[Peace-discuss] Establishment critique

[C. G. Estabrook]

[There are two ways of criticizing a war of aggression - Japan in China, Germany 
in Russia, US in Vietnam - (1) it's a crime; and (2) it isn't working. Here the 
president of the Council of Foreign Relations - the leading establishment 
foreign policy think-tank since 1921 - is firmly in the second camp. His account 
is full of lies and misrepresentations (e.g., as to why the US launched this war 
in the first place). But it's important that the US business/foreign policy 
elite is telling the Obama administration to cut its losses in Afghanistan. 
That's what they told LBJ in regard to Vietnam in 1968 - and Johnson withdrew 
from the presidential election as a result.  Perhaps Obama will do the same, but 
it's important to remember that more US soldiers died in Vietnam after that 
point than before (35,000 of 58,000). And imperial control of SW Asia is far 
more important to the US that control of SE Asia ever was, because of the energy 
resources of the former.  Obama will do much more killing in the Middle East. 
--CGE]

	We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It.
	Here’s how to draw down in Afghanistan.
	Richard N. Haass
	Newsweek 18 July 2010

...The war the United States is now fighting in Afghanistan is not succeeding 
and is not worth waging in this way. The time has come to scale back U.S. 
objectives and sharply reduce U.S. involvement on the ground. Afghanistan is 
claiming too many American lives, requiring too much attention, and absorbing 
too many resources. The sooner we accept that Afghanistan is less a problem to 
be fixed than a situation to be managed, the better.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/18/we-re-not-winning-it-s-not-worth-it.html