A lot of people will make the point today that we should leave Afghanistan as soon as possible now that our top goal of going over there has been accomplished. This comes, ironically, eight years to the day after President Bush declared Mission Accomplished in regard to Iraq — and can anyone remind me what [...]

Lawyers made opening statements Tuesday as the trial began in earnest for the first former Guantanamo detainee transferred to U.S. soil. While the government portrayed the slight, baby-faced 36-year-old as a vicious al Qaeda murderer who helped plan two US embassy bombings that killed 224 people, the defense told a very different story. Although not contesting much of the evidence the government plans to present — about the bombings themselves, its destructiveness and their innocent victims — defense lawyers argue that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was a hapless young Tanzanian duped into helping his powerful childhood friends who, unbeknownst to him, were al Qaeda killers.

Chairman of the Republican Party Michael Steele made some awkward comments about Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, irking the right wing. With reaction from the left no better, we see that the War in Afghanistan is simply not a left/right issue at all.

Not only the Gulf disaster but several wars, tension with Iran, and terrorism directly or indirectly could link back to our addiction to oil. (A post by former CNN Middle East correspondent Tony Collings from his blog, capturingthenews.com.)

As I noted earlier in the week, there is a growing realization that the previously heralded counterinsurgency (COIN) plan developed by General Stanley McChrystal for US efforts in Afghanistan is failing, both in our ability to clear areas of insurgents and in the ability of the Afghans to govern cleared areas. The huge budgetary impact of the COIN strategy is finally beginning to be discussed by the Pentagon, and as a result, plans are now being floated for “counterinsurgency light“. Sadly, it appears to me that these “improvements” are just as flawed as the underlying plan. In contrast, Osama bin Laden’s plan to bankrupt the US through drawing us into expensive and unwinnable wars is working just as he described it in 2004.

As if climate change were not already enough of a political football, Osama Bin Laden has now issued a statement twisting the issue for his own agenda.

The 800-pound gorilla standing in the auditorium at West Point is still waiting for an answer to why Obama made his surge-speech for 30,000 more troops and $30 billion to pay for them.

On January 14th I posted a poll at Daily Kos asking whether or not bin Laden was alive. Most thought him dead. I’ve just posted a new one. Now, most seem to think he’s alive. Why?

Apparently David Ray Griffin has written a little book that asks a big question, “Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive?”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23691.htm

In March of 2009, former Foreign Service officer Angelo Codevilla published an essay in the American Spectator entitled “Osama bin Elvis.” Explaining his title, Codevilla wrote: “Seven years after Osama bin Laden’s last verifiable appearance among the living, there is more evidence for Elvis’s presence among us than for his.”

Apparently David Ray Griffin has written a little book that asks a big question, “Is Osama bin Laden dead or alive?”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23691.htm

In March of 2009, former Foreign Service officer Angelo Codevilla published an essay in the American Spectator entitled “Osama bin Elvis.” Explaining his title, Codevilla wrote: “Seven years after Osama bin Laden’s last verifiable appearance among the living, there is more evidence for Elvis’s presence among us than for his.”

Now before engaging in Mr. Griffin’s compelling case that bin Laden very well may be dead, I need to take a second to process the freeing but startling experience of putting down the rather rancid by now national kool-aid, and question the authority that is my government. My and our dysfunctional government.