Move over Grayson, James McGovern: another Dem who speaks his mind.

[rgbecker]

Did you see the news hour last night? Here's a link to a discussion about our role in Afghanistan what with the recent "Election" of Karzai. If you like Grayson's outspoken ways you might enjoy McGovern's straight talk.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/module.html?mod=0&pkg=3112009&seg=2

[rgbecker]

1. Here's some of the transcript which also available, in case your video is slow like mine.

Election was a 'joke'
REP. JIM MCGOVERN: Look it, I don't know. But let me just say that, after eight years -- that's long this war has been going on -- billions and billions of U.S. dollars, we have lost, you know, countless civilians, and we have lost, you know, thousands of American lives, this is the best that we can get, a president of a country who is now being installed by default?

By all accounts, the election was not only a setback, but it was a joke. And, you know, is this where -- is this where we're going to put all our money? Our men and women are going to die for this?

This is a country, Gwen, that it is not accustomed to a centralized government. This is the government that, quite frankly, is the government that the U.S. pushed for. And -- and it's corrupt. And it's incompetent.

And I -- you know, and I think we have to think twice before pouring more money into -- into this system. And I certainly do not believe that, by expanding our military footprint there, we're going to accomplish anything.

By all accounts, by establishing the foreign military footprint in Afghanistan, we are actually helping the Taliban get recruits. I think we need to move in a very different direction. Our original mission was to go after al-Qaida. Al-Qaida has now moved to Pakistan.

We're told by General Jones that there are less than 100 members of al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Do we need 100,000-plus American troops to go after less than 100 members of al-Qaida? We need to rethink this policy and -- and reevaluate what we're doing.