and we will spend trillions doing just that and to say nothing of the lives lost in both iraq and afghan.

americans want their wars for profits and be a superpower now they pay the price.

every person that I know has lost over 30% of their 401.

and not one has tied together our wars for profits and the lost of their 401’s.

we are an imperialist country and dont have a clue we are.

the germans used to line the streets to worship hitler.

but in 1945 they were running down those streets hiding from the russians.

people love to be the big dog on the block but oh what a price to pay for our imperialism.

few will understand my words very few.

we still want to blame people and not look at the root cause. ie capitalism.

capitalism is based in greed and profits not people’s needs.

the idea that wealth trickles down is played upon the naive and works in a dumbed down society.

if you dont believe we are a drug infested dumbed downed society visit a local high school.

You mean including Rahm?

Jeebus. You really don’t have a political bone in your body.

There is nothing worse than trying to brief a GO on something three or four years down the road. Their horizon is only until they can get their next star or their next big job (in case they already have 4).

Like I have said before, Obama hasn’t learned how to handle GOs yet. A public execution like firing Petraeus or Odierno might get the Army’s attention. When Gates got rid of the SAF and the CSAF, it got the Air Force in line for a little while, although they are using their back door connections on trying to keep the F22 alive.

his [Obama’s] administration has also tried to distance itself from Mr. Karzai, whose government is deeply unpopular and widely viewed as corrupt.

For those of us old enough to have lived through the repeated justifications for continuing the Vietnam war and heard exactly the same things said about the Diem regime and its many ineffectual successors, the above quote is a chilling flashback. Trouble is, that if the Taliban regain control of Afghanistan and start executing masses of people in the soccer stadium including women who dared be the equal of men, then Obama’s re-election chances sink dramatically. People older than I will say that “Who lost China” proved a potent mantra for the Republicans in the decade of the 1950s, even though China was never the US’s to lose.

Maybe I didn’t say this clearly enough above where I think I already answered this. Panetta was surprised to find out about a secret program that was a … secret program.

Obama is claiming to be surprised by something that has been the subject of published accounts for years and was in particulare the subject of public entreaties to him directly in January by multiple human rights organizations. If it is indeed possible for Obama to be “similary suprised” (surprised in a fashion similar to the surprise from Panetta on learning of a classified program) about Dostum, we definitely have the wrong guy as President.

We’re also expecting Obama to be farther ahead than we are on topics that we spend all our free time on

Bull. Obama has had a whole cadre of advisors throughout his Senate campaign, his service in office as a Senator, his Presidential primary campaign, his Presidential campaign and now that he is in office. He has tremendously more resources to devote to every area – not just domestic issues areas – than most of the cogent blogosphere (granting that that might be a small cross section) together.

Dostum is a major factor in Afghanistan for any number of reasons and if Obama has spent all his primary and presidential campaigning talking about the wars without ever being briefed on Dostum, he has had direct contacts from numerous human rights organizations during the body dig up fiasco – he basically has a universe of sources that have been providing him information.

I don’t know who the “we” is that does’t spend much time with health care, but to be honest, his stance right now on Dostum is the same as if he were asked about a public option and he said, “gosh, what’s that? I haven’t heard of such a thing until today” Dostum and the container killings and his mega role with the CIA and in Afghan corruption are not digging into the weedier areas. If he really has been making plans for Afghanistan to the point of yanking one comannder out to stick another one it and he did that with no clue about Dostum, he’s incompetent. And again, he got direct entreaties and inquiries to stop the graves being dug up over 6 mos ago. Direct. How short term is his memory?

What I said was that Panetta was apparently shocked/surprised by something.

Why is it not possible for Obama to be similarly surprised about the situation regarding Dostum when he has one helluva lot more on his plate than Panetta has?

We’re also expecting Obama to be farther ahead than we are on topics that we spend all our free time on — corruption with regard to national security and foreign policy — when we don’t spend anywhere near as much time on other issues like health care reform, the economy, swine flu, you name it, which he must address every day with the same level of alacrity and ability.

And we’re also expecting him to have received info from staffers who may/may not be free of agenda when he’s focusing on these issues. If it’s getting filtered, what exactly is he seeing? I’m prepared to give him some breathing room. Maybe living with an executive (whose presentation due this week to the board has already been f*cked because of incomplete content from underlings) gives me a different perspective on this.

If Obama doesn’t have his crap together on this within a month, then I’ll be less generous. If he’s anything like the executive I live with, he’s already told them he knows he’s not got all the details and they’d better get this material together in a hurry and get it right this time. We’re merely seeing the response of someone who may have been pants’d by others and is not prepared to do more.