“—confederated ghettos populated by the Hatfields and McCoys—”

      Good line J.YELL!! I’m struck, that more and more, it is applicable to disintegrating American state and city landscapes controlled by the “special interest politically correct”. Cartographers most often only depict national political boundaries and never delineate the enclaves held by ethnic special interest held by gang force inside them. Their inclusion would make some interesting American city maps.

      TY for the invite ROLLZONE. The VOTE seems to be an evolving entity, we need to keep pumping it oxygen and feeding it spinach and making it do push-ups.

      G-R-Y-M: I’m trying to see it on human terms. Maybe I’m just confused. Do you believe our military can create a shift in Afghan politics and societal structure that will free it of the arcane attitudes that have held its’ women in thrall?

      I somehow feel American motives are not very pure and, as in our own country lack the vision and policy, even allowing for the necessity of our being in the Middle East to protect our own interest, to achieve an independent future free of war for the Afghans and ourselves. There seems to be violation of a moral issues which preclude and definition of our intervention as humanitarian. We can better support human Afghan feminine dignity through applied political pressure consciouness from
outside the country.

      Tell me Brother—I want to know.

      TY all for keepin’ this place interesting.

      See ya!!

Why are we in Afghanistan? Oil, you leftists always say.
Wrong (again) of course… now we know from our geologists. Lithium to power our
laptops, cameras and cellphones…..
To keep the industry: Designed in the USA, Made In China alive and kicking and
the world economy humming. Is that worth it? You bet it is! Can Bill Boyarsky live
without his Dell/MacBookPro or his Blackberry/iPhone. I doubt it! Then there’s
gold, iron, copper…etc.

JDmysticDJ,

My hope is that you dig deeper and find that a female pupil in Afghanistan, over the past two centuries, have typically benefited from the “basic minimums” - which typically meant the equivalent of an sixth grade education (lower in most cases).  Female “doctors”, with exceptions, have been glorified attendants or corpsmen relegated to gynecological exams and other “untouchable” duties.  With few exceptions most female doctors never benefited (I understand that is now changing) from an “Western”, 20th century, medical university.

You’re good with surface information.  I give you that. 

-

As for the rest of your opinions; you never hold back on what you think of me personally.  I will simply reply in kind:  I truly wish you did know what you write of concerning most global events.  Dialog would be a great deal easier. 

Tamping down your tantrums would help.

-

I have never seen you write of the Afghan people other than to repeat the same slogans concerning the unjust actions of the United States et. al.  You write of people on the ground as if they are interchangeable abstracts. You display zero concern for human beings.  Your concerns, I believe, lie with you.

I have written it before.  I am not the dangerous one between us.

Still looking for Osama…....

hello again. Redhorse, i respect your opinion about
our condition, and give merit to quantifying
multitudes of sheeples; but let us clean up this
voting apparatus before comforting them with false
securities. and the rant about the girls and the
women- “how much for the women?”(Blues Brothers):
this situation in Afghanistan is exactly the fault of
murdering all the men. there are no men to take
security positions, or police positions: because the
last warring decades have killed them all. that is
why our exit strategy fails, without not really
exiting. all the dreams of resurrecting a society
have to include importing men, and judiciary (as an
example in this country) is not justice for anyone
but those actually living above the law; and
establishing it is, again -counter productive to
inviting male immigrants. “how much for the girls?
the women?” come, we will eat at Desert Taco- camel
burritos, poppy seeds, government cheese, special
sauce: you will like it. afterwards, we watch the
“CNN” on satellite download- your hut or mine?

War for profit sucks moral life and meaning out of all parties involved. The fear and greed based forces of living evil that took us into Iraq were so powerful that only a few of our elected leaders possessed the moral courage to confront them and say NO!! This darkness consumes our future and denies us vision. It has made us inhabitants of an American deadzone where no movement toward a new life and future is allowed. It is the “mote” we must remove from our own spiritual eyes to allow the return of light and meaning. It is why we flounder as a people and our leadership cannot bring us into a living generative balance with life, the planet and other nations. Like poor Tantalus of Tartarus the living food and water of life and meaning are within reach, but always escape us. The evil that brought us to our present condition is a living vampiric entity now alive inside us all. Only new consciousness, self awareness and UNITY can save us. VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

      We are in the Middle East to keep our political fingers in the oil pie. It is financially expedient, not something else. If we deny education, jobs, health care, social support, etc. to our own people, how much real concern do we have for Afghan women. Spare me the “spin”. VietNam didn’t need us and neither do the Afghan people. It is pure megalomaniacal hubris to think we can save the world when we can’t even deal with our own social problems and save ourselves.

JD you are going to keep voting the murderers in,

  so what is your concern??

Go Right Young Man

As to my being “predictable L.O.L.,” I’ll point out that your attempt to make an extremely ugly picture attractive is what is most predictable. Need I list the atrocities that have occurred in Afghanistan beginning with the invasion? Let’s have an atrocity fight. Your smatterings of atrocities will be more primitive, while mine will have a far greater magnitude.

It’s true that we owe a debt to the people of Afghanistan, to the people of Iraq, and now to the people of Pakistan. The problem is that the debt can never be repaid. What seems certain is that some, in these countries, will be bound and determined to collect that debt, in blood. The latest terrorist captured in the U.S., declared in court that he was a Muslim soldier, and that the U.S. was killing children in Pakistan.

You claim that the education of Afghan girls is, “…the single best thing to take place inside Afghanistan in two hundred (200) years.”

“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 men and women 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 the University of Kabul; 440,000 female students were enrolled in educational instituions and 80,000 more in literacy programs.”

That was twenty two (22) years ago, before the “Freedom Fighters” destroyed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan; arguably the single worst thing to take place in Afghanistan, up to that time.

“You say F*#K them.  They offer you nothing!”

Damn, you are dumbass! You have effectively said kill them, and you will continue to effectively say kill them.

“My hope is that you take the time to think about this past your next decision whether or not to purchase an I-Pad or I-phone.—4, 8, or 16GB?”

What is this comment? Humor, sarcasm, parody, I don’t get it. I won’t be wanting or needing those devices, or the lithium batteries needed to power them.

JDmysticDJ,

You are all too predictable….LOL. 

I painted no “pretty picture”.  Afghanistan has not been pretty for decades.  I simply attempt to lend a larger picture. 

Let me see if I understand how you think.  The millions of young girls now able to benefit from an education, the woman now able to own property and secure employment, the woman who are now given a voice within the Afghan government is all very meaningless due to legislation concerning rape having been omitted by the outside pressures you find to be horrendously negative.

I say we owe the Afghan people a tremendous debt.  You say F*#K them.  They offer you nothing!

You’re an interesting sort.

-

Post Script: If we have vision past the next week it’s not hard to see how the education of millions of girls happens to be the single best thing to take place inside Afghanistan in two hundred (200) years.

My hope is that you take the time to think about this past your next decision whether or not to purchase an I-Pad or I-phone.—4, 8, or 16GB?

The Democrats are complicit in Bush’s obscene actions. they will not do anything to extract truth from any of them, because it easily expose them to damaging revelations of their own shameful conduct.
This is why I was so irate at Sen. Clinton’s feigned outrage in her HuffPo blog yesterday. She is fine with being lied into war, but once Bush starts messing with ‘women’s issues’- The hypocrisy is galling. A shame it will take time to vote all incumbents out.Acai Max Cleanse

hello. tell me more about clean, safe, abundant hydrogen energy… good grief did i ever miss the party! you get a live government mole- and murdering Taliban is fashionable! i thought only some of the Taliban were the bad guys, and the majority were just people with their hands out: that it is our responsibility to feed, shelter, and sell stuff to. get them engaged in capitalism, because it is an ever expanding marketology (engorges on new consumers). as a citizen, nobody is attacking me- except how deep government can reach in my pocket. this is 2010, if you live in a beltway bubble. i do not have government clearance with Google maps, so i can not see close enough in elevation -to see any glorious poppy canals. put a live vid screen on the ground for me to talk directly to the Afghans people, and not just elitist manipulators: and i will personally go there and give them a hand, if they want my help. we know Oboymamma decided against pulling a JFK, and a 10 year commitment has been hardly fickle. oh, do another line, and bleed my heart about reaching out to those Afghan liberals you need me to pay for, (and grandchildren will continue supporting them) because Americans should be ashamed about how they got their act so much more together, than all the despots and dictators depending upon American charity would allow for their own people. look at the picture- America’s finest warrior has cleared a valley. the engagement is dumbfounding. we happen to be the greatest recruitment tool for Al-Qooka by being there. walk away today, stop the sanctimonious human slaughter, and show the world what true Americans believe: killing for capitalism is wrong.

Go Right Young Man

Go to democracynow.org. Oct. 7 and Oct. 28, 2009. Read the interviews with Zoya Malalai a leading female proponent of Afghan democracy. She has views about the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan you may find enlightening.

I find it difficult to understand why these Afghanis who have had their country destroyed and occupied aren’t more grateful for their new foreign imposed democracy. A democracy that would crumble without Nato support.

Afghani women in government is PR, their participation is mandated by law, and they are not taken seriously by Afghani males.

I saw a PBS documentary about an afghan women who worked for two years to get one electric light bulb for a neighborhhod mosque. After two years of activism, she received the generator but it lacked the necessary hardware to be functional. Perhaps the fact that she was being filmed while asking for the generator had some impact on her receiving the non funtional generator.

Lets not forget that a law allowing Shite males to rape their wives had to be hurriedly repealed because of outside pressure.

Unfortunately, the pretty picture you paint of Afghani democracy is nothing but hype.

The Jihadist “Freedon Fighters” destroyed the most progressive government in the area, and then fought among themselves for 3 years, further increasing the death toll and destruction.

Don’t bother, the tripe you offer is nothing but false propaganda.

“Deep beneath the desolate landscape here are miles of canals that have watered wheat fields and vineyards for untold generations. They’re also at the center of a dispute that handed the Taliban a propaganda victory and angered the very people the U.S. military hopes to win over through its troop surge.

Rushing to expand a base to fit the new forces, American commanders seized farmland and built on top of these ancient underground-irrigation systems. The blunder is an indication of how fragile the effort to win public backing for the U.S.-led war can be. In some cases, the tension is over civilian casualties; in others, it’s about the corruption of U.S. allies in the Afghan government. Here, it’s an accidental clash of infrastructure technologies separated by a few yards of dirt and 3,000 years.”

Go_Right_Young_Man
I hope wikeleaks helps shed some light, for reason
our govt. doesn’t want the info he has out.  I wonder why?

There is no way to justify a lie, that is why I neednot
dig any more than I care.  Kill everyone, then tell world
what a great humanitarian you are.
  We need a little nation building right here !!!!

ofersince72, June 21 at 9:21 pm

-

I’m not sure what any of that has to do with the Human Rights Counsel within the United Nations.  Or Human Rights Watch investigations.  Do we ignore all that can be gleaned from the Afghan, German, and British governments as well?  The Dutch Foreign Ministry too? Even the Chinese government has contributed to the Afghan people with materials, training, logistics, parliamentary instruction and so-forth.  Each government and NGO (there are thousands) is proud to report and inform on their respective rolls. - The irrigation systems will feed tens of millions of human beings.  No need to be so cynical about that.

I am saying there is a great deal more information out there than most “regulars” here on TruthDig are ingesting.  Tangible and verifiable information.  Some of which I have shared here today.  None of which is derived from the, so-called, media.

-

You still appear to be suggesting that No Source can supplement or corroborate knowledge of current events in Afghanistan.

How do you reach your conclusions if that be the case?

And round and round and round it goes, a ‘debate’ channeled around falsehood, deception and greed.
Quick question : Why is the group formed by international treaty to defend the free passage of the merchant marine in wartime - a mutual pact like that which set off World War One - engaged in a land war in Asia ? Especially when Israel can attack a signatory’s shipping ( Gaza flotilla ) on the pretext of looking for arms to enforce a UN sanctioned bloackade ?
Ahem. Israel isn’t a signatory and the presence of arms is not an allowable reason. ( Don’t blame me. I didn’t write ‘Lend Lease’ )
To know that I’d have to explain why a carrier group headed off Iranian relief supplies headed for Gaza yesterday.
Back to Afghanistan. You want to know how long the Long War might drag on ?
How an 1845 British Cavalry memo explains Afghanistan
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/30/call_in_the_calvary?new
Khyber Pass : British Army disaster in Afghanistan
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=church&book=english3&story=pass
Hm. British Army loss of 12000 in Afghanistan in 1842. The place should be ‘fixed’ any day now.
Does somebody have any real idea what changes might need to take place before the Graveyard of Empires is properly chastised ?

Go_Right_Young_Man

You are right, to many journalists have murdered ,
tortured and silenced for me to believe what our gov
and NATO wants me to believe

On the other, I believe I did
  F.B. ???

ofersince72,

You appear to be suggesting that nobody, no source(s) of any kind, can be trusted.  If that be the case then does this mean you have no opinion on contemporary events in Afghanistan?  Military or otherwise?

I did not refer to any youtube videos.  I referred you to one interesting and well produced documentary film.  There is so much more.

Look into the things I shared today. 
-

Did you get the private Mssg. I sent?

Go_Right_Young_Man

I imagine those irrigation canals are for the poppy fields.  Don’t know about all the happy women, and
I can get a video from youtube to make any political
point I care.  That is one of the dangers of the internet.
Any NATO country is going to rationalize their presense
there.  They lied about their reasons for being there,
and I am sure going tell a bunch more to justify remaining
there.
  I have tried three times to send you along with post
a little humor for the week but Truth Dig keeps rejecting
it.

ofersince72, June 21 at 7:29 pm #

-

If you don’t know anything, if you cannot confirm anything, then what have you?

If that be the case then does this mean you are unable to form any opinion on Afghanistan or the region, military or otherwise?

-

The U.N. the World Bank, NATO and the German and British Foreign ministries have information on the Micro-loans specifically to female entrepreneurs in Afghanistan.  I highly recommend a documentary film titled “BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL”

The Afghan government and Human Rights Watch both have a great deal of information regarding the female high schools in operation in Afghanistan.

The Afghan government, the U.N. and the Dutch Foreign ministry has available a good deal of information in regards to the small hydrogen engines (along with training) being dispersed in remote areas of Afghanistan.

We can all witness the irrigation canals being built by utilizing Google Earth.

Nova produced a superb expose on Afghan woman in government in the past two (2) years.

There are the numerous public statements of Nasrallah and Zawahiri in regards to their goals in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

-

There is a great deal more information for those who wish to dig deeper than their favorite news source(s) or Weblogs.

Go_Right_Young_Man

No, I do not wish to discuss them because I don’t know
how true these events that you say are happening are.
I have long ago learned not to believe much that comes
from inside a war zone. I don’t know how happy millions
of women feel, don’t know that they were liberated.
Don’t know if any of the flogging stories are true.
As many wise men have pointed out
“The first casualty of war, is the truth”
and there is little to believe about what my government
or their media friends report. So that is why I do not
want to debate matters about an ongoing war off the cuff.

“What if after 9/11, the world had forced us to remove all our troops and military bases from the Middle East? - BINGO — war on terror would have been over before it began.”

-

Light: Not according to Zawahiri, Nasrallah or bin Laden.  According to what these men and others teach you will submit or, necessarily, be put to death.

It’s my opinion that there are times when soberly and honestly listening to the enemy is preferable to the refuse on blogs and/or award winning Web sites.

Context.

1. We owe the Afghan people a debt almost beyond repaying.  I intend to make good on that debt.

2. There is an accumulation of enemy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, the Philippines and North African at this time.  People will be killed.

3. Yes, some people profit from war.  Regrettably that is human nature.  But to make the above all about profit is simply not real.  It’s a fine conspiracy theory (always unprovable and unchanging for many decades) that I happen not to subscribe to.

4. It has been my experience that people tend to reflect onto others, or whole nations for that matter, how they see themselves.  There are a great many dark and brooding individuals on this particular Web space that, apparently, cannot be trusted nor admired.

Like many minions of our American “religious right”, the Taliban holds the people captive to a repressive, dark ages intellectual and spiritual projection, of its’ own superstitious fear and ignorance. The Taliban is still able to stone, whip or outright murder the spiritual intellectual democratic social progressive. Organized American religious bigots have had to forego the scarlett letter, whipping post, dunking stool, stocks, crushing stones and live burnings of the past. But don’t stop being afraid. Outward projection of personal evil onto a designated and scapegoated “other” is still alive and well in the American psyche.

        A good example of this is the T.V. program Cops, where people are invited to hate and gloat over the misfortunes and chaining of our uneducated and socially wounded poor. It has allowed the building of an unjust for profit national prison system (25 to life for victimless crime) and it was the unconscious factor the Bushites triggered to carry us into yet another insane war. It has destroyed our educational system and is now rewriting our textbooks. Example: McCarthy was just another Salem witch hunter feeding victims to the sacrificial fire of ignorant hypocrisy. It is a living evil that represents a vampire culture. It has no, and if not contained, will not allow, a society to possess reflective consciousness.

      That this war is marketed as a Holy Crusade between these two spiritually bankrupt ideologies is an insult to the intelligence of real Christians and Muslims worldwide. The only American love and light alive in the conflict is in the confused, manipulated and couregeous hearts of our brave service men and women.

      Like GO_RIGHT_YOUNG_MAN I’d like to focus on the light bringing aspects of our Afghan Mission and I don’t doubt that after the “private contractors” pocket a tidy sum, they’ll maybe build some roads, canals and schools (remember the flatbed truckload of cash that just disappeared). I also agree that Taliban religious fear and repression of feminine power is heinous. But, like VietNam our best intentions are a thimblefull of cure in an ocean of bloody carnage. I’m sure President O. would like to end the war but, get in a war, it’s hard to get out. You can’t just go home.

      We hardly ever hear from the folks in SouthEast Asia any more. They seem to be doing fine without American intervention. In fact we even do business with them. Our VA PTSD group leader recently gave us little notebooks so that we could write down, learn to deal with and talk about our experiences there. At the bottom, in type almost to small to see it was stamped: “Made in Viet Nam”.

Go Right:  All those good things could have been done better and faster without killing anybody, and you cannot prove otherwise.

The money spent on warring could have paid for ten or twenty Afghanistan modernization programs with schools for girls running out our ears.

War is a business—and a very huge and dirty one at that, and the US is in it head over heels.  The good intentions are window-dressing to sell war to gullible people who don’t care where their money comes from.

gerard, - “Go Right:  If we were doing all those good things without killing and maiming them and ourselves, no problem.”

-

It took a couple hundred people, at most, to bring down the Twin Towers and attack the Pentagon.  Afghanistan and Pakistan knows thousands of the same people. 

Leave these places, leave afghans to their horrible misery caused by the West’s callous inaction, and those people who planned and carried out such attacks, will, Without A Doubt, become even stronger.

Context, gerard.

ofersince72,

So you wish to avoid all discussions of the Millions of Afghan girls who are now being educated?  Or how woman, who previously had to resort of begging if they didn’t have a male in their family, can hold government positions, are opening businesses due to the micro-loans or the female market vendors, school teachers, doctors and pharmacists? - Woman were not allowed to earn a living for their families ten years ago.

You wish not to discuss the nine (9) hospitals and dozens of clinics being built across the country?  You wish not to know about the dozens of GREATLY NEEDED irrigation canals being built? You don’t wish to know about the small hydrogen engines now being used all across the nation that bring electricity and potable water to the most remote parts of Afghanistan?  You don’t wish a better understanding of how, or even why, Millions of liberal minded and educated afghans are pleading with the West to stay to secure their nation?  You don’t want to learn of the thirty-eight (38) nations who are helping Afghanistan build an independent judiciary or the new journalism schools in Kandahar and Khost Provence?

Do these things simply not fit into the narrative you desire to learn more of?

Congressional hearings have long since become useless.

I grew up watching the Watergate hearings.  So, I know what a real hearing with a Congress determined to get answers looks like.  The modern ‘hearing’ is no such thing.

The modern hearing is one or two rounds of each congressperson doing a prepared little thing that they can then use the film clip of later on.  It has nothing to do with getting answers, instead its all about making a little video of the Congressperson either reading what’s essentially a long statement, or being seen asking ‘tough questions’.

If you are watching congressional hearings waiting for answers, good luck with that.  It doesn’t happen any more.

Go Right:  If we were doing all those good things without killing and maiming them and ourselves, no problem.  And that kind of “nation-building” might happen—someday, somewhere, somehow.

But not as long as the rich countries use the poor countries for resources, for domination and influence over others, for providing the home economy with jobs in munitions and tech factories.  Not as long as the rich cowards kill poor peasants in mosques or at weddings with bombs dropped from drones directed by computers in Florida or Colorado or wherever.

Killing breeds hate and a desire for revenge. Cowardice is universally despised.

Go_Right_Young_Man,  I have much respect for you,

but we always will disagree on the Nation building

I really don’t care to debate the construction or
destruction of our occupation that you believe is for
the good of mankind.

It is a shame, Afhgan in the sixties was the most
progressive of all Muslim nations.

ofersince72, - “What a bunch of nonsense you just put up this screen”

-

Nonsense for all those who have lost sight and context regarding what Afghanistan has been about, Yes!

F&#k the Afghan people and the decades of suffering caused by the West and the former Soviet Union.  F*#k them and their sufferings.

- 

You wrote something recently regarding “no solutions” being offered?  Can you point out to us which parts of what I wrote previously is incorrect?  Is it the high numbers of woman in the Afghan government today?  Is it nonsense to take notice of the high schools for girls all across the nation (what they were ALL denied previously)?  Is it the much needed irrigation canals we’re currently building all across the country?  Is it more nonsense in understanding how the most liberal minded in Afghanistan are now, as we write, pleading with the West to stay?

Please be exact about which parts are nonsense?

ofersince72:

Yes, tongue was firmly in cheek regarding comment about
bringing women’s lib in AfPak. Still, it’s one many
sheeple would swallow without a burb.

Go_Right_Young_Man

I agree with you,,, bring them home now.
What a bunch of nonsense you just put up this screen.

Yes!  We should ignore the pleas within the Afghan government for U.S. Troops to stay until the nation is more secure.  We should ignore that more woman hold government positions in Afghanistan than any time in her history.  We need to ignore the dozens of female high schools now operating across the country.  Forget these people.  Bring the troops home.

We should completely ignore that those who perpetrated the bombing of the USS Cole, the U.S. embassy bombings, the London and Spain bombings and Sept. 11, still reside within the afghan and Pakistan borders.  Bring the troops home.

Pay no mind to the fact that America’s enemies will look on an U.S. withdraw as a win for them and, the best recruiting tool imaginable.

We need to ignore the most liberal minded in Afghanistan who seek more security so as to give the Afghan people more time to build a representative form of government, an independent judiciary and an open and free minded media (those things often taken for granted in Western nations).

It matters none that the entire world will look on the United States as fickle can’t be trusted to stick to it’s commitments.  Bring the troops home.

Simply forgot that Afghanistan was left hanging after U.S. commitments ended in the 1980’s and the nation fell into a horrendous and bloody factional war for over a decade.

Forget the much needed hospitals, schools, irrigation canals, bridges and roads the West is building all across the nation.

F*%k the Afghan people!  Bring U.S. troops home now!

I hope that was a sarcastic comment GoyToy.

  about liberating the womenfolk,  that’s just funny
  isn’t it ??

The French have a saying for it and it goes like this; “The more things change the more they stay the same”.  Every major power in recorded history has had one major goal and that is to establish a “sphere of influence”.  Persia did it, Greece did it, Rome did it (and rather successfully too), France did it, Great Britain did it, Nazi Germany did it(though short lived), Japan did it, Russia did it, and, of course, the USA did it and is actively doing it.  I guess it all started with the concept of “Manifest Destiny” which worked it’s way into the Caribbean, Central and South American, China in the early days, then onto the Korean Peninsula, South East Asia (one of the few dismal failures), winding up in the Balkans and former Soviet republics and currently involved in Iraq and Afghanistan.  While the war may wind down, the US presence will not——this area, in the current political geo-sphere, is much too important.

For years I’ve gone without breakfast and put in a 9- 10-hour workday, but I did not faint.

As to why we’re still in AfPak, it’s to liberate their womenfolk.

Waging wars appears as a symptom; the cause for all invasions-occupations-warfare is always the same.

It never changes. Only well peppered and salted rationalizations change. And since giving reasons for one’s aggression[s]can go on forever, rationalizing ab Nato aggression against afgh’n won’t stop until one or the other side is utterly defeated.

And it only takes a perfunctory look to expect that won’t be Nato which will be defeated utterly or in any way.

To me, the only redeeming feature of that war is that fascists are fighting fascists. tnx

“While hoping he would win, I feared that once he was in Washington he would be co-opted by the defense and intelligence establishment and other so-called foreign-policy wise men floating around town.”

Except that Obama was already “in Washington”, Mr. Boyarsky.

“‘The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large and plotting,’ he said, echoing Mr. Bush’s oft-repeated refrain.”

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/the-ones-who-attacked-us/

Until we get congress to repeal

  Public Law 107-40 we will be involved

  in this criminal War on Terror for ever.

  It gives authorization thru the war powers act

  for the president to invade, occupy or wage war

  in any nation that he declares has a terrorist in it.

  It doesn’t take much to proclaim that,  a staged
  show bomb, or car bomb , anything , and our president
  is within our legal system to deploy troops.

Silly voters, empire is not for the likes of us to understand.

Now that the mineral wealth of Afghanistan is discovered ( or made public at any rate) do you really believe American troops will desert their real task, protecting said wealth for the rich old white men who make such decisions to invade, conquer and despoil?

When the Taliban was in power in Afghanistan there was a growing movement among non-Pashtun citizens against its rule. Perhaps, in the course of time, Taliban rule would have ended with the increasing pressure from the majority of Afghans. We will never know, sadly.

The stated goals of our government make little sense when viewed with a critical eye, I think. Defeating AlQaeda by invading Iraq, where that radical group had no presence at all, makes sense only to those whose agendas are different from their stated purpose.

Alienating the entire population of Afghanistan through the wholesale slaughter of innocent and , in many cases, apolitical, women and children seems a strange way to gain allies against a bunch of extreme fundamentalists from only one of Afghanistan’s tribes. I believe that there is now more support for the Taliban than before our military set foot in that nation.