Some excerpts from this insightful interview with one of America’s more lucid scholars on the subject…

I would argue that today President Obama has been similarly ill-served by equally unimaginative advisers: people like National Security Advisor James Jones, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all of whom I think adhere to an existing consensus with regard to national security policy, a consensus that was affirmed and strengthened as a consequence of the 9/11 attacks and which to the present moment, at least within Washington, among our leading politicians, has not been questioned despite the failures of the past eight or so years. And so when President Obama gets together with his equivalent of McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara, he gets presented with a range of options that basically say, Mr. President, you can do anything you want to do, here’s your choices: 10,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000, or 40,000. They are unable to conceive of a basis for national security policy that does not involve the increased commitment of American military resources.

And amen that somebody is finally talking about this…

Well we now have a pretty well established tradition in this country and I regret this tradition deeply, a tradition of somebody of a president wishing to be seen as a commander-in-chief using American soldiers as props. I think it may have well been Ronald Reagan and was the first to initiate this practice. Every president since Ronald Reagan, regardless of party, has adhered to this practice. President Obama did last night. I think it’s showing disrespect to American soldiers to use them for political purposes and I wish that the politicians or the political advisors who arrange the sort of events would cease to do that.

Full interview text & video Here

Excellent analysis here from William Astore, former educator at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, as well as Tom Englehardt of TomDispatch.com.

Here’s the thing: This may be our next “Vietnam moment,” but Afghanistan is no Vietnam: there are no major enemy powers like the Soviet Union and China lurking in the background; no organized enemy state with a powerful army like North Vietnam supporting the insurgents; no well organized, unified national liberation movement like the Vietcong, and that’s just a beginning. Almost everywhere, in fact, the Vietnam analogy breaks down — almost everywhere, that is, except when it comes to us. Because we never managed to leave Vietnam behind, even when we were proclaiming that we had kicked that “syndrome,” it turns out that we’re still there. Our military leaders, for instance, only recently dusted off the old Vietnam-era counterinsurgency doctrine that once ended in catastrophe, shined it up, and are now presenting it as an ingenious new solution to war-fighting. Let’s face it: everything about American thinking still stinks of the Vietnamese debacle, including the inability of our leaders to listen to a genuinely wide range of options.

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It’s early in 1965, and President Lyndon B. Johnson faces a critical decision. Should he escalate in Vietnam? Should he say “yes” to the request from U.S. commanders for more troops? Or should he change strategy, downsize the American commitment, even withdraw completely, a decision that would help him focus on his top domestic priority, “The Great Society” he hopes to build?

We all know what happened. LBJ listened to the generals and foreign policy experts and escalated, with tragic consequences for the United States and calamitous results for the Vietnamese people on the receiving end of American firepower. Drawn deeper and deeper into Vietnam, LBJ would soon lose his way and eventually his will, refusing to run for reelection in 1968.

President Obama now stands at the edge of a similar precipice. Should he acquiesce to General Stanley A. McChrystal’s call for 40,000 to 60,000 or more U.S. troops for Afghanistan? Or should he pursue a new strategy, downsizing our commitment, even withdrawing completely, a decision that would help him focus on national health care, among his other top domestic priorities?

The die, I fear, is cast. In his “war of necessity,” Obama has evidently already ruled out even considering a “reduction” option , no less a withdrawal one, and will likely settle on an “escalate lite” program involving more troops (though not as many as McChrystal has urged), more American trainers for the Afghan army, and even a further escalation of the drone war over the Pakistani borderlands and new special operations actions.

By failing his first big test as commander-in-chief this way, Obama will likely ensure himself a one-term presidency, and someday be seen as a man like LBJ whose biggest dreams broke upon the shoals of an unwinnable war.

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As Obama’s military experts wield their battlefield metrics and call for more force (to be used, of course, with ever greater precision and dexterity), I think Mailer might have replied: We think the only thing they understand is force. What if the only thing we understand is force?

Mailer, I have no doubt, would have had the courage to be seen as “weak” on defense, because he would have known that Americans had no dog in this particular fight. I think he would intuitively have recognized the wisdom of the great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who wrote more than 2,000 years ago in The Art of War that “to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” Our generals, by way of contrast, seem to want to fight those 100 battles with little hope of actually subduing the enemy.

Read The Full Text of this excellent essay

A must read/hear interview with conservative historian Andrew Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power”, regarding what he considers the potentially tragic implications of the policies of the Obama administration in Afghanistan and the intensifying use of air power in the region.

Less than a week after US air strikes killed over a hundred Afghan civilians, President Obama’s top security adviser, General James Jones, said Sunday that the US will continue its strikes in Afghanistan, despite sharp criticism about rising civilian casualties from Afghan President Hamid Karzai. We speak to Boston University professor and retired military colonel Andrew Bacevich about why Obama’s plans in Afghanistan and Pakistan are counterproductive.

Read, Listen or Watch the interview Here

UnCommon Sense TV - “The War In Iraq” A look at the current state of our armed services and the toll that is being taken on our servicemen and women as deployment obligations increase due to the deepening hostilities in Iraq and the ever-widening ‘war on terror’. What impact does all of this have on future military readiness and our national security? What is the role of civilian ‘contractors’ in the military today? Will there be a resumption of the military draft? What is happening to veterans benefits and why are they being cut? Joining the discussion is Jeff Wellbaum, U.S. Army veteran of the war in Iraq who served as an Army Intelligence Analyst with the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

Glenn Greenwald posted this report by Bill Moyers regarding the situation in Gaza. Moyers is, once again, one of the few voices in the ‘mainstream media’ working on the national stage to ask some real questions and provide the kind of insight few others seem willing or able to do, unfortunately.

Well worth checking out for anyone aware and interested in this humanitarian disaster and the attempts to obscure or ignore the political responsibility for it.

Watch The Video

War, Economy Can’t Be Decoupled
By Rep. Ron Paul

What is the importance of the war in Iraq relative to other current issues? This is a question I am often asked, especially as Americans continue to become increasingly aware that something is very wrong with the economy. The difficulty with the way the question is often asked relates to the perception that we are somehow able to divide such issues, or to isolate the cost of war into arbitrarily defined areas such as national security or international relations. War is an all-encompassing governmental activity. The impact of war on our ability to defend ourselves from future attack, and upon America’s standing in the world, is only a mere fraction of the total overall effect that war has on our nation and the policies of its government.

The cost of this particular war is enormous, and therefore it’s of great importance. There is no single issue that is more important at this particular time. The war has, of course, made us less safe as a nation and damaged our credibility with allies and hostile nations alike. Moreover, years of growing deficits have been spurred on by the high price tag of war, and the decision to pay that price primarily by supplemental spending rather than traditional “on-budget” accounting.

War takes what would otherwise be productive economic capacity and transfers both that capacity and the wealth it would generate in normal, peaceful times into far less economically viable activities. It also impacts budget priorities in ways that are detrimental to our nation. I have often pointed to the fact that we are building bridges in Iraq while they are collapsing in the United States .

All war, but most particularly war funded by monetary inflation, bleeds a country in multiple ways. Obviously, many of the young people who are in the military literally give their blood, and sometimes their lives, fighting in wars of this type. Meanwhile, those who do not fight the war, but fund it, are forced to pay both the immediate costs, as well as seeing their long-term purchasing power erode, as the twin pillars of debt and inflation are foisted upon the backs of current taxpayers and future generations. Neither conspiracy nor coincidence explains steep increases in the price of gas as the war drags on. No, this is simply a reality of the inflationary policies that, among other things, make this war possible.

As people are continually asked to choose whether our nation’s teetering economy or the failed foreign policy of the past several decades is more important as we look forward, it is well for those of us who understand that these two issues are closely linked to continue to explain this fact to our fellow citizens. To fix the problem requires a proper diagnosis.

Tom Engelhardt presents this clear and lucid piece revealing all the hocus-pocus surrounding the administration’s specious claims about the efficacy of their ’surge’ and the corporate media’s complicity in propagating them. Another excellent and sobering work from Engelhardt.

Think of the top officials of the Bush administration as magicians when it comes to Iraq. Their top hats and tails may be worn and their act fraying, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Their latest “abracadabra,” the President’s “surge strategy” of 2007, has still worked like a charm. They waved their magic wands, paid off and armed a bunch of former Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists (about 80,000 “concerned citizens,” as the President likes to call them), and magically lowered “violence” in Iraq. Even more miraculously, they made a country that they had already turned into a cesspool and a slagheap — its capital now has a “lake” of sewage so large that it can be viewed “as a big black spot on Google Earth” — almost entirely disappear from view in the U.S.

Of course, what they needed to be effective was that classic adjunct to any magician’s act, the perfect assistant. This has been a role long held, and still played with mysterious willingness, by the mainstream media.”

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The administration that rashly invaded Iraq, used it as a laboratory for any cockamamie scheme that came to mind, and threw money away profligately in one of the more flagrantly corrupt enterprises in recent history, now wants us to believe that future planning for draw-downs or withdrawals must be based on the need to preserve whatever we brought — and are still bringing — into the country.

In the land the Bush administration “liberated,” violence remains at a staggering daily level ; electricity is a luxury ; the national medical-care system has been largely destroyed ; perhaps 4.5 million Iraqis have either fled the country or become internally displaced persons; approximately 70% lack access to clean water; and 4 million, according to the UN , don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Yet, even with such a record before us, the logic of the moment in Washington and in the media remains clear: The last thing we should be doing is getting out of the country with any alacrity. After all, if we do, a disaster, a bloodbath, even genocide might happen.

Put another way, the most self-interested party in the “withdrawal” debate continues to set the terms of that debate. Imagine if, in football, the quarterback calling plays for his team also had the power to assess penalties, declare first downs, and decide whether a ball was caught in or out of bounds.

Read the complete essay Making Iraq Disappear: The Million-Year War

This video pretty much sums it up. So do you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth?

if you have a few more moments and feeling like weighing in on this situation, you can sign this petition to Congress to defund the Iraq War and to re-fund human needs at home and in Iraq.

An American veteran of Iraq takes issue with Mike Huckabee’s declarations about how the war in Iraq must be continued ‘for’ the troops’ ‘honor’. As detailed by this former combat soldier, there is no ‘honor’ regarding the situation there. For one, this combat veteran explains how he thought we were fighting for ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, not honor. He also goes on to point out that regardless of this discrepancy, this war has nothing to do with ‘honor’ or ‘freedom’ or any some such, but instead is predominantly about economic profiteering multinational corporations such as KBR and geopolitical strategy for enabling a fatally delusional Neo-Con wet dream of American empire.

Watch The Video

Additionally, Huckabee’s comments are dangerous on many levels, but most notably to me is his insistence that “United We Stand” in America means we must unite behind The Leader and national policy, no matter how criminally misguided and dangerous it is. To Huckabee, to be an American in the 21st Century is no different than the responsibilities of being an Italian in the 30’s or a German in the early 40’s. Pretty disturbing stuff, especially the hearty applause he receives for making such comments by all the ‘Good Germans’ who seem to make up the membership of the modern GOP.

Update: It seems the video file has been pulled. Hopefully the Iraq veteran who originally posted it will be able to re-post it or update it.

The Detroit Metro Times’ Curt Guyette and W. Kim Heron ask arms expert Scott Ritter why he is so sure the US plans to attack Iran. This interview is highly enlightening and informative, and a must-read for people who care about the future potentiality of another war-of-choice by the current American regime.

John H. Richardson’s “The Secret History of the Impending War With Iran That the White House Doesn’t Want You to Know” in the November issue of Esquire magazine is particularly eye-opening. Richardson, using two former high-ranking Middle East experts who worked for the White House as his primary sources, warns that the Bush administration is “headed straight for war with Iran” and that “it had been set on this course for years.”

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First of all you have to note, from the public side, that very few Americans actually function as citizens anymore. What I mean by that are people who invest themselves in this country, people who care, who give a damn. Americans are primarily consumers today, and so long as they continue to wrap themselves in the cocoon of comfort, and the system keeps them walking down a road to the perceived path of prosperity, they don’t want to rock the boat. If it doesn’t have a direct impact on their day-to-day existence, they simply don’t care.

There’s a minority of people who do, but the majority of Americans don’t. And if the people don’t care — and remember, the people are the constituents — if the constituents don’t care, then those they elect to higher office won’t feel the pressure to change.

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It’s not just supporting Israel. It’s not just taking down Saddam. It’s about geopolitics. It’s about looking down the road toward China and India, the world’s two largest developing economies, especially the Chinese, and the absolute fear that this resurgent Chinese economy brings in the hearts of American industrialists and the need to dictate the pace of Chinese economic development by controlling their access to energy. And controlling central Asian and Middle East energy areas is key in the strategic thinking of the Bush administration.

So, there’s a lot of complexity at play here. But you say why do they want to do this? It’s about as Condoleezza Rice continuously says before the U.S. Congress: It’s about regional transformation, inclusive of regime change. It turns the Middle East into a sphere of interest that we have tremendous control over. That’s what’s behind all this.

Note: This interview was done before the release of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that states there is no evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program underway.

Read The Interview