Not So Fast, Obama! DEMILITARIZE Afghanistan!

The latest element in the choreographed Obama soft-shoe on Afghanistan ran -- like clockwork -- as the lead story in today's New York Times. "[W]hen the president and a half-dozen White House aides began to plan for the withdrawal, the generals were cut out entirely. There was no debate, and there were no leaks. And when Mr. Obama joins the leaders of other NATO nations in Chicago on Sunday and Monday, the full extent of how his thinking on Afghanistan has changed will be apparent. He will announce what he has already told the leaders in private: All combat operations led by American forces will cease in summer 2013, when the United States and other NATO forces move to a “support role” whether the Afghan military can secure the country or not." In other words, Obama's such a good guy, and if the American public was tempted to arise from its slumbers for a moment to question the havoc that the U.S. is wreaking all over the globe, they can just go back to sleep.

As I pointed out three months ago, the use of the NATO summit to whitewash the Obama administration's predations in Afghanistan (and Pakistan and elsewhere) has been totally predictable. The public cannot just shrug its shoulders and say, "Oh well, I guess if he's getting the troops out ...."

People must focus on the full range of problems that must be resolved -- the detentions, the drone killings, the night raids, the special forces trainers, the mercenaries, the bases, and more -- and insist that Obama and NATO DEMILITARIZE Afghanistan.

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Image: "Afghanistan pullout to dominate NATO summit" on SKNVibes website.