When Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld swear that the Theory of Gravity is true I would begin to have doubts. Such is their record of veracity. Is so-and-so a person of integrity? We tend to look at the person’s history of truthfulness and honorable behavior to make that judgment. Even given the average allowance for human flaws and assorted small fibs the previously mentioned three stooges have set new standards in political sleaze. The kind of sleaze that has costs hundreds of thousands of lives. Dick, George and Donald have insisted that the troops in Afghanistan had all the resources they needed. The military officially disagrees, Army History Finds Early Missteps in Afghanistan
But there was a major drawback, a new unpublished Army history of the war concludes. Because the Pentagon insisted on maintaining a “small footprint” in Afghanistan and because Iraq was drawing away resources, General Barno commanded fewer than 20,000 troops.
As a result, battalions with 800 soldiers were trying to secure provinces the size of Vermont. “Coalition forces remained thinly spread across Afghanistan,” the historians write. “Much of the country remained vulnerable to enemy forces increasingly willing to reassert their power.”
[ ]…“Even after the capture of Kabul and Kandahar,” the historians write, “there was no major planning initiated to create long-term political, social and economic stability in Afghanistan. In fact, the message from senior D.O.D officials in Washington was for the U.S. military to avoid such efforts.”
I kind of like the right-wing/tea party/self-righteous hypocritical uber nationalists conspiracy bunk. Least someone think that by writing that I am just encouraging them, I’ve been reading them long enough to know they need no encouragement any more than they need inconvenient facts. Their recent fascination with INTERPOL is some old John Birch far right mentality dusted off for the new decade – Barack Obama signed an Executive Order amending one of Ronald Reagan’s executive orders, which rescinded the exclusion INTERPOL would otherwise have from American tax laws.
Predictably, the fact that Barack Obama has allowed the World Police to operate within our borders and given them all of West Virginia to use as concentration camps (READ BETWEEN THE LINES, PEOPLE) is setting off alarms among the most vigilant of our civilian security forces. The Anchoress is worried that this is the beginning of Kristallnacht, and that INTERPOL and ACORN are somehow going to join forces to form the ultimate acronym, CLARINET PORNO.
INTERPOL has very little power in the way we usually think of police powers. The Right’s strange attacks on INTERPOL do require some mental gymnastics on their part as INTERPOL tracks information about criminals, including terrorists. Then makes that information available to member countries (188 at last count). Since we all know by now when you die from heart disease or a boating accident it’s just a regular death, but when you’re killed by a terrorist you’re extra dead. The later the Right’s obsessive daymare and nightmare – well besides ACORN and Hollywood. Should we part ways with INTERPOL and give a gift of sorts to radicals around the world, but ease the Right’s conspiratorial concerns or should we stay in INTERPOL as one way to help protect those right-wingers who can barely function because of their fears of that extra special death. Some people are so difficult to please.
Note- In case someone doesn’t get the Kristallnacht reference.
inkbluesky 