Did You Know That In The U.S. There Is No Party That Favors Peace

War-mongers Jason Crow (D-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY)

Last week, the House Armed Services Committee-- an aggressively devoted tool of the Military Industrial Complex regardless of which party controls Congress-- voted on an amendment by Jason Crow (New Dem-CO) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) to prevent Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. As expected, it passed, 45-11. Think about that: a committee controlled by Democrats voted to prevent Trump from getting U.S. troops-- who, remember, are being assassinated by criminal elements to earn Russian bounties-- out of the 100% pointless and unwinable war in Afghanistan. How the hell did that happen? Maybe you think the Democratic Party is something different than is? Possible? Our troops have been fighting and dying there for 2 decades and we've wasted over a trillion dollars--much, if not most, of it finding its way into the hands of corrupt Americans and corrupt Afs-- and 2,300 American lives and God knows how many Afghan lives.

Do you recall how last cycle one of the DCCC gimmicks was to run military vets and call them heroes? A lot of them got elected and, guess what-- they all suck-- every single one of them; no exceptions. SUCK! Of the candidates who ran by flaunting their credentials as military heroes, each of them has earned a ProgressivePunch "F" score, even the one who pretended to run as a progressive, Maine reactionary Jared Golden (who Blue America was tricked into endorsing and supporting and even persuading Nancy Ohanian into doing a piece of art for!).

BIG Mistake!

There are 31 Democrats and 26 Republicans on the overstuffed committee, where it is extraordinarily easy to earn bribes from the Military Industrial Complex. Here's how the Democrats voted:

• Adam Smith, chairman (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Susan Davis (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• James Langevin (RI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Rick Larsen (New Dem-WA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)- stay in Afghanistan
• Joe Courtney (CT)- stay in Afghanistan
• John Garamendi (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jackie Speier (CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Tulsi Gabbard (HI)- withdraw troops
• Donald Norcross (New Dem-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Ruben Gallego (AZ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Seth Moulton (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Salud Carbajal (New Dem-CA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brown (New Dem-MD)- withdraw troops
• Ro Khanna (CA)- withdraw troops
• William Keating (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Filemon Vela (Blue Dog-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Andy Kim (NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- didn't vote
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- didn't vote
• Crissy Houlahan (New Dem-PA)- didn't vote
• Jason Crow (New Dem-CO)- stay in Afghanistan
• Xochitl Torres Small (BlueDog-NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- stay in Afghanistan
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- stay in Afghanistan
• Veronica Escobar (New Dem-TX)- stay in Afghanistan
• Deb Haaland (NM)- stay in Afghanistan
• Jared Golden (ME)- stay in Afghanistan
• Lori Trahan (New Dem-MA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- stay in Afghanistan
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- stay in Afghanistan

I spoke with Ro Khanna after the vote and he told me that "It is appalling that the time Congress would choose to wake up from its slumber on matters of war and peace is to mandate perpetual war and restrict bringing our troops home. Let's be very clear what just happened. The Cheney Crow Amendment is to the right of Trump’s foreign policy and it’s scary how many people voted for it."

Republicans who voted against the bill: Mo Brooks (AL), Bradley Byrne (AL), Scott DesJarlais (TN), Jim Banks (IN) and Austin Scott (GA), although I think one or two others who missed the vote added their names in opposition to the Crow/Cheney amendment.

It confuses some progressives when Trump actually wants to do the right thing-- even if it isn't for "pure" reasons. But in this case, Democrats on the committee should have voted against Crow (one of those DCCC military heroes who was elected in 2018 and has done nothing but suck shit since) and Cheney. I mean anyone can get their head around the idea than a Cheney can bewares then even Trump, right? Anyway, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz set out to help Democrats bridge the gap between righteous Trump hatred and getting out of the fuckingwar already: Please Don’t Prolong a Pointless War Just to Show Russia Who’s Boss. He reminded his readers that "Throughout America’s longest war, top Pentagon and civilian officials deliberately misled the public about the endeavor’s likelihood of success in a bid to insulate their adventure from the threat of democratic rebuke. As the Washington Post reported last fall, summarizing the upshot of various confidential government documents it had obtained, 'it was common at military headquarters in Kabul-- and at the White House-- to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.' John Sopko, the head of the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, put the point more plainly: 'The American people have constantly been lied to.' Amid the lies, war crimes, tens of thousands of civilian deaths, egregious corruption, and revival of the Afghan opium trade, some positive developments have accompanied the U.S. invasion. Afghan women have made some real gains in their personal liberty, however limited and fragile. But the U.S. has neither the will nor the capacity to deny the Taliban a role in governing the country. The peace deal that the Trump administration struck with that group in February was an acknowledgment of the inevitable; as such, it was a productive step forward. Under the agreement’s terms, the U.S. will fully withdraw its troops in 14 months, so long as the Taliban upholds its commitments to, among other things, bar Al Qaeda from operating in areas under its control, and participate in 'Intra-Afghan talks' with the government in Kabul, opposition politicians, and various representatives of civil society about the future governance of the country."

To uphold its end of the bargain, the Trump administration plans to reduce America’s troop presence from its current level of 8,600 to 4,500 by this autumn.

But this week, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers erected new barriers to that withdrawal... [T]he House’s conditions are senselessly prohibitive. It’s difficult to see how one could ever withdraw military forces tasked with preventing the formation of terrorist safe havens without increasing the risk of “the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens.” But that is not a rational basis for prolonging a 19-year war. The U.S. cannot maintain military occupations in every country where Islamist militants could conceivably gather and plot violence. Nor should it. As COVID-19 and climate change are making clear (or should be), terrorism is a relatively trivial threat, one that has diverted precious resources from pandemic prevention, green-energy transition, and other efforts necessary for mitigating the genuinely catastrophic challenges to Americans’ safety and security.

Congress’s (uncharacteristic) decision to interfere with the executive branch’s conduct in a foreign war was not explicitly tied to recent revelations concerning Russia’s apparent efforts to place bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. But given the prominence of that story, it seems reasonable to worry that the issue influenced the House’s action. Especially since one of the amendment’s sponsors suggested that the U.S. must respond to Russia’s treachery by dispelling any question of America’s “will” to defend its interests.

Congress is right to investigate allegations of Russian targeting of U.S. troops and the Trump administration’s handling of relevant intelligence. But Russia’s actions have no bearing on the wisdom of prolonging an unwinnable war. If anything, the vulnerability of U.S. troops to such attacks constitutes an argument for quicker withdrawal. Extending military quagmires to demonstrate our resolve to Moscow was crazy when it was still the world’s second greatest power; doing so now that Russia is a declining petrostate with modest regional influence would be utter madness.

I'm not so sure about this report by Saagar Enjeti, but it's not out-of-hand dismissible and it's definitely worth carefully considering. Listen with an open mind:

Walter Jones Understands The Tragedy In Afghanistan A Lot Better Than Señor Trumpanzee Or Paul Ryan

NC-03-- the Outer Banks and most of the state's coastal plain from the Virginia border south of Norfolk down past New Bern and Jacksonville. It's a very red district, R+11, and Walter Jones has been congressman there since 1994 (a year after he switched from Democrat to Republican). Romney beat Obama there, 59% to 41% and Trump did even better-- 60.5% to 36.9%-- last year. Jones did even better-- beating Democrat Ernest Reeves 67.2% to 32.8%.

Jones is a principled, libertarian-leaning social conservative. He votes for progressive legislation quite a lot. In fact his 41.18 ProgressivePunch crucial vote score for 2017 is the highest of any Republican-- by far-- and better than 17 House Democrats-- DINOs like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-11.11), Henry Cuellar (TX-16.67), Collin Peterson (MN-16.67), Dan Lipinksi (IL-22.22), Tom O'Halleran (AZ-27.78), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-27.78), Ron Kind (WI-27.78), Ami Bera (CA-27.78), Stephanie Murphy (FL-29.41), Kurt Schrader (OR-29.41), Scott Peters (CA-33.33), Jim Costa (37.50), Raul Ruiz (CA-38.89), Lou Correa (CA-38.89), Jacky Rosen (NV-38.89), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-38.89).

Ryan-- and Boehner before him-- have consistently struck out against Jones, penalizing him in committee assignments and encouraging right-wing nut jobs to run against him in primaries. Last year a deranged Trumpist, Phil Law, ran against Jones in the GOP primary and managed to win just over 20% of the Republican vote. A sleazy right-wing lobbyist, Taylor Griffin, also ran and he nearly got 15% of the primary vote. Reeves, the Democrat, raised no money for the general election but in the primary Griffin spent $345,966 and Law spent $145,404. (Jones spent a total of $693,517 for the primary and general.)

The Republican Establishment hatred for Jones seems to endear him to his own constituents, who like his independence. He's the most anti-war of all the Republicans in Congress and is famous for once telling a conference of Ron Paul supporters that "Lyndon Johnson’s probably rotting in hell right now because of the Vietnam War, and he probably needs to move over for Dick Cheney." A few days ago he told PJMedia that Congress should stop funding the war in Afghanistan. He opposes Trump sending more troops and opposes the idea of "trying to build empires around the world." He also pointed out that Congress hasn't had a debate about the war in Afghanistan since 2001. Jones:

I’m absolutely opposed to it, because if you increase the number of American troops that means the number of Americans to be killed and wounded goes up. And again, I come back to the point, what have we accomplished? We spent over $800 billion dollars. We are very close to $1 trillion in the past 16 years.

We've had over 2,200 Americans killed and 20,000 wounded. What have we accomplished? In fact, [Hamid] Karzai, the former leader of Afghanistan, is now trying to get the Russians to negotiate with the Taliban so he can go back into power. It’s now like the Wild West that is wilder than it has ever been… by increasing the number of troops, all you’re doing is increasing the odds of American troops being killed or wounded.

History has proven it doesn't work going back to the Roman Empire. I mean, anybody that knows history-- that's what [former Marine Corps Commandant] Gen. Charles Krulak has said to me many times-- if you know history, you will know that no one is going to change Afghanistan. It is a tribal nation.

More important than the money is young men and women are being killed and wounded and Congress has a constitutional responsibility to debate and vote about sending our young men and women to war, but we don't do debates like those anymore. Yes, there have been efforts by Democrats and Republicans to put amendments on appropriations bills with money going to Afghanistan, but really no policy debate at all.

We've written [Paul Ryan] letters, we talked to him personally and he has not [asked the committees of jurisdiction to mark up a new Authorization for Use of Military Force]. This is going to be an effort of trying to get more and more members of Congress of both parties to come together for no other reason but to say after 16 years is it now a time to debate the issues of our country and our military in Afghanistan, and what’s the definition of victory? After 16 years we have no definition of victory. We’re saying you, not the president, but you have the authority as leader of the House to permit your members of the House to meet their constitutional responsibility of debating war. It's not up to the president, it's up to the Speaker of the House and he hasn’t done it."

Matt Coffay and Jenny Marshall, progressive Democrats, running for Congress on the opposite side of North Carolina, both supports with what Jones is trying to accomplish. "I firmly agree with Rep. Jones' opposition to a troop and spending increase in Afghanistan," Matt told us, "and second his suggestion that Congress hold an open debate about our military involvement there. After maintaining a decade and a half-long military presence, it's long past time that we reassess-- in Jones' words-- how exactly we define "victory" in Afghanistan. America ought to have the smartest, sleekest, most efficient, and most effective military in the world. A troop increase in Afghanistan won't get us any closer to that goal. And neither will defense spending increases, unless the spending is done intelligently. The new defense budget proposed by Trump includes the construction of 84 new fighter jets, to the tune of billions of dollars for taxpayers--but do those jets really keep us safer? Threats to the United States continue to evolve, and beyond Jones' call to reexamine Afghanistan, I believe we also need to reexamine how and where we're allocating our defense spending across the board. Are we spending money to keep Americans safer, and to make our military the best in the world? Or are we spending money for the benefit of the military-industrial complex?"

Jenny added that "The U.S. has spent 1.7 Trillion dollars in direct war appropriations over the last 15 years, but counting the cost of war in dollars neglects the human loss of life and the lingering effects once the bullets have stopped flying. Nita Crawford from Brown University states 'A full accounting of any war’s burdens cannot be places in columns on a ledger, from the civilians harmed or displaced by violence, to the soldiers killed and wounded, to the children who play years later on roads and fields sown with improvised explosive devices and cluster bombs, no set of numbers can convey the human toll of the wars.' Yet, we can know the numbers of the ever-rising death toll. 3,407 US and Allied troops, 3,540 US Contractors, 406 humanitarian workers and journalists, 31,419 civilians in Afghanistan alone. The numbers for the wounded are staggering. So, when the war hawks beat their drums remember that war must be the last option because the cost is just too high."

Back in 2001 there was only one member of Congress with the guts to say NO to Bush and Cheney and their bloodlust when it came to attacking Afghanistan: Oakland Democrat Barbara Lee. She is the model of courageousness in Congress and an inspiration to anyone thinking about taking a difficult vote of conscience. Last night she told us she admires Walter Jones' own efforts in ending the Afghanistan debacle. "Congressman Jones has been a steadfast leader in the effort to rein in our endless wars and he’s completely right. After a decade and a half in Afghanistan, it’s past time to learn there is no military solution to this conflict. We will continue to urge Speaker Ryan to allow Congress to hold a debate and vote on the repeal of the 2001 AUMF, which is nothing more than a blank check for endless war. Additionally, we will keep demanding that President Trump listen to the war-weary American public and bring our troops home."

If iron worker and union activist Randy Bryce-- who was unanimously reelected by the Wisconsin Democratic Party to head their veterans division this past weekend-- beats Paul Ryan in the 2018 midterms, he will be another Democrat with the kind of guts it takes to cast votes of conscience, the way Barbara Lee did. He told us that "Under a Democratic President, Osama bin Laden was taken out. Under Republican leadership, the key to the Oval Office has been handed over to the Russians. What do we have left to gain in Afghanistan after 16 years? Trump made a promise to rid the world of ISIL within 30 days of taking office. Time is up." He continued:

It might be a subject for debate if those returning from wars were taken care of, but, we’re not. Further draconian cuts to help our heroes once returned are in the proposed budget.

I know Paul Ryan isn’t a fan of working together in a bipartisan manner (i.e. Health care) but, this should be a no brainer for anyone who looks at the subject for more than a few minutes.

When it comes to veterans, I don’t see any partisan lines. Veterans are the only reason why we continue to have the freedom to choose how to think politically.

Veterans don’t ask what party another vet identifies with before offering the shirt off a back-- we help however we can because it is the correct thing to do.

Paul Ryan-- even though you are afraid to face us in the 1st CD, please do something to show us that you still have some semblance of compassion by letting our troops come home. Do what we did to protect our country-- work together to achieve a goal. We all took an oath.

Show us you are capable, and, maybe you won’t need to be so afraid to face us. It’s been over 600 days since you’ve had a town hall.

$43 Million Gas Station In A Remote Part Of Afghanistan-- Paid For With American Tax Dollars

I'm not in the least bit mechanically inclined. I came to terms with it before I even went to high school. Not too many years after high school, though, I was driving a brand new VW van down the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to Katmandu. A few days ago I mentioned how when my friends checked into the Kabul InterContinental just outside town-- I slept in the van nearby-- they were among the very first guests at the largely empty, just-completed, first luxury hotel in Afghanistan. Before we got there, though, there was, basically, the whole country to cross. There are no railroads in Afghanistan, with the exception of about 10 miles built in the early 1980s, connecting Mazar-i-Sharif to the small Uzbek city of Termez, last heard from when it was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BC. Before the Russians built a 2 lane paved highway from Kabul to Mazar to Herat (the northern part of the "ring road") and the U.S. built a 2 lane paved highway from Herat to Kandahar to Kabul (the southern part of the "ring road"), the only way people went to Afghanistan was on horseback, usually as part of an army. I was driving me niceness VW van along that just-built highway.

I had befriended a U.S. consul in Tehran-- a relatively lonely outpost-- and he gave me all kinds of useful tips about the trip east to Afghanistan, the two most important being that all water had it be boiled twice if one hopes to survive and that under no circumstances could a motor vehicle be on the road at night if one hopes to survive. The water thing is probably clear enough; the night-driving had to do with bandits, a quaint term that would be called "terrorists" in modern parlance. The gas stations in Afghanistan at the time were few and far between-- how far? Basically they were spaced so that you were just about to run out of gas as you pulled into one. Long story short, I didn't run out of gas between the station in Herat and the station in Kandahar... but my van broke down. I'm the mechanically dis-inclined American, but none the European or Canadian passengers knew any more about fixing a car than I did. An hour went by and no other vehicle passed. I could tell it would be dark soon. Dark = bandits = car-stripping murderers. So I taught myself how to fix the car, at least fix it enough to get to the next gas station as we were running out of gas. (The 1969 VW engine was incredibly simple and trial and error worked incredibly well in this instance.)

Eventually the decades of war destroyed the roads and they were rebuilt a few times, the most recent by the U.S.... or the U.S. taxpayers to be more precise. And that includes gas stations, one of which has come to the attention of the public as a huge waste of money. Short version: this gas station in Sheberghan, hometown of Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum and capital of Jowzjan province way up north in the Russian sphere of influence, west of Mazar-i-Sharif and Balkh, cost $43 million to build. NBC reported that the The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is flipping out because the Department of Defense can't or won't explain why it cost that much.

"Even considering security costs associated with construction and operation in Afghanistan, this level of expenditure appears gratuitous and extreme," SIGAR said in a report issued Monday.

The agency's top official went further.

"It's an outrageous waste of money that raises suspicions that there is something more there than just stupidity," John Sopko, the special inspector general, told NBC News. "There may be fraud. There may be corruption. But I cannot currently find out more about this because of the lack of cooperation."

...[A] contract for just under $3 million was awarded to a company called Central Asian Engineering in 2011. According to SIGAR, an economic impact assessment found the task force spent well beyond that-- $42,718,730-- between 2011 and 2014 to fund the station's construction and supervise its initial operation.

A CNG filling station "would have cost no more than $500,000 in neighboring Pakistan," the report noted, calculating the "exorbitant cost to U.S. taxpayers" at 140 times higher than it should have been.

Sopko told NBC News it appeared that "nobody was minding the store."

"This is one of the worst examples of poor planning and just sheer stupidity," Sopko told NBC News. "It's outrageous."

He called the cost "indicative of a real serious mismanagement" but said perhaps the "more serious" issue was how the Department of Defense had failed to offer documentation or records on the project.

"I'm suspicious when I see something that cost 140 times more than it did and I find people trying to withhold or not cooperate with me," Sopko said. "It raises my suspicions."

Although Barbara Lee was the only Member of Congress wise enough to see tat the time, there was never any chance that the U.S. would "win" in Afghanistan. The invasion and occupation has been an unmitigated--and inevitable-- disaster. Thank God someone is suspicious of this particular gas station boondoggle. This is certainly part of the so-called "fog of war" and it may be inevitable, another reason to pull all U.S. forces out of that hellhole and to completely oppose expanding the U.S. Middle East wars into Syria. I asked Alan Grayson what he thought about it a few days ago and he replied that he never knew Shelley meant that those "vast and trunkless legs of stone" were actually a gas station. Are you a Breaking Bad fan at all?

There Are No Syrian Moderate Terrorists But 300 Members Of Congress Voted To Give "Them" Billions Of Our Taxpayer Dollars

We live in a political system where Congress shirks it's clear and unambiguous responsibility to declare war. Instead we get military actions of dubious legality and with superficial public support, which often quickly sours. Thursday the House came as close as they do to debating and voting for war. Disguised as H.R. 3979-- "The Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014"-- the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was clearly meant to draw as little public attention as possible. It passed by a big margin, as always, only 87 Democrats and 32 Republicans with the guts too stand up to the outrageous excesses of the Military Industrial Complex. The final vote was 300-119. The Republicans seeded it with a few goodies for Democrats, like a half-assed crack-down against sexual assault, but many of the Members who care most about the issues weren't taken in and voted no anyway. Take Donna Edwards for example, a perfect target for that kind of appeal. But too smart to fall for it. She voted against it. Donna:

“This National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) extends the authority the Administration is using to justify military action in Syria for an additional two years without explicit Congressional approval or debate. I cannot support a foreign policy to train and equip Syrian rebels and fight ISIS over the long-term absent a full debate and vote by Congress-- that is our constitutional responsibility.

“I support provisions in this House-Senate agreement to help combat sexual assault in the military, and to provide a 1.0 percent pay increase and necessary resources for our service members and their families. Nonetheless, I could not vote for this NDAA. After more than a decade of war, it’s time for a debate in Congress to reassure the American people and our military community about the best path forward.”

Across the aisle, one of the most vocal-- and credible-- opponents of the bill was Walter Jones the conservative Republican whose district includes Camp LeJeune and who has dedicated his career to serving the interests of the men and women in the ranks (rather than the contractors and mercenary corporations). His website explains exactly why he bucked the Establishment and voted NO.

Today, Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) voted against the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2015, which cuts military benefits and provides billions of dollars in spending toward President Obama’s unconstitutional expansion of military force in Iraq and Syria.

The NDAA for FY 2015 cuts military benefits by requiring a $3 increase in certain pharmacy co-pays and a 1 percent decrease in the housing allowance for uniformed service members.

In addition to cuts in military benefits, the NDAA for FY 2015 also includes President Obama’s $5 billion request to fund Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria.  Of that $5 billion, $3.4 billion will be used for airstrikes against ISIS and $1.6 billion will be used for training Sunni tribes and forces in Iraq. Overall, the NDAA for FY 2015 authorizes $63.7 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere.

“I cannot vote for a bill that cuts military benefits while funding wars that Congress never declared,” said Congressman Jones. Congress repeatedly authorizes spending on undeclared wars that put our troops in danger and then has the audacity to cut the benefits of those they are unconstitutionally sending overseas to fight. It’s just not right.”

Justin Amash, one of the only Republicans in either House of Congress worth taking seriously sent out this tweet right after the vote:

Most of the House progressives voted no as well,Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Alan Grayson (D-FL), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Beto O'Rourke (D-TX), Judy Chu (D-CA), John Lewis (D-GA), Henry Waxman (D-CA), Mike Honda (D-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Jared Polis (D-CO), etc. Most of the Democratic Leadership team voted yes, including Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn, Israel/Luján, Wasserman Schultz. And both freshmen who were already sworn in because of unexpired terms-- Alma Adams (D-NC) and NJ machine boss George Norcross' hopeless brother Donald Norcross both planted their flags on the side of the Military Industrial Complex. No one should have expected any more from either.

"Today," wrote Seatte Rep. Jim McDermott to his constituents, "I voted in opposition to H.R. 3979, the National Defense Authorization Act.

"I have said consistently that if President Obama was prepared to escalate military action against ISIS or to expand the arming and training of the ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition, he must come to Congress with a plan and ask for our support.

"And we, as Members of Congress, must take seriously our Constitutional responsibility when it comes to matters of war and peace. There is no question in my mind that ongoing operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have become a full-fledged military campaign, which warrants a fresh Congressional debate on an authorization for the use of military force.

"And yet, this afternoon the House passed a gargantuan NDAA with only one hour of debate on the floor, a clear abdication of Congressional authority in deciding the conditions under which we send our men and women into conflict.

"I remember the last time Congress failed to thoroughly debate a plan for military action in the Middle East; it unleashed a Pandora’s Box in Iraq and the wider region that we struggling to contain even today.

"I appreciate the unenviable position the President faces in Iraq and I even sympathize with his reluctance to seek cooperation from a Congress that has done its upmost to stymie his legislative agenda for the past five years. Nevertheless, I will not vote to authorize billions of dollars toward a military campaign, as well as a clear military campaign by proxy, without the proper and robust debate such a grave action deserves."

A senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, California Democrat John Garamendi explains, in some detail, why he voted what what he saw as "an imperfect" bill. First and foremost: pork for his own district-- through Beale and Travis Air Force Bases:

While Congressman Garamendi disagrees with portions of this extensive legislation, it earned his support through the protection of vital missions at Beale and Travis Air Force Bases, improved transitional services for new veterans, and several important measures to reduce wasteful spending in the Pentagon budget.

“Throughout the committee process, I’ve worked to ensure that the NDAA treats our servicemembers and veterans with the respect they deserve. I’ve also done everything I can to preserve the vital Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Air Mobility missions at Beale and Travis Air Force Bases, missions that will only grow in importance as we continue to adapt to 21st century threats,” Garamendi said. “If I were the sole author of this bill, there would be some significant modifications to some of the language, but as a good faith compromise bill, it has earned my support.”

The NDAA prohibits the retirement of the U-2 and KC-10 fleets in 2015, protecting important missions at Beale and Travis, respectively.

“Military priorities change with time, and in the 3rd District, we are blessed to have two missions that will only grow with importance as America adapts and responds to modern threats: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance at Beale and Air Mobility at Travis,” Garamendi said. “As we’re seeing with the rise of organizations like ISIL, extremist organizations are becoming an even bigger threat. We need to know what’s happening on the ground, and when necessary, quickly respond. That’s why it is very important to preserve the U-2 and KC-10 missions until the next generation technologies are ready.”

The NDAA includes a 1% pay raise for the troops and improved mental health screenings to earlier diagnose and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and brain injuries that so often plague servicemembers when they return to civilian life.

The bill also includes several provisions to help veterans succeed in civilian life, including:

  •         Changes to the Transition Assistance Program that make it easier for transitioning service members to understand and use their benefits. In particular, the NDAA requires additional instruction and guidance on pursuing post-secondary education, including financial guidance and detailed instructions on how to use the Veterans’ Benefits Administration’s educational benefits such as the post-9/11 GI Bill;

•         Programs to make it easier for servicemembers to obtain professional credentials (professional accreditation, Federal occupational licenses, state professional licenses, and certifications) through their military training. For example, electrical maintenance training in the military could also be used to fulfill some of the requirements needed to obtain a state electrician license; and

•         A pilot program to establish connections between the Department of Defense and state veterans’ agencies. Under this program, the Department of Defense will supply essential information to state veterans’ agencies to make servicemembers’ transition from military service to civilian life easier. This is similar to the California Department of Veterans Affairs’ Operation Welcome Home.

“Imagine spending years of your life getting certified in a skilled trade, only to be told you need to go through a nearly identical certification process once you hang up your uniform. That’s the reality for thousands of servicemembers transitioning to civilian life,” Garamendi explained. “It’s a waste of taxpayer dollars, since we’re often subsidizing these private certification processes through financial aid programs, and it’s a waste of time and potential earnings and advancement for the new veteran looking to get a jumpstart on a civilian career. While there’s more to be done, I’m glad the NDAA is making progress on this front.”

The NDAA continues our nation’s slow but positive progress in addressing the issue of sexual assaults in the military.  This NDAA:

•         Requires the Secretary of Defense to consider the preference of sexual assault victims regarding whether offenses should be prosecuted by court-martial or in a civilian court;

•         Allows a victim of sexual assault, who believes that their rights were violated during the court martial process, the ability to petition the Court of Criminal Appeals to require the court martial to comply with the Military Rules of Evidence;

•         Provides an appeal process for individuals who were victims of a sex-related offense and were discharged from the military for what they believe is a side-effect of their assault, such as psychological struggles, or a failure to adjust; and

•         Requires the establishment of a Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces.

“I believe that if victims of sexual assault in the military want to pursue their complaints through an independent civilian process, they should be given that opportunity. This NDAA doesn’t go far enough, but we’re getting closer to a system that empowers and fairly treats the victims of sexual assault and deters these horrific crimes from ever occurring,” Garamendi said.

The NDAA rejects a Department of Defense proposal to substantially cut commissaries on military bases, which would have led to a de facto pay cut for servicemembers and military families. It also requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct a review, utilizing the services of an independent organization experienced in retail grocery analysis, of the defense commissary system to help determine the best way forward while still providing significant savings to patrons.

“I’m ever mindful of backdoor pay cuts to servicemembers and their families. Let’s be clear: the proposed commissary cut would have taken money out of the pockets of people defending our nation and the family members who support them at home. I’m sure there are reasonable savings we can find in the commissary program without increasing food prices, and I will review any such proposals as they’re presented to us, but of all the places to cut waste in the NDAA, commissaries are near the bottom of the list,” Garamendi added.

Bloated Military Budget Passes-- Here's One The GOP Didn't Filibuster

Thursday night, just before midnight, the Senate approved the Pentagon Budget 84-15. Disappointingly, only three Senate Democrats had the guts to vote NO, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden. In the video above, Bernie explains to his colleagues why had decided to vote against it. It's worth watching. The only Republicans who voted against it are just the regular extremists who oppose everything that Obama backs, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, Tom Coburn, etc. In his speech Bernie quoted from President Eisenhower's "Cross of Iron" speech on April 16, 1953.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.



This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.



The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.



It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. 

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.



It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.



We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.



We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.



This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.



This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.



These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953.

Sixty years later, the mess Eisenhower warned us about has only gotten worse-- much, much, much worse. And as Bernie told his colleagues, "At a time when the United States has a $17.2 trillion national debt and when we spend almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined, the time is long overdue for us to take a hard look at the waste, cost overruns and financial mismanagement that have plagued the huge Defense Department for years. The situation is so absurd that the Pentagon is unable to even account for how it spends its money. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office cited its inability to audit the Pentagon. They wrote that they were unable to do a comprehensive financial analysis due to ‘serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense that made its financial statements un-auditable.’ I support a strong defense system for our country and a robust National Guard and Reserve that can meet our domestic and foreign challenges. At a time, however, when the country has a $17.2 trillion national debt and is struggling with huge unmet needs, it is unacceptable that the Defense Department continues to waste massive amounts of money,” Sanders said.

Senator Merkley emphasized that his vote against the budget was primarily because of the funding it includes for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan. “The war in Afghanistan is now the longest war in American history and it’s long past time to bring our sons and daughters home," he said in a statement Friday morning a few hours after the late night roll call. "The administration is negotiating a pact with Afghanistan that would commit massive resources and thousands of troops to another decade in Afghanistan. I don’t think that makes sense, and I think the American people should be able to weigh in and Congress should vote before we proceed. A House provision requiring Congressional approval for another decade in Afghanistan was stripped from the Defense Authorization, and the Senate never had a chance to vote on my similar amendment. I voted no on the Defense Authorization because Congress needs to have a say before we extend our commitment in Afghanistan.”

I'm very proud that Merkley and Sanders did the right thing and voted against this monstrosity. Merkley is running for reelection this cycle and Sanders is keeping his options open for a presidential run if all the candidates running are, as widely expected, pathetic tools. The links on their names give you the opportunity to contribute to their respective campaigns.

Do The Millions Of Dollars In Bribes To Afghan Warlords Get Sequestered Too?

What do you know... the same cheerleaders for the disastrous war in Iraq, the endless, draining occupation of Afghanistan and the intervention in Libya are the very same people and special interests urging-- demanding-- that we attack Syria. Israeli dreams coming true! And believe me, Lindsey Graham and John McCain don't give a rat's ass that the new CBS/NY Times poll shows that the majority of Americans-- across the political spectrum-- don't want anything to do with the mess in Syria.

Sixty-two percent of Americans continue to say the United States does not have a responsibility to intervene in the fighting in Syria, while 24 percent of Americans think the United States does have a responsibility to do something about the fighting between government forces and anti-government groups there-- a four point increase since last month.

These are the same people who think the only way the GOP can defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016 is by inventing and perpetuating a false narrative called "Benghazi!" when intervention in Syria would, in all likelihood, make the Libya mess look positively utopian in comparison. Exactly two months ago I suggested that Obama call a plebiscite to get direction from the American people-- instead of the Military-Industrial Complex special interests, Israel and their shills-- on what to do about Syria. At the time, an always disgruntled McCain was bitching to the press (about Kerry's announcement that the U.S. would send "non-lethal" aid to the Syria insurgents): "It's a half measure. And I know from my sources that many of those weapons [provided by other countries in] are not getting through… are going to the wrong people, these jihadist outfits. And here we are 23 months into it, 70,000 dead, so it's a small half-measure." But Republicans in Congress are a hot mess and pulling in a million directions. Rubio joined Lindsey Graham in demanding the Administration start sending weapons to Syria, while House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon muttered darkly that arming groups "doesn't work very well for us. At some point, they start using bullets to shoot back at us."

Aside from the Likud, AIPAC and a bunch of crackpot evangelicals who want to bring Jesus back, who wants to see Americans fighting in Syria (or against Syria's ally, Iran)?

Are there any "good guys" in this civil war? I heard Mouaz al-Khatib, head of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, yelling at that time that the U.S. should stop measuring the beards of the fighters and just arm them. That means-- stop trying to figure out who's a terrorist and who isn't. And he's right... about that. Ultimately, they're almost ALL terrorists, at least by the U.S. definition. Any weapons or resources the U.S. gives these people will be eventually used against the U.S. and against Israel, (which is now illegally drilling for gas in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights). That's a knowable known, to paraphrase one of Chuck Hagel's recent predecessors even if there is no strategy and the U.S. is riding a tiger.

And in light of the Austerity agenda being imposed on the country by the Republicans and Obama's conservative wing of the Democratic Party, we have a right to ask for an analysis of how things have gone in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya before we take the plunge into Syria, potentially the most devastating of all. I would love that analysis to be in the form of war crimes trials for Bush, Cheney, McCain, and their cronies. But that's not going to happen. So why not just look throw one of hundreds of tiny little windows into what have happened over in the Middle East since someone seems to have given the Likud the keys to the family car. At the NY Times< this week, Matthew Rosenberg took a look at the role of bribery in our Afghan "strategy." Not a very noble endeavor, but one that goes back to ancient times, the CIA has been doling out tens of millions of dollars to our crooked Afghan "allies."

Former and current advisers of the Afghan leader have said the C.I.A. cash deliveries have totaled tens of millions of dollars over the past decade and have been used to pay off warlords, lawmakers and others whose support the Afghan leader depends upon.

The payments are not universally supported in the United States government. American diplomats and soldiers expressed dismay on Monday about the C.I.A.’s cash deliveries, which some said fueled corruption. They spoke privately because the C.I.A. effort is classified.

Others were not so restrained. “We’ve all suspected it,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and a critic of the war effort in Afghanistan. “But for President Karzai to admit it out loud brings us into a bizarro world."

...The C.I.A. money continues to flow, Mr. Karzai said Monday. “Yes, the office of national security has been receiving support from the United States for the past 10 years,” he told reporters in response to a question. “Not a big amount. A small amount, which has been used for various purposes.” He said the money was paid monthly.

Afghan officials who described the payments before Monday’s comments from Mr. Karzai said the cash from the C.I.A. was basically used as a slush fund, similarly to the way the Iranian money was. Some went to pay supporters; some went to cover other expenses that officials would prefer to keep off the books, like secret diplomatic trips, officials have said.

...The C.I.A. payments open a window to an element of the war that has often gone unnoticed: the agency’s use of cash to clandestinely buy the loyalty of Afghans. The agency paid powerful warlords to fight against the Taliban during the 2001 invasion. It then continued paying Afghans to keep battling the Taliban and help track down the remnants of Al Qaeda. Mr. Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali, who was assassinated in 2011, was among those paid by the agency, for instance.

But the cash deliveries to Mr. Karzai’s office are of a different magnitude with a far wider impact, helping the palace finance the vast patronage networks that Mr. Karzai has used to build his power base. The payments appear to run directly counter to American efforts to clean up endemic corruption and encourage the Afghan government to be more responsive to the needs of its constituents.

“I thought we were trying to clean up waste, fraud and abuse in Afghanistan,” said Mr. Chaffetz, whose House subcommittee has investigated corruption in the country. “We have no credibility on this issue when we’re complicit ourselves. I’m sure it was more than a few hundred dollars.”

This is part of the Afghanistan way of life in a way that few Americans who haven't spent time there will ever fathom. We shouldn't be there-- not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq... and certainly not in Syria. I thought Obama's legacy would just be how he opened the door to killing Social Security. It looks like it may also be starting a war of choice in Syria as well. Will anyone be able to make a case that there's still a discernible difference between the Democrats and the Republicans after that?

Psst, buddy, wanna buy a used war cheap? (OK, maybe not so cheap)

If you don't like these numbers, I say make up your own. As long as you understand what it means: that we have to cut back on Medicare and Social Security benefits.

by Ken

I don't know about you, but every now and then I wonder idly, Jes' how dang much is them wars in Eye-raq and 'Gannystan a-goin' ta cost us?

I especially wonder when we hear reports about those hearty congressional dinosaurs the buy-partisans sending out smoke signals that they're jes' this close to reaching agreement on a "compromise" that will finally give the Pete Peterson deficit-hawk partisans and their 1% cronies the breakthrough they've been seeking for years, using the current budget mess as a secret weapon to begin butting the "three E's" -- Medicaid, Medicare, and ultimately Social Security. It'll be Happy Days for the rich, the superrich, and their hangers-on, and a diet of austerity for everyone else.

Because, you see, those wicked "entitlements" are bankrupting us. So say the austerity fans. It's not true, of course, but if you try to say that publicly, then -- as Paul Krugman points out frequently -- you mark yourself immediately as "not serious" about economics, or government, or something. To be counted among the "serious," you have to take the Austerity Pledge. Meaning you have to be an economic illiterate on the order of Rep. Paul "Ayn Made Me Do It" Ryan or media whore Robert "No Relation to Paul" Samuelson.

So, like I say, at times like this, I get even more curious about the total cost of our fun 'n' games in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, just for laffs, courtesy of Nation of Change, here are some folks who have some numbers. I don't know how accurate their numbers are, but I trust them a lot more than I trust the phony-baloney numbers from the austerityites and their mouthpieces like "No Relation to Paul" Samuelson.

Iraq, Afghanistan Wars Will Cost U.S. 4-6 Trillion Dollars

Published: Sunday 31 March 2013

By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service / News Analysis

Costs to U.S. taxpayers of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will run between four and six trillion dollars, making them the most expensive conflicts in U.S. history, according to a new report by a prominent Harvard University researcher.

While Washington has already spent close to two trillion dollars in direct costs related to its military campaigns in the two countries, that total "represents only a fraction of the total war costs", according to the report by former Bill Clinton administration official Linda Bilmes.

"The single largest accrued liability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to war veterans," she wrote in the 21-page report, ‘The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan: How Wartime Spending Decisions Will Constrain Future National Security Budgets’.

Bilmes, who since 2008 has co-authored a number of analyses on war costs with the World Bank’s former chief economist, Joseph Stiglitz, noted that more than half of the more than 1.5 million troops who have been discharged from active duty since 9/11 have received medical treatment at veterans’ hospitals and have been granted benefits for the rest of their lives. More than 253,000 troops have suffered a traumatic brain injury.

Additional costs include the replacement and repair of equipment — which wears out at an estimated six times the peace-time rate — and the accumulation of interest on money borrowed by the Treasury to finance the wars since the nearly two trillion dollars in war costs were not subject to the normal budgetary process.

So far, Washington has paid some 260 billion dollars in interest charged on war-related borrowing, but the "potential interest cost of the U.S. war debt reaches into the trillions," according to the report.

"One of the most significant challenges to future U.S. national security policy will not originate from any external threat," she wrote. "Rather it is simply coping with the legacy of the conflicts we have already fought in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The report comes at a key moment, as Republicans in Congress appear increasingly split between defense hawks on the one hand, who want to maintain or increase Pentagon spending and have been pushing for a more aggressive U.S. role in the Syrian civil war, among other hotspots, and deficit hawks, on the other, who believe the country can ill afford bigger military budgets, let alone new foreign military adventures, especially in the Middle East.

The defense hawks, consisting primarily of neo-conservatives and aggressive nationalists who led the march to war in Iraq 10 years ago, are particularly worried about the impact on the military of the so-called "sequester", which requires across-the-board cuts by the Pentagon totaling 500 million dollars over 10 years, in order to help reduce the deficit.

With tensions with Iran, North Korea and even China on the rise, they argue that Washington cannot afford to be seen as constrained militarily by its fiscal challenges.

But this report -- as well as another put out by Brown University on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq invasion that estimated the total war costs at three trillion dollars -- are likely to bolster the deficit hawks among Republicans, as well as foreign-policy realists most closely identified with the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and most Democrats, including President Barack Obama and his closest aides.

That most war-related costs are actually incurred after the wars are themselves concluded is not unusual in U.S. history, according to a recent investigation by the Associated Press (AP).

After researching federal records, it reported last week that compensation for World War II veterans and their families only reached a high in 1991 -- 46 years after the war ended.
It also reported that, almost exactly 40 years after the last U.S. combat troops left Vietnam, the government is still paying veterans and their families or survivors more than 22 billion dollars a year in war-related claims, and that that figure is on the rise, as the beneficiary population ages. Similarly, payments to Gulf War veterans are also increasing.

The much-greater costs to be incurred by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are explained by, among other factors, much higher survival rates among wounded soldiers, more generous benefits for veterans, new categories of beneficiaries, more expensive medical treatments, and increases in both pay and benefits for troops in order to gain more recruits for the all-volunteer army.

The report argued that dramatic increase in war-related costs means taxpayers will not get the kind of "peace dividend" that they received after other wars, including the two world wars and the Cold War after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Today as the country considers how to improve its balance sheet, it could have been hoped that the end of the wars would provide a peace dividend, such as the one during the Clinton administration that helped Americans to invest more in butter and less in guns, it concluded.

"In short, there will be no peace dividend, and the legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be costs that persist for decades."

The Pentagon and other national-security agencies, according to the report, will likely face more -- rather than less -- pressure to cut costs.

"One likely result," it predicted, "is that budgetary constraints will tilt the U.S. in a direction of fewer military personnel in the forces, …and greater investment in unmanned weaponry, robotics, and other technological solutions -- which may or may not be a wise choice over the longer-term."

To Miriam Pemberton, a national-security analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies, the new study should prompt a major re-assessment of the regular military budget (not including the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars), which grew by nearly 50 percent in real terms to more than half a trillion dollars -- over the decade that followed 9/11.

"We need to bring that budget back to where it was when these wars began," she told IPS. "Those savings need to be re-invested in the needs that have been neglected over the past decade, foremost among them, in my view, being the urgent need to address the climate crisis by investing in a transition to a clean energy and transportation economy."

And what are the neocons who got us into Iraq worried about? The sequester! But then, these are "serious" people.

Let me just call attention to one interesting note here:

"The single largest accrued liability of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is the cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to war veterans."

Which might not even be so bad if we were actually providing "proper medical care and disability benefits" to all the vets we sent out to be maimed. But of course we aren't; we're trying to finesse that obligation on the cheap.

'Cause we, y'know, support our troops. Another of the lies the right-wing war-mongers like to tell.

#

What's Really Behind All The Noise About An Early Withdrawal From Afghanistan? It's Not What You Think

Karzai was in Washington last week and suddenly there was all this talk about how U.S. troops, despite his panic, would be leaving Afghanistan sooner rather than later-- and perhaps leaving no troops behind to prop up Karzai's weak government which isn't seen as legitimate by wide swathes of the population. In fact, Karzai is from the same sub-tribe as Shah Shuja, who was restored, briefly, to the throne by the British in the First Afghan War (1838-'42) and of whom Dost Muhammad told his people, "The Shah is now a servant of the Kafir infidels." When the British left Afghanistan, Shuja, widely viewed as their puppet and, like Karzai without credibility among the dominant Pashtuns, was assassinated.

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and his US counterpart Barack Obama have agreed to speed up the withdrawal of US combat troops as well as trade security responsibility from NATO to Afghan forces this spring.

After a long and deadly war, Obama announced plans to move US combat troops into an advisory role - slightly ahead of schedule-- and also said any agreement on troop withdrawals must include an immunity agreement in which US soldiers are not subjected to Afghan law.

The president said the path of the US military remains clear and the war is moving toward a "responsible end" in 2014.

But the exact date, as well as how many troops are to remain, is still unclear.

U.S. policy is Afghanistan is not just a complete and costly failure, it no longer has any basis of support among Americans-- neither on the left nor even on the right. Other than the Military Industrial Complex, which has profited so handsomely from it-- and the Members of Congress in their pockets like McCain, Lindsay Graham, Miss McConnell, and Buck McKeon (who have all also profited handsomely)-- everyone in America wants the U.S. to get out-- and get out sooner rather than later. McConnell just got back from a quickie over there and says we need to keep 10,000 troops there after the 2014 pull-out. Here's Rachel Maddow's report on Obama's announcement of the ending of U.S. involvement:



Her analysis (and Steve Clemons')-- the successful attainment of the benchmarks is pure, unadulterated bullshit-- is spot on. But, getting out of that hellhole is a significant development and the completely predictable failure in Afghanistan is long overdue to end.

Recent "reports" from the war front have been of two kinds. Some official or analytical in nature and heavily circulated in Washington portray a war going terribly well. On the other hand, hard news from the ground tell a story of US fatigue, backtracking and tactical withdrawals or redeployments which do not bode well for defeating the Taliban or forcing them to the negotiations' table.

  For example, while the US military's decision to withdraw from the Pech valley was justified on tactical need to redeploy troops for the task of "protecting the population", keen observers saw it as a humiliating retreat from what the Pentagon previously called a very strategic position and sacrificed some hundred soldiers defending it.

Likewise, strategic analysts close to the administration speak triumphantly of US surge and hi-tech firepower inflicting terrible cost on the Taliban, killing many insurgents and driving many more from their sanctuaries.

But news from the war front show the Taliban unrelenting, mounting counterattacks and escalating the war especially in areas where the US has "surged" its troops. And while the majority of the 400 Afghan districts are "calmer", they remain mostly out of Kabul's control.

Those with relatively long memories recall the then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's claims that most of Afghanistan was secure in early 2003 and that American forces had changed their strategy from major combat operations to stabilisation and reconstruction project.

But the Taliban continued to carry daily attacks on government buildings, US positions and international organisations. Two years later, the US was to suffer the worst and deadliest year since the war began.

Today's war pundits are in the same state of denial. For all practical purpose, Washington has given up on its counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy devised under McChrystal and Petreaus.

Instead, it is pursuing a heavy handed and terribly destructive crackdown that includes special operations, assassinations, mass demolitions, air and night raids etc that have led to anything but winning the country, let alone its hearts and minds.

The killing of nine Afghan children last week-- all under the age of 12-- by US attack helicopters has once again put the spotlight on the US military's new aggressive methods.

The results are so devastating for the conduct of the war and to Washington's clients, that President Karzai not only distanced himself from the US methods, but also publicly rejected Washington's apology for the killings.

Nor is the recruitment and training of the Afghan forces going well. Indeed, many seem to give up on the idea that Afghan security forces could take matters into their hands if the US withdraws in the foreseeable future.

Worse, US strategic co-operation with Pakistan - the central pillar of Obama's PakAf strategy-- has cooled after the arrest of a CIA contractor for the killing of two Pakistanis even though he presumably enjoys diplomatic immunity.

Reportedly, it has also led to a "breakdown" in co-ordination between the two countries intelligence agencies, the CIA and the ISI.

  But the incident is merely a symptom of a bigger problem between the two countries. A reluctant partner, the Pakistani establishment and its military are unhappy with US strategy which they reckon could destabilise their country and strengthen Afghanistan and India at their expense.

That has not deterred Washington from offering ideas and money to repair the damage. However, it has become clear that unlike in recent years, future improvement in their bilateral relations will most probably come as a result of the US edging closer to Pakistan's position, not the opposite.

All of which makes one wonder why certain Washington circles are rushing to advance the "success story."

...The mere fact that the world's mightiest superpower cannot win over the poorly armed Taliban after a long decade of fighting, means it has already failed strategically, regardless of the final outcome.

The escalation of violence and wasting billions more cannot change that. It is history. The quicker the Obama administration recognises its misfortunes, minimises its losses and convenes a regional conference over the future of Afghanistan under UN auspices, the easier it will be to evacuate without humiliation.

Whether the US eventually loses the war and declares victory; negotiates a settlement and withdraw its troops, remains to be seen. What is incontestable is that when you fight the week for too long, you also become weak.

All of which explains the rather blunt comments made in a speech at the end of February, by US Defence Secretary Robert Gates when he said "... any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it."

Amen.

In the video below, Maddow also explains the issue of immunity for American troops in Afghanistan. No one wants U.S. troops in Afghanistan more than Karzai. If they go, he has to as well-- either that or end up like Shah Shuja, dead. Karzai said he would ask the Afghan people about the immunity issue. But most Afghans want the U.S. troops out and consider immunity out of the question. Although that isn't the way Karzai tells it. He told Christiane Amanpour on CNN that “I can tell you with relatively good confidence that they will say ‘alright, let’s do it. And I’m sure that they will understand.”

At the press conference, President Obama said that he had stressed to Karzai that “the United States already has arrangements like this with countries all around the world, and nowhere does the U.S. have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops.”

In the final stages of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, President Obama was unable to obtain a similar agreement, propelling him to withdraw all U.S. forces from that country in December 2011.

Karzai rejected the notion that has been floated that the U.S. might leave “zero troops” in Afghanistan after the pullout is completed at the end of 2014. 

He told Amanpour that Afghans need some type of U.S. presence for “broader security and stability” after the withdrawal. For that reason, Karzai believes Afghans will have to grant the U.S. troops left there immunity.

“The United States will need to have a limited number of forces in Afghanistan,” he said, but was unwilling to give an exact number. “That’s not for us to decide. It is for the United States to decide what number of troops they will be keeping in Afghanistan and what strength of equipment those troops will have.”

The American people don't want it and neither do most of Afghanistan's people. When Obama says "unless there was some kind of immunity, it would not be possible for the U.S. to keep troops in Afghanistan after 2014,: that's his way out-- just like it was in Iraq. This morning Karzai announced the issue of immunity for U.S. troops in Afghanistan would be made by the end of the year. "The issue of immunity is under discussion (and) it is going to take eight to nine months before we reach agreement," he told a news conference back in Kabul. He says it will require acquiescence from a Loya Jirga, a grand council. My guess is that most Afghans outside Karzai's immediate circle would rather see Karzai and his clique dead than agree to immunity for foreign troops.