Theres a fair amount of grumbling on President Barack Obamas left about his big military push in Afghanistan, but dont look for it to get in his wayat least for the next year or so.
The litmus test starts Thursday as the House Appropriations Committee considers a $94.2 billion funding bill to pay for the costs of pulling American troops out of Iraq and adding to those in Afghanistan. Rep. David Obey, the crusty appropriations chairman, has made it abundantly clear that he doesnt like the troop buildup in Afghanistan, and thinks its destined to fail to achieve its goal of stabilizing the country. But Obey has said, in effect, that hell give the president a year to prove him wrong. And Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic majority leader, said in an interview Thursday that the president will get his money. You will have a majority of House members voting for it, Rep. Hoyer said. I think this president, like most presidents, is going to get some time.
War funding is one of those rare issues where Obama gets substantial help from Republicans, and that should more than offset any Democratic defectors. Hoyer said that the funding bill has wide bipartisan support, though certainly is short of unanimous support.
A big fight on Afghan war funding surely is a problem Obama could live without, particularly in a week when Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been visiting him in the White House. That visit already has been marred by reports that strikes by American aircraft searching for Taliban fighters mistakenly killed dozens of Afghan civilians.
The Karzai visit, alongside a parallel visit by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, has underscored a problem Obama faces that is more immediate than any money concerns: The fact that the U.S. is compelled, in the struggle to contain the Taliban, to lean on two leaders the U.S. considers less than stellar. Obama and his aides have openly questioned whether Karzai is up to the job of creating a strong central government in Afghanistan, and they privately have begun questioning whether Zardari has the political skill to roll back Taliban advances in Pakistan. But Hoyer indicated that the U.S. expects that it will be dealing with Karzai, at least, for some time to come. Our speculation is that Karzai will win upcoming elections in Afghanistan and be the American partner there afterwards, he said.
#1
Well, I hope Obambi gets his shit together. Looks like my eldest son will get an Afghan experience in his Army career come late summer.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2009 19:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Many thanks to your son and your whole family as well, Frank. I hope it's not too pretentious for me to say that we're all praying for him, because it really should be said. Our troops are facing down some of the worst threats to all of civilization over there, and a just world would never stop honoring them.
#3
thks Ryuge. He volunteered. As a parent, you always hope they'd be safe in a REMF sinecure, but he wasn't happy in Mil Intel, and asked to get this experience. Part of the job description, I understand. Your prayers are welcome.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2009 20:08 Comments ||
Top||
#4
ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM [paraph]> PAKISTAN: FORMER BNP PRESIDENT SAYS AIM OF BNP PARTY IS INDEPENDENCE FROM PAKISTAN.
* SAME > [Ozland =AUS Analyst Keith Suter]INDIA TO BE THE NEXT SUPERPOWER BY 2050, US AND CHINA MAY BE IN DECLINE; + INDIA TO BE THE BIGGEST SUPERPOWER OF THE 21ST CENTURY [ = "INDIA'S/
INDIAN CENTURY"], besides also China, USA, + possib EU?; + AUSTRALIAN ARMY REPORT [White Paper]: CHINA, INDIA MAY STIR UP "REGIONAL WAR". Army Report also indics or infers USA intends to use its major Allies as global regional anchors in support of US Foreign-GWOT Policies.
#2
the only ones that surprise me is the Germans, i mean what the hell happened too the race that deefeated the romans and kept them from crossing into their tribal lands, have developed some of the greatest weapons ever too see battle and took over all of europe, no i'm not a nazi i'm just saying
#4
whatthe hell happened too the race that deefeated the romans
That was 2,000 years ago, rabid whitetail. Since then the German lands were the battlefields on which the Hundred Years War was fought, Germany lost two world wars, and seems to have suffered the worst of the Great Depression. All they want now is comfort and security, and they don't care what it will cost to get it. The culture's warrior ethos died of hunger and cold. As for the rest of Europe, it appears they, too, sold their inheritance for a mess of pottage.
#6
they suffered the worst of the great depression because of all the war repatrations they where supposed too pay under the Versailles Treaty, whether it was 2000 yrs ago or not they DID defeat the Romans and if not for the Americans entering into WW2 they may have won it. But you can't deny they have had some kick ass Armies over the years and equipment not too mention was it German SF that did the rescue of the Israeli hostages at the Munich games? Of course the French also took over most of Europe under Napoleon tooso i guess every nation has something in their past too be proud of.
The Hundred Years War was fought in what is now France.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
05/08/2009 15:41 Comments ||
Top||
#8
no mo uro, you are quite right -- I shouldn't have capitalized it. But as I recall, the Thirty Years War was part of an ongoing peace process* that lasted about a hundred years, ending finally with the Peace of Westphalia. What I should have written was, "one hundred years of war" or "one hundred years of religious wars".
*consistent with current usage, particularly in the Middle East.
#9
ION, IIRC WAFF [old] > THE END OF EUROPE IS HERE/NOW, NOT LATER, or to that effect. NUTSHELL > NO BABIES = GERIATRIC/DYING GREECE as symbol for rest of EU.
DITTO for JAPAN.
As indic yestiddy, JAPAN'S COMMUNIST PARTY (S) is making new + important gains in RECESSION-HIT JAPAN = FUTURE COMMIE JAPAN: while RADICAL ISLAM waits for simil demographically-dying, NUCLEAR RUSSIA TO TURN MUSLIM ON ITS OWN.
WAR = MIL/JIHADIC CONQUEST MAY NOT BE NECESSARY VEE WHAT THESE NATIONS ARE DOING TO THEMSELVES.
#10
ISRAELI MIL FORUM > IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: THE JAPANESE NUCLEAR MODEL APPLIES TO US TOO! Despite WW2, defeated MILITARISTIC JAPAN was allowed to dev NucEnerProgs, and twas never obligated to give 'em up despite discernible military applications, SO WHY NOT IRAN!?
JosephM, how interesting that even Pakistan has noticed. Surprising, though, that with so many more immediate concerns, they bother themselves about possibilities in the Middle East.
#3
This is indeed prime Steyn. As an admirer of Western civilization, Europe's passive plunge into the abyss is a profoundly depressing spectacle. I'd love to think that some kind of tipping point might be reached that could bring lovers of European liberty - regardless of ethnicity - together to make a stand for some of the great principles formed in Europe. But the combination of demographics and the abject refusal of European leaders to face the facts gives little room for comfort, from my perspective at least.
Still, there have been great, unexpected turnarounds and renaissances in history, so maybe there is hope in some ways, if not in all that we would like. Of course, my attitude may be partially explained by the fact that the country I grew up in generally had faith that some higher power held a greater purpose for us despite set-backs and suffering. And many who didn't share this faith at least had respect for the ones who did and their accomplishments. That so many in Europe no longer see it that way bodes poorly, I'm afraid. I'll take American exceptionalism over nanny-state nihilism any day. May we never lose that spirit.
"Apart from the time restriction (a truce that lapses after 10 years) and the refusal to accept Israel's existence, Mr. Meshal's terms approximate the Arab League peace plan ... "
-- Hamas peace plan, as explained by The New York Times
"Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
-- Tom Lehrer, satirist
The Times conducted a five-hour interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal at his Damascus headquarters. Mirabile dictu, they're offering a peace plan with a two-state solution. Except. The offer is not a peace but a truce that expires after 10 years. Meaning that after Israel has fatally weakened itself by settling millions of hostile Arab refugees in its midst, and after a decade of Hamas arming itself within a Palestinian state that narrows Israel to eight miles wide -- Hamas restarts the war against a country it remains pledged to eradicate. There is a phrase for such a peace: the peace of the grave.
Westerners may be stupid, but Hamas is not. It sees the new American administration making overtures to Iran and Syria. It sees Europe, led by Britain, beginning to accept Hezbollah. It sees itself as next in line. And it knows what to do. Yasser Arafat wrote the playbook. With the 1993 Oslo accords, he showed what can be achieved with a fake peace treaty with Israel -- universal diplomatic recognition, billions of dollars of aid, and control of Gaza and the West Bank, which Arafat turned into an armed camp. In return for a signature, he created in the Palestinian territories the capacity to carry on the war against Israel that the Arab states had begun in 1948 but had given up after the bloody hell of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Meshal sees the opportunity. Not only is the Obama administration reaching out to its erstwhile enemies in the region, but it begins its term by wagging an angry finger at Israel over the Netanyahu government's ostensible refusal to accept a two-state solution.
Of all the phony fights to pick with Israel. No Israeli government would turn down a two-state solution in which the Palestinians accepted territorial compromise and genuine peace with a Jewish state. (And any government that did would be voted out in a day.) Netanyahu's own defense minister, Ehud Barak, offered precisely such a deal in 2000. He even offered to divide Jerusalem and expel every Jew from every settlement remaining in the new Palestine. The Palestinian response (for those who have forgotten) was: No. And no counteroffer. Instead, nine weeks later, Arafat unleashed a savage terror war that killed 1,000 Israelis.
Netanyahu is reluctant to agree to a Palestinian state before he knows what kind of state it will be. That elementary prudence should be shared by anyone who's been sentient the last three years. The Palestinians already have a state, an independent territory with not an Israeli settler or soldier living on it. It's called Gaza. And what is it? A terror base, Islamist in nature, Iranian-allied, militant and aggressive, that has fired more than 10,000 rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians. If this is what a West Bank state is going to be, it would be madness for Israel or America or Jordan or Egypt or any other moderate Arab country to accept such a two-state solution. Which is why Netanyahu insists that the Palestinian Authority first build institutions -- social, economic and military -- to anchor a state that could actually carry out its responsibilities to keep the peace.
Apart from being reasonable, Netanyahu's two-state skepticism is beside the point. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, worshiped at the shrine of a two-state solution. He made endless offers of a two-state peace to the Palestinian Authority -- and got nowhere. Why? Because the Palestinians -- going back to the U.N. partition resolution of 1947 -- have never accepted the idea of living side by side with a Jewish state. Those like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who might want to entertain such a solution, have no authority to do it. And those like Hamas' Meshal, who have authority, have no intention of ever doing it.
Meshal's gambit to dress up perpetual war as a two-state peace is yet another iteration of the Palestinian rejectionist tragedy. In its previous incarnation, Arafat lulled Israel and the Clinton administration with talk of peace while he methodically prepared his people for war. Arafat waited seven years to tear up his phony peace. Meshal's innovation? Ten -- then blood.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Theres a fair amount of grumbling on President Barack Obamas left about his big military push in Afghanistan, but dont look for it to get in his wayat least for the next year or so.
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
