Afghanistan is not Anbar
The latest news coming out of Afghanistan is not good. There is likely to be a second round of voting in the presidential race, which will keep the government in flux and U.S. troops preoccupied for at least another month--and the results of any election will be questioned because of the semi-successful Taliban suppression of the vote in the Pashtun-majority south.
Then, there is the military situation. This report details the problems the US Marines are having in crucial Helmand province:
Frustrated, Governor Massoud said his “government is weak and cannot provide agricultural officials, school officials, prosecutors and judges.”
He said he was promised 120 police officers, but only 50 showed up. He said many were untrustworthy and poorly trained men who stole from the people, a description many of the Americans agree with. No more than 10 percent appear to have attended a police academy, they say. “Many are just men from the streets,” the governor said.
The Afghan National Army contingent appears sharper — even if only one-sixth the size that Governor Massoud said he was promised — but the soldiers have resisted some missions because they say they were sent not to fight, but to recuperate.
“We came here to rest, then we are going somewhere else,” said Lt. Javed Jabar Khail, commander of the 31-man unit. The Marines say they hope the next batch of Afghan soldiers will not be expecting a holiday.
This puts a serious dent in the hope that the same sort of counter-insurgency tactics that worked in Iraq will work in Afghanistan. Here's the problem: In the Sunni triangle, the local tribes were willing to switch sides because they'd had enough of the Al Qaeda taqfiris, who were mostly foreigners, in any case. In Helmand, the rebels are indigenous Afghans--many of them criminal elements involved in the drug traffic. Any attempt to pacify the area will fail unless there is a credible Afghan civil and military presence offering the local people security, a plausible justice system and the promise of economic development. (And remember, Helmand is an order of magnitude poorer than Anbar--the literacy rate is probably less than 10%.)
No doubt, the US military and diplomatic corps are conducting constant appraisals of the strategy. I'd be curious to know--and intend to find out--what they think the current options are and what the next steps should be. But this doesn't look good at all.
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Fighting battles can be a matter of a few hours, Improving literacy rates takes an entire generation.
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Do we really have that kind of time or are we going to take the easy (and violent) way out?-
1.1
"Improving literacy rates takes an entire generation."
STOP PICKING ON ACORN AND JOHN EDWARDS.
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1.2
In response to hulagate, I can only ask: "-Are you a bona fide idiot or are you just trying to be funny?"
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Yes, Afghanistan (a country) is not Anbar (a Sunni dominated region of Iraq), Are you doing apples to apples? Or is the headline meant to catch attention?
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Joe,
you read, I hope Aimai's very fascinating recounting of your behavior at the Wellfleet barbecue party? What I found so fascinating about this story, besides your drunken screaming about Glenzilla being EVIL!! EVIL!!! A CIVIL LIBERTIES EXTREMIST!!! was an explantion of that odd little post with that piece of right-wing hate mail. Hahaha.Also. Not surprisingly, Glennzilla has something to say about your embarrassing outburst and slander as well here: Bush critics: still evil, crazy extremists - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
I have a piece to add about your behavior to your colleagues during the FISA embarassment, but I'll hold off that for now.
Joe, you should learn that what you do and say in the 21st Century can be checked and recalled via video and google. And, democratically, people you slander have an avenue of redress. You really should remember that.
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3.1
The wanking remains strong with that one.
Rumor has it Joe Klein tried to claim on TV this weekend that bloggers don't fact check (in consort with his uber-wanker pal Chris Matthews). Now I have neither the time nor the expertise to decide whether that really happened (actually i think such levels of wanking, if they did happened would be unwatchable) but I'm guessing when you put two self important rubes like Klein and Matthews in the same room something like that is bound to happen.
Say hello to Crazy Pete Hoekstra for me. -
3.2
The video of Joe's wanking is already making the rounds on le internet tubes. (LINK) ThinkProgress has it.' MY notes that
The fact of the matter is that outside of peer reviewed publications by university presses, books aren't fact-checked. Live or quasi-live television broadcasts of the sort Matthews hosts or that cable networks show all day aren't fact-checked. Heck, newspapers aren't fact-checked. Fact-checking is a fairly idiosyncratic element of the magazine publishing industry. What's more, if you actually read magazines it's clear that even a super-rigorous fact-checking process like what they do at The New Yorker doesn't actually prevent significant errors of interpretation, omission, etc.
Here: (LINK)Matthew Yglesias » Fact-Checking
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Who factchecks the TV broadcasters and TV pundits? Nobody, of course.
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Tora Bora 2009? Sure looks like a third Bush-Cheney term to me! Nice going, leftwits!
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And McCain would have handled this better because? Calling people names and junky remarks seems to be the limit of your mental capacities.
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"Frustrated, Governor Massoud said his “government is weak and cannot provide agricultural officials, school officials, prosecutors and judges.”
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So when do Hillary's MisState Department dregs and foreign service shiites start to show up, Joe?
All We Are Saying, Give Hippiecraps A Chance...
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Here's another nice little bit from the No More Mister Nice Blog piece (linked above):
And then, in what might be the piece de resistance of this little interaction, [Klein] screamed “you don't read me! You read WIKIPEDIA! AND THAT'S LEFTIST.”
Heh heh. Wikipedia is "leftist." Who knew? I thought it was just reality-based.
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6.1
Anyone with an Internet connection can contribute to Wikipedia and everyone knows that only dirty leftists, who hate America, use things like the Internets and the Youtubes.
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6.2
The position of both the GOP wingnuts and the MSM is that only leftists would DARE to introduce empirical fact to an ideological babblefest.
The current MSM and GOP crop utterly reject Moynihan's famous remark: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
To be fair, Klein is better than most of these fools. Read Ambinder and Brooks for examples of MSM utterly uninterested in accuracy.
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The DOD has no problems filling their combat slots, even under Obama and being actual patriots.
When will Field Marshall Obama get his geniuses Holbroke, Hipplery, and Maddie Halfbright to kick in their meddling minions, to the geo-political fray?
You'd think the Code Pinkos and Ayersheads would be beating the dented doors down for MisState Dept flights to Kabul.
Or was getting back at BUSH-CHENEY really the only concern, and the drooling Obamites never really intended to solve Afpakistan?
Inquiring families of U.S. troops would like to know, Joe.
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Are you a family of a US troop? Or just a blub at a computer with a big mouth?
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Meanwhile, back at ACORN HQ...
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Joe Klein:
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Afghanistan is not Anbar
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Since you're on such a roll here, let me help you with a few more of those "A is not B" statements.
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"Apples are not Oranges"
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"Dogs are not Cats"
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"On is not Off"
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...And:Meanwhile, I never had much interest in a public option. I think the perils of government-delivered (as opposed to funded) services are obvious and immense.
[sigh] Right.
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"Public Option is not Government-delivered Service"
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Got that, Joe Klein?
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Maybe you need some examples of "A is B" statements...
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"Post Office is Government-delivered Service"
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"TSA is Government-delivered Service"
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"DHS Color-Coded Threat Level is Government-delivered Service"
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"Public Option is NOT Government-delivered Service"
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Do we have our A's and B's straight now, Joe Klein? Can we write sanely and factually about different policy proposals going forward? -
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Joe Klein couldn't have seriously said "Wikipedia is leftist!", right? Like he was Bill O'Reilly?
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I have trouble believing that one. That must have been some poetic license, or hyperbole, or a misunderstanding, or something.
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Joe Klein:
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You didn't actually say something as horrifyingly laughable as "Wikipedia is leftist!", or if you did, you were joking or illustrating a point about foolish people or something, right?
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...Right...?-
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Wikipedia IS leftist, they regularly censor posts that don't kowtow to their bent UK git view of the Western world.
Ask anyone living from Lockerbie.
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Joe Klein:
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Wikipedia IS leftist, they regularly censor posts that don't kowtow to their bent UK git view of the Western world.
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What can I say?
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Would you like to clarify your views now?
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Actual news:
Obama relinquishes air power for political correctness, ground troop deaths soar as White House appeases Taliban's use of human shields.
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[...] post: Afghanistan is not Anbar - Swampland - TIME.com Share and [...]
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It sounds like Joe was drunk. I'd be interested in hearing from some of the other people there.
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And Joe at the very least need to deny or disassociate himself from the personal attacks he made. -
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Google Moonbat launching by Labor Day, latest killer web app combines invasion of privacy with PBS mailing list for 2012 benefit of ACORN.
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Following hula's logic to it's inevitable conclusion suggests that the best way to deal with Afghanistan would be to evacuate all US personnel and then Nuke what remains.
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No US forces are lost and the Taliban are properly punished for the crime of comingling with civilians.
What's not to like? -
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I'm sorry, I fail to understand why Time Magazine continues to give Mr. Klein a platform.
How many times can one man be wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but completely, horribly, disastrously wrong, before you pull the plug on him?
Remember those brave Iranians we just saw marching? Mr. Klein advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Iran. A million would have died.
Remember that Iraq war? Hundreds of thousands of dead, for nothing? Mr. Klein pushed for that war - and then denied it later.
Glenn Greenwald lists numerous other wretched failures of Mr. Klein's journalism. I'm sure you're sick of hearing about Mr. Greenwald but perhaps Mr. Klein should consider either refuting Mr. Greenwald's claims, or apologizing to the nation and the world for what he has done.
I therefore haven't bought your magazine in almost 6 years. I no longer accept it as a valid source of news or information. I have never regretted that decision.
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16.1
How many times can one man be wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but completely, horribly, disastrously wrong, before you pull the plug on him?
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It's a feature, not a bug. It's one huge inside-the-beltway backslapping-bonhomie wank-and-weeniefest.
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As long as you are completely, horribly, disastrously wrong IN THE SAME WAY that "everyone" (meaning, everyone inside the beltway) was wrong, you still get invited to the barbecues. -
16.2
Reposting from the GG discussion:
Self-congratulation is a very gratifying emotion.
If you can form a circle of mutual congratulation then your position becomes even less assailable. If you then protect your cirlcle of self-congratulation with all of the insular self-regard that money can buy, then it's easy to see how someone can fall into the trap of not realizing that they're an amoral cretin.
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"How many times can one man be wrong, not just a little bit wrong, but completely, horribly, disastrously wrong, before you pull the plug on him?"
But that's GG & Krug's pt. The MSM doesn't have to be right, ever. And when wrong they never have to admit it or say they're sorry. They simply alter the record (i.e. lie / e.g. Joe's Iraq 180). And when he closes the above rubbish-post with "But this doesn't look good at all," it's clear that it's the first step in his pivot towards souring on that war (after whoring for the militarists for years). He's leaving himself an out in the event it goes to sh!t. Eventually, some years later (sadly, given Obama's asinine commitment to this f@cking boondoggle), JK will practice the same revisionist history, critiquing the war in the Afghan, questioning whether it ever accomplished anything. As if millions of thinking Americans didn't read/watch him sell the necessity of conflict for years.
But this is a key feature of the entire establishment. Of course, the MSM has been failing us, epically so, but when was the last time our elected officials did anything except fail us. Why do most of us have to look back to our pre-history, the Great Society, the New Deal, to find ex's of gov't being on the side of the people?
Anyway, back to JK, he'll come to use his ever diminishing soapbox to ease his conscience. Too bad, in an era pre-Wiki and blogosphere in nature, JK went unchecked. Dental office readers and folks in the hinterlands had to swallow his propaganda whole. That's what bugs him the most, well, aside from assaults like this from the rabble (Aimai or GG). JK never practices impassioned "journalism" like when he's been personally disrespected by those he deems inferiors.
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Oh, how quickly down down down, into the memory hole, jc. Apparently you have forgotten all about Klein's mansized crush on Petraeus. You had to wipe all those star-bursts off your screen when he got started wanking on Petraeus. See, he CAN practice "impassioned" journalism!
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That's when he used to beat us all over the head with how "defeatist" us DFH "leftists" were.
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Some voices on Afghan worth reading. Forgive me, b/c I'm sure, like Wikipedia, these are dirty f'ing leftists:
Firstly, Eric Margolis of the pinko Toronto Star:
"The current war in Afghanistan is not about democracy, women's rights, education or nation building. Al-Qaida, the other excuse, barely exists. Its handful of members long ago decamped to Pakistan. The war really is about oil pipeline routes and western domination of the energy-rich Caspian Basin."
And another "EVIL!" radical on the left, Afghan MP, Malalai Joya:
"We Afghans know that this election will change nothing and it is only part of a show of democracy put on by, and for, the West, to legitimise its future puppet in Afghanistan. It seems we are doomed to see the continuation of this failed, mafia-like, corrupt government for another term.
The people of Afghanistan are fed up with the rampant corruption of Karzai's "narco-state" (his own brother, Wali Karzai, has been linked to drug trafficking in Kandahar province) and the escalating war waged by Nato. In May of this year, US air strikes killed approximately 150 civilians in my native province, Farah."
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"The latest news coming out of Afghanistan is not good. There is likely to be a second round of voting in the presidential race, which will keep the government in flux and U.S. troops preoccupied for at least another month--and the results of any election will be questioned because of the semi-successful Taliban suppression of the vote in the Pashtu-majority south."
Now I heard from another "expert" on NPR that a second pass at the election would be a good thing because it avoids the awkward "the polls closed a minute ago and the US backed government won with 75% of the vote" scenario similar to the Iranian mess. If the Afghans feel that another point of view is making a dent in the tote board I can't see that as a bad thing. In Afghanistan 68 parties wouldn't be enough to satisfy all their special interests. Hand wringing about two contenders making a show of it is silly.
Another NPR "expert" said that Afghanistan only needs a commitment of a fast reaction force of US special forces to tamp down the terrorist training camps.
He mentioned that special forces work best in failed states. No red tape. He also seemed to think that Afghans won't embrace the Taliban again because they finally realize that the Taliban isn't about making the trains run on time. Okayfine.
Where I really lost him was his idea that there are magical, amazing, incredible things we can do with Pakistan to make our troubles go away. He was specifically unspecific on that topic. Much like Joe.
Throwing it out there, what would happen if we ditched Afghanistan except for the happy hum of drones (to find said camps), called Pakistan into the office and closed the door, and bought India candy and flowers? At the very least I'm for a US-friendly pot of Indian consumers and producers. Could the odds of world holocaust be demonstrably better by sticking our clueless Anglo-noses into thousand year old squabbles among dusty rocks with no value to Man, beast, or God (if you will)?
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