... to fight Al Qaeda.

So, what would be fighting for?

President Obama's Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan

This may be a political ploy. The Obama admin acknowledged Karzai's election as being official, even though we all know Karzai is very corrupt and the election was probably about as legal as Bush's two were. I don't know if the admin had any other choice at this time, but there it is. IF this "surge" works well, whatever "well" means for that region, then Obama can say he made the right decision.... AND if he begins to pull the troops out in 2011, it will be good for him in the election of 2012. If it doesn't work...then he will be a one term president in view of all the other difficulties he's having and will have.

Until Obama decides to be a tough, hard-nosed leader and not an appeaser, I have my doubts about his being able to accomplish much more than he already has. :(

DOES OBAMA NOT FATHOM THE IRONY IN HIS ACCEPTING THE NOBEL AT THE SAME TIME HE'S ESCALATING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN?

Mr. President, War Is Not Peace

BY Norman Solomon

Eloquence in Oslo cannot change the realities of war.

As President Obama neared the close of his Nobel address, he called for “the continued expansion of our moral imagination.” Yet his speech was tightly circumscribed by the policies that his oratory labored to justify.

Lofty rationales easily tell us that warfare is striving for the noble goal of peace. But the rationales scarcely intersect with actual war. The oratory sugarcoats the poisons, helping to kill hope in the name of it.

A few months ago, when I visited an Afghan office for women’s empowerment, staffers took me to a pilot project in one of Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods. There, women were learning small-scale business skills while also gaining personal strength and mutual support.

Two-dozen women, who ranged in age from early 20s to late 50s, talked with enthusiasm about the workshops. They were desperate to change their lives. When it was time to leave, I had a question: What should I tell people in the United States, if they ask what Afghan women want most of all?

After several women spoke, the translator summed up. “They all said that the first priority is peace.”

In Afghanistan, after 30 years under the murderous twin shadows of poverty and war, the only lifeline is peace.

From President Obama, we hear that peace is the ultimate goal. But “peace” is a fixture on a strategic horizon that keeps moving as the military keeps marching.

Unfortunately, he probably does believe what he says. Don't be dismayed. Oppose!

Nobel acceptance speech.

My most favorite talkshow host, Ray Taliaferro, blasted Obama on his Nobel speech. I certainly had problems with the speech, but Ray took the disdain to another level. What got Ray was the last paragraph:



Ray talked about what would amount to human futility (my words) in fighting against something that "will always be with us". He talked about how false that logic is and how some forms of oppression have been chipped away by constant pressure by the people, like the great Reverend King, and positive laws. These people prove that oppression can be beaten down, little by little, so that someday it will not be with us.

It is ironic that Obama invoked King in his Nobel speech. King was against the Vietnam war, and most likely would have been against the Afghanistan build-up. And King probably would have taken issue with Obama's quoting of him in the speech.



Especially, if is used in the pretext to going to battle in Afghanistan.

All the world would have been much better served if this speech had been delivered by the president to explain why he was NOT going to escalate either of the two Bush wars. It's Obama's war now.