A Letter To Obama On Afghanistan

From Michael Moore...

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.

Picasso's Guernica

As the horrors of war in Afghanistan continue thanks now to Mr. Obama, here is a sober artistic reaction to a past wartime atrocity... in 3D.

Barak Bush To Escalate The War In Afghanistan

While 36 million Americans are now on food stamps in order to stay alive, our president has decided, aqpparently, to send over 30,000 more troops into our modern day Vietnam: Afghanistan. Does Obama expect progressives to vote for him ever again?

Sullivan On Palin's Book

...the book is emblematic of late degenerate Republicanism, which is based not on actual policies, but on slogans now so exhausted by over-use they retain no real meaning: free enterprise is great, God loves us all, America is fabulous, foreigners are suspect, we need to be tough, we can't dither, we must always cut taxes, government is bad, liberals are socialists, the media hates you, etc etc.

My Note To Senator Casey On Afghanistan

Senator Casey,

I am opposed to any further escalation of our military presence in Afghanistan. The target of our efforts should be terrorists in Pakistan, not the Taliban. The Afghan people must have self-determination, aided by regional powers, but not by US forces propping up a corrupt government in Kabul. US troops must be withdrawn. It is not the task of the United States to nation build everywhere in the world. When will we finally learn the lessons of Vietnam and Iraq and do only what is truly in our national interests? No more troops should be sent to Afghanistan.

AmericaBlog Launches Boycott Of DNC

Why stop contributing to Obama and the Democrats?

Can you give examples of how the President and Democrats have not been fierce advocates for the civil rights of gay and lesbian Americans?

Asking a religious right activist who claims to have been “cured” of his homosexuality to headline campaign events in South Carolina. Then letting the anti-gay bigot spend half an hour, on stage, haranguing gays at the Obama event.
Refusing for months to interview with LGBT newspapers during the campaign, while his opponent did repeatedly.
Flubbing question on whether gays are immoral.
Inviting anti-gay activist Rick Warren, who helped pass Prop 8 in California, to give the invocation at the inaugural.
Inviting a gay bishop to the inaugural festivities, then not beginning the TV broadcast until the gay bishop has finished and left.
Refusing to appoint an openly gay Cabinet member.
Abolishing the LGBT outreach position at the DNC and never reinstating it.
Refusing to re-establish the White House Office of LGBT Outreach and the White House LGBT Liaison (which was a Special Assistant to the President at one point).
Continuing to discharge two gay servicemembers a day, even though he could stop it immediately by issuing a stop-loss order immediately.
Asking for a study on “whether” repealing DADT would hurt national security, rather than a study on how to repeal it, as promised.
Deleting his gay civil rights promise from the White House Web site.
Changing his commitment to “repeal” Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, to “changing DADT it in a sensible manner.”
Repeatedly defending DOMA in court, including just a few weeks ago, even though he didn’t have to.
Making jokes about marriage equality, which President Obama claims he doesn't support, even though he once did.
Comparing gay relationships to incest and pedophilia in a Justice Department brief.
Joking about gay protesters upset about the DOMA brief.
Refusing to provide health care benefits to the partners of gay employees, and then claiming that DOMA precludes it, when it does not.
Refusing to meet with gay legal groups to discuss how to provide such health benefits within the confines of DOMA.
Claiming that health benefits for partners of federal employees were new, then being caught in a lie.
Showing visible discomfort when asked about gay civil rights.
Suggesting he won’t get to DADT, DOMA or ENDA until his second term, if ever.
Refusing to suspend implementation of anti-gay laws, like DADT and DOMA, while suspending laws that hurt others.
White House staffers worked against amendment proposed by Rep. Alcee Hasting (D-FL) to defund Don't Ask, Don't Tell investigations
Saying won’t repeal DADT until wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have finished.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid had to beg President Obama to help on DADT repeal.
A White House official referring to gay civil rights advocates, marching on Washington, as part of “the Internet left fringe” whose opinions don’t matter.
Saying he won’t touch DOMA in his first term.
Refusing to release list of gay attendees at hate crimes reception.
Refusing to mention Maine or Washington state, or anything of substance, in his speech to the Human Rights Campaign dinner.
Saying gays are “naïve” for wanting the president to keep his promise.
Refusing to issue a statement specifically opposing anti-gay ballot measures in Maine and Washington state.
Attorney General Eric Holders flubs question on Maine, twice -- once while in Maine.
DNC/OFA emailed supporters in Maine and Washington state, but didn't ask them to vote against anti-gay ballot measures, then lied about it.
Senator Durbin (D-IL), a very close ally of Obama, says Senate probably won’t repeal DADT in 2010, as promised.
Senior DNC official accuses gays and lesbians of “helping Republicans” by simply asking Democrats to keep their gay civil rights promise.
Refusing to publicly endorse marriage equality for gays.
Continuing to dawdle over DADT.
Refusing to this day to interview with the gay press

.
Refusing to apologize for any of these slights.

DavidMixner.com: Election (Part Two): What Now

DavidMixner.com: Election (Part Two): What Now

Posted using ShareThis

Gay/Progressive Rage At Obama

A sampling from RIchard Rothstein:

A majority of American voters opposed the abolition of slavery, a woman's right to vote and control her own body, interracial marriage and war against Hitler's Germany--to name but a few ballot box disasters. And, yesterday, once again, American voters demonstrated their uncanny inclination to put bigotry and fear above constitutionality, human rights and common decency. But the truth of what really happened was a spectacular failure of national leadership.

Human slavery was abolished, women earned the right to vote and control their own bodies, Barack Obama's parents were allowed to legally marry and Nazi Germany was defeated because of brilliant, moral and courageous leadership--something very much lacking in the hypocritical, inexperienced and dishonest con artist who now occupies the White House, lacking in the leadership of the Democratic Party and agonizingly lacking in the executive offices of the gay advocacy movement.

From Geoffrey R. Stone - Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago posted over at Huffington Huffington:

What is most missing now in the movement to achieve equality in America is courage among our political leaders. Even the leading contenders for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination were unwilling to say that they supported same-sex marriage. This is shameful. And it is especially shameful that our President remains silent. Barack Obama the politician may find it expedient to hedge his position, but Barack Obama the man knows, he must know, that this position is morally wrong. It is time for him to say so, and it is time for him and other political leaders across the nation to step up on this issue and lead. That, after all, is what leaders do.

Andrew Sullivan:

"...better for us to stop hoping he'll help. He won't."