Open-Ended Stay In Afghanistan For Da Legacy

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, War

The latest in a series of similar decisions taken by Barack Obama, as to US presence in Afghanistan, is to “effectively leave the decision of when to end America’s 14-year military involvement to his successor.”

What’s at stake this time around? The same as last time: The lives of some of the finest men this country has to offer; the prospect of being killed and crippled for naught. That last line was penned here on 12.02.09

VIA TIME:

President Obama announced Thursday a significant slowdown in the pace of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, scrapping his aim of leaving only a small U.S embassy-based force in the country when he steps down from office in 2017 …
As the Taliban insurgency in the country shows signs of renewed strength, Obama said the current contingent of 9,800 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan through most of 2016. Their focus will be counter-terrorism and training Afghan forces. “Their mission will not change,” Obama stressed, following the ending of U.S. combat operations in 2014.

But instead of withdrawing by the end of 2016 all but a residual force to be stationed at the heavily-fortified US embassy in Kabul, Obama said 5,500 American troops will remain in the country at four locations around Afghanistan.

Calling the decision “the right thing to do,” Obama said that while Afghan government forces had stepped up and fought for their country, they were not “as strong as they need to be.”

“In key areas of the country, the security situation is still very fragile and in some places there’s risk of deterioration,” he said.

The President’s reversal reflects an increasingly troubling reality: 14 years after they were displaced by the U.S.-led invasion of the country, Taliban insurgents are staging a violent comeback. Meanwhile, against the backdrop of a much-reduced foreign troop cover—the current U.S. presence, for example, is down from a high of over 100,000 in 2011—there is little sign that Afghan forces are strong enough to defend the country from the insurgency. …

MUCH MORE edifying than the non-news media’s pandering is Barely A Blog’s Afghanistan archive:

“The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn’t Care If You Read” (2012)

“Obama’s Address on the War in Afghanistan” (2009)

Wolf Blitzer Goes Berserk Over Armed Israeli Civilians

GUNS, Individual Rights, Israel

An interview about the unrest in Israel quickly devolved into a protest by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at the encouragement of legal guns on Israeli streets. Blitzer went berserk, today, as Israeli Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld expressed enthusiasm for the actions taken by the Israeli Public Service Minister, in approving steps that would make it easier for Israeli civilians to obtain gun permits.

Apparently, the Israeli authorities are keen on galvanizing an armed citizenry to help in its own defense.

I paraphrase what this nice young man said:

“Absolutely, there is no problem with that issue whatsoever.” The more the better. Let’s not forget that a week ago a Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man in the back of his neck in the Old City. He promptly pulled out his pistol and almost dispatched the cow.

It is effective. Every Israeli has gone through years of IDF training. People who have pistols and permits should walk around the streets with their weapons. There is no problem with that; it’s an important step in the public safety equation.

[SNIP]

Doing what’ll benefit your people? What’s next? Protecting your borders? Oh, Israel already does that.

Watch:

Pols Help Purge Your White Geek Sons From American High-Tech

Education, IMMIGRATION, Labor, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Racism, Technology

Presumably not even a self-loathing left-liberal, consumed with a homo-erotic longing for the people of the Third World, would wish to purge his flesh-and-blood from America’s great high-tech companies. A vote for Republicans and Democrats will guarantee that home-grown white high-tech talent is JOBLESS.

Other than Donald Trump, all the G-d-awful presidential candidates continue to carp about the need to import more Indians and Asians (the so-called best in the world) to do the high-tech work their sons and daughters, presumably, can’t do. Trump has also repeated this canard, on occasion (“we need good people, but they have to come in legally,” or something like that).

Indeed, even Mr. Trump has shown no awareness of the following fact and its implications (gleaned while writing an intro to one of the chapters in a new volume for publication):

“Strangely enough, the demographic breakdown of ethnicities in tech roles doesn’t mirror graduating computer science students. 60 percent of recent bachelor computer science grads were white and only 18 percent Asian. By comparison, for eBay, Yahoo, and LinkedIn, Asian employees actually outnumber the white employees by a sizable margin.” (“Eight charts that put tech companies’ diversity stats into perspective.”)

Can that kind of enormous ratio discrepancy, in a majority white country, be explained away by allusions to:

* differences in aptitude and productivity between whites and Asians.
* the fact that white kids are often freighted by hippie parents, who’ll urge the family’s computer-science graduate to pursue his passion in … Hollywood.
* data suggesting Americans with graduate degrees are … dumber than cohort across the developed world.

I suspect the Treason Class and its immigration policies are at work.

Trump is a quick study. He’ll pick up on the fact that DC pols are purging America’s white, geek sons from American high-tech. But inoculate himself Trump must against the professional political handlers.

UPDATED: Lowlights In Bite-Size Tweets From First Democratic Debate

Democrats, Economy, Elections, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton

Democratic Debate lowlights from the latest bite-size tweet to the first:

UPDATE (10/4): These tweets got left out of my laborious, URL cut-and-paste from Twitter to Barely a Blog (we’re working on a plugin between the two cyber-places, for auto-propagation):