Lindsey Graham implies Obama is against the troops if reinforcements for Afghanistan are not sent. Where has Graham been?
By John Amato Sunday Oct 04, 2009 12:00pm
Lindsey Graham uses the news that eight American troops were just killed by the Taliban in a remote outpost to try and make it seem like President Obama doesn't support the troops if he doesn't bow down to Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan on FOX News Sunday.
GRAHAM: Well, the one thing I can tell you for sure, without reinforcing our troops, you’re going to hear more of what happened today. General McChrystal said without reinforcements we cannot change the momentum that the Taliban has achieved, and the insurgency cannot be defeated in a year if something doesn’t change.
We had this very dilemma in Iraq. We didn’t have enough troops. Everybody thought Maliki was a sectarian prime minister. The country wasn’t governing itself. The security environment became terrible.
The one thing I can tell you, if we don’t add more troops, you’re going to see more of what happened yesterday. The security situation’s going to get worse. And any hope of better governance is lost, and the Taliban will re-emerge.
If you send troops in, we’ll have a second chance at governance. You need to put Karzai’s feet to the fire, or the next government’s feet to the fire, to do a better job. But it’s impossible to bring about better governance without security.
American troops have been getting killed in Afghanistan for a long time and Graham never made that claim before. Are their lives any less meaningful before McChrystal's request? And the troops were stationed in a position that would not be occupied by McChrystal's plan so Goober Graham is wrong on that front too if I understand the strategy correctly.
Eight U.S. troops died in tribal militia attacks on two remote American outposts in eastern Afghanistan Saturday, military officials said.
The attacks, which also killed two Afghan security officers, were the deadliest in months for American troops, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The coordinated attacks by tribal militia occurred in the Nuristan province, along the Pakistan border, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said in a statement.
The tribal fighters mounted the attacks from a mosque and a village in the Kamdish district in the eastern part of the province, and American forces "effectively repelled the attack and inflicted heavy enemy casualties," the U.S .military said.
U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has outlined a new strategy to close down many of the remote outposts like those that came under attack.
And you'll never hear a FOX host or a republican talk about Iraq with any real honesty. A major reason why the violence went down in Iraq was because we paid off a whole lot of Sunni leaders with big bucks so they would stop the violence.
Now we put up a 100,000 Sunni militia on the American payroll, people who used to be shooting at the United States who are now on our payroll.
A google search helps me find this from a blog called Political Impressions:
In an April 2008 report, The Christian Science Monitor stated,
He (Abu Abdullah of the Islamic Army of Iraq) also maintains that while the US has succeeded in driving a wedge between AQI (Al Qaeda in Iraq) and Sunnis in Anbar Province, many of the tribesmen there who are now on the American payroll are still aiding IAI and other insurgent groups.
Members of these US-backed militias now number almost 91,000 and are paid a total of $16 million a month in salaries by the US. They are often lauded by President Bush in his speeches on Iraq.
Who do we pay in Afghanistan? Can the Taliban be bribed in different regions? I don't think so. The two countries are completely different in every way and so the comparisons of a surge between the two are absurd.
Don't forget abput Blue America's Afghanistn action called "No Means No!"
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The President hasn't announced any Stop-Gap Loss Policy yet, has he?
Was Lindsey Graham and the other republicans when Bush LEFT Afghanistan to wage and illegal war on Iraq for their oil..
What happen to these republicans when their policies were against improving their health coverage.
What happen to Graham and republicans when Bush's friends and family were receiving the no-bid contracts and failing to give them the best of equipment we have.
What happen to these republicans when Halliburton was killing our soldiers with their shower electrocutions and given them sewer water to wash , cook and bathe in.
Republicans love war it is one of the largest money makers for the friends and family there is...
We have no democrats Emanuel and others in the democratic party have been recruiting , funding and supporting republicans and candidates with republican values on the democratic ticket...
It is time to wake up and smell the BS they are throwing at us daily..
................Rahmie is a PUKIE agent sent in to take over the Democratic 'brand' since the PUKIES have always been aware that supporting the radical Fundi's, and ramping up the hate rhetoric will eventually get old, recognized, invalidated, ..............having studied Goebels playbook studiously, and seriously, they would need to 're-brand' themselves to distance themselves from the mess they created to profit from.
Odd that nobody is the american media discusses the Russian occupation -and Russian defeat in Afganistan- the US seems to be repeating the Russian no win scenarios...
... we should also learn from Darius the Great, Alexander the Great, Timur, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Timur, the British Empire, etc, etc, etc.
The Russians defeat what not the first and only one involving an empire trying to take over Afghanistan.
Timur Lenk? He conquered Afghanistan. His descendants were dislodged by other descendants of Genghis Khan, 100 years after Timur's death.
And Alexander conquered the area, too, though the Seleucids had to cede some territory in the southeast to the Mauryans...Then there was the Graeco-Bactrian state...But, yeah, from the 19th Century on, there are lessons to be learned.
Friggin' neo cons are buggin me so much today, this clip of Glenn Beck sums them all up.
beck says is of any importance to me!
Aw. Its just a 45 second clip. We haven't had a Beck story on here in over 12 hours.
And I worked so hard on it....
Thanks, curtiligus, it made my morning. Nice to know his dirtbag status is recognized even by Glenda hisself.
Republicans argue we need to keep fighting in Iraq and afganistan until we win- which they asseert will be when we 'kill all the terrorists'. There will ALWAYS be terrorists. So at what point will these wars end?
...reaches higher than the one we got for our efforts in Viet Nam?
Even then I wouldn't count on it, so long as the "defense" contractors are still making a tidy profit...
And how much MONEY does the "honorable" Mr. Graham take fro DEFENSE CONTRACTORS every year to finance his campaigns for re-election?
I suppose that mean graham is on the troops
Preferably a 69.
No Lindsey, the biggest strategic blunder post 9/11 was the Bush/Cheney foray into Iraq
is a big blunder.
The only thing lindsey proves is that condoms don't always work.
And that there's even someone more annoying than Lohan.
Try the White Horse in Oakland.
The Pink Fairy Motel in Cherokee, S.C., maybe?
Buying rugs in the Baghdad market, waiting to go to Iran and Afghanistan to buy more.
Hmmm.... There are much fewer Taliban and they are a lot poorer.
as socialism? If not, why not pay off some of the young thugs in American communities that keep killing each other.
If you think that is the same as socialism then you know nothing of the subject at all.
Buying off the natives is a time honored tradition for empires throughout history. Ever wonder how the Sunni minority in Iraq came to power? (See Bell, Gertrude.)
When we can just "rely" on our DRONES and our EXCELLENT INTELL:
http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/23/at-least-6...
Pfffftttt!!!!!!
if we do or don't send in more troops is more incidents like what happened. The only way to prevent more incidents is to withdraw all the troops and that still may be at the expense of the Afghani people. It's a no win argument no matter which side you take.
it's so difficult for Graham to know what is really going on when he is so deep in that closet..........:)
Most GLBT I know are usually smart and half way good lookin . . .
Why would anybody listen to (or take seriously) the politicians/pundits/people who have been wrong about everything for the last few decades?
Makes zero sense to me.
We are still trying to get our butts out of Iraq after 6 years, tens of thousands of dead and wounded Americans, and 100s of billions spent, which has a population of nearly 30 million (no thanks to us). Now after 9 unsuccessful years we are talking about tripling up in Afghanistan with a population of about 33 million which will suck up God knows how many American lives, $s, and more years of war. Let's see that is roughly 63 million still really pissed off folks who wish they had never met us and wish we were gone. Now we want to take on roughly 70 Million Iranians and all the blood and treasure that will cost (hello Roman Empire, how did that all work out for you?). Let's see we are up to 180 million or so really pissed of people who want us out of their lives.
With Pakistan now hosting UBL (thanks to us)and in danger of destablizing with over 180 million souls of it's own and probably 100 nukes give or take it is just a matter of time I suppose before we have try to run their country for them whether they like it or not (my bet is the latter).
Sounds like our plan is to double our enemies every few years. Let's project that out for a few decades....along with our own crumbling country's economic growth. It doesn't compute folks! And I am not considering the people our military will kill in this craziness.
Iran...another step on the way to our own destruction!
End the 'wars' immediately.
Remove the troops, cut the obscenely bloated '
Defense'War Profiteers Budget by 90%.Live within our means at peace.
At home.
Who was it that kept on saying, "Let's end the mindset that got us into war in the first place"?
Why can't we just become one big happy Sweden?
Why do we have to constantly try to foist "democracy" (just like we have!!!!) on other countries?
Who died and made us King Of Earth?
We're just asking for more "blowback".
Plus as others have mentioned, we're BROKE!!!!
Get ready for the "bank holidays" in the next six weeks folks.
Sooner or later the American people are going to voice the fact that they've had their fill of all this militaristic B.S.
Remember whan Graham and all those other Republican assholes harped on and on about "supporting the Commander-in-Chief"....yeah, right..that wore off quick.
I hope and pray that Obama is not going to take ANYTHING these psychotic blowhards say or suggest.
.....still true, always will be.
what happened to him.
Buffalo soldier :P
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM ](8:24)
There should be a "war on" GOP stoopidity!
Send in some militant educators to kick some butt!
I bet you & all the American people would have gone nuts. The 120 died yesterday, but they were killed by the American political system-The one you're in Senator. They died because they lacked health care. It's going to get much worse as the insurance & pharma owned lackies pass a rotten to the core give-away bill to them called "Health Insurance Reform". Greed is killing our democracy faster than any terrorist group could have.
Where was he when Bush had the Taliban on the run, and then turned his back and headed for Iraq. Didn't hear a word out of this clown. Now he wants to man-up?
...why should we continue to waste our American blood and treasure; after all, what's the worst that could happen?
the america way: pay to play
we are a war mongering nation at worst
at best we are an imperialist nation
we will leave in disgrace as the russians did
but we will put a pretty face on it like we did in nam
what we sow we reap
it is harvest time in america
just viewed moore's film few there most americans watching other movies ie action movies
we are not victims of capitalism we are too busy with our materialism
we have surrended to capitalism
give the capitalists credit they are smarter than the have nots. much smarter.
"Never heard of the Vietnamese attacking the WTC or the Pentagon, however the people that we are fighting in Afghanistan did that in 2001 and will do so again if they get an opportunity."
[Too retarded to even respond to at this late date, eight years on]
"The country is nominally led by President Hamid Karzai, but the resurgent Taliban controls important areas. Complicating the situation is the high level of corruption fueled by cash from the illicit opium trade."
[The countryside is 'led by Karzai' how!? Karzai's is a BILLION dollar a year technocracy stuck like a tick on the ear of Kabul. There are no National Government reconstruction programs (~$500M since day dot according to the Afghan Finance Minister and STILL no GWOT2 audit!), and there is no (not yet anyway) National income tax, so the only impact Karzai has is his Family Mafia. Complicating the situation is massive corruption, **unreported in its extent**, $227 BILLION unaccounted for, $6.6 BILLION in Pakistan according to our own generals gone missing, it's our GWOT2 tax bleed fueling the Karzai Mafia, it's not the Taliban controlling Kandahar, it's Ahmed Karzai and his mafia goons, shaking every business down for 25% skim off, and using Taliban as his goons and opium collection squads]
"The Afghanistan election commission says that Karzai is ahead with some 54% of the vote, a majority that would avoid a runoff election against Abdullah."
[The UN Election Commission said there was massive fraud by Karzai, or they did say that, until G-20 when all their ministers received their baaksheesh from the Obama Administration, then Special Envoy Peter Galbraith got sacked by UN SecGen Banki-moon because he refused to let the issue die, even though SecState Clinton wants us all to 'just move forward with the election 'victory'. We need a 'legitimate State' in SA Holbrooke's own words because the US:UK are right now privately auctioning off $100Bs of Afghan natural resources and you can read of this **** war crime **** here: ]
http://www.4shared.com/file/135944056/d6d0ad3...
"They have to shut down phones home so that God forbid no family would find out they lost a loved one through a grapevine."
[That's right, DoD has shut down the phones from Afghanistan, and blocked the social e-mail networks so our troops have no access to the news, and no means of reaching their families. More than that, Karzai has privately announced to US:ISAF procurement that there is now only one 'State approved' government media monopoly, and replaced US:ISAF procurement staff are canceling Afghan national media and printing contracts, rewriting them for a front company run by Qayoom Karzai, who lives in Virginia and is a CIA:ISI envoy. That's your blood and treasure in action, for communications blockout, for ballot stuffing look the other way, for State media monopoly ... and how is that different from Iran!?]
After seeing over 50,000 of my comrades killed in a useless war in Vietnam, I say it's time to put an end to the Afghanistan debacle.
So what was the point in Vietnam? We blew up hundreds of thousands of civilians, devasted the country and we ended up losing. The argument of the Commies overrunning the rest of Southeast Asia apparently was bunk, because, now we're now doing business with Vietnam and their two main suppliers, Russia and Red China.
To use the words of Don Rickles character in "Kelly's Heroes-"Let's make a deal." Get the hell out of Afghanistan, let 'em kill each other off over there, and make a deal with whoever's left. It may be cynical, but NOT wasting American lives over a failed country makes more sense to me.
Reslugs hate our troops and could care less about how many more will die with sending more.
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