Obama and Donilon: Staring down the generals

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6453.shtml


In the past 10 days, 150 NATO-bound oil tankers were torched in Pakistan, mostly by Taliban but some apparently by their own drivers, who siphoned and sold the fuel and then destroyed the evidence of their theft. Win-win for locals, none of whom are naive enough to believe killing more of their brothers is a good idea.

Five hundred oil tankers and containers that left Port Qasim in Karachi for Kandahar did not even reach the AfPak border. This, while the key Khyber Pass was closed, holding up thousands of supply trucks that did make it intact, after Pakistan shut the border in protest against the almost daily, illegal and unsanctioned US air strikes that have killed 1,800 Pakistani civilians.

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Donilon is dismissed by the jackboots and their cheerleaders, like David Frum (coiner of Bush’s “Axis of Evil”), for “not travelling enough.” Should he take “a serious field trip” to Iraq since he has “no direct understanding of these places,” as his predecessor General James Jones put it? Go to the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad, the huge black hole in the middle of that unfortunate nation’s capital, a fortified ghetto for the US occupiers and now their comprador local elite? Star in a GI porn film?

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But perhaps the Nobel committee that gave him the Peace Prize wasn’t so far off the mark. He did manage to freeze, if only for a few months, Israeli settlements, the first time in two decades, and has prevented the crazies in the Pentagon and Tel Aviv from launching yet another disastrous war -- this time against peaceful Iran. If Obama and Donilon can stare down their military captors and mobilise the majority of Americans who now recognise the neocon war strategy as a horrible failure, he could turn his country back from the abyss.
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the article ends with this sentence:

"The only way to turn his presidency into a two-term historic one is to keep moving forward and keep discarding the neocon parasites that infest Washington."

right on!

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. And more power to them.

Between the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom, civilian control of the government hasn't meant shit in this country for at least three decades.

It's about time to reclaim the nation from the militarists and imperialists.

[DCKit]

2. Without the U.S. as the aggressor/bogeyman, how long would some repressive govts stand?

Iran and N. Korea's whole schtick is U.S. aggression and we aid other regressive governments all over the world directly. Either way, we're not doing the citizens of those countries a damn bit of good.

Jes sayin'.

[PopSixSquish]

3. President Obama has Already Smacked the Brass Down Once

in October of 2009 after McCrystal did his speech in London and all those stories were put into the press to force Obama to capitulate to the military's demands. Both Joe Biden and Rahm (who supported Biden's plan for AfPak) went completely apeshit which led to all of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary Gates being called into the Oval Office and dressed down by the President.

If you remember, it was described as the most stern and serious slap against the military by the CiC since Truman fired McArthur.

Both Donilon and Denis McDonough, who is the NSC COS, are said not to trust the military brass as far as they can thrown them. It will be very interesting to see how this shakes out. I think the President is headed for a bigtime showndown with the military...