Eideard

When the president decided to send more troops to a distant country during an unpopular war, one powerful senator had enough. He warned that the U.S. military could not create stability in a country “where there is chaos … democracy where there is no tradition of it, and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life.”

“It’s unnatural and unhealthy for a nation to be engaged in global crusades for some principle or idea while neglecting the needs of its own people,” said Sen. J. William Fulbright, then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in 1966 as the Vietnam War escalated.

Fulbright’s warning is being applied by some to Afghanistan today. The U.S. is still fighting dubious wars abroad while ignoring needs at home, says Andrew J. Bacevich, who tells Fulbright’s story in his new book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path To Permanent War.”

As the Afghanistan war enters its ninth year, Bacevich and other commentators are asking: When does it end?

They say the nation’s national security leaders have put the U.S. on an unsustainable path to perpetual war and that President Obama is doing little to stop them…

Bacevich has become a leading voice among anti-war critics. He is a retired colonel in the U.S. Army, a former West Point instructor and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He’s also a Boston University international relations professor who offers a historical perspective with his criticism. He says Obama has been ensnared by the “Washington Rules,” a set of assumptions that have guided presidents since Harry Truman.

The rules say that the U.S. should act as a global policeman. “Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland or Detroit,” Bacevich writes.

His solution: The U.S. should stop deploying a “global occupation force” and focus on nation-building at home.

RTFA. He offers an understanding of history similar to what I grew up with. Especially my studies in military history with veterans of WW2. I was “lucky” – I got to follow it as it happened, not just read about it.

Detail, analysis, and that old American bugaboo – history for people who neither wish to study history or learn from history.

Harry Reid’s owned guns longer than Republicans have been able to spell NRA

The National Rifle Association, the powerful lobbying group that has been a longtime nemesis of liberals, is facing mounting criticism from influential allies on the right and even from its own board over a series of recent moves they say are selfish, short-sighted and ultimately harmful to the conservative movement.

Critics cite a list of transgressions, from considering an endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), to endorsing moderate Republicans — and even Democrats — rather than their more-conservative challengers, to taking a cautious approach to Second Amendment court cases and President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.

And they are especially angry about the group’s willingness to play ball with Democratic leaders on campaign finance legislation vigorously opposed by congressional Republicans, powerful business groups and nearly the entire conservative movement.

Republican congressional leaders have privately conveyed their unhappiness to NRA officials, but online conservative activists linked to the tea party movement have been vociferous in their criticism.

“The NRA is all about the NRA — helping their organization and not necessarily the cause,” said influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson, who has repeatedly taken to his blog RedState in recent weeks to urge conservatives to turn their backs on the NRA…

Har! Rightwingers believe that single issue organizations should kneel to all of their ideology.

Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist, said the criticism ignores the reason the NRA is such a powerful brand: that it focuses on its core mission of advancing gun owners’ rights, rather than on trying to advance the goals of the conservative movement, writ large…

Technically, the NRA — a $300 million organization with unrivaled lobbying power, a massive member-services operation and an active political-action committee — is nonpartisan. It derives significant clout from its ties to conservative, pro-gun Democrats and in recent years has increased its contributions to Democrats as they retook Congress and then the White House.

Absolutely hilarious. These dumb bunnies, these lockstep demagogues believe that anyone who agrees with one portion of their religion must obey all the other precepts in the rightwing catechism. Perish the thought someone has an independent thought or conclusion.

I criticize the NRA often for it’s moribund politics, presuming they’ll fall in line with whatever the Teabagger Right upchucks, this week. Refreshing to see a touch of dedication to what was – after all – their original mandate.