Replies to post #99526 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Obama following Bush's foreign policy?.. no ..

General Stanley McChrystal Doing Al Jazeera
Wednesday, Dec 09 2009 .. excerpt ..

While I disagree pretty substantially with McChrystal's -- and now President Obama's -- prescriptions for
the Afghanistan quagmire, I think that it's excellent that he's reaching out broadly to varied audiences.

Next time he puts a war plan together for Afghanistan though, he should include people less surge-happy than Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, who were the primary sculptors of the Iraq surge. If he wanted some tilting his direction, then the general should consider my colleagues Steve Coll, author of the book on the subject -- Ghost Wars, or al Qaeda-tracking Peter Bergen. For those on the skeptic side, I am sure that Flynt Leverett, Andrew Bacevich, Paul Pillar, Stephen Walt, or I would be happy to give him some straight, contrarian counsel.

Bravo to General McChrystal though for reaching out to Al Jazeera.

This shows a substantial shift in the Obama administration's direction in dealing with Arab media. .. [...]

Very glad we are getting passed the era of not talking to the part of the world we are spending a lot of time messing with.

-- Steve Clemons .. http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/12/general_stanley/

Aside .. excerpt ..

Some in the American Left are anticipating that they will be disappointed as quickly as I was after Brandt’s re-election in 1972. They are already grumbling: that he has appointed conservatives to key positions, and that he has been toning down his reformist rhetoric. I am willing to put my trust in the next American president. While I am as anxious for substantial change as many of those now voicing or anticipating their disappointment, I believe the capacity to effect far-reaching change is also dependent on a policy maker’s character, intellect and instincts. The author of Dreams from my Father strikes me as somebody with the right character, intellect and instincts. He may just be able to pull it off.•

Klaus Neumann works at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University of Technology
http://inside.org.au/obama-soliloquy/

[fuagf]

Feingold amendment requesting a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan voted down 18-80.
Zaid Jiliani .. may 27 2010

This morning, the Senate debated Sen. Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) amendment to the war supplemental bill, which called on President Obama to provide a flexible timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan to Congress. Arguing for the amendment on the floor, Feingold complained that he is “disppointed that” Congress is passing a bill “providing tens of billions of dollars to keep this war going with so little public debate about whether this approach makes any sense.” After Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) objected to the Feingold amendment, arguing that it sends the wrong message to the region, Feingold retorted, “The Senator suggests that somehow this sends the wrong message to the region. The real wrong message is that we intend to be there forever”:

..... FEINGOLD: In light of our deficit and domestic needs and in light of rising casualty rates in Afghanistan and in light of the growing Al Qaeda threat around the world, an expensive troop-intensive nation-building campaign just doesn’t add up for me. We should be focusing on Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and other terrorist safe havens. Frankly I am disappointed that we are about to pass a bill providing tens of billions of dollars to keep this war going with so little public debate about whether this approach makes any sense.

..... LEVIN: If we adopt the Feingold amendment, Mrs. Madame president, we’ll be sending a…message to the government and people of Afghanistan. It would reinforce the fear, if we adopt this amendment, already a deep seated fear in Afghanistan, that the United States will abandon the region. That is a message that we can ill afford to send regarding the future stability of Afghanistan, and it is a particularly unwise message to send while our forces are still deploying to Afghanistan.

..... FEINGOLD: The Senator suggests that somehow this sends the wrong
message to the region. The real wrong message is that we intend to be there forever.

Watch it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u6ax_vPUs8

Following the debate, the Feingold amendment was voted down 18-80. See the roll call vote here. This past Tuesday, the
Defense Department released troop numbers that reveal there are now more U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan than Iraq.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/27/feingold-afghanistan-voted-down/