letter from a WASHINGTON POST staffer

Dear Bill,

I write today about the ever increasing pressure to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. A vote last week drove home the point that this is becoming more and more of a contentious issue. In a bill that was expected to fail by a longshot, the vote actually came to a close failure vote of 215-204, with 26 Republicans joining in the effort with all but eight of the Democrats. This was a significant step for the Democrats to step out against the President in opposition to his public stance. This bill essentially called for the Obama Administration to establish a plan this summer to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and to pursue a negotiated settlement with “all interested parties”.

This is a substantial shift as just one year ago Congressman McGovern suffered a much greater defeat with 98 Democrats going against a similar piece of legislation. After the heightened coverage surrounding Bin Laden’s death, Americans are more aware that as Congressman Hoyer observed, “Many of the terrorists against whom we are fighting are no longer located in Afghanistan but are in disparate locations, from Yemen to Somalia to Southeast Asia.” This is one factual point that has provided a basis for the sentiment that the U.S. troop’s ongoing mission in Afghanistan is in part a futile waste of U.S. time and resources.

Although the situation in Afghanistan is complicated and may be hard for those without military experience much less inside intelligence information to fully understand or appreciate, there are a few basic observations that can be made. First, there multiple obstacles preventing the U.S. from making progress as intended. Second, Obama has failed to present a clear strategy that people, even those within his own party, can unify behind. For any issue in politics, messaging is always key to rallying support. The problem is that the Administration has not determined a clear exit strategy and therefore, they are unable to communicate a vision of a withdrawal method to the taxpayers who are funding these efforts. It is natural for Americans to grow anxious about an exit strategy when it is clear our troops are not making significant progress in regards to the stated purposes of the mission, namely “nation building”. The white elephant in the room is the fact that the U.S. Government is conceivably not revealing the true purpose for remaining in Afghanistan. This of course is the geographic proximity to a growing threat to the U.S., Pakistan. This is a country in which the core leadership of al-Qaeda is now located in addition to their develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. would not want to vocalize this purpose as it would further strain the delicate relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan. However, there is logic in positioning ourselves in the region in a way that prevents the terrorist groups from growing in size and power. Since this purpose is still only hypothetical, I will just address the current challenges the U.S. faces in Afghanistan which are delaying an immediate exit.

Fist, the U.S. has stated that our troops would be withdrawn when Afghanistan has a permanently stable and well-resourced government. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Bush Administration made the decision to try to rebuild a relatively strong central government and to assist Afghanistan’s economy. Even at the January 28, 2010 “London Conference” and the July 20, 2010 “Kabul Conference”, two international conferences on Afghanistan, the focus was still on expanding and reforming the Afghan convernance.The problem with using this measurement as a prerequisite to exiting, is the fact that Afghanistan may never meet this objective. Current President Hamid Karzai’s failure to forcefully confront corruption within the government has caused a great loss of support by the people. The rife corruption has caused the Afghan citizens to even resent the Karzai government; completely undermining any faith they may have held that America could be trusted in their strategy of rebuilding stable governance. The two more recent corruption stories were that involving the Kabul Bank, and the U.S. sanctions imposed on the money trading firm New Ansari Money Exchange on February 18, 2011. In response to this, the Obama Administration and Congress have begun strategically urging Kazai to publicly confront government corruption. Karzai has in turn resisted these efforts and has become more suspicious of the U.S. motivations.

Secondly, there are several factions of conflicting governance currently controlling this country in various regions and capacities. Amidst the more organized, legitimate bodies, there are also individual “warlords”, local strongmen who wield personal militias and functionally destabilize the progress between the U.S. and Afghan officials. In newly released Defense Department reports in May 2011, they recognized the fact that our security efforts are being challenged by multiple armed groups. Until the U.S.-led offensives launched in 2009, the Karzai government was estimated to control about 30% of the country, insurgent’s controlled 4% officially and were considered to heavily influence or operate in another 30%, and finally local tribes and groups controlled the remainder. As of 2009, the Taliban had named shadow governors in 33 of 34 Afghan provinces. It is incredibly difficult for the U.S. to make progress when the citizens have such varied and divided loyalties to difference governing bodies. Certain regions continue to be potential safe havens for al-Qaeda forces, and therefore General Patraeus has stated the U.S. will not leave these areas. These threatening areas include Kandahar and Helman in the South and Kunar and Paktika in the East, along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, he U.S. has stated it would hand-over security responsibilities to Afghan Security Forces for seven areas of the country in July, even though there is no apparent solidified Security Force to hand off the baton to. The U.S. has failed to strengthen a central governing body that the citizens could coalesce behind. Unless a strategy to accomplish this is formed, the U.S. progress will continue at a sluggish pace at best.

Thirdly, there is the instability that is created by way of their drug creation and distribution, an issue that gets little media coverage. However, some consider the narcotics trafficking to be a core impediment to the U.S. missions. The trafficking of narcotics undermines the rule of law and provides large sums of money to the insurgency, which often times goes untraced. The Taliban makes between $70-$100 million per year off the trafficking of poppy or opium. As the Obama Administration has focused on developing and promoting alternative agricultural crops, the Afghans have turned away from the U.S. and instead to the Taliban for protection of their ability to earn income in what is one of the top industries for Afghans. This counter-narcotics approach has severely back-fired on the U.S. and given the Taliban more control among the locals.

The stated U.S. policy thus far has been to ensure that Afghanistan will not again become a base for terrorist attacks against the United States. The Obama Administration has asserted that it is pursuing a well-resourced and integrated military civilian strategy intended to pave the way for a gradual transition to Afghan leadership that is to be completed by 2014. To support this mission, an additional 51,000 U.S. forces were authorized in 2009 reviews to increase U.S. troop levels to 99,000. However, Obama has also said we intended to have a relationship with Afghanistan that will include military involvement long after 2014, an indication that the administration sees no foreseeable end to our presence.

Amidst the tension over this issue, is the continual increase in Government funding for expanded efforts. The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee just released their Pentagon budget bill for FY 2012 which contained $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. government continues to spend a substantial portion of our defense budget in a country where there is a lack of clear vision for efforts moving forward. It is now time for the Administration to communicate their intentions to the American people, in a way that is nonthreatening to our security. At some point we will have to determine whether it is worth the billions of dollars and other resources spent to remain in a region when we continue to take one step forward, two steps back.

Sincerely,

Hill Observer

CONGRESS 111…

Authored by William Robert Barber

Chicanery seems to be the natural behavior of a congress full of politicians; nevertheless, this “Lame Duck” session, this of this particular congress, this one is audaciously emblematic for its arrogant disregard. In other words, these progressives are bound and determined to enact their agenda. In their world view, skipping over or enveloping the clear message delivered by the voters in the last election (the loss of 63 congressional seats) is not an obligatory consideration of concern. Instead this congress regards the recent electoral results as the actions of ignoramuses and as a consequence the Democratic shellacking should NOT apply to these elected politicians. These “Lame Duck” participants, progressives all, are two-thirds of the three monkeys, one is hearing-impaired, the other is blind to the obvious, and the last monkey just cannot keep form putting its foot in its mouth. This congress is the very essence; the exact definitive of a government managed by officialdoms whose purposeful intention is the development and application of chicaneries.

Noticeably, this congress has finalized the Obama compromise; President Bush must have had a giggle over that. Withstanding President Obama’s repeated declarations of unfairness as to the effect of the Bush tax cuts, his reluctance to embrace Bush policies has made an abrupt U-turn. Now it seems the populous will benefit and jobs will be created…

The ringing concerns of Obama the candidate has been geared down to the reality of Obama the governor of a federal administration. Thus, Obama’s U-turn has a continuum of energy that will bend the political left turn into a conservative right; the president has acknowledged that the left turn was an economic dead end.

Note the clutter of nonsense created by the liberal progressives: Guantanamo is still open despite the passionately delivered pre-as-well-as- post election proclamations as to its closing. This inability to close Guantanamo flies in the face of Democratic leadership’s decisive conclusion that the existence of Guantanamo was unequivocally aiding the world-wide recruitment of Bin Laden style terrorism. That conclusion has been sidelined into the waste-basket of formerly held, but now accepted, as mostly rhetorical nonsense. Bush era tax-cuts reinstated. Terrorist are still being flown by CIA operatives to autonomous destinations for enhanced interrogation. The Afghan war is still being waged by drone and infantry. All of these Obama policies persuade me to wonder if Bush actually won a third-term in the name of Obama.

History is full of dead ideals and idealist. Every once in a while there is a phoenix of socialistically inspired dictums. This affection for what has been previously abandoned is often incased within a moral premise of fairness. I.e. Obama’s first two years of governing. This naively emotive approach traversing a dynamic ever existing contest normally leaps over the requirement of empirical evidence in favor of addressing the detrimental treatment (prompted by the rich, the republicans, and all persons, institutions, or inhibitors of liberal progressive policies) of the poor, the disenfranchised, and of course, the favored of the modern day socialist evangelical: The ever dwindling in numbers & influence middle class. Obama and his liberal progressives ostensibly address all challenges of governance with one prerogative of evaluation: How does this particular policy safeguard the interest of the poor and middle class? After all these progressives understand how important it is to buy their vote with special promises of favoritism.

As with all proponents of autocratic governorships who by logical deduction is also inclined to espouse a preferential elitist mentality. Their narcissistic component presumes and deduces that Descartes’, “Cogito ergo sum,” was specifically meant for them and indeed is the perfect purpose of their raison d’être. Clearly, the liberal progressive movement considers that these words of Descartes were written to declare and define their intellectual superiority. This assumption therefore must mean that the others that populate the nation state do not think; or surely, do not think as well. As such is taken as a fact, it logically follows that this assumptive reasoning (by the liberal progressives) must also serve as the underlying principle or basis of and for their intellectual preeminence.

The elitist of liberal progressive ideology are by explicit definition few in numbers. The very meaning of the few possessing intellectual superiority requires that the many or the common to be intellectually inferior. Since the few manifest sublime intelligence and the many clearly do not it is incumbent upon the few to lead the many. The presumption of elitist must be that voters are similar to domesticated animals wherein the many and the common do not know enough to understand what is best for them. So as a matter of virtuous regard the elite must harbor and safeguard the common.

But sometimes, in keeping with the example of domesticated animals, the common are hesitant and at times down-right noncompliant; this reluctance to comply with what has been decided by the elite as to what is in their best interest forces coercive techniques. A perfect instance of where the common simply do not know what is best for them is ObamaCare.

Obama and his confederates are shameless practitioners of the Machiavellian doctrine, “the end justifies the means.” This dedication by the liberal progressives to their agenda is always going to be a real and present threat to our constitutional republic. There can be no compromise with those of such political-economic differing.

Well, the 111th Congress is on their way out. I am looking forward to the 112th.

OBAMA’S DISTORTION OF THE TRUTH

Authored by William Robert Barber

The United States Government of Obama requires every American to prove that they have purchased health insurance; but to ask an immigrant, in compliance with federal law, for documented proof of legality is racist. This hypocrisy, this emblematic descriptive of contrariness, is beyond understanding.

The President of the United States is suggesting, implying, describing, and calling the newly passed Arizona ‘immigration law’ a disuniting of American’s commonality. I do not believe that speaking out against the Arizona Law is Obama’s real intent; in fact, I believe he is calling out his constituency to engage and save him and his political party from the forthcoming electoral debacle. This consummate politician is campaigning at all times.

Liberal progressives and their media bedfellows charge that the Arizona law results in blatant racial profiling and as such equates into an unavoidable and despicable sum of draconian discrimination against people of Spanish surnames. In keeping with that thought, the progressives also believe that implementation of the law requires the policing of all people of Mexican decent and that such marshalling of forces run counter to the base instincts of humanism and the American way of life.

Now, noting that all of these emotionally charged declaratives have no basis of truism; that there is heretofore no evidence to support their accusations… but such does not abate the Liberal Progressives from propagating their lies.

In the interest of creating the façade of rightfulness, pundits of the left state quite affirmatively that the Arizona Law is unconstitutional; of course, no such degree has been adjudicated. Often I forget that these Democrats are harbingers, soothsayers — as well as politicians.

To Obama and his minions the labeling of racist is an obligatory charge toward any person or entity that refuses to drink the Obama additive. However, I do recall these guys and gals being flexible, creative, and genuinely disingenuous. Therefore, when the charge by the lefties is a catchall descriptive void of specifics, (obviously because there is no evidence) then the accusers go to Plan B, declaring that the people of Arizona lack humanistic values.

Of course there is always the shortcut facilitated by the socialist, Marxist, Liberal progressive sagacity of deductive sensibility: Wherein they, (those that know all things material and relevant) the ‘Followers of Obama’, simply state that the Arizona Law is counter to the American way of life. Satisfied with that explanation, the followers move on to Tea Partiers.

Each one of the elected and appointed pledged to uphold the federal constitution and the laws of this land. When varied jurisdictions, cities, states, feds, and the employees therein pick and choose which laws to enforce and which laws to disregard, the nation is at risk of legalist mayhem and civil chaos. The result is a discombobulating of intrinsic American principles. Now marry such with an unsustainable federal debt, a ridiculously ambiguous canard representing itself as the federal tax code, a bloated federal, state, and city bureaucracy, a mounting shortfall of pension funds, two wars, half of the working citizens paying no federal individual income tax, global competition for trade and power, and a socialist in the White House, this nation of ours is in dire need for an electoral revolution.

Oh, and one more thing, the immigration problem in the United States is being caused by Mexicans. These people for the most part speak Spanish, have black hair, brown skin, and will do anything to leave Mexico. They are also hard working, decent, and honest; nevertheless, they are here illegally and need to comply with US Law. Complicit with the non compliant Mexican immigrant is our gutless Congressperson who does not have the intestinal fortitude to respond to a national emergency.

PS: The terrorist who are hell bent on killing us Americans are Islamic by religion and Muslim by culture; they need to be preemptively eliminated as a material threat to our citizens.

OBAMA THE ENABLER

Authored by William Robert Barber

The continuances by politicians, news print, media, pundits, and entertainers posing as journalist, of dancing around the deductively obvious instead of objectively stating the transpiration of a particular event is intellectually stifling. Recently, we experienced a terrorist-crazy load up with explosives, board a US bound plane with the absolutely clear intent of killing everyone on that plane and as many people on the ground in Detroit as possible. This was a premeditated attack by Al-Qaeda; an act of war perpetrated by this nation’s sworn enemy; instead of shipping this crazy to detention in Guantanamo he was issued an attorney, read his rights, and jailed pending a court hearing to determine whether or not he will be detained. This methodology of legal-disposition is bird-brain stupid. This terrorist attacked US citizens, their property, and their institutions — and we treat him as though he robbed a bank.

Withstanding, the Obama administration’s failure to stop this terrorist from boarding the plane in the first cause and experiencing the ignominy of listening to Secretary of Home Land Security on Sunday last tell the national television audience that everything went according to plan, that the system worked, he was a lone wolf, and other etcetera nonsense. The president added coal to the fire by doing the very best he could to not call this terrorist incident a terrorist incident.

The ever so naive Obama is befuddled. After all, he has addressed the reasonableness of extending his hand of peace and tolerance with his speech in Cairo. He has added the rational mixture of “let’s all work together for the common good” and has apologized (repeatedly) for US unilateral aggressiveness; he even eliminated the use of the phrase ‘War on Terror.” And most importantly, as a good faith gesture, he is closing Guantanamo because the prison is an anathema to terrorist, might be terrorist, almost terrorist, Muslims world-wide, and of course without a doubt of hesitation by Obama, such a closing will significantly hamper Al-Qaeda recruiting.

However, this is not the only instance of dancing around the deductively obvious. Congress is addressing the passing of healthcare legislation. Noting that few have actually read the aforesaid, and most who have not read the pending legislation admit that if they read it they would not understand its content. Whatever happened to the concept of prudent oversight and willfully deliberate due diligence? We Americans are allowing the political majority to ramrod critical legislation as if the issue was transparent, commonly decipherable, and opaque. The majority agrees, it is not perfect. Indeed, interestingly, many of the senators that voted for the legislation did so only after insuring their state was except from its pending pecuniary obligations. Blatant payoffs and self-serving earmarks are the sugar Reid utilized to insure the 60-vote requirement. If a private company acted in this manner, the attorney-general would indict for violations, criminal and civil.

In order for the Obama liberal progressive to fashion the nation to accept the transition to socialism, under the guise of ‘for the common good,’ they must stymie all democratic procedures by means within their power, extralegal or by ad-hoc actions. Their goal is to supplement the principle of laws and general rational precepts with an ever enhancing amplitude of governing bureaucracy; the more complex the regulatory compliance, the easier for the socialist to control the process of decision making. The goal of Obama is to take vast powers and legislate under a platform of ordinances and decrees.

The Obama administration coupled with the congressional majority is the single greatest threat to America’s traditional understanding and practice of liberty and freedom.