This article is troubling to me.  As I see it, beneath the outward goal of a “stable Afghanistan” lies the military complex’s truer motivations which are to control the immensely valuable strategic position which is Afghanistan.  They would love to have a permanent bases right there.  It would complete the strategic positioning of bases in Iraq, giving the US military good positioning from a global power point-of-view. There is also I think an egotistical desire to be the first to conquer and tame Afghanistan.  They are so blinded by illusions of American excellence that they don’t see the quagmire they are walking into.  Thinking of a line from Apocalypse Now, the Taliban have only two ways home, victory or death.  They will not give up, and in the end will win unless it becomes a fight to the death for the US.

It won’t become a fight to the death for America because it isn’t really about survival of us or our way of life.  Despite what Marie makes out, this isn’t really that important from a strategy of preventing terrorism.  I think terrorism is best prevented by international cooperation, good intelligence gathering and police-work. Terrorists only need a room to plan an attack not a country.  An attack could be planned from anywhere.  None of the 911 attackers came from Afghanistan.  If one foreign country could host them then another could.  We can’t conceivably hope to stabilize every unstable country.  We just have to live with a certain amount of threat, like we do with every other danger.  Safety is an illusion anyway.

No, Marie, terrorism did not “demand that we go to war in Afghanistan.” This is the same sort of excuse pro-war forces have always used. The truth is, we decided to make war. Alternatives were available.

If eight years of failure have not been enough to persuade you of the folly of this war, I don’t know what would be. One thing I do know, no more Afghans should die just because some people in the United States are “scared” of another 9/11.

91% supported the war on October 7, 2001, the day of the invasion. Now some people have been able to change their minds, based on their observation and experience. It will be too bad for President Obama, and the rest of us, if he can’t draw the necessary conclusion.

U.S. out of Afghanistan!

End the Occupation Now!

Marie, that is some sorry assed “reporting/analysis”.

So we need to occupy all islamic countries so some discontents (who exist because we are there in the first place) can’t sit in a tent and plot attacks.  What a great strategy! That will justify any war your little heart desires.

Al Qaeda reading this sort of garbage can rest assured that there 911 attack was much more successful than the 3000 americans killed and the destruction of the twin towers.  The have managed to drain far more resources and create much more damage due to our crazy self destructive response.  Bin Laden himself said so much.  Seems to me they need only pull an attack off once a decade and we will do the rest ourselves.

I am, and always have been, an Obama supporter, but the US presence in Afghanistan is something that I have trouble supporting.  The history of the country, the history of countless other nations before the US trying to conquer and develop Afghanistan country—this history should show the US that we will not succeed in “defeating the terrorists”.  We cannot build a nation.  We cannot bring democracy to Afghanistan.  Democracy is not a fair election—it is much, much more than that and it starts with the people of the nation.  US should get out NOW!

Like most supporters of this military incursion in a “far away land”, M Cocco demonstrates no compelling reason to stay in Afghanistan. None. Supporting the President on his policy, when he is wrong? Why, what is the purpose, what is there to win, how will we know when we have won, and how many Americans and Afghans have to die before we know it.

We need to leave now, to save money (hundreds of billions), lives (thousands of Americans and Afghans), health care (which will be more affordable after we leave), Obama’s presidency (he’s going down if he stays) and our worldwide reputation. But I guess for the other, those reasons aren’t good enough to leave.

Challenge to the author: give me ONE reason to stay, a real reason. An actual goal that can be achieved. If you are worried about Afghan women, grant any woman who want it asylum in the US, and call it a day.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

Louis Proyect:
‘What is Marie Cuckoo’s warmongering doing on a website devoted to peace?’

Evidently the proprietors feel that the pore little old neo-cons can’t get a hearing anywhere else.

Don’t you just love the war mongering drivel? Some so-called progressives are more concerned if Obama kills a fly in the Oval Office. Never a word about his “right war” global terrorist strategy against the impoverished people of Afghanistan.
If you actually buy into the accepted NINE ONE ONE scenario, that “plot” that Ms. Coco (Chanel?) speaks of, was not even hatched in Afghanistan, but in Milan Italy, back in 1998. But as far as National Security fairy tales are concerned, that version is found in the apocrypha section of their “war on terror” bible.
And now we have America’s Number One buppie, lying to the citizens that when it comes to Af-Pak war, we have no choice but to fight.
Obama might have won the election, but when it comes to war mongering, he is the biggest loser of them all.

I say, no! No! US out of Afghanistan—swiftly! Or else this country will suffer the Soviet Union’s fate, if not worse ... a LOT worse.

IMHO, there should be a vote of the Afghans as to whether or not the United States is needed in their country, and if the majority of the Afghanistan people want the United States OUT, the United States should leave, after all, it WAS NOT any of the Afghanistan people that attacked the United States or the people of Pakistan, or Iraq. Saudia Arabia was the prime nation of the attackers; very nearly all the attackers were Saudi Arabian, so Marie Cocco’s dog won’t hunt.

If we really want to get the Taliban out of Afghanistan, we should be more like them.  They give direct aid to the Afghani people, not to corrupt warlords.  We blow them the hell up, bomb their weddings, and arrest them at the word of some corrupt ‘ally’ then hold them while ignoring all international law on the treatment of prisoners.

Afghanistan has only two resources.  Poppy plants, and access to oil that can currently only get to the world market through Russian control.
If we started works project run by mideasterners and hired Afghanis instead of Haliburton, we would start to win the war of hearts and minds, the only way this war can be won.

What is Marie Cuckoo’s warmongering doing on a website devoted to peace?

The history of the world is that nations subdue other nations and export the resources of the subdued nations back to their own nation without the subdued nation receiving benefit from their own nation’s resources; this was true before Europeans came to America; this was true after Europeans came to America; and this is true for America and the rest of the world at the present time.

If America, the United States, is going to stay in Afghanistan or any other nation in pursuit of that nation’s resources, the subdued nation must share EQUITABLY in their own resources, rather than as has been done through out the history of the world.

MC’s “terrorist network” learned and trained here in our country. If I follow the warped justification of Marie Cocco we should have been under martial law and occupied by our own army since 9/11.

The Washington Post is a neo-con outfit; here’s another bit of evidence.

The Taliban, unpleasant as the are, did not attack us. The terrorist cells that took root there were planted and funded by our own CIA. The Taliban offered to turn Bin Laden over to us on more than one occasion. The Bush regime informed Germany that we would invade Afghanistan in August of 2004, the month before the WTC attack. Our war in Afghanistan was about securing and creating a compliant puppet state so we could build an oil pipeline. It is a criminally insane idea that keeps killing. What we’ve created so far is a torture state and kill zone with the potential to destabilize Pakistan and create a nuclear conflagration in the region.

The Taliban, unpleasant as the are, did not attack us. The terrorist calls that dells that root root there were planted and funded by our own CIA. The Taliban offered to turn Bin Laden over to us on more than one occasion. The Bush regime informed Germany that we would invade Afghanistan in August of 2004, the month <u>before the WTC attack</u>. Our war in Afghanistan was about securing and creating a compliant puppet state so we could build an oil pipeline. It is a criminally insane idea that keeps killing. What we’ve created so far is a torture state and kill zone with the potential to destabilize Pakistan and create a nuclear conflagration in the region.

The problem as I see it is this, too many empires have tried to conquer the land of Afghanistan and failed! Not just failed but failed miserably in thousands of different ways.
America, is no different. The power structure in our country, the Congressional-Military-Industrial Complex,
thinks that by winning a war, they can prove their worth to the world and that the world will acquiesce to the demands of this ever-growing and earth-gouging group. We, the people, cannot and should not allow this to happen. We are the government of this nation, not the Congressional-Military-Industrial cabal that seeks to turn this country into a neo-fascist, military dictatorship with total control
over the lives of the people of this country.
I thought much better of Marie Cocco, now I see the real person come out, an acquiescing, propagandist for the elite of our country. What in the world was TD, thinking by allowing this drivel to be put up on their website? I can think of only one thing, freedom of the press, and freedom of thought. But are we condemned to a purgatory of articles such as this? Can we the people regain the control of our government that was instituted by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Hopefully yes! But if we continue down the same path as the imperialists before us we are doomed to the same destruction as they. We cannot and should not allow this to happen.
What is needed now is a people’s revolution, a soft glove, non-violent takeover of this countries power structure.
We can no longer sit on the fence, by the wayside looking for someone else to do the work of changing our system back to what it should be. We are responsible and can change things, if and only if, all people, gather together to take on the power-elite and bring the lawbreakers of the last and the current administration to justice.

When I first herd the planes were hijacked with “box cutters” I smelled a rat. What kind of people would cower like sheep in the face of such a small and powerless threat? Something big is about to happen, folks. Got gas for your generator? got food? A gun?....

Bush painted us into a corner when he invaded Afghanistan! Go to the library and read some history, will you Marie?

Afganistan is the place where empires go to die.  Everyone knows that you cannot win there, so why continue this farce. 
All that is going on is that the Democrats must put on the Warface so they won’t be called wimps by the barbarian Republicans.
So again our brave troops have to die, to prove that Americans are “tough”.  The bloodthirsty madness of the Republicans or the fear of wimpishness by the Democrats.  Either way our children are dying for nothing.

Marie Coco must really be a “cuckoo” “loca” (Spanish for crazy) to naively believe that “it was there in a faraway land of poverty, tribal animosities and historic hostility toward outsiders that a sophisticated terrorist network was allowed to take root, to flourish and plot the spectacular attack.”

Instead of becoming a voice for warmongering propaganda, she should be calling for a serious independent investigation that will inevitably conclude that the 9/11 tragic event was in fact an inside job and a false flag operation.

It does not stand to reason or credibility that such group of ragtag local Afghani fighters, with primitive weapons and technology, always on the run and hiding in medieval caves, are capable of planning and executing such a sophisticated operation, which America and all the West, with their sophisticated intelligence and technology could not even conceive that it could happen.

Marie Coco, you’re an irrelevant warmongering propagandist, and next time I see your name attached to such stupid nonsense I would not even bother to read it.

Reading this piece can only make a person sad. Sad for Marie Coco, certainly. Sad that responsible editors will reprint this ignorant tripe nationwide. Sad that anybody thinks that we owe Obama anything. Sad for the US and civilian bodies that are stacking up day after day. Sad for eight long years of stupidity with no end in sight. And sad that the American citizenry are aquiescing to it. George Will came out for withdrawing from Afghanistan today, and Marie thinks we owe it to Obama to stay the course. Too much sadness for words….

what the hell is this?  the new republic?  marie, i had a better opinion of you, and TD, you’re sliding ..

Why do we need Bushite bullshit when Marie and truthdig and provide us with the same bullshit without Bush?  think of all the money we could save if we combined bullshit in one Progressive-Conservative bullshitter.  I volunteer;  I’ll provide an address to send the checks.
          ***
WATCH OUT.  Al Quaida and bin Laden will get you if you don’t WATCH OUT.  We have to fight them over there so we don’t fight them over here.  They have developed nuclear powered war canoes that have little feet that can scurry over land.  Bush has kept us safe so far from them and now it is Obama’s turn.  There hasn’t been a single war canoe that has gotten through our defeneses.  And no flying saucers either.

It would just be horrible if we withdarw.  Indeed it would, but for the US power system not for the US people.  It would totally end the US pretense of being a Superpower, and of Nato of being a real military alliance.  Of course Marie doesn’t say that, telling the simple truth being unsophisticated for a experienced truther like herself.  And Truthdig.  Conveying the crap hot off the presses straight from the ruling class to you.