[Peace-discuss] Nation notices pro-war liberals

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Silence on Afghanistan: If only it were a Joke
	posted by Laura Flanders on 04/02/2009 @ 09:30am

...What I wish was a joke was some of ... what's been coming in...

Like all the mail from supposedly anti-war groups who worked hard to 
elect Barack Obama on an anti-Iraq war platform, but now, when it comes 
to escalation in Afghanistan, are lining up in support.

After the president announced the deployment of 4,000 more troops (on 
top of the extra 17,000 he's already sent) Jon Soltz, an anti-Iraq war 
organizer with VoteVets wrote in the Huffington Post: "With today's 
announcement President Obama has shown that he 'gets it.' That's why we 
at VoteVets.org are supporting the plan." They even have a rah-rah 
petition going.

Americans United for Change ran hundreds of thousands of dollars worth 
of anti-Iraq war ads in 2007, but they refused to answer a Washington 
Post blogger's question about Afghanistan. Anti-war organizers - and 
plenty of generals -- agreed that there was no military solution 
possible in Iraq. But many of those who got their head round that idea 
then, seem to believe the opposite is true in Afghanistan, even though 
Obama's own advisers say the struggle there can't be won on the battlefield.

On the website of the liberal Center for America Progress there are no 
fewer than five articles supporting the president's policy, including 
one headlined "Seven Reasons Why We need to Engage in Afghanistan."

On the Afghanistan deployment, as the Center for Media and Democracy's 
John Stauber has pointed out, MoveOn has thus far been silent on 
Afghanistan.

The Post's Greg Sargent says that when MoveOn's members were recently 
polled on their priorities for 2009, the subject  didn't apparently make 
the cut.

I wish I could say APRIL FOOLS. But sadly no. Looking at the history of 
Afghanistan, I'd have to say, the joke, such as it is, is on us.

[Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on Free 
Speech TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415) on cable (8 pm ET on Channel 67 in 
Manhattan) and online daily at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com.]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/423643/silence_on_afghanistan_if_only_it_were_a_joke