It just gets worse.

The war plan has no advocates outside of the Pentagon and a reluctant Congress.  But it will pass muster and be implemented.  That is certain now.

In less than thirty six hours, things have gone from bad to worse for President Obama’s War plans on the level of believability. But it will pass.

No one, NO ONE, who is a major player in this Defense Department driven debacle is buying off on it except the idiots at the Bafoon-a-gon. The plan has more holes in it than a five pound wheel of Swiss Cheese. But it will pass.

A fifth grader in danger of repeating the year for behavior problems can see that this thing is a compromise mish-mosh of different and competing Defense Department scenarios and that the President was trying to keep the generals and admirals happy by caving-in to their "plans" for American "defense" in Afghanistan.  But it will pass.

We are defending ourselves against 100 Al Qaeda psychotics in the deserts and high chapparal of Afghanistan by spending $30 billion dollars of monies that we do not have on an enemy that is, at best, named for an accounting entity for Wahabist fruitcakes with a death wish. It makes no sense.  But it will pass. 

I was watching television news last night and virtually no one in our government is competely pleased with this "plan" that apparently the flag rank officers have forced Obama to accept.

Even the hard right Republicans, sputtering and posturing on television last night, had a hard time explaining the reason that they support this insanity other than the normal flag waving, jingoistic, manifest destiny goofiness that they portray so well across a number of issues.

Let me say it again.

The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. They are Wahabists, as are the semi-mythological organization that we have dubbed Al Qaeda that actually did attack us. But the Qaedas are gone in Afghanistan, save 100 psychotics who are still there. We won. We drove them out. They are gone. Our own intelligence people tell us this.

So now we are going to turn on the Taliban? Why? There are Taliban like ultra-fundamentalists all over the Muslim world. They are everywhere. We are going to eventually fight them all now? Apparently the answer here is "yes".

Okay, I am now going to commit open and deliberate national defense heresy. I am just going to say it.

The generals and admirals and Defense Department wonks are obviously acting in the interests of the various war industry captains and energy cartel magnates and emerging market manipulators that they actually represent and for whom they either already work or from whom they wish to gain employment after retirement.

This is a setup so that the generals and the admirals and the Under-Secretaries who presently are employed in the American national defense infrastructure gain guaranteed employment for themselves after their government tour of duty is over.

There. I have said it.

This entire crazy and enormously expensive "plan" has been foisted upon the President and the rest of us by a Cold War Defense Industry that has no more reason to live and is struggling desperately to find a way to keep its $680 billion dollar budget alive year after year and growing as each year goes by.

This is what b.s. looks like at the highest levels. This is the last desperate struggles of a Defense Department that has no one to defend against. Now we simply create enemies to keep the defense budget moving forward, year after year, decade after decade.

We owe them all a favor actually. We could have never seen this unless the war industry captains got so scared that they overplayed their hand. It is obvious now. This is a war for all men, for any and all purposes under the sun, against any convenient enemy that we can claim has walked into our sights and we can destroy.

This is a war to keep America’s gated communities filled with super rich people in the armaments industries.

This entire thing is a sham.

In today’s Washington Post we read an article entitled Pakistanis voice concerns about Obama’s new Afghanistan plan . They are not buying into it and supposedly the plan is based on their needs.

Dana Milbank has written an article entitled A deadline written in quicksand, not stone . That pretty much says it all. 

In the On Leadership Forum in the Post we read various opinions and reactions to the question How to develop Afghan leaders?

In the New York Times today we read an article entitled Obama’s War Speech Wins Over Some Skeptics. I am not in that group.

In this article, Some Allies Wary of New Troop Pledges , we now find two days after the speech that the supposed NATO allies who were going to send troops are hedging their bets. They are not as onboard as Obama thought they were.

In this article Obama Team Defends Policy on Afghanistan , we find out that Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton are rigorously defending the Obama Plan for More War. There is no surprise there.

And finally in this entire heartbreaking mess we find that the Associated Press is reporing in this article, Congress appears poised to back Obama war plan , that Obama will get his war.

I just don’t get it.  But then, I am not important enough to matter.

Get informed and stay informed. An informed veteran is a comfort to his friends and a danger to his adversaries.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)