Almost seven years after the United States liberated Iraq,This speech by Paul McGeough, senior correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald, is a must read if you are trying to get a handle on the current situation in Afghanistan and possibilities for the future. McGeough has been writing from Afghanistan since 2001. Here's just a short excerpt:
After eight years, Washington finds itself in the same position that the Soviet Union was in Year 8 of its occupation of Afghanistan, seemingly having learnt nothing from history - until McChrystal's bombshell assessment.
I want to read from a defence official's letter dated August 17. He calls for an honest admission of failure after eight years, citing the squandering of huge material resources and considerable casualties and a failure to stabilise the country - militarily or politically. Most of the population has lost trust, because the campaign is bogged down and a strategic breakthrough is unlikely.
Controversial freshman Rep. Alan Grayson, who has become famous for attacking the Republicans' health care plan, went on the attack again Friday night, calling former vice president Dick Cheney a vampire for his recent criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the war in Afghanistan.
"I have trouble listening to what [Cheney] says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he's talking," the Florida Democrat said on MSNBC's Hardball Friday night. "but my response is this: he's just angry because the president doesn't shoot old men in the face. But by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?" - CNN.)
Grayson has started another website..."congressmanwithguts.com"...stop by and pledge your support for his testicular fortitude.
The health insurers are making one last rapacious pass through the wallets of small businesses and their workers, many of whom have to pay a significant share of the premiums.
Health insurers are turning out to be the true villains of the reform debate. The GOP is just a set of reflexive villains; they'd be against a proposal to cure cancer if the current administration sought to fund a project in that regard.
To be fair, other industries are doing the same thing. The consumer price index has slid, but colleges are on their march to put the cost of a college education back where it was 100 years ago: Affordable only to the wealthy. Higher education needs to re-think its operation and reducing costs, which they haven't done. But they are still not the single-minded greedy swine that the insurance industry is. I can think of one insurance company that touts its "low rates", which they can offer because if you ever have to press a claim against them, they will fight you bitterly to the last nickel, you may have to sue them and that is if you are one of their customers.
This has got to be the dumbest thing yet from the Citizen of Kenya, Language-of-the-Koran-speaking, Closet-Muslim, socialist, magic-negro overlord, re-education camp counselor, and Nobel laureate, The Carebear yet, and that takes some doing.
He's now fighting against the public option in the healthcare reform bill. because it may impact the political careers of the Blue Dog Dims, who, you know, have been fighting The Carebear tooth and nail on everything.
Why?
Well, without a solid majority, The Carebear might not be able to enact his bold agenda, like, oh, I don't know HAVING A PUBLIC OPTION?
He's an idiot, and as I said way back in the primaries, he's going to be a one-term president.
Carebear, here's a hint: you only need a solid majority if you intend to do something with it. I mean, something other than run against your own best interests.
Sweet Jeebus, he makes me wish the GOP had won, so at least we would know who are enemies are.
Not one dime, and not one vote for him. Ever. Is it 2012 yet?
UPDATE 1: The White House says, in a carefully worded statement, that this is a false rumor:
A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option. Those rumors are absolutely false.
In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position.
Senator Reid and his leadership team are now working to get the most effective bill possible approved by the Senate. President Obama completely supports their efforts and has full confidence they will succeed and continue the unprecedented progress that is being made in both the House and Senate.
It is a fact of Washington politics and future Washington politics that Newt Gingrich will be forced to run as the GOP's Presidential candidate in 2012. You can tell this is most definitely the case because, um, A. Tim Pawlenty B. Bobby Jindal, C. Mitt Romney and D. Others (??). Anyway, how stoked is Newt Gingrich?? "Callista and I are going to think about this in February 2011. And we are going to reach out to all of our friends around the country. And we'll decide, if there's a requirement as citizens that we run, I suspect we probably will. And if there's not a requirement, if other people have filled the vaccum, I suspect we won't." No one tell Sarah Palin about Gingrich's funsy new campaign slogan: "If You Insist!" [Political Wire]
Interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Hamid Karzai asserted that the first round of the presidential election had been "defamed, was called a fraud," and that he had, in fact, won 54% of the vote in a "clean" election. The decision to have a run-off anyway was his and his alone: "I decided -- for peace, for stability and for the future of democracy in Afghanistan and for the future of institutional order in Afghanistan -- to call for a runoff." The runoff must now go ahead, he says (i.e., no power-sharing deal), because "If we don't do that, we'll be insulting democracy".
And if there's one thing Karzai hates, it's an insult to democracy.
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