“one cannot realistically lump all like-minded people into a whole.” GoRightYoungMan

Your “lesson learned“ is as fraudulent as the thousands of alleged “lessons learned,“ churned out by U.S.Army-types over the years, which have not been implemented.  For example, what was the lesson learned from the 1st “Gulf War” in which LTG Frederick Franks accomplished the assignment with a double handful of casualties?  His fat-ass “supervisor,” who brown-nosed Rumsfeld during evening meals at 4&5 star hotels, criticized him for not doing it faster, which would have caused AN INCREASED NUMBER OF CASUALTIES!  Of course, more dead and wounded American soldiers would have pleased comrade Rumsfeld, who would have misused the statistics in his usual defrauding manner.  And, the fat-ass “supervisor” of LTG Franks, who was infamous for pitching temper-tantrums similar to a three-year-old, would have been on the Army over-weight program had he not been a general.  For which overweight problem hundreds of valuable NCOs and lower ranking soldiers have been chaptered out of the USARMY.  A lesson learned?  Where ? 

Take a look at your alleged “lesson learned” statement:  “one cannot realistically lump all like-minded people into a whole.”  Using the American language loosely, or failing to comprehend the words one uses, leads to confusion and misunderstanding.  The statement alone, “all like-minded people” lumps them into a whole.  The American word, “all” is a unit of measurement, meaning the totality, or 100%.  Thus, “all like-minded people”  means the totality of “like-minded” people, which in itself is a fruitless phrase for well-educated persons, since the concept of “like-minded” has not been defined.  The ideation reflects the idiosyncratic thinking of whichever comrade was manning the GoRightYoungMan cubicle, and who wrote the fraudulent statement, which, overall, constitutes propaganda.  Perhaps, ignorant propaganda.

In July, 2011, one would need to be circumspect in accurately defining the criteria into which to classify, “like-minded people,” in a manner that the average reader could comprehend.  Perhaps better to leave it as a statement that simply reflects idiosyncratic ideation and general dumbidity of the GoRightYoungMan-cubicle-comrade who wrote it.

Go Right Young Man, July 6 at 6:43 am Link to this comment

Oh snap, I forgot to compliment you on one other matter.

“The actions of that Flotilla are their own choice , to which I am not privy.”

So the many people involved with the Flotilla, as much as you agree with them, have absolutely nothing to do with you?  That’s an approach to critical thinking that has never occurred to me.

What a tedious little fellow you become, and, I believe, less read with each of these ridiculously childish postings. Ask an adult to translate my remark for you and you might discover the meaning to be opposite of what you opine. Though of course I understand that you are hell bent to prove yourself a total imbecile and a childish little jerkoff. What I dont understand is why.

Oh snap, I forgot to compliment you on one other matter.

“The actions of that Flotilla are their own choice , to which I am not privy.”

So the many people involved with the Flotilla, as much as you agree with them, have absolutely nothing to do with you?  That’s an approach to critical thinking that has never occurred to me.

Lesson learned.  One cannot realistically lump all like-minded people into a whole.  Thank you.  You’re incredible.

LOL….you are too much, Manboy.  I will, from this day on, bow to your superior intellect and extraordinary Demigod abilities.

After largely ignoring the Mysti One for nearly a year, after ignoring every post on this thread, you “prophesied” that I would ignore that hate-filled bigot once again?  YOU are incredible and I am amazed by your abilities.

You are, without a doubt, my new hero.

I simply cannot compete with your rare and wonderful gift.  You get the last word.

Go Right Young Man, July 5 at 10:39 pm

Aside from the point atop your head did you have one with this ( these) unattributed articles? Suddenly the topic shifts to the Gaza activists. Why? Because you want it so!
The actions of that Flotilla are their own choice , to which I am not privy. If asked I might conjecture that a confrontation with Israeli forces is exactly what they wish, in order to publicly show how Israel is, like we are, in violation of international law. But if you want to know with accuracy try asking them, moron.

Everything but the US and her allies bad, that is the sum and substance of your rants here. What a waste of space you are….By the by I notice that you ignored the brilliant riposte of your crappy efforts here from JDMysticDJ, as I prophesied you would.

Your refusal to post links is a sign of your unstable personality most likely, though such signs are certainly not necessary in light of your hit and run crap. That stench is now so overwhelming that I need air freshener to read your garbage.

You continue to insult as if it has the slightest affect on me or anyone else here. Compulsion much? What a lonely little fellow you must be, so sad for you. An obviously damaged personality, so sad for your parents too.

I see your compatriots on the flotilla ship, The Audacity of Hope, are as careless, hypocritical and cold-hearted as you are, Manboy.

Flotilla organizers have been insistent that the mission to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is strictly humanitarian. So although the latest flotilla has been prevented from leaving Athens by Greek authorities, one might think that the organizers would at least be willing to accept Greece’s offer to deliver the supposed aid that would be on board to the Palestinians themselves. But that’s not the case.

Instead flotilla organizers have declined Greece’s offer and are planning to hunger strike until Greek authorities let them leave the port.

-

Running the blockade is the whole point, nay?  The “Great Cause”?  Not the people who need aid.

Manchild,

HAE Founders Message. <—Look It Up Yourself, Lazy Azz. And while your at it locate Mr. Zamani’s writing on the subject of Democracy and the Failure of Leadership in Afghanistan.

My vision is to create intensely work-focused education in Afghanistan in the areas of English language, Information Technology (IT) and vocational diploma level education in health care, civil engineering, business administration and management studies. I hope that a minimum of 50% of the education recipients will be Afghan women.

Please join hands with me to collectively make HAE a success story in Afghanistan where there is little to celebrate these days.

Afghanistan deserves its place among modern nation-states. And young Afghan men and women deserve a chance to change the destiny of their nation. This, I believe, can best be achieved via the medium of modern education.

Please help in any way you can.

Yours sincerely

Shaukat Zamani

Manchild, it’s time for you to care about living, breathing, human beings.  It’s past time for you to listen.

-

Extremists torch everything - even their own holy book

By Wahid Monawar

I have always said that the Taliban are a bunch of hypocrites and unsophisticated individuals that used Islam as an ideology to promote a fabricated cause, attract like-minded criminals and inflame the emotions of innocent civilians. Furthermore, the Taliban have miserably failed to demonstrate that they are good for a progressive, democratic Afghanistan. Certainly, my notion of partiality is questionable since I have a clear aversion for the Taliban and what they stand for - but perhaps my prejudice is justified.

On July 12, an American Christian pastor from a small congregation in Gainesville, Fla., Terry Jones, fired off a series of messages on Twitter disparaging Islam as repressive and lambasting President Obama’s support for a new Kenyan constitution that could permit abortion and codify Islamic law. His final message or tweet for the day read: “9/11/2010 International Burn a Koran Day.”

Mr. Jones fatwabegan a campaign that quickly went viral and caught the attention of groups including the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the State Department. Even Gen. David H. Petraeus, the current commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, warned that the images of burning Korans could endanger U.S. troops. Mr. Jones’ act precipitated anger among Muslims, ending in deadly riots in Afghanistan, threats from jihadists and pleas from world leaders that he call off his provocative stunt.

In Afghanistan, an imam convened a demonstration in which protesters burned an effigy of Mr. Jones and chanted, “Death to America.” Some threw stones at a passing U.S. military convoy, but organizers quickly reined them in. Similar protests happened across the country later that week.

In Pakistan, where at that time national attention was focused on devastating floods and deadly bombings, this issue surged to the forefront. About 200 lawyers in the central city of Multan burned a U.S. flag in a protest of the plan, and several Pakistani officials and religious leaders lined up to denounce it.

Mr. Jones finally overcame his sophomoric slump and canceled his “Burn a Koran Day” stunt. You definitely cannot blame Mr. Jones, who had little knowledge of Islam and, according to a court deposition obtained by CBS News, he hardly knew any Muslims.

Manchild,

It’s time for you to care about human beings.

-

Extremists torch everything - even their own holy book

By Wahid Monawar

Please forgive my inanity, but here is a group of extremists, the Taliban, who have made a living out of so-called “defending” Islam. But in reality, they have hijacked this peaceful religion, created a fictional cause and become slaves to Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) as well as to Saudi Wahhabi lunatics, killed thousands of innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians and intimidated women and children. To top off all these unabashed atrocities, the Taliban burned the Holy Koran. The sham defenders of Islam burned the sacred book that they claim to defend.

Recently, a group of Taliban descended upon the province of Laghman, Afghanistan, to intimidate feeble villagers and to carry out their Pakistani masters’ order and perform what they do best: burn schools. As these thugs approached to burn a newly built school, the school headmaster, risking his life, warned the Taliban that there were at least 400 copies of the Holy Koran in the school and if they burn the school they will, obviously, burn the Holy Koran. The Taliban commander laughed off the warning. So up in flames went the newly built school and all the copies of the Holy Koran. Nangyalai Seddiqi, the district governor, told CNN that the school was built by an American provincial reconstruction team.

This story has received excellent coverage throughout the country from one of Afghanistan’s leading media groups, ToloTV, which clearly showed half-burned copies of the Holy Koran. I am sure it was broadcast in Pakistan and, perhaps, throughout the Muslim world. Nonetheless, I have yet to see one condemnation from the imams in Afghanistan, from the 200 lawyers in Pakistan or from any Muslim throughout the world. Where is the Muslim world’s outcry?

The deceitful world of extremists continues to unveil itself - from an arrogant supreme leader in Iran to a gluttonous Saudi king. Yet there is a lesson for all of us in this, especially those who would like to see peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and an end to the 32-year conflict. While, as freedom-loving citizens of the world, we would like to see a peaceful settlement to end the war in Afghanistan, it is quite necessary to factor in the imponderable wickedness of the Taliban. Negotiating with a group that has no respect for its own religious law raises a serious red flag and tilts one’s judgment that the conflict, probably, will recur after a negotiated settlement.

JDmysticDJ, July 5 at 6:23 am

Oh dear, now you’ve done it! Do you not understand that when you shine a light under an overturned rock the creepy crawlies scurry away back into the dark from which they come and where they flourish.

The Grimy grimm has no interest in truth as should be obvious from his ridiculous position on the status of Afghan women and his use of a shill for Karsai as truth teller. That he absolutely refuses to link to his articles is a devastating accusation all by itself, but think Washington Times or Newsmax as his usual source. Of course more mainstream papers have also covered the ambassador’s bull as well.

His usual act is to run away or insult you, with the odds on running away. He fails so abysmally to understand that his insults are both sad and no deterrent to those of us who insist on truth and honesty.

The following link provides additional, documented information of persons and events leading to the frauds enacted by George H.W. Bush Sr. and offspring. 

Which information characterizes the inhuman quality of the quasi-genocide conducted by the current USA leadership.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/money-madness/how-america-lost-its-way-.html

“What motivates a person to sit at a computer console far from the field of battle to direct missile strikes in order to kill the perceived enemy, along with innocents? Equating these actions is futile to the perpetrators, who insanely believe their actions are justifiable.”  JdmysticDJ

The current political chaos, with two major political parties fighting for leadership status, while pursuing the destruction of the USofA, with the assistance of Israeli types who manipulate the Zionist US Federal Reserve, can be readily traced to its origin.  When the Dulles brothers collaborated with NAZIs in the US and Germany, designed and carried out “Operation Paper Clip,” the die was cast.  Secreting Werner von Braun and 199 other NAZI scientists into the USA, against the directive of President Truman, later President Eisenhower, began the transfer of the NAZI Headquarters from Berlin to D.C., Ft. Bliss, TX, and Huntsville, AL.

The NAZI leadership developed Werner von Braun and staff into NASA, which has consistently lied to Americans, whose tax dollars have funded the NAZI-led enterprise.  Which NASA falsified a video in special studios, alleging a landing on the moon, more complete copies of which videos, recently released, display the extensive alsifications.  Thousands of patriotic Americans employed in various NASA operations over the years have been defrauded by NAZI-types in leadership, since prior to the formal founding of N.A.S.A.

Just as Hitler and staff seduced Bavaria first, and then all of Germany, so have WWII NAZIs and their offspring seduced Americans and American leadership. The following link provides info on the singular family in the United States that has led the NAZI-type activity in the USA: http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/the-traitorous-bush-family/george-bush-sr—-drug-czar.html

“M. Ashraf Haidari has served as the Deputy Ambassador, Chargé d’Affaires, Political Counselor, and Acting Defense Attaché  of the Embassy of Afghanistan to the United States in Washington, D.C..” Haidairi has painted a rosy picture of life in Afghanistan, which is not surprising, since that is his job. Ashraf Haidari is nothing more than a glorified lobbyist for a corrupt regime. The reality of life in Afghanistan bears little resemblance to the vision Ashraf Haidari wishes to promote.

Again the moron misses the big picture and focuses on one sided self interested pronouncements that do not reflect reality, only reinforce his long held wrong headed justifications for war and continued war, and occupation.

“The [New Afghan] Constitution describes Islam as its sacred and state religion. A system of civil law is described, but no law may contradict the beliefs and provisions of Islam.”

[The New Afghan Constitution declares] “Followers of other religions are “free to exercise their faith and perform their religious rites” within the limits of the law. There is no mention of freedom of thought, and apostasy from Islam is punishable by death.”

“The constitution’s provisions on religion drew international controversy in 2006, when Afghan-born Abdul Rahman, a convert from Islam to Christianity outside Afghanistan, was threatened with the death penalty for apostasy. Rahman was released under international pressure on the theory that he was insane and that the case against him had “investigative gaps,” and found asylum in Italy. The constitution itself was not changed in response.”
 
“When the Constitutional Loya Jirga began its proceedings, the chair, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, proclaimed to the assembled female delegates, “Even God has not given you equal rights because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man.”

When elected representative Malalai Joya took the podium to criticize this comment and the presence of War Lords and drug smugglers in the Constitutional Loya Jirga she was arbitrarily expelled from the Loya Jirga; Malalai came under attack, a riot ensued, and she has been living under constant death threats to this day.

The Karzai Government is full of the same Mujahidin War Lords the U.S. has supported and been allied with for 30 years.

The Preamble to the Afghan Constitution calls for the elimination of drug trafficking in Afghanistan, but exports of Opium from Afghanistan have increased ten fold since the Karzai Government took power, so much for the effectiveness and legitimacy of the Afghan Constitution. Wali Karzai, the Afghan leader’s brother has been connected with drug smuggling; he has been on the CIA payroll for 8 years providing personnel to the CIA for a paramilitary group directed by the CIA. 

“…one of the biggest challenges [To the rights of Afghan women] is that some of the worst women’s rights abuses comes not from the Taliban, but from rural Afghan society, which is steeped in traditional views of how woman should behave.”

“A prime example is Bibi Aisha. Ms. Aisha was married when she was 14 to someone she says didn’t want to marry and who abused her. After about four years of marriage and abuse she ran away. When she was found by her family, they cut off her nose and ears as punishment – considered a rather barbaric form of punishment by most Afghan standards. It made international headlines and the Taliban were immediately suspected, but, in fact, the Taliban has condemned the incident and says it is conducting an investigation to determine who is to blame.”

#2

Last year, Aisha’s husband’s uncle cut off her nose and ears while her husband tied her down. Her crime in their eyes? She had brought shame on them, when she ran away after enduring severe beatings at the hands of her husband and his family. Her mother died when Aisha was only a child, and to settle a family dispute (a murder committed by her father’s cousin), she was married away around the age of 13. Police in Chora said Sulaiman is being held at a prison in the provincial capital Tirin Kot, awaiting trial for the “shameless” crime he committed. Officials said he went underground after Aisha’s maiming, and that his son, Qudratullah—Aisha’s husband, fled to Pakistan. Her husband’s family reportedly had connections to local Taliban groups but a senior Afghan police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he didn’t believe the Taliban had been involved in Aisha’s maiming. “It’s purely a family dispute,” he said. The official also said the case stands little chance of making it through the courts. “One needs money and influence to win cases in the courts,” he said, adding: “The father of the girl is lacking both.”

Years and years of suffering and exposure to atrocity destroys a society and is a detriment to any culture. Afghanistan is a perfect example of how right-wing reactionaries are obstacles to progress towards the better human aspirations. Continuing war and glaringly errant policies will provide no solution to the problems that confront Afghanistan. It is these historic errant policies that are responsible for much of Afghanistan’s current difficulties and the only hope for alleviating Afghanistan’s problems lies with the Afghan people, not from outside interventions that exacerbate, rather than alleviate. Policies of folly sometimes have far reaching consequences, in terms of human suffering, wasted resources, and in the ignoring of imperatives more to be desired. Foolish policies, if pursued and dogmatically adhered to, can lead to catastrophe for all involved. The seemingly protected, far from the fray, can not escape retribution, or be absolved, from the mayhem which they sponsor; their assumed safety will be a false safety and they will not be safe at all. The United States is by far the most powerful military power in the world and the Idea that relatively small groups of religious fanatics around the world could defeat the United States and its allies militarily seems laughable, but the United States with all its might and power can self destruct by pursuing policies of folly.

Atrocities unbearable lead to wrath and vengeance from the human, and as some believe, the divine. What motivates a person to strap explosives to his or her body, blow themselves to bits, along with the perceived enemy, and innocents? Such actions are vile and despicable beyond description, but they do not occur in a vacuum; the rationales for such insane actions are concerned with wreaking vengeance on perceived evil, by the evil, and or, insane. What motivates a person to sit at a computer console far from the field of battle to direct missile strikes in order to kill the perceived enemy, along with innocents? Equating these actions is futile to the perpetrators, who insanely believe their actions are justifiable. Both sides in this conflict consider this war to be a war of attrition, kill enough terrorists and the war will be won, or prolong the war until the enemy is exhausted and the war will be won. Win the hearts and minds, and the war will be won. There will be no winners in this war, only losers.

Manchild,

You will continue to keep yourself completely ignorant with your hate of all who see the world differently.

Khadija Bahir, Ashraf Haidari, Arian Mouj Sharifi, Khatool Muhammadzai, UNICEF, the World Bank.  These people likely don’t hate you.  They simply carry and see different agendas and views.  They add richness and color to your otherwise dark, colorless, and brooding existence.

-

For you I translated this from its original French

Women try to bridge Afghanistan’s political gulf
By Paul McGeough
Bamiyan Afghanistan

Khadija Bahir, 26, is spending her own money on her campaign. She is stridently critical of any suggestion that US forces will be based in Afghanistan for the long term and is demanding that President Hamid Karzai end his deference to Washington.

But in a society in which virtually all power and resources are in male hands, the thread that binds the women candidates is contempt for the Afghanistan’s traditional power-brokers who, they say, have wrecked their country and their lives — the warlords, the Talib, the mujaheddin leaders and their pawns in the new Kabul establishment.

Khadija Bahir argues: “They are jihadists and warlords who want to abuse the process only to serve their own interests.’  ‘These people are desperate to hold on to power.”

That is quite an imagination you have.  As unfounded and grossly uninformed as your constant refrain that NATO is killing people indiscriminately in Afghanistan. - You certainly do rise to the epitome of “Stupid”.

Ramble on oh purveyor of radical right wing nonsense. Latest estimates show that , in Iraq alone, over one hundred thousand children have been murdered in Bush’s crusade. This is the type of action you endorse so wholeheartedly, caring more for MIC profits than for the innocents we slaughter.

I repeat that GRYM spreads a stench over this forum with his every post.

Manchild,

You willfully keep yourself ignorant.

-

Progress amid violence

M. Ashraf Haidari

September 11, 2010

This summer, the Afghan government hosted the first International Conference on Afghanistan in Kabul. Our allies from around the world recommitted to a firm partnership with the Afghan government as we begin taking over and gradually leading the stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. We welcomed Pakistan as an important regional partner in the fight against terrorism and extremism, which destabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan alike. And we continue to believe that the war can be won only through a concerted international partnership, with an emphasis on integration and strategic coordination of military and civilian assistance to Afghanistan.

The flare-up in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan coincides with its expected summer offensive, which continues to be planned in and launched from Pakistan. More important, it is a desperate response by the ever-unpopular militant organization to the increased military pressure from the Afghan and NATO forces. Afghanistan is on the right course, and we need Pakistan’s sincere help in this international endeavor for regional stability and global peace.

The increased military pressure on the Taliban, of course, is complemented by an American civilian effort. At the recent Kabul conference, the United States and other contributing nations firmly committed to channeling 50 percent of their aid resources through Afghanistan’s national budget in order to help the Afghan government build capacity, fight corruption and provide better services to the broadest segments of the population.

Despite what is reported in the news, Afghanistan is making significant progress. The Afghan security institutions are stronger and more capable than they have been in the past 10 years, taking ever-greater security responsibility from our allies. Our economy has been growing at a remarkable rate. World Bank figures show that Afghanistan’s real gross domestic product rose by a stunning 22.5 percent during the 2009-10 fiscal year - a record since 2003 - and inflation remained very low at 2 percent.

Manchild,

Willfully Stuck On Stupid.

-

The World Bank also reported in April that our fiscal sustainability increased by a whopping 70 percent over the previous year because of strong growth in revenues and containment of operational expenditures. Afghanistan has made significant progress in good governance, with parliament passing two important pieces of legislation: The first requires all new ministers to declare their assets to improve transparency. The other, passed before the recent discovery of huge deposits of minerals, governs the mining and hydrocarbon industries.

These are not just figures. The Afghan people are experiencing a marked improvement in their quality of life compared to a decade ago, when the Taliban regime was in power. For example, about 85 percent of our population has access to basic health care, up from just 8 percent in 2001. Of the 4.8 million children in grades one through six, 36.6 percent are girls; female high school enrollment doubled from 2007 to 2008. And the Afghan people like these developments. A March 2010 poll revealed that 60 percent of Afghans think Afghanistan is headed in the right direction.

When the former Soviet Union left Afghanistan, non-state actors soon began to challenge the writ of the government. Forgotten by the international community at the end of the Cold War, Afghanistan soon plunged into a decade of violent conflict that gave rise to the Taliban and, eventually, the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001. At this critical juncture, when Afghanistan is making headway into economic and security self-sufficiency, we need international assistance more than ever to become a strong state.

We are grateful to our allies and deeply appreciate the sacrifice of their soldiers and value the positive impact of their economic assistance. We realize that domestic imperatives and resource constraints will mean this level of assistance cannot be sustained in the long run; that is why we are taking increased leadership and ownership of Afghanistan’s path to the future. For now, however, our nation-partners have to stay the course to achieve our mutual goal of defeating terrorism and extremism.

M. Ashraf Haidari is deputy chief of mission and political counselor of the Embassy of Afghanistan

Manchild, - “the people of Afghanistan are beginning to find the Taliban far more attractive than the crusading occupiers from the West.”

-

That is quite an imagination you have.  As unfounded and grossly uninformed as your constant refrain that NATO is killing people indiscriminately in Afghanistan. - You certainly do rise to the epitome of “Stupid”.

Thank goodness their are so few of you on the planet.  Learn to care about human beings over and above your abstract ideological “Cause”.

Go Right Young Man, July 4 at 6:16 am Link to this comment

Manchild,

Begin caring about people over an ideological “Cause”.

When you begin caring enough about the truth to stop foisting bullshit upon this forum. If you don’t write this propagandized crap yourself you undoubtedly are getting it from some far rightist outlet thus leading to your unwillingness to share the sources.

The truth of the matter is, and remains, that the people of Afghanistan are beginning to find the Taliban far more attractive than the crusading occupiers from the West.

Another truth is that the puppet and corrupt government we ourselves installed and prop up will last only as long as we keep boots on the ground there.

You may try as hard as you like to make a silk purse from a sows ear, but all you do is show plainly what a fascist pig you really are.

Manchild,

Begin caring about people over an ideological “Cause”.

Securing the Future for Afghan Women

M. Ashraf Haidari
March 8, 2011

More than nine years after Taliban militants were driven from power in Kabul, women in Afghanistan are making slow but steady progress in their effort to secure basic rights.

The Taliban era, as is widely known, took Afghan women back to the Dark Ages. From there, it’s been a long climb back to the point where a woman can entertain even the slimmest hope of realizing her potential. And even now the progress achieved over the last nine years remains vulnerable to backsliding.

One of the foremost accomplishments of the post-Taliban period is the appearance of women in positions of political power. The first female provincial governor and district mayor in Afghan history are currently serving their constituencies, and the ministries of public health and women’s affairs are led by women, as is Afghanistan’s Independent Commission on Human Rights. At the same time, the Afghan parliament features a higher percentage of female representation at 27.3 percent than the legislatures of the world’s most established democracies, including the US Congress (15.2 percent) and British Parliament (19.7 percent).

More broadly, a record number of girls and women are attending schools and universities. Of the total 4.8 million children in grades one through six, 36.6 percent are girls. The number of girls in high school almost doubled from 2007 to 2008 (the last year for which there are reliable statistics) from 67,900 to 136,621 students. Some 8,944 university students graduated in Afghanistan in 2008. Of them, 1,734 were female.

Public health also has experienced vast improvements over the past nine years. Up to 80 percent of the Afghan population now has access to basic health care, up from just 8 percent in 2001. More than 1,650 professional midwives are employed by the ministry of public health, providing health and childbirth services across Afghanistan. This has helped reduce infant mortality rates by an overall 23 percent in the post-Taliban age, that translates into roughly 80,000 newborn lives per year saved in recent years.

Securing the Future for Afghan Women

M. Ashraf Haidari
March 8, 2011

In addition to concrete developments that have improved the lives of Afghan women, the Afghan government is working to change public attitudes. In Afghanistan’s most traditional areas, conservative social attitudes impede the progress of women. Working to lower this barrier, the Afghan Ministry of Women’s affairs is partnering with local elders and religious figures to promote attitude change with a community-centered approach. Through the National Solidarity Program, more than 22,000 Afghan women are actively participating alongside men in more than 10,000 community development councils. These bodies work to assess local needs, receive and implement grants from the ministry of rural rehabilitation and development and lead project design and implementation.

Although the progress has been encouraging, the challenges facing women remain daunting, with a general sense of insecurity listed as the top concern. The Taliban is increasingly active, targeting and killing female teachers, and burning down hundreds of girls’ schools.

One way to cement the gains already made in place, and to foster the continuing expansion of opportunities for women, is for the international community to work with Afghan officials on the implementation of the Kabul government’s national development strategy. Part of that overall strategy is a plan to help reduce violence and the oppression of Afghan women. Afghanistan’s nation-partners committed themselves last July at the Kabul Conference to channeling at least 50 percent of international assistance through Afghan government agencies. Foreign governments remain hesitant to follow through on that pledge, in large part because of corruption worries. It is a problem that can be addressed through institutional capacity building, implementation of structural reforms and increased pay for civil servants. All sides should work to eliminate existing concerns in order to strengthen the ability of Afghan women to enjoy a future full of possibilities.

The good drbhelthi forgets to mention HW’s involvement
in JFK’s assassination. Viva “Zapata”!! = Billy Pilgrim, June 23

Excellent point !  Many thanks !
 
A few naïve people have asked what GHWBushSr was doing, standing beside
the main entrance to the book depository, as Johnson was slinking away
across the street, just after the event - - .

The following link provides eye-opening information on GHWBushSr: 
http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/2007/07/so-you-think-you-know-all-
about-george.html

Once again oh spinner of fables and willing displayer of foibles:

My desire to see you banned from this site has absolutely nothing to do with your political positions, only with the stench you leave in this forum.

Lies and distortions , unlinked citings that are of such questionable value as to lead to the obvious conclusion that they are either made up or come from some rancid right wing propaganda mill.

Addendum to below:

U.S. political leaders are now asserting that funds to rebuild Afghanistan are counter productive.

The moron once wrote that if the World community did not rebuild Afghanistan, he would hang his head in shame. Hang your head in shame moron.

Contrary to what the moron asserts the “cause(s)” espoused by the left are not at all abstract, and these causes have very real tangible affects on real people. Clearly there are glaring differences between Left and Right ideology. There is nothing abstract about the promotion of peace and opposition to invasion and occupation and all the consequences of invasion and occupation. Self-determination of peoples is an ideal, but it is not at all abstract in its conception, the concept speaks for itself, and it speaks clearly without abstraction. Abstractions become an issue with rationalizations for violating ideals.

Before the U.S. covertly funded the Mujahidin to the tune of billions of dollars, [Estimated at between 3 to 20 billion - exact numbers can not be determined because intelligence agencies have “Black” budgets] with full knowledge that covert funding of the Mujahidin would provoke the Soviet Union, literacy rates for women in Afghanistan were different than they are now.

“During the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the government of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan reformed the education system; education was stressed for both sexes, and widespread literacy programmes were set up. According to sources, in 1988, women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers at Kabul University; 440,000 female students were enrolled in educational institutions and 80,000 more in literacy programs.”

Incidentally, the largest recipient of covert U.S. funding was the aforementioned Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who proved to be the most brutal and repressive of the Mujahidin. Furthermore, the historical facts have been revealed, and acknowledged by the highest National Security Advisor for the U.S. in the late 70’s, Zbigniew Brzezinsky, who admitted that the U.S. lied about giving covert aid to the Mujahidin, and that he considered the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, which resulted in the deaths of millions, the displacement of many millions more, injuries and disabilities uncounted, and lingering death in the form of insurrections, and explosive mines unaccounted for, the destabilization of an entire area of the world,  the destruction of Afghan infrastructure and culture, the rise of the Taliban, terrorist attack on the U.S., expenditures of billions, and on and on, to be a great boon to U.S. interests.

There is much more to be considered here than “small dank rooms” funded by the United Nations and NGO’s.

Left-wing ideologues are very much in favor of literacy and human rights for Afghan women, it’s the methodology of achieving these goals that the left is critical of i.e. war, invasion, occupation, crony capitalism, etc.

“According to James A. Lucas, the War in Afghanistan has cost the U.S. taxpayer $260 billion. Lucas translates this into White House rhetoric as being “money for the rebuilding of Afghanistan.”
Then he challenges:

Ann Jones, a former humanitarian worker in Afghanistan… the author of Kabul in Winter, reported that between 2002 and 2008 the U.S. pledged $10.4 billion for development but delivered only $5 billion of that amount, 47 percent of which was paid to American experts, who often were unqualified, instead of going to unemployed Afghans who were supposed to benefit from this aid.

1) Public teachers and administrators often leave Afghan institutions to work for private contractors for more money. The Afghan institutions are therefore weakened not strengthened. U.S. money often goes to private contractors for their “literacy programs,” etc.

2) 70% of aid is tied to purchasing American products in preference to products originating in Afghanistan. Afghans must buy American agricultural products, thus putting them out of business and driving them to the poppy trade or adding them to the 40% of the population now unemployed.”

The moron ignores the big picture of human suffering, and instead focuses on “Small dank rooms.”

Manchild,

Cease your abysmal habit of believing all who think unlike yourself must be stupid.

-

Arian Mouj Sharifi grew up in Kabul.
Kabul: 16:25 PM

During the dark years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, most Afghans were pushing their lives on a day-to-day basis, inspiring themselves with the expression that every dark night will end in a bright day and hoping that one day the barbaric domination of fundamentalism would come to an end and the country would be liberated.

Dear Friends and Colleagues, I am back in the States for a few days and here is a short report of my activities since last March. 1.

- Continued to meet with the Afghan power establishment regarding the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women and the equal rights of women in the new constitution. - These contacts included the clergy, the military, the women’s groups, the provincial delegates, the media and the government, at all levels, in groups or one-on-one meetings.

- We were successful in adding to the signature list such names as Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, President Bush’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Mr. Shahzada Massoud, Minister Councilor for Tribal Affairs, Professor Popal, President of Kabul University, Mr. Bahauddin Baha, President of the Commission on Judicial Affairs, and many others.

- Shoukria Haidar, President of Negar and I had a three-hour meeting with members of the Constitutional Revision Commission regarding the delivery of the support signatures (I have already sent you the letter).

- It was agreed to plan a special ceremony. So, on August 11, we invited about 150 of our diverse supporters and the Commission sent two representatives, Ms. Hakema Mashaal Siddiqui and Dr. Abdulhai Ellahi to officially receive the first installment of the signatures (We had managed to transport about one hundred thousand of them from Paris and Washington).

- The ceremony was attended by several ministers, among them Mr. Qanooni, Dr. Farhang and Dr. Raheen, several deputy ministers including Ms. Qamar Wakili and Mr. Mobarez, Deputy Chief Justice, Mr. Manawi, five generals, three of them women, Loya Jirga delegates, school principals, university professors, representatives of foreign embassies including French, American and Italian, women NGO leaders and wives of two ministers, Mrs. Zarghouna Qanooni and Mrs. Marghalaray Pashtun (whose husband has since become Governor of Kandahar), along with scores of local and foreign journalists. The ceremony got off to a good start with the introductory Koran reciting performed by Mrs. Said Bibi Naqi, the first girl high school graduate of Afghanistan. Then Shoukria gave a short speech officially delivering the signatures, as twenty women and men, led by Mrs. Najia Zara brought the reams of signatures and put them in front of the Commissioners.

- Dr. Ellahi, then gave an acceptance speech. - Mr. Qanooni, Mr. Mobarez, Ms. Qamar Wakili, Mr. Manawi and myself also talked about the importance of the equal rights of women as citizens. Shoukria then outlined Negar’s plans until the promulgation of the Constitution, with nine seminars in eight provinces and the last one attended by our international friends to be held in Kabul, just before the Loya Jirga that will ratify this historic document.

- We held the first of the regional three-day conferences in Charikar, capital of Parwan province three weeks ago. - We invited only one hundred of those women in the province who might be potential delegates to the Loya Jirga. We actually had a great turnout of about 250 including about fifty men that included Governor Muqbel, Commander Ayar, Mawlawi Fazli and many from the Al Biruni University in the nearby Kapisa province.-  The speeches and participation of the attendees were so well received that right on the spot the Governor created one hundred and four posts for females at the provincial level!

My passionate wish is that more here would care for real people as much as they care for their abstract ideological “cause(s)”.

-

UNICEF - Real Lives
Women work to tackle illiteracy in Afghanistan

Illiteracy is the single greatest barrier to women’s progress in Afghanistan.

In a small, dank room known as the Department of Literacy in Kabul’s city centre, a team of women, supported by two male graphic artists, is working to change that. As part of an initiative launched by the Afghan Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Save the Children US, they are working to produce Afghanistan’s first literacy textbook for women.

According to UNICEF Education Officer Freshta Taj, the process of creating the textbook has helped improve the women’s self-esteem. “The women were very unsure of themselves at first,” Taj says. “But even after the first week, you could see their confidence grow. They really began to develop a sense of ownership and control over the workshops and have more confidence in their abilities. They took on more and more responsibility for the work, even setting up discussions about their concerns and ideas with senior Ministry of Education officials. This self-awareness is carried over to their home lives as well; the women feel more able to deal with issues that affect them in their daily life.”

Director of the Department of Literacy, Najia Zara, sees the initiative as a vital step in building the status and role of women in Afghan society.

“The doors of schools and centres for women have been closed for all these years and educational opportunities for women collapsed. Now these doors are opening again; women understand the importance of literacy and want to avail themselves of this new opportunity – and if women are to play a full role in Afghan society they need to have that literacy.”

Go Right Young Man, July 1 at 4:34 am Link to this comment

Manchild,

Your wish to have me gone is certainly understandable.  Liberals hate nothing more than opposing points of view.  Your own brand of intolerance is well documented.

My desire to see you banned from this site has absolutely nothing to do with your political positions, only with the stench you leave in this forum.

Lies and distortions , unlinked citings that are of such questionable value as to lead to the obvious conclusion that they are either made up or come from some rancid right wing propaganda mill.

Manchild,

Your wish to have me gone is certainly understandable.  Liberals hate nothing more than opposing points of view.  Your own brand of intolerance is well documented.

-

Of course you did your due diligence and found peacewomenorg all on your own.  You learned for yourself that 37% of students in Afghanistan today are female (up from a literal 0% in 2001). You also learned, for the first time, that 90% of woman in Afghanistan are illiterate.

The sharp rise in the number of woman and girls enrolled in schools is but one of Afghanistan’s most powerful symbols of change.  Do you personally know of a better way to lift millions of people out of abject poverty? - Do not fret.  I don’t expect a serious response.

Go Right Young Man, June 30 at 5:25 am

Yet again you prove to be a despicable little sophomoric clown. What else is new. Your presence here is an insult to those who care about their nation. For the first time ever I would condone the administrators banning your shit from this forum.

You are worthless, useless and quite possibly mentally defective as well.

Women for peace, not “woman for peace” is an organization dedicated to women’s participation in peace processes in Afghanistan, get it, “peace” as per United Nations Resolution 1325.

From the Women for PEACE” website:

[United Nations Resolution 1325] “… is a tool for accountability that obliges the Afghan government, UN agencies and the international community in Afghanistan to answer for failures to protect women and girls, ensure their participation in peace processes, and promote their fundamental human rights.”

The presence of members of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i Islami Party in the Karzai Government does not bode well for the women of Afghanistan. Hekmatyar was a despicable villain during the Afghan Civil War and severely suppressed women’s rights in the areas under his control. The Karzai government is currently talking with representatives of Hekmatyar to negotiate a power sharing agreement.

Afghan woman Malalai Joya, known as the bravest woman in Afghanistan was driven from her elected office in Afghanistan when she dared criticize: War Lords, drug smugglers, former members of the Mujahidin in the Karzai Government, and the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan; she has documented the atrocities, and suffering of Afghan women while under the Karzai Government.

Providing bogus links to a Children’s Book website and a Sesame Street website may be considered clever and cute to a moron, but giving credence to Radio Free Europe which is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the U.S. Government with historical ties to the CIA, and expecting people to be convinced by such propaganda is stupid. Such antics are the antics of a loser, and a chronic loser. The kind of moron and loser who keeps banging himself in the head with a hammer, hoping that the next time he bangs himself in the head it won’t hurt; a chronic loser who has been on the wrong side of every issue concerning war, peace, human rights, etc. for at least two decades; a person whose pronouncements on virtually every issue have been shown to be errant. Keep bangin,’ moron.

Manchild,

I appreciate you giving me another chance to point out your incompetence.  Your inability to locate “Radio Free Europe” or “Khatool Muhammadzai” on your own.

I will help this ONE time!  Just, please, end your incessant whining about having no one to help you locate information.

-

Khatool Muhammadzai
Google: results (0.15 seconds)

Women of courage: intimate stories from Afghanistan By Katherine Kiviat, Scott Heidler

or

Peace woman org - Woman for Peace - Peace for woman.

Worth the repetition:

So then, you find nothing wrong with a bunch of unsubstantiated and quite possibly made-up citings, especially as they come from a poster with a history of sliming every thread in which h/she “participates”?

A refusal to post the link to a supposed cut and paste is some sort of sign, perhaps of lack of truth, perhaps of something rather deeper and more disturbing. It remains nonsense to post such sans attribution, unless, perhaps, the link itself damns the paste.

Considering the sum of grimm the fairy tale king’s body of work here one certainly might discount any and every unlinked “fact” this propagandist posts.

Manchild,

In case you missed this below.  A point of view of an Afghan you are sure to despise.  The same view millions upon millions of Afghan woman hold passionately.

This highly motivated, educated, self-described, “Peace Maker” will likely be forced to return to the burqa and prohibited -punishable by death- from working if NATO and over 100 nations leave.

What I know is simple.  You personally owe these millions of human beings a great deal more than your lip-service.

-

Afghan Women Joining Armed Forces In Greater Numbers, Challenging Convention
Radio Free Europe

Women can play a key role in the government’s efforts to build a modern military and defense force. But recruiting is no easy task in Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, where many don’t even approve of women leaving their homes, let alone joining ranks in traditionally male-dominated organizations like the military.

For Khatool Muhammadzai, the question is elementary. “It’s everybody’s duty to serve their country, to protect it,” the general says. “Why shouldn’t Afghan women get involved? So many women from foreign countries are in Afghanistan as a part of international coalition troops and to protect our nation. For us, Afghanistan is our own home. Why shouldn’t we serve our own country”

gerard, June 26 at 6:09 pm Link to this comment

GRYM:  Thank you for the posts below.  I am sure some of us have known about such projects for years and been contributing to them as we are able, as a gesture toward better ways than killing to “win hearts and minds” throughout the world and try to prevent war before it starts.  Apparently to little avail, however.

So then, you find nothing wrong with a bunch of unsubstantiated and quite possibly made-up citings, especially as they come from a poster with a history of sliming every thread in which h/she “participates”?

A refusal to post the link to a supposed cut and paste is some sort of sign, perhaps of lack of truth, perhaps of something rather deeper and more disturbing. It remains nonsense to post sans attribution.

“Tim Geithner is a pawn/patron of the NWO doing the dirty work of stealing
our hard earned tax dollars to pay for unnecessary wars and the bail outs
for the corporate cons and banksters. These white collar criminals deserve
no less than three hots and a cot”
= M L, June 26 at 6:31 (Unregistered commenter)

Some of us are not as FORGIVING and GENEROUS as you seem to be.
If numbers of them received the punishment some of us think they deserve,
you could forget the three hots and a cot.

*****************************************************************

When confronted by conflicting moral imperatives, cognitive dissonance and indecision can result. How easy it would be to be a myopic moron like the satirized “Brainy” who would be able to avoid the hard decisions, or an ideological moron who is not concerned with moral conflictions, only ideology. No hard decision is necessary for the ideological moron; the decision is made by ideology, in spite of that ideology’s clearly evident historical and present horrific follies.

The most recent horrific ideological mistakes made by Brzezinski, Carter, Reagan, Poindexter, Casey, Charlie Wilson, George H.W., Clinton, Albright and all the rest, were only a continuation of previous horrific ideological mistakes. Those mistakes were easily made; all it took was an adherence to horrifically stupid national-centric ideology.

*******************************************************************

gerard,

For the purpose of this one subject might you suspend the notion that I am your enemy and consider an equally “humanitarian” and “altruistic”, yet opposite point of view? Is that really so foreign in your way?

What I have always written is this.  The world owes the Afghan people a tremendous debt.  Several dozen countries actively and willingly used Afghanistan to fight a global war. - Reportedly the, now defunct, Soviet Union killed roughly a million people.  Afghan and outside Arab players fighting amongst themselves after the Soviet Union pulled out accounted for another 500,000 deaths.  All in all the cruelty and devastating brutality, misery and poverty has been tremendous over the last few decades.  Most, at its root, caused by decades of being caught in Global issues.

Ultimately the people of Afghanistan fell into a position whereas NO FEMALE could hold a job or be allowed any form of education whatsoever. Music, dancing, kite flying, games and television was suddenly banned everywhere.  Banned in the most cruel ways.  Teaching or speaking anything but Islam was met with death.  Failure to pray five times a day was met with torture and prison.  Healthcare for females was nearly nonexistent. - Woman’s hospitals were nearly all closed.

-

As simplistic as I can say it; for a few dozen of the world’s wealthiest nations most directly involved in the cold war to turn their collective back today, yet again, could honestly be considered an indescribably self serving, completely myopic, cold hearted and cruel thing to do.

MILLIONS of children in Afghanistan are learning the sciences previously forbidden to nearly all. If you know of a batter way to help one of the very the poorest nations on the planet than education, PLEASE DO let fly. 

In my view you have one context regarding the situation in Afghanistan turned completely on its head.  You believe NATO is undermining these good works when, in reality, the opposite is true.  These NEW SCHOOLS educating hundreds of thousands of young girls, the Millions of boys, the NEWLY BEGUN micro-loans to tens of thousands of woman (and men) would not be happening if not for NATO’s presence.  Yes, NATO with their soldiers and guns.

I sincerely believe you need to know this well, Gerard.  If NATO leaves, if NATO guns leave, the roughly 100 governments and hundreds of NGO’s now working to make these things happen in Afghanistan will suddenly cease their hard work and vacate as quickly as soldiers pull out.  In fact they’ll leave BEFORE the soldiers depart.

Food for thought

GRYM:  Thank you for the posts below.  I am sure some of us have known about such projects for years and been contributing to them as we are able, as a gesture toward better ways than killing to “win hearts and minds” throughout the world and try to prevent war before it starts.  Apparently to little avail, however.

Of course a certain degree of hypocrisy about such projects must be admitted because at the same time we support them we also permit the wars and destruction that undermine their effectiveness.

After so many of your previous acid comments, it is odd to see these sweet morsels coming from you, but one must be grateful for small favors after all.

Education in Afghanistan: Changing Minds

“Why are you going to school? Education is useless for a girl.” Forty-five-year old Bibi Gul wasn’t happy that her young daughter, Nisa, had chosen to attend school. It meant the 9-year-old was busy most of the time doing her homework.

One of many illiterate women in the Herat region of Afghanistan, Bibi was never interested in education for herself or her children. “The day the CRS education team came to start a class in our village, my husband enrolled Nisa without telling me,” she says. “When I found out about the matter, I argued with him and told him that I didn’t like my children to go to school. But my husband told me parents are responsible for the education of their children and must help them to be raised up in a proper way.”

Building Schools and Excitement

Before the Catholic Relief Services program began, there were no schools at all in many remote Afghan villages. Those that existed were few and far between. CRS created community-based schools held in village buildings or tents, training local people to be teachers and providing books, blackboards and more. Working with village elders, CRS made sure to get community buy-in and to respect local traditions when founding the schools.

Even when public schools are available, parents often don’t want their daughters to walk long distances unaccompanied to reach them. By bringing schools close to home—and, in certain communities, creating classes specifically for girls—CRS ensured that thousands of girls would be able to learn.

Nine-year-old Nisa wanted to go to school so much that she cried, asking her mother to allow it. She promised to help with household chores. Reluctantly, Bibi watched as her daughter went to the classes.

One Small Book, One Great Change

One day she brought home a new book. “Read it for us,” her father said.
The book was “Respect Your Mothers.” Nisa had brought this book home to show her mother the benefit of education. As she was reading it, her elder brother told her mother, “Education is very good. If my brother was not illiterate he wouldn’t need to go to Iran to work as a laborer to make his money. If I was educated, I wouldn’t be forced to work gathering firewood. I would have the ability to do more.”

As she listened, Bibi Gul had a change of heart.

“Education is very good. If my brother was not illiterate he wouldn’t need to go to Iran to work as a laborer to make his money. If I was educated, I wouldn’t be forced to work gathering firewood. I would have the ability to do more.”
~Nisa’s elder brother

Turning Dreams Into Reality
Heifer International

For over 65 years, Heifer’s work has provided the resources for a better future to more than 10.5 million families.

How can you help?

Microloans—money you can lend to help women establish their own means of income—are powerful weapons against poverty and injustice affecting women. Find out how you can help women everywhere stand on their own.

$10: Share a Goat
A goat can produce several quarts of milk a day, which means a family will have better nutrition and a little money from the sale of surplus milk.

$10: Help Start an Afghan Tailoring Business
Supply an Afghan woman with the tools and cloth to learn tailoring, enabling her to start a home-based business and earn a living for her and her children.

$20: Flock of Chicks
The protein in just one egg is a nutritious gift for a hungry child, and you could help a hungry family with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks.

$25: Economic Independence
Help fund a loan and business skills training for a poor, indigenous woman in a rural area of Afghanistan, enabling her to start a small business (e.g., sewing, artisan crafts, agriculture, baking), create financial security for her family and break the cycle of poverty.

$25: Lead a Woman to Financial Empowerment
You can provide a village savings and loan group with a lock box, ledger and other start-up materials to help put women and families on the path to financial empowerment.

$60: Plant Trees
Farm families learn to keep their small plots of land healthy and renew the soil for future generations by planting trees.

$120: Give a Goat
A dairy goat can give a ton of milk a year and produce two or three kids, growing into a herd and increasing a family’s income.

$250: Help an Afghan Woman Start a Business
Your one-time donation of $250 will enable a woman in Afghanistan to start a business, such as a bakery, tailoring or carpet weaving. With a microcredit loan from our program, this woman can grow her business, generate an income and begin to build a better life for herself and her family. Invest in her today.

$5,000: Gift Ark of Animals
Get your friends, family and co-workers in on the gift of a lifetime! Fifteen pairs of animals to help families change their lives and become self-reliant using Heifer’s time-tested methods of training and livestock.

Invest in a Woman’s Future
You can lend as little as $25 to a woman of your choice so she can invest in her business and achieve financial independence. When the loan is repaid, you get your money back and can relend it again and again! To become a microbanker, choose from the current loans being requested by women around the world.

Micro Loans Give Women in Afghanistan a Chance
By: Kathleen J. King

Microfinance enables the poor to increase their incomes and build businesses, reducing their vulnerability. This can be a powerful tool toward self-empowerment, especially for women. The idea of microfinance is not new, but the world has taken notice lately, in part due to the winners of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi banker and economist who originated the concept of micro credit, extending loans to entrepreneurs who do not have access to traditional bank loans.

Katrin grew up in Afghanistan, but moved to the United States with her family shortly after the Soviets invaded. Though the U.S. has become her home, she decided to return shortly after 9/11. According to an article on ladieswholaunch.com, she said some kind Americans approached her, offering to start a micro-lending organization in Afghanistan, provided that she run and manage the organization. Katrin agreed, and upon her return in 2002, she found herself marveling at how she could have escaped such utter poverty as a young girl.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world with a literacy rate of 28 percent. Today many women struggle because of the effects of war, the instability of the government, and traditional beliefs about the role of women, especially in rural areas.

Parwaz has close to 1,000 clients (all female) who receive loans and the need continues to grow. Many are engaged in farming, weaving, baking, small shops, beauty parlors, and tailoring shops. In order to qualify for a loan, you must be poor, female, a head of household, or a widow. Widows are given special priority.

Katrin tells one story of a widow named Shahnaz, who had cultivated a neighbor’s field in exchange for three meals a day for she and her several children. At times there was so little to go around that they were forced to eat grass. With a loan from Parwaz, Katrin says, “She bought a cow and started making yogurt and other dairy products to sell. She repaid the loan in six months. We gave her another loan and she bought another cow. In a year and a half, by buying three cows, (the woman and her children) are not indentured servants anymore.”

Afghan Women Joining Armed Forces In Greater Numbers, Challenging Convention
Radio Free Europe

Khatool Muhammadzai loves martial arts, underwent commando training in pre-Taliban Afghanistan, and has logged 500 official jumps as the only female paratrooper in the country’s post-Taliban military.

But the middle-aged general, Afghanistan’s highest-ranking woman officer, wants to be known as a peacemaker.

Muhammadzai, who first served in Afghanistan’s Moscow-backed military in the 1980s, rejoined the armed forces after the Taliban was overthrown in 2001. Today, through her work at the Defense Ministry on military education and training issues, Muhammadzai has emerged as a model of Afghanistan’s ambitious plan to attract women into its military ranks and to raise the profile of women soldiers.

Women can play a key role in the government’s efforts to build a modern military and defense force. But recruiting is no easy task in Afghanistan’s deeply conservative society, where many don’t even approve of women leaving their homes, let alone joining ranks in traditionally male-dominated organizations like the military.

For Muhammadzai, the question is elementary. “It’s everybody’s duty to serve their country, to protect it,” the general says. “Why shouldn’t Afghan women get involved? So many women from foreign countries are in Afghanistan as a part of international coalition troops and to protect our nation. For us, Afghanistan is our own home. Why shouldn’t we serve our own country?”

Muhammadzai concedes, however, that despite her rank she still encounters people who are not ready to accept a woman in uniform. But with their numbers on the rise—some 1,000 women are currently serving in the Afghan armed forces, up from a starting point of basically zero—women soldiers are positioned to be not only peacemakers but groundbreakers.

Lafayette

We leave Afghanistan too soon and that scene will be repeated again and again and again.

We agree that this incident, and the many more exactly like it, that occurred under Taliban rule of Afghanistan, are horrific and unjust. But who the hell appointed us to run the world and correct all that is wrong with it?

The Taliban was increasingly unpopular within Afghanistan exactly because of its tyrannical fundamentalism and its stifling of basic freedoms. Thus it was sowing the seeds of its own demise in its own good time. Our military presence there actually makes the Taliban look better in the eyes of Afghans.

That Taliban were Pashtun and thus from the largest tribe there certainly complicated the matter, but in no way was this nation of ours forced to intercede militarily on humanitarian grounds, a sort of oxymoron actually.

Do you really,truly believe that US military might was invoked because a woman was stoned or shot or otherwise murdered unjustly? I know you are in no way this naive.

Very simple. Every nation shall be turned into a police state to facilitate corporate, banking insanity,theft, greed etc.

Who is next…

There is a casualty figure that you will hardly ever hear or read in summaries of
the costs of our disastrous wars:  on average, eighteen (18)  US veterans of current
& past wars commit suicide EACH DAY. Multiply that by 365 when toting up the
annual cost in lives.  If the daily news carried this reminder, that figure of 58%
wanting out of Afghanistan would shoot up.  The VA suicide hotlines have been
fielding something like 200,000 calls per year lately, but that figure of 18 persists.

I have come to believe in the last 2 decades of my life I am a visiter here from another world. The stupidity and waste of human beings is just beyond. Their gullibility to be propagandized by the elite and the criminal politicians accelerates with each year. Will nuclear war be that distant?

Let me outta here!

Lafayette, - “Now that you’ve made a mountain out of a mole hill, you expect us to climb it?”

-

Not at all.  I only wish you would, from time to time, add some historical context.

Thousands of people, hundreds of intelligence agencies from all corners of the globe, and 17 U.N. resolutions made the same claims as did President Clinton and his entire National Security Staff regarding Saddam Hussein.

No need for you to come unhinged.  You can still add your own narrative within the framework of the well documented historical record.

In 1998 and for long before 1998 and continuing to the present time, the U.S. Congress, the intelligence community, and U.S. presidents have been dead wrong. The fact that these entities were wrong does not mean that Georgie and his crew were right. Why don’t people come to an understanding of these realities, and admit that our political institutions and leaders have been dead wrong, instead of trying to justify the unjustifiable. I’ll proffer that those who offer ridiculous justifications for that which is unjustifiable are morons.

A MOUNTAIN

GRYM: President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law.

So, what?

Now that you’ve made a mountain out of a mole hill, you expect us to climb it?

POST SCRIPTUM

Bill who?

Your link didn’t work.

http://www.rawa.org/murder-w.htm

Cheney, Rummie and the gang wanted a muscular presence in the Mid-East AND thought the US would then have full and easy access to Iraq’s oil

Agreed.

tg3: It is ALWAYS the other way around. It is always the school bully who wants to eat the weak nerd’s lunch and shake him down out of his pocket money!.

That’s not the way I read the threat of extinction at the hands of al Qaeda. We are obviously looking at international threats to US homeland security through different coloured lenses.

The Cold War is over. Nobody told you ... ?

Re: By Hank8, June 25 at 8:13 am

I never read articles written by Boyarsky, Eugene Robinson, E. Dionne and ... etc…...
Those people are mouthpieces for the establishment and are professional liars and bullshit artists.
They write not to inform but to mislead and bullshit.
Sometimes when the subject is important, I read the readers’ posts.

A stunning display of the of myopic jingoism. lol. The vacuous utterances of professional liars constitute “facts” in your world “congress” “the UN” ‘Bill ” depends what is is” Clinton.You should consider stand up

A few fundamental facts often lost -Cherry Picked- from these Web pages:

Pre-Neo-Con era.

In 1998 the U.S. Congress passed legislation mandating the U.S. President use the office of the President to remove Saddam Hussein from his seat of power in Iraq and work to foster a democracy in his stead. 

The Congress formally documented reasons for this legislation, not the least of which included Saddam Hussein’s ties and support to international terrorism and failure to disarm Iraq of weapons banned to Hussein by a unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council.

President Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law.

-

“All roads to international terrorism lead through Baghdad”. - William Jefferson Clinton, U.S. President. - 1998

Lafayette, June 24 at 11:22 am Link to this comment

Implausible? See here.
***********

Your link didn’t work.

Dubya’s anger at Saddam is far from the full answer.  It just made him easier to manipulate. Cheney, Rummie and the gang wanted a muscular presence in the Mid-East AND thought the US would then have full and easy access to Iraq’s oil, making us a player in the ME who could influence and fuck up the anti-American policies of many of the states in the region. They also assumed we’d be welcomed with open arms…oops.

We built 4 of the largest and definitely most sophisticated military bases/fortresses in Iraq…that’s what those turds around Dumya wanted.

But they NEVER thought it through, and the cost in $$$, troops, and world respect has made it, well, a black hole.

“Of course, President Obama and Congress will not bring the troops home.  It
would mean thousands more men and women on the jobless payrolls.”

That’s a great point faith.  But I’d say it’s gone beyond cynical to just plain
over-the-top insane.  There’s not enough compassion and respect in this so-
called ‘civilized’ nation for our sick, our elderly, our unemployed, and our
veterans and troops.  As much as politicians and especially republicans use
9/11 over and over as a reason for this war, they have ZERO respect for the
firefighters who risked their lives saving the victims of that tragedy, or the
troops who fight in the name of that day. Our soldiers can’t even get decent
health care.  And when the troops come back with PTSD they aren’t welcomed
with love, they can’t get medical care, they have to go right back to become
human shields to prevent “stop loss”.  I’m convinced because of the history that
the word “civil” is just a euphemism for murderous.

Re:By Lafayette, June 24 at 12:28 pm

Lafayette wrote:

“Despite how honest and understanding one might try to be, there’s always some nerd who wants to eat your lunch.”
————————————————————————

Lafayette,

It is ALWAYS the other way around. It is always the school bully who wants to eat the weak nerd’s lunch and shake him down out of his pocket money!.
Wars are always started or PROVOKED or TRICKED into by the stronger party.!!

gerard,

I understand and agree with much of what you write, however, you know that I know you didn’t, even in part, answer my question.  You fastidiously avoided two tougher situations and changed the subject. I asked about preventing war.  I asked if you could give one example of what you’ve previously opined.

As an aside: No amount of non-violent civil disobedience would have prevented violent clashes with protesters if those with the most guns in Egypt, the military, had not opted to hold back the batons and bullets (which could have very well happened).  Part of the reason the batons and bullets was withheld, I believe, had little to do with Wael Ghonim* and more to do with generations of respect for the American trained, mandatory service, Egyptian military.

I believe in non-violence wherever and whenever practicable.  I also believe Hassan Nasrallah when he teaches that any negotiation with Israel is treasonous and should be met with death.

You make a terrific mistake with even the suggestion that all human beings desire peace.  While I wish that were true I cannot pretend it into being.

-

*Why were FRONTLINE cameras and producers present and documenting Mr. Wael Ghonim and others prior to Egypt’s uprising?  Obviously what happened in Egypt was not designed and carried out by a small group of socially conscious Egyptian youth. 

All those involved, and I support them, knew very well that chances were high that protests in Egypt could have caused large numbers of civilian deaths and brutal oppression.  Put plainly; organizers understood well that their actions had the chance of loosing unstoppable violence.  It was the “cause”, their cause, in which they gambled with innocent lives.  The threat of violent deaths was a conscious part of the political undertaking.

I’m not certain you fully appreciate the Egyptian situation.

gerard: Nonviolence is not an easy thing.  People need to study what is already known about it, and after that, to apply principles to new situations, be willing to experiment, create, believe in possibilities etc.

I am Darwinian.

Despite how honest and understanding one might try to be, there’s always some nerd who wants to eat your lunch.

Which is why we have armies and therefore wars.

Nonviolence is, to me, the absence of wars. Sometimes a battle here or a fight there helps assure that war is never a condition to which we ineluctably arrive.

GRYM:  Here’s a partial answer:  The (largely nonviolent) Egyptian uprising was not purely an accident.  Nothing much has been said about it (for obvious reasons) but a group of young Egyptians went to the Albert Einstein Institute in Europe beforehand and studied fundamentals of nonviolent action.  They passed on what they learned to their utmost ability and that is probably the biggest single reason why the huge demonstrations in Tahir Square were almost entirely nonviolent.  First time in recent history some people were brave enough and smart enough to try something different. Now things are getting tougher—largely because the knowledlge and experience of how to act AFTER the original success, how to work for nonviolent reform seems to be more or less missing.  They are floundering, but so far, better than killing each other. 

Nonviolence is not an easy thing.  People need to study what is already known about it, and after that, to apply principles to new situations, be willing to experiment, create, believe in possibilities etc.  When vast majorities are committed to violence and not only completely ignorant of any other possibilities, plus downright unwilling to learn, it takes time.  UN/NATO blunderbussing into Libya is the contrasting evidence. How many years have they had to “work with” Ghadaffi?  To study alternatives themselves? To do honest diplomatic work toward peace and stop selling weapons? To mutually benefit from intelligent peace-making strategies for the future of the world’s young people?  Don’t make me laugh!
Who, then, would buy all the weapons “Made in America”?  Who then would perform all the “sneak attacks” with “drones”  and sprinkle the landscape with phospherous and cluster bombs? 
  War is wrong.  I know it’s wrong.  You know it’s wrong.  And we both know there are other alternatives to be used BEFORE wars start.  It’s greed, public ignorance and knee-jerk reaction that persists.  We both know that, too. And we both know war is being forced off-stage by the very disasters it creates. Let’s stop kidding around here, shall we?

ITW: Then the phony, and fucked-up Iraq invasion, like a vampire, sucked critical resources from Afghanistan at probably the worst possible time….and stayed that way for years.

Correct. Afghanistan was the Right War, Iraq the Wrong War.

Bush Jr.wanted to invade Iraq because Hussein had tried to assassinate his father years before, when Bush the Father (after having left office) was visiting Kuwait on a “victory” tour.

Implausible? See here.

Hank8/ITW,

What’s worse still?  If Iraq is thought to be a stable representative form of government in Ten, Twenty, and Fifty years from today George Bush will be written in history as a forward-thinking, steadfast, and “brilliant” American President.

You Betcha

Of course, President Obama and Congress will not bring the troops home.  It
would mean thousands more men and women on the jobless payrolls.  If troops
are kept abroad, salaries will come from the military budget and it will show
employment.  Cynical.  Cynical.  Cynical leadership in this nation.  I would rather
enlarge our unemployment numbers than see our young men and women
continuously subjected to such grievous danger as is daily experienced in the
middle east.  The ones making the profits are the war profiteers/ defense
contractors and doing so on the backs of our young men and women.  Shameful.

“I don’t have a good answer. I realize that as a politician, Obama’s not
KNOWINGLY going to cut his own metaphoric throat and give up the
Presidency.” @ InheretTheWind

You can´t give up something you do not own.

If there are enough vote-qualified idiots to re-vote Obama, in collaboration with the Bush fraudulent voting machine programming, remains to be seen.

Go right,the inference of your post that Bush’s and or America’s foreign policy in the middle east ‘actually’ encourages democracy in the middle east is so at odds with reality that it does not rise to the level of idiocy.

ITW,

Let us not forget the “Crowning Achievement” of the Obama Administration, according to Joe Biden, has been the good work done in Iraq.

Here’s a twist of fate for you to gnaw and gnash on.  For the hundreds of times Bush voiced his policy goal to remove the tyrant, Saddam Hussein, and set in motion a wave of desire for democracy in the Middle-East and Africa, almost immediately after his second term the world began observing the, already famous, Arab Spring with its widespread cries for freedom and democracy by millions upon millions of people in the Middle East and Africa.

I wonder how Obama defines “innovation” at home.  Maybe more thermonuclear
power plants to blow us all away and have deformed babies?  Maybe a new oil
pipeline from Canada to Texas?  Of course.  Maybe he means more deregulation of
big industries?  And they’re still off the hook!  Does he think the trade deal with
South Korea is innovative enough even though NAFTA was a huge failure for the
working class?  Yeah.  He must also mean how the innovative Republicans are
declaring martial-economic-law in their constituent states in a very
unconstitutional manner.  Gee.. I can’t wait for more of this so-called “innovation”.
By the way, we have to “double down” on our war efforts according to the
“innovative” Secretary Of State.  That’s a novel idea for sure!  We sure have a lot of
“innovation” going on our foreign and domestic affairs.  If you look “beyond the
rhetoric” in Washington all you will find is whores.

Everyone dodges the problem:
Mission change and mission creep.
We forget that our original mission was to ensure Al Qaeda and their patron, the Taliban, couldn’t attack us again.

Then the phony, and fucked-up Iraq invasion, like a vampire, sucked critical resources from Afghanistan at probably the worst possible time….and stayed that way for years.

Even from a simple military strategic and tactical perspective that was totally fucked-up.  The war in Afghanistan, if it can be said to be “lost”, was lost in that moment, when we gave up the initiative to fight an idiot and criminally wrong war in Iraq, based on phonied-up evidence because Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted it.

Had they had even HALF a brain amongst them they would have concentrated on Afghanistan and wound that war up 8 years ago, when they could have, and held off on Iraq despite their having an enormous hard-on for it.  Even from a political POV, (trying to think like “The Dark Side of The Force”) Bush’s re-election would have been a slam-dunk, rather than another cooked cheat. He would have waltzed through 2004 as The Hero of 9/11.

Now we are stuck with this mess Bush left us, and Obama, with very limited good options. And, being a pol, like all pols, he won’t take an action he thinks will cost him the next election, as a full with-drawal from Afghanistan would.

Plus, of course, he and the Dems on the Hill’s wussing out against the GOP has put them in a far more difficult position—a case where trying to avoid electoral defeat by not being controversial leads to….electoral defeat.

I don’t have a good answer. I realize that as a politician, Obama’s not KNOWINGLY going to cut his own metaphoric throat and give up the Presidency.  So…what options DOES he have in Afghanistan that do NOT cost him the next election?

Why do I phrase it that way? Because ANY “option” that guarantees his defeat is not going to happen. So…aside from that, what options does Obama have?

I don’t have a good answer.

ONLY FOOLS LOVE WAR

Barack Obama ’s plan for a limited withdrawal from Afghanistan means tens of thousands of American troops will remain there, many of them fighting, for several years to come.

I recall vividly the scene from some newsreel footage taken before the Taliban were toppled after the invasion by American forces.

It was of a woman, having been judged by an all male jury, of “infidelity” towards her husband. She was taken to a large stadium for a public execution, marched out to the center of the field. Then shot in the head. (I’ve found this photo - and video - of the execution on the Net, here)

We leave Afghanistan too soon and that scene will be repeated again and again and again.

Finally, I will remind you that it is an all-volunteer American Army that is fighting there. No one put them in harm’s way by means of a draft.

gerard, - “The alternatives are always there, waiting for an ‘awakening of the human conscience’.  All of humanity yearns to turn this page of history.”

-

There we have it.  You yearn to change (awaken) the nature of man.  The next question seems obvious.  How do you propose to end wars BEFORE you change man’s nature?  I ask this most important question because, contrary to what you write above, not all men seek, or even want, peace.  Therein is the rub and the single reason I ask of you the questions I do.

You write, again, that alternatives are always there.

Perhaps I do suffer a lack of imagination.  You repeat that the time to employ methods of conflict resolution is before the threat of war rears itself.  How?  You never do answer this question.  You only chide me for not “imagining” your answer.

-

I asked for an example of when and where war was avoided with two sides of a conflict coming to terms with their differences.  I admit I can’t seem to imagine your answer.

Zing:
You are offering facts to Dr. Quack. He don’t need no stinkin’ facts!
He just makes shit up and keeps repeating it.
Like Obama being Kenyan. Even the Birthers finally had to STFU on that one.  But not Quack. 
Some sort of cognitive dissonance has madly infected his pitiful excuse for a mind. He knows “facts” that can’t be proven, have been disproven, or can’t stand up to rational scrutiny.

It’s a waste of time.

You win democracy for these countries at the ballot box, not at the point of a gun.

Afghan traditional government - Loya Jirga was in place before Columbus and will be in place after the American form of democracy leaves.

“Horrible ignorance, Small One.”

Thank you for your confession GRYM. A good first step towards changing your ridiculous political opinions and your horrific lack of a personality.

Typical crap from our resident fable maker. When confronted by facts he simply insults and skips off to his middle school recess.

With the decrease of available, non-renewable,
natural resources (copper, minerals, gemstones,
gas/oil, etc.); it should be apparent we’re not going
to just leave all that treasure in the ground for
somebody else. This would include a huge lithium
deposit; possibly the worlds largest.
China has already started a copper mining venture
there.
This is about what’s left and who is going to get it;
so this transmogrifies into a national security
issue.
Orwell was prescient to say the least…

On another blog I asked the fundamental question:

What exactly have we accomplished in Afghanistan? What truly tangible “whatever” have we brought back as booty for all our blood, wealth and national reputation…..

I did receive one UNBELIEVABLY nihilistic answer:

Revenge…... Yes, we got revenge. That’s as good an answer as anyone could come up with…...............................we, my friends are a failed empire.

GRYM:  The more I deal with you, the more I am urged to suggest that your main difficulty in seeing other points of view is a lack of imagination, and for that I pity you because it limits you to never seeing a new or better answer to problems.  The key is in your phrase “when war was the issue”. When war has been allowed to “become the issue” it is too late; peace-making steps have to be taken BEFORE war is allowed to “become the issue”—or after war has exhausted both sides and they can no longer afford to continue to “make war the issue” and are forced by exhaustion to come to terms.  Because those terms inevitably come after enormous agony and resentment, they are seldom “fair and unbiased,” and hence such peace is usually temporary and followed by subsequent violence.  If you cannot grasp this point, there is little hope that you will envision anything beyond brutality and chaos.
  There isn’t space here to go into further detail except to say that examples are everywhere existing right this minute that might be settled peaceably if care were given to solving problems BEFORE they reach the violent stage.  But the habit of the world so far continues to be to fail to take initiatives in time to prevent hostilities. 

The fact that war is an industry gives away the reason for this negligence:  People without conscience are all too happy to make money from war, big money,—and governments are too stupid and greedy for power to have the courage to look beyond the end of war’s very sharp and bloody nose. The alternatives are always there, waiting for an awakening of the human conscience.  All of humanity yearns to turn this page of history.  Can’t you see the evidence everywhere, in the universal suffering and the persistent widespread yearning in children’s eyes to find a way to move out of the darkness?

Manchild, - “Are you aware that the Taliban, increasingly unpopular for their harsh and repressive regime, has begun to look good to a population sick of foreign soldiers who murder their wives and children ‘indiscriminately’ in the name of building democracy?”

-

Horrible ignorance, Small One.

gerard
, - “Yet the ‘only’ way these many people have survived so far is that they have been able, at least to some extent, make peace and come to terms with their differences.”

-

I wish that were true.  The truth is, in the world of men, lasting peace usually follows when one side looses a war.  When one side can no longer afford to wage war.

I would sincerely ask for an example of any endeavor, when and where war was a real possibility, wherein lasting peace was reached in the way you describe.

For every one example that your theory holds up, I will give you one-hundred examples wherein the way these many people survived was due to deterrence.  Throughout human history the driving force in keeping the peace has been, at least the perception, that attacking with arms would exact such a high price that battle is the poorest option.

Deterrence, to the nth degree, has saved more lives in all of human history than has pleasantries, empathy, and understanding when war was the issue. 

This has been, and remains today, the world of men. Change that and you will find your peace.  Until that day every nation on earth, in one way or another, defends itself from the real dangers of man.

-

The real dangers of man.

In contemporary times tens of millions of people have been intentionally starved to death in China.  The same goes goes with N. Korea.  No words, no protestations, no sentiments of empathy, sympathy or near countless offers from the outside to ease the suffering has prevented these deaths. 

You either accept it, learn to live with it, ‘come to terms with the differences with it’ or force it to end.

Aside from directing us all to read yet another book or white paper on the many tactics of conflict resolution, do you have any tangible suggestion(s)?

Hi drbhelthi,

I’m a little curious about your statement:  “The secretive C.E.O. of the C.I.A. from a time around 1960 until after 1981 was George H. W. Bush Sr.”

According to the book Legacy of Ashes:  The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner, George H.W. Bush was appointed as Director of the CIA in 1976. 

Weiner writes: “Bush was neither a general, an admiral or a spy. He knew almost nothing about intelligence. He was a politician pure and simple. The son of Prescott Bush, a patrician U.S. senator from Connecticut who had been a good friend to Allan Dulles, he had moved to Texas to seek his fortune in the oil business.  He served two terms in Congress. He ran for the Senate twice and lost. He had been United Nations ambassador for twenty-two months and Nixon’s relentlessly cheery Republican National Committee Chairman during Watergate.”

Weiner then notes Bush was snubbed by Ford for the vice-presidency and became ambassador to China as a consolation prize. Weiner adds that, while in China, “Bush had seen the struggles of the CIA through a thick prism, relying on the radio reports of the Voice of America and from week old newspapers.”

Granted, nothing on that résumé points to a guy on the up-and-up. Still. I’m not sure exactly what a CEO at the CIA would do. 

And I’m kind of curious how a career bureaucrat could be “C.E.O. of the C.I.A.” for a span of 21 years during which he was chairman of the Republican National Committee and also tucked away in China.

Please do provide some details.  Just curious.

Thanks.

We are in Afghanistan for their mineral wealth and to police a pipeline. All other justifications are complete BS. We should mind our business and leave their tribal/religious cesspool to them to sort out. After all, it’s not as if the mighty U.S. is any beacon of higher morality.

Surely “Obama needs to go beyond rhetoric,” as Boyarsky says, but the problem is much bigger than that.  It’s not just just about being able to free money from the Afghan war for “rebuilding” the country.  A few of the things that have become entrenched in our culture:  the continuous support of a large war bureaucracy and the acceptance of casualties in the thousands, the right to discuss and determine what’s good and bad for other cultures, and the free rein given to big business to call the shots in DC.  Is this a base for rebuilding? 

We need leadership that can educate the public as to how we became “unbuilt” in the first place and, by the same token, we need the population to be willing to learn.

Go Right Young Man, June 23 at 2:17 pm

Are you aware that the Taliban, increasingly unpopular for their harsh and repressive regime, has begun to look good to a population sick of foreign soldiers who murder their wives and children indiscriminately in the name of building democracy?

Are you aware that our installation of a puppet government is doomed to fall the moment there are no M-16A2/A4’s and pilotless drones to defend it?

While the facts you cite regarding the rule of the Taliban are accurate you seemingly fail to see that wars such as we engage in there are hopeless and cannot be won. How do we win the hearts and minds of the people when we murder them relentlessly? You accuse the Taliban of harsh and stupid treatment of their own yet we have killed more Afghans than ever did the Taliban.

Like it or don’t the Taliban,composed of Pashtun tribesmen the largest tribe in the area in fact, lives in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and simply fades away in the face of armed might, only to return when we depart.

In my own opinion the average Afghan sees the Taliban differently now than before we invaded, and with much justification in fact.

This nation made an egregious error and compounds it more with each day we keep boots on the ground. War is not the answer, leaving and using diplomacy, using much less money to rebuild infrastructure both there and here seems a much better strategy than this imbecilic remote control slaughter in which we engage so heartlessly and to such little gain.

GRYM says:  “To me the globe is populated by six billion people living in 190 nations.  Most of these nations nearly always working in their own self-interest.  Nearly always in battle with someone.  In other words; real, living and breathing, human beings.”

Precisely.  Couldn’t have said it better myself.  Problem is, your “real living and breathing human beings” “always working in their own self-interest” don’t leave much room for such humane and practical ideas as peace and understanding.  Yet the only way these many people have survived so far is that they have been able, at least to some extent, make peace and come to terms with their differences.  Otherwise they would all have killed each other off long ago. Which only proves that peace is possible—though most of the time we don’t pay any attention to it because it isn’t heroic, bloody, and masculine. 

The problem seems to be that if they keep up their “self-interested” battles, they won’t be “real, living and breathing” much longer. They’ll be extinct—except perhaps for a few isolated colonies here and there (say Patagonia,the Amazon jungles and Manchuria)—if they are lucky.

kerryrose, - “If we owe Afghanistan a huge debt, then the way to repay them would be to get the hell out of their country and stop killing them.”

-

So other people can kill and mistreat them in even larger numbers?

Are you aware that woman under Taliban rule were not permitted to work for money?  That families less a male were reduced, by the millions, to begging for the most basic necessities? 

Are you aware that little girls were not permitted an education and today more girls are being educated than any time in Afghan history?

Are you aware that under Taliban rule tens of millions of little boys and young men were not permitted to learn anything but the Koran?

Are you aware that more woman today hold position in government than any time in Afghan history?

Are you aware that there are roughly 100 separate nations working inside Afghanistan to to teach healthcare basics, government civics, university administration, economics and farming something other than poppy?

When the Taliban came to power most Afghans rejoiced.  That lasted a very short time.  About the time music, kites, and any religion but Islam became a capital offense.

-

PBS NewsHour On-Line
Mon. 6/20

“Amid Push for Talks With Taliban, Where Do Rights of Afghan Women Fit In?”

SUMMARY
Three Afghan women, influential figures in politics, business and non-governmental organizations, were in Washington last week meeting with senior members of the Obama administration and Congress on the topic of negotiating peace with the Taliban. Margaret Warner gets their views on the situation in their country.

-

These liberal Afghan woman (Peace Activists) tell Margaret Warner that U.S. soldiers should begin a withdrawal in order to prove U.S. intentions. Yet, simultaneously, they each argue that nobody’s soldiers should leave too quickly.  Not so fast that they each feel “unsafe” from various Taliban. - Apparently these woman fear Taliban types more than NATO or U.S. soldiers.

Yes, they say, soldiers should begin a slow departure.  Then each went on to explain how and why, they believe, the U.S. government and others should stay and remain involved. - An interesting dichotomy.

gerard, - GoRightYoungMan calls upon ‘the world’ to fix Afghanistan (since between the Russians and the Yanks they pretty much messed it up). “

-

Actually, I wrote nothing of the kind.  Not even close.

You are under the impression, erroneously in my view, that the situation regarding Afghanistan in the 80s and 90s was solely between Russia and the United States.  That must be the reason you failed to comprehend what I wrote?

Yes, to you the world is an abstract.  A collection of theories to be tested on paper and in the mind.  You pride yourself on being a “thinking person”. 

To me the globe is populated by six billion people living in 190 nations.  Most of these nations nearly always working in their own self-interest.  Nearly always in battle with someone.  In other words; real, living and breathing, human beings.

My wish is that you cared as much for human beings as you do your lofty (reckless) theories.  The people of Afghanistan would be a terrific start.

Of course, we have to keep in mind that in 2008, the only alternative to the Polyfaced-Putz we have in the White House was the effed-up ‘team’ of Old John and Ditsy Sarah…so, OMG, can you believe it, THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN, WOULD HAVE BEEN, WORSE!?

We really need a change, a big change, of choices, or we* are doomed, DOOMED!

*This ‘we’ is the global ‘we’. The US/Israel collaboration is on course to cause the world’s destruction.

GRYM

If we owe Afghanistan a huge debt, then the way to repay them would be to get the hell out of their country and stop killing them.

The good drbhelthi forgets to mention HW’s involvement
in JFK’s assassination. Viva “Zapata”!!

So what’s new? Our chief shucker and jiver just did it again, proved that the poor hopeless ‘We, the People’ of the US can be had by a skillfully dumped load of ‘Hope and Change’ bullcrap.

Makes US look even more bats*it-crazy than Bachmann and/or ‘W’.

We are all involved in this war, as the impact of its cost (and the cost of the
other ““hostilities”) robs this economy of any chance of recovery and people
chances of employment. 

I found the president’s speech disingenuous and doublespeak.  Why talk about
focusing on rebuilding this country when you are recalling a minimal number of
troops?  Do we have the money for rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting in
Libya and Yemen, supporting Pakistan?  If so, then why is our economy in the
tank?

I have no doubt that Republicans are trying to game the president.  But if the
president behaved more progressively in his politics and erred toward the views
of his base, I think it would have retained that wave of enthusiasm that made
history when he was elected.  Surround yourself with hawks (including Hillary)
and corporatists, and that’s the advice you heed.

No one has mentioned the profit being made off this, and any war, or who is
making it.  I read a article at TD a while back called, “pipelanistan” I think thats how
you spell it,  which points to big oil.  Do you think the arms dealers weapons
manufactures want this war to end?  Obama has been the only president who has
really tried to bridge party lines to help the people who need help the most.  No
President, Dem. or Rep. has the power to change much.  This country and the
world are being run by a banking system that wont allow it.  A crumb here and
there maybe.  Im not a fatalist, but nothing will change dramatically until the
people making and changing the laws are not the ones profiting.

GoRightYoungMan calls upon “the world” to fix Afghanistan (since between the Russians and the Yanks they pretty much messed it up).  Just who is this “world,” I wonder?  A conglomeration of nativistic populations lacking adequate education to understand what the heck is happening to them as they are raped by their neighbors, refused medical attention, forced to dig oil out of their farmland, breathe air fouled by pollution, drink irradiated water, and flee from surveillance cameras and police armed with tazers? 
  That world can’t do much yet, even for itself, till it sort of gets its act together, y’know—the United Nations and all that. It’s too busy struggling to get fed, clothed and sheltered—sort of.
  And where’s the money?  All locked up in three or four choice locations, in the hands of careless maniacs in love with their pictures on tee-vee. 
  Sorry, GRYM, the “world” is an abstracton not worth the five letters of its name.  It’s you.  And me. And every other lonely, lost single individual.  We have to find each other.  We have to create answers.  We have to work hard come together as family.  We have to have faith in the possibility of a human future.  You. Me. All peoples. All colors. All conditions. You ready for that, grym?
  Seems to me there was a more or less slushy song about that, once, a long time ago in our dearly-beloved, so-easily-forgotten past.