Obama: War President?!

Last night after the Presidents speech at West Point, and since, everyone is attempting to break it down, praise it, or totally attack the policy of another escalation of troops into an already long running occupation of the country of Afghanistan. This occupation stopped being anything about the attacks on this country on Sept 11, 2001 as soon as the first drumbeat towards invasion and then long occupation of an innocent country and people Iraq. Afghanistan stagnated into an occupation and insurgent war of continuing death and destruction to all involved but especially to the greater innocent population of Afghanistan now into it's ninth year!

I watched two reports, this morning on the Rachel Maddow show, which touch well on what I'd like to say, that gives us cuts of speeches made by then President bush about Afghanistan, in comparing what President Obama laid out last night on the current Escalation {Not surge} of military personnel into the long occupation of Afghanistan, and his vision called "The Bush Doctrine" and what was left to this Present Administration and Country by Them. And this is just about the two present occupations, not the economy, the deficit which is tied in by the costs of both occupations off the books plus, the possible rampant corruption from the incompetent policies and the no bid contracts to War profiteers, and much more!

We now know, coming out daily, that the bush admin, prior to 9/11 and then within hours of the destruction and deaths of 9/11 and going forward, they were starting to focus more on Iraq and Regime Change there than on Afghanistan, al Qaeda and bin Laden. How do we know that, besides what had already surfaced these years, through the British Iraq War Inquiry with pieces of information coming daily since last week. There's a day off from testimony today but more coming from the Inquiry again tomorrow when British Military and MoD personal testify! What I hope is that there are some questions as to what these military and MoD personal might have also been discussing with their American military and DoD counterparts as to what was already going on the Afghanistan invasion and beginning occupation by U.S. forces, British forces joined with others through the United Nations.

The Bush Doctrine


Rachel next discusses the concept of "Counter Insurgency" with Lt Col. John Nagl an architect of the current counter Insurgency concept, supposedly updating what was left from our Vietnam occupation debacle.

I would hope that in McCrystal's wants, and now President Obama's CiC policy, they understand that the Taliban, probably al Qaeda {the ghost enemy meme which is anyone we label as a member of or supporter that we can't pigeon hole anywhere else in our Fear/War Speak just as we use Terrorists while waging Terror}, and the others of another Mujahadeen are also going to be building up forces from around the regions, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan but possibly the destroyed Iraq, just as they built up against the Soviets, only now they're really pissed off as to the damage and deaths caused in the region, not just Afghanistan, these past years! The Insurgent forces, people of the country and region already did so after the previous buildup of troops only months ago. We've seen the results in the rising number of military personal killed and maimed these last couple of months and the brazen attacks on coalition forces outposts around Afghanistan.

CounterInsurgency in Afghanistan


Lets look at "Counter Insurgency" which covers many aspects after an invasion and starting occupation of a Country invaded:

Counter-insurgency is common during occupation and armed rebellion.

One extremely important aspect of any try at success in an Insurgent War, the fighting back by the invaded and occupied as to the occupying forces, is the winning of the Hearts and Minds of the population by the occupying forces. You already go in at an extreme negative as soon as the bombs start dropping, the artillery and missiles start flying and destroying and the bullets start flying and killing. They are killing and maiming more of the innocent population then any insurgent push back causing many of the survivors of to join or support the insurgency, for many obvious reasons.

Saying the above there was a point of a very possible chance of success in our invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, and the "Counter Insurgency" ideals. The World watched what happened that day, they joined in our sorrow and rage and the evidence seemingly showed who was responsible. We and they knew where those who planned and came out of to implement these attacks came from, Afghanistan militant camps, allowed to function in a country ruled by a rogue government few in the world recognized and many within wanted gone.

That chance quickly dissolved as the drums of another invasion, war and then occupation started beating towards the innocent people of Iraq and we're still there as well.

Once the Taliban regime was toppled and they and the ghost enemy al Qaeda were put on the run, instead of boxing them in, as they ran across the border into Pakistan, and with the help of the then Pakistan regime and the regions other countries possible help, and bringing in what had been promised the rebuilding monies and the NGO's needed to help the Afghans rebuild after years of destructive war with the Soviets and then the rule under the Taliban, we allowed the occupation to basically stagnate into ongoing killing, maiming and destruction in many area's of the country for the next eight years and still ongoing, now ramping up with more occupation forces! The line was crossed way back and any chance has been lost as to "Hearts and Minds" of those who call Afghanistan home. Too many deaths, too many maimed, too much destruction, too many refugee's in country and outside of it's borders now after this almost decade of War!

What we, the arrogant, apathetic, military and once economic power United States, as well as other so called developed nations, are asking the Afghan people as well as the Iraqi people and many in Pakistan is to forget the terror and destruction wrought on them over many years of invading and then occupying their countries, just forget and accept what we are now trying to do, whatever that may be, and become our friends!

Would You!

No You Wouldn't, as we've watched this Country, since 9/11, deteriorate into one of hate speak towards each, acts of violence on each other with twisted political and religious ideologies at the base of, and extreme racism coming out once again! As well as being witness to these long occupations, the numbers rising of the soldiers we've sent being killed and maimed, the civilians of these occupied countries fleeing into refugee status as well as killed and maimed in ever growing numbers, we've been witness to the rising hatreds, fear and want for total destruction of those 'over there so we don't have them here' and the hatreds towards each other fed on by the few who manage to jump on those fears with a mike in their hands or ability to use extremism on our airways, in public gatherings as well as the halls of our government!

We, as Americans, can get extremely Mad and keep that feeling growing into Hatreds of others, not just those who are guilty but any who come from the same area's of the planet or believe in ideologies or religions many don't accept and even live amoug us.

But let those we've sent our military forces in to occupy get Mad and start Hating us and that's Unacceptable!

The following is used as a signature by a brother veteran:
Blood cannot wash away blood. Hate cannot wash away hate. War cannot wash away war. ( an Afghan Proverb )

Families Send Basics To Marines In Afghanistan

For Marines serving in Afghanistan, mail call can be a little bit like Christmas in July. A package from home can supply everything from basic needs to small luxuries.

snip

At a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in North Carolina, customers have been donating goods for Marines deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment out of nearby Camp Lejeune.

Assistant Manager Rosa Hamilton says some of the items catch shoppers off guard. "They were like, 'Clothes pins, huh? I never would have thought about that.' And we're like, 'Well, they don't have anywhere to hang their clothes,' " she says...........Rest Here

Or bring up the NPR Player with this link amd listen to the report

Listening to this report, or reading.......

But already known by many, it is frankly more then criminal the contrast between Afghanistan and Iraq. We went into Afghanistan to supposedly get the leaders of those who carried out 9/11 with promises of the sun and the moon on reconstruction, once again like after we supported the Mujahadeen against the Soviets but never kept those promises, for the Afghans after we rid them of the Taliban government.

"A lot of people think that Afghanistan is like Iraq right now, and it's not. They're two totally different things. Iraq is more set up with everything that the guys need," she says. "Afghanistan — they went in with nothing."

We quickly left and invaded Iraq taking our Military, everyone we could payoff to join us and all those promises, once again, of rebuilding monies. Dumping Billions, loosing same as well, in building bases, a huge Embassy, and in doing so much of that work was shoddy and unrecorded in a paper trail, paying off once insurgents so they wouldn't fight us, and on and on and on. And now we're back in Afghanistan, not yet leaving Iraq, trying to once again win 'Hearts and Minds!'.

Why Iraq, one reason it is centrally located not only for the oil in that region but the rivers, water, as well! The Neo-Cons, and their War Profitteers, wanted, and still want, the control over that region that occupying Iraq would give them, Afghanistan is none of that!!

And much of those billions are going to private contractors apparently because our leaders feel the professional military can't carry out their failed policy decisions alone, or their supporters need the War Profits of Blood Money:

Unfit translators struggling in Afghanistan

U.S. troops say companies that recruit military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are unprepared to serve in combat, even as more are needed...........

Wartime Contracting...

Wartime contracting commission heads back to Iraq

A team investigating wartime contracting abuses has begun a 10-day trip to Kuwait and Iraq to examine the Defense Department's plans for transferring or disposing of $3 billion worth of in-theater property and equipment.

As U.S. troops begin to withdraw from Iraq, members of the congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting want to know the Pentagon's plan for removing more than 615,000 items of contractor-acquired, government-owned property from American bases in Iraq.......

The report said that as a result of poor documentation in the early days of Iraq operations and a shortage of property management officers, base commanders cannot account for every piece of property, document its ownership or confirm that it has been maintained properly......Rest Here

Greg Mortenson: Three Cups of Tea

Targeted by the Taliban, the 'Three Cups of Tea' Author Never Gave Up on His Peacebuilding Efforts

The ABC Video Report

His Book: Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (Paperback)

How Peace Is Won!! The Hearts and Minds Understand, That's Universal!!

"Hearts and Minds"

WE WANTED TO LET EVERYONE KNOW THIS FILM HAS BEEN REMASTERED AND
DIGITALLY ENHANCED AND IS BEING RELEASED IN NYC ON:

OPENS MARCH 20TH @ CINEMA VILLAGE, NEW YORK CITY

FOR TICKET INFORMATION

You can view The documentary here

And visit the WikiPedia page to find out more.

Description:

From 1974, by Peter Davis. Essential viewing if you want to escape history. From IMDB: "This film recounts the history and attitudes of the opposing sides of the Vietnam War using archival news footage as well as their own film and interviews. A key theme is how attitudes of American racism and self-righteousness militarism helped create and prolong this bloody conflict. The film also endeaveors to give voice to the Vietnamese people themselves as to how the war has affected them and their reasons why they fight the United States and other western powers while showing the basic humanity of the people that US propaganda tried to dismiss

NOT Winning 'Hearts and Minds', but Making Enemies!!

Haditha victims' kin outraged as Marines go free (McClatchy has the video at top of this report)

Eight Marines were charged in the case, but in the intervening years, criminal charges have been dismissed against six. A seventh Marine was acquitted. The residents of Haditha, after being told they could depend on U.S. justice, feel betrayed.

"We put our hopes in the law and in the courts and one after another they are found innocent," said Yousef Aid Ahmed, the lone surviving brother in the family. "This is an organized crime."

If nothing is brought into a Court of Accountibility, with evidence layed out for all to see, Guilt or Innocence means nothing, Hatreds and Blowback are created, Creating More 'Enemies' not Justice! That is Not bringing 'Freedom' and 'Democracy', it adds to the Destruction already created!

“Maybe We Will Be Greeted With Flowers....

When We Stop Handing Out Destruction, Death, And Deflated Waste”

Feb. 07, 2007 By Mark Benjamin, Salon.com

On a hot summer morning in 2004, Garett Reppenhagen dragged himself out of his cot at a rudimentary Army base, 40 miles north of Baghdad, for a briefing on the day’s combat mission.

His battalion of the 1st Infantry Division was holed up in an abandoned warehouse and sleeping in steel trailers with sandbags stacked in the windows. They were stationed on the outskirts of Baquba, a city rife with insurgents in the violent Sunni Triangle. As the soldiers gathered around their Humvees, Reppenhagen, a scout and sniper, figured he knew what his lieutenant was going to say.

There had probably been another roadside bomb nearby. That meant Reppenhagen and his platoon, acting on intelligence that might be good or bad, would drive their Humvees into a nearby neighborhood, seal off entire town blocks, search houses and round up a bunch of men who might or might not have some tie to the insurgency.

What the lieutenant told them, however, had nothing to do with the enemy.

They were going to hand out soccer balls to Iraqi kids in the surrounding villages. Reppenhagen was surprised. "You do so much crappy shit over there that when you get a mission to actually help people, it’s encouraging," he said.

Reppenhagen, now 31, has certainly seen his share of crappy missions.

During his 2004 duty in the Sunni Triangle, he was sent on countless raids. On nighttime patrols, when a muzzle flash appeared from a darkened building, he and his platoon would respond with the full force of .50-caliber machine guns mounted atop Humvees until the ammunition was spent -- even if that meant leveling a nearby building.

If an insurgent was thought to be hiding in a house, they’d call in a tank to blow it up rather than do a risky search on foot.

As a member of a six-man sniper team, Reppenhagen was ordered to track down and kill insurgents in extremely dangerous areas. At other times, he and his battalion would cordon off streets, kick in doors on squat cement houses, and detain men 18 and over for minor offenses like being in a house other than their own or failing to show proper ID.

"Half of the time, we got the wrong damn house," Reppenhagen said.

At least handing out soccer balls, he thought, was one thing the Army could do right.

At Forward Operating Base Scunion, the camp’s official name, the lieutenant told Reppenhagen and company to pick up the load of balls from Forward Operating Base Warhorse, which was close by. They would then drive around the towns of Al-Hadid,
Hib Hib and Kahlis and hand them out to the kids who often ran beside the Army Humvees and called out for candy, water or money.

Of course, there was an ulterior motive to the kindly gesture, as it behooved the Army to earn the sympathies of local Iraqis, who could aid them in the search for insurgents. The operation could be seen, in the parlance of the Army counterinsurgency manual, as maintaining "moral legitimacy" with the Iraqis.

After all, nothing is more popular in Iraq than soccer. "There are soccer fields everywhere," Reppenhagen said. "Mostly it is just dirt lots. They don’t have goal posts and so use stumps. Sometimes the kids play in the street. I swear, all they do all day long is play soccer."

It wasn’t clear who came up with the idea to win over Iraqis with soccer balls.
A March 2004 press report from the Pentagon describes a unit of the 1st Armored Division handing out soccer balls in the Karadah district of Baghdad. "The children were thrilled to receive new soccer balls as soldiers tossed the balls to the boys and girls," the report said.

In a December 2004 release, Kiowa helicopter pilots with the 1st Cavalry Division are described tossing soccer balls to grateful kids in an operation aptly dubbed "Operation Soccer Ball."

Spc. Thom Cassidy, who worked in the logistics shop in Reppenhagen’s battalion, recalled that giving out soccer balls to the kids around Baquba was passed down from higher command to a battalion colonel at the base.

In any event, Cassidy said, "this was a very, very Army idea. This was the prototypical Army idea."

At Forward Operating Base Warhorse, Reppenhagen and his fellow soldiers encountered a five-ton truck stacked with large cardboard boxes. They began to unload the truck and open the boxes. There were maybe 50 soccer balls in each box.

But the balls had not been inflated. They were all flat. Reppenhagen scoured the boxes. No pumps. What was worse, nobody had bothered to pack the needles to inflate the balls.

Resourceful soldiers that they were, the men carried some of the balls to mechanics in the motor pool. "They tried to pump them up with tire pumps," Reppenhagen said. But the mechanics had the equipment to inflate Humvee tires, not soccer balls.
Frustrated, the soldiers asked their commanding officers what to do.

None were sure. They kept calling their own superiors.

Cassidy suggested that they order pumps and needles, which would arrive in about two weeks.

The battalion colonel quickly tired of the whole discussion and said he wasn’t about to requisition soccer ball pumps.

"He decided this was a waste of time," Cassidy said. "His thought was, ‘Iraqis should be grateful.’ Not, ‘They will be grateful’ -- ‘They should be.’"

Finally, the lieutenant commanded the troops to deliver the balls to the children. "He was pretty much like, ‘Shut up and hand out these soccer balls,’" Reppenhagen said.

It seemed crazy. "We were so pissed," said Reppenhagen. But orders are orders.
When you are told to hand out flat soccer balls, you hand out flat soccer balls.
So the soldiers who served in 2nd Battalion, 63rd Armored Regiment piled the flat soccer balls into their Humvees. Driving through the Sunni Triangle’s war-torn towns, they tossed the deflated balls to children, who crowded the sides of the roads, running beside the canals and lush greenery that lined the banks of the Diyala River.

"Kids were swarming us," Reppenhagen said. "We went to a couple of schools and delivered stacks of them. Everybody we saw got a flat soccer ball."
Which, of course, the kids quickly figured out.

Pretty soon, Reppenhagen recalled, "They were like, ‘What are you doing? What are we supposed to do with this?"

When the Humvees began to retrace their route back to the base, the futility of the operation was becoming painfully clear. "Kids were wearing these soccer balls as hats," Reppenhagen said. "They were kicking them around. They were in trees. They were floating in canals. They were everywhere. There were so many soccer balls."

Today, Reppenhagen still cringes when he recalls the soccer ball operation, which to him says so much about the entire U.S. occupation in Iraq.

He recently left his job at Veterans for America, a veterans’ advocacy group, and currently serves on the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

A spokesman for the 1st Infantry Division, Lt. Col. Christian T. Kubik, said Reppenhagen’s battalion commander does not recall the soccer ball operation. In an e-mail, he took issue with the characterization of soldiers blindly following orders when they handed out the deflated balls.

"America is filled with veterans who know that this comic view of soldiers dumbly following orders is completely without basis and almost laughable in its propagation of stereotype," Kubik wrote. "Soldiers are Americans, not automatons." He added: "To focus on the air in the balls, or lack thereof, undermines the American spirit of generosity and completely misses the point of giving."

Reppenhagen said he certainly knows what he and his platoon got when they drove to the base: The Iraqi kids were expressing their hearts and minds with rocks and stones.

"On the way back, kids were throwing rocks at us," he said. "I assumed it was because we gave them deflated soccer balls.
Maybe if we had given them inflated soccer balls, they would have been out playing soccer."

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$12 Billion Went Missing In Baghdad:
“This Was Happening When American Soldiers And Marines Were Going Without Properly Armored Vehicles, Without Lifesaving Body Armor And Even Without Some Of The Weapons They Needed”