President Obama is using the same aggressive rhetoric we saw prior to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with media repeating the quickly-verifiable lie that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." Previously, Senator Lieberman, Secretary of State Clinton, and former UN Ambassador John Bolton resumed rhetoric of a United States attack upon Iran. There are two general justifications they speak of to justify war: Iran's "nuclear program" and their threat to Israel. Both claims are false (again, verify here: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m11d20-Obama-aggress-for-war-Media-echoes-lie-Iran-threatens-to-wipe-Israel-off-the-map-Citizen-action and here:http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m9d29-Irans-Nuclear-Program-Iran-in-treaty-compliance-USIsrael-lying-and-out-of-compliance), which follows a history of US lies regarding wars. The following is edited from my brief, “War with Afghanistan and Iraq, rhetoric for war with Iran.” The focus of this article is to explore US interest in having a war with Iran. It's from my brief: War with Iraq and Afghanistan, rhetoric for war with Iran.

On Veterans Day the Brave New Foundation released this video to place pressure on President Barack Obama not to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. The proposed escalation, which Obama is expected to decide on in the next few weeks, means sending up to 40,000 more troops to the region. In this video, US Marine Corps Veteran, Sgt. Devon Read, said that: "Further troops in Afghanistan is going to escalate the violence, it's going to escalate the Taliban recruiting effort and its certainly not going to create a better situation."

How did we get from McChrystal’s request for 50,000 troop requests in early October to Eikenberry’s “written reservations about deploying additional troops” just days before President Obama’s planned decision?

Greg Jaffe, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung for The Washington Post report that the US ambassador to Afghanistan has urged the administration to hold up on sending any new troops to the country: Strongly worded cables urge a pause until Kabul government shifts course. The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the last week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, said senior U.S. officials. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry's memos were sent in the days leading up to a critical meeting Wednesday between President Obama and his national security team to consider several options prepared by military planners for how to proceed in Afghanistan. The proposals, which mark the last stage of a months-long strategy review, all call for between 20,000 to 40,000 more troops and a far broader American involvement of the war. The last-minute dissent by Eikenberry, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, has rankled his former colleagues in the Pentagon -- as well as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said defense officials. McChrystal has bluntly stated that without an increase of tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan in the next year, the mission there "will likely result in failure."

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Politics/?id=3.0.3960270699 Adnkronos International (AKI), the Italian news agency, reports that the U.S., in the person of Hillary Clinton, pressured Hamid Karzai rival Abdullah Abdullah to drop out of the presidential race. The way AKI describes it, this was the biggest foreign policy coup of the Obama administration to date. It was a four-or-more-way swindle in which the U.S. swung its full support behind Karzai, the Pakistani military agreed to make peace with the Taliban, and the Indians withdrew their troops from the Kashmir region. The $1.5 billion annual aid package we’re giving Pakistan was mentioned in the story, and probably had something to do with the transaction, if the story is true. The Asia Times online ran a similar story, which says, "In exchange for the pullout of the non-Pashtun Abdullah, Pakistan’s military has agreed to actively mediate between Washington and the Taliban over a reconciliation plan that will allow the U.S. to exit from Afghanistan, as it is doing in Iraq, with a semblance of success." Don’t get the impression that the Asia Times story corroborates the AKI story. Both stories were written by Syed Saleem Shahzad, who is the Pakistan bureau chief for the Asia Times and the South Asia correspondent for AKI.

President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

Fox News is using retired military officers surrounded by uniformed active duty troops in an attempt to derail debate on disengagement in Afghanistan. After 8 years, the US is heading the same way Russia did, the more troops we send, the more die. Absolutely nothing has been accomplished in 8 years in Afghanistan other than to start a major war in Pakistan too. I understand Fox News. They are controlled by the powerful Israeli spokeman, Rupert Murdoch. Israel wants this war to go on forever. Though Murdoch now is an American citizen, it doesn't seem to have "taken." What is good for Israel isn't always good for the US. Active duty military who try to make their own foreign policy are not just total morons but are in violation of a number of laws. They are technically at war with the United States of America. If it is necessary for veterans to take up weapons to fight against members of our military who are part of an insurrection run by a foreign power, tell me where to sign up. To the former officers, always quick to take a payoff from a defense contractor or the Bush Pentagon as a "pundit," reading from whatever script Karl Rove has written for the day, you dishonor yourselves, your oath and the United States. The oath I remember was:---

Gordon Brown warned the Afghan government today that he will not continue to risk the lives of British troops to defend a corrupt regime. In a clear policy shift, the Prime Minister cautioned President Karzai that unless he quashes endemic corruption he will have “forfeited” his right to international support. As he tried to shore up faltering public opinion at home by claiming that the conflict was a “necessity, not choice”, Mr Brown appeared to open the way for a possible exit strategy. “I am not prepared to put the lives of British men and women in harm’s way for a government that does not stand up against corruption,” he said.

A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.

A month ago, I sent an email to over fifty leaders and thinkers in the Jewish and progressive world, asking them what they thought about the conflict in Afghanistan. I wrote: I keep asking myself an old question that seems ever more relevant today in the context of Afghanistan: When is war justified?---I invited a response, and got two, one from a leading activist rabbi, Arthur Waskow, and one from a leading radical journalist, Greg Palast. ZEEK is reprinting them with the hope of starting a richer conversation.---Rabbi Arthur Waskow Who can think up the most cockamamie plans for Afghanistan?---Here are two ideas way outside the box, outside the Beltway: Fire all US generals and diplomats in Afghanistan. Send five women U.S. Senators to negotiate with Afghan women and all male Afghan factional leaders (including the varied Taliban factions) with two promises: (1) Any governance agreement unanimously agreed-to will be backed up by billions in U.S. economic aid, delivered as dollar bills in suitcases, if necessary; (2) If no such agreement is reached, all U.S. involvement in Afghanistan ends at once. Same if a unanimous agreement breaks down.---

Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election. And now we are still trying to persuade his opponent to join a national unity government, an administration led by the man whose vote-stuffing was the very reason that same leader of the opposition – the good pseudo-Pashtun Abdullah Abdullah – refused to run in a second round of elections. And Karzai got his fawning congrats from the Obama-Brown twins. So that's OK then. Wagons Ho. For Westmoreland, read McChrystal. Send in the brave 40,000 to join the rest of the US cavalry as it fights its way west – or rather south-west – to the Khe Sanh of Afghanistan in Year Eight of the War on Terror.

The Obama administration is pinning great hope on the Afghan police initiative as part of a strategy to build up Afghan security forces to stabilize the country and turn back a resurgent Taliban. As the White House and Pentagon wrestle with ratcheting up U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Ball's firsthand experiences have left him feeling pessimistic about U.S. hopes in a primitive and geographically tortuous country that has resisted outside influences since before the days of Genghis Khan.

Matthew Hoh says that occupying Afghanistan is not going to defeat them. Hoh has gained support from troops in the military which does not understand what they are fighting for, according to Hoh. Within the Pashtun society there is a civil war and that war has noting to do with us. This is a divide amongst the Pashtuns between the urban Pashtuns and the rural Pashtuns; and just like with the Soviets this war is unwinnable and has lasted for centuries. Karzai is from the urban wealthy Pastuns. You will find his interview with Fareed and his letter here: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/ Listen to what Hoh has to say:

Ellsberg: Leaked Pentagon Papers from Vietnam give clues to why Obama will most likely grant military requests to send more troops to Afghanistan. Paul Jay, senior producer of The Real News Network, interviewed former military analyst and Pentagon whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg about the common thread between the conflict in Afghanistan and the war in Vietnam. Like Vietnam, Ellsberg said "no victory lies ahead [for the US] in Afghanistan" and President Barack Obama knows it. Still, Ellsberg believes Obama will "go against his own instincts as to what's best for the country and do what's best for him and his administration and his party in the short run facing elections, which is to avoid a military revolt."---Ellsberg predicted that Obama will cave in to Gen. Stanley McCrystal's request for as many as 40,000 US troops in order to, "prevent his military from making a political case to his public and to the Congress that he has been weak, unmanly, indecisive, and weak on terrorism, and has endangered American troops."

The opium poppy was introduced to Afghanistan more than 2,300 years ago by the armies of Alexander the Great. His forces were eventually driven out, like those of every would-be conqueror since. The poppy has proved more tenacious. On Monday, three U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents -- Forrest Leamon, Chad Michael and Michael Weston, all from the Washington area -- were killed in a helicopter crash in western Afghanistan. U.S. officials have released few details about the incident. The Times of London reported that the aircraft was shot down following a raid on the compound of a prominent Afghan drug lord. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the CIA has been making regular payments to a suspected major figure in the Afghan opium trade: Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai. The newspaper quoted sources alleging that Ahmed Wali Karzai -- who denies any involvement in the drug business -- collects "huge" fees from traffickers for allowing trucks loaded with drugs to cross bridges he controls in the southern part of the country. So is it our policy to attack the Afghan drug trade while we also line the pockets of one of its reputed kingpins? Who is going to explain this to the families of agents Leamon, Michael and Weston?

The White Man’s Burden, a phrase immortalized by English poet Rudyard Kipling as an excuse for European-American imperialism, was front and center Thursday morning at a RAND-sponsored discussion of Afghanistan in the Russell Senate Office Building. The agenda was top-heavy with RAND speakers, and the thinking was decidedly "inside the box" — so much so, that I found myself repeating a verse from Kipling, who recognized the dangers of imperialism, to remind me of the real world: It is not wise for the Christian white To hustle the Asian brown; For the Christian riles And the Asian smiles And weareth the Christian down. At the end of the fight Lies a tombstone white With the name of the late deceased; And the epitaph drear, A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East.

Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's closest adviser, says Afghanistan isn't threatening to become another Vietnam. It already is. America’s unwise, unwarranted, and sadly unwinnable war in Afghanistan—hastily initiated and then abandoned for Iraq by President Barack Obama’s ideologically blinded predecessor and dumped into Obama’s lap in the worst possible way—is beginning increasingly to smell like the 1964-68 war in South Vietnam that swallowed up the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson. John F. Kennedy, a World War II hero in the South Pacific, did not need to prove himself “tough” to either the generals or the Republicans, and he refused to send combat troop divisions to Vietnam as urged by his own hawkish advisers. I hope Obama does not feel he needs to prove himself tough. John F. Kennedy knew that “regime change” and related problems are political problems not solved by superior U.S. military force and technology. He had successfully weathered crises in Berlin, Laos, the Congo and even the Cuban Missile Crisis through negotiations and political solutions, not superior force as urged upon him in each case by his own “hawks.” One colorful hawk scornfully dismissed talk of seeking to “capture the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people: “Grab them by the short hairs and drag them across our line,” he said, “and their hearts and minds will follow!”

Eight American servicemen were killed in a series of explosions today, making October the deadliest month for US troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. Officials said that several soldiers were injured in “multiple, complex” bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, just a day after 14 Americans were killed in two separate helicopter crashes in the south and west of the country. An Afghan civilian working with the military was also killed. The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that the troops were hit by a series of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or homemade bombs. “Eight US service members and an Afghan civilian working with Isaf were killed today in multiple complex IED attacks in southern Afghanistan. Additionally, several service members were wounded in these incidents and were transported to a regional medical facility for treatment,” the coalition said in a statement. US troops have surged into southern Afghanistan this summer to try to reverse a rising tide of Taleban violence. Captain Jane Campbell, a military spokeswoman, said: "A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who mourn their loss." Their deaths bring the American death toll this month to 55. Violence had previously spiked in August, when 51 Americans were killed.---

In a remote part of Helmand troops are dismayed by the ambivalence of locals and a sense that the Taliban can outlast them. A mile from South Station, an outpost of US marines in Helmand province, the tribal chief was openly hostile. “The Americans threaten our economy and take our land for bases. They promise much and deliver nothing,” he said. “People here regard the American troops as occupiers,” said Haji Khan, a leader of the Baluch tribe, who rules like a medieval baron. “Young people are turning against them and in time will fight them.” Inside South Station, soldiers are proud of the progress they have made. Until they arrived, this remote part of Helmand had not had a government presence for years. But many are pessimistic about where the conflict is heading. “I’m not much for this war. I’m not sure it’s worth all those lives lost,” said Sergeant Christian Richardson as we walked across corn fields that will soon be ploughed up to plant a spring crop of opium poppy.

Ellsberg: As President Obama decides what to do in Afghanistan he must learn the lessons of Vietnam. Same warnings here given by Ellsberg, are the same warnings brought up by Seymour Hersh and others.