Day: December 8, 2009

Will It Ever End?

In the past I have had a running exchange with Quin of Quintessential Havoc (go to blogroll…a good site) about the possibilities for Afghanistan.  I have said that I see so many similarities between Vietnam and Afghanistan, but recently I have heard some pundits compare the troop enlargement for Afghanistan to the surge that Bush gave to Iraq…..to be fair, the surge in Iraq was a success….but I do not think it was necessarily the troop build up as it was the Sunni tribes were fed up with the situation they were facing and they joined the US in the war……the American troops probably helped a bit but I believe it was the Iraqis that made the difference.

A surge in Afghanistan will NOT have the luxury of a tribe that will join in the fun….the differences in Afghanistan are ethnic not religious as they were in Iraq…there will be NO massive help coming from the Afghan tribes…..so anyone that tries to equate Afghanistan with Iraq will be missing the very point of the exercise……

Recently the president gave a speech on Afghanistan and set down what was what…..more troops and then in 18 months a draw down…that is the short synopsis…..myself as well as others doubt that the exit will start in 18 months and guess what…..all day this past Sunday on the media news talk shows the cabinet members were out explaining what the president had meant and he did NOT mean that we would be coming out of Afghanistan in 18 months, just that the Afghans would be expected to start shouldering some of the war…..the best thing I can say is…HA!

I still say that all the evidence points to the US and its friends will be in Afghanistan for another 3 to 5 years and it could be even longer, more like 10 years….and in the end all will leave and the Taleban will return…..

This is a war without end……..so the question should be when to leave…..before or after more deaths…..before or after the billions that will be spent……

Sun-tzu said:  “All war is deception.”

If that one is not to your liking…how about Ernest Hemingway:  “In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.”

The Tea Party Implodes

In the days of high adventure…..

Teabaggers?  ( HA…I just have to chuckle every time I use the term)…….oops….my bad!…..the Tea Partyers….after a summer and a fall of fist pumping, sign carrying, insult slinging,  the followers of the movement are beginning to eat each (no pun intended)….

The original Tea Party was brought about by the supporters of Ron Paul and In my opinion had legitimate bitches about the government….the size of government,,,taxes….etc…etc….etc…..

Then along came the sleazoids of Freedom Works and similar sneak attacks from the neocon right……the message of the Libertarians were marginalized for the slinging of slogans like “socialism, Nazis, Fascism, racism, and all”…….

Now there is a rift appearing in the Tea Party movement…..Politico’s Kenneth Vogel wrote on the subject:

The grass-roots activists driving the movement have become increasingly divided on such core questions as whether to focus their efforts on shaping policy debates or elections, work on a local, regional, state or national level or closely align themselves with the Republican Party, POLITICO found in interviews with tea party organizers in Washington and across the country.

Many of these differences date to the movement’s beginnings last winter in an outpouring of anger about the huge increases in government spending enacted by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress. But they were overshadowed by the initial explosion of activism that culminated during the congressional town hall meetings in August.

The movement is composed of hundreds of independent local groups, many of which are incorporated as nonprofits and have localized names referencing the tea parties, 9/12 or We the People.

Many of their members also belong to national conservative groups, including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity and Grassfire, while the local groups often affiliate formally or informally with loose-knit umbrella organizations, including the Tea Party Patriots and Tea Party Nation.

The organizational chaos — combined with a widening apathy at the edges of the movement — has produced a growing consensus among local, state and national tea party leaders that for the movement to evolve from the loose conglomeration of fired-up activists who mobilized this summer to register their dissatisfaction with Obama and Congress at town hall protests and marches across the country into a sustainable bloc with the power to shape the GOP and swing elections, it will require the emergence of a national leader, group or structure.

In other words the Tea Party movement has been hijacked by the sleezoid right…..de ja vu….the same sleazy idiots hijacked the GOP and now they are trying to be in TOTAL control of the conservative movement…..

As far as it all goes, I am a Lefty, at least that is what I have been called, and I am thrilled if the sleazy right destroys any opposition as they have destroyed the GOP….kudos…keep up the good work….

There is more to the story:  The Politico is reporting on a poll involving the “Tea Party”:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided….

Among Republican voters, 39% say they’d vote for the GOP candidate, but 33% favor the Tea Party option.

For this survey, the respondents were asked to assume that the Tea Party movement organized as a new political party.

Will the “Tea Party” truly become a viable party in the 2010 or for that matter 2012 elections?  As an analyst I am hoping that the American people will jump on that bandwagon with both feet….why?….would make writing on politics so much more fun and entertaining….