With the 2008 presidential campaign in full swing two summers ago, Joe Biden, then making his own bid for the White House, ridiculed Barack Obama on a momentous issue: Afghanistan. The occasion was an August 2007 speech by Obama outlining his plans to fight Al Qaeda, which included sending an influx of American troops and aid to the country. Later that day, Biden issued a snarky press release gloating about his own extensive record of pushing similar policies, and which cast Obama as a naïve newcomer. The release noted that the Delaware senator had co-authored the first law authorizing reconstruction aid to the country after the 2001 U.S. invasion and that Biden had recently been pushing both for more money and for more boots on the ground. "Biden Campaign Congratulates Sen. Obama for Johnny Come Lately Position," the release quipped.
Biden's pique was easy to understand. From his perch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he had long cautioned the Bush administration against giving short shrift to Afghanistan. Even before Obama announced his run for president, Biden was warning that Afghanistan, not Iraq, was the "central front" in the war against Al Qaeda, requiring a major U.S. commitment. "Whatever it takes, we should do it," Biden said in February 2002. "History will judge us harshly if we allow the hope of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we failed to stay the course."
But, now that Biden addresses Obama not as Johnny but as "Mr. President," things have changed. In internal White House Afghanistan policy debates, Biden has been a voice of skepticism. When Obama's national security team first considered a troop increase for Afghanistan in March, Biden circulated a document that outlined alternatives to a major escalation. Although the White House won't provide precise details, aides acknowledge that Biden urged the president to consider a narrow counterterrorism mission, heavy on Special Forces and Predator drone strikes, which would require far less manpower than the military was seeking. Obama ultimately sided with other administration officials arguing for a larger counterinsurgency operation, and approved 4,000 more troops on the heels of the 17,000 he'd dispatched in February. But Biden continues to argue that it may not be possible to defeat the Taliban and stabilize Afghanistan at a reasonable cost. His newfound skepticism is not only a story about dashed hopes in Afghanistan. It is also a story of how a leading liberal hawk found realism in the Hindu Kush.
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COMMENTS (9)
This is the first take on Afghanistan that has begun to poke some holes in my own support for the conflict. It's sending me wobbling off in a more tentative and tenuous direction. For me, the war has never revolved around "democracy" versus "terrorism". Only the most naive of people would actually embrace the idea that Bush and Cheney gave a fuck about what happened to the Afghani people once they botched the capture of Al Qaeda's top leadership. At least not more than an inch below the surface.
It was always about playing different factions of the conflict off against other factions in order to secure what is always the fundamental misdirection of American foreign policy: our "strategic int ... view full comment
This is the first take on Afghanistan that has begun to poke some holes in my own support for the conflict. It's sending me wobbling off in a more tentative and tenuous direction. For me, the war has never revolved around "democracy" versus "terrorism". Only the most naive of people would actually embrace the idea that Bush and Cheney gave a fuck about what happened to the Afghani people once they botched the capture of Al Qaeda's top leadership. At least not more than an inch below the surface.
It was always about playing different factions of the conflict off against other factions in order to secure what is always the fundamental misdirection of American foreign policy: our "strategic interests".
These:
Securing cheap labor, natural resources, markets
Or at least keeping them out of the hands of our enemies.
But this is just taken for granted by those who poke around under all the scripted rhetoric. The rhetoric for example that Obama used yesterday at the United Nations.
Be that as it may however I saw the Taliban and Al Qaeda as very dangerous because they were Islamic fanatics at a historical cusp in which they may or may not be able to rally millions of jihadists to their cause. If they were able to secure Afghnaistan as a base of operations again that could only aid and abet their cause all the more. So, sure, I thought, whatever the actual motive of the U.S. there, getting them out was still job one.
But Biden's skepticism is increasingly becoming my own. If the battles can't be won, what than? And if escalation leads instead to an ever greater alienation [and anger] on the part of Afghani people how much easier will it be for the radical Islamists to make their case.
There seem to be no paths to victory. Only more paths to Iraq and Vietnam.
george walton
The realization that we are working to prop up a corrupt and illegitimate regime in Kabul is enough to make an increase in troops and funds very difficult to swallow. We should bring this 8 year-old project to a close, soon.
Neil
The realization that we are working to prop up a corrupt and illegitimate regime in Kabul is enough to make an increase in troops and funds very difficult to swallow. We should bring this 8 year-old project to a close, soon.
Neil
Why is Biden so quick to dismiss the approach that has not been tried yet (at least in Afghanistan) and embrace the one that has been tried and is failing miserably?
It's not just the case in Afghanistan. In Iraq, counterinsurgency worked and counterterrorism failed miserably.
Why is Biden so quick to dismiss the approach that has not been tried yet (at least in Afghanistan) and embrace the one that has been tried and is failing miserably?
It's not just the case in Afghanistan. In Iraq, counterinsurgency worked and counterterrorism failed miserably.
I'm not convinced that our foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
Does securing Afghanistan's natural resources require the mobilization of Nato's forces and heavy US troop commitments? Securing the mineral and natural wealth of Afghanistan is not a sufficient reason, by itself, to occupy Afghanistan.
The US and Europe has all the cheap labor it can use ... view full comment
I'm not convinced that our foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
Does securing Afghanistan's natural resources require the mobilization of Nato's forces and heavy US troop commitments? Securing the mineral and natural wealth of Afghanistan is not a sufficient reason, by itself, to occupy Afghanistan.
The US and Europe has all the cheap labor it can use (Mexico, India, Africa).
How large a market is there in Afghanistan? The 2009 population estimate is only 28.396 million.
Considering the above, it is not likely that the West's actions in Afghanistan are tied to raw material extraction, cheap labor utilization or consumer market penetration.
The far-Left onced argued (maybe still does) the US was in Vietnam because the country had off-shore oil to exploit. Maybe it does, but it's not worth 58,000 American lives to bring to market. Let us just call the resources, cheap labor and markets argument "primitive Leninism."
Afghanistan is important real estate nontheless. The Taliban and it's ally Al-Qaeda, are certainly reactionary, fundamentalist Islamic thugs. They might be Islamofascists. They clearly are anti-modern, anti-semitic, anti-feminist, anti-modern and ancient art, anti Jeffersonian and anti Hamiltonian.
We finally get to an election and immediately 25,000 extra ballots are discovered. To conduct this corrupt election required the intervention of 17,000 US soldiers and allied Nato forces. Again, can the US export democracy and women's rights, using the "transformative power of military-backed nation building?"
President Hamid Karzai is such a hapless and easy target. Of course their is corruption and drug dealing in Afghanistan. What did we expect, the Oxford Debating Union? The entire society is pre-modern. Nation building will take a very long time in Afghanistan, under the best of circumstances.
My military choice is to increase the technological hell we rain down on the Taliban and decrease the hand to hand combat. Use the Taliban as target practice to try out our new and improved nasty, nasty anti-fascist fancyass-tech killing machines. Let's try out our experimental weaponry and run the fascists thugs into the meat grinder of history. Increase the level of technological death and decrease the American/Nato combat death toll.
Finally, I was deeply moved by the respect the Italian government accorded the six Italian soldiers recently killed by a suicide bomber in Kabel. A full State funeral with active public participation. The Italians treated their dead like heros. What type of respect do we show our dead? When did it become a national security problem or anti American to properly honor our dead, in public with full honors.
Some of the non-Taliban and Al-Queda population share some or all of the above characteristics as well.
The country's labor force is certainly cheap, unskilled, mostly undiciplined and non-English-speaking. Why bother?
Or at least keeping them out of the hands of our enemies.
But this is just taken for granted by those who poke around under all the scripted rhetoric. The rhetoric for example that Obama used yesterday at the United Nations.
Be that as it may however I saw the Taliban and Al Qaeda as very dangerous because they were Islamic fanatics at a historical cusp in which they may or may not be able to rally millions of jihadists to their cause. If they were able to secure Afghnaistan as a base of operations again that could only aid and abet their cause all the more. So, sure, I thought, whatever the actual motive of the U.S. there, getting them out was still job one.
But Biden's skepticism is increasingly becoming my own. If the battles can't be won, what than? And if escalation leads instead to an ever greater alienation [and anger] on the part of Afghani people how much easier will it be for the radical Islamists to make their case.
There seem to be no paths to victory. Only more paths to Iraq and Vietnam.
Hawk Down by Michael Crowley: A Comment
I'm not convinced that our foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
Does securing Afghanistan's natural resources require the mobilization of Nato's forces and heavy US troop commitments? Securing the mineral and natural wealth of Afghanistan is not a sufficient reason, by itself, to occupy Afghanistan.
The US and Euro ... view full comment
Hawk Down by Michael Crowley: A Comment
I'm not convinced that our foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
Does securing Afghanistan's natural resources require the mobilization of Nato's forces and heavy US troop commitments? Securing the mineral and natural wealth of Afghanistan is not a sufficient reason, by itself, to occupy Afghanistan.
The US and Europe has all the cheap labor it can use (Mexico, India, Africa).
How large a market is there in Afghanistan? The 2009 population estimate is only 28.396 million.
Considering the above, it is not likely that the West's actions in Afghanistan are tied to raw material extraction, cheap labor utilization or consumer market penetration.
The far-Left onced argued (maybe still does) the US was in Vietnam because the country had off-shore oil to exploit. Maybe it does, but it's not worth 58,000 American lives to bring to market. Let us just call the resources, cheap labor and markets argument "primitive Leninism."
Afghanistan is important real estate nontheless. The Taliban and it's ally Al-Qaeda, are certainly reactionary, fundamentalist Islamic thugs. They might be Islamofascists. They clearly are anti-modern, anti-semitic, anti-feminist, anti-modern and ancient art, anti Jeffersonian and anti Hamiltonian.
We finally get to an election and immediately 25,000 extra ballots are discovered. To conduct this corrupt election required the intervention of 17,000 US soldiers and allied Nato forces. Again, can the US export democracy and women's rights, using the "transformative power of military-backed nation building?"
President Hamid Karzai is such a hapless and easy target. Of course their is corruption and drug dealing in Afghanistan. What did we expect, the Oxford Debating Union? The entire society is pre-modern. Nation building will take a very long time in Afghanistan, under the best of circumstances.
My military choice is to increase the technological hell we rain down on the Taliban and decrease the hand to hand combat. Use the Taliban as target practice to try out our new and improved nasty, nasty anti-fascist fancyass-tech killing machines. Let's try out our experimental weaponry and run the fascists thugs into the meat grinder of history. Increase the level of technological death and decrease the American/Nato combat death toll.
Finally, I was deeply moved by the respect the Italian government accorded the six Italian soldiers recently killed by a suicide bomber in Kabel. A full State funeral with active public participation. The Italians treated their dead like heros. What type of respect do we show our dead? When did it become a national security problem or anti American to properly honor our dead, in public with full honors.
The End
Lawrence Gulotta:
I'm not convinced that or foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
george:
Colin Miller from the Webdiary web site [9/24/09]:
Initially the Taliban enjoyed the support of Bill Clinton’s administration for a campaign against Iran, but the most strategically important goal was to secure the region’s oil and gas. In 1996-98 the US governmen ... view full comment
Lawrence Gulotta:
I'm not convinced that or foreign policy objectives in Afghanistan necessarily include securing cheap labor, natural resources and markets. The most notable natural resource in Afghanistan seems to be opium, from the press coverage. There are, however, reserves of natural gas, coal, zinc, cooper, gold and unexplored oil reserves in the North. Most of the mining has been small scale, starting in the 1960s.
george:
Colin Miller from the Webdiary web site [9/24/09]:
Initially the Taliban enjoyed the support of Bill Clinton’s administration for a campaign against Iran, but the most strategically important goal was to secure the region’s oil and gas. In 1996-98 the US government supported the (US) Unocal oil company’s plans for a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan.
What was support (or indifference) toward the Taliban in the Clinton years, has turned to antagonism and a goal of elimination, whatever the cost, today. So many near neighbours have meddled in Afghanistan's affairs over decades - notably Pakistan and Russia, and to a lesser degree Iran and Saudi Arabia - that the region has rarely been free of conflict. And never more so than now, with the resurgent Taliban being fought vigorously with the stakes raised to dizzying heights in the interests of oil, and oil interests.
Prior to September 11, United States' policy toward the Taliban was largely influenced by oil. In their book, Ben Laden, la verite interdite, 2002, (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), former French intelligence officer Jean-Charles Brisard and journalist Guillaume Dasquie document the “oil” connection between George W. Bush and the Taliban.
The United States' dependence on Middle East, and soon Central Asian, oil and gas has led the US government to intervene militarily under a variety of pretexts, which change to suit the domestic political mood at any given time. The development of a coherent U.S. energy policy would obviate the real (or perceived) need to dominate other countries.
LG:
The far-Left onced argued (maybe still does) the US was in Vietnam because the country had off-shore oil to exploit. Maybe it does, but it's not worth 58,000 American lives to bring to market. Let us just call the resources, cheap labor and markets argument "primitive Leninism."
george:
Oh, I suspect the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was backed by any number of True Patriots. But once you start tallying all the billions and billions of dollars the military industrial complex made on that long slog into hell, our motives get a little fuzzier. I was there [in Vietnam] and in my neck of the woods [Phouc Long Province, III Corps] I lost count of all the conversations I had with US conscriptees about the point of the war. Anti-Commie patriotiam hardly ever came up from these primitive Leninists.
RG:
Afghanistan is important real estate nontheless. The Taliban and it's ally Al-Qaeda, are certainly reactionary, fundamentalist Islamic thugs. They might be Islamofascists. They clearly are anti-modern, anti-semitic, anti-feminist, anti-modern and ancient art, anti Jeffersonian and anti Hamiltonian.
george:
Yes, as I noted above, I agree. No argument there. But does that make you one of those who actually believe the intent BushWorld was to replace them with, uh, us? Or that the intent of U.S. foreign policy [from the Monroe Doctrine on] was NOT sustaining "a favorite business climate" for U.S. multinational corporations? Do you actually believe "feedom, justice, human rights and democracy" were the prime directive here? Okay, let's go into that in some depth here.
If BushWorld and ObamaLand is really concerned with exporting democracy and women's rights what have they done to pusue this in, say, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The irony being that in, for example, Iraq, Saddam thugocracy or not, the rights of women were lightyears beyond the regimes we supported in the region.
Your own prescriptions are of course tough as nails. Blow the fuckers to kingdom come; rain down every techno gizmo we have on them until the bastards squeal like pigs. Cite by rote the appropriate regrets for the 1000s of collaterally damaged citizens our sterile no manned land shock and awe technology pulverizes to bits and get on with the next tough decisions.
Unless of course you were just being ironic. I just don't see a lot of that in here.
By the way, seen much war and combat yourself?
george walton
d/a
Afghanistan is really important real estate. It shares a boarder with Iran, Pakistan,China,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan and India. I hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Geopolitically it is very important, with or without unexplored oil, natural gas and an oil pipeline. To suggest that we are in Afghanistan solely for the natural resources, [and the cheap labor and the market] to the exclusion of all other factors is determinism of the rankest form, or as I wrote, "primitive Leninism."
I have regularly listened to sophisticated old farts carry on about the oil off-shore in VietNam as the cause of our deadly intervention. Makes me laugh. I opposed the war in VietNam. In hindsight, I can un ... view full comment
Afghanistan is really important real estate. It shares a boarder with Iran, Pakistan,China,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan and India. I hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Geopolitically it is very important, with or without unexplored oil, natural gas and an oil pipeline. To suggest that we are in Afghanistan solely for the natural resources, [and the cheap labor and the market] to the exclusion of all other factors is determinism of the rankest form, or as I wrote, "primitive Leninism."
I have regularly listened to sophisticated old farts carry on about the oil off-shore in VietNam as the cause of our deadly intervention. Makes me laugh. I opposed the war in VietNam. In hindsight, I can understand why many supported the war. North VietNam was a Stalinist state; linked to a degenerate Soviet Union.
I hope we are able to blow the fascist Taliban and the terorist Qaeda away. I have no sympathy for fascism, anywhere. If Nato and the US can't do it, that is too bad for civilization.
Finally, please don't throw you military record around for effect. I strongly suspect you served Honorably. Isn't that enough.
LG:
Afghanistan is really important real estate. It shares a boarder with Iran, Pakistan,China,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan and India. I hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Geopolitically it is very important, with or without unexplored oil, natural gas and an oil pipeline. To suggest that we are in Afghanistan solely for the natural resources, [and the cheap labor and the market] to the exclusion of all other factors is determinism of the rankest form, or as I wrote, "primitive Leninism."
george:
Please. This is about as far removed from Miller's trenchant analysis above as one would expect from someone determined to ignore the underlying motivation behind U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Sure, ... view full comment
LG:
Afghanistan is really important real estate. It shares a boarder with Iran, Pakistan,China,Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan and India. I hope I didn't leave anyone out.
Geopolitically it is very important, with or without unexplored oil, natural gas and an oil pipeline. To suggest that we are in Afghanistan solely for the natural resources, [and the cheap labor and the market] to the exclusion of all other factors is determinism of the rankest form, or as I wrote, "primitive Leninism."
george:
Please. This is about as far removed from Miller's trenchant analysis above as one would expect from someone determined to ignore the underlying motivation behind U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Sure, if you wish to scoff at the historical record be my guest. It doesn't really change it though, does it?
You seemed to be suggesting that linking American policy to anything BUT the nobility of the cause was risible. Only poppies, you snorted, are relevant for cultivation there now.
Besides, no one of is suggesting [certainly not me] we are in Afghanistan SOLEY for the oil. After all, 9/11 did happen. And Islamist jihad has the potential for expanding their religious fanaticism ominously if the Taliban and Al Qaeda regain access to a base that encompasses an entire nation. Especially one contiguous with Pakistan and its nulear arsenal.
No, my point is merely that "nation-building" there has little to do with exporting democracy. If it were why would we help to install an old CIA hand [and corrupt bastard] like Karzai [and his pals] in Kabul? The Afghani people are merely pawns on the board in BushWorld. And ObamaLand is par for the course here. Obama will neither buck the military industrial complex agenda at home nor Wall Street's agenda abroad.
LG:
In hindsight, I can understand why many supported the war. North VietNam was a Stalinist state; linked to a degenerate Soviet Union.
george:
Yes, yes, your Commie hating credentials are firmly established. But that doesn't make it any less a civil war. Remember, we had one of those. And look at the government we were hell bent on propping up down South. A bastion of democracy, right? Meanwhile as we were propping up "freedom" over there our military and the CIA were busy closer to home installing all manner of degenerate, autocratic, plutocractic dictators. The authoritarian kind as Kirkpatrick and Kissinger liked to note. Our kind of thugs, in other words. Meanwhile our leaders can't get enough of the dictators in China, can they? Dispensers of Wall Street's kind of "freedom": economic, not moral, political and intellectual.
LG:
Finally, please don't throw you military record around for effect. I strongly suspect you served Honorably. Isn't that enough?
george:
For some maybe. But I'm an existentialist. Existentialists are keen on connecting the dots between how we view the world around us politically and the actual experiences we have had that either back or do not back the theoretical "principles" up. We have more of an a posteriori rather than a a priori approach to both foreign and domestic policy.
But, sure, you're right. Having a combat military record does not necessarily make your point of view on Afghanistan more reasonable than that of someone who does not. There are just too many other factors involved. But still, the Colin Powell/Dick Cheney "dialogue" on this is exceedingly relevant from my own vantage point.
george
LG,
Here's a snapshot of American foreign policy under Barack Obama, psuedo liberal president of the United States:
Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books 10/8/09:
At his confirmation hearing to be head of the CIA, Leon Panetta said that "extraordinary rendition"—the practice of sending prisoners to foreign countries—was a tool he meant to retain.[1] Obama's nominee for solicitor general, Elena Kagan, told Congress that she agreed with John Yoo's claim that a terrorist captured anywhere should be subject to "battlefield law."[2] On the first opportunity to abort trial proceedings by invoking "state secrets"—the policy based on the faulty Reynolds case—Obama's attorney gen- eral, Er ... view full comment
LG,
Here's a snapshot of American foreign policy under Barack Obama, psuedo liberal president of the United States:
Garry Wills in The New York Review of Books 10/8/09:
At his confirmation hearing to be head of the CIA, Leon Panetta said that "extraordinary rendition"—the practice of sending prisoners to foreign countries—was a tool he meant to retain.[1] Obama's nominee for solicitor general, Elena Kagan, told Congress that she agreed with John Yoo's claim that a terrorist captured anywhere should be subject to "battlefield law."[2] On the first opportunity to abort trial proceedings by invoking "state secrets"—the policy based on the faulty Reynolds case—Obama's attorney gen- eral, Eric Holder, did so.[3] Obama refused to release photographs of "enhanced interrogation." The CIA had earlier (illegally) destroyed ninety-two videotapes of such interrogations—and Obama refused to release documents describing the tapes.[4]
The President said that past official crimes would not be investigated—certainly not for prosecution, and not even by an impartial "truth commission" just trying to establish a record. He said, on the contrary, that detainees might be tried in "military tribunals." When the British government, trying a terrorist suspect, decided to use some American documents shared with the British government, Obama's attorney general pressured it not to do so. Most important, perhaps, was the new president's desire to end the nation-building in Iraq while substituting a long-term nation-building effort in Afghanistan, run by a government corrupted by drug trafficking and not susceptible to our remolding.
[snip]
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that turning around the huge secret empire built by the National Security State is a hard, perhaps impossible, task. After most of the wars in US history there was a return to the constitutional condition of the pre-war world. But after those wars there was no lasting institutional security apparatus of the sort that was laboriously assembled in the 1940s and 1950s. After World War I, for instance, there was no CIA, no NSA, no mountain of secret documents to be guarded from unauthorized readers, no atomic bomb to guard, develop, deploy, and maintain in readiness on land, in the air, and on (or in) the sea.
Now a new president quickly becomes aware of the vast empire that is largely invisible to the citizenry. The United States maintains an estimated one thousand military bases in other countries. I say "estimated" because the exact number, location, and size of the bases are either partly or entirely cloaked in secrecy, among other things to protect nuclear installations.The secrecy involved is such that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy did not even know, at first, that we had nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey.
[snip]
On January 25, 2002, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales signed a memo written by David Addington that called the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and "obsolete." Perhaps, in the nuclear era, the Constitution has become quaint and obsolete. Few people even consider anymore Madison's lapidary pronouncement, "In republican government the legislative authority necessarily predominates." Instead, we are all, as citizens, asked to salute our commander in chief. Any president, wanting leverage to accomplish his goals, must find it hard to give up the aura of war chief, the mystery and majesty that have accrued to him with control of the Bomb, the awesome proximity to the Football, to the Button.
george:
Like Wills, I have no qulams in acknowleging the ambiguities necessarily embedded in a world everyone tries to pin down with The Whole Truth...but never do.
But the Obamas [the flagrant con artists] are sometimes the hardest to swallow.
For one thing, he is such a fucking liar, right?
george walton
d/a