NATO putting on the pressure to pull out of Afghanistan

Last weekend President Obama hopped all over the financial summits in Asia to discuss global economic reform, and now this weekend, he is meeting with leaders at the NATO summit in Lisbon concerning the War in Afghanistan.

As many may remember, President Obama repeatedly stated that he wanted troops to come home by 2011 and handover the responsibility to Afghan forces. Now it appears that officials are more or less focusing to withdraw the 100,000 troops, which included the 30,000 troops ordered by President Obama last year, by 2014.

The reason for this?

Mainly because Afghanistan has shown very little signs of stabilizing itself.

It shouldn’t appear to be such a shocker to President Obama, nor for any official in our Federal Government, as Afghanistan remains one of the top unstable governments in the entire world and has dealt with a continuous civil war for many decades, both from the invasion from the Soviet Union in the 1970’s, to an internal war throughout the 1990’s which resulted in the Taliban. Yet every time there seemed to be a war going on in Afghanistan, it was never able to build itself into a stabilized country.

I seem to recall we also went into Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein. Yet after years of fighting a war in that country, Iraq is still quite unstable and the place is pretty much uninhabitable.

Of course, the primary reason for going into Afghanistan back in 2001 in the first place, was to overthrow the Taliban and dismantle the al-Qaeda network, as a direct result of the September 11^th terrorist attacks. Since that time, the U.S. Military has been unsuccessful in capturing the real ringleader behind those attacks, Osama bin Laden, ranging from theories that he is dead, or hiding out someplace in Pakistan.

President Obama has quite a bit to deal with right now in the Middle East, from leaving Iraq, to stabilizing Afghanistan, and apparently ignorant over Iran’s nuclear program.

At the NATO summit, leaders are pressuring President Obama to implement a better strategy for exiting Afghanistan by that time. While NATO has no exact departure date to be set in 2014, it is projected that the new war efforts in Afghanistan will cost American taxpayers $125 billion through these next three and a half years. Never mind the fact that the United States has enough problems on its plate including servicing its $14 trillion national debt, and providing health care for veterans that just returned from Iraq.

The real question remains as to when the United States does in fact leave Afghanistan, is that country going to be able to sustain itself as a stable government with democracy and its Afghan forces; or will it just become another breeding ground for future generations of al-Qaeda, again posing as a threat to our country’s national security, and the rest of the world?

First Post: Election 2010 Tomorrow: Vote them all out of office!

This is the first blog entry to Independent Word, a blog that I have created to discuss politics from someone like myself who has no affiliation with the Republican or Democratic parties.

I think it is painfully clear what has gone wrong in this country and why there are so many people upset. Since the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States has been left in fear. The fear being that this al-Qaeda terrorist network will do anything to destroy our country and our freedom. I remember the events of that day, I was 15 and a Sophmore in high school, and after the tragic events, our country was for the first time in probably a very long time, united.

Today, that is not so much the case.

To be perfectly honest, I am a former Republican and supported President George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks, and even supported our decision to go to War in Iraq, after Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction. Turns out that was not the case. What made it very unfortunate is that President Bush and his administration deceived and manipulated people within our government and the American people for the reason to go to war in the first place. It turns out Hussein did not have any weapons, and despite the fact that the world is safer without him in power, the country of Iraq is now riddled with anarchy and its newly formed Government unstable. Our troops have spent some eight years combating Hussein's crumbling reign, and for what really? To form a new government in Iraq.

I think President Bush should have remained focused on the decision he made right after the 9/11 attacks. A War on Terror, specifically our enemy, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. They were responsible for the attacks, no matter how many of these liberal left-wingers out there will try to deceive you and say it was an inside job, they are the one's responsible and continue to pose a threat to the security of our nation. However President Bush focused his attention on Iraq in 2003, and while he may have firmly believed in the notion that the CIA indicated that Iraq had WMD, the American people seemed to forget that the enemy was al-Qaeda.

In 2004, I voted for President Bush again, and then the truth started to really come out, the real story of Iraq and our government was continuing to be mismanaged. In 2006, I decided to leave my respected Republican party and just become an Independent. Also that year, the Democrats took back control of Congress, and many people in America, fed up with President Bush, wanted the Democrats to bring change to the country, and possible impeach him.

That was not the case. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi motioned against any form of impeachment against President Bush. Well, if everyone really thought he lied and deceived the people, why didn't they just do it? Then economy started to go downhill, and Democratic controlled Congress were supporting affordable housing and the bubble was starting.

By 2008, it was impossible to control, and the economy collapsed. Congress and President Bush supported a $700 billion tax payer bailout of Wall-Street when all of the financial banking and insurance institutions started to go under: Goldman Sachs, Chase, AIG, Washington Mutual, etc. Then, the two government sponsored lending agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also experiencing the same slew of problems.

Congressman Barney Frank, a Democrat from Mass. and Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in July of 2008 on CNBC that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "fundamentally sound, and they are not in danger of going under. They're not the best investments these days from the long term standpoint, going back, but I think they're in good shape going forward. We're going to do some things that will improve them."

Well, two months later, both of the government sponsored lending agencies collapsed. Congressman Frank took virtually no responsibility for what should have been his duty to oversee those entities, and Wall-Street, and the Securities and Exchange Commission which regulates the business sector. He should have resigned.

Then, President Barack Obama was elected. He vowed to bring change to the United States. Get us out of Iraq, restore the economy, create jobs, fix the healthcare system and reform immigration. After nearly two years under President Obama's reigme, nothing has changed. The unemployment in this country is still at 10%, his recently signed Healthcare Law which everyone has to buy healthcare has demonstrated to be very unfavorable among a majority of Americans, the national debt is over $14 trillion and is wasting time and money on suing Arizona for their immigration law, which the Federal Government refuses to do anything about.

It is no wonder why President Obama's approval rating has dropped significantly, and continues to decline about every other week. The only reason why President Obama was elected was because I think a majority of Americans in my generation were brainwashed and manipulated by a man who vowed to bring change to this country, because younger people especially were tired of President Bush. Yet, nobody really knew that Obama was this side of a Socialist, and wants to create a new agenda for the United States that is simply not going to work. As for me? I voted for the Independent candidate Ralph Nader.

I would strongly recommend Obama Zombies by conservative author Jason Mattera, and it gives some good insight to younger voters out there that bought into all of this nonsense.

But all ready, some of the younger voters that helped put him into office, are starting to realize the truth about President Obama, the Democratic controlled Congress and even the Republicans.

The truth of the matter is that President Obama has not even made any effort at all to live up to his campaign promises of 'Change'. It's lies and garbage fed to you, by just about every single politician out there who will say one thing, and then flip it around and expose themselves to being 'bought' by the special interest groups and corporate America. You cannot believe either of these political parties any longer. If you want real 'Change', then start voting all of them out of office and what a message that would send to Washington D.C.? People are fed up with taxes, a mismanaged government and failure to be represented by the people who elect them to the office they hold, and then critics have the gall to say why are there Tea-Parties being held?

So to get back to the title of this post, I would strongly suggest every voter out there take a good look at their voting history for either party and think for a moment if anything is really going to change if you vote for the Republican or Democrat. Maybe it will, although I tend to try and say away from them.

The United States simply does not have the time, resources or will, necessary to continue to put up with this partisanship and to wait around forever to implement the necessary changes in time to prevent the country from going bankrupt. President Obama and Congress have insofar, demonstrated that they are completely ineffective, with poor communication with the American people.

Tomorrow should be a real day of 'Change' in what is going on in this country, and I hope it sends a strong message to Congress and President Obama as to why people everywhere are angry.

Vote wisely and effectively!