I was nearly convinced to go along with the President's decision on Afghanistan UNTIL I heard what Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY), Armed Services Committee, had to say to Ed Schultz about Afghanistan and the President's speech tonight. Schultz also quotes what Bernie Sanders had to say as well. I took the time to transribe the interview from "The Ed Show" tonite:
ED SCHULTZ: "Has the President said anything tonight that might warm you up to what he is
trying to accomplish?
REP. MASSA: "NO. And I would have to ask a question:
Why 30,000 troops and not 40?
Why 30,000 troops and not 20?
Why 18 months and not 16 or 24?
These are artificial time lines and numbers
that have no true military significance
as planners sit down and develop
what's called "troop to task" requirements.
There is nothing that I heard tonite that
would convince me that we are embarking
on a strategic mission that is both vital
and necessary. We invaded Afghanistan with less than
1,000 special forces personnel and killed or captured
over 98% of all the terrorists that we could identify.
And now with the remaining few, less than 100 according
to the national security adviser, we are going to deploy
an army of 100,000 to rebuild a nation?
"The President says, as one of his major points, we are
going to act as a partnership with the Afghan government
and yet we all know, anyone who has studied it,
anyone who has his eyes and ears open, that that government
is corrupt beyond malice. I think and I hold strong
objection to sending American soldiers into harms' way
and combat to prop up a government that is more corrupt than
Tony Soprano and his lieutenants. And so, no, I heard nothing
tonight that would sway me against my absolute objection to
what I consider to be a fool's errand.
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ED SCHULTZ: "Why shouldn't the President be given an opportunity to
fix this? He didn't create this. He inherited this and
his generals have now come to him with plans that could stabilize
the country. Shouldn't the progressive caucus give him the benefit
of the doubt and let him make his mistake on this if it is one?
REP. MASSA: "Ed, no, because we are dealing with a mistake that deals with the lives of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And so, no, the
answer to that is very clear in my opinion. My life's experience,
24 years in the United States military is yelling at me.
Telling me that is impossible to build a nation where there is
fundamentally no Afghan identity. We hear over and over and over
again from Afghan nationals that they are going to be there with
whoever is there with them. We cannot stay forever and I think
it objectionable and wrong to send Americans to fight and die for
that which the Afghan people will not fight and die for. You just
saw a series of interviews. Able bodied military aged males. Why are
they not in uniform? Why are they not standing and fighting for their
own freedoms and why do they expect us and our men and women in uniform
to do it for them? This is not an issue about politics. This is not an
issue about standing with the President, one president or the other.
It's about deploying 5, 6, 7 times American military personnel to do
what is militarily impossible. And I think that we must raise our voices
not as liberals or progressives or conservatives or Republicans or Democrats but as thinking common sense Americans who have seen this movie before and we know how it is going to end.
ED SCHULTZ: Let's look at what Bernie Sanders had to say tonight, the
Independent senator from Vermont:
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SEN. SANDERS: "Why, in the midst of a severe recession with 17% of our people unemployed or under-employed and one out of four kids on food stamps -- are we going to be spending $100 Billion a year on Afghanistan when have so many pressing needs at home?"
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ED SCHULTZ: Do you think that's where the American people are tonight? The populace view of this?
REP. MASSA: I think it ID certainly a view that's worth understanding. The President has said that we are going to operate in partnership with the Afghan government. Then we hear behind the scenes that we are talking about bypassing Kabul and the corrupt Karzai regime and going directly to inject money into the villages and towns in the countryside. We can't get money injected into the villages and towns and cities back in my
home district to get people back to work. Why are worried about building an infrastructure in a country that neither wants one or will do one for themselves?
ED SCHULTZ: Because the President said tonight that our security is at stake. You don't believe that?
REP. MASSA: Well, I disagree with that analysis. If our security is at stake to the extent that we must rebuild a nation because there are 100 terrorists in Afghanistan, then we better be willing to occupy every single nation on the face of this planet and do the same. Our mission
is to identify, locate, kill or capture, with malice of forethought any terrorist anywhere. That does not call for a standing army of 100,000 people executing an occupational strategy in a foreign nation. We have tried this over and over and over again and it has never once
worked. You cannot achieve this militarily. PERIOD.