Here we go again; more interventionist death-dealing, this time brought to you by that die-hard opponent of unnecessary wars, Barack Obama. The war in Afghanistan is all but lost, and will be no less lost with the processing of more American lives though this Muslim extremist meatgrinder. 

But our new president, perhaps in fulfillment of his campaign promise (or for God only knows whatever reason), has decided to play a dangerous game of switcheroo with the lives of our Americans soldiers.

Mr.Obama is ready to add up to 30,000 troops into Afghanistan over the next two years, a near doubling of the current American force there of about 31,000.

The outlines of the military plan for Iraq, presented to Mr. Obama in December, envisioned withdrawing of only two brigades, or some 7,000 to 8,000 troops over the next six months. But now military commanders are drawing up renewed plans for a faster withdrawal of American troops, in anticipation that President Obama will reject current proposals as 'too slow'.

But why, all of a sudden has Mr. Obama decided to get antsy about Afghanistan?. What is pertinent here, (and may be already becoming apparent) is Mr. Obama's complete lack of military knowledge, and the frightening thought of him playing general without any battlefield experience. And now is not the time to play political maestro in such a dangerous theater of war.

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War in Afghanistan is a pointless war. If Russia were there for almost 10 years with no victory strategy, then what makes Obama think we can do any better?. Osama Bin Laden may be there, but who really knows for sure where he is? And with all our great intelligence, why haven't we caught him by now? 

And what is there to gain there? Does it actually affect us one way or the other whether the warlords or the Taliban run that godforsaken country? Unlike Iraq, There are no geopolitical gains to be made there, unless the U.S. wants to wrest control of the poppy seed industry.

This Afghan war expansion is remarkably parallel to the beginning of the JFK administration. A newly-elected Mr. Kennedy, anxious to prove his toughness, was suckered by the Pentagon into entering an endless guerrilla war in Vietnam on a terrain that was not favorable to a conventional military power.  And is this expansion not a chilling deja' vu similarity?

But not surprisingly, Mr. Obama has yet to make clear his overall goals beyond calling for more forces, money and diplomacy in an increasingly violent, ungovernable country. Obama inherits the biggest financial crisis since the 30's, so can anyone give a rational explanation as to why he would want to drain the treasury further with billions for an escalated war in Afghanistan?

Is Obama playing war games just for the sake of pleasing his left? Why fire up Afghanistan before the job in Iraq is finished? Does Obama play chess with our troops just to appear as though "he's the military man" in deference to his critics on the right? This is a troublesome thought indeed.

Senior military officers have expressed uneasiness about a quick withdrawal from Iraq ,and are unclear at this point about Mr. Obama’s overall strategy. This begs the question ...Mr Obama, what's goin' on? Do you yourself even have any idea?

If he isn't careful (or prudent), escalating the Afghan theater may prove to be a horror movie for Obama far worse than the Iraq war was for Bush. And one cannot ignore the obvious camparisons of the two presidents, neither of which ever experienced the fright of combat, acting like it's some sort of adventure; when in reality, any veteran will always tell you; war is hell! 

And Afghanistan is an unwinnable hell hole that will make Vietnam look tame in comparison.

Perhaps it's time for President Obama to have our soldiers on his mind instead of playing war games. Our American soldiers could be guarding OUR southwestern borders, patrolling our coasts, and actually defending us from terrorist attacks-- instead of dying halfway around the world while trying to impose American-style democracy on some lawless Muslim country.

Violence has reached record levels this year, and Afghanistan is now considered a deadlier battlefield than Iraq, where the Taliban have the "home field" advantage.

And what of the numbers? Obama's surge of 30,000 troops--into a country the size of Texas, with hostile tribes and warlords lurking in every province-- is a mere military spit in the ocean. Even 130, 0000 would be inviting only a longer war of attrition, similar to the Vietnam fiasco.

As of now, it cannot be ignored-- the parallels between 'Nam and Afghanistan are starkly evident. More buildup is like pouring money down a rat hole, with no apparent strategy of how to win. It is much more than a question of how fast you can add troops; it includes calculating how much risk you are willing to take, with no apparent goal other than, what---killing the enemy?

 This Afghan war he wants to escalate is both culturally, politically, and militarily unwinnable.

But Obama chooses to play professor backwards. He's abandoning completion of the already-won war in Iraq for political reasons, and chooses to fight the unwinnable one in Afghanistan for the vague possibility of hunting down Bin Laden. 

But finding Bin-Ladin will be like finding the cure for cancer: we know he's out there, but where should we look? Osama fought the Russians for a decade in Afghanistan as a Mujahadi freedom fighter, and knows of thousands of secret hiding places. And the man seems immune from betrayal.

Unlike Iraq, the Afghan terrain is like fighting on the moon--forbidding, and it nullifies all possible U.S. advantages such as armor, or the fast mobility of the humvees. The U.S. soldiers, exposed down below on narrow mountain passages, have no place to hide , while the enemy above remains invisible. Classic military flanking maneuvers have little chance of success.

If Obama had the analytical experience of a war veteran commander in chief, he'd realize that the best way to escalate would be not more ground forces, but adding more air forces-- the drones, always hovering menacingly  from above. These are the only way to countermand the height advantage of the enemy Taliban fighters, who know every square inch of the battle terrain.

But with vast new numbers of airborne spy drones patrolling, the Taliban would be forced to stay in perpetual cover, and give a huge strategic advantage over to our guys on the ground. "Death from above" would be a constant threat to the enemy and would save American troops the risk of-search and destroy missions through unfamiliar terrain.

And while were talking strategy, how’s this for a tactic--night vision goggles! Why not use the one technological advantage that could really checkmate the enemy? If the U.S. was the only side who wore them and only moved at night--- then why not do it? The Taliban would be faced with hiding by day from the drones, and forced to keep a defensive posture at night from Americans who can see them, but remain nearly invisible by night themselves.

The Afghan theatre is the total opposite of the Iraqi urban conflict.  Political settlement in Afghanistan is the only possible victory, because once troops are withdrawn, the same problem emerges: the Taliban snakes will slither again out from under their rocks, and resume their bullying posture of religious extremism.

Obama should understand that the history of Afghanistan is unique;  the expansive countryside is so geographically isolated by mountains, it is a land of a thousand territories. There can be no lasting military victory

President Obama is going to inherit the problem the Russians had roughly 25 years ago during the Soviet jihad. You cannot tame the people in this craggy, hostile country where the only rule of law is the bribe given to each of the thousand of local warlords that change sides accordingly.

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But Obama must make good his political promises. And so, next January 21, he will huff and puff mightily away in his inaugural speech..."We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority,"

Yes, and in so doing, thousands of additional American troops are likely to perish, far more  than the 4,000 American casualties suffered in Iraq. But at least we're about to become victorious there, while Afghanistan, by all accounts of history, is unwinnable.

No nation has ever brought the Afghanis to their knees.

From Alexander the Great in 338 B.C. to the USSR in 1980, Afghanistan is always the 'invaders' graveyard.

And Obama is only fooling himself  to think the U.S. is an exception.

But without agency or any intelligence firsthand experience, how would a clueless Panetta be able to design a mission, or interrogate a key Al Quida operative, with radical Islam burgeoning worldwide, and the Taliban on the rise in Afghanistan? Is this any time for on the job training?

Panetta, a good manager-type of executive, is filling a position requiring someone with a adequate set of skills that would give him the AUTHORITY needed to run a spy agency. After all, would any big-city mayor have any hope of keeping his job if he were to appoint someone as police chief who'd never been a cop himself? Is there any difference here? This is nothing short of a massive blunder on Obama's part, despite what his liberal supporters of the appointment may say.

Obama seems to be conducting some mad scientist experiment with his attempt to prove that one need not be sophisticated in the field of spying to become the head of a department of spies. Obama is now playing with the safety of America. Panetta has absolutely no experience in the intelligence world, but was once the director of the Department of Management-basically another Clinton pencil-pusher running a new show. And if the country is attacked because of this, who would take responsibility? The liberal left, who basically coerced Obama into making such a clueless appointment?

Yes; it's that "change" thing again. Panetta has no knowledge of CIA structure or staffing, and will undoubtedly cause agency morale to plummet. This also means all the old CIA hands will be fired that support coercion, interrogation, eaves-dropping, and prisons. So who will replace them? The Peace Corps?

With Panetta at the CIA's helm, clandestine is out, and transparency is in. So now, let everyone in Congress be apprised of the agency's every move-that's the way to do it! Play "I've got a secret" on Capitol Hill. Homeland security is out, and Pollyanna is in. From now on, we'll make nice with Al Quida, and they'll certainly return the favor. Perhaps their next planned attack won't be as harsh. Maybe they'll switch from boxcutters to nail files in the new Panetta-Obama era of being nice to the bad guys.

And maybe if Iran's president, Ahmadinejad, NOW decides to attack Israel, or Osama hits New York again; Mr. Panetta and Obama can send a "strongly-worded" message to remind them that they're not being nice. So in this new era of being cute with our enemies, what would happen if maybe we did capture Osama? We wouldn't (couldn't) interrogate him under the new ground rules?

Yes; let's be nicer to our enemies, just turn the other cheek, and see how nicely they return the favor. If we had found Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 plot, and EXECUTED him, we might have avoided both the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars, prevented the 3000 casualties of 9-11; and the World Trade Center towers would still be proudly standing in lower Manhattan. Yes, that’s what a good, FUNCTIONING, CIA intelligence agency can do.

But the operative word here is 'functioning'- A CIA with no ability to get tough might as well become a branch of the USO, according to the liberal leftists. After all, the goal of the CIA is intelligence-not public relations, as Obama has suddenly come to believe by appointing the 70 year old Panetta .

But is there a reason Obama feels he needs to give Panetta a job? Is this some sort of a quid pro quo? This is a very poor fit based on Panetta's lack of experience. Does Leon have something on Barack, or could he possibly be this clueless?

Former intelligence veterans have a litany of concerns about what will amount to the most inexperienced intelligence director to be appointed since the creation of the CIA in 1947. And current employees are enraged that a political hack is being named CIA director. It's demeaning to the entire 20,000 person staff. It's painfully obvious to anyone with agency experience that Panetta is unqualified to lead the CIA-end of discussion-period!

In choosing Leon E. Panetta to be the next CIA director, President-elect Obama appears to have concluded that a spy chief who understands politics, may be better equipped to carry out the incoming administration's national security agenda than one who understands espionage

This is like appointing the head of Starbucks as director of the FBI, because that person has great organizational experience. And what if the FBI had no powers of interrogation? What instead, if our public enemies were given coffee and donuts, and encouraged to discuss their experiences? How well would that work out?

Could the United States have won World War II without intelligence? Because the OSS was capable of killing certain Nazi operatives (and used clever deception), the Allies were able to convince Hitler that the D-day invasion would occur at Calais rather than Normandy. This shortened the war by at least a year, and possibly saved the entire western world!

Could the independent state of Israel have survived without its fabled intelligence force, the Mossad? It was the Mossad that uncovered the Arab plans for the 1967 Six Day war, where the Israelis knew the Egyptians and Syrians were coming; and the resulting pre-emptive Israeli air strikes prevented disaster and gave the conflict its name, "6 -Day War". How many lives were saved because of the brevity of this war?

But this is what intelligence agencies do --by playing hardball with the enemy (torture, interrogation, coercion, deception) you trade some human suffering on the part of your foe for the saving of your own countrymen's lives, and avoid any surprise attacks.

This is the purpose of intelligence-it's security. You save your own country from possible disaster through pre-emptive intelligence operatives: spy-vs-spy...We vs. Them. That's the real world out there. You will not be safe by playing softball with the enemy. Being  sneaky is a necessity- not by being open and playing goody-goody.  

For years after World War II, U.S. intelligence forces had done their job well. The CIA succeeded in stalemating the KGB during the Cold War era in Asia . The agency had been staffed by the former members of the OSS , our World War II spy service. Before 1977, the CIA was highly effective world wide in keeping Washington informed as to what our enemies were up to.

But then came the election of Jimmie Carter in 1976, and the sad dismantling of a once-proud, highly-motivated intelligence organization. Carter, like all liberals, believed in being "fair". So what did Carter see as the first place to single out for reforming? It was those nasty, dastardly, secretive, 'immoral' CIA brigands. After all, hadn't the CIA taken part in assassinations, deception, blackmail, torture, and other knavish misdeeds during the 50 's and 60's?

Today, it can be noted back in history when Carter made one of the most ill-conceived presidential decisions of all time: He issued an executive order that placed all nine U.S. intelligence agencies under the coordination of one man: CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who was 54 years old at that time

Stansfield Turner had no agency or intelligence experience of any kind. He was Jimmie Carter's college roommate at the Naval Academy. Carter probably would have done just as well to appoint Mr. Rogers, or Mr. Magoo for that matter, because like Carter, Turner saw the world through rose colored glasses, and was blind to the true realities that indeed, America had many implacable enemies around the world, especially in the Middle East

In October of 1977, Turner issued an administrative order to sharply curb many of the clandestine practices that had brought the CIA much of its criticism from the liberal members in Congress back then (i.e. Idaho Senator Frank Church). 

Long time CIA veterans began complaining about Mr. Turner's abrasive, arrogant style. So Turner callously decided to clean house. On Halloween of '77, Turner circulated a photocopied memo informing 800 staffers (mostly Republicans) of their dismissal. Many of the people fired were seasoned agents, going all the way back to the OSS of World War II. A lot of them spoke Arabic, and were fluent in other foreign languages.

It has been noted by many historians that Stansfield Turner was the single worst senior presidential appointment in U.S. history. Turner has been described as..."a CIA traitor, appointed by Jimmie Carter to castrate the agency...In eliminating virtually all human intelligence on the ground, he put the U.S. at a strong disadvantage, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan".  

But Obama and his idealogues have decided to repeat History 30 years later, just like the last liberal president who ruined the CIA with an inexperienced, party hack appointee.

Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels that have roiled the U.S. intelligence community for a half century. But, as a veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama expects of him.