it suggests that the Have Nots have the power to equalize the system a little more. That's a scary concept for the one percent for which the GOP is entirely dedicated. But unlike former Reagan Budget Director David Stockman in the clip above, I do think this resonates with those Republican voters notorious for voting against their own interests. Because not one of them will bother to get informed on Alinsky. Not one of them will bother to do any critical thinking but simply categorize Alinsky as one of those nefarious bad things from which to be frightened or suspicious of the liberal agenda.

I don't actually think any of them will even HEAR Alinsky and be curious. I'd like to see polling done on Alinsky the way it's done on political candidates for name recognition measurement, and find out, among the Republicans who just vote Republican because their hairdresser gives them the political news, how many of them even know who the hell he is. 

And this: 

Listening to this, I’m struck by one thing:  if Newt is the candidate, he’s going to drive the discussion into all the nooks and crannies of noise and diversion that have occupied Fox News viewers since Obama’s victory.  In other words, Newt is the candidate of the 2009 media cycle, where the Tea Party dominated media coverage.  

Which goes back to something I've been talking about basically since 2008: NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THIS CRAP BUT OTHER CRAZY PEOPLE. Alinsky-an community organizaing tactics and socialist death panels and all this other Glenn Beck nonsense is just noise to your average Republican. This is too advanced for them. The War on Christmas, communist re-education camps, fascist light-bulb replacement and other Tea Party articles of faith sound just as crazy to mildly racist "independent" voters as they do to us. 

Those nice white middle-class people are listening for code language, of course, but it's "school choice" and "teachers' unions" and "entitlement programs" and "parental responsibility" and "moral values" and "I don't want to have to explain this to my children." The old young bucks bying T-bone steaks thing, and why women need to have all these choices anyway. Maybe some vague intimations about how organic food is homosexual and no one should force you to eat it. A comment here or there about how Michelle Obama doesn't know her place. Unless they're the 27 percent parked in front of Fox all day, you ask any ten Republicans who Saul Alinsky is and they'll probably ask if he's an actor or an American Idol contestant.

(I didn't know who he was until Republicans started boring on about him. Because there is a limited amount of space in my head for stuff that is not, at the moment, actively on fire.) 

That's not to say that 27 percent of Americans who are bugfuck crazy is an insignificant number, but it's really not worth getting worked up about. The other 30 percent who are looking at the numbers and on average voting for the guy they think will punish black people, gay people and chicks for wanting their legal rights worry me far more. 

A. 

We're Not Going to be the Assholes in Afghanistan

That's basically what our Afghanistan strategy comes down to at this point.

Leaving quickly, leaving completely, leaving now would make us the assholes, the ones who said, "You know what? Things will be chaotic and shitty if we leave, but they are chaotic and shitty now, and we have no plan that is guaranteed or even remotely likely to stop all the shitty chaos, so on balance we're choosing the lesser evil of not getting American kids killed to further blow up a place what is already kind of bombed to shit. Yeah, that makes America the dicks. Again. We're leaving unexploded ordnance and holes in people's lives, just like the Russians, just like everybody always has, because we only like the beginnings of wars.

"We suck, but the first step to not sucking is to stop the current sucking that we are doing, and so we're stopping it. The second step is to go forth and suck no more, which is really only guaranteed if you stop electing insane Republicans and everybody goes back to work, so we're going to dedicate ourselves to that henceforth."

That's basically always what our Afghanistan strategy has been, from about day six when we turned our focus towards more-blow-uppable Iraq until now. We are aggressively avoiding the conversation about how this all got so fucked up, in order to "move forward," and I get the avoidance and all the psychological whatsit, except that there's ALL THESE DEAD PEOPLE, which makes our feelings kind of irrelevant.

Also, Michael O'Hanlon is a tool:

But some national security experts said Obama risked jeopardizing advances against the Taliban achieved with the troop-intensive counterinsurgency strategy Petraeus had championed.

"The President's plan strikes me as solid in concept but a bit rushed," said the Brookings Institutions' Michael O'Hanlon. "Ideally next year's drawdown would have until the end of the year or until early 2013 so the U.S. troops could successfully conclude the fighting season."

Yes. "National security expert" Michael O'Hanlon, the genius who wrote:

Of course, Iraqi attacks against civilian populations in places like the United States could be serious, especially if they involved biological agents, in which case plausible casualties could reach into the hundreds or even the thousands. But Iraqi special forces have not focused on preparing for such attacks in the past; instead, they have reportedly been dedicated to efforts to acquire technologies for producing weapons of mass destruction. It is also unlikely that Iraq has access to the most dangerous pathogens, such as smallpox. On the other hand, Saddam may be willing to provide such agents to Hezbollah or al-Qaida operatives under certain circumstances. On balance, the risk that germ or chemical weapons will be used successfully may be relatively small—but it is also quite real.

Iraq could also increase casualty levels of U.S. or coalition forces by using WMD against them, particularly its thousands of chemical-filled artillery shells and rockets.

Let's definitely hear more from him about how we just need to give ourselves a little more time to get some more people killed before we have to be the assholes. 

A.

 

On Getting Away With Things

Something can be both predictable, and monstrous, without diminishing either aspect:

After the killing, the soldiers involved in Mudin's death were not disciplined or punished in any way. Emboldened, the platoon went on a shooting spree over the next four months that claimed the lives of at least three more innocent civilians. When the killings finally became public last summer, the Army moved aggressively to frame the incidents as the work of a "rogue unit" operating completely on its own, without the knowledge of its superiors. Military prosecutors swiftly charged five low-ranking soldiers with murder, and the Pentagon clamped down on any information about the killings. Soldiers in Bravo Company were barred from giving interviews, and lawyers for the accused say their clients faced harsh treatment if they spoke to the press, including solitary confinement. No officers were charged.

But a review of internal Army records and investigative files obtained by Rolling Stone, including dozens of interviews with members of Bravo Company compiled by military investigators, indicates that the dozen infantrymen being portrayed as members of a secretive "kill team" were operating out in the open, in plain view of the rest of the company. Far from being clandestine, as the Pentagon has implied, the murders of civilians were common knowledge among the unit and understood to be illegal by "pretty much the whole platoon," according to one soldier who complained about them. Staged killings were an open topic of conversation, and at least one soldier from another battalion in the 3,800-man Stryker Brigade participated in attacks on unarmed civilians. "The platoon has a reputation," a whistle-blower named Pfc. Justin Stoner told the Army Criminal Investigation Command. "They have had a lot of practice staging killings and getting away with it."

Basically, you take these very angry, not-bright people who probably should have been, I don't know, I don't even know what people like this should be doing but definitely nothing official on behalf of the United States with guns, and you stick them in a situation that would frustrate the living hell out of the most patient and intelligent human being. Then you give them a bunch of bosses whose response to anything wrong seems to be, "Oh, God, please don't make me think about this," and a whole lot of drugs including some stuff I can't even spell.

I'm not saying this was inevitable. That's too easy. Everybody involved made choices, everybody. The situation just compounded the likelihood that those who had made crappy choices before in life would make stratospherically crappy ones now involving hand grenades, and there seemed to be absolutely no understanding that this would be the case despite decades of psychology and also Shakespeare telling us about general human behavior. That these guys were failures as humans, and that Afghanistan is a fucked-up mess that is no place for human failures to be dropped in armed, both these things can be true at once, and they are.

(Also, if I ever read one more "why do they hate us?" story, I will put a hole in the wall, I swear to God. Why would anyone hate us, when we kill their parents and children? I can't imagine. JESUS.)

Reading this story I got the same feeling I got when reading a lot of the Boston Catholic sexual abuse scandal coverage way back when. You have sick fucking assholes, who should not have been anywhere near their jobs, doing horrible things, which by itself is enough to make you ill.

Then, though, you have people who knew this was happening and did nothing, and it's not that I sympathize with the sickos. I think the sickos should be shot, I really do. But singling out the sickos does exactly dick for society or for keeping anybody safe because safety is not about making sure there are no sickos. We cannot shoot them all. It is about making sure that when sickos manifest their sick selves, we have a way to deal with them.

Instead we have denial that sickos exist, insistence that sickos are sickos in complete isolation from things like "policy" and "sanction," justification of said sickos based on various things that may or may not be true, wish-fulfillment fantasizing about doing the same things by armchair warriors, and willful ignorance and refusal on the part of every higher-up on the planet that this was really taking place.

In short, I hate everybody involved in this mess and I hate them even more for making me think that it's so perilously easy to go crazy, but look at this:

By the time Gibbs arrived, morale in the Stryker Brigade had hit rock bottom. Only four months earlier, the unit had been deployed to Afghanistan amid a chorus of optimism about its eight-wheeled armored vehicles, a technological advancement that was supposed to move infantry to the battlefield more quickly and securely, enabling U.S. troops to better strike against the Taliban. By December, however, those hopes had dissolved. The Taliban had forced the Strykers off the roads simply by increasing the size and explosive force of their IEDs, and the brigade had suffered terrible casualties; one battalion had lost more soldiers in action than any since the start of the war. Gibbs, in fact, had been brought in after a squad leader had his legs blown off by an IED.

This does not constitute some kind of absolute imperative to start decapitating corpses, but come ON, have we really not learned this is a thing that can happen when you have the perfect storm of people who could charitably be described as "in crisis" and ammunition and no end in sight? And are we really going to allow, once again, the sickos and not those responsible for them be the only ones who pay?

A.

What Happens

A "litmus test" on Afghanistan:

Reaction to the Time cover has become something of an Internet litmus test about attitudes toward the war, and what America’s responsibility is in Afghanistan. Critics of the American presence in Afghanistan call it “emotional blackmail” and even “war porn,” while those who fear the consequences of abandoning Afghanistan see it as a powerful appeal to conscience.

The debate was fueled in part by the language that Time chose to accompany the photograph: “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan,” pointedly without a question mark.

That is exactly what will happen,” said Manizha Naderi, referring to Aisha and cases like hers. An Afghan-American whose group, Women for Afghan Women, runs the shelter where Aisha stayed, Ms. Naderi said, “People need to see this and know what the cost will be to abandon this country.”

As Ms. Naderi would be the first to concede, however, things are already bad enough for women in Afghanistan without a return to a government run by the Taliban.

So far, we've already abandoned that country twice. Once, when we held a little useless proxy war there and used it to get our national rocks off and then fucked off and left it, and twice, when our glorious War Preznit decided Iraq would be way more fun to blow up because it just would so shut up. So to act like now, now we're going to huff off into the sunset and that will be something new for us is just stupid. Afghanistan and its people have had plenty of practice being abandoned by us (and by other countries whose examples of nation-building ADD we failed to heed).

I said during the campaign and I said when Obama announced his Afghanistan troop increase that everybody was looking for a way out of Afghanistan that didn't make us the asshole. That didn't make us the latest in a long line of countries that came in with great speeches and big guns and slouched out with a halfhearted "sorry we blew some of your relatives up, guys, our bad" parade. All we're doing now is trying to find something to drape some bunting over, to find a way to say, no, we're not those douchebags, we're a good country and we did this better than everybody else did.

It's a desperate search for pundit-meaning, a way to make David Brooks and David Broder feel good about themselves, a way for Joe Klein to write columns that don't make him feel like a dirty, anti-military, America-hating hippie. It's a way for Obama and his advisors to say they unfucked the dog George W. Bush fucked, did the war right, and made everything better. It's a passion play for the benefit of the American people, and I would be a little more tolerant of it as a piece of masturbatory theater if the benefit to our national psyche wasn't offset by LOTS AND LOTS OF DEAD PEOPLE. 

I'm not discounting the plight of women in Afghanistan. Plenty of DFHs were all about kicking Taliban ass long before 9/11 focused the rest of the world on how much things fucking sucked over there. But I have a major problem fetishizing one particular group of women when a staggering portion of the world treats women like dogs or worse and does so without Time magazine using the victims of religious and political violence as arguments for prolonging war. We can hold in our minds at once the concept that what happened to Bibi Aisha is cruel and horrible, and that it does not obligate us to continue to wage a war that didn't stop her mutilation in the first place.

There's no "litmus test" here.

A.

Happy Kerry Photo: Suck It Up Edition

Seriously:

“However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.”

And to people whining who should know better: 

"The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security," National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones said in a statement. "Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents - the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted."

Oh, God Almighty, calm down. Your president got elected on the premise that the war was fucked up and he'd have to unfuck it. It's not like you didn't know this stuff. And to be all I do declare Miss Scarlett about the rest of the American public getting to know this stuff strains credulity and moves the focus from what could have been, "Yeah, this is why you elected us, to fix this shit" to "no no no no bad journalism!" is just amateurish. Anyone paying attention knows how this works.

Surprise us, wouldja, and for once deal with the substance instead of the bunting it's wrapped in?

A.

Only Talking Sense

Holy crap, someone in Washington is talking sense about Afghanistan albeit off the record and to the British press:

The White House is revising its Afghanistan strategy to embrace the idea of negotiating with senior members of the Taliban through third parties – a policy to which it had previously been lukewarm.

Negotiating with the Taliban has long been advocated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and the British and Pakistani governments, but resisted by Washington.

The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.

"There is a change of mindset in DC," a senior official in Washington said. "There is no military solution. That means you have to find something else. There was something missing."

That missing element was talks with the Taliban leadership, the official added.

The American rethink comes in the aftermath of the departure last month of General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama, apparently frustrated at the way the war is going, has reminded his national security advisers that while he was on the election campaign trail in 2008, he had advocated talking to America's enemies.

It's about frakking time. That war is clearly unwinnable in the classic sense: the best that can be hoped for is that the Taliban won't overrun the country. No central Afghan government has ever controlled the entire country and none ever will, it's topographically impossible. Geography is destiny: there will be always be rebels in the hills shooting down at the government in places like Colombia and Afghanistan.

I'm glad that Obama is reviving his strongly stated campaign position that to make peace anywhere in the world one must talk to one's adversaries. One reason the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is all process and no peace is that both sides want to dictate who they'll negotiate with. You cannot pick your negotiating partners. If Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and the loyalists and nationalists were able to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland, anything is possible. Northern Ireland should have been Blair's legacy BUT unfortunately for all concerned Iraq defined his government.

British Prime Minister David (Call me Dave) Cameron will be meeting with Obama this week and will surely have his back on this point. It's time to start winding things down in Afghanistan and if we need to use General Petraeus' surge thingee as cover, so be it. I'm glad that after years of nonsense, tentative moves towards a more sensible policy are being made. It's time for us to go.

McChrystal Cracked

I'd come around to the McChrystal must go viewpoint so I'm glad it happened so quickly. Not only does he deserve to be shitcanned for mouthing off but his favorite beer is Bud Lite Lime. Holy girl drink, Batman.

On a serious note, I thought it was politically ingenious to slide Petraeus into the command slot. The wingers have expressed such unconditional love for him that it will be *harder* for them to gin up outrage over this.

McChrystal Blue Persuasion

General Stanley McChrystal and his staff have big mouths. They didn't tell a reporter that stuff was off the record when they were in bars and eateries. Another fine story from Rolling Stone this time around by freelancer Michael Hastings.

I'm too lazy to dig for the bullet points on my own so I'll let the Gray Lady do the talking:

A McChrystal aide is quoted saying of Mr. Holbrooke: “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to be fired, so that makes him dangerous.”

On another occasion, General McChrystal is described as reacting with exasperation when he receives an e-mail message from Mr. Holbrooke. “Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke. I don’t even want to open it.”

The article also describes a conversation in which General McChrystal and an aide talk about Mr. Biden. Mr. Biden is known to have opposed the decision to escalate the war, preferring instead a slimmed-down plan focused on containing terrorism.

“Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” General McChrystal jokes.

“Biden?” suggests a top adviser. “Did you say ‘Bite me?’ ”

Classic trash talk or bar room bravado. But why on earth did they not go OFF THE FUCKING RECORD? I have friends in the MSM and we always explicitly ask one another that something be off the record or unattributed; especially if it's juicy. This is juicy.

Bob Gates has already rebuked the wayward (there's that word again) General. John Kerry is urging caution. Steve Clemons wants his ass fired.

Right now, I lean towards a stern rebuke unless the Veep wants McChrystal gone. Given Biden's own history, he's likely to be forgiving of the General making a pun that he's heard before. Many times. He's just biding time...

What do y'all think should happen to McChrystal? Rebuked? Fired? Mocked?

I'm not sure where I'll end up in this debate but I know one thing for sure: McChrystal rubs me the wrong way and not in a new age flake sorta way. I do, however, love his name, it's so punworthy. I guess you already noticed that...

Happy Democrat photo: Once more, with context

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I-- I-- I would hope I-- look, it's one thing to be outspoken. It's another thing to be outspoken in a way that misrepresents the facts. And I-- I guess-- again, I-- it's almost like Dick is trying to rewrite history. I can understand where the-- why that would be-- you know, an impulse. And maybe he isn't-- literally, I'm not being facetious. Maybe he's not fully informed of what's going on. I mean, the progress we have made. There has never been as much emphasis and resources brought against Al Qaeda. The success rate exceeds anything that occurred in the last Administration. And they did their best. I'm not-- I'm not impugning their effort. It's simply not true that the President of the United States is not prosecuting the war against Al Qaeda with a vigor that's never been seen before. It's real. It's deep. It's successful. (emphasis mine)

"Exceeds anything that occurred in the last Administration."

Context:

We've had Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in custody in Karachi since last week, Dick. 

Ambivalent

Obama's speech hasn't sent me racing to the barricades to either oppose or support his policy. The best thing about the speech was its tone: somber and sober. Nobody does the two S's as well as the President. The worst thing about the speech was the troop increase: I doubt that it will work. Foreign powers have been trying to secure the rural areas of Afghanistan for centuries and there are always rebels in the mountains shooting at them. It's a combination of geography and culture: Afghanistan remains a largely illiterate country dominated by tribes and war lords.

This is a tough time to be President; much of Obama's job is to clean up the messes left behind by the recklessness, arrogance and stupidity of the Bushies. The Pashtun tribal areas of what could be called Afpakistan are perhaps the biggest mess of all. There was a rush to invade Afghanistan combined with mindless support for the Pakistani military junta of Musharraf. As we all know, that's what set the stage for the current mess.

Obama made it clear that he considers this course to be the least bad one for the country. I not only hope that he's right but that he will resist the inevitable demands from the Pentagon for more boots on the ground. I was relieved that he set a timeline for withdrawal and hope that he sticks to it. I think we should start withdrawing earlier than that and follow the sage advice of the Vietnam era Republican Senator from Vermont, George Aiken and "declare victory" and get the hell out of there pronto. Yeah, I know, everyone quotes Aiken at times like these but troubled times call for the classics. Speaking of which, Dan Rather was on the Rachel Maddow Show Monday night and also invoked the Aiken refrain:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

'We have no interest in occupying your country'

That's probably what set the wingnuts off:

The people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They have been confronted with occupation – by the Soviet Union, and then by foreign al Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes. So tonight, I want the Afghan people to understand – America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering. We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect – to isolate those who destroy; to strengthen those who build; to hasten the day when our troops will leave; and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner, and never your patron.

John wants to know why they're pissed, and this is why, and this is all it's about: 

THEY NEVER WANTED TO HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN EVER AT ALL.

Once they put their flags down and went back to work, they were done, man. They have the story they need to tell in their heads, and it's about how Bush saved the people of Afghanistan with his freedom missiles. They didn't want to have to do the messy clean-up. They never do. These are the dicks that trash the party and then slither out and leave you to clean up all the broken glass and vomit. Then the next day they're all, "Hey, bro, when we doin' that again, huh? Bitchin'" and then make some comment about a co-worker's tits.

A.

Thirty Thousand More

Well, you own it now.

A.

Say What?

In a sign of how far right the GOP has moved, legendary fantasist, liar and douchebag, Oliver North is advising House Goopers on Afghanistan. I wonder if he'll suggest sending bibles to Karzai's brother instead of CIA lucre.

I've *never* understood, the Ollie North cult amongst the wingnuts; especially because the Reagans *both* repudiated everything he claimed about his relationship with Ronnie. I guess the Reagan cult is like everything else on the far right: they pick what they like and disregard the rest. Sheesh...

Care Package Update

Hey everybody. I just got word that our care packages have safely arrived in Afghanistan!

From leinie:

Got this message this morning: 

Subject: Just thought you should know.

"We have recieved those packages that was sent by your blog group. The coffee is outstanding and I dont think anyone expected to get such high end stuff in a care package. Please send my thanks to all. Thank you."

You're all pretty great, you know.

A.

What's the Goal?

Obama and Afghanistan:

As the cold and snow gets ready to come, there is a real sense that it's the last best time to turn the tide against the militants.  We know from today's discussion at the White House that there is no plan to remove troops from Afghanistan, where this year President Obama has already added 21,000 soldiers.  Even Vice-President Biden's recommendation of a surgical approach against Al-Qaeda does not involve a draw down.  Perhaps the number will not be 40,000 troops, but I find it hard to think that there won't be some escalation.  We might have been there for eight years, but the war for the hearts and minds of Afghanistan only began this year.

You know, the editors of The Poor Man were the ones who said, about Iraq, that once you fuck the dog, the dog is fucked. It can't be unfucked. You can not fuck the dog again, you can resolve to never fuck any dog anywhere ever for the rest of your life, but you can't unfuck that particular dog in that particular instance. I don't know how you screw up a war, and then un-screw it up. Especially since literally no one including all the Republicans getting ready to hang this war around Obama's neck can define for America what winning looks like.

No violence? None at all? "Acceptable" levels? How many dead kids are acceptable? No Taliban? We didn't give a damn about the Taliban and the plight of women in Afghanistan until 9/11 and then we only wanted some shit to get blowed up, so don't tell me this is about the Taliban. The destruction of Al Qaeda? How on earth ... Some kind of sicko math where only X suicide bombings means everybody can come home? If anyone out there has an answer to this I'd love to hear it because right now winning seems to mean ... good stuff, and I don't know what signs we're looking for.

And from reading about the meeting it's pretty clear I'm not the only one confused:

“There were a number of people who spoke out with a lot of caution about getting in deeper and what the endpoint is,” Mr. Levin said in an interview. Mr. Levin, who promoted accelerated training of Afghan forces, then met alone with Mr. Obama to expand on his views.

Others shared their skepticism in interviews. “Clearly, there is hesitancy about the prospect of sending 40,000 more troops,” said Representative Nita M. Lowey, Democrat of New York.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said after the meeting that “it would be irresponsible” to send more troops until it became clear “what is possible in Afghanistan.”

A.

Care Packages

I was JOKING about needing a forklift, but it might be useful in getting all of this to the post office:

 

It's hard to see under all of the everything but for the record that is 25 pounds of coffee (at least, 25 is when I stopped counting the coffee), video games, snackies, hundreds of minutes of phone time, more peanuts, animal crackers, goldfish, fancy fruit-nut mixes, handfuls of candy, card games and magazines than you can fit in six priority mail boxes. I need to pick up one, maybe two more on my way home from work.

 

Now it all goes to the post office. I sent leinie a pic and here's what she sent back:

E and his buddies are going to get all this stuff that says, hey, in the midst of the teabaggers and the silly season and elevating corporations so they have more rights than people, brouhahas on MTV and baseball playoffs and jackasses on Survivor, you aren't forgotten.  We remember you.  We wish you didn't have to be there, but since you are, thank you for your service and have a touch of home.  Partially because it is a bunch of strangers, who have never met him, hell, they've never met me, and they could still find it in their hearts to say this one, this sailor (cuz he's on loan to the Army from the Navy) is important and let's recognize him, for no other reason than a handle and opinion and foul mouth in a chat box somehow managed to make him real for you.  That in the shittiest economy of our lifetime, with people getting squeezed on all sides, people could find a little something to send to do this.  In some ways, it's unreal, and yet it is because it is SO real, real people, real humanity, real goodness, that I'm as touched as I am.

Mission most definitely accomplished, all. Thank you.

A.

Care Package Update

Guys?

SEVEN FREAKING HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS.

When I put up a post asking for donations for a care package for leinie's son and his fellow servicemen and women in Afghanistan, I thought maybe we'll raise a hundred bucks. Get a few pounds of coffee, some phone cards, a video game, put it in a box and send it over there with a note saying we're thinking of you and please come home safe to your parents.

When we got to $250 that first day, I thought holy shit. And I thought hey, let's see if we can raise it to $300, nice round number, easy to keep track of. When you got it to $400, I totally and completely jokingly mentioned $500, thinking damn, these people are out of control. This is a lot of coffee. I wonder if we'll have to get some kind of import/export license for all this stuff.

Then I went out of town for the weekend, to visit a dear friend, and was telling her all about you guys and your diabolical plot to overcaffeinate the U.S. military in Afghanistan, and was pretty much offline for a few days. I should leave you all unattended more often, because by the time I got back yesterday afternoon, you had raised the fund to SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS OH MY GOD.

It will take a couple of days for Paypal to transfer the money to a bank account where I can access it, but probably on Wednesday or Thursday Mr. A and I and the camera are taking a gigantic shopping trip, and we will post the pictures. And we will mail the stuff overseas. And in a week or two (hopefully not much longer) a lot of people in harm's way are going to know how much you care about them. You're amazing.

Thank you to everyone who contributed, who lent suggestions and words of support. I hope I sent a note to everybody who chipped in, and if I missed anyone I'm so sorry, but thank you all again. Thank you thank you thank you.

A.

So, About How You ROCK ...

I asked you guys to get the care package fund to $300 and you got it to $400!!!

I'm afraid to even mention the possibility of $500. You all might break Paypal.

I will be keeping this reminder up until Monday, at which time I'll be shutting it down and going on the world's biggest shopping spree with a camera, Mr. A, the ferrets, and possibly a forklift. This is gonna be a lot of awesome. Way to go!

A.

Hit That

Just a quick update of GOD DAMN SON for the Care Package project. You raised $250 yesterday! Holy crap. How awesome are you? Do a dance of joy for the giant box of fun, caffeine and sweets that will be going to Afghanistan soon.

Let's make it to $300 worth. Hit the tip jar. Put "care package" in the comments field.

A.

First Draft Care Package(s)

Because knowing you all as I do, and knowing how you work, I don't think it'll all fit in one box.

In comments to the Richard Cohen post, leinie wrote:

MY CHILD is in Afghanistan right now. Thanks to the previous administration's amoral and illegal actions, not only do I have to worry about him being killed in battle, I have to worry about how he'd be treated were he to fall into enemy hands.

Which, to be honest, I've always had to worry about, but in the past, my govt. operated from a higher moral ground and hadn't given the fucking green light to torture as acceptable. No reason for the Taliban to be restrained in how they would treat him - all they have to do is point to one of the MANY locations and instances where the US said, oh this is ok. It's not like we gave them the winning hand in the propaganda battle by dropping to their level or anything.

And it just ... I'm as disheartened as anyone that Obama seems set on escalating, rather than ending, the war in Afghanistan. I'm as disheartened as anyone that for many of us the world doesn't seem significantly different than it did a year ago. But you know and I know that we can sit here and be disheartened or we can do something about it.

I e-mailed leinie and asked if there was something we on the blog could do, could send, could contribute. What her son and his friends might want. Good coffee, snackies, games and prepaid phone cards was the answer. A little food therapy, some fun, and a chance to call home. Not a tall order, really.

I think we can provide that. So here's what the plan is:

1. I've set up an Amazon Wish List with games for the Wii and Xbox, which leinie tells us they have access to over there. You can click that, it will send it to me and I will send it on since Amazon in its wisdom won't ship games to military addresses.

2. Hit up the tip jar above and put "care package" in the message field. If you have something specific you want me to buy, note that as well. Otherwise, in about a week or so, or whenever I think we're done, I'll take the cash available and a big shopping list and go get as many snacks, piles of coffee, phone cards and whatever else I can scare up to make life a little happier.

3. "What about sending X? The list should have Y!" If you have an idea, or want something on the Wish List what isn't on it, or whatever, drop me an e-mail. 

I'll take the money and run to Mexico document the whole thing with photos and let you all know when it's sent out.

You guys have always been willing to step up when the opportunity arises and do the things anyone else would only talk about. After months of discussion about the supposed newspaper crisis, you funded three underfunded schools' student journalism efforts to actually MAKE better journalists.When we talked about the need to tell the stories that weren't being told, you sent Scout to NOLA and me to Denver to do our own reporting. You keep this blog going with your donations and your contributions and your comments, and that generosity and courage has crossed state lines from New York to California to Wisconsin to Florida. I think it's time we make it international.

Let's send a big box of home to the family and friends of our own. The economy sucks, and no one should feel obligated to contribute funds if he or she can't. If you can't kick in a few bucks, send me a note you'd like included in the box and I'll put those in, too. Let's take care in a small way, even as we keep fighting to take care in a big one.

A.

Dirty Hippies

As Holden used to ask all the time, why does America hate America?

A.

Other Shit That Should Be Obvious

Read this shit some time.

Read this, as well.

I tried arguing about Afghanistan with people back in 2001; naturally, no one listened. 

I understood that, after 9/11, we would be attacking somebody.  You don't outspend the rest of the world militarily and then not use that military when attacked.  However, I did not expect an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  I thought it was a stupid idea then, and I think it's a stupid idea now. 

One of the big justifications for the war was the removal of the Taliban, that group of fundamentalist assholes who imposed their own vision of utopian society in many parts of Afghanistan.  Don't get me wrong--they're a bunch of fucks.  Everyone's heard the stories about burqas and sex-segregation and women being fourth-class citizens (it was hilarious to watch Republicans trip over themselves to stress how awful and sexist these choad-gobblers were).

I was aware of the Taliban prior to September of 2001.  It didn't take a genius to know about this group of sack wranglers.  However, there's a reason why they were in control of parts of Afghanistan.  They provided order.  Order is preferable to chaos--it's why we have government in the first place, and why Libertarian fantasies will always be just that.  When, as happens some times, that order becomes unbearably oppressive, certain groups attempt to replace it.  But they never wish to eradicate order altogether.  There may be a chaotic interregnum, but no one ever abolishes order in favor of permanent chaos. 

Put otherwise:  When the people who lived in Afghanistan (and I'm not talking about "Afghanis;" there's really no such ethnicity) got tired of the Taliban, they would have done something about it.  You can provide aid to these groups, and you can encourage less-repressive elements in societies, but you can't go in and impose an order of your own.  It has to be, to use a Hobbesian term, a social contract entered into by the people whose own lives are directly affected--especially in a place like Afghanistan, where interlopers have been frustrated since the days of Alexander the Great. 

All that shit about "Freedom is God Almighty's gift" is just nonsense.  Even if it were true, it would be up to the Almighty to dispense it, not to us.  Isn't that fucking presumptuous, to think otherwise?

Not that Hobbes' view of humanity was perfect.  It was, of course, situated in his time--the anarchical years during the English Civil War.  However, when in such a state, order--even a harsh order--is something for which people yearn.  Corrupt, unpredictable, and abusive governments will always be less popular than repressive yet predictable ones. 

Thoughts?

Meanwhile in Afghanistan

Stars and Stripes reports on an Afghan policeman killing an American soldier and the mounting concerns  that militants have infiltrated the national force:

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — A U.S. soldier was killed in eastern Afghanistan Thursday when an Afghan policeman opened fire on an American patrol returning to its base.

The Afghan National Policemen opened fire and threw a hand grenade at the U.S. patrol as it returned from a meeting with tribal elders in Bermel District, Paktika Province, near the border with Pakistan. The remaining U.S. troops killed the policeman, according to the military.

SNIP

But Thursday’s incident was the second time in less than a month that an Afghan officer has killed a U.S. soldier, raising concerns that militants may have infiltrated the Afghan police force.

60 Minutes will air a report in which a top general in Afghanistan states that enemy numbers have increased by up to 30% and their activities are becoming more complex:

"I'm telling you that the enemy did increase from 20 to 30 percent this last year….I'll tell you that they are doing more complex activities which concerns me greatly," says Gen. Schlosser.

SNIP

"I'm here to predict this winter will be the most violent winter so far," says Gen. Schlosser. "We are doing a winter campaign, Lara, that just plain gets after the enemy." But he'll need help. "I've been very clear that I need more resources, more soldiers and more assets," he tells Logan.

And AP reports al-Qaida will weather the global economic crisis just fine:

CAIRO, Egypt – Al-Qaida, which gets its money from the drug trade in Afghanistan and sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf states, is likely to escape the effects of the global financial crisis.

One reason is that al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists have been forced to avoid using banks, relying instead on less-efficient ways to move their cash around the world, analysts said.

SNIP

Al-Qaida and the Taliban have benefited from the drug trade's growth in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and the booming business likely will not be affected by the global slowdown.

Opium cultivation has fallen slightly this year but is still about 20 times higher than in 2001, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

In the other war

DoD Secretary Gates is thinking of rquesting more troops for Afghanistan according to NYT although it would only be a few thousand. More troops are certainly needed and have been requested but one battalion  already in Afghanistan is being sent to Iraq...

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has already pushed for more troops.

Eikenberry said Tuesday he has asked the Pentagon to order a battalion of the 10th Mountain Division to remain in Afghanistan until the end of the year rather than leave this spring. The unit already is scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this year -- an example of how thinly stretched the military has become.

It was not clear how many other troops have been requested for Afghanistan.

I came across the blog of photojournalist Bill Putnam. He has a post with 3 videos of what is happening in Afghanistan that were shot by photojournalist Scott Kesterson. They are incredible (especially the last) and show the fierce fighting going on in the other war.
Just. Go. Watch. One of These Videos

This Just In: We Screwed Up Afghanistan, Too

From the Trib:

Violence against women increased in every province of Afghanistan last year, according to Women's Affairs Ministry statistics. Those numbers include self-immolations, a relatively new and disturbing trend in Afghanistan in which women set themselves on fire.

The desperation that leads to such acts has been attributed to domestic violence and forced marriages. At least 60 percent of Afghan women are in forced marriages, and 57 percent marry before they reach age 16, according to a report by the international rights group Womankind Worldwide.

Not for nothing, but this might be something to ask Laura Bush about during her next "My husband is attractive and powerful and an adequate lover" press conference.

A.