Still more from Congressman Massa on Afghanistan
In addition to the guest essay which Stlo7 wrote about this morning, Eric Massa has recently determined additional reasons that the troop surge is a bad idea. From The Corning Leader:
Massa said Friday he solidified his opposition to the troop escalation after Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, answered questions from the committee on the administration’s new war policy.
For example, Massa said he was shocked to hear Mullen say decisive military action must be taken because “the people of Afghanistan are sitting on the fence waiting to see what we will do.”
“Therein lies the best illustration of what’s wrong,” Massa said. “We are asking Americans to fight and die so that Afghan civilians will determine what side of the fence they will come down on… If the Afghan people do not want to fight their enemies, we cannot fight their enemies for them.”
Massa said he was surprised that Gates seemed undisturbed that millions in American aid being used to prop up the Karzai government is falling into the hands of drug traffickers.Massa said he was also bothered that billions of dollars being sent to help rebuild war-torn Afghanistan could be better spent on domestic projects.
“We don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to help local municipalities here in the U.S.,” Massa said.
So, why has our president decided that this is the best course of action? Who has gotten to him? First health care, now this. Am I disappointed? In a word, yes.
from a piece in OpEdNews called, “Brother President, you break my heart”, comes this poem, written for Barack Obama in May of 2007 by poet Darian Dauchan
When will your demons come to light?
When will your skeletons creep from the closet?
Slip and say the wrong things?
Start compromising yourself
your ideals
your integrity
until there is nothing left of you?Because you know as well as I do
that great people with good intentions
have lost their souls in the process.
Fighting for freedom
but in the end settling for power.
Related posts:
I’m afraid everything in Obama’s history as a representative suggests that he would act in the interests of corporate power. Many critics pointed this out. The question is why are you (or any of us ) so easily fooled again and again.
The desire for hope needs to be tempered by a sense of realism about the people we are supporting.
He was not my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th choice for the Democratic presidential nomination. You work with what you get. And I, along with millions of others worked to get this person elected. Who knew that it would take less than a year for him to throw us all under the bus?
Just a quick comment on the Barack Obama section of this post -
Last November we faced a choice between Barack Obama/Joe Biden and John McCain/Sarah Palin. Based on what we know now would anyone change their vote? I wouldn’t.
My frustration is with the people who projected what they actually wanted to happen onto Senator Obama who didn’t share their beliefs and their continued justifications with alleged secret plans after that became clear.
If anything it bodes a central flaw with Democrats - Dems fall in love as opposed to Republicans who fall in line. We need to focus on the ideas more than the person.
One more thing, Congress who has an opportunity to support the President while taking back Congressional powers forfeited to the Office of President. Something that must happen.