Robert Naiman

The Washington Post dismisses concerns about the cost of the Afghanistan war on the grounds that it is less than 1% of US GDP. But the Post supports raising the Social Security normal retirement age, although the savings to the government from doing this would be less than 1% of US GDP.

The report of the Afghanistan Study Group makes arguments that stand a good chance of moving the Washington debate towards ending the war.

In pushing for more time for the “surge” to “work,” David Petraeus is doing exactly what he promised he would *not* do in November 2009: ask for more time for the “surge” to “work.” If Mr. Petraeus’ clear statement in November 2009 can not now be trusted, why should Americans trust anything else he has to say about the drawdown?

According to the data on the icasualties.org website, as of today, the number of U.S. soldiers deaths due to the war in Afghanistan under President Obama – 575 – is the same number who died under President Bush. Robert Gibbs should be asked to comment on this.

The majority of Americans want the Obama Administration to establish a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, CBS News reports. But if General Petraeus has his way, the State Department will designate part of the Afghan Taliban as a terrorist organization.That would undermine peace moves in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports – peace moves that the Administration told Newsweek that it supports. Petraeus’ move would undermine not only a timetable for withdrawal, but the “serious drawdown” in July 2011 that Vice President Biden told Newsweek we can “bet on” and Speaker Pelosi told the Huffington Post she expects.

Peace activists sent a letter of protest to the Democratic National Committee in response to Brad Woodhouse’s attack on Michael Steele over Steele’s criticism of the Afghanistan war. A key effect of Woodhouse’s attack is the chilling of Republican dissent on the Afghanistan war – Republican dissent that war critics need in order to end it. The letter attempts to counteract that effect and to pressure the DNC to not engage in this sort of attack on war critics in the future.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told the Huffington Post she expects a “serious drawdown” of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011. The House Rules Committee has now approved an amendment for consideration on the war supplemental that will allow Speaker Pelosi to “put her money where her mouth is.”

There is no “emergency” requiring the House to throw another $33 billion into our increasingly bloody and pointless occupation of Afghanistan before we all go off to celebrate the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from foreign occupation.

In 2002, a U.S.-backed coup against the government of Venezuela collapsed. The failure of the Bush Administration’s effort to overthrow President Chavez sent a powerful new signal about the limits of the ability of the U.S. to thwart popular democracy in the region. After the failure of the coup, a succession of Presidents were elected across South America promising to reverse the disastrous economic policies promoted by Washington in the region through the IMF for the previous twenty years, and to promote instead the economic interests of the majority. The story of this dramatic transformation has been largely untold in the U.S., in part because the freedom narrative of South America is significantly a story of freedom from U.S.-dominated institutions. But on Friday, Oliver Stone’s documentary South of the Border opens in New York. Because it’s an Oliver Stone movie, because it’s being commercially distributed, many Americans will have the opportunity to see and hear this story.

At long last, Rep. David Obey has called the question: which is more important to America – saving teachers’ jobs, or pointless killing in Afghanistan? This could be the beginning of the end of the Washington consensus that wars and other military spending exist on their own fiscal planet. But where are the big Democratic constituency groups? It isn’t just a question of missing an opportunity: there is a freight train coming called “deficit reduction,” and if cuts in military spending aren’t on board the train, the train’s cargo will be cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits.