The Last Straw

Well, this is the last straw for me. I'm finished, done. This man has betrayed just about every purpose I had in voting for him. Latest: Obama is going to send another 34,000 troops to that hell hole in Afghanistan. For what purpose, you ask? For no purpose other than the man in charge cannot step up to the mark that he himself set, i.e., be a president who stands for peace. Hell, what is the difference between this guy and George Bush when it comes to war? No difference that makes any difference to me, that's for sure. I cannot believe we are going to kick this tar baby with our other leg. We've already got two arms and a leg already caught. Does this guy know anything about Vietnam and LBJ? He got handed an unwinnable war and, against his instincts let it take him over. Isn't this exactly what's happening here? How can this undoubtedly intelligent guy be so stupid? Does he seriously think that this time a foreign army is going to succeed in subduing the people of Afghanistan who have beaten every invader for the last 2,500 years?

You might want to listen to this excellent radio piece (23 min.) on this subject. Interview with reporter Gareth Porter. Highlights:

• "Obama is LBJ all over again." He was handed a war by the national security state, and his advisers hamstring him into signing on to the ongoing war.
  
• There's no rational explanation for this decision. This is just what the national security state does. 
• "Too much power makes you stupid." -- Applies directly to the U.S. military, the most powerful institution in American society.
• U.S. Army doctrine: "This is the era of persistent warfare." U.S. will be fighting these kinds of wars for the "foreseeable future." 

I frankly don't care what Obama is going to say on Tuesday night when he's going on TV to explain, doubtless in his most mellifluous tone and shiny rhetoric,  his rationale for escalation of this horrid war that's now in its 9th year. I'm not even going to watch. Let this post mark my official washing of my hands of this administration, which has done nothing but consistently back off  the progressive agenda upon which it was elected. He's trimmed on health care, on the environment, on rollback of the Patriot Act, on prosecution of the torturers, on punishment of the Wall Street criminals. And worst of all in my book, he's given unequivocal proof that he's just going to be another tool of the Pentagon. Eight years and hundreds of billions of dollars, almost 1,000 deaths, and he's going to increase the troops in Afghanistan by another 34,000??? This is absolute fucking madness!