CIA & Pentagon Incharge of US Foreign Policy?

American media, by and large, seems to be doing a great injustice to the American people by keeping them in the dark about the looming crisis in Afghanistan. The US administration is refusing to admit major reversals although there has been a daring jail break by 500 Taliban militants, and now the killing of 8 NATO soldiers (see here). Barack Obama seems to have finally abandoned the slogan for “CHANGE” and has formally handed over American foreign policy to the US war machine.

President Barack Obama plans to name CIA Director Leon Panetta defense secretary and Gen. David Petraeus, now running the war in Afghanistan, as chief of the intelligence agency, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“U.S. military and civilian defense leaders call 2011 the make-or-break year for turning around the war and laying the path for a gradual U.S. exit by 2015. The main obstacles are the uncertain leadership and weak government, the question of whether the Taliban can be integrated into Afghan political life and the continued safe harbor Pakistan provides for militants attacking U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces over the border in Afghanistan.”

More here…

But if 2011 is the make-or-break year, Barack Obama is giving the world more of the same by clearly demonstrating that the George W. Bush strategy would continue. There is no fresh diplomatic initiative to find an honorable exit from Afghanistan.

I have been writing for years that Afghanistan would ultimately prove deadly for the USA as it was for Soviet Union. The latter broke up into many nations. For centuries Afghanistan has been the graveyard of many adventurers seeking to tame the wild and fiercely independent Afghans.

India and Pakistan can be subdued, but only for some time. And to humor the ruthless US administration they may buckle under and buy war toys, nuclear gadgets as also open McDonald, Kentucky Fried chicken and departmental store chains. But Afghanistan is a different cup of tea….

Pity the whole nation is watching while the young and innocent American soldiers, along with innocent Afghan civilians, are being sacrificed at the altar of the greed and myopia of the US administration…

LAT reports that 9 Americans were killed when Afghan pilot opened fire at Kabul airport … See here…