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WikiLeaks' Contribution to Obama's Inevitable Choice

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

In lightning response to WikiLeaks' release of more than 90,000 classified reports that unshockingly depict a ghastly intersection of America's increasing helplessness and the Taliban's accelerating strength, National Security Adviser Jim Jones unleashed a minor barrage of mind-numbing bureaucratese:

"These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people."

Well, as long as "these irresponsible leaks" won't degrade our foolish consistency of despotic alliances or upset the delicate, self-negating balance of "common enemies" and deep "partnerships," we should be OK; which is to say, Jones' critical insertion of the qualifying "irresponsible" was superfluous at best.

Another, anonymous White House official varied Jones' theme of linguistic torture:

"[I]t’s worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan."

Now there's one of the hottest chestnuts ever among prominent logical fallacies: attack the source, however irrelevant the source itself may be to the principal story. One can imagine the biting critique of a Goebbels Dispatch: "It's worth nothing that Edward R. Murrow's CBS Radio is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes German policy in the skies over London."

Yeah, OK, so now we'll witness the full force of tiresome predictability: Liberal bloggers and commentators will go berserk in denouncing executive secrecy and right-wing bloggers and commentators will go equally berserk in denouncing First Amendment treachery.

This two-sided outrage will last for roughly 48 hours, admittedly a rather pleasant diversion from the 72-hour outrage over the Sherrod Affair, in which liberal bloggers denounced right-wing racism and right-wing bloggers denounced liberal racism. There's nothing like one of these enlightening "national debates," don't you think?

But, official and unofficial horseshit aside, from all of the NY Times' thousands of words this morning in its reporting of Wikileaks' leaks, this line jumped out at me with uncommon power:

"While current and former American officials interviewed could not corroborate individual reports, they said that the portrait of [Pakistan's] spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence."

With other classified intelligence? Pakistan's super-"secretive" doings with Afghan insurgents is about as mysterious as today's hamburger specials in the Daily Shopper.

This, from a month ago, and again, the Times:

"Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement" -- a promise that positively dripped with implications of all manner of Pakistani collaboration. Indeed, "Some officials in the Obama administration have not ruled out incorporating the Haqqani network in an Afghan settlement, though they stress that President Obama’s policy calls for Al Qaeda to be separated from the network."

Then this, my absolute favorite part: "American officials are skeptical that that can be accomplished." One marvels here at the euphemistically soft expectations of concrete disbelief.

What's more -- and this, once again, from a month ago -- Pakistan's spy agency took the rather uncharacteristic step of open diplomacy, blurting that America's Afghanistan campaign "will not succeed," largely because as the "security situation ... become[s] more dangerous," America's dedication to Afghanistan will eventually wane to invisibility.

It's my scarcely singular but unwavering conviction that Obama's commitment to Afghanistan is, by now, almost wholly a negative one: that is, he stays only because he doesn't know how to get out. I'm, let's say, "skeptical" that he believes any more than the time of day from Gen. David Petraeus, while the geopolitical and domestic political fallout of withdrawal ramifies monstrously in his mind. As retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey said the other day in a television interview, Of course there's an alternative to continued American deployment -- the alternative being "a disaster of monumental proportions."

A some point, however, Obama must accept that America's disaster is separable from Afghanistan's -- whether it is or not -- and thus he must allow the inevitable fallout to begin. After all, he's no more straitjacketed in leaving than he is in staying.

 

Please respond to P.M.'s commentary by leaving comments below and sharing them with the BuzzFlash community. For personal questions or comments you can contact him at fifthcolumnistmail@gmail.com

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter


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EVERY good American IS a whistleblower!!!!

You don't have to say it to mean it, you know you are happy this was leaked.  The only way to get out of the quicksand is convince the public that quicksand is an immediate threat.  We are asked to believe that the Taliban, suppoesdly would not hand over Osama, out of a tradition of hospitality to visitors??  The Taliban will hand over who we ask for, even grant some surprisingly far-reaching concessions, in exchange for victory throwing the flag-heads out - the Taliban will hunt down Al Qaida just like Hussein did. 

Both sides will be able to declare victory, and women in Kabul might even keep some rights, and the way Bush framed the issue is the only reason that it sounds absurd to you and you don't believe me that it will happen. 

There has to be more to why we're still there..

We began and then dragged out the war in Iraq for a very specific pre-planned reason: to gain of control Iraq's vast oil resources.

The final desperation behind using Petraus's "surge" strategy right before Bush and Cheney left office, focused on using the bodies of our troops to protect the Parliament building. Why? Because members of Parliament  hadn't yet passed the Hydorcarbon Law, which denationalized Iraq's oil and opened it to the "free market" of privatization.

In Afghanistan, even the head of their Parliament said peace was completely impossible unless the ISI of Pakistan -who cooperates with the insurgents -  was dealt with.  He also says the US has a perfect shot at several Al-Qaeda Taliban targets, yet refuses to take them out.  Why?

And Pakistan is about to blow, likely fueled by all the heroin money going to nationalists, a money flow the US is not trying to contain. Why?

So why then these seemingly misguided foot dragging in getting the job done??

Since 2003,  the US contracted for a full multi-year survey of Afghanistans resources.  That survey contract just ended, with the stunning trillion dollar mineral finds.  The new Parliament is going to have to deal with their new found wealth.

And where were  McCrystals surge of troops positioned?  Around the capital.  Just like in Iraq. Keeping the new Afghani Parliament safe and open for business. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


founder of Wiki leaks speaks.

Update. Here's The founder of WikiLeaks defending his release of tens of thousands of secret files about the war in Afghanistan. http://www.newslook.com/videos/232825-raw-video-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange?autoplay=true

 

dbmetzger

Pentagon papers deja vu.

Well, I wonder what Daniel Ellsberg has to say about this. Seymour Hirsch was also correct last year (as usual) when he wrote that Pakistan was helping the Taliban,  among other things verified in these leaks,

Here's a video The website Wikileaks has uploaded more than 90,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan. Reports suggest high civilian casualties, links between the Pakistani government and the Taliban, and special operations assassination squads. http://www.newslook.com/videos/232814-reports-reveal-afghan-war-details?autoplay=true

 

dbmetzger

"not an objective news outlet"

Another, anonymous White House official varied Jones' theme of linguistic torture:
"[I]t’s worth noting that WikiLeaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan."
 
It's worth noting Fox News is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes anything Obama.  But that didn't stop the administration from firing  Ms Sharrod before letting her tell her side of the story.

Carpy's Non-Contribution to Obama's Inevitable Non-Choice

I was fine with Carpy's cut and paste job, until he offered his own opinion from his tiny, undiscerning propaganda parrot pea brain. Carpy deludes, "It's my scarcely singular but unwavering conviction that Obama's commitment to Afghanistan is, by now, almost wholly a negative one: that is, he stays only because he doesn't know how to get out." When was Obama's "commitment to Afghanistan" ever a positive one? Oh, that's right, during the presidential campaign when Obama promised to end the two illegal wars bring home the troops. Actually Carpy, Obama, as well as all Republicans and all Blue Dog DINOs don't know how to get out of bed with the upper 1% plutocracy, who just last Friday, made sure the energy bill was killed so they can keep America dependent on foreign fossil fuel, which necessitates our continued imperialism in the Middle East. But the biggest non-contribution comes from WE THE PEOPLE, who don't know how to get out of being 'wee little sheeple.' Meanwhile, Carpy the Judas Goat continues to help lead us to the slaughter, again, with his anti-progressive political propaganda nonsense falsely claiming a helpless center right president and a helpless congressional Democratic super-majority-minority.

Let the "Beserking" begin

Yes Carp--liberal critcism, conservative criticism, it's all the same...well, all the same to children--or in your case, adults--who cannot discern fact from fiction. The fact that liberals base their crticisms on fact and conservatives on propaganda is just a middling little variant lost in your mental haze.

Nevertheless, you are largely correct in your assessment of Obama's Pentagon Papers. We might as well be watching the Nixon Administration prevaricate its way thru Vietnam--while useless idiots like yourself see the problem fullwell yet want no real liberal to criticize Obama over it.

There is literally a mountain of circumstantial evidence that Pakistan's Intelligence Service was every bit the driving force behind 9-11 that Al Qaida was--yet we are planning to give a billion dollars of taxpayer money to the Pakistani govt to dole out as they see fit. This can't be merely insanity or incompetance, there has to be a larger driving force behind this madness, a more corrupting force.

And that would be greed.

This is all about developing stable pro-western govts in the Caucas region purely for the extraction of energy resources (and others) by US multi-national corporations. Anyone who says different is naive or misguided. This is what our military is for. This is what we do. The govt middlemen will get rich, and naturally the corporations will get rich, while the PEOPLE will be suppresed and repressed and if necessary tortured and eliminated.

Yes, they hate us for our freedom alright. Our freedom to force our military to act as goons in what amounts to a large, brutal mafia. This is just neo-prohibition. Our territory is everywhere and we must extract protection money. We need bases in Okinawa and Germany because we have territory nearby. Shipping lanes must be protected from opposing mafias (and "pirates").

The day is fast approaching when Obama is going to have to shit or get off the pot. If he leaves Afghanistan he will make very strong enemies in the Neocon and business community. If he does not, he will split the Democratic Party in two and he wil not be re-elected--unless, of course, he can dupe enough Carpian democrats into believing we are leaving. On 2nd thought that shouldn't be that hard for a man of his rhetorical skills, so hell, maybe he can pull it off. Or not. Only time will tell.

Either way, it won't be pretty to watch.