[This message has been edited by Ron (09-08-2009 12:04 AM).]

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, "WHAT A RIDE

[This message has been edited by Ringo (09-09-2009 07:14 AM).]

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I think anyone who enlisted without being fully informed
and consenting as to the limitations that would be put
on support of his surviving combat should be able to apply for
and receive a full honorable discharge from military service.

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Gen. Stan McChrystal conformed to the Obama Way of War by imposing rules of engagement that could have been concocted by Code Pink

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You can, however, waste 1000's of men's lives while waiting till the polls come out on what to do.

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Sen. John McCain has praised the surge in Iraq for bringing greater stability to the region, and has reminded voters that he long supported it. But while Iraq was stabilizing, the situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating.

So on July 15, 2008, the McCain campaign released "a new comprehensive strategy for victory in Afghanistan" that applies "the tried and true principles of counterinsurgency used in the Iraq surge."

His new policy includes sending at least three additional brigades to Afghanistan. "Our commanders on the ground say they need these troops, and thanks to the success of the surge, these forces are becoming available," states the campaign's strategy outline.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign pounced on this news. By the end of the week, spokesman Bill Burton had sent out a memo titled, "Obama leading on foreign policy, McCain following."

"This past week, Senator McCain changed his position for political reasons, embracing Obama's call for more troops the day after Obama restated it in a New York Times op-ed, and almost one year after Obama's initial plan," Burton wrote.

We reviewed the candidates' past statements to determine whether McCain has changed position to match Obama.

Back on Aug. 1, 2007, Obama gave a major foreign policy speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

The speech got a lot of attention because Obama said that the United States should aggressively pursue terrorists hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

But Obama also talked about the need for the United States to turn its attention to Afghanistan.

"Our troops have fought valiantly there, but Iraq has deprived them of the support they need — and deserve," Obama said. "As a result, parts of Afghanistan are falling into the hands of the Taliban, and a mix of terrorism, drugs and corruption threatens to overwhelm the country. As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to re-enforce our counterterrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban."

In the months that followed, Obama repeatedly emphasized his assertion that the United States "had taken our eye off the ball" by invading Iraq instead of concentrating on Afghanistan.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/22/obama-ballyhoos-afghan-stance/

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President Obama issued an order Feb. 17, 2009, to send two additional brigades to Afghanistan.

"This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires," Obama said.

He also recognized "the extraordinary strain that this deployment places on our troops and military families. I honor their service, and will give them the support they need."

Obama often said during the campaign that Afghanistan required more troops and attention than it was receiving from the Bush administration. (Read our previous campaign coverage .) Obama said the United States "had taken our eye off the ball" by invading Iraq instead of concentrating on Afghanistan.

"Our troops have fought valiantly there, but Iraq has deprived them of the support they need — and deserve," Obama said in a speech on Aug. 1, 2007. "As a result, parts of Afghanistan are falling into the hands of the Taliban, and a mix of terrorism, drugs and corruption threatens to overwhelm the country. As president, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to reinforce our counterterrorism operations and support NATO's efforts against the Taliban."

In his Feb. 17 action, Obama said he would deploy a Marine Expeditionary Brigade during the spring of 2009 and an Army Stryker Brigade with support troops by the summer. That's two, just as he said he would. Promise Kept.

Finally, we want to note that our ruling here only covers Obama's pledge to send two brigades. We'll use Promise No. 148 to rate whether he equips them properly .
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/134/send-two-additional-brigades-to-afghanistan/

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White House spokesman Robert Gibbs fired back at former Vice President Dick Cheney the day after Cheney said President Barack Obama "seems afraid to make a decision" about a general's public plea for 40,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," Cheney said in a speech at the Center for Security Policy on Oct. 21.

In his daily press briefing the next day, Gibbs said Cheney's comments were "curious" given that "the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan."

And, Gibbs said, the comments were "even more curious given the fact that (a request for) an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President Obama in March."

Gibbs is referring here to a request for additional troops made by the previous top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, during President George W. Bush's final year in office.

McKiernan made his requests public in a press conference in September 2008 in Afghanistan, saying he needed at least three more combat brigades, in addition to the one Bush had promised in January. He said more soldiers and resources were needed to stabilize insurgencies in Afghanistan.

"The danger is that we'll be here longer and we'll expend more resources and experience more human suffering than if we had more resources placed against this campaign sooner," McKiernan told reporters.

"The additional military capabilities that have been asked for are needed as quickly as possible," he said.

McKiernan said then that the Pentagon validated his formal request for additional troops, and that his request dated back to when he replaced his predecessor four months prior.

In a news briefing at the Pentagon on Oct. 1, 2008, McKiernan reiterated his call for more troops — "the level of effort needs to be increased" — and said he was hoping to see a shift of assets from Iraq to Afghanistan.

"I know that's a choice that has to be made here in Washington," he said.

"I think there's a common view that we need to do more; that Afghanistan has been an economy of force for the last several years," McKiernan said.  

On Feb. 17, 2009, Obama ordered the deployment of an additional 17,000 soldiers to Afghanistan.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/23/robert-gibbs/white-house-spokesman-robert-gibbs-fires-back-chen/

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How is it that people can cling to an opinion or view of a person, event, issue of the world, despite being presented with clear or mounting data that contradicts that position? The easy answer, of course, is simply that people are irrational. But a closer look at some of the particular ways and reasons we're irrational offers some interesting food for thought.

In a recently published study, a group of researchers from Northwestern University, UNC Chapel HIll, SUNY Buffalo and Millsaps College found that people often employ an approach the researchers called "motivated reasoning" when sorting through new information or arguments, especially on controversial issues. Motivated reasoning is, as UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman put it, the equivalent of policy-driven data, instead of data-driven policy.

In other words, if people start with a particular opinion or view on a subject, any counter-evidence can create "cognitive dissonance"--discomfort caused by the presence of two irreconcilable ideas in the mind at once. One way of resolving the dissonance would be to change or alter the originally held opinion. But the researchers found that many people instead choose to change the conflicting evidence--selectively seeking out information or arguments that support their position while arguing around or ignoring any opposing evidence, even if that means using questionable or contorted logic.

That's not a news flash to anyone who's paid attention to any recent national debate--although the researchers pointed out that this finding, itself, runs counter to the idea that the reason people continue to hold positions counter to all evidence is because of misinformation or lack of access to the correct data. Even when presented with compelling, factual data from sources they trusted, many of the subjects still found ways to dismiss it. But the most interesting (or disturbing) aspect of the Northwestern study was the finding that providing additional counter-evidence, facts, or arguments actually intensified this reaction. Additional countering data, it seems, increases the cognitive dissonance, and therefore the need for subjects to alleviate that discomfort by retreating into more rigidly selective hearing and entrenched positions.

Needless to say, these findings do not bode well for anyone with hopes of changing anyone else's mind with facts or rational discussion, especially on "hot button" issues. But why do we cling so fiercely to positions when they don't even involve us directly? Why do we care who got to the North Pole first? Or whether a particular bill has provision X versus provision Y in it? Why don't we care more about simply finding out the truth--especially in cases where one "right" answer actually exists?

Part of the reason, according to Kleiman, is "the brute fact that people identify their opinions with themselves; to admit having been wrong is to have lost the argument, and (as Vince Lombardi said), every time you lose, you die a little." And, he adds, "there is no more destructive force in human affairs--not greed, not hatred--than the desire to have been right."

So, what do we do about that? If overcoming "the desire to have been right" is half as challenging as overcoming hate or greed, the outlook doesn't seem promising. But Kleiman, who specializes in crime control policy and alternative solutions to very sticky problems (his latest book is "When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment"), thinks all is not lost. He points to the philosopher Karl Popper, who, he says, believed fiercely in the discipline and teaching of critical thinking, because "it allows us to offer up our opinions as a sacrifice, so that they die in our stead."

A liberal education, Kleiman says, "ought, above all, to be an education in non-attachment to one's current opinions. I would define a true intellectual as one who cares terribly about being right, and not at all about having been right." Easy to say, very hard to achieve. For all sorts of reasons. But it's worth thinking about. Even if it came at the cost of sacrificing or altering our most dearly-held opinions ... the truth might set us free.
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/lane_wallace/2009/09/all_evidence_to_the_contrary.php

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  Huan Yi:

So to whom does this war belong now?

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.
Balladeer
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 06-05-99
Posts 21969
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA


  38 posted 12-01-2009 10:38 PM                        
Inappropriate content?
Easy, John. When it goes well, it's Obama's. When it goes bad, it's all Bush's...a no-brainer.

Funny thing is that Obama and others speak about how well things are going in Iraq but somehow none of that goes back to anything Bush did, although Obama hasn't done a thing there.

Interesting how that works, isn't it?

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So to whom does this war belong now?

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