Obama Kills His Better Half

Obama's decision to escalate in Afghanistan was sad and stupid, and made stupider by the bollocks he talked in justifying the dumb murderous thing.

There was

• "the waving of the bloody shirt" - the oldest presidential gesture in US histor - around  9/11. 
  
• the repetition of Bush's fradulent claims of The Terrorists' immediate threats to American security.
• the phallic backdrop of West Point, the martial imagery, the sentimental militarism, the "using [of]American soldiers as props" by yet another president who feels insuffficiently martial for warrior nation, the grotesque ass-kissing - "it's an extraordinary honor for me to do so here at West Point" - hello, you're the elected president, we still have a civilian government don't we?
  
• the standard self-righteous vision of America's own saintly and hence preeminent leadership in all actions, thanks to its absolute innocence of selfish motives behind violent acts ("unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination"). 
  
• no recognition of the failure and uncertainty of military interventions (cf Bacevich)
  
• no recongition of the absurd double standard of the US military presence in 130 or more countries - you must check with us about everything; we do whatever we want
  
• no recognition of blowback (Reuters found multiple expressions among Afghans within a few minutes of the speech's end)
• no recognition that the US, in escalating its occupation of a Muslim country, is doing exactly what a credible authority named Osama bin-Laden said provoked terror in the first place - occupying a Muslim country
• no ability to see that 130,000 US troups in a country is an occupation. For god's sake.
  
• no recognition of the mindless destructive waste, the death trip, the death drive.
• no recognition that noone in other countries believes any of this bullshit - strictly no one, none of it, especially not the pathetic washing of the blood off the hands at every public opportunity as though the whole world were a fundamentalist church.

Aside from the futility of the policy itself (see the whole Democracy Now broadcast December 2 for the many reasons why), it's also finished for Obama - he's cooked his own goose.

Historical evidence for this unpleasant conclusion was nicely condensed by Rep. David Obey in his honorable attempt to impose an Afghan wartax (squashed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi):

if we don’t pay for it, then the the costs of the Afghan war will wipe out every other initiative that we have to have to rebuild our economy. That’s what happened with the Vietnam War which wiped out the Great Society. That’s what happened with the Korea War that wiped out Harry Truman’s Square Deal. That’s what happened to the progressive movement back before the 20s when we went into World War I. In each case costs of those wars shut off the ability to afford anything else.”

Obama has deliberately embraced the wiping out of his own domestic policy. And that is what he will get.

Obama is going down.  During our latest undeserved ordeal, try at least to enjoy Onion stories about our most recent Teleprompter President. The big question remains:  how will we avoid going down with him?