While everybody is awaiting President Obama’s Tuesday evening speech on Afghanistan strategy to be broadcast out of the United Military Academy at West Point, we are still awaiting some definition of what it is that we are trying to achieve there. To the best of our knowledge nobody has defined either the Iraqi, nor the Afghan war’s mission objectives – not Bush and not Obama.

At least, the president is reportedly going to address his planned exit strategy. That’s better than nothing, but are we waiting for a few more ministers of the Karzai government to be indicted for corruption, before we withdraw the troops which – at a cost of $1 million per year, per soldier – are propping up his regime?

The mission objectives should of course be the absolute first thing to be addressed and that’s why we have decided to re-post this article, originally published here on November 3, 2009.

Since the original article was posted there have been some overtures by the Karzai government to engage “moderate elements” of the Taliban, so we stand corrected on that point.

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While the Obama administration ponders whether to send tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, as General Stanley McChrystal proposed and as everybody is trying to figure out what impact the Afghan run-off election, which has never taken place will have on the overall situation there, we still haven’t really figured out what it is that we are trying to achieve there.

“A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution,” wrote General McChrystal. In view of that probably sound assessment, why would we need an additional 40,000 U.S. troops?

Lets first of all decide what is it that we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Is it hunting down the remains of al-Qaida and maybe finally catching up with Osama bin-Laden? Or maybe something that sells in Washington, DC, but it doesn’t sell in Afghanistan – a stable Karzai government? Or maybe we are trying to defeat the resurgent Taliban? Or are we trying to transform the Afghan society? Are we including Pakistan in our grand plan?

Speaking of the Taliban, we haven’t heard any proposals to include this group in possible talks about forming a coalition government. No doubt that this omission is a really big mistake.

As things stand, eight years into an occupation of Afghanistan even the military are saying that we have not achieved anything, but that the situation on the ground has in fact deteriorated. What in fact appears to be the main problem is not the remains of al-Qaida, or the Taliban itself, or even the rampant corruption among the ruling clique, but rather the militarization of the Afghan conflict.

The military “solution” is obviously not working in an environment as complex as the one in Afghanistan and Pakistan for that matter.

One cannot expect the average U.S. serviceman to understand the very complicated tribal, ethnic, or language problems of the country he, or she has been shipped to.

The actual solution to the problem staring us in the eye appears to be getting the foreigners out of Afghanistan, rather than increasing their number.

When in 2001-2003 troops were truly needed in Afghanistan, they got diverted to the insane invasion and occupation of Iraq.

To make a long story short: we don’t even know what problem, or problems that we are trying to solve in Afghanistan are and we are still talking about changing our military strategy and increasing the number of troops. What are those troops supposed to do there? What do we expect from them? What is their mission? Nobody seems to have an answer to any of these questions.

Our advice to the White House team is to first come up with a mission statement, to nail down what it is that we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan and whether getting involved in that country is really in the U.S., or the world’s interest.

Throwing more troops into the Afghan quagmire, without even having a clear objective is clearly not the way to proceed.

Technorati Tags: Afghan, al-qaida, election, mission, obama, objectives, Pakistan, politics, Taliban, war

There is no doubt that Thanksgiving is a very nice, family holiday and that it holds a special place in people’s calendars and hearts.

There’s nothing wrong with of at all… except that the pervading myth about the whole feast and its de rigueur menu, which supposedly originated with the Pilgrims in the first half of the 17^th century isn’t strictly true at all.

In addition, the Pilgrims were really a very unsavory bunch of Puritans, who had the leave England,  where they have overstayed their welcome by a long, long shot.

So, fortunately, the so-called Pilgrims had very little to do with the whole thing. As it happened, it was a creation of 19^th century Americans, particularly New Englanders, who wanted to have another national holiday. At the time, we had only two of those: Washington’s Birthday and the Fourth of July. There was also Christmas of course, which wasn’t really counted as a National Holiday.

Abraham Lincoln's presidential order establishing the Thanksgiving Holiday

From the beginning Thanksgiving was a holiday very directly related to food. Something along the lines of a harvest feast, which by that time was celebrated in practically every country of the world in some form.

What really and truly started the whole thing was Sarah Josepha Hale, probably the first female American novelist of note, who has written books, such as Northwood: A Tale of New England and Mary had a Little Lamb. Ms. Hale has written a whole chapter in which she described Thanksgiving in minute detail, with the turkey and the dressing and the gravy and all the other things and ingredients that we now think of as an integral part of the holiday.

Her novel turned out to be extremely popular and Sarah Josepha Hale became the editor a popular woman’s magazine, creating in the process a lot of the mid-19^th century fashion trends, one of which was, as you might have guessed, the Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving officially became a National Holiday in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln after some important Union victories during the Civil War issued a presidential order, making it official.

We hope that these tidbits of historical information do not disappoint those who believe in the traditional Pilgrim/Indian-related lore. It still remains a very nice holiday. Probably even nicer, without the nasty Pilgrim/Puritan connotations.

If only the artificially-fattened turkeys tasted better…and if the NFL football games were not a part of it all…

We get the feeling that if Sarah Josepha Hale was faced with both of the above, she would have given up on Thanksgiving altogether.

In any case, a Very Happy Thanksgiving to all! Just don’t overeat, please.

Technorati Tags: football, Indians, nfl, Origins, Pilgrims, puritans, Real, Sarah Josepha Hale, Thanksgiving, Turkey

Democrats united Saturday night to push the health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.

The Republican’s position does indeed appear to be a continuation of the campaign to defeat the president’s initiatives, rather than proposing anything constructive and helpful to the American people. The desire to “show him” seems stronger than the desire to actually achieve something that’s needed and at least in the long run – beneficial. That’s nothing new, of course. Just listen to the de-facto leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, or any of the other conservative blabbermouths. There is no doubt that the interest of the country as a whole has been put on the back burner, in favor of hurting, or even destroying anything that Barack Obama is doing.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who do not have it, control insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care.

Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of trying to prevent a historic debate that the nation needed.

“Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote,” he said.

The Republican leader, Senator Mitch McConnell said the vote was anything but procedural – describing it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a “massive and unsustainable debt.”

The fate of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.

We will be watching the upcoming debate, although we do not intend to waste our time in hearing the usual, vicious opinions of the conservative pundits.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement saying the president was gratified by the vote, which he says “brings us one step closer to ending insurance company abuses, reining in spiraling health care costs, providing stability and security to those with health insurance, and extending quality health coverage to those who lack it.”

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide subsidies to those who cannot afford it. Large companies could incur penalties if they do not provide coverage to their workforce. The insurance industry would come under significant new regulation under the bill, which would first ease and then ban the practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Congressional budget analysts put the legislation’s cost at $979 billion over a decade and said it would reduce deficits over the same period while extending coverage to 94 percent of the eligible population.

In relation to the health-care reform debate and to the Republican (and Joe Lieberman’s) opposition to it, it might be worthwhile to quote a letter by George Washington to his nephew supporting adoption of the Constitution, to which there was considerable opposition as well..

General Washington castigated critics of the Constitution and stated that they seek to “rouse the apprehensions of the ignorant & unthinking . . . [with] objections . . . better calculated to alarm the fears, than to convince the judgement of their readers.”

These comments seem equally applicable to those Republican senators opposed to health-care reform.

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And since the new mammography recommendations seem to have brought outrage from both sides of the aisle, we would like to present another incisive cartoon on the subject from Washington Post’s Tom Toles.

Technorati Tags: bill, Clears, democrats, Health care, Hurdle, insurance industry, reform, republicans, senate

We enjoyed the preceding series on Soviet and Russian cars and driving so much, that we decided to follow up with some additional material.

Volkswagen has made it clear that it considers Russia to be a great market for its cars.

That, considering the rate of car destruction in Russia, could very well be true. Has anybody considered that building additional vodka distilleries could increase the demand even more?

Technorati Tags: accidents, Cars, drunks, great, Market, russia, vrashes

There are probably numerous reasons to both like and hate Russia.

There certainly is no shortage of Russians who like to have a good time. Even though their definition of a good time might be quite different from yours.  Click on the video and see for yourself.

Couldn’t resist posting this great video heralding communism’s great achievements in the area of automobile manufacturing. Our thanks to Harrison Price for pointing it out.

Technorati Tags: accidents, drunks, fashin, mud, rats, russia, video