Posted on 06/06/2014 4:06:25 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If you want to understand why it's the case that on the one hand, the U.S. public and the majority of Congress turned against the war in Afghanistan a long time ago, and yet on the other hand, it's been so hard to end the war, this week's warmonger media storm against the diplomatic rescue of U.S. prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been very instructive.
It's been known for years that a key step towards ending the war would be exchanging five Taliban prisoners of war at Guantanamo for the release of Sgt. Bergdahl.
There has never been any serious dispute of the case that this would be a key step towards ending the war. I challenge anyone to find a counter-example to my claim.
The political forces that are trashing the deal to rescue Sgt. Bergdahl are the same political forces that got us into the Iraq war. They are the same political forces who want to keep the Afghanistan war going indefinitely. They are the same political forces who want to keep the Guantanamo prison open indefinitely.
Again, I challenge anyone to provide a single counterexample of someone in Congress who voted against the Iraq war, or who has been a leader in trying to end the war in Afghanistan, or who has been a leader in trying to close the Guantanamo prison, who is now trashing the diplomatic deal to rescue Sgt. Bergdahl.
So, you might think, that if it's obvious that the prisoner exchange was a key step towards ending the war, then the majority of the population who have long been telling pollsters that they think the Afghanistan war should end would see this as a slam-dunk: exchange the prisoners and end the war. And therefore, the prisoner exchange should have been relatively uncontroversial.
Recall that when the last U.S. soldiers left Iraq in 2011, there was an attempt by Republican warmongers to stoke public outrage. It went over like a lead balloon. The public was done with the war, and wanted the soldiers to come home.
But that's not how it has played out in this case - at least, that is not how it has played out so far.
Instead, there's been a warmonger media storm, that has confused a lot of Americans about the essential fact that this is a key, necessary step towards ending the war - the result that the majority of Americans have long said that they want.
I know this from my own personal correspondence. Just Foreign Policy put up a petition at MoveOn backing the diplomatic deal to rescue Bergdahl. So far, there are about 14,000 signatures on the petition. For comparison, a recent petition we did backing Rep. Peter Welch's letter urging President Obama to resist pressure to transfer manpads to Syrian insurgents also got about 14,000 signatures. So, among our core base of people who support diplomacy and want to prevent more war, our level of support has been about the same.
What's different is my correspondence. I'm getting a fair bit of hate mail from people claiming that Bergdahl is a "traitor" (not true, as far as we know) or that he caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers (also not true, as far as we know.) Some of these people write things like, "I want to end the war and close Guantanamo too, but..."
Here's the good news: we can turn this around. I got similar hate mail a year ago, when we pushed back on the media storm that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was a "traitor." (Isn't it sad how glibly some people throw that word around?) Today, the climate has decisively changed. There are certainly still people who bash Edward Snowden, but you don't find people today saying, "I want to end NSA blanket surveillance, but Edward Snowden is a traitor."
Similarly, I predict, we can now get people who want to end the war in Afghanistan and to close the Guantanamo prison to understand and accept that this is a necessary step towards doing so, and to stop repeating Fox News talking points. Sooner rather than later, people who want to end the war will understand that trashing the diplomatic deal to free Sgt. Bergdahl is a Republican warmonger thing. And when we can confine trashing diplomacy to end the war to the Republican warmongers - as trashing diplomacy with Iran was confined to the Republican warmongers - such trashing will become harmless, and ending the war can proceed.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went to the Senate floor and gave a speech strongly defending the Administration's diplomacy to rescue Sgt. Bergdahl and denouncing Republican critics as hypocrites. If we can get enough Democrats to #StandWithReid, we can close the prison and end the war.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/about/contact
Of course not. Releasing the enemy's top five commanders is a sure step toward ending the conflict.
Idiot.
My history forget they were ever our countrymen.
“my” = “may”
His resume says: “I have never added a cent of value to the economy.”
not an idiot, traitor
I recall the name Naiman and not in a positive way. Besides sounding insane, he’s also wrong.
The Bergdahl backstabbing maneuver will NOT end the war. The war will continue even when the last US soldier has left Afghanistan, just as the war in Iraq continues today, two years after our last troops came out.
Naiman, in his arrogance, forgets that there are a lot of Afghani parties to this war, with the US being only one, but one of the most important groups.
There is, or was, the Northern Alliance, which may still resist the Taliban, there are small ethnic groups, the organized Afghan govt (so to speak), various war lords, drug lords, overlords, Al Qaeda, the Haqqanni Network, etc.
Look at Syria today. Lebanon today. Yemen today. Somalia today.
Obviously Naiman has never looked at a map and a newspaper at the same time.
Nigeria - remember Biafra? Today it is Biafra II, with the Christians being the new target of extermination.
The Congo. Pick a group - Katanga, Tshombe, Lumumba, the Belgians. Just change the names of those fighting there today and you have the same old, same old.
The wars there have not ended even after 45 years.
Burma: Ethno-religious wars/cleansing still exist as some of the smaller politico groups do. Anyone know if the White Flags and Red Flags are still fighting there? The Kachins?
As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “NAIMAN, you’r a leftist schmuck”.
You don't end the war with Allah , you dumb Infidel. -Tom
Robert Naiman writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout, and is on the Steering Committee of Gaza's Ark, a project to bring a boat out of Gaza filled with Palestinian exports in defiance of the blockade.
Ever want to understand why the West is a state of decline? All you have to do is realize that this is the type of “thinking” that lies at the core of the neo pagan Left. Unfortunately it has come to dominate America.
Oh Lord. I submit the video of exultant Taliban and the resulting propaganda statements. I see no reason to believe that a corrupt, jihadist terror organization would see this as a reasonable olive branch and agree to lay down their arms.
Strong horse.
I rest my case.
Oh, NOW I remember his name. I used to subscribe to TruthOut, just to see how nuts they were. I couldn’t take it anymore and unsubscribed.
The village is missing it’s idiot.
That the Army, CIA and even Obama's State Department fought against because it was a stupid idea. Embrace the stupid.
I wonder how long he would last as a prisoner of the Taliban?
Self-Hating GAY Jew !!!!! YUK SQUARED!!
And he is a liberal idiot, with oak leaf clusters.
No doubt he was the inspiration for pajama boy...
He might last longer than we think inside the Taliban as a gay Jew. He “is” a useful idiot, but he would remain alive only as long as he kept his mouth shut.
In other words, he would be-headed for destruction.
This war has been going on for almost 1400 years -- thru Poitiers the Crusades, Constantinople, Vienna, the Khartoum, etc.
Regrettably, it won't be over until one side exterminates the other. It's time for the West to recognize this.
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