This visit was organized by the Armed Services Committee and, as such, a focus of the trip centered on how we are protecting our servicemen and women and the extraordinary logistical operations associated with maintaining our war effort in both countries. It also afforded an important opportunity to meet with the commanders on the ground to discuss our security and strategic goals.
We first visited Iraq, where signs of progress are clearly evident as our troops continue their excellent work in rebuilding neighborhoods, infrastructure, and supporting Iraqi security forces as they take greater control of their country. I saw charts documenting the steep decline in violence. The use of the political process to resolve differences is seen as Iraq’s most viable path to security and much of the U.S. effort is now devoted to redeploying our soldiers out of the main cities by the end of June and helping Iraq get through their elections later this year.
There are still many unresolved issues in Iraq such as how the Sons of Iraq will be integrated into the Iraqi security forces or other positions in the Iraqi government; the decreased budget revenues as the result of falling oil prices which are having an impact on the Iraqi government’s ability to make important investments in basic services – something Iraqi citizens see as an important benchmark; and ongoing Arab-Kurd tensions over oil and territorial issues. But the timetable for redeployment of our troops goes forward and is forcing Iraqis to confront more of these difficult decisions. As one U.S. General remarked to me during our visit, the timetable is putting pressure on both the Iraqis and U.S. forces to work to resolve these issues expeditiously.
The situation in Afghanistan has become much more fragile and unstable in the 16 months since my last visit. Accounts of increased Taliban violence were echoed by our military commanders on the ground.
The challenges that we face in Afghanistan are substantial. Afghanistan lacks essential police or municipal services, basic infrastructure, and telecommunications. It is devoid of natural resources, the drug trade is rampant, particularly in the south, and most of the country lives in extreme poverty with a literacy rate of approximately 26 percent. The Afghan people have been victims of a near constant state of war and political upheaval for decades.
As such, the resources that are the foundation of a modern state are almost non-existent in Afghanistan with sanctuaries for insurgent forces multiplying. Afghan police and security forces are simply unable to keep up with the escalating violence. Very few Afghans want to see a return of the Taliban but have tremendous concerns about the capacity of their government to provide security.
In light of these facts, President Obama has concluded that a change in Afghanistan policy is needed so that Taliban forces are not able to reconstitute and again turn the country into a safe haven for terrorists. The Obama administration has committed to sending an additional seventeen thousand troops and a robust civilian corps to mentor Afghanistan’s security forces, assist in the development of governmental institutions, and provide agricultural support to decrease poppy production.
While we have a strategic interest in a stable Afghanistan, it is essential that President Obama better articulate the benchmarks for success and timeline – as yet undefined – to achieve that success. None of these challenges will be solved quickly or easily and will come at a great price, with American casualties likely to increase substantially. The President must fully prepare the American people for everything that such a commitment to Afghanistan entails.
Over the coming months, the Administration has pledged to continually evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy as well as its implementation. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I will be watching this very closely. I am particularly concerned about the length of time the President assumes a strategy like this will require and at what cost, and the details of an exit strategy.
Thank you for going to see, first hand, the state of the administration’s developing regional strategy. It is vital to the function of our government that Congress commit to ensuring that America’s blood and treasure are spent with the outmost care.
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p>I have complete faith in President Obama and the National Security Team that he has assembled. That said, the rightful authority of Congress was left diminished after 8 years of Bush/Cheney. Our system of checks and balances must be restored. Your words convey an attention to this fact.
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p>PS. The cost of this effort MUST be figured properly, to include a high standard of care for military families and returning veterans.
Lyndon Johnson said something to the affect that: Vietnamese boys should be doing more of what American boys are doing: fighting for their “country”.
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p>When USA stopped sending troops, ammunition, and spare parts, the republic of S. Vietnam collapsed.
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p>Afghanistan has been at non stop war for centuries
Sending more American victims to be slain and dismembered,
for what? To what end? 59,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam. For what? 1,750,000 Americans fought (in country) in S Vietnam. Of that number there are only 700,000 survivors to date. I would venture to guess that there are more WWII veterans left alive that Vietnam veterans and you want to condemn more young Americans to death. But hey, it ain’t the kids at Yarvard, Brandeis, Yale, Dartmouth, MIT, Mt Holyoke that are going into the Afghanistan meatgrinder, it’s the kid from New Bedford, Holden, Haverhill, Austin, Butte, Portland, San Diego, and Coeur de Laine.
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p>The growing of poppy’s goes unabated. Marines walk around poppy fields and pay reparations to Afghanny’s who’s poppy fields are damaged by the US military. The same poopy’s who’s opiod will find its way to Marseille in a few months. The hypocrisy is hideous.
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p>Save us the platitudes. Iraq was was an illegal and immoral misadventure per 95% of the the democratic party. Americans be maimed and killed in the cesspit of the mideast was tatamount to a war crime per the democrat congress. Now everything is peaches and cream.
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p>I learned my lesson after I spent 13 months in Vietnam and had to bear witness to that. Our government has no problem sending the next door neighbor off to die—as long as the recruiter stays out of their house. And then when you come home–you are treated like a leper. My my, seems that Janet Napolitano has got a jump start. Now our returning veterans are domestic terrorists. Obama cleverly concealing the axe that he is about to use to decimate DoD. Vietnam Redux. Yep—I’ve seen this movie. It doesn’t have a happy ending.
Don’t Feed The Troll.
Doesn’t MCRD have a right to say how he feels about the diary? Did MCRD have the gall to take issue with some points that were raised?
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p>Did you have an issues with former administrations and would you like to labeled a “troll” just because you dissented?
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p>Grow up.
a) The comment is filled with distortions, half-truths, and lies, and
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p>b) The comment is worded in way that seems calculated to provoke flames rather than spur constructive debate.
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p>Your own comment — specifically the following:
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p>is an unwarranted personal attack.
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p>”Grow up”? Learn some manners, my friend.
If the purpose is to support the Democratic Party without question and maintain the status quo, then certainly, dissent is trolling. I would favor deletion of contrary opinion or publishing facts that are contrary to Party beliefs.
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p>If the purpose is to broaden the party, cleanse sections that don’t support human rights in all forms, seek to improve the lives of the American people, then dissent is necessary. There are things done in the Democratic Party with which I disagree and would like to see changed. I believe these things can be changed to make not only the Democratic Party better, but also this country.
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p>Does the Party exist above the interests of the country?
express disagreement, ask questions, and seek to change the Democratic party without distortions, half-truths, and lies — right? Presumably you are able to have a “frank and candid exchange of views” without resorting to personal attacks and boorish rudeness. Presumably you are able to have even heated face-to-face conversations with people with whom you disagree, right?
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p>If so, then I doubt you’ll have any problem here. If not, then I suspect this is not the only place you’ll find unwelcoming — regardless of that place’s political persuasion.
In the eye of the beholder?
I tend to think that the analogy between Vietnam and Afghanistan holds up much better than that between Vietnam and Iraq. So some of what MCRD writes hints at sense.
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p>But the rest of it is an exercise in resentment. For example, I don’t think that Democrats believe everything is “peaches and cream” in the Afghanistan or the Middle East.
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p>There are people it would be useful to debate foreign policy with. I doubt that MCRD’s bucket of resentment is a good place to start unless you enjoy shouting.
Weare Mann wrote:
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p>I call your attention, specifically, to:
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p>This is simply a lie. It is also a distortion. Presumably, MCRD is attempting to make a reference to Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, the recently (9-Apr-2009) published report from the Department of Homeland Security.
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p>The report says nothing of the sort, and the assertion that it does is, simply, a lie.
Or have you already changed your story?
Fact is that “We, the People” live for the largest organized criminal group in the world. The powers controlling the United States violate both US and international law as they see fit. They send our children to fight for illegal wars, rob their constituents blind, support the drug trade, lie with impunity in their controlled media, they wrap all their crimes in the flag and call any dissent anti-American. Noam Chomsky summed it up in his, “Hegemony or Survival” back in 2003.
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p>Somehow, I just can’t get too excited about another rubber stamp congressperson going on a junket to Afghanistan. Jack Reed’s been there 13 times and what for what? (Maybe it’s less depressing than hanging around Rhode Island?) I do get interested when a congressperson starts doing the job that they are supposed to do. When they represent their constituents rather than the banks, war criminals, drug dealers, etc.
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p>Yeah, I don’t get interested very often.
Obama attempting to get returning vets to pay for their own war injuries. That sure was swell. Makes you get the warm and fuzzies for mom, apple pie, and the flag. “here ya go kid, your PT, and prosthetics bill is too high. You’re going to have to pick one and forget the other—Your country wants to spread the wealth to the “undocumented immigrants” who need it more than you do.
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p>God help us.
Certainly veteran issues were of low interest in the last administration. This is continued in the present administration. Are both parties so under the thumb of special interests with lots of cash that only those interests are sated?
From what I read, the current Afghan government is weak and corrupt. As long as that is true, Islamists of various stripes (Taliban and otherwise) will have a shot at power. Yet, I don’t understand how we make an unpopular government popular. Any ultimately successful effort would seem to be very expensive, to involve a huge investment and intervention coupled with some subtle, culturally-sensitive leadership. We’d have to offer Pashtun in high schools along with Spanish and French.
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p>So it’s not enough for me to hear that the goal is to “defeat the Taliban” or “to prevent them from returning”. It’s Bush’s mistake to think such things can be accomplished with force alone.
“…to involve a huge investment and intervention … “
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p>The vacuum of local help is what gave the Saudi Wahabis an opening. The truth is that in general, they took the first real help they could get and sent their kids to Wahabi madrassas in return. As Charlie Wilson pointed out, we failed on follow-through and opportunist Islamic radicals took advantage.
Let’s not forget that we funded and trained the Taliban, including Bin Laden, when they were going after the “evil” Soviet empire. For that matter, we trained and supported Ho Chi Minh when he was a “freedom fighter” fighting to cast off the Vichy French and Japanese.
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p>The nauseatingly misogynistic posture of the Taliban was well-documented and the US government ignored it. Sort of the way the US government supported Iraq and Saddam Hussein when it appeared convenient for us, while they were fighting the “evil” Iranians. Mr. Rumsfeld was only too happy to look the other way while US chemical suppliers shipped ingredients for chemical weapons to Iraq, and our government’s response to his gassing of the Kurds was … silence.
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p>I don’t understand the military implications well enough to hold an informed opinion on whether President Obama is right or wrong in the strategy he pursues in Afghanistan. I do, rightly or wrongly, have far more confidence that President Obama is listening carefully to those who do understand the military implications — far more carefully than any of the Republican presidents (after Eisenhower) who came before him.
… my stance as well.
Any complaints about Afghanistan will President Obama’s and not George Bush’s. Bush is gone and Obama is making all the decisions now. Whether it is escalation, withdrawal or something completely different… President Obama owns Afghanistan.
The problem, though, is that Afghanistan is in a very bad way. I’m not sure if I remember exactly when I was reading this but there were a number of informed commentators who said that Afghanistan was approaching a point of no return. That happened a number of years ago. So if those guys were right, we passed that point in Bush’s second term.
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p>The case against Bush was that he diverted resources from the very difficult task of reconstituting Afghanistan. Obama, at least, is putting more resources in.
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p>The problem right now is that nothing achievable looks good.
In three sections we see:
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p>”(U//FOUO) The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.”
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p>or
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p>”(U//FOUO) Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.”
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p>or
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p>”(U) Disgruntled Military Veterans
(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A assesses that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat. These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of extremists-including lone wolves or small terrorist cells-to carry out violence. The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.
– (U) After Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-1991, some returning military veterans-including Timothy McVeigh-joined or associated with rightwing extremist groups.
– (U) A prominent civil rights organization reported in 2006 that “large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the [U.S.] armed forces.”
(U//LES) The FBI noted in a 2008 report on the white supremacist movement that some returning military veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have joined extremist groups.”
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p>The DHS report is unflattering to veterans and warns several times of “coulda” this or that, it is noteworthy that so much print is dedicated to veterans. Why not students, workers, academics, the uneducated, minorities, majorities, low income, middle income, yada, yada, yada? So, strictly speaking, no, it doesn’t say specifically say that veterans are terrorists, but do a global replace of “military veterans” with “BrooklineTom” and you might feel insulted, too. I wouldn’t say “lie” though. Maybe exaggeration.
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p>Veterans are not your enemy. I can understand why so many in government distrust them as veterans have seen the lies first hand. I believe they are more prone to peaceful demonstration than violence. They’ve seen too much violence. Of course, government fears the peaceful demonstration, too.
You wrote:
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p>The original comment was:
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p>Not an “exaggeration” — a simple lie.
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p>The three passages you quoted are supported by data. If you think the activities described aren’t happening, you’re not paying attention to the right-wing blogosphere (nor is it limited to that).
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p>I stand by my characterization.
I have little problem with exaggeration and sometimes, hyperbole and apply a filter. I can understand that “My love is like a red, red rose…”, doesn’t necessarily mean that one’s love is planted in the ground and feeds on manure. I’ll cut MCRD some slack.
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p>;o)
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p>As far as terrorism goes, I’ll fear our government more than veterans. “Obama Youth?”; I’ll fear that.
The phrases in question describe attempts by rightwing extremists to prey on veterans. They do not say that veterans are terrorists, and it is a lie to say — explicitly or metaphorically — to the contrary.
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p>When a report warns of pedophiles who use the internet to lure teenage girls into situations where they are sexually abused, do you suggest that the report accuses those girls of being promiscuous? Maybe you do, but I don’t.
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p>The rightwing extremist groups do exist. The returning veterans do possess combat skills and experience. Suggesting that this report calls the returning veteran “domestic terrorists” is as preposterous — and dishonest — as saying that the warning about child sex predators accuses teenage girls of being “sluts”.
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p>As far as terrorism goes, I fear our extremist rightwing — government, military, paramilitary, and just plain old homegrown skinhead thugs — more than I fear Muslim terrorists or any left-wing organization.