President Obama greets service members at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan
*Before President Obama concluded his surprise 6-hour trip to Afghanistan on Sunday, the Commander in Chief took time to speak to some of the US troops stationed there. (Scroll down for more photos.)
His bid to shore up faith in the struggle was aimed both at the troops who cheered him and Americans back home. And, he demanded accountability from Afghan authorities to make good on repeated promises to improve living conditions, rein in corruption and enforce the rule of law to prevent people from joining the insurgency.
“Your services are absolutely necessary, absolutely essential to America’s safety and security,” the president told a lively crowd of about 2,500 troops and civilians at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul. “Those folks back home are relying on you. We can’t forget why we’re here.”
It was Obama’s first trip as president to Afghanistan, where the number of U.S. troops killed has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared with the same period last year as Washington has added tens of thousands of additional soldiers to reverse the Taliban’s momentum.
“We did not choose this war,” Obama reminded the troops, recalling the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and warning that al-Qaida was still using the region to plan terrorist strikes against the U.S. and its allies. “We are going to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al-Qaida and its extremist allies.”
Cornel West upset by Obama’s dis of MLK
CORNEL WEST: “…because it upset me when I heard my dear brother Barack Obama criticize Martin on the global stage, saying that Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s insights were not useful for a commander-in-chief, because evil exists, as if Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t know about evil. Martin Luther King, Jr. was fighting terrorism. He was an anti-terrorist who was fighting Jim Crow and James Crow. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew something about evil, more so than many of us, including our beloved president. But he also knew that if you don’t break the cycle of domination and bigotry and hatred and try to exemplify some alternative, then that cycle would be reinforced in such a way that you would be a pro-war president, pro-war citizen, and not giving peace a chance.”
On Wednesday night, PBS Tavis Smiley’s special MLK: A Call to Conscience.
Obama insulted the memories of MLK over Afghanistan.
TAVIS SMILEY: “In that speech, Amy, he makes a turn and talks about the fact—that he can’t be guided by King’s notion of nonviolence in today’s world. And he suggests he couldn’t do that because King didn’t know al-Qaeda. And that really starts to rankle some who have been—you know, who worked with and advised Dr. King. Harry Belafonte and others talk in this special about how that really pricked them, and some of them felt insulted by that, as if Dr. King did not know violence in his lifetime and as if he could not intellectually wrestle with the violence, the terrorism that we’re up against today, but most importantly, the notion that nonviolence in today’s world is irrelevant and could not make a difference.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/29/as_obama_visits_afghanistan_tavis_smiley
“Our President Is Deceiving the American Public”: Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I believe, by the way, that that applies to Iraq, as well, that I believe that our president is deceiving the American public—I don’t say that lightly—in the same way that all of his predecessors deceived us with respect to Vietnam, including the ones I served, which included Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Specifically, when he says in his State of the Union message that we will—he will get all troops, not just combat troops, but all troops, out of Iraq by the end of 2011, I believe that’s false and that he knows that’s false, and he has no real plan or intention of removing American bases manned by American military personnel, not just mercenaries, ever.
ANJALI KAMAT: And Dan Ellsberg, what’s your assessment of the counterinsurgency strategy that the Obama administration is pushing?
DANIEL ELLSBERG: I’m very familiar with that theory, because that’s what I was working in in Vietnam for so many years, the counterinsurgency theory, strategy theory. My job was to evaluate its, quote, “progress,” which meant lack of progress, total stalemate, total lack of progress in Vietnam.
What it ignores is that the recruiting tool of our adversaries there is predominantly the presence of foreign troops. And when we add more foreign troops, we are sustaining that recruiting tool.
Contrary to what President Obama is saying, we will not prevail. When he does say we aren’t going to quit, in the short run, at least, he’s right, unfortunately. We have many years ahead of us.
The head of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, Harry Reid in the Senate have all said they oppose further escalation. The only way the Vietnam could have been ended was by Congress cutting off the money. It’s the only way this war will be ended, and it will take a very long time—
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/30/our_president_is_deceiving_the_american