Here's your "liberal network" MSNBC giving Republicans unchallenged air time to insist that we need to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, or in other words, forever. Andrea Mitchell interviewed William Cohen who informs us that we'd better be ready for another ten years there if we are going to "change hearts and minds" and stop the insurgents.
I would love for someone to explain to me how occupying a country and dropping bombs on the population is supposed to make someone love us. It's a ridiculous excuse for endless war.
Cohen: This goes down to the strategy level in terms of whether or not the American people are going to support a long term commitment because if changing hearts and minds would not be accomplished in eighteen months, it will take years, a decade or more of a substantial presence on the ground making sure that the Taliban, the insurgents don't come back. And so the notion that this is going to be... that we're going to have a reduction of the bulge so to speak or the increase in 18 months, it doesn't really deal with the issue that we still have to stay there for years to come and will the American people support that as our allies are leaving. That's a big issue.
And then we got treated to Lawrence Eagleburger a bit later in the day trashing the Obama administration for saying they are going to draw down troops in a year and for not sending in more troops as McChrystal had requested. I guess it was asking too much of the MSNBC host to inform the viewers about Mr. Eagleburger's affiliations and how they might relate to his position that endless military conflicts are just grand.
Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger became a member of the Iraq Study Group in November 2006 following the November 8, 2006, nomination of Group member Robert M. Gates by President George W. Bush to serve as Secretary of Defense and to replace Donald H. Rumsfeld, who resigned the same day.
Eagleburger, "a retired foreign service officer," served under Group Co-Chair James A. Baker III, "as deputy secretary of state and became secretary of state in August 1992 when Baker became White House chief of staff." [1] Eagleburger also served briefly as Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush.
Among other boards, Eagleburger has served on the Board of Directors at Halliburton. [2] He is also on the board of counselors for the Arabic media group Layalina Productions.
Eagleburger has either served or is serving with the following:
- Chairman Emeritus, Academy of Diplomacy
- Director, Atlantic Institute (1987)
- Director, Halliburton Company (since 1998)
- Director, International Foundation for Education and Self-Help [2]
- Director, ConocoPhillips
- Director, Stimsonite
- Director, Universal Corporation
- Director, Corning Corporation
- Director, COMSAT
- Advisory Board, OILspace
- Strategy Board Member, Appian Group
- Member, Council on Foreign Relations (1988, 2001)
- Member, Trilateral Commission (1992, 1998)
- Advisory Committee, AmeriCares (at least in 2004)
- Former Director, It's My Party Too [3]
- National Honorary Advisory Council, Council for America's First Freedom [4]
And it's not just these two. That's all I've heard out of the right wing yappers for the last two days, endless wars and continue to enrich the military industrial complex as they bankrupt our country.
