Barack Obama is being besieged from all sides about his pending decision on what to do about an undeclared war. I don’t know why this should be his decision alone. If conservatives in congress still have ants in their pants for war, as they did when Lyndon Johnson was president, why don’t they summon the courage to commit. Better yet, maybe Obama should ask them to declare war on a country that had much less to do with the 911 attacks then Saudi Arabia. I’m not the expert here, but shouldn’t congress convene debate on what could become the biggest blunder since Viet Nam.
Johnson was obviously steered by the specter of falling dominoes, vitriolic Republicans like Goldwater and a largely uninformed public, (things never seem to change), wanting strength instead of weakness in his reluctant adventure into an undeclared war that John F. Kennedy wanted to end.
Thanks to President Johnson’s tortured decision to sign into law something called the “Freedom Of Information Act”, we have access to a fascinating piece of American history. Bill Moyers, who will regrettably end his unsurpassed television journalism in April, and who served under President Johnson, has picked out what he believes are the most important recorded telephone conversations between Johnson and the people he asked for guidance, (some of whom were not in an inner circle of friends, which seems to be Obama’s method also.)
If America ever gets to hear recordings of George W. Bush’s or Dick Cheney’s conversations, I think we will be horrified beyond anything we’ve ever experienced. They were not asking friends and potential enemies what they thought – they were rushing the United States into a fire sale of Biblical proportions.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe tapes of Bush and Cheney will illuminate why we dove into a war which Cheney himself warned against a few years earlier, but I’m doubtful Cheney would allow any tapes of his actions to survive under the auspice of, (you know), SECURITY; a word I’ve come to hate more then I ever dreamed possible, because it’s meaning had much more to do with SECRECY under these “men.”
Moyers starts this weeks program, which I’m sure he hopes Obama will see, saying:
Granted, Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. But listen and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.
And ends with:
Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we’re fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.
Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.
And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he’s got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.
And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.
We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.
You simply have to watch, hear, or read this program here, (two parts.)
Isn’t it interesting how real journalists like Moyers and Amy Goodman give everybody as much access to their programs as possible, while CNN’s and FOX “news” videos routinely disappear from YouTube.
#1 by Larry Bergan on November 21, 2009 - 3:56 am
One of Bush’s first acts of office, (if not THE first act of office), was to weaken the “Freedom Of Information Act” by shifting the burden of proof away from the government.
Nice!
#2 by cav on November 21, 2009 - 8:21 am
Larry, in our effervescent economy, a continuous string of bubbles is the ticket to continued dominance.
I would suggest there’s a bubble with your name on it.
(meant to be encouraging : )).
#3 by Richard Warnick on November 21, 2009 - 9:22 am
I remember President Bush once said that the lesson of Vietnam was we should never have withdrawn our Army. Think about that.
Here’s another thing to think about. Why is General McChrystal campaigning to get 40,000 more soldiers deployed to Afghanistan? Because that represents the maximum effort the U.S. Army is capable of right now. Spencer Ackerman:
If we had 100,000 troops to send, then McChrystal would be asking for 100,000.
To have even a chance of bringing peace and security, a counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan would require a legitimate national government (that Afghanistan has never had) plus a half million troops (including Afghan forces, assuming for the sake of argument that they would be effective enough to count). These forces would have to remain indefinitely.
Senator John McCain, flying by the seat of his fact-free pants, has declared 40,000 troops plus “a year to 18 months” equals “success” in Afghanistan. But he’s smart enough not to define what he means by “success” in the context of an unwinnable war.
#4 by James Farmer on November 21, 2009 - 1:59 pm
100,000 troops we need, and maybe a game plan toward an end to the undeclared war in Afghanistan?
That’s easy! Re-institute the draft, and load the first lottery barrel with the names of eligible college-aged republican chicken hawks; oh, and eliminate Cheneyesq-type deferments, too. The undeclared war would be over in a matter of months!
#5 by Jimson Steils on November 21, 2009 - 2:07 pm
This is the real story. It is well acted, worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnY6k1ybTHg&feature=player_embedded#
#6 by Larry Bergan on November 22, 2009 - 1:05 am
Richard:
Almost sounds like a threat.
James:
You are exactly right. The only good thing I can see in a draft is to give these poor souls that keep getting sent back again and again a break. Oh, there is one more thing: we wouldn’t need to keep hearing right wingers say “WELL HE VOLUNTEERED” every time they get backed into a corner over the horrors that our soldiers are exposed to.
I respect Wesley Clark, and he says to get out.
Thanks cav.
#7 by cav on November 22, 2009 - 7:58 am
Army has full recriutment for the first time since 1973 when it was formulated.
I was reading through the dead tree Progressive Populist last night and an article struck me: the army says that the formula for volunteer recruits in a recession is that for every 10% increase in unemployment, there has traditionally been a 4 – 5% increase in army recruitment.UGH. Bring on the tin foil hats.The draft is an impossibility for our military because its inherent poisons would gag and kill any warfront going.So, if they feel that an unemployment uptick will be a significant boon for their ranks, could that be why the fuckasses did not introduce a jobs recovery plan last January?This article was in the context of the obsesity crisis and how the availability of individuals in the age range for recruitment was paltry because a third of them are too fat to join up and fight. Can’t do push ups to save their life
#8 by Larry Bergan on November 22, 2009 - 11:44 pm
I don’t know cav, if there was anything that was done during the Bush years that was supposed to make us in the bottom 95% richer, I’d like to know what that was.
One thing is for sure, if recruitment is being helped by increasing poverty, I’m quite sure the military complex isn’t upset by that.
#9 by Willaim D on November 23, 2009 - 1:19 am
Your assumption that this is an undeclared war leaves me to believe that you refuse to see any evidence that we are under attack and have been so for the last 16 years or more. Just because you don’t recognize the facts that we are constantly being attacked by a group of idealists who have one motive: to exterminate every infidel and destroy the government of the United States of America among others throughout the world. Obama has shown his true slef in the indecision to send any more troops to Afghanistan. Since the first request for more troops was made Obama has been weighing public opinion about what to do. He has traveled around the world and has participated in the least important economic social gatherings and made insulting comments regarding the investigation of a radical Muslim attack on a military base on our own soil and still he waffles at the concept that his decision to send more troops might not sit well with some of his supporters. Well if you think he has your best interests at heart then remember this when you witness your first suicide bombing on US soil or you see the next radical Muslim attack on US citizens. By not responding to the experts who know what is going on in Afghanistan Obama has already decided to surrender. The real problem is that our troops there are increasingly put at risk by his indecisiveness. You wring your hands about sending more troops and claim we have no plan for winning this war. Well I recall that there was a very clear statement that we needed to act quickly and increase troops and set a plan in place but Obama as now signed the death certificates of hundreds if not thousands of Americans. I see you as someone who will welcome the attackers as free thinkers who share their views by getting rid of non conformists. How can withholding judgment on radical extremists help us prevent another attack of similar consequence? We are at war. Our enemy has repeatedly reinforced their declaration of war with repeated focused attacks on peace loving people throughout the world. If you don’t have the intelligence to see that if we don’t finish this fight there this fight will end over here. Where were you 9 years ago? Were you just climbing out from under your desk hoping someone would take care of the horrible people who disrupted your happy lives? Now that you have had eight years of relative quiet at home you now have second thoughts that this is a manageable outcome to have an increasing threat to peace gain control of the country they oppressed for years before we removed them from power? I seriously question your ability for rational thought. If we don’t increase our support of the troop in Afghanistan and tell Pakistan that they are on warning we will not be able to rid the world of terrorism. We can not accept surrenders. We can not think we can treat them as we would treat someone with our sense of justice. They will turn again and kill us and our children. Our only hope is to destroy each and every one of them until they fall out of popularity and can no longer recruit volunteers to sacrifice their selves for a spiteful fallen leader. Until then you’d better get sued to seeing the death count go up significantly
#10 by cav on November 23, 2009 - 9:26 am
Being at the top of the food chain can be a real bitch sometimes.
But we shouldn’t expect the prey to go gladly into our maw.
#11 by James farmer on November 23, 2009 - 9:42 am
William D:
Putting all your hyperbole and ad hominem to the side, let me pose a question or two to you. You want to make this “war” a real one to the end. That said, are you willing to see taxes raised substantially to pay for the war? Are you willing to see re-institution of the draft to provide the personnel necessary to fight the war (with reserves on hand for other conflicts as they arise)? Or here’s a good one: are you willing to have your children and grandchildren shipped off to Afghanistan or Pakistan next month to fight this war?
To me, you are the third member of the trio: Ken Binghan, Glenn Hoefer and, now, William D, with Mike pinch hitting from time to time as needed. Not a single one of you has a constructive idea for anything, not a single one of you is prepared to sacrifice anything, and not a single one of you knows a rat’s ass about what you are talking about!
Will you be attending the Palin book signing here in Utah next month?
#12 by Glenn Hofer on November 23, 2009 - 12:21 pm
You are just mad Jim because it is so easy to hand you your head in argument. Even if the person you are arguing with doesn’t really support their opposing points.
Constructive idea, the Federal government has to stop creating debt. It should probably make the commitments even you can figure out, like scale up or get out of Afghanistan and Iraq.
If you call dithering in Afghanistan, and running a 2 trillion dollar deficit as constructive…well, I will let you defend it yourself. At this point there is nothing to be done but end Obama’s political power. We can fix nothing until he is gone. It is all about money we don’t have, sadly, and we have more debt burden now than ever.
Question: Do you support the illegal drone attacks? Is the collateral damage worth it? These are Obama policies, comment on them as the rest of it is in the past, and from his decision making it looks as though he has not the means, or intentions to change anything about how we are to conduct this Global War on Terror.
#13 by James Farmer on November 23, 2009 - 3:37 pm
Obama policies, you say? Gee, it wasn’t too long ago that you were claiming they were holdover policies from the Bush administration. Why is it, glenn, that you cannot maintain a constant thought or argument for more than a few minutes?
#14 by Larry Bergan on November 23, 2009 - 3:39 pm
Willaim D:
If you watched the Moyers show in this post, you heard that Johnson was very worried about the biggest fear rumor going around at the time. The dominoes were going to fall if we didn’t show strength in Viet Nam, which meant bombing the hell out of them. Isn’t there any strength in negotiations instead? That’s how we finally got out of Viet Nam and the dominoes never fell.
Kennedy had it right; we should have got out of there in the beginning.
The reason we were attacked on 911is because Saudi Arabians didn’t want our troops in their country and close by their most sacred places. We got our troops out of that country, but invaded two others with the pursuit of oil in mind. Was that smart? We could have bought all the oil in heaven with the money we’ve spent.
#15 by Glenn Hoefer on November 23, 2009 - 4:25 pm
Hi James; they are holdover policies from the last admin, but just like school children when you continue a behavior despite knowing it is bad, it doesn’t matter that Jimmy showed you how to do it. If you don’t know it is bad and just continue it you are probably a special education child.
Needless to say, you are going to need adult intervention in either case. That is the follow through James, they are the same people, Bush and Obama in regard to war policy, so they accorded the same derision and condemnation.
#16 by Larry Bergan on November 23, 2009 - 4:28 pm
I just found out that John Nichols wrote an article for The Nation about this important show too. He talked to Moyers before it aired and Moyers told him it was
Don’t just comment here. Watch the program!
#17 by Glenn Hoefer on November 23, 2009 - 4:48 pm
C’mon, Moyers is just the guy saying, see… look? We already know. How could we not? I hope he is satisfied with his wealth and prestige in the world of progressives because, as if Obama friggen’ cared what Bill Moyers says.
Who else has time for it? Reminds me of pro- wrastlin’ all staged for boobs in the crowd, and anyone that will pay for the ticket for entertainment.
Wading through another funding drive at NPR…, no, not really.
We have been in Afghanistan for 9 years, and only now are we interested in the fact that visitors lose in the Afghan stadium. Go Bill, show ‘em what that means!!
#18 by Larry Bergan on November 23, 2009 - 8:46 pm
Glenn whoever says, (in his, as usual cryptic way):
I think you’re missing the whole point here, whoever. The program wasn’t focused on what Bill said; it was focused on what a former president of the United States said.
#19 by Larry Bergan on November 23, 2009 - 8:50 pm
Well, OK, that wasn’t even an example of how cryptic glenn can get, but we all know know.
#20 by Larry Bergan on November 23, 2009 - 9:06 pm
Oops. What’s a know know?
#21 by cav on November 23, 2009 - 10:15 pm
‘Whoever’! Now that’s pretty funny.