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It's still not clear how they'll try to do it, but it is clear that our pressure is being felt.
The House majority whip asked Democrats how they would vote on the war escalation funding alone and on it in combination with useful, sane legislation. It appears likely that more than 40 Democrats said they would vote No in either case. If so, that's an accomplishment to take into consideration and build on, even if the Democratic leadership manages to pass the war funding.

On Tuesday they brought unemployment insurance up for a vote in a stand alone bill on no notice. They did so in a way that required a two-thirds vote, and they fell short. But they can bring it up in a way that requires a simple majority and pass it. House Majority Leader Hoyer has it on the schedule as a possibility for Wednesday. They can bring everything up as stand-alone bills, and maybe they will.

Has it occurred to President Barack Obama that Gen. Stanley McChrystal might actually have wanted to be fired -- and thus rescued from the current March of Folly in Afghanistan, a mess much of his own making?

McChrystal leaves behind a long trail of broken promises and unfulfilled expectations. For example, there is no real security, at least during the night, in the area of Marja, which McChrystal devoted enormous resources to pacify this spring. Remember his boast that he would then bring to Marja a "government-in-a-box" and thereby offer an object lesson regarding what was in store for those pesky Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second largest city?

It is now clear that there will be no offensive against Kandahar anytime soon. For the 500,000 people in Kandahar, this is surely a good thing, but it is a huge embarrassment for McChrystal and his former boss, now his successor, the never nonplussed Gen. David Petraeus.

When McChrystal and his undisciplined senior aides let aRolling Stonereporter know what they really thought of the "intimidated" Obama and most of his national security team, Obama and his advisers took the bait.

Journalist Michael Hastings has given Rolling Stone magazine a graphic account of the arrogance, disarray and ineptitude that distinguish what passes for President Barack Obama's policy on Afghanistan. For those of us with some gray in our hair, the fiasco is infuriatingly reminiscent of Vietnam.

In blowing off steam to Hastings, NATO/U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his top aides seem to have decided that, at this low point in the Afghanistan quagmire, political offense is the best defense for a military strategy sinking from waist to neck deep. In interviews with Hastings, McChrystal and his team direct mockery at many senior-level officials of the Obama administration. For instance, one of McChrystal's aides refers to Obama's national security adviser James L. Jones as a "clown."

When the wheels are coming off, it doesn’t do much good to change the driver.
Whatever the name of the commanding general in Afghanistan, the U.S. war effort will continue its carnage and futility.

Between the lines, some news accounts are implying as much. Hours before Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s meeting with President Obama on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that “the firestorm was fueled by increasing doubts -- even in the military -- that Afghanistan can be won and by crumbling public support for the nine-year war as American casualties rise.”

It now does McChrystal little good that news media have trumpeted everything from his Spartan personal habits (scarcely eats or sleeps) to his physical stamina (runs a lot) to his steel-trap alloy of military smarts and scholarship (reads history). Any individual is expendable.

Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. U.S. Constitution Amendment I

An old cliché says that anyone who has herself for a lawyer has a fool for a client. Nevertheless, going to trial in Washington, D.C., this past June 14, I and twenty-three other defendants prepared a pro se defense. Acting as our own lawyers in court, we aimed to defend a population that finds little voice in our society at all, and to bring a sort of prosecution against their persecutors.

"If Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular," a senior adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal says in a recent Rolling Stone magazine article called “The Runaway General.”

The article quotes Gen. McChrystal and his staff criticizing President Obama and disparaging civilian leadership, revealing deep divides within the National Security Council. It has resulted in the general’s removal as Commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. But dismissing Gen. McChrystal addresses the symptom, not the disease. A change in command won’t end the war only a change in strategy will, and that starts with the President.

Take action now.

Call your Representative and tell them that you support an exit strategy for Afghanistan. Ask them to co-sponsor the McGovern exit strategy bill, H.R. 5015, and to urge other Representatives to co-sponsor the bill.

Wage peace!

Call Patrick 'Pat' J. Tiberi (202) 225-5355 now. Tell them you want an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

There are lots of ways to change Congress that falsely appear easy, that would alter the rules and patterns of behavior if only Congress were already fixed and willing to make the changes, or if we owned the television networks, or if people could suddenly hear what they're paid good money never to hear. But I've got a way to change Congress that is actually easy.

Congress lacks leadership. There is a progressive caucus, but it has never fought for anything. It doesn't fund its members' campaigns. It doesn't withhold votes needed for passing bills. It just does rhetoric. There are committees, but they don't subpoena, they don't send the police to pick up witnesses, they don't fine witnesses who refuse to answer questions. Congress thinks oversight was an oversight. If asked to put future generations into debt to fund wars, Congress asks "Would you like a side of drones with that?" Congress doesn't want power.

President Obama must fire General Stanley McChrystal and get out of Afghanistan....for starters.

There is much more at stake here than meets the eye.

History is full of generals with deep contempt for democracy.

General McChrystal has a very particular significance. Last year, as Obama weighed the Afghan situation, McChrystal circumvented him entirely. In an act of profound public contempt, the general went directly to the world media with a high-profile campaign that was entirely inappropriate to a civilian democracy.

He should have been fired right then and there.

But McChrystal used the brass on his chest to sell the nation a bill of goods---that the war in Afghanistan could be "won." It would be "difficult," of course, requiring "sacrifice."

But exactly what "victory" meant, and how that would make the United States safer, more just and prosperous, was never clear.

What WAS clear was who would die and who would pay.

But with the corporate media lapping up his every word, McChrystal upstaged the numerous political, strategic, financial and military experts who disagreed with him.