Dear Prez: Can a brotha still call you Prez?
Listen, Prez. I was out at a coffee shop and heard some white boys sipping coffee and talking. What they said made sense. They said they voted for you, because they saw you as a man of peace. To them, that meant you were going to bring our brave soldiers home from Iraq and wind down our adventure in Afghanistan. Instead, they said, you have slowed down the exit from Iraq and is now planning to add about 34,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, a land of dusty roads and high, featuring winding roads with the bones of fighters on the side of them.
Listen, Prez: I know you have already done some great things while in office. Diplomatically, you have changed foreign leaders attitude toward the United States. For 8 years they believed that the U.S. was nothing but a bully that chose to go it alone in dealing with foreign conflicts. Now, they see in you a chance to go back to diplomacy in dealing with a challenging world. Domestically, you signed a bill that will give women a better chance of suing employers for discrimination against women. You hired men and women who were fired from the Justice Department by Karl Rove and his merry mob of Bush thugs. You signed a bill that will regulate the tobacco industry, making it nearly impossible for the tobacco industry to maket cigarettes to our kids. You passed sweeping credit card reform legislation aimed at limiting abusive and deceptive credit card practices. You provided 1. 25 billion to black farmers to settle their claim of discrimination against them by the U.S. agricultural department which had gone on for years.
But you know what, Prez? All these important changes can't erase the fact that you have now chosen to further place American soldiers in a quagmire with no end in sight, no exit known, no clear goals to justify staying there and with a government so corrupt that the president's own brother is a drug dealer.
Listen, Prez: You shown great leadership in many areas of civic life. It's time for you to show leadership in one more area: move America away from the imperialistic tendency to engage in unwinnable wars. You can begin by pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. Yes, leave a contingency of troops to train Afghanistan soldiers to defend themselves (say 5,000), but bring our brave but tired soldiers home. Use the funding saved by bringing these soldiers and equipment home to shore up the argument for paying for healthcare reform with public option.
Prez: The guys at the coffee shop spoke critically of you. They say you let them down. But redemption is still in your hands. All you have to do is use that pen to write a memo to bring our sons and daughters home from Afghanistan.
Do the right thing.
Blessings,
The Daddy
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18 comments:
When are you going to write about music and poetry again?
MacDaddy,
In my opinion,if Obama is looking forward to his legacy with this decision-in the short term he will catch hell for ending the wars.In the long term he will be revered IF he brings them home.
MacDaddy,
We need to have our troops out as soon as possible. We're old enough to know that there's a whole lot of political entanglement surrounding the war and the withdrawl.
I am hoping that Obama will do the right thing. His position on the war was one of the reasons that he won my vote. He's going to need to stand a deliver.
Hi
I just stumbled on your blog - interesting letter but I wish you would have a more in-depth critical look at BO. It's not just abt the war of Afghanistan but his whole presidency has been one of contradictions.
Gitmo is still open, rendition strikes are still ongoing, AfriCom's military agenda is being pushed even harder, he's passed the biggest war budget of all US Presidents, Geithner and Brezinski are working for him, there are laws to spy on US peace movements passed under BO's rule and Wall St's still free to do as it pleases thanks to the bailout and weak regulations passed by BO.
BUT OTOH apart from the +ve things you mention, he's improved international relations for the US, tried to pass through a health care bill for all people and made a commitment towards cutting US emmissions.
Azure
Anonymous: You make good points, and I don't disagree with any of them But I wanted to focus on the Afghanistan war. Sometimes, in saying so much, people lose sight of your main point. I wanted to mention some good things this administration has done as well.
By the way, I have done a more in-depth analysis of Obama and his policies. It's spread throughout my blog.
Take some time to read my blog and then get back to me. Blessings.
You make some valid points here Daddy. I am also disappointed in some of the things the prez has done or not done, but I keep thinking he probably (hopefully) knows something we don't.
MadMike. Maybe you're right. But I remember people saying that the top people dealing with the war under late President Johnson too. And people like Robert McNamara and Westgmoreland put up this fron that they had some kind of special insight into the people, the land and the war and we were winning.
As it turned out, what they knew was what many Americans knew: it wasn't worth it, wasn't winnable militarily, and we should bring our soldiers home. Of course, they didn't admit this until years later. Blessings.
I think escalating the war in Afghanistan is a bad decision morally and pragmatically.
BUT this is one campaign promise that Obama will be keeping. During his campaign he let everyone know that he thought the war was a "good" war and just needed to be better managed.
Shady Grady, you are right. But a true leader can craft a politically viable way of changing his mind, and leading in another direction. In this case, out of Afghanistan. I've been giving BHO the benefit of the doubt: that his agenda is overloaded from the devastation of the Bush era. I no longer think America can benefit from continued doubt.
excellent post daddy!
Yup BHO could do the right thing.
But Congress could also do the right thing and cut off funding. But I don't see them having the guts to even think about that, let alone do it.
The whole thing is a mess. I don't foresee it ending until the war costs start to squeeze out domestic entitlements or interest rates start to rise. Then there will be a much larger contingent of voters seeking an end to the war.
sjxsn: Welcome. And thanks for becoming a follower of daddyBstrong. Looking forward to hearing from you. Blessings.
c
daddyBstrong,
This was an excellent post, but I believe this escalation is not about Afghanistan, rather about securing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. This is our best current option considering we can't just set up shop in a sovereign nation like Pakistan. I think we go at it for 18 mos., hope the Afghans get it together in that time to protect themselves and their borders, Zardari is replaced in Pakistan by somebody we can work with, and we get the Saudis, Indians, Chinese, and Russians to get involved. I sincerely believe the troops will start coming out in 18 mos.
Citizen: I think you're right: I believe the troops will be pulled out in 18 months. The army leaders will say it wasn't enough time. The Obama administration will say, "We gave them 10 years, and they didn't do a damn thing. So we're transferring some of our soldiers to Pakistan, work with a more comfortable and less dirty government."
And you're right again: America is very concerned about our nuclear arsenal and will move immediately to secure them.
MacDaddy I always count on your posts to illicit a good discussion among your followers and this is one of the best. Tough topic -- no easy answers. But we need to keep the discussion open --never giving up. Thank you for engaging us. XO
XO: Your are so right. Thanks for your wisdom.
Constance: Welcome. And thanks for becoming a follower of daddyBstrong. Looking forward to you coming back and joind the conversation. Blessings.
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