Will House Democrats Join With Republicans To Escalate In Afghanistan?

The White House is trying to bum rush tens of billions of dollars through Congress to fund the Afghanistan escalation without a debate on the war. But Bush is gone. And Hope and Change are here. Right?

I recall when President Clinton, a former DLC Chairman, had decided to move the first President Bush's catastrophic NAFTA legislation-- that did so much to accelerate the destruction of the U.S. manufacturing base-- through Congress, he couldn't find enough Democrats to join with the Republicans to pass this obvious disaster-in-the-making. So he turned to a little-known, vicious pitbull in his political department and asked him to do whatever he had to do to round up the Democratic votes needed to turn the GOP minority into a majority. When the vote came, on November 17, 1993, most Democrats voted against NAFTA but that little-known, vicious pitbull Clinton sent up to the Hill oversaw a bloc of 102 Democrats to join almost all the Republicans to pass the bill. That vicious pitbull, by the way, was Barack Obama's first appointment after he was elected, the current Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Last June he was at it again-- this time on behalf of the war supplemental budget-- bribing and beating up Democrats to vote for more money to occupy Afghanistan-- even going so far as organizing primaries against at least one of the 32 courageous Democrats who voted against the supplemental (Donna Edwards).

As David Swanson pointed out at After Downing Street, "The U.S. Constitution leaves the decision to wage war to Congress, and Congress can enforce its decision not to wage war by refusing to fund it." Will more than the same 32 Democrats stand up to Emanuel's bullying and rush through the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars to escalate an unwinnable and pointless war? Well, it looks like there will be far more than the first 32. Many Democrats are calling for a war tax to pay for any expenses instead of foisting it-- and the immense interest payments it will generate for the bankster class-- off onto future generations the way Bush did. But paying for the war will lose Republican votes. So Obama is just going to pull off the mask entirely now and expose us to the misery of seeing he really is just Bush-Cheney all over again? Maybe on the jetway as he gets off the plane in Oslo tomorrow?

Funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is included in the Defense appropriations bill this year. The Defense bill likely will be wrapped into a huge omnibus spending measure, a technique Congress uses when it needs to quickly clear a huge backlog of unfinished appropriations work.

And because the Defense spending bill does not limit troop levels, Obama can use the money to send more troops to Afghanistan. By the time the money runs out this spring, many of the new troops will already be in place when Obama asks for another $30 billion or so.

While some Democrats have pointed to the spring vote as the key vote for or against the surge, some liberal Democrats intend to make a stand on the issue now, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairman Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.). Grijalva spokesman Adam Sarvana said the Congressman plans to vote against the omnibus and rally opposition to the war funding in it.

It’s not clear how big of a problem the nascent progressive revolt will be; just 23 House Democrats voted against the Defense spending bill in July.

“There were also a lot of Members who wanted to give Obama a chance to lay out a better course and who are not likely to continue necessarily to give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Darcy Burner, executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, a policy group allied with the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Nevertheless, leadership is considering a legislative maneuver that would split the Defense bill into a separate vote on the House floor as they try to wrap up a catch-all year-end omnibus spending bill. House liberals could then vote for the domestic spending items they support, and Republicans could help carry the Defense spending.

Blue America's No Means No page is raising money to support the Democrats, like Donna Edwards, Alan Grayson, Barbara Lee, Eric Massa, Carol Shea Porter, Lloyd Doggett, etc, who already voted against the June supplemental. And we're willing to add new members to the list. All they have to do is get up on the floor of the House and make a barn-burning anti-war speech pledging to vote against this travesty that is alienating the grassroots Democratic base from the Inside the Beltway establishment Obama leads. Here's a good example from Rep. Mike Quigley, ironically, the congressman who won Emanuel's Chicago seat when he left Congress to work in the White House again:



We'll be working on bring along more and more Democrats to stand up to this gigantic mistake. But speaking of "irony," in two days Obama will be swinging by Oslo to pick up his shiny new Nobel Peace Prize.

When Obama won the prize in October, you had to wonder whether the self-esteem movement, where every kid gets a trophy, had made its way from little league to the Nobel Committee. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr.-- and a guy running two wars, who'd been president for two weeks when nominations closed?

Despite the committee chairman's defensive insistence that Obama "got the prize for what he has done," clearly it was awarded for what the committee hoped he might do (which is rather like giving a physics Nobel to a guy who hopes he'll invent cold fusion).

Well, if the committee hoped a pre-emptive prize would influence Obama's behavior, they must feel pretty silly right now. On Dec. 1, the former surge critic spoke at West Point, defending his decision to throw 30,000 more troops into an unpopular, unwinnable, and unnecessary war.

Sure, the president packaged the decision as part of a plan to "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." But that's not the beginning of a genuine withdrawal. It's, er, an "inflection point," according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at which, maybe, "some handful, or some small number" will be able to come home.

If we're lucky, maybe as many troops as the president just surged, but "it's hard to envision that conditions [will allow] a further withdrawal beyond that," says another senior adviser. "We're going to be in the region for a long time," says National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones.

That's not a popular policy. Nearly 70 percent of Americans in a new CBS News poll think the war is going badly, and the latest numbers from Pew show the largest share of respondents favoring a drawdown.

UPDATE: This Morning Dennis Kucinich Is Offering A Resolution To End The War

Kucinich was up on the floor of the House early this morning railing against the escalation in Afghanistan and today he's asking his colleagues to sign his priviledged resolution (below):

click to read

Senate Prepares To Back Another Obama War Supplemental For Afghanistan Escalation

The faces are all that's Changed... and Hope? Forget that

"For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception; a series of accounting tricks to hide the expense of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue and hope that the American people won't notice. Budgeting certain expenditures for just one year, when we know we'll incur them every year for five or 10; budgeting $0 for the Iraq war-- $0-- for future years, even when we knew the war would continue..."

That was pretty much Obama's line on supplemental budgets all through the campaign. The quote above, though, was made just after he was inaugurated at a meeting about fiscal responsibility. Four months later he had Emanuel wheeling and dealing and knocking heads together in Congress to pass a supplemental war budget to fund-- "an exercise in deception; a series of accounting tricks to hide the expense of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue and hope that the American people won't notice"-- the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only 32 courageous Democrats stood up to him and voted no. Many of the rest said something to the effect of... "Well, he inherited this terrible mess from Bush; we'll give him some time to clean it up but this is the last time."

Last time? I don't think so. Yesterday the NY Times let it slip that the Senate is ready to approve still another supplemental budget to expand the occupation of Afghanistan. That's right-- even as the L.A. Times was reporting that Obama is going to lose his base of support over his tragic blunders in Afghanistan, the Senate is too chicken-shit to save him (and us) from himself. Senate Democrats may be wary but very few of them have what it takes to stand up to even a weak president like Obama when it comes to war, even if they recognize that he's leading them into electoral ruin.

Few doubt that, despite all the drama and dithering, Obama is about to increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan from around 68,000 to over 100,000. Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are both predicting that he'll get whatever he asks for-- and by a wide margin.

Yesterday Congressional Quarterly reported that last month John Murtha, Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee said that "beefing up forces in Afghanistan would cost up to $1 billion per 1,000 additional troops per year. If the president accepts the high-end proposal for a troop increase, that could require another $40 billion." Obama, like Bush before him, will call the request, deceitfully, "an emergency." And although most of the Senate will march right along, there are a few who will refuse to close their eyes to the madness, folly and 3-dimensional political chess.

[Jay] Rockefeller said he doesn’t believe Afghanistan will “ever be a country” and that “my Afghanistan policy may be a little more circumspect” than the president’s. He said he is not alone in the Senate in his doubts about increasing the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said he views a surge in Afghanistan as “not wise.” He said that given recent economic challenges faced by the United States, boosting U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan “is a lose-lose proposition.”

This is a good time to take a look at the clip of Eric Massa's short speech on the House floor this week:



Rockefeller is correct about Afghanistan not being a real country but if there is one thing that unites the disparate people who live in what is called Afghanistan it's the fact that they don't like being occupied by illegal aliens (i.e., us)-- heavy armed, trigger-crazy ones no less. I spent a lot of time there in the late '60s and early '70s, and most of it not in Kabul, a relatively westernized place with little in common with the rest of the country. For all the talk about "training the Afghans to fight," there is little I've heard as foolish and counterproductive. If there's one thing Afghan men know how to do, it's fight. It's pretty much the only thing they know how to do, in fact. An Af would no sooner leave his home without his gun-- and not a handgun-- than you would leave yours without your clothes. We could try to train Afghan men to work-- though it would be in vain, working being for women, boys and slaves-- but fight? They know how to fight... and very well, thank you. When they talk about "training," they mean "Give us expensive deadly weapons so we can kill our enemies."

In bazaars and university corridors across the country, eight years of war have left people exhausted and impatient. They are increasingly skeptical that the Taliban can be defeated. Nearly everyone agrees that the Afghan government must negotiate with the insurgents. If more American forces do arrive, many here say, they should come to train Afghans to take over the fight, so the foreigners can leave.

“What have the Americans done in eight years?” asked Abdullah Wasay, 60, a pharmacist in Charikar, a market town about 25 miles north of Kabul, expressing a view typical of many here. “Americans are saying that with their planes they can see an egg 18 kilometers away, so why can’t they see the Taliban?”

Such sentiments were repeated in conversation after conversation with more than 30 Afghans in Kabul and nearby rural areas and with local officials in outlying provinces. The comments point to the difficulties that American and Afghan officials face if they choose to add more foreign troops.

If the foreign forces are not seen so by Afghans already, they are on the cusp of being regarded as occupiers, with little to show people for their extended presence, fueling wild conspiracies about why they remain here.

The feeling is particularly acute in the Pashtun south, but it is spreading to other parts of the country. More American troops could tip the balance of opinion, particularly if they increase civilian casualties and prompt even more Taliban attacks.

The grass-roots view among Afghans is at odds with those of top Afghan officials, as well as many American military commanders, who strongly endorse a full-blown counterinsurgency strategy, including a large troop increase.

There's only one way this travesty is going to end: we have to end it. We have to say "no" to Obama, the same way we were saying "no" to Bush. Sure Obama isn't a vampire like Bush but what difference does that make to occupied Afs losing their families to "friendly fire" and accidents? What difference does it make to American families losing their sons and daughters for no purpose that either Bush or Obama has been able to successfully articulate? We need to say "no" and we need to mean it. We need to back up the few political leaders brave enough to say "no" as well, men and women like Eric Massa, Barbara Lee, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, Carol Shea-Porter, Keith Ellison... Are you ready to get serious about it? The Pentagon is and Obama, apparently, does not have what it takes to stand up to them. Only the American people can do it. And if anyone is going to start it, it's us. You ready? Think about chipping in... now.


UPDATE: 100 Co-sponsors Demanding Exit Strategy For Afghanistan

James McGovern (D-MA) introduced H.R. 2404 on May 14. If passed it would require the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress outlining the U.S. exit strategy for our military forces in Afghanistan. These are McGovern's co-sponsors:

Neil Abercrombie [D-HI]
Tammy Baldwin [D-WI]
Roscoe Bartlett [R-MD]
Shelley Berkley [D-NV]
Robert Berry [D-AR]
Timothy Bishop [D-NY]
Bruce Braley [D-IA]
Corrine Brown [D-FL]
Lois Capps [D-CA]
Michael Capuano [D-MA]
André Carson [D-IN]
Yvette Clarke [D-NY]
William Clay [D-MO]
Steve Cohen [D-TN]
John Conyers [D-MI]
Jerry Costello [D-IL]
Danny Davis [D-IL]
Peter DeFazio [D-OR]
William Delahunt [D-MA]
Lloyd Doggett [D-TX]
John Duncan [R-TN]
Donna Edwards [D-MD]
Keith Ellison [D-MN]
Sam Farr [D-CA]
Chaka Fattah [D-PA]
Bob Filner [D-CA]
Barney Frank [D-MA]
Marcia Fudge [D-OH]
Alan Grayson [D-FL]
Raul Grijalva [D-AZ]
Luis Gutiérrez [D-IL]
Phil Hare [D-IL]
Jane Harman [D-CA]
Alcee Hastings [D-FL]
James Himes [D-CT]
Maurice Hinchey [D-NY]
Mazie Hirono [D-HI]
Paul Hodes [D-NH]
Rush Holt [D-NJ]
Jesse Jackson [D-IL]
Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-TX]
Timothy Johnson [R-IL]
Walter Jones [R-NC]
Steve Kagen [D-W]
Marcy Kaptur [D-OH]
Carolyn Kilpatrick [D-MI]
Mary Jo Kilroy [D-OH]
Dennis Kucinich [D-OH]
Barbara Lee [D-CA]
John Lewis [D-GA]
David Loebsack [D-IA]
Ben Luján [D-NM]
Eric Massa [D-NY]
Doris Matsui [D-CA]
James McDermott [D-WA]
Michael Michaud [D-ME]
Gwen Moore [D-WI]
Jerrold Nadler [D-NY]
Grace Napolitano [D-CA]
James Oberstar [D-MN]
John Olver [D-MA]
Edward Pastor [D-AZ]
Ronald Paul [R-TX]
Donald Payne [D-NJ]
Thomas Perriello [D-VA]
Gary Peters [D-MI]
Chellie Pingree [D-ME]
Jared Polis [D-CO]
David Price [D-NC]
Mike Quigley [D-IL]
Laura Richardson [D-CA]
Dana Rohrabacher [R-CA]
Steven Rothman [D-NJ]
Bobby Rush [D-IL]
Timothy Ryan [D-OH]
Janice Schakowsky [D-IL]
Kurt Schrader [D-OR]
José Serrano [D-NY]
Joe Sestak [D-PA]
Carol Shea-Porter [D-NH]
Louise Slaughter [D-NY]
Jackie Speier [D-CA]
Fortney Stark [D-CA]
Betty Sutton [D-OH]
Bennie Thompson [D-MS]
Michael Thompson [D-CA]
John Tierney [D-MA]
Edolphus Towns [D-NY]
Niki Tsongas [D-MA]
Nydia Velázquez [D-NY]
Timothy Walz [D-MN]
Maxine Waters [D-CA]
Diane Watson [D-CA]
Henry Waxman [D-CA]
Peter Welch [D-VT]
Edward Whitfield [R-KY]
Lynn Woolsey [D-CA]
John Yarmuth [D-KY]

This is the easy bill to support. It isn't calling for an immediate pull out of U.S. troops or cutting off funding for escalation. It's a first step though and there's no reason for not signing on to it... other than being a warmonger.

Stan McChrystal-- Leading America Into Its First Great Post-Bush Catastrophe

Lewis Sorley was born in West Point, NY, born into a military family. He went to high school at the Texas Military Institute, and then on to West Point itself. He spent almost his entire life as a desk officer, although he later worked as the chief of Policy and Plans Division at the C.I.A. His revisionist history of the War against Vietnam, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnamwas published in 1999. Obama, Emanuel and Biden all say they've read it. Sorley-- and apparently some in the Obama White House-- seem to feel that Stanley McChrystal in Sorley's mythical hero Creighton Abrams, the general who replaced Westmoreland and won the Vietnamese war (for us)-- because McCrystal, like Abrams, understands the political dimensions of the conflict (something that is basically blasted in every other paragraph of today's NY Times Magazine feature on the general leading America into its first great post-Bush catastrophe. McChrystal (and apparently Sorley) have swallowed Vietnam victor Abrams' dictum that to win the war you must provide the citizens-- whose country is being occupied and destroyed-- security. With a straight face Sorley claims that the CIA chief in Saigon (now known as Abrams City), William Colby, and the U.S. Ambassador there, Ellsworth Bunker (a cheerleader for the disastrous attacks on Laos and Cambodia), helping come up and support the winning strategy and salvage the mess Westmoreland had left behind.

Sorley's (and Abrams') victory in Vietnam was stolen by the traitorous media and rotten politicians who stabbed the military in the back-- what war was ever lost for any other reason ever?-- Nixon, Kissinger (along with Kennedy and Fulbright), who he sees as opportunistic arch-villains, who refused to bomb North Vietnam (further) back into the Stone Age.

Sorley has been all over lately, pushing his theories on a gullible and easy-to-impress public. Last week he held forth on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, where he belongs, and yesterday he was spouting much the same drivel in a NY Times OpEd. Neither the Journal nor the Times puts any of his bullshit in context by saying anything more about him than that he's a retired Lieutenant Colonel and that he wrote A Better War. I hope the information above helps you get a better idea about where he pulled his point of view from.

Right from the start, though, it doesn't take much to see right through Sorley's biases. His first line in the Journal starts with the big whopper of 60s propaganda that Vietnam was two countries, not one: "More than 30 years have passed since North Vietnam, in gross violation of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, conquered South Vietnam." He then goes on to blame the loss on "America's failure to keep its commitments to the South," although his main target last week was Congress rather than Nixon and Kissinger. Sorley is a dangerous warmonger and extremist whose views have been entirely discredited by history. No wonder Rahm Emanuel digs them! Sorley's advise to Obama would lead to exactly one result: massive Democratic losses in Congress and a Republican White House in 2012.

"Maintain political support at home," he writes to the president-- although maintaining support means what when support for the war is not just minimal but mostly confined to the president's political enemies-- "All that was accomplished on the battlefield in the latter years of Vietnam was lost when Congress, having tired of the whole endeavor, drastically cut support for South Vietnam. Neither Lyndon Johnson nor Richard Nixon was able to rally public and press support for the war. President Obama has said that Afghanistan is a war of necessity. If so, he must put his political capital behind it. As he and his advisers plan the new course for the war, he must also come up with a new approach for selling it to Congress and the American people."

More discerning minds see McChrystal's and Sorley's warmongering for what it is and suggest that there will never be a victory in Afghanistan (unless you want to count the glorious victory they think we won in Vietnam as a victory). Gareth Porter, whose book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnamshows a far keener understanding of what actually happened in Vietnam than Sorley's, introduced us to Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis who has spent lots of time in Afghanistan and believes, like many others, that it's too late for us to defeat the insurgency.

"Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted," writes Davis.

Providing the additional 40,000 troops that Gen. McChrystal has reportedly requested "is almost certain to further exacerbate" that problem, he warns... In the paper, Davis suggests what he calls a "Go Deep" strategy as an alternative to the recommendation from McChrystal for a larger counterinsurgency effort, which he calls "Go Big."

The "Go Deep" strategy proposed by Davis would establish an 18-month time frame during which the bulk of U.S. and NATO combat forces would be withdrawn from the country. It would leave U.S. Special Forces and their supporting units, and enough conventional forces in Kabul to train Afghan troops and police and provide protection for U.S. personnel.

The forces that continue to operate in insurgent-dominated areas would wage "an aggressive counterterrorism effort" aimed in part at identifying Taliban and al Qaeda operatives. The strategy would also provide support for improved Afghan governance and training for security forces.

Davis argues that a large and growing U.S. military presence would make it more difficult to achieve this counterterrorism objective. By withdrawing conventional forces from the countryside, he suggests, U.S. strategy would deprive the insurgents of "easily identifiable and lucrative targets against which to launch attacks."

Typically insurgents attack U.S. positions not for any tactical military objective, Davis writes, but to gain a propaganda victory.

The "Go Deep" strategy outlined in the paper appears to parallel the shift in strategy from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism being proposed by some officials in discussions in the White House in recent weeks.

After reading Davis's paper, Col. Patrick Lang, formerly the defence intelligence officer for the Middle East, told IPS he regards the "Go Deep" strategy as "a fair representation of the alternative to the one option in General McChrystal's assessment."

Progressive Democrats like Eric Massa, John Conyers, Alan Grayson, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Carol Shea-Porter, Raul Grijalva, Dennis Kucinich, Donna Edwards, James McGovern, Marcy Kaptur, Tammy Baldwin, Keith Ellison, Mike Capuano, Lynn Woolsey, etc have an entirely different approach. Grayson articulated it very nicely a week or so ago when he reminded us that no matter where people live in the world, they just want to be left alone. They don't want to be occupied. And they don't want to have their families killed and their homes bombed to smithereens by foreigners claiming to be there to save them. Blue America has a page dedicated to proven champions of peace in Afghanistan, the 32 Democrats who made the politically painful decision and voted against Obama's supplemental war budget in June. Please consider forgoing contributions to other politicians and donating to these 32 instead-- here.

Alan Grayson Frightens Off The Republicans' Last Hope For An Opponent For Their "#1 Target For 2010"

Florida crime buster Alan Grayson has been a DWT hero ever since we first met him in 2007 as the "longshot" candidate to unseat entrenched GOP incumbent Ric Keller. Even as Grayson was rolling up a victory in the primary over a worthless "good ole boy hack," Establishment Democrats were endorsing the opponent. If Grayson was good back then, he's 10 times better now-- one of the most effective members of Congress, not just from Florida, but from anywhere.

On the House Financial Services Committee, he's been driving Republicans and their bankster paymasters insane with his hard-hitting and uncomfortably direct questions for witnesses who expect to be handled with kid gloves. Grayson didn't bring any kid gloves with him to Congress. Lately he and Republican free spirit Ron Paul have been a thorn in the side of a Federal Reserve, demanding, on behalf of taxpayers that we get to know who the Fed loaned out $2 TRILLION of our money to in the last two years before Ben Bernanke is confirmed by the Senate.

The GOP has been on overdrive trying to draft a challenger to Grayson, who they claim is their #1 target. But every single Republican they've tried to recruit has looked at the landscape-- including Grayson' large and growing popularity with his constituents-- and declined. Yesterday the last hope the Florida Republican Party had for a credible candidate, Dan Webster, said he'd decided to join the rest of the right-wingers too scared to face Grayson. Instead, Republicans will pick between two extremist kooks, teabaggers Patricia Sullivan and Dan Fanelli, both so radical and insane that mainstream Orlando Republicans are likely to sit this one out.

Webster, a Christian conservative who served nearly three decades in the Florida legislature and served as House Speaker, said in a statement that despite encouragement from supporters he was prompted to “follow a principle that has always served me well: ‘When in doubt, don’t.’”

“I do firmly believe that in every public office there needs to be a resurgence of the basic principles on which this Republic was founded, and a return to our original standards of integrity and character,” he said.

Aside from being the scourge of Republicans and their bankster and war profiteering buddies, Grayson is one of the 32 Democrats taking issue with the Obama Administration's plans to expand the war in, and maintain the occupation of, Afghanistan. He's also a cosponsor of Barbara Lee's bill, HR 3699 to deny funds for escalation. Take a look at the list of the 32 Democrats at the No Means No page and notice the way netroots enthusiasm for Grayson has manifested itself. I bet this has a lot to do with why the Republicans can't find a legitimate candidate to take him on! Yesterday evening Ken urged President Obama and his aides to look at Grayson as an example of what happens when a Democrat stands up for his principles and for his constituents and refuse sto back down for the obstructionists, the special interests or the media Big Lie machine. I want to second that. It's a far better model than the Rahm Emanuel strategy of marginalizing progressives on behalf of corporate donors adamant about maintaining the status quo. Meanwhile, Politifail has an interesting take on the disconnect between the GOP/corporate media spin on Grayson's political ife expectancy and the hard reality; worth reading!

And there's still... Getting Grayson's Back.


AND A FOLLOW-UP FROM KEN ON MY POST

Our friend Balakirev added this excellent comment to my post:

To be fair about Grayson, he's not simply eloquent and knowledgeable; he's also rich. If he were poor but outspoken, he'd probably find Republicans lining up to run against him--or more likely, Rahm lining up a Republican to run against him in a primary as a Democrat.

But if he keeps going the way he currently is, I agree it's unlikely Grayson's going to get a reasonable opponent. A wingnut? Sure! But someone who's electable from among the Republicans? Hard to see that happening. And I'm frankly very glad of it, too.

You're right, B, there are other factors playing in Grayson's favor, starting with his ability to self-finance his campaign. FL-08 has also been trending increasingly Democratic in voter registration. Those and several other factors are important, and I don't mean to discount them. I've heard laments from friends in southern Virginia, for example, that Tom Perriello has been as steadfast in maintaining his outstanding principles in the large number of town halls he has held to explain his positions and listen to this constituents', and that many of those constituents respect him for it but nevertheless leave thinking that his views are "too Democrat." For sure, this matters.

But that's why I started my notes on the Grayson situation yesterday by pulling out that blog comment confidently predicting that Dan Webster would defeat Grayson by more than 10 points in 2010. I want us to remember until how recently the Conventional Wisdom was that Grayson's House career was over, just waiting for the circling R's to decide on a candidate. The counting of the votes would be a mere formality.

And that continued to be the Conventional Wisdom when Grayson took his stand on the Republicans' nonexistent health plan. For the first day or two, the R's were absolutely sure he had just driven the final nail in his own coffin, and a lot of non-R's wondered too. But by standing his ground so forcefully and sensibly, he actually overturned the Conventional Wisdom -- and to the extent that he solidified his position among the home voters, I don't think they're thinking about his ability to self-finance.

So no, it's not the whole story, and that matters. But it's a part of the story that Rahm Emanuel will never understand. Remember that in 2006, when the Conventional Wisdom attributed the Dems' startling House electoral triumph to opposition to the Iraq war, the fact was that Rahm Emanuel had strictly forbidden candidates seeking backing from the DCCC to even mention the war, because he considered it a losing issue.

Again, though, with Master Rahm we have to consider that it may not be just a matter of strategy. Looking back, it seems clear that he never opposed the Iraq war, any more than he supports all the progressive initiatives we're told by Dem leadership have to be deferred "until we have the votes." I suspect that on such issues for Rahm there wouldn't ever be such a thing as "enough" votes.

As for the applicability to the national Democratic Party, including the current Democratic president and overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, an online colleague made a pithy observation I should have cited yesterday. If, as appears to be the case, the Obama administration considers itself to be operating from a position of cliff-teetering weakness, making it necessary for "Actual Obama" to maintain a healthy distance from "the Image of Obama," to reprise Tom Tomorrow's exquisite terms, what do you suppose those people would consider a position of strength?

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Alan Grayson Explains The Best Policy For Afghanistan: Just Leave People Alone

Does Alan Grayson keep a Dogon blade on his wall in case some GOP crackpot wants to duel him?

If you've been following DWT with any regularity you probably know that as a hobby I run a travel blog on the side. I ran away from home when I was 13-- hitchhiked to Florida (though I only got as far as the New Jersey Turnpike where I was arrested)-- and I've been on the road ever since. I lived overseas for almost seven years and I normally spend at least a month out of the U.S. every year-- a habit I got into in the late 1970s. Lately I've been to Mali and Bali and I'm putting the finishing touches on a trip to Albania. When I write about foreign policy questions I like to think my time abroad informs what I have to say.

There aren't many members of Congress who have traveled extensively out of the country. In his delightful book, Fire-Breathing Liberal, Rep. Robert Wexler marvels at how many of his Republican colleagues seem to think not possessing a passport is a badge of honor! Last weekend I spent some time with Rep. Barbara Lee who is no longer surprised when she talks with Republicans who haven't been-- and don't want to be-- outside of the U.S. The opposite extreme would be one member who certainly qualifies for the Century Club, Rep. Alan Grayson. When I told him I was going to Mali he was able to give me some travel tips for remote, seldom visited villages like Bandiagara and Sanga, and a few weeks ago he told me about some odd customs I can expect to experience in Albania.

In 1969 I drove to Afghanistan. Between then and 1972 I spent over half a year there, and never spent one single day in a hotel. Traveling from London, through then still-Communist nations like Hungary and Bulgaria, then through Turkey and Iran and into Herat, the most important component doesn't feel like mileage, but time. Sure, I traveled in space; but what seemed far more profound was a trip back in time. Afghanistan was like being in the 11th Century, not the turn of the 20th. And I noticed immediately that the people there don't recognize a country called "Afghanistan." In Herat and Kandahar, respectively the 3rd and 2nd biggest towns, there was resentment towards the "central government" as a pretension-- backed by foreign military equipment-- of Kabul, the biggest town and what foreigners insist is the capital of "the country." The only part of the discussion of Afghan policy more awkwardly missing from the calculations that there is no Afghanistan, is that all the men there-- yes, all of them-- are stoned all day, every day on the strongest hash (much of it opiated) on God's earth. I know West Point was just named the best college in America by Fortune but do they teach them that stuff there?

This week Robert Greenwald debuted his intense new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan in Washington, DC. Rep. Grayson was on a panel and made some remarks worth taking a look at:

I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make Congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing.  I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive.   

I think that the basic premise that we can alter afghan society is greatly flawed.  Afghanistan is simply the part of Asia that was never occupied by the Russians or the English in the Great Game.  It’s not a country; it’s not even a place. It’s just an empty place on the map.  It’s terra incognita.  People who live there are a welter of different tribes, different language groups, different religious beliefs.   

All over the country you find different people who have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that we call them Afghans, and they don’t even call themselves Afghans.  They’re Tajiks or they’re Pashtuns, or they’re Hazzaras or someone else.  The things that hold them together are simply the things that we try to create artificially.   

And the idea that we could transform that society or any other society through aid I think is entirely questionable.  I’ve never seen it happen; probably never will happen.  If you go to the Stan countries north of Afghanistan, and I’ve been to all of them; what you find is that the way that the Russians altered that society was by crushing it.  Stalin killed half a million Muslims in Kazakhstan, in Turkmenistan, in Kyrgyzstan, in Uzbekistan.   

He simply sliced off the head of that society in order to remake it in the image that he wanted.  And I think that we would have to do no less if we wanted to remake Afghanistan in our image. We’d have to destroy it in order to save it, and I don’t think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody.  So I think that the underlining premise is simply wrong.   

I’ve been to 175 countries all around the world including Afghanistan, including every country in that region, and what I’ve seen everywhere I go is that there are some commonalties everywhere you go. Everywhere you go people want to fall in love.  It’s an interesting thing.  Everywhere you go, people love children.  Everywhere, they love children.  Everywhere you go, there’s a taboo against violence.  Every single place you go.  And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone.  And that’s the best foreign policy of all.  Just to leave people alone.

Grayson was one of the 32 members of Congress who stood up on June 16 and said "NO!" to more war funding. It's more than a promise; it's something he did. Blue America is hosting a page, No Means No! seeking to encourage members of Congress to put their feet down and help end the occupation of Afghanistan. Please visit the page and consider making a contribution to Grayson or any of the other courageous members of Congress on the list. Is your own congresscritter there?

And even if Obama isn't listening to a freshman like Grayson, it sounds like Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey is. Obey's asking the kinds of tough questions that every single member of Congress should be asking unless they want to be considered in dereliction of their duty.

“The problem with increasing the number of troops is that we become the lightening rod, and our presence runs the risk of inciting more anti-American sentiment that can become a recruiting tool for the very forces we seek to curtail,” Obey said of one option President Obama is weighing.

“If any adjustment is made in U.S. troop levels, it would be much better if those troops were focused on the job of training Afghani troops and police to take on the job of securing the population and maintaining law and order,” he said. “But even there, we have to ask what is achievable. My understanding is that there have never been more than about 90,000 troops under the sway of the central government. Now we are told that the goal is to train up to 400,000 soldiers and police personnel. I think it is reasonable to ask whether that is a realistic and achievable goal.”

As for a policy bent on counter-insurgency and nation-building, Obey said, “We should be asking not what policy is theoretically the most intellectually coherent, but which policy is actually achievable given the only tools we have in the region; the Afghani and Pakistani governments. Is there sufficient leadership, popular support, and political will, not in the United States but in Afghanistan, necessary for effective governance to take hold?"

Equally important, he said, “Do we really have the tools to overcome language, culture, history and a 90 percent illiteracy rate to sufficiently transform such a country?”

Aid Strategy For Afghanistan Has Been As Unsatisfactory As Military Strategy

I rarely do a post about Cuba without consulting international troublespot writer Reese Erlich, whose book Dateline Havana is one of the best and most readable looks into U.S.-Cuba relations. Last June Reese was in Iran and gave DWT an inside look at the Iranian elections. His book, The Iran Agenda, is another must-read. So it didn't surprise me in the slightest when I got my first-ever e-mail from Kabul a few weeks ago... from Reese.

Yesterday he sent me my second. Many people eager to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan are talking about sending more foreign aid. Having spent a good deal of time there in the late '60s-early '70s I didn't feel that was necessarily a good use for taxpayer dollars. And Reese confirmed my trepidation's by mentioning that "the same folks who brought us the $700 toilet seat are now in charge of US aid to Afghanistan. Some military and civilian contractors have now become adept at ripping off foreign aid money before it ever reaches the intended recipients." That's news that well-meaning progressives in Congress need to hear. And Reese's article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle, U.S. Aid Often Misses Targets In Afghanistan is something that needs to be distributed on Capitol Hill. It won't be.

As much as 80-90% of the aid money spent in Afghanistan goes everywhere except into the approved projects-- and even the approved projects wind up as useless junk doing nothing for U.S. policy goals and nothing for the long-suffering Afghan people. It started under the incompetent and venal Bush Regime... but apparently Hope and Change hasn't come to Afghanistan yet.

In 2003, the U.S. government believed local farmers could safely store and transport their crops and earn more money by exporting to neighboring countries. Building 145 market centers would also help swing Afghan public support behind the U.S. war effort, Bush administration officials argued at the time.

A Washington, D.C., company, Chemonics International, won the bid for the $145 million program-- known as Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Program, or RAMP-- that ran from 2003 to 2006.

Chemonics then subcontracted the training and construction work to other Americans, who in turn subcontracted to numerous Afghan companies who did the work. At each level, the subcontractors deducted costs for salaries, office expenses and security, according to Afzal Rashid, a former senior adviser for the ministry of finance who now lives in Sacramento.

Only a small percentage of the original RAMP contract money actually reached farmers and other intended recipients, Rashid and other critics say. The exact percentage may never be known because neither Chemonics nor the U.S. government tracks such figures. Moreover, opponents note, many constructed market centers have deteriorated or are not being used for their original purpose.

In an exclusive interview with the Chronicle, Afghanistan's foreign minister, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, sharply criticized how U.S. aid is spent in his country. He estimates that only "$10 or $20" of every $100 reaches its intended recipients.

The United States Agency for International Development, the agency responsible for most nonmilitary foreign aid, once employed tens of thousands of technical experts and contractors to staff aid programs around the globe. After the Vietnam War, however, the U.S. government deemed private enterprise more efficient at international assistance. Today, USAID has been reduced to being a contracting organization with just 2,200 employees, and only five engineers, according to recent news reports.

The inter-national aid agency Oxfam says USAID awards more than half of its Afghan aid to just five U.S. private con-tractors with close political ties in Washington: KBR, the Louis Berger Group, Bearing Point, DynCorp International and Chemonics International. USAID allows contractors to budget $500,000 annual salaries and benefits for high-ranking employees, and $200,000 for lower-ranking administrators, according to Rashid. All expatriate employees receive a bonus of up to 70 percent for hazard and hardship pay. The average Afghan civil servant, however, receives less than $1,000 a month.

Rashid and other critics say waste is built into the system. Expatriate employees bank most of their salary because companies pay for employee travel and living expenses.

"In a lot of cases the money goes from one bank account in the U.S. to another account in the U.S.," and never helps the economy of Afghanistan, said Rashid... Afghan officials and aid workers say smaller nongovernmental organizations that emphasize people-to-people aid have helped Afghan society and have kept overhead costs low. Former Finance Ministry adviser Rashid said Washington should rely more on such groups and Afghans themselves to administer future programs.

But Rashid concedes that direct funding of the Afghan government and contractors could also lead to increased corruption, a problem that has gained significant ground since the Taliban regime fell. But he says a multilayer system with improved oversight could diminish fraud.

Waste and corruption in Afghanistan are "tremendous problems," conceded Foreign Minister Spanta. But, he noted, since the United States delivers only 10 percent to 20 percent of its aid money to targeted Afghan recipients, "Afghanistan officials are not more wasteful or corrupt than that."

The U.S. has no business in Afghanistan and isn't capable of making a positive contribution there. There is only one solution: redeployment out... immediately. Earlier I mentioned Barbara Lee's bill, HR 3699, which would prohibit funding for escalation. It's a perfect first step. I also mentioned that we have a contest going on today for anyone who donates to No Means No.

No Means No Highlights 11 California Members Of Congress-- Down From 15

Last June, when the dust cleared, there were only 32 Democrats left-- down from 90, then down from 52-- willing to oppose not Bush but Obama on a war supplemental budget. 90 promised and 32 followed through and voted no. When the easy vote came up-- the one that had almost all the Republicans voting for Obama's war funding-- 15 California Democrats voted no:

Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Mike Honda
Barbara Lee
Zoe Lofgren
Doris Matsui
George Miller
Grace Flores Napolitano
Brad Sherman
Jackie Speier
Pete Stark
Mike Thompson
Diane Watson
Maxine Waters
Lynn Woolsey

It was "easy" to oppose Obama and the House Democratic leadership on this because the margin of victory was sure to be so overwhelming-- with all the GOP help-- that the administration didn't need to squeeze anyone who had campaigned on a peace plank. But after it passed Rahm Emanuel got greedy. He was sitting on a bill ugly enough that it was going to be hard to find anyone to vote for it: a bailout for the IMF. So he got the Senate to attach it to the supplemental and sent it back to the House. The Republicans dropped out of the deal and said they would vote "no" on the supplemental, not because they didn't support escalating the war-- they certainly did and still do-- but because they weren't voting to bail out more foreign banks with U.S. taxpayer dollars. Suddenly the administration could no longer afford to lose 52 Democrats and still pass the bill.

They looked at the California delegation, applied some friendly pressure and quickly peeled off Doris Matsui, George Miller, Grace Flores Napolitano, and Mike Thompson. As the vote drew closer, the pressure coming out of Emanuel's office grew less friendly. It was like the battle over NAFTA all over again, where he managed to beat up and bribe enough Democrats to pass a truly destructive Republican bill. He was at it again and he succeeded again. The bill passed 226-202 but 11 California Democrats held their ground:

Sam Farr
Bob Filner
Mike Honda
Barbara Lee
Zoe Lofgren
Brad Sherman
Jackie Speier
Pete Stark
Diane Watson
Maxine Waters
Lynn Woolsey

These 11 make up part of an initiative, No Means No!, that is embarking on an effort to nurture a progressive conversation about U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Last week Alan Grayson and Eric Massa helped kick off the effort with live blogging sessions at Crooks and Liars. The object is to raise consciousness about the occupation of and war in Afghanistan and to help figure out how to effect the real Change it's going to take to get our troops out of there.

We've been asking people to consider thanking the courageous men and women who already drew that line in the sand and stood by it, like the 11 California members. Please take a look at the No Means No page and consider donating to any-- or all-- of the members of Congress on that list.

Obama Advisors Split On Afghanistan-- Congress Needs To Act

Ramstein is the site, in southwest Germany, of a huge U.S. airbase and of the world's most catastrophic airshow disaster in which 70 people were killed and almost 400 seriously injured (1988). It's where the hugely successful and fascistically-inclined metal band Rammstein took their name, and it's also where the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, traveled Friday to meet up with U.S. proconsul for the Afghanistan occupation, General Stanley McChrystal. The general gave the admiral a request for something like-- who really knows for sure?-- 50,000 more U.S. troops for the absolutely unwinnable war in one of the worst hellholes on earth.

With only 29% of Americans favoring an increase in U.S. forces, "Obama and his top national security advisers are locked in a heated debate about the way forward in Afghanistan. The administration announced in March that it had a strategy for Afghanistan, but it's had a difficult time defining the strategy amid declining political and public support, mounting U.S. casualties, evidence that Afghan President Hamid Karzai rigged his re-election last month, pervasive official corruption, a resurgent Taliban and halfhearted assistance from neighboring Pakistan."

The heated debate has trusted Obama advisors divided between hawks like Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke and those advocating or leaning towards disengagement like Colin Powell, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Joe Biden, National Security Advisor James Jones, Rahm Emanuel (on the right side of history for the first time in his political career) and Jack Reed who serves on the Senate Armed Service Committee as chair of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats.

Doug Tudor is the progressive Democrat running for the open Republican seat in FL-12. He's done a lot of thinking about the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and when I called him yesterday he certainly wasn't on the Clinton-Holbrooke team-- and he doesn't seem in the slightest bit conflicted about what he thinks we should be doing next.

“As a career military man, I appreciated The Powell Doctrine. Simply put, it states America should only go to war when national interests are at stake; the objective is clearly defined; the risks have been fully analyzed; and is there a plausible exit strategy. In other words, is the job the military being asked to do achievable, reasonable, and short-termed? Is it worth it? While there should have been a much more thorough discussion of these criteria in 2001, no reasonable person can now state that our current efforts in Afghanistan meet any of these criteria.

Simply put, there was never supposed to be a war in Afghanistan. Our job was to hunt down and kill or capture members of al Qaida. The Bush Administration perverted and then ignored that mission. It is not too late for us to reclaim that mission, but we can’t do it by furthering our current failed policies. If elected, I will not vote for a single Afghanistan War funding bill that provides monies for anything other than killing or capturing al Qaida. That means no stabilization operations, no occupation forces, and no nation-building. Period.”

Friday at the Blue America chat with Eric Massa, a retired Naval officer and congressman from upstate New York, there was an emphatic emphasis on defining the mission. Massa's position is exactly what Powell is telling Obama. Massa:

[I]s this about fighting the Taliban or fighting al-Qaeda-- two distinctly different groups-- or is it about creating a democracy, or is it about protecting the Afghan people? These are very different missions that require very different resources. And until we know what we're doing, we cannot begin to get it done. The first thing a military officer asks is 'What is the mission?' And as of right now, that is a very legitimate question... [W]e should demand a strategy that turns the destiny of Afghanistan over to the Afghans so we can get out of there as soon as possible. If the condition of our departure is creating a Jeffersonian democracy, then we are on a fool's errand.

Obama has to decide if being bogged down in an Afghan disaster is how he wants to spend his first-- and in all likelihood if he does, only-- term. He can use the crooked election as a way to get out of his boneheaded characterization of this bullshit occupation as a "war of necessity." He needs to do it right away-- part of the reason Blue America started up the No Means No! Act Blue page, which seeks to rally netroots support around the 32 courageous Democrats who voted against the supplemental war funding budget in June. Feel like doin' some rallyin' today?

Someday soon we'll be seeing stuff like this in the American mainstream press, but today's Guardian in England looks at current DC thought on what looks like a budding anti-war protest movement that's starting to show signs of Vietnamization.

As Barack Obama appears likely to increase America's already greatly enlarged troop commitment to the Afghan war, the war itself is becoming increasingly disliked.

The conflict used to be called America's "forgotten war". No longer. As casualties have spiked, so has hatred for the war: a solid 57% of Americans now oppose it. That has seen the anti-war movement in America prepare to turn its attentions from Iraq to Afghanistan, gearing up for an autumn campaign of marches and civil disobedience.

They hope to emulate the anti-Vietnam war protests, using highly visible public campaigns to force the hand of the White House to pull out of the country, not escalate the conflict.

The first major protest will happen next weekend, when anti-war protesters plan to arrange more than 500 empty pairs of boots on a grassy lawn right outside the White House. Each pair will represent an American soldier killed in the war... The honeymoon with Obama is over and the American people are not going to stand for it much longer.

...The movement is certainly tapping into a growing public mood of anger and discontent. For years, Afghanistan was seen as the "good war" as opposed to Iraq's "bad war". It had supposedly been won with relatively little loss of life, deposed a reviled government and been justified by the Taliban's open support of al-Qaida.

But now, there are more US casualties each day in Afghanistan than in Iraq, and American troop numbers will have risen dramatically to 68,000 by the end of the year. Indeed, Washington and the White House are consumed by speculation over whether Obama will accept a request from General Stanley McChrystal for yet more troops to be sent to the combat zone.

Apropos of nothing at all, of course, Rammsteinimages by famous German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl:




COMING UP AT 2pm PT:
SUNDAY CLASSICS TACKLES BACH

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Working Towards Ending The War In Afghanistan Will Require Republicans As Well As Democrats

Last night Ron Paul (R-TX) spoke at a town hall with raving lunatic Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in Minneapolis. A friend sent me some videos of the event and I thought they would just be worth looking at for the humor-- always fun to watch Bachmann make a jackass out of herself. And maybe it will be. I haven't gotten to her clips yet. The first one I clicked on was the one above of Ron Paul, who has been making the kinds of noises about Afghanistan that I wish more Democrats were making. His analysis of Obama's war policies are devoid of the Democrats' need to couch their criticism in partisan devotion to Mr. Hope and Mr. Change.

Ron Paul may be surrounded by zombies and crackpots but he's making ultimate sense when he explains the flaws in U.S. policies towards Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the Federal Reserve. If anyone is wondering what his role will be in the next war funding debate, just watch the clip. The next debate will not be about a quasi-constitutional supplemental war funding budget, like Bush used to finance his wars without kicking in either tax increases or social program funding cuts. Presumably Obama won't break his campaign promise to abolish supplementals-- or if he tries to break it, Congress won't let him. (Dave Obey, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, announced when championing the supplemental in June that this would be the last one.)

That means Republican warmongers are going to have to break their pledge to Grover Norquist to always vote against raising taxes and that Democratic warmongers would have to break their campaign promises to strive for more social and economic justice for working families by cutting back on social programs. Here's Ron Paul saying he'd oppose cutting back on funds for health care for children-- a program he never even supported-- because a better approach would be to withdraw American troops, not just from Iraq and Afghanistan, but from Germany, Japan and Korea as well! And the crowd ate it up!

It isn't until halfway through this clip that Paul goes off the rails and makes a fool out of himself whose economic theories are more relevant to a classical 19th century society rooted in an agrarian economy than for anything to do with the 21st century. It's really a shame because by the end of the clip he's back on the right track, talking about how the Republican and Democratic parties basically stand for the same thing (corporate dominance over individuals) and then went into a kickass denunciation of the kind of authoritarianism that brought us the Patriot Act.

Currently Blue America is working on an initiative with allies in the anti-war movement to raise consciousness about U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Obama is under intense pressure to escalate the war there. There are also some members of Congress-- a small handful of Republicans like Paul plus a large and increasingly disgruntled number of Democrats-- who are applying counter pressure. Polls have consistently shown that, across all political divides, Americans do not believe in the undefined and undefinable mission in Afghanistan and want to end the unwinnable war there immediately. As Congressman Alan Grayson explained on Thursday and Congressman Eric Massa explained on Friday there are members of Congress who were elected on platforms calling for bringing our troops home-- and they are serious about sticking to that regardless if it's Bush or Obama in the White House.

Last spring 90 Democrats bragged they would vote against the war supplemental. Only 52 did. But on the final vote-- when it really counted, on June 16-- only 32 Democrats had the balls to stand up to the Obama administration and vote no. Another dozen and the war would be winding down now... instead of ramping up. Grassroots and netroots activists against the occupation of Afghanistan need to bolster the members who were willing to take the not insubstantial political hit from the Obama administration-- Emanuel threatened Donna Edwards (D-MD) with a primary and, lo and behold!, she has one, as does Diane Watson (D-CA). Take a look at our No Means No! page and see if there's anything you can do to help.

Blue America Welcomes Eric Massa For A Talk On Afghanistan

Eric Massa with his former commanding officer, Wes Clark

Last night two of the blogosphere's brightest lights posted on the difficulties Obama is facing when it comes to turning around U.S. Afghanistan policy. Digby, who recounted a 1964 conversation between McGeorge Bundy and President Lyndon Johnson about the futility of American policies in Vietnam, seemed aghast that "Democratic strategist" Donna Brazile was on CNN yesterday seemingly reading some leftover talking points from Karen Hughes about the need to stay in Afghanistan and "get the job done." Then last night Daily Kos' most prescient Afghanistan blogger, Meteor Blades, highlighted the controversy over Andrea Mitchell's report on the 500,000 troops needed to do the job in Afghanistan. But as Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), our No Means No guest today, asked me this morning, "What is the job?" Blue America's friendship with Eric Massa goes back to the very beginning of our PAC and he was one of the first candidates we ever supported. Ultimately it was his character that moved us to endorse him, although his championing of issues impacting the real lives of working families (like "fair trade" over so-called "free trade"), his dogged support of single-payer health care, and his spot-on analysis of the war in Iraq based on experience as a Naval officer are what first drew us to him. He came close in 2006 and he triumphed in 2008-- in one of the only districts in New York that Obama didn't win! Obama tool 48% in NY-29 while Massa scooped up 51% against a multimillionaire incumbent and Bush tool.

In June Eric was one of only 32 Democrats to vote against the supplemental war budget-- of the 90 who had pledged to vote no. It was an incredibly courageous political act, particularly in a district with a daunting R+5.48 PVI (one of the most Republican districts in the country represented by a progressive Democrat). This morning Eric told me in no uncertain terms that he would "continue to vote against any supplemental."

We're not going to fund any wars in a way that no one knows about. The Republicans gave the wealthiest Americans the largest tax cut in history and then launched two wars without any idea of how to pay for them. It was the most fiscally irresponsible action they could take-- and they took it.

Eric is fired up and full of fight, as always. He loves his job and told me he;s absolutely committed to it. "I'm in the right place in my life doing the right job for the right congressional district. And I'm just getting started." Right now, you hear the lifelong military man in him when he says he's very supportive of what he calls "the president's strategic pause to formulate whatever strategy his administration will implement (in Afghanistan)."

For instance, is this about fighting the Taliban or fighting al-Qaeda-- two distinctly different groups-- or is it about creating a democracy, or is it about protecting the Afghan people? These are very different missions that require very different resources. And until we know what we're doing, we cannot begin to get it done. The first thing a military officer asks is 'What is the mission?' And as of right now, that is a very legitimate question."

As progressives and men and women of common sense, we should demand a strategy that turns the destiny of Afghanistan over to the Afghans so we can get out of there as soon as possible. If the condition of our departure is creating a Jeffersonian democracy, then we are on a fool's errand.

Today at 3pm PT (6pm back East) Eric will be joining us for a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars. As MoveOn mentioned in the mailing this morning "U.S. policy in Afghanistan has reached a pivotal moment. President Obama is poised to make a critical decision about the Afghanistan war in the next few weeks. And there's a big debate happening right now about what to do. Pro-war advocates both inside and outside the administration-- including John McCain and Joe Lieberman-- are calling for a big escalation. The general in charge of Afghanistan is expected to request tens of thousands more troops, and that may just be the beginning. They're cranking up the pressure for an immediate surge." Eric Massa is in a unique position to help us figure out a progressive strategy for dealing with this dilemma. He's adamant that if the President asks for more funds for the war, he do it through a normal budgetary process that includes a "clearly articulated strategy with an end game. The Republicans say they're all about fiscal responsibility? Then they should agree we should apply those concepts to wars."

Please take a look at Blue America's No Means No! page and consider donating to Eric and any or all of the 32 other Democrats who have already done the right thing by voting no on the supplemental budget 3 months ago and who we will be counting on to help end the occupation of Afghanistan in the coming months.

Blue America Welcomes Alan Grayson For A Discussion Of American Policy In Afghanistan

Alan Grayson has been a big Blue America fave ever since we first met up with him in January, 2008. He was our first endorsement that year and one of our most celebrated victories, having beaten an entrenched, useless incumbent in a traditionally Republican district in central Florida. Since being elected Alan has been a progressive leader, primarily in financial regulations through his committee position on House Financial Services. But he also was one of 32 Democrats in the House who stood up to demands from the Obama Administration that a supplemental war budget be approved last June.

It was a ballsy move, especially for Democrats in Republican-leaning districts, like Alan, Eric Massa and Carol Shea-Porter. I doubt Alan ever wavered from his commitment to the voters in his district to not approve any more supplemental budgets. But you can ask him yourself when he joins us for a live blogging session today at Crooks & Liars, 3pm PT (6pm back East). Alan will be helping us launch a new Blue America Initiative to help draw attention to the situation in Afghanistan and what progressives can do to effect change.

Alan is prepared to work even harder this year to head off an escalation of war in the 8th year of occupation of the country. "We are using a 19th century strategy to fight a 14th century opponent, " he told me yesterday. "Does anyone seriously believe that the best way to defend our borders is to send a quarter of a million Americans 10,000 miles beyond them?" He also told me he thinks we can change Obama's mind and turn this thing around. "He's too smart," said the congressman, "to let someone else's war ruin his presidency."

And with Republican Tim Johnson of Illinois promising to introduce legislation to withdraw American troops, an idea that some other Republicans, like Walter Jones (R-NC) and Ron Paul (R-TX) seem to be embracing, Alan is ready to work across the aisle-- as he has been doing with his crusade to force an audit on the Federal Reserve-- and help focus more Democrats and more Republicans on what he calls "the senselessness of war without end." If you haven't visited it yet, today is launch-day for Blue America's new ActBlue page, No Means No!. We're asking anyone who can afford to, to contribute-- even if it's just a few dollars-- to the Democrats who have already shown their willingness to draw a line in the sand and not break their pledge. Today, everyone who donates-- regardless of how much-- will have their name put in a hat and 6 random winners will get the new book by New York Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini, The Audacity of Greed. Jonathan donated the books for this event and he autographed each one.

Meanwhile, please take a look at the first segment in the BraveNewFilms movie, Rethink Afghanistan, something that every member of Congress needs to see-- at least as much as the briefings from the Pentagon and spy agencies.

Yes, Fundraising Is Tight-- And Ending The War In Afghanistan Is Important

Tomorrow Blue America will be launching an effort to raise awareness about the 8th year of occupation and war in Afghanistan. One aspect of the effort will be a fundraising effort on behalf of the 32 Democratic members of Congress who voted against the supplemental financing for the war and occupation on June 16. At the same time Blue America is still raising money to keep our Blanche Lincoln ads on TV in Arkansas; money to oppose reactionary Blue Dogs; and we're still moving towards our $450,000 goal in the campaign, Standing Up For the Public Option. (Currently 6,928 donors have contributed $422,141.88.)

And we're in the middle of a recession.

And some netroots activists are unsure if they're ready to break with the president they worked so hard to elect over Afghanistan, or if "maybe we should give him a little more time." The next few months should see a lot of discussion around that premise. We've been having it internally and we war goes beyond political considerations. Ron Paul may be a nut-job surrounded by zombies (and racists) but when it comes to Afghanistan, it's got it right... more so than plenty of Democrats. Listen to him discussing how wrong American policy in Afghanistan is:



When he says "it isn't going to do any good," he's hit the nail on the head. Ron Paul sees no change in U.S. policy; do you?

Back to fundraising. Tomorrow another member of Congress who wants to end the occupation of Afghanistan, Alan Grayson (D-FL), will help us kick off our campaign with a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars (3pm, PT, 6pm back East). Aside from getting the discussion going about Afghanistan, we want to thank the Democrats, like Rep. Grayson, who have already demonstrated their committment to ending the occupation by voting against the supplemental 3 months ago. I know that money is harder to come by. America is worth it. The alternative will be members of congress with no ethics-- men like Duke Cunningham (R-CA) and Mike Ross (D-AR) who take bribes to vote for special interests. Even $10 and $20 contributions help add up to significant grassroots impact of campaigns. Please give what you can.

And you might be interested in knowing that over on the far right, there has been almost no success in raising money for the extremists and loons who the teabaggers and obstructionists have decided to back in Senate races: right wing kooks Chuck DeVore (CA), Marco Rubio (FL), Pat Toomey (PA) and Michael Williams (TX). Erick Erickson is leading another failed fundraising drive at Red State for a pack of lunatic fringe candidates. His goal is $250,000 and he's somehow managed to scrape up $12,000. He's been whining regularly to a readership that would rather yell about Kenyan and Indonesian birth certificates than work for their candidates. (Of course they don't really need to. Unlike progressives, reactionaries get immediate support from Big Business PACs who still do control the GOP agenda.) Erickson:

Yes, yes, we can go to the polls in droves, etc., but cash is king in politics. And if we want to be taken seriously, we need to step up to the plate. I know that hacks some of you off. Every time I write stuff like this I get dozens of angry emails from people suffering due to Barack Obama’s economy. I get it. But you need to get it too-- you want to change the Republican Party and have a seat at the table, you’ve got to launch a coup against the establishment. And the best way to do that at the present time is support these candidates who are running against the establishment.

Today, give at least one dollar to each of our anti-occupation candidates and we'll send you a special thank you-- a two CD set, Quixotic from Matt Keating, his most recent release. (You can preview the tracks here.)

What's Going On Behind The Curtains In Regard To Afghanistan?

In a few weeks we will pass the eighth anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan, a hopeless and ill-conceived venture from the very beginning. Obama's embrace of the war in his campaign always seemed to me to be a harbinger of bad things to come and a colossal error. Late last night a 66-page report from General McChrystal "leaked" to the Washington Post and the NY Times that basically says "more troops or we lose."

McChrystal seems to be boxing Obama in with statements like: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)-- while Afghan security capacity matures-- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible." He calls the situation serious but claims "success is still achievable." He's wrong; it isn't, unless success is defined as depopulating the entire wretched country, something that not even the Soviets felt they could get away with.

The report had been submitted to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on August 30. Who leaked it? And why? The Times points out that the leak "coincided with new skepticism expressed by President Obama about sending any more troops into Afghanistan until he was certain that the strategy was clear. His remarks came as opposition to the eight-year-old war within his own party is growing. General McChrystal’s view offered a stark contrast, and the language he used was striking."

In a series of interviews on the Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Obama expressed skepticism about sending more American troops to Afghanistan until he was sure his administration had the right strategy to succeed.

“Right now, the question is, the first question is, are we doing the right thing? Are we pursuing the right strategy?” Mr. Obama said on CNN. “When we have clarity on that, then the question is, O.K., how do we resource it?”

Mr. Obama said that he and his top advisers had not delayed any request for additional troops from General McChrystal because of the political delicacy of the issue or other domestic priorities.

“No, no, no, no,” Mr. Obama said when asked on CNN’s State of the Union whether General McChrystal had been told to sit on his request.

Mr. Obama said his decision “is not going to be driven by the politics of the moment.”

In an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mr. Obama said his top priority was to protect the United States against attacks from Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

“Whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we’ll figure out how to resource it,” the president said. “We’re not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we’re automatically going to make Americans safe,” he said.

Starting today expect to see a concerted attack on the president from the "We-Want-Obama-To-Fail-Right," making it harder for Democrats to back away from his misguided Afghanistan policies. But none of these games changes the fact this is a pointless and unwinnable war and must be brought to a close as soon as possible. This week Blue America is launching No Means No! a fundraising effort to help bolster members of Congress who already know that and who have been working diligently to end it. If Obama keeps his pledge to end the Bush-era supplemental funding process, future appropriations for Afghanistan will be part of the budget, which means Pay-Go rules kick in. That leaves Congress with two choices when allocating money for the occupation of Afghanistan: raising taxes or cutting social programs. That's the next big battle facing Washington.

Watch Obama on CBS' Meet The Press yesterday: