Hot debate as Obama's war drones on

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WASHINGTON - The argument for deeper United States military commitment to the Afghan war invoked by President Barack Obama in his first major policy statement on Afghanistan and Pakistan on Friday - that al-Qaeda must be denied a safe haven in Afghanistan - has not been subjected to public debate in Washington.

A few influential strategists in Washington have been arguing, however, that this official rationale misstates the al-Qaeda problem and ignores the serious risk that an escalating US war poses to Pakistan.

Those strategists doubt that al-Qaeda would seek to move into Afghanistan as long as they are ensconced in Pakistan and argue
that escalating US Predator drone airstrikes or special operations raids on Taliban targets in Pakistan will actually strengthen radical jihadi groups in the country and weaken the Pakistani government's ability to resist them.

The first military strategist to go on record with such a dissenting view on Afghanistan and Pakistan was Colonel T X Hammes, a retired US Marine Corps officer and author of the 2004 book The Sling and the Stone, which argued that the US military faces a new type of warfare which it would continue to lose if it did not radically re-orient its thinking. He became more widely known as one of the first military officers to call, in September 2006, for defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation over failures in Iraq.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KD01Df04.html

[babylonsister]

1. This source...

"has not been subjected to public debate in Washington", but has been subjected to a lot of debate by people who know what they're talking about, unlike the public.

Did Obama ask my opinion? No, and I'm glad.

[bemildred]

2. I generally view military analysts with a jaundiced eye.

Since they tend to take a narrow view of the world. That would apply to a lot of the opinions in this piece. However I do think the danger of further destabilizing Pakistan is real.

[babylonsister]

7. I agree with you. But

'Obama's war drones on'? He took possession, if one can call it that, of this war last Friday. How is that droning on?

Pakistan is going to be a big problem imo.

[bemildred]

10. I think it's a pun, on the drone war.

Headline writers seem to love puns and double entendres and cuteness in general.

[Jakes Progress]

5. So the public is not to be trusted.

So much for democracy.

[babylonsister]

8. To make decisions about ongoing military actions? Do you think

you have the expertise to be consulted? I know I don't. I'm just thankful this president is taking learned opinions from experienced people to heart, unlike the former admin.

[Jakes Progress]

9. Depends on which "experienced" people.

I like our new president too, but too many of his advisors are full of the same advice as the pretender we just got rid of. Too many ties to the military industrial complex, too wired to the pentagon war ethic. The public elected Obama. The idea was that we didn't like the way the last guy was doing things. We want them done differently, not just in another country.

And yes, I think I am entitled to have a say about where my tax money and my country's soldiers go. And yes, I want the war over. I'm tired of us killing for peace. I'm tired of those with a fortune to be made in selling guns being the only ones who get the title of "experienced people". We are losing the war because of the war we are fighting. Many real experts, real experienced people who have actually been to the countries we are invading are counseling a different path than more bombs and guns.

[yurbud]

6. whose opinion do you think is holding sway then? Oil companies, bankers, and Wall St. firms

dependent on pipeline routes and under the table poppy income?

http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2009/02/were-fighting-to-hold-afghanistan.html

[msongs]

3. murdering innocent civilians makes people angry? who'da thought it? whatta shocker! nt

[bemildred]

4. Not only that, it doesn't lead to stability. Who knew violence was destabilizing? nt

[MISSDem]

11. All we are saying is

Give peace a chance.