Beware the promised of presidential candidates. President Obama vowed to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re back in Iraq, and we’re probably not ever leaving Afghanistan.
On Thursday, President Obama listened to the calls for more war—as opposed to the wise counsel of the congresswoman who has so consistently been correct in her assessments of the folly of endless war making in distant lands.
The president, who was elected with the strong support of Congresswoman Lee and other war foes, announcedthat the planned withdrawal by US forces from Afghanistan would be suspended. Instead, current troop levels of roughly 10,000— along with the full capacity for air strikes, like the October 3 one that devastated the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz—would remain in place through 2016. While Obama suggested that the Afghan military is “fully responsible for securing their country,” his decision to maintain US troops levels effectively guarantees that the United States will remain deeply involved in Afghanistan until after the president leaves office in early 2017.
What that means is that a third presidential administration is likely to continue cashing the “blank check” that Congress issued—despite Lee’s objection—in the eighth month of George W. Bush’s presidency. Though the issue has been little discussed by contenders in the 2016 presidential race, it is now all but certain that the next president, Democrat or Republican, will be the commander-in-chief of a war in Afghanistan that was never properly declared and that has always lacked sufficient congressional oversight.
This is precisely the reason I support Bernie Sanders. It’s time to do things differently.
Today on the show, Julianna Forlano brought the funny, and Ben Folds Five brought the music to help us segue into the weekend.
First the funny….
For our Flashback Friday segment today, we went back 20 years, almost to the day!
It was October 18, 1995 and my favorite new album was the self-titled debut of Ben Folds Five, an amazing three-piece (piano, bass, drums) band out of Chapel Hill, NC, filled with power pop and great harmonies.
They came to Los Angeles on their first tour, and joined me in the KSCA fm 101.9 “Music Hall” for their very first LA radio appearance.
If you still want more, check out the print interview I did with them in 1998 here.
And with that, this week is toast. We’ll start all over again on Monday, radio or not…
