The Village Idiots Are Protesting. Some Things Do Not Make Sense.

Something doesn’t add up. We are not being told the whole story.

A majority of the people don’t want the war escalated. The Executive Branch does. We go to a situation that the village idiot can tell will not allow us to extricate ourselves in any reasonable amount of time with any modicum of "success", whatever that would be in this situation.

This escalation is based on a projected endgame to an unpopular war irrevocably tied to the unprecedented cooperation of a central government that has never truly existed in an ancient land (I cannot call it a country) whose existence predates Western civilization.

That is not how a democractic republic operates.

It is not the role of the Executive Branch, to act independently of the will of the people. This time, they have not even bothered manufacturing an incident like the Gulf of Tonkin incident that gave us a "reason" for the Viet Nam escalation that still divides this country. This time they are simply blatantly telling us that they are taking our kids and escalating a war that they have seriously ignored for over eight years.

This time they are just launching a war with neighborhood kids in order to kill 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and their "Taliban" allies. This time they do not even bother with a cover story. The village idiot could see a hundred holes in the rationale used for going to war.

What is going on?

Nobody show this kind of chutzpah in government unless the stakes are very high. What are the real stakes here? Who are the real players? What are the real issues? We are not being told everything. We have a right to that if we are sending our neighborhood kids to be maimed and killed and do the maiming and killing of others.

The village idiots have a right to a better explanation than the one we have gotten. In the last 24 hours we have all listened, looked and considered what we were told last night. It does not add up.

In tonight’s Washington Post in a story entitled NATO chief: Allies will provide 5,000 more troops, we learn that Europe has immediately agreed to send more troops? Why? Under normal conditions Europe would balk at something like this. This is highly uncharacteristic of the NATO allies I would think.

What does Europe know that we do not? Why are their armies willing to commit troops?

In this article, Afghanistan strategy scrutinized at Congressional hearing, we learn that both the GOP and the Democrats are having a hard time accepting the rationale that we were all given last night.

In this article, Pakistan officials wary of Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan, we learn that Pakistan is angry and confused after last night’s explanation for war escalation from the President.

In this article, Liberals back Obama — but plan to fight his decision on the war, we learn that the hard Left of the Democratic Party is mobilizing to fight the war escalation

In this article, Soldiers at Fort Bragg enthusiastic about troop plan, troopers at Fort Bragg reacted favorably to the speech.

In this article, Pelosi wants entire House to get a war briefing, the Speaker of the House is demanding a full and detailed briefing for the entire House of Representatives

And it is not simply the "left wingers" that are having a hard time with last night. George Will, hardly a liberal, writes in an article entitled This will not end well, that in fact, this will not end well. It makes no sense.

Dana Milbank has written an article entitled Obama’s Afghan deadline all but missed . Here is an excerpt.

"President Obama’s 18-month deadline for the Afghanistan surge didn’t even survive 18 hours.

In his speech to the West Point cadets and the nation on Tuesday night, Obama said he planned, conditionally, "to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011" — a gesture intended to assuage the antiwar left. But in questioning top administration officials Wednesday morning, it didn’t take long for members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to learn that this withdrawal timeline was more of a fuzzy aspiration than a commitment."

The thirty billion dollars that the President is asking for in order to pay for this escalation would totally fund his health care proposal. Why is he putting this in jeopardy? What is really going on here?

And I will end my news roundup tonight with this article entitled FDIC: Quarter of U.S. households have limited or no access to banks . About 60 million Americans, one quarter of American households are in such dire financial straits that they do not qualify to interact with a bank! And we want to spend money on a war escalation?

Here is an excerpt.

"One-quarter of American households — about 60 million people — have limited or no access to banks or other traditional financial services, with low-income and black families among the hardest hit, according to a government report released Wednesday.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. survey of so-called unbanked and underbanked consumers marks the government’s most comprehensive effort to quantify a population that has existed largely below the radar of federal regulations and financial institutions. The report found that nearly 22 percent of black households and 71 percent of families earning less than $30,000 do not use banks. In addition, 41 percent of unbanked households felt they were unlikely to open an account in the future.

"Our challenge is to make sure that banks have the appropriate range of products and services that meet the needs of all people," FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said.

The report defined unbanked households as those without checking or savings accounts. Underbanked households might have checking and savings accounts, but they rely on alternative financial services such as check cashers, payday loans and pawn shops. Such families are often vulnerable to theft and can often struggle to establish credit histories and financial security, the report said."

Does this look like a nation that can afford a $30 billion dollar war escalation to you?

I did not think so either.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)