And speaking of Mr. Obama, the commander in chief told a Denver TV station that he's "proud generally" of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Now there's a stand-up guy. We suppose his supporters, based on the latest polls, are no less proud, generally, of him.As with everything else on Scaife's editorial page, what the braintrust leaves out tells us much more than what it decides you should read.
Here's the reality. It was an interview with a Denver TV station KCNC where the topic at that point was the war in Afghanistan (you can see the larger context here). Take a look. This is what the President actually said:
This has been enormous strain for a decade now on our men and women in uniform and obviously what happened this weekend was absolutely tragic and heartbreaking. But when you look at what hundreds of thousands of our military personnel have achieved under enormous strain you can't help but be proud generally and I think it's important for us just to make sure that we are not in Afghanistan longer than we need to be.And what about that "what happened this weekend" part? What was that all about?
It was this:
Stalking from home to home, a United States Army sergeant methodically killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children, in a rural stretch of southern Afghanistan early on Sunday, igniting fears of a new wave of anti-American hostility, Afghan and American officials said.Absolutely tragic and heartbreaking. The massacre, however, goes unmentioned in the wingnut version of this story. They want Obama to say he's always immensely proud of the entire military even when (it is alleged) one of its sergeants goes rogue and slaughters more than a dozen innocents.
Residents of three villages in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province described a terrifying string of attacks in which the soldier, who had walked more than a mile from his base, tried door after door, eventually breaking in to kill within three separate houses. The man gathered 11 bodies, including those of 4 girls younger than 6, and set fire to them, villagers said.
Anything less is simply unpatriotic.
Even when he was contrasting the great things the military has achieved under enormous strain to that tragic rogue sergeant.
Ah, the Obama Derangement Syndrome.
What makes this complicated is that Obama knows that he is using drones to (as I understand it) attack suspected terrorists where ever they may be found, including in their homes, where members of their family (women and children) may be killed as well. Then, when the funeral is held for the terrorist, drones apparently often attack the funeral party as well, to kill other suspected terrorists who may be attending the funeral, as well as anyone else who is attending the funeral (including women and children).
ReplyDeleteThese tactics, really more than burning the Koran, are making us really, really unpopular in Afghanistan. Don't think that that soldier's massacre of at least 11 people is anything like an isolated incident. We've largely succeeded in becoming just like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Even if we were to start building roads, schools, factories and new homes by the thousands, the Afghans would probably bomb them, and I would say I couldn't blame them.
That is the context when Obama says he is "proud generally". I understand he was speaking to the Denver reporter, a Denver audience and he was aware it would be available nationally. I am also aware he was aware he had just alluded to a massacre committed by an American soldier, so he did not want to offer a blanket statement of pride in that context, since it would have suggested he condoned the massacre.
But then there is this other thing, where our drones are killing civilians by probably the hundreds. When Obama expresses pride in our troops, including presumably the drone operators, (a perfectly reasonable statement, in my opinion) does he think about the kinds of things he is ordering them to do? Does it bother him that we are deliberately killing women and children in order to kill terrorists/the Taliban?