Listening to President Obama's plan for Afghanistan

[ThomWV]

I think I will title this "The Bush Speech" because there is not one word he has said that George Bush would not or did not say within his last three months in office.

This is bullshit.

[babylonsister]

1. Think about this.

Don't you think this president would love to get out of there? There has got to be a reason why he can't. He just called Pakistan out to get involved.

I'm thinking they are hearing stuff we don't know about.

Please, don't compare him to idiot son, who liked war for war's sake, for oil, for whatever. That's wrong.

[bottomtheweaver]

18. The stuff we don't know we probably wouldn't like.

I'm guessing a deal to pass his budget if he ramped up military spending in Next-to-Iranistan.

[Captain Hilts]

2. It's a complicated situation and I know a lot of liberal Dems that think we need...

to refocus there.

[madokie]

3. so you're gonna put President Obama in the same class as pResident bUsh

I think not. Obama's an intelligent man doing smart things so I'll wait to see what his reasoning for all this is. Personally I think we should stamp out the perpertrators of the violent hate being directed towards us then go on the trying to make it all better tour to the Afghani people. But first we have to take control of these hatemongers at some point in time. imo

[ThomWV]

4. You tell me one single thing he said that was not a repeat of the Bush doctrine

The only difference is that Obama will send more troops and money - but other than being more people and money its just a 'stay the course' approach.

Like I said, this is Bullshit. You can glorify the President all you want but what he said is what he said and it was nothing other than a continuation and escalation of the Bush policy.

[madokie]

5. I'm inclined to believe that the motives changed with our new Presidency

I trust President Obama to use intelligence to guide him in the decisions he makes, not intelligence he is given so much as the intelligence he possess. Thats what I'm saying

[Windy]

19. An international civilian corp to assist with agriculture, infrastructure

training, etc. A TRUE effort. Getting global input and support. Sending an envoy assigned to work directly with the Afghan and Pakistan government in tandem. That the military will work directly with Afghan units one on one man for man to get their military up, running and fully functional by 2011... Should I go on? Take off your blinders!!!

I have to ask. Did you serve in the military? Based upon your avatar, I assume you did. If you did then you know that the primary purpose of the military (and our government) is to keep the US and its people safe.

[BlooInBloo]

6. I think I will title the OP "The Stupid Post".

[malaise]

7. I turned it off

I already know I will never support US foreign policy. Obama is committing political suicide and apparently he's OK with it. I promised him six months grace so I won't comment on much else.

This is rubbish.

[Solly Mack]

8. I listened.

Meh

[Odin2005]

9. Uh-Oh, the naive pacificists are being stupid again. Saying "Obama = Bush" is an EPIC FAIL.

People that think if one is not a pacifist utopian that thinks everything can be solved by talking, or an isolationist who thinks we should turn in on ourselves then one is an evil neocon bastard are simplistic black-n-white thinkers.

I want the Taliban completely crushed. If that makes me an "evil imperialist" in the eyes of some I don;t really give a shit.

[NeedleCast]

12. +1

[anaxarchos]

20. Nah...

Just a stupid imperialist... an armchair imperialist.

[Mari333]

33. you are the perfect age to enlist

go go go go go.

[madrchsod]

10. the continuation of the carter/reagan doctrine

[Windy]

11. I don't understand this attitude. AlQ is a problem. It should have been addressed years ago

They are growing as they were NEVER dismantled after 911. This attitude comes from a lack of education and understanding of the issue. The failure to address AlQ was a major failure of the Bush administration. We now have radical religious nuts in Pakistan, building their numbers in a country that has a nuclear weapon. India, an "enemy" of muslim fundamentalists, also has a nuclear weapon. This is a potentially volitile situation that needs to be addressed now before its allowed to fester further making it a more difficult situation to address. Again, he is seeking and will more than likely get world support. The taliban and AlQ are increasing their numbers in Pakistan and Afghanistan and human rights abuses are continuing. Please get an education on the area, the mindset and the dangers posed. This is not a plan to "democratize the middle east" as was the agenda of BushCo and PNAC. This is about world security and the security of the US which is what it should have been from the beginning. If the situation with ALQ and Afghanistan has been appropriately addressed by Bush with the world support we had in the immediate aftermath of 911, we wouldn't be in the situation we are in today. AlQ would be gone and there would have been many hundreds of thousands of innocent iraqis alive today as well as thousands of US and foreign troops who died in Iraq.

Look at the entire picture and don't use tunnel vision.

[Odin2005]

23. Exactly. If Pakistan falls to Taliban-types all hell will break lose in South Asia.

Obama is concentrated on what should have been done after 9/11 but Dumb-Ass decided to have his Iraq Adventure instead, leaving Southern Afghanistan and NW Pakistan festering.

[rug]

38. If we don't stop Al Qaeda Laos and Cambodia will fall.

[leftchick]

13. complete bullshit

the only reason we are there is for oil,pipelines and bases. Bagram is the new GITMO.

[Windy]

16. Again, read a little. What your alleging is only conspiracy theory not based on fact!

You need to get out more. Travel outside of the country. Get an education.

[leftchick]

29. here are some facts fer ya

but I am sure you won't read it because I am not being a good comrade! :patriot:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5340580&mesg_id=5341497

Central Asia
Mar 26, 2009


Page 1 of 2
Liquid war: Welcome to Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KC26Ag01.html

if you are not familiar with Pepe, he is only one of the best journalists in the world and I have never seen him proved wrong on just about anything.

[babylonsister]

21. Huh? Yes, your post is. Prove it. nt

[leftchick]

30. her you go babylon

and there are plenty more sources to confirm this. There is no war on terror. Obama is continuing the farce. Sorry you can't handle it.



Central Asia
Mar 26, 2009


Page 1 of 2
Liquid war: Welcome to Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KC26Ag01.html


Who said Pipelineistan couldn't be fun?

Calling Dr Zbig In his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski - realpolitik practitioner extraordinaire and former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, the president who launched the US on its modern energy wars - laid out in some detail just how to hang on to American "global primacy". Later, his master plan would be duly copied by that lethal bunch of Dr No's congregated at Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century (PNAC, in case you'd forgotten the acronym since its website and its followers went down).

For Dr Zbig, who, like me, gets his fix from Eurasia - from, that is, thinking big - it all boils down to fostering the emergence of just the right set of "strategically compatible partners" for Washington in places where energy flows are strongest. This, as he so politely put it back then, should be done to shape "a more cooperative trans-Eurasian security system".

By now, Dr Zbig - among whose fans is evidently President Barack Obama - must have noticed that the Eurasian train which was to deliver the energy goods has been slightly derailed. The Asian part of Eurasia, it seems, begs to differ.

Global financial crisis or not, oil and natural gas are the long-term keys to an inexorable transfer of economic power from the West to Asia. Those who control Pipelineistan - and despite all the dreaming and planning that's gone on there, it's unlikely to be Washington - will have the upper hand in whatever is to come, and there's not a terrorist in the world, or even a "long war", that can change that.

Energy expert Michael Klare has been instrumental in identifying the key vectors in the wild, ongoing global scramble for power over Pipelineistan. These range from the increasing scarcity (and difficulty of reaching) primary energy supplies to "the painfully slow development of energy alternatives". Though you may not have noticed, the first skirmishes in Pipelineistan's Liquid War are already on, and even in the worst of economic times, the risk mounts constantly, given the relentless competition between the West and Asia, be it in the Middle East, in the Caspian theater, or in African oil-rich states like Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.

<snip>

Iran is, of course, a crucial energy node of West Asia and that country's leaders, too, would prove no slouches when it came to the New Great Game. It needs at least $200 billion in foreign investment to truly modernize its fabulous oil and gas reserves - and thus sell much more to the West than US-imposed sanctions now allow.

No wonder Iran soon became a target in Washington. No wonder an air assault on that country remains the ultimate wet dream of assorted Likudniks as well as former vice president Dick ("Angler") Cheney and his neo-conservative chamberlains and comrades-in-arms. As seen by the elite from Tehran and Delhi to Beijing and Moscow, such a US attack, now likely off the radar screen until at least 2012, would be a war not only against Russia and China, but against the whole project of Asian integration that the SCO is coming to represent.


read the whole thing, I dare ya!

[Odin2005]

24. BS conspiracy theory.

I lost all respect for the Isolationist "Left" when they started spewing conspiracy theories. FDR and Truman would be appalled by such nonsense, since that kind of BS was the Isolationist nonsense being spewed in their day, too.

[Windy]

26. I agree totally Babylon. Its frustrating. nt

[leftchick]

28. so I suppose you think there really is a WoT?

:eyes: okie dokie. I would love to live in your world of lemon drops....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KC26Ag01.html

Central Asia
Mar 26, 2009


Page 1 of 2
Liquid war: Welcome to Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar


<snip>

Forget the mainstream media's obsession with al-Qaeda, Osama "dead or alive" bin Laden, the Taliban - neo, light or classic - or that "war on terror", whatever name it goes by. These are diversions compared to the high-stakes, hardcore geopolitical game that follows what flows along the pipelines of the planet.

Who said Pipelineistan couldn't be fun?

Calling Dr Zbig In his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski - realpolitik practitioner extraordinaire and former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, the president who launched the US on its modern energy wars - laid out in some detail just how to hang on to American "global primacy". Later, his master plan would be duly copied by that lethal bunch of Dr No's congregated at Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century (PNAC, in case you'd forgotten the acronym since its website and its followers went down).

For Dr Zbig, who, like me, gets his fix from Eurasia - from, that is, thinking big - it all boils down to fostering the emergence of just the right set of "strategically compatible partners" for Washington in places where energy flows are strongest. This, as he so politely put it back then, should be done to shape "a more cooperative trans-Eurasian security system".

By now, Dr Zbig - among whose fans is evidently President Barack Obama - must have noticed that the Eurasian train which was to deliver the energy goods has been slightly derailed. The Asian part of Eurasia, it seems, begs to differ.

Global financial crisis or not, oil and natural gas are the long-term keys to an inexorable transfer of economic power from the West to Asia. Those who control Pipelineistan - and despite all the dreaming and planning that's gone on there, it's unlikely to be Washington - will have the upper hand in whatever is to come, and there's not a terrorist in the world, or even a "long war", that can change that.

[leftchick]

37. huh

not one response to my atimes article. go figure.

[ProgressIn2008]

14. It is bullshit, you're right, but I don't see why anyone is surprised. It's empire. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. More like LBJ/Nixon and the "Falling Dominoes" to justify the killing.

Of course, it's all done to protect us from the current bogeyman(men).

[No.23]

17. AlQ is a criminal enterprise that requires intenational police action.

We should be involved in an international police action.

Not nation building, as he and his inner circle have admitted is the purpose of our continued participation there.

[leftchick]

34. ooooooooo I am scared

this has not one fucking thing to do with "safety". I suppose you believe in the fear of communism as well? The world is not us against them as the global players want us to believe while they kill and pillage to achieve their real goals.

One Word.... Pipelineistan

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KC26Ag02.html

<snip>

Russia's energy seduction blitzkrieg is focused like a laser on Central Asia as well. (We'll talk about it more in the next Pipelineistan installment.) It revolves around offering to buy Kazakh, Uzbek, and Turkmen gas at European prices instead of previous, much lower Russian prices. The Russians, in fact, have offered the same deal to the Azeris: so now, Baku is negotiating a deal involving more capacity for the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, which makes its way to the Russian borders of the Black Sea, while considering pumping less oil for the BTC.

Obama needs to understand the dire implications of this. Less Azeri oil on the BTC - its full capacity is 1 million barrels a day, mostly shipped to Europe - means the pipeline may go broke, which is exactly what Russia wants.

In Central Asia, some of the biggest stakes revolve around the monster Kashagan oil field in "snow leopard" Kazakhstan, the absolute jewel in the Caspian crown with reserves of as many as 9 billion barrels. As usual in Pipelineistan, it all comes down to which routes will deliver Kashagan's oil to the world after production starts in 2013. This spells, of course, Liquid War. Wily Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev would like to use the Russian-controlled Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) to pump Kashagan crude to the Black Sea.

In this case, the Kazakhs hold all the cards. How oil will flow from Kashagan will decide whether the BTC - once hyped by Washington as the ultimate Western escape route from dependence on Persian Gulf oil - lives or dies.

[ima_sinnic]

22. just one more thing, along w refusal to consider single-payer healthcare

because "taxes would be raised" and to start the ball rolling in prosecution of Bush/Cheney for war crimes and treason because he's "looking forward." He also has too many corporate hogs in his administration. As usual, it's all about profits and the interests of billionaires. "Change" is a clever campaign slogan for a trojan horse.

[Individualist]

25. When he began appointing and surrounding himself with DLCers,

I saw the direction this administration would take. Some of the things he's doing disgust me but don't at all surprise me.

[ima_sinnic]

27. I had to switch from Kucinich to Obama when the media forced us to

maybe, someday, We The People will rule instead of the fatcat billionaires and corporations.

[leftchick]

31. I Know, More Pipelineistan

It actually started way before boosh, we are embedded in the MidEast...

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KC26Ag01.html


Central Asia
Mar 26, 2009

Page 1 of 2
Liquid war: Welcome to Pipelineistan
By Pepe Escobar

<snip>


Who said Pipelineistan couldn't be fun?

Calling Dr Zbig In his 1997 magnum opus The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski - realpolitik practitioner extraordinaire and former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, the president who launched the US on its modern energy wars - laid out in some detail just how to hang on to American "global primacy". Later, his master plan would be duly copied by that lethal bunch of Dr No's congregated at Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century (PNAC, in case you'd forgotten the acronym since its website and its followers went down).

For Dr Zbig, who, like me, gets his fix from Eurasia - from, that is, thinking big - it all boils down to fostering the emergence of just the right set of "strategically compatible partners" for Washington in places where energy flows are strongest. This, as he so politely put it back then, should be done to shape "a more cooperative trans-Eurasian security system".

By now, Dr Zbig - among whose fans is evidently President Barack Obama - must have noticed that the Eurasian train which was to deliver the energy goods has been slightly derailed. The Asian part of Eurasia, it seems, begs to differ.

Global financial crisis or not, oil and natural gas are the long-term keys to an inexorable transfer of economic power from the West to Asia. Those who control Pipelineistan - and despite all the dreaming and planning that's gone on there, it's unlikely to be Washington - will have the upper hand in whatever is to come, and there's not a terrorist in the world, or even a "long war", that can change that.

Energy expert Michael Klare has been instrumental in identifying the key vectors in the wild, ongoing global scramble for power over Pipelineistan. These range from the increasing scarcity (and difficulty of reaching) primary energy supplies to "the painfully slow development of energy alternatives". Though you may not have noticed, the first skirmishes in Pipelineistan's Liquid War are already on, and even in the worst of economic times, the risk mounts constantly, given the relentless competition between the West and Asia, be it in the Middle East, in the Caspian theater, or in African oil-rich states like Angola, Nigeria and Sudan.

<snip>

Iran is, of course, a crucial energy node of West Asia and that country's leaders, too, would prove no slouches when it came to the New Great Game. It needs at least $200 billion in foreign investment to truly modernize its fabulous oil and gas reserves - and thus sell much more to the West than US-imposed sanctions now allow.

No wonder Iran soon became a target in Washington. No wonder an air assault on that country remains the ultimate wet dream of assorted Likudniks as well as former vice president Dick ("Angler") Cheney and his neo-conservative chamberlains and comrades-in-arms. As seen by the elite from Tehran and Delhi to Beijing and Moscow, such a US attack, now likely off the radar screen until at least 2012, would be a war not only against Russia and China, but against the whole project of Asian integration that the SCO is coming to represent.

[Mari333]

32. yes its total bullshit.

and always will be. i hope he bankrupts the country if he continues bush's fucking war. he wont be re elected if he keeps this shit up.

[leftchick]

35. around here

thems fightin words Mari! Watch for incoming. ;)

[leftchick]

36. K&R!

.

[LWolf]

39. Too true for comfort

for too many.

[EFerrari]

40. Help. Does anyone have a new link for his whole speech?

The one posted to Political Videos has been withdrawn and I only got to catch bits and pieces of his statement.

[G_j]

41. a moratorium on all US military violence

is what is called for.