Leave No Soldier Behind

As faithful readers here know, we try our best to avoid "Campaign Silly Season". But sometimes, the season becomes so silly that we can't avoid it any longer. Today happens to be that kind of day.

And we're not alone. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) couldn't hold back any longer. In fact, he tweeted this earlier today.

"We rescue our soldiers first and ask questions later. If action by justice system is needed, I prefer American justice over Taliban justice."

Whenever an American Prisoner of War has been taken, our armed forces always go all in to ensure the safe return of that POW. Always. Never before has this been "controversial"... Until now.



Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Carson City) tweeted, "Best news I've heard in a long time! #standwithbowe", soon after news broke of the Taliban's release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. That tweet was later deleted, and one of Amodei's staff then "blamed" the earlier tweet on another staff member who sent it "without knowing the terms of the release or consulting the congressman".

Believe it or not, Amodei isn't the only Republican who's flip-flopped on #standwithbowe. Senators John McCain (R-Arizona), Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), and Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) all called for the safe return of Sgt. Bergdahl... Until President Obama announced the prisoner exchange. And then, all of a sudden, a common wartime practice became some "ACT OF TREASON!!!!!111111!!!!!11".

Oh, yes. That's right. They're going there. Move over, #Benghazi. #Bergdahl is the G-O-TEA's newest & hottest haute faux scandal.

And just like their previous favorite haute faux scandals, they're not even bothering to check the facts on Bowe Bergdahl. Rather, they're just leaving it to Republican campaign consultants and hypocritical blowhard scumbags to attack Bergdahl without any actual facts. Because, of course, Obama.



Whatever happened to "leave no soldier behind"? Whatever happened to due process? And hell, whatever happened to "country first"?

We don't know exactly how and why Sgt. Bergdahl went missing. We just know President Obama made sure he was brought home safely. And ultimately, that's what matter. He made sure to leave no soldier behind. Why does anyone want to punish him for that? There's "Campaign Silly Season", but this goes way beyond that pail.

So Obama Got Osama... May We Now Bring Our Troops Home?

The morning after the big news dropped, the nation is still in awe of what's happening.

Osama bin Laden, the charismatic mastermind and founder of al-Qaida, a global terrorist network that radically reshaped American foreign policy and propelled the country into two bloody, long-term wars in Muslim countries, was killed Sunday in a firefight with U.S. troops in a compound outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

President Obama, in a rare televised address to the nation late Sunday, announced that a small team of U.S. troops had killed bin Laden and seized his body earlier in the day in a helicopter-borne commando operation.

Senior U.S. officials said no other countries were involved in the raid, raising the potential for diplomatic fallout once the initial celebration and congratulations are over.

The United States considers Pakistan a key ally in the war on terror, but the relationship between the two is a complicated and tenuous one at best.

According to President Obama, U.S. intelligence officials determined last August that bin Laden was likely hiding "within a compound deep inside Pakistan," Obama said during his address from the White House late Sunday.

And Nevadans are starting to react to what happened.

"Tonight, Americans join the world in marking the end of this symbol of hatred who died with the blood of thousands on his hands," Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley said in a statement Sunday night. "The U.S. pledged it would hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden for the crimes he committed and nearly a decade after the tragedy of September 11, justice has been served. This is a tremendous victory for America and a promise kept to the families of the 9-11 victims."

“As the face of global terrorism, bin Laden will forever be a reminder of how deeply we must cherish our freedom, and so it is fitting we come together as Nevadans and Americans to remember the victims of the 9-11 attacks,” Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement. “We are also grateful for the relentless courage and dedication of our Armed Forces who continue to keep us safe from harm.”

“This is the most significant victory in our fight against al-Qaida and terrorism, but that fight is not over," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement Sunday night. "As we remember those who were killed on that dark day in September and their families, we also reaffirm our resolve to defeat the terrorist forces that killed them and thousands of others across the globe. Because of courageous Americans in our military and intelligence community, their leader is now gone.”

This most certainly is a great development. It now looks like The Obama Administration will follow through on its plan to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's death may force us to rethink our view on both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Oh, and did I mention it may be wise to rethink our presence in Afghanistan?



After all, hasn't the mission actually been accomplished? It supposedly was 8 years ago, after George Bush quickly lost interest in capturing bin Laden as invading Iraq suddenly became his cause du jour. There really wasn't any reason for invading Iraq, and now we're learning bin Laden was hiding out in Pakistan... NOT Afghanistan. So what are our troops now doing in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Certainly, al Qaeda is still alive and efforts must still be made to thwart them and other terrorist groups. But at this point, do we still need to fight two wars that were sold on the premise of "taking out bin Laden"?

Where Has the Dream Gone?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a dream. All too often, we don't talk about the entire dream. And all too often, we don't want to talk about our failures over the last four decades to get anywhere close to that dream.





So where are we? And what has happened to King's dream? When did the dream become this nightmare?









Not that long ago, it was easy to just laugh off "tea party" extremism as silly... But look at what's happened. And for far too long, questions of inequality have been placed aside. And as we wonder when our occupation of Iraq will end, when our occupation of Afghanistan will come to a close, and when another military invasion and occupation might ensue, we must wonder if we've become far too much of a culture of violence.

When did we forget this...



And embrace this?





What happened? What happened to Dr. King's dream? Where have we gone wrong in the last 43 years? Why are so many of our people still treated as "second class citizens"? Why do we never have the resources to help our people help themselves, but we somehow always have more money to wage more wars? Why have we become so violent toward each other?

These are the questions I have today. As six people have been buried in Tucson, our country is still mired in two wars abroad, Congress is set to debate (again) why we should or shouldn't have access to affordable health care, and federal courts consider whether queer folk actually have Constitutional rights, we need to ask ourselves what happened to Dr. King's dream... And how we can finally turn the dream deferred into the dream fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Outside the Capitol...

The teabaggers got so many protesters today... Wait, you mean those weren't teabaggers?

More than 200,000 people gathered on the National Mall today to participate in March for America, a rally advocating comprehensive immigration reform.

Organized by Reform Immigration for America, the rally brought together groups from around the country — including Service Employees International Union, Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Democracia Ahora and the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles — to send a message to lawmakers: "The time for immigration reform is now."

President Obama delivered a message from the big screens in the crowd in which he assured the demonstrators of his commitment to passing comprehensive immigration reform.

And these weren't teabaggers.



And these weren't teabaggers (though a number of them are "fighting the establishment").





Oh yes, the teabaggers have been in full force this last week. Yeah, keep freeping those R-J & Sun comment sections!

Meanwhile, There's Afghanistan...

I know, I know. The media all around here are obsessing over all things City Center, and nary a word is spoken on last night's big announcement... Don't worry, kids, I'm still on it.

The Gleaner is pissed over Harry Reid's acquiescence, and I can understand. It's not like Congress has no power... Remember who controls the purse strings here? Still, I just see this as a symptom of the larger ailment of unchecked executive power and unwise imperial hubris in President Obama really thinking that somehow things will be different when he escalates the military occupation in Afghanistan.

And anyway, I really think Mike Lux is right on all counts here:

I am deeply saddened on so many different levels by the President's speech last night, and his Afghanistan policy in general. Steady escalation is not the answer to this godawful complicated mess. It's all well and good to keep making the argument as to why this is not another Vietnam, although it sure does feel that way to a lot of us, but the big question in terms of comparisons is how this is different than Britain or Russia's experience in Afghanistan itself.

I am also deeply anguished as someone who has a much broader agenda than just this war or even foreign policy and national security in general. The money we will spend, and the political capital that will be burnt, by this war are a horrible price to pay- and for what goal? Will this surge defeat Al Queda [sic] and the Taliban once and for all? Will they make Afghanistan and Pakistan safe places for the long run? It just doesn't seem very likely.

This is at its core also bad politics on so many different levels. History is very clear on this topic. Two of our last three Democratic Presidents have had their presidencies broken and sunk on the rocks of a terrible relationship with the progressive base: Jimmy Carter over economics, and LBJ over a wrong- headed land war in Asia. With this escalation, and with Geithner and Summers running Obama's economic policy, this President seems like he wants to pick fights with us in both areas. It truly is heart breaking.

Yep, yep, yep. Obama is "spending his political capital" on what, exactly? Escalating an increasingly unpopular war? Forcing a corrupt government on people who don't want it? Doing something that may do nothing to stop al-Qaeda but may do everything to risk losing the cooperation with the Muslim World that the Obama Administration is just starting to rebuild after Bush squandered it all on Iraq?

Our troops don't deserve this. They don't deserve to have their time wasted on this. I only hope that President Obama is being honest when he says he wants to begin troop withdrawal in 18 months.

It really is time to let the people of Afghanistan take back their own country, and it's too bad we won't let them do it sooner.

On This Veterans' Day, Let's Actually Show Our Support for the Troops

Let's bring them home.



Please show your support for our brave troops in Afghanistan by signing this petition urging President Obama to stop wasting their time as our country meddles in their internal affairs. There are better ways to fight terrorists and keep our country safe than getting involved in yet another military quagmire that only results in killing innocent civilians and angering the Muslim world. Let's actually show some respect to our veterans, and to our troops still courageously defending our freedom, by bringing our troops home from Afghanistan.