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War 
Thu May 12, 2011 at 06:22:59 AM MST
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They tell us we're dropping about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan so we can catch that Bin Laden guy...but eventually, we're gonna catch him, and as soon as we do you can imagine that folks will be wondering why we're still over there - and I gotta tell ya, I'm one of those people.
I mean, we're over here talking about how we're so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama...but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.
And I don't think y'all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is - but today we're gonna see if we can't fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.
Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two - and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.
I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let's move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.
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Mon Apr 25, 2011 at 06:35:13 AM MST
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In "What the H*ll are we still doing there news", today it was reported that more than 400 Taliban prisoners where able to escape from a jail in Kandahar today. Apparently the Taliban were able to dig a 1000 tunnel from outside the prison and help their captive comrades to escape.
According the Taliban spokes person more than 100 of the escaped prisoners were "middle level" commanders. These are the battlefield (if you can call it that) commanders who lead small groups of insurgents in county.
It has been part of the US counterinsurgency strategy to target these leaders. The theory being that without these rather more disciplined men the small groups of Taliban fighters loose contact with the leadership in Pakistan and are much less effective.
Now just as the so-called "summer fighting season" is beginning there will be a strong up tick in the numbers of competent Taliban commanders, in the Kandahar region.
We have known for a long time that our efforts in Afghanistan were being crippled by having to support a totally corrupt and incompetent leadership (Thanks President Bush, nice pick, you couldn't have sent Brownie to run Afghanistan? He couldn't have done worse than Hamid Karzai) and a people who really don't want us there, but this just makes things all that more clear.
This is not the first time this prison has been the site of a massive prison break. Nearly three years ago, in June 2008 the Taliban attacked the prison and released 1,000 prisoners. I guess you could say we are making progress, 34 months later they were only able to release under half that number. At this rate we should be able to make that prison totally secure in another 9 years.
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Mon Aug 30, 2010 at 05:45:23 AM MST
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The anti-Muslim whirlwind continues to be reaped in the United States. For all that the Sarah Palins and Rudy Giuliani's of the world think that the fight over the Park51 Islamic Center is confined to Manhattan the reality is that it is spreading and getting more and more violent. This weekend the site of new Islamic center outside Nashville was fire bombed. No one was hurt but some very expensive construction equipment was destroyed. Then when some of the members of the group building the mosque were looking at the site, they heard shots fired and reported it to local police.
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Wed Aug 18, 2010 at 15:50:24 PM MST
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The last U.S. combat troops are pulling out of Iraq tonight. MSNBC is reporting live as the last Striker Brigade is driving out of Iraq.
Rachel Maddow is live in Baghdad. There are 50,000 non-combat troops remain, but the end of Operation Iraqi freedom is ending at this hour.
More soon.
Read More at this link.
Lets make this a open thread. What are your thoughts community? Is this the right thing at this time?
Is it the Administrations "August Surprise" for the elections?
Give me your thoughts in comments.
That's it, at 3:53am Kuwait time, the last U.S. combat troop left Iraq. The war is over, but there is still a lot to go before next June when all of our troops will be out.
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Thu May 20, 2010 at 06:20:44 AM MST
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There is a real rogue nation in the world, with at least one nuclear weapon in its possession, but it is not Iran, it is North Korea. It is unclear if the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea was actually successful in their nuclear tests or if they had what is called a "fizzle problem" (which is where the bomb explodes but fails to achieve the prompt criticality that makes weapons of this type so devastating). In any case they have been acting as though they have a weapon which they could deploy against their nearest neighbors for more than a year.
This might be marginally tolerable if it did not seem that the North Korean government was not intent on stirring up further trouble. In March of this year a South Korean corvette, the Cheonan sunk in waters just outside the boundaries claimed by the North. The immediate suspicion that this ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo have been confirmed.
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