The Obama Revolution: Robert Scheer: The Nation

[amborin]

The Obama revolution, and there was the hope of one, might still succeed. But only if Barack Obama follows the model of the incredibly successful Reagan revolution and heeds the political base that made his presidency possible.

/snip

The first obligation of Obama as president is to be a peacemaker, since he as a candidate seized that mantle, successfully exploiting his early opposition to the Iraq war, which his closest rival, Hillary Clinton, had supported. Obama, as opposed to her flirtations with US imperial arrogance, has stuck to a vision of a complex multipolar world in which the military option is to be chosen only as a last resort.

/snip

The deal breaker in foreign policy so far has been his escalation of the folly of US nation-building in Afghanistan that feeds rather than mitigates terrorist recruitment. That is the unmistakable, if unintended, conclusion of the sixty-six-page declassified report of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal that became public this week. It states: "many indicators suggest the overall situation is deteriorating. We face not only a resilient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence among Afghans--in both their government and the international community--that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents."

The report makes clear that the insurgents are deeply divided into three camps (one of which previously fought against the Taliban) and are basically homegrown, and provides no evidence that defeating them has anything to do with making us safer from attack by Al Qaeda terrorists. Lest we forget, the 9/11 hijackers found it easier to operate from Germany, San Diego and Florida rather than forlorn Afghanistan. ...

The foreign influence behind the insurgency comes primarily from one of the countries we are allied with; as the report notes, "Afghanistan's insurgency is clearly supported from Pakistan."

/snip

<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091005/scheer>

[glitch]

1. Remarkable to see Robert Scheer unrecked on DU. nt

[amborin]

2. agree, but i've seen Scheer un-rec'd many times here! n/t

[amborin]

3. will McCrystal resign? more from The Nation:

"Yesterday morning, at a meeting of the neoconservative Foreign Policy Initiative, a former top US military officer suggested that General Stanley McChrystal might resign from his post if President Obama doesn't go along with his pending request for more troops for Afghanistan.

Brig. Gen. Mark T. Kimmitt, a former Bush administration official and Centcom officer...../snip....said, if Obama doesn't give McChrystal the resources he needs, then the four-star general might quit.

/snip

McChrystal, he said, is presenting Obama with three choices: a maximum option, that would involve up to 40,000 more troops, a middle option, and a low option. Under all three, Kimmitt said, McChrystal believes that he can do the job. On the other hand, if he doesn't get the low option, probably something like an additional 15,000 troops, the general might consider quitting.

/snip

the resignation of McChrystal, who's been elevated to near-hero status by the Republican right, would be a frontal challenge to the White House. So far, in a sign that the White House isn't playing patsy for the military, the administration has resisted bringing McChrystal back to Washington to testify, Petraeus-style, before Congress. And they've downplayed the significance of McChrystal's role, saying that his input is just one of many sources that are providing information to the White House as it considers the next phase of its failing Afghanistan strategy. ....

/snip

<http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/475977/will_mcchrystal_quit>

[polichick]

4. k&r