“With no real definition of victory or how to achieve it, our chance of “winning” is zero,“says Robinson as his closing statement. But that’s the point—to keep the war from ending!
  It’s called “moving the goal posts” to keep the “game” going, and it’s a common technique of capitalism, as of life in general wherever the emphasis is on “winning.”
  If wages rise, very soon after, the cost of food, gasoline, rent, interest rates etc. etc. rise to “take up the slack” so to speak.
  As soon as you get a little money in the bank, you or someone in the family breaks a leg.
  If the country runs out of money, just print more.
  If you get too cocky, somebody will put you in your place.
  It’s such a commonplace perverse counter-action.  Why wouldn’t it be used to serve the cause of getting richer? Who cares who dies?  We’re all gonna die anyway.
  Without cementing the goal posts in a universal realization of the priceless value of every single human life everywhere, nobody “wins” and the “war” goes on forever.

Re Robinson: “Obama was far from definitive about just what this job might be. . . Don’t allow terrorists .  .  .  to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impunity.”

At this point, it’s impossible for me to have any confidence in any politician who says something like this. It’s clear nothing can be gained by keeping our troops in Afghanistan. The bottom line is 9/11 occurred because the American people were not served well by the FBI and CIA – they were doing a lousy job. 

The question is what kind of job are they doing now? After reading the recent article in the WaPo, one can only conclude - not very well.  If Obama wants to help prevent another attack, he should be sorting out this crap: 

——“The privatization of national security work has been made possible by a nine-year “gusher” of money, as Gates recently described national security spending since the 9/11 attacks.”

——“With so much money to spend, managers do not always worry about whether they are spending it effectively.”

——“Someone says, ‘Let’s do another study,’ and because no one shares information, everyone does their own study,” said Elena Mastors, who headed a team studying the al-Qaeda leadership for the Defense Department.

——“It’s about how many studies you can orchestrate, how many people you can fly all over the place. Everybody’s just on a spending spree. We don’t need all these people doing all this stuff.”

——“a longtime conservative staffer on the Senate Armed Services Committee, described it as “a living, breathing organism” impossible to control or curtail. “How much money has been involved is just mind-boggling,” he said. “We’ve built such a vast instrument. What are you going to do with this thing?”

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/national-security-inc

I fear, RayLan, that if there’s going to be conflict on US soil, it’ll be Americans vs. Americans.

Obamaspeak “Don’t allow them to create big training camps and to plan attacks against the U.S. homeland with impunity.”
This is the old ‘if we fight them there, they won’t come here’ saw that Bush droned. Of course, it’s nonsense - since they were here to begin with - that’s how they - duh - were able to pilot planes into the towers. US hatred is not diminished by US preemption and acts of aggression. Iraq is already an excellent training camp and we’re going to pull out.
Terrorism is not military - it is paramilitary - religious/political fanatically motivated. Timothy Mcveigh operated with two others only. Our launching military coups against Middle Eastern countries has zero impact on terrorist local strategies.
Come on Obama - you’re supposed to be smarter than Bush - which ain’t saying much.

Re dcrimso: “What makes anyone in the government think they can create jobs and an economy in Afghanistan, when they can’t do it here?”

Tragic, but true, dcrimso.  It’s rather obvious the people taking up “leadership” space in Washington lack both the will and the job skills needed to create jobs anywhere.  I suspect the only reason the subject of jobs is mentioned is because some unknown staff writer inserted in their speech copy.

I have a feeling, Squeeky, that should the USA suffer a fate similar to that of the USSR, few overseas would shed so much as one tear. Indeed, many would no doubt heave a great sigh of relief to see the American “evil empire” go the way of the Soviet. They’d certainly find the spectacle amusing to observe, as I’m sure many of us over here were amused to watch the break-up of the old Soviet Union as it fell from the heights of glory and grandeur.

I am confident in saying that the elites of the former soviet union are laughing their asses off. They are no longer being questioned “what the hell were you guys thinking?”

Guess what america…..we are now the laughing stock of the world and it only took untold killed & wounded soldiers. Oh buy the way let’s not forget two ravaged nations!

Yep, the “civilian elites” and the MIC are intertwined.

By dcrimso

>>What makes anyone in the government think they can create jobs and an economy in Afghanistan, when they can’t do it here?<<

That is a good rhetorical point.  But there is reason to think they can simply because it is extremely profitable for their Corporate clients.  Just as creating jobs in China is more profitable to Corporations than jobs in America.  That is the bottom line in the American system.  However, we can count on it not being profitable for our middle class who is getting reamed a new one and is beginning to look like Swiss cheese.

“To initiate a war of aggression ... is not only an
international crime, it is the supreme international
crime, differing only from other war crimes in that
it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the
whole.”
International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany
- 1946

Where is the principled opposition to this war, Mr
Robinson?  Would it be okay if there WERE “a clear
set of achievable goals”?  Would the invasion be
alright then, or if we were “winning”, would the
stink of the deceit and the fetid pile of White House
lies that got us there be forgotten?  How about the
dozen-plus years of intentionally deadly sanctions,
the bombings, the DU, the collective punishment, the
torture, the wire-taps, the two-faced diplomacy, the
disgusting Patriot Act? This would all be okay? 
Would it surprise you to know, Mr Robinson, that the
Oligarchs absolutely DO HAVE a clear set of
achievable goals.  Do you think they’d tell you what
they are?  With all due respect, sir, but do you
honestly think you’d have a writing job long if you
started making educated guesses? Just because they
haven’t told you what it is, doesn’t mean they don’t
have one. All wars enrich a selected few, kill mostly
civilians, and are never fought by accident, nor do
they continue without purpose.  Wars occur because it
is in the interest of powerful human forces that it
occur. It continues because there is an interest in
it being continued. The generals are interested in
rank, the politicians are interested in glory, and
the profiteers, money.  The point is that if peace
had as much potential for   windfall private profits,
concentrated private power, and vain glory, war
wouldn’t exist. War is never fought for altruistic
reason.

“The moment war is declared… the mass of the
people, through some spiritual alchemy, become
convinced that they have willed and executed the deed
themselves. They then, with the exception of a few
malcontents, proceed to allow themselves to be
regimented, coerced, deranged in all the environments
of their lives, and turned into a solid manufactory
of destruction toward whatever other people may have,
in the appointed scheme of things, come within the
range of the Government’s disapprobation…
The State is the organization of the herd to act
offensively or defensively against another herd
similarly organized…
War is the health of the State. It automatically sets
in motion throughout society those irresistible
forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation
with the Government in coercing into obedience the
minority groups and individuals which lack the larger
herd sense…
But in general, the nation in wartime attains a
uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values
culminating at the undisputed apex of the State
ideal, which could not possibly be produced through
any other agency than war. Loyalty-or mystic devotion
to the State-becomes the major imagined human
value…
In a nation at war, every citizen identifies himself
with the whole, and feels immensely strengthened in
that identification. The purpose and desire of the
collective community live in each person who throws
himself wholeheartedly into the cause of war…
It cannot be too firmly realized that war is a
function of States and not of nations, indeed that it
is the chief function of States…
War is the health of the State. Only when the State
is at war does the modern society function with that
unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic
devotion, cooperation of services, which have always
been the ideal of the State lover…”
(Randolph Bourne, “The State”, 1918)

“Somebody’s paying the corporations that destroyed
Iraq and the corporations that are rebuilding it.
They’re getting paid by the American taxpayer in both
cases. So we pay them to destroy the country, and
then we pay them to rebuild it. Those are gifts from
U.S. taxpayer to U.S. corporations..”
(Noam Chomsky)

Glider, as I see it, it isn’t wholly the Pentagon who wants those bases close to Iran and Pakistan—it’s the civilian Elites, as well. Regardless of party, they will grind whatever grist the mill requires to keep this country “world’s only superpower”, whatever the cost to our people in blood and treasure.

Of course, they think the rules don’t apply to the USA; they think this country will be the exception to the rule that empires come and empires go.

Beware of what MSM USES thru robinson: It’s just ONE LAMENT, and as usually, one at a time and not ever the most important one.

MSM avoids like a plague to take the widest look possible and always prefers to apply the narrowest look they can get away with.

And why every collumnist avoids to cast the widest look possible? Because the widest-longest the look, the wiser we would be.

Collumnists also know that they would always capture thru schools the minds/hearts of almost every child.

And, of course, obtain that way the usual quota of servants [80% of the population] and 1% of masters and the rest fierce defenders of that system.

And they all know they’d be dead and buried much before US population begins to curse them for their fascistic behavior! tnx

Obviously, if you want to fight AQ you take the battle to where they are, and not to where they are not. AQ now has nothing to do with the war. Obama and the Military are giving long winded rationalizations that are designed to be as politically palatable as possible. These explanations defy common sense because they are untrue.  They are excuses for a different agenda.

There are two reasons we are in Afghanistan. One, the Pentagon wants a set of military bases proximal to Iran and Pakistan.  And two, nation building a tribal society is highly profitable for American corporations.  These facts speak for themselves but it would be difficult for even silver tongued Obama to make them sound palatable.

The problem with voting Tweedle-dee out is that you vote Tweedle-dum in.  That’s the way the “system” works, sad to say. Further, Tweedle-doodle is out there someplace but we don’t know where,nor do we know whether that regime would be any better, considering everybody’s craven dependence on corporate funding of the entire system,root and branch, and our widespread tendency to fear change and difference, which tends to keep all doors pretty well closed.

What makes anyone in the government think they can create jobs and an economy in Afghanistan, when they can’t do it here?

The System is irrevocably broken…participation,as in voting,only keeps things limping along…I’ve been listening to,and falling for,that “The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good.“argument for more than half a century and with the Obama Administration the scales have finally fallen from my eyes…Obama ran as a Status Quo Centrist and,except rhetorically,that’s how he has governed…and the Status Quo will be maintained…until it all falls apart…Presidents like Obama may postpone the death of the Republic…those like Bush may hasten it but either way…”...the Empire had risen/and now it was falling…”...

And thinking is easy! But oly after one dichotomizes violence into terroristic and benevolent; includes, as always before, self defense or prevention of violence against US.

One violence is goalful, the other is aimless. Suggesting, by silent implication contained in such thinking, that lowlife in afgh’n behave-think in a savage way and not like us, who only defend ourselves!

And thinking is easy! tnx

No other conclusion can be drawn from the circular, contradictory, confusing statements that the war’s commanders and supporters keep making. President Barack Obama, in an interview with CBS taped last Friday, said “My political dick is on the line here.  Understand?  It is not merely important but absolutely vital for our national security to show the dark, violent and ignorant heathens who’s boss and who tells whom where to head in.  I will NOT preside over another Vietnam.  I shall be victorious!  Understand?”  He then looked into the camera and gave the finger. “That’s for Julian Assange.  I’m going to kill you, you little twerp!”

>>“Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a steadfast supporter of the administration’s policy in Afghanistan, said he worried that “an unholy alliance with the right and left coming together” would coalesce in opposition to the war. <<”

All of Washington DC should be worried about an “unholy alliance” (is that ever a loaded term) because if the Citizens ever united and put aside our petty differences we would stop the war and alot of other crap these faux “leaders” foist upon us

http://costofwar.com/

Drain The Swamp! Don’t wait for career politicians to do it, Vote Them OUT! A November to Remember!