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RedditToday, President Obama announced the deployment of 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan.
Two decades and two days after the Soviet army withdrew from its disastrous occupation in Afghanistan, it saddens me that we're heading down a path that has ensnared the British empire and the former Soviet Union. What's especially troubling is that Obama, who wisely ordered a fundamental review of US options in that country, is sending troops without even waiting for the review process to conclude. Although Obama insisted in his statement of Tuesday that "this troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review," one has to ask : Why not wait for the results of a comprehensive review that, if conducted honestly, may well determine that the Administration should take military escalation off the table in favor of a non-military regional strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and strengthen Pakistan?
As Tom Andrews, National Director of Win Without War put it, "The first principle for someone who finds himself in a hole is to stop digging, The US policy 'hole' in Afghanistan is not of the new Administration's making. But it is important for the President to consider if adding new US combat forces in Afghanistan, without a new and comprehensive plan, for US policy there, might be digging an even bigger hole."
Escalating the occupation of Afghanistan will bleed us of the resources needed for economic recovery, further destabilize Pakistan, open a rift with our European allies, and negate the positive consequences of withdrawing from Iraq on our image in the Muslim world. Escalation will not secure a better future for the Afghan people or increase US security. How will additional troops help meet the "clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region" that Obama spoke of Tuesday afternoon? We have not received a clear answer to that fundamental question.
Those who support non-military solutions should affect the outcome of the Obama Administration's ongoing strategic review process ends. Write your Representatives. Go to GETAFGHANISTANRIGHT.COM to find ideas for how you might get involved and what you can do.
Tell your Representatives that the short and longterm costs of this conflict demand alternatives. Tell them that they should think twice before sending young men and women to die in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan. The people of this country deserve a national conversation --and oversight--before any decision is made, and before we know what the mission and strategy is.
The decision Obama makes in the coming weeks will tell us a lot about whether his presidency will succeed in restoring America --or, as Win Without War's Tom Andrews warns, dig us into an even bigger hole!
President Obama--don't make this your war!
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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Thank you Ms. Vanden Heuvel. You are right on the mark. That almost sounds like an admission that Obama is no more liberal than Clinton would have been. And without people like us keeping him in line he will certainly be much more conservative. So keep up the good work in the future of forcing Obama to the left of center. After all your publication helped foist him on us with completely biased coverage of the 2008 Democratic nomination contest, so you bear some responsibility. Lately the Naion has been cleaving more to its progressive roots. I hope this continues for quite some time. This is a good start. But I can't resist saying "I told you so" because I did. Still I welcome the return of the nation to true progressivism.
Posted by likeitis7 at 02/17/2009 @ 6:45pm
Open a rift with Europe?
NATO chief says more troops needed in Afghanistan
Updated Sat. Feb. 7 2009 8:46 AM ET
The Associated Press
MUNICH -- NATO's secretary-general on Saturday blasted Europe's reluctance to respond to American calls for more troops in Afghanistan, saying countries like Germany and France need to "share the heavy lifting."
Germany's chancellor endorsed the principle of greater military support for the U.S. in NATO operations but did not commit to additional deployment in Afghanistan.
And in a note sure to warm the hearts of Katrina, Frosty, and others;
"Sarkozy argued for a Europe more ready to defend itself instead of relying on others, without touching on the Afghan troops issue.
"Does Europe want peace, or does Europe want to be left in peace?" he asked. "If you want peace, then you need to have the requisite means to survive ... you need to have political and military power."
In other words, Sarkozy said European nations need to build up their military strength instead of relying upon the US.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/17/2009 @ 6:54pm
"Write your Representatives. Tell them that the longterm costs of this conflict demand alternatives. Tell them that they should think twice before sending young men and women to die in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan."
~KvH
I believe I will. But sadly, it's also pretty clear that the die has already been cast, and anything short of a mass revolt here in America will likely fail to alter the outcome.
In retrospect, it's a fair wager that historians will look back in astonishment how Dick Cheney (primarily) managed to jam the levers of government into circular spin mode, and subsequently snap them off thus preventing anyone from altering our self-destructive course.
What a painful and tragic lesson to have to learn the hard way.
Of course, there is one alternative escape route.
Perhaps, Barack Obama can become the new Julius Ceasar and nuke (or otherwise bomb) our "enemies" into the stone age, thus consolidating the love of the nation. Oh that's right, Afghanistan is already there.
Apologies for the rather gloomy post, but stark reality is closing in faster than we can say, "Change we can believe in!"
But best of luck nonetheless, President Obama.
And by all means, readers, contact your congress people (and perhaps additional congress people as well --it couldn't hurt).
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 6:54pm
One point to add....
I shouldn't put undue blame on Dick Cheney. He just followed up with a "worst hits" version of the record that's been playing for decades now.
Call it, "Golden Oldies" for the gold diggers in DC.
Keep on diggin' boys. We're almost there.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:01pm
Its good to see that Obama is following the George Bush Surge model.
Posted by abell12ct at 02/17/2009 @ 7:21pm
Obama is out of his fuc*ing mind on that one. there is nothing to win in afghanistan.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/17/2009 @ 7:31pm
Why Obama? Why?
Posted by bleedingheart at 02/17/2009 @ 7:35pm
Economic data charts throughout the world have hit a wall and every trend has been plunging vertically downward since last autumn.U.S. consumer prices experienced their fastest plunge since the Great Depression of the 1930s, along with consumer "confidence," international shipping, real estate and stock market prices, oil and the exchange rate for British sterling. The global economy is falling into depression, and cannot recover until debts are written down.
Instead of doing this, the government is doing just the opposite.....
The Obama bank bailout is arranged much like an IMF loan to support the exchange rate of foreign currency, but with the Treasury supporting financial asset prices for U.S. banks and other financial institutions. Instead of banks and oligarchs abandoning the dollar, the aim is to enable them to dump their bad mortgages and CDOs and get domestic Treasury bonds. Private-sector debt will be moved onto the U.S. Government balance sheet, where "taxpayers" will bear losses – mainly labor not Wall Street, inasmuch as the financial sector has been freed of income-tax liability by the "small print" in last fall's Paulson-Bush bailout package. But at least the U.S. Government is handling the situation entirely in domestic dollars.
As in Third World austerity programs, the effect of keeping the debts in place at the "real" economy's expense will be to shrink the domestic U.S. market – while providing opportunities for hedge funds to pick up depreciated assets cheaply as the federal government, states and cities sell them off. This is called letting the banks "earn their way out of debt." It's strangling the "real" economy, because not a dollar of the government's response has been devoted to reducing the overall debt volume.....
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
Take the much-vaunted $50 billion program designed to renegotiate mortgages downward for "troubled homeowners." Upon closer examination it turns out that the real beneficiaries are the giant leading banks such as Citibank and Bank of America that have made the bad loans. The Treasury will take on the bad debt that banks are stuck with, and will permit mortgagees to renegotiate their monthly payment down to 38 per cent of their income. But rather than the banks taking the loss as they should do for over-lending, the Treasury itself will make up the difference – and pay it to the banks so that they will be able to get what they hoped to get. The hapless mortgage-burdened family stuck in their negative-equity home turns out to be merely a passive vehicle for the Treasury to pass debt relief on to the commercial banks.
Few news stories have made this clear, but the Financial Times spelled the details buried in small print. It added that the Treasury has not yet decided whether to write down the debt principal for the estimated 15 million families with negative equity (and perhaps 30 million by this time next year as property prices continue to plunge). No doubt a similar deal will be made: For every $100,000 of write-down in debt owed by over-mortgaged homeowners, the bank will receive $100,000 from the Treasury. Government debt will rise by $100,000, and the process will continue until the Treasury has transferred $50,000,000 to the banks that made the reckless loans.
There is enough for just 500,000 of these renegotiations of $100,000 each. It may seem like a big amount, but it's only about 1/30th of the properties underwater. Hardly enough to make much of a dent, but the principle has been put in place for many further bailouts.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
It will take almost an infinity of them, as long as the Treasury tries to support the fiction that "the miracle of compound interest" can be sustained for long. The economy may be dead by the time saner economic understanding penetrates the public consciousness.
In the mean time, bad private-sector debt will be shifted onto the government's balance sheet. Interest and amortization currently owed to the banks will be replaced by obligations to the U.S. Treasury. Taxes will be levied to make up the bad debts with which the government is stuck. The "real" economy will pay Wall Street – and will be paying for decades!.....
Is America a Failed Economy?
It may be time to ask whether neoliberal pro-rentier economics has turned America and the West into a Failed Economy. Is there really no alternative? Have the neoliberals made the shift of planning from governments to the financial oligarchy irreversible?
Let's first dispose of the "foundation myth" of the idea still guiding the United States and Europe. Free-market economists pretend that prices can be brought into line most efficiently with technologically necessary costs of production under capitalism, and indeed, under finance capitalism. The banks and stock market are supposed to allocate resources most efficiency. That at least is the dream of self-regulating markets. But today it looks like only a myth, public relations patter talk to get a generation of increasingly indebted voters not to act in their own self-interest.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
Industrial capitalism always has been a hybrid, a symbiosis with its feudal legacy of absentee property ownership, oligarchic finance and public debts rather than the government acting as net creditor. The essence of feudalism was extractive, not productive. That is why it created industrial capitalism as state policy in the first place – if only to increase its war-making powers. But the question must now be raised as to whether only socialism can complete the historical task that classical political economy set out for itself – the ideal that futurists in the 19th and 20th centuries believed that an unpurified capitalism might still be able bring about without shedding its legacy of commercial banking indebting property and carving infrastructure out of the public domain.
Today it is easier to see that the Western economies cannot go on the way they have been. They have reached the point where the debts exceed the ability to pay. Instead of recognizing this fact and scaling debts back into line with the ability to pay, the Obama-Geithner plan is to bail out the big banks and hedge funds, keeping the volume of debt in place and indeed, growing once again through the "magic of compound interest." The result can only be an increasingly extractive economy, until households, real estate and industrial companies, states and cities, and the national government itself is driven into debt peonage.
The alternative is a century and a half old, and emerged out of the ideals of the classical economic doctrines of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and the last great classical economist, Marx. Their common denominator was to view rent and interest are extractive, not productive.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
Classical political economy and its successor Progressive Era socialism sought to nationalize the land (or at least to fully tax its rent as the fiscal base). Governments were to create their own credit, not leave this function to wealthy elites via a bank monopoly on credit creation. So today's neoliberalism paints a false picture of what the classical economists envisioned as free markets. They were markets free of economic rent and interest (and taxes to support an aristocracy or oligarchy). Socialism was to free economies from these overhead charges. Today's Obama-Geithner rescue plan is just the reverse.
End quote.
The whole thing (highly recommended):
counterpunch.org/hudson02172009.html
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
SORRY!!!!!!
This is PART ONE of the six parts I tried to post --(two thru six, above).
Here's a lengthy (and entirely worthwhile) piece of economic analysis from Michael Hudson who's been doing heavy (and invaluable) service over at Counterpunch.org
Excerpts:
There is no sign that Mr. Obama's economic advisors, Treasury officials and heads of the relevant Congressional committees recognize the need for a write-down. After all, they have been placed in their positions precisely because they do not understand that debt leveraging is a form of economic overhead, not real "wealth creation." But their tunnel vision is what makes them "reliable" to Wall Street, which doesn't like surprises. And the entire character of today's financial crisis continues to be labeled "surprising" and "unexpected" by the press as each new surprisingly pessimistic statistic hits the news. It's safe to be surprised; suspicious to have expected bad news and being a "premature doomsayer." One must have faith in the system above all. And the system was the Greenspan Bubble. That is why "Ayn Rand Alan" was put in charge in the first place, after all.
So the government tries to recover the happy Bubble Economy years by getting debt growing again, hoping to re-inflate real estate and stock market prices. That was, after all, the Golden Age of finance capital's world of using debt leverage to bid up the book-price of fictitious capital assets. Everyone loved it as long as it lasted.....
The Obama-Geithner plan to restart the Bubble Economy's debt growth so as to inflate asset prices by enough to pay off the debt overhang out of new "capital gains" cannot possibly work. But that is the only trick these ponies know. We have entered an era of asset-price deflation, not inflation.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:44pm
>>>Today, President Obama announced the deployment of 10,000 additional US combat troops to Afghanistan. <<<
I had always said a brigade or less (10,000 or less) was all that was needed to root out remaining Al Qaeda elements in the border region, and the 30,000 or more troops called for by some was excessive in light of the nation-building work needed and the international effort that requires.
Posted by Metteyya at 02/17/2009 @ 7:53pm
Mett,
Yes, we will kill SOME Al Queda and Taliban - but many will just flee across the border into Pakistan. Then when we go away, they'll sneak back. Or, if we really want to chase them INTO Pakistan, I don't think I have to explain all the problems that will cause for the Pakistani govt and society. (Possible civil war, anyone?)
Frankly, I think we can't "win" (in any sense of the word.)
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:03pm
That almost sounds like an admission that Obama is no more liberal than Clinton would have been. And without people like us keeping him in line he will certainly be much more conservative.
Posted by likeitis7 at 02/17/2009 @ 6:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person
i don't think that is necesarily a valid conclusion. you don't have any more idea whats in that man's heart and mind than anyone else, including me.
even though i almost completely disagree with your pat analysis of the man's character and philosophy, indeed keep up the heat for more progressive change.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 8:05pm
Obama is out of his fuc*ing mind on that one. there is nothing to win in afghanistan.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/17/2009 @ 7:31pm | ignore this person | warn this person
i'm inclined to tend to agree. with the taliban victory in the swat area and implementation of sharia law there, it becomes increasingly obvious that the farther and faster away we can get from that sucking hellhole the better for all involved.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 8:14pm
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:44pm | ignore this person | warn this person
nice find. bubble economy? i prefer "ponzi economy", but no biggy.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 8:17pm
Ibble,
What about the argument that says, if we leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will grow ever stronger, and eventually, could truly take national power? Or (if no national power), simply control say, 90% of the country of whatever. Then, they opne training camps again; plan more 9/11 type attacks, etc. The problem is, that if we leave the radical Islamic anti-American forces alone THERE, then they may come after us again HERE (in the U.S.). This is why we must fight them there there - to prevent them from attacking us HERE (at home).
Can we truly win in Afghanistan? No. But we CAN stay there forever, and in so doing, prevent another 9/11 attack.
Do I believe or endores everything I just said? Not necessarily, but it does make me think, as I contemplate our various (all bad) options, that it may be a case of picking the least bad of several bad options.
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:22pm
Can we truly win in Afghanistan? No. But we CAN stay there forever, and in so doing, prevent another 9/11 attack.
Do I believe or endores everything I just said? Not necessarily, but it does make me think, as I contemplate our various (all bad) options, that it may be a case of picking the least bad of several bad options.
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person
well...thoughtful and rational analysis...
and perhaps you is right, AND until very recently i would largely agree...
i kind of wonder if one reason obama is slowing our withdrawel might be the fact that continueing to spend bling on this and therefore the military is indeed...
putting money into the economy.
but ultimately i think such would be better spent on domestic retooling, though...
i wonder if such a shift is simply impossible in the short term and any attempt to go there too fast could result in less money being vomitted into the economy when its needed.
i still believe we need to build the best, most technologically advanced, alternative energy paradigm in the world and thereby...
a. remove the main reason we have to have a presence in that hellhole and...
b. gut the funding of those violent barbarians...
i'm almost of the opinion that we should welcome a return of the taliban to afghanistan...oh, and please, allow al qaeda to return...
and from time to time bomb and/or drop in the 82nd airborne and some commandos to blow the sweet bejebus out of the theocratic barbarians...
then get the hell out before the sonofabitches have the chance to make us bleed too much.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:06pm
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person
one of their big issues with us is our presence there, after all, and my hope is that if we do get the hell out, perhaps...
1. their will to harm us will decline.
2. eventually they will fall upon each other and the islamic world will finally get its much overdue "thirty years war" after which they will cease taking their chauvinistic religion so freaking seriously...
3. they will have nobody to blame for their misery beyond themselves.
furthermore i welcome a detente and relaxing of relations with iran. perhaps we can slyly suck THEM into that hellhole...but regadless, the irony is that even after all the ugliness that has transpired between iran and the US...
we are STILL natural allies in the reason, if for different reasons that in the past.
as abominable as i find irans clerical fundamentalist nightmare of a government/society...as the only major shiite dominated islamic society in the world they are natural enemies of sunni fundamentalism, and beyond southern iraq, not really a major potential threat to her neighbors in terms of aggression...
we actually had a golden opportunity to reestablish decent relations with iran when this whole 9/11 crap went down, but the mushmouth and his stupid ideological handlers blew that potential multi-problem solving coup...
but what does one expect from the ignorantly vainglorious self percieved masters of the universe?
lol...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:19pm
I, too, wonder why Obama didn't wait for the reviewers to report before sending more troops. As he's already made his decision, Katrina, I see no point in writing to Congress. I wrote on Obama's web site arguing against this decision months ago and it did no good. He's made it clear for a long time that he's a hawk on Afgh...don't know why.
I don't see what he thinks will be accomplished by more troops when it's clear that a heavier occupation will produce more alienation. I'm not worried about the Taliban attacking us--its focus has been at home. In fact, if we changed our Middle East policy, we could forget about Al Qaeda attacking us as well. What part of this does Obama not understand, added to Afgh's history of throwing out every invader? This is a stupid waste of money we don't have anyway.
Posted by mimsky at 02/17/2009 @ 9:30pm
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:03pm
My understanding is that the troops will be used in a "regional" approach in the border area, and include the full cooperation of the Pakistan government.
Longer term, I think you are correct in that "winning" will be elusive in any sense of the word. Nation-building efforts that would make the Taliban unnecessary and unwanted by Afghanis is what is needed, and such effort must be truly international to avoid the specter of "occupying" another country by the US and to provide legitimacy and world consensus for the efforts there.
Posted by Metteyya at 02/17/2009 @ 9:36pm
What about the argument that says, if we leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will grow ever stronger, and eventually, could truly take national power? Or (if no national power), simply control say, 90% of the country of whatever. Then, they opne training camps again; plan more 9/11 type attacks, etc. The problem is, that if we leave the radical Islamic anti-American forces alone THERE, then they may come after us again HERE (in the U.S.). This is why we must fight them there there - to prevent them from attacking us HERE (at home).
Can we truly win in Afghanistan? No. But we CAN stay there forever, and in so doing, prevent another 9/11 attack.
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:22pm
The taliban or what? The taliban lite? Please don't talk like there is an alternative that is worth one more death. And get the fuck out of Afghanistan AND the ME and we won't have to worry about anymore 9/11 type attacks. To imply the taliban was responsible for 9/11 is ridiculous enough but to buy into the utter bullshit that we have to fight them over there to keep us safe makes me want to wretch.
Posted by stpwarsnow at 02/17/2009 @ 9:37pm
KvH: "Escalating the occupation of Afghanistan will bleed us of the resources needed for economic recovery...."
Sorry....this line has been used up.......in the face of $790 Billion to be borrowed or, more than likely, printed out of pulp.....
It hardly matters if this "good war" The Messiah wants to wage, will cost $20 Billion or $100 Billion.....all spending is good, ain't it?
Posted by Happy at 02/17/2009 @ 9:51pm
It hardly matters if this "good war" The Messiah wants to wage, will cost $20 Billion or $100 Billion.....all spending is good, ain't it?
Posted by Happy at 02/17/2009 @ 9:51pm | ignore this person | warn this person
BING BING BING BING!!!!!
i'd still rather spend it to retool our economy and industry, but i honestly think you are onto something.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:53pm
Posted by Metteyya at 02/17/2009 @ 9:36pm | ignore this person | warn this person
greetings obamanoid comrade and fellow (and better) buddhist!
i hope your faith is born out, but think perhaps our boy MAY be barking up the wrong tree on this one.
oh well, time will tell, eh?
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:57pm
The Obama-Geithner plan to restart the Bubble Economy's debt growth so as to inflate asset prices by enough to pay off the debt overhang out of new "capital gains" cannot possibly work. But that is the only trick these ponies know. We have entered an era of asset-price deflation, not inflation.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:44pm
http://www.mises.org/books/bubbleworld.pdf
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 9:59pm
He's made it clear for a long time that he's a hawk on Afgh...don't know why.
Posted by mimsky at 02/17/2009 @ 9:30pm
You know why....but won't fess up!
As candidate, your Messiah HAD to show his willingness to use the military while also be AGAINST the Iraq War....at the time, this was exactly what the Lefties that post here, and damn near everywhere else, were echoing: Out of Iraq and get Bin Laden...Bush fighting the wrong war and letting OBL drop out of sight!
Basically, emphasize place where Bush is NOT, and attack Bush where he's more focused.
That meant, define the Afghan War as the "good war" and worry about actually what to do, IF AND ONLY IF he actually WON....fairly safe and the Netroots loved him for it!
Now, get out there and support your Magic!
Posted by Happy at 02/17/2009 @ 10:06pm
Some of these posts are truly idiotic (not yours, of course.)
War spending will obviously not help the economy. We're already spending hundreds of billions a year on war, and that's not helping, is it?
Occupying other people's countries will not stop terror. Occupation is THE #1 CAUSE of terror, from Israel to Sri Lanka and beyond.
Of course there IS another alternative. We can actually negotiate with all the regional players, including the Taliban, the Russians and Iranians. They're not monsters. They're people with different interests and ideas, but they're sane. None of them were behind 9/11. But talking wouldn't make any money for the Military-Industrial Complex, would it?
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/17/2009 @ 10:07pm
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 9:57pm
"perhaps our boy MAY be barking up the wrong tree on this one."
Oh, so he's your 'boy' eh? FROSTY, where are you?
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:15pm
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/17/2009 @ 10:07pm
"Of course there IS another alternative. We can actually negotiate with all the regional players, including the Taliban, the Russians and Iranians. They're not monsters. They're people with different interests and ideas, but they're sane."
Oh my god tell me this kid is still in some public school in some god-forsake blue state. Then I could understand the regurgitation of left-wing dogma, bereft of an iota of common sense.
Yeah, son, how about we send you over there to negotiate with the Taliban. They ain't crazy, they just have different ideas about how to run the legal system. Jesus fucking christ.
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:18pm
Posted by Happy at 02/17/2009 @ 10:06pm
Thanks for the history lesson Hap. The memory holes here tend to be such deep, yawning chasms, black holes from which no hint of reason escapes, that even us neutral observers the right are not wholly immune. I must admit that I forgot myself why The Zero keeps insisting on actually killing terrorists. Of course he started at 30,000 troops, and now he's down to 17,000, so I guess the trend is in the predictable direction, toward another one of those memory holes...
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:24pm
Yeah, son, how about we send you over there to negotiate with the Taliban. They ain't crazy, they just have different ideas about how to run the legal system. Jesus fucking christ.
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:18pm
Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 19:27 GMT
TALEBAN IN TEXAS FOR TALKS ON GAS PIPELINE
The 1,300km pipeline will carry gas across Afghanistan's harsh terrain A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.
A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:24pm
OINK! OINK!
Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions
By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq Monday, 16 February 2009
In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (£88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme.
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:32pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:24pm
Uh, FROSTY? That was BEFORE anyone knew they were going to chop off people's heads and hands and harbor terrorists. Maybe you should do a little research before you post your usual mangled nonsense.
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:33pm
Posted by FDR43 at 02/17/2009 @ 8:22pm | ignore this person | warn this person
complete nonsense. the Taleban had nothing to do with 9/11.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/17/2009 @ 10:41pm
"The U.S. government, for example, made no comment when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995 and expelled thousands of girls from schools."
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:42pm
Oh, so he's your 'boy' eh? FROSTY, where are you?
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:15pm | ignore this person | warn this person
suck on it, ponty...
lol...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 10:45pm
Posted by Happy at 02/17/2009 @ 10:06pm
Again, after another round of HAPPY and "Magic" and "Messiah" talk...bears repeating-
"about the state of our country and the general lack of respect toward authority and of course, BDS!
In another culture, say Palestine or Gaza.....Juliet would be breeding future suicide bombers!----Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/26/2008 @ 11:45am
Posted by Mask at 02/17/2009 @ 10:48pm
Posted by emile duBois at 02/17/2009 @ 10:41pm
"complete nonsense. the Taleban had nothing to do with 9/11."
Well, except for harboring Osama Bin Laden and his training camps as 'guests'. Otherwise, no connection at all. Hey, what's that big black hole over there...pulling me towards it......aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:50pm
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:24pm | ignore this person | warn this person
memory holes? like your satano-aynrando masters of the universe's memory hole in regard to the great depression?
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 10:50pm
Posted by pontificus at 02/17/2009 @ 10:50pm
So, PONTI, who had more to do with 9/11....
the Taliban...or Saddam Hussein?
(Step back, don't want any skull or brain fragments to hit you when his head explodes!...heheh)
Posted by Mask at 02/17/2009 @ 10:55pm
(Step back, don't want any skull or brain fragments to hit you when his head explodes!...heheh)
Posted by Mask at 02/17/2009 @ 10:55pm | ignore this person | warn this person
KABLOOM!!!!!!!!!
lol...
go to bed.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 11:07pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:32pm | ignore this person | warn this person
SNORT!
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/17/2009 @ 11:09pm
"Escalation will not secure a better future for the Afghan people or increase US security." How could you possibly know that? I have yet to hear one of those famous "non-military solutions" to Afganistan. The reason is the only "non-military solution" is defeat and a return to brutal Islamic rule where women are shot in the stadium for the most trivial offense. Funny how people like KVH and the NOW gang could give not one whit to Islamic brutality to women...is that a death wish or something? If so you are prostrating yourselves to the right critters in radical Islam to get your wish. What was your response to the poor woman who was decapitated yesterday by her degenerate muslim husband - in this country? I guarentee you will never demonstrate against that....perhaps you approve.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/17/2009 @ 11:10pm
The leftist are really laughable in their fraudulent arguements on the "war on terror". First it was pull out of Iraq because it can't be won and we SHOULD be fighting in Afganistan were the REAL battlefront against terrorism is!
Now we are back to the tired old defund, cut and run Undemocrat party tactics. Wonder how long until we start hearing the how Afganistan is really Vietnam garbage bag all over!?!?
Pakistan has some good reasons to want to help fight against Islamic terrorist now since they were forced to let the taliban have islamic rule in the northern territories. Already today dozens of taliban were killed by U.S.A. predator strikes there. I expect we will see many more very soon!
Get a grip there KVH since this may be the only success Obamanation will probably have in the next 4 yrs!
Posted by comancheamerican at 02/17/2009 @ 11:11pm
Here's the only way. The UN/World Court has to be the driver. Don't use the word "war." Repeat-- Don't use the word "war". Same for anything religious, ignore, ignore these quagmires.
Use only symbols/language of Human rights, Human rights, Human rights ---- specifically girls' and women's rights has to be the calling. And court, trial, witnesses, etc.
Identify the top tier this way --- bring a case, with real people's stories and video, etc., to the world, to the internet. Show the world that extreme Taliban leader types APPEAR to have broken the law and will be brought to justice. Name names. [Digressy: You will know their names my friends! So happy we're not in McCain warp now!!]
Then arrest the big Talibanshees, let their plaintiffs explain the human rights abuses for all to see & hear.
Were not there to fire missiles on the religiously different. No, we just want to arrest the leaders.
Soldiers protecting the leaders are also to be tried, but this can be far more automated, with the World Court giving them pro forma rank-proportionate 1-15 year sentences
Ditto-ish for Sudan / human rights.
Posted by winyahn at 02/17/2009 @ 11:37pm
Month after month during last year's election campaign I urged "progressives" at this site to vote for Ralph Nader, if they planned to vote. I was called every name in the book for doing so. How are we now to describe those who sought so desparately to denigrate Nader and promote Democratic Party interests to the exclusion of all else. I have a name for them that fits just like a glove: Warmonger!
Posted by john lowell at 02/17/2009 @ 11:40pm
Probably would have to do this for 10 years, all the while get the cheapo laptops to everyone, until there's enough enlightenment and these loser fundamentalists operate like ours! On second thought...
Posted by winyahn at 02/17/2009 @ 11:41pm
john lowell ----
the NADERMONGER
Posted by winyahn at 02/17/2009 @ 11:45pm
stpwarsnow: Sorry, but you are the one spewing BS. War definitely has a place in history. As for the Taliban, they definitely aided and abetted AQL for the planning and execution on 9-11. If you do the same for bank robbers you will be caught-up in the same net. After all, The Taliban and AQL had the same goals. You can only fight that with hot steel and lead laced with a healthy dose of viciousness and brutality. I remember when the Taliban were routed in 2001, the locals would go out in their yards and dig up the VCRs they had buried to hide them. Young couples could have weddings again. Kids could actually fly kites again - the horror! Tells you something about the degenerate thugs the Taliban were and still are. Oh yes, don't forget the 2500 yr old giant Budda statues they blew up, while the whole civilized world begged them not to, the summer before 9-11.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/17/2009 @ 11:51pm
john lowell: Funny, I was urging progressives to vote for Nader to - so that McCain would win. Alas, they didn't do it.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/18/2009 @ 12:02am
winyahn: "Then arrest the big Talibanshees, let their plaintiffs explain the human rights abuses for all to see & hear." You are a hoot! (: May I be so bold as to ask "whom" might arrest them? I know, send some silk pantied lawyers in with subpoenas - that might do it....perhaps they might carry little baskets to hold their heads in after they are removed from their torsos - after the laughter dies out. Honestly, where do you come up with such naive garbage. Is public school that disfunctional or was it an Ivy League brainwashing.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/18/2009 @ 12:18am
egad, ¿mccain?
take all of obama's more of the sameness and cube.
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2009 @ 12:26am
lol.
""It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,"
guess who?
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2009 @ 12:56am
I don't think Obama's team has worked out what their strategy is yet for Afghanistan. The commanders on the ground asked for more troops, expecting their request to be blindly granted a la Bush. They were surprised when the administration asked them lots of questions and delayed answering for a week. I think the commanders have convinced Obama's team that a force of 17,000 troops was necessary to meet the immediate objectives and deploying them buys time for the development of a long term strategy and for consultation with the other coalition members. Whether the long term strategy is to pull out or add more troops is unknown. I was dumbfounded, and perhaps the president's team was also, by the admission of one of the senior General's last week that they had no long term strategy for Afghanistan.
Posted by Irmanator at 02/18/2009 @ 12:57am
"What's especially troubling is that Obama, who wisely ordered a fundamental review of US options in that country, is sending troops without even waiting for the review process to conclude. Although Obama insisted in his statement of Tuesday that "this troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review," one has to ask : Why not wait for the results of a comprehensive review that, if conducted honestly, may well determine that the Administration should take military escalation off the table in favour of a non-military regional strategy to stabilize Afghanistan and strengthen Pakistan? "
One could read Obama's statement in the context of the 30,000 bandied about and Obama's likely knowledge that the 17,000 is but an earnest on what is yet to come.
It is also now obvious that Obama is no pacifist and gives every indication of enjoying a war as much as your next national leader. That of course is too cynical. Perhaps closer to the truth is that Obama is no more nuanced than GW and is prepared to implicitly identify his own axis of evil. The reality is that semantics aside both are full on War on Terror warriors. That seems to me is a consequence, in both men, of their Christian presuppositions amongst other considerationd.
Others, particularly those on the Left, will want to argue that both have been bought off by the financial/industrial/military complex and be able to point the finger at the Zionists as culprits also. I'm prepared to accept that both are men of principle who know the difference between what is good and what is evil.
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/18/2009 @ 02:06am
Maybe he had to send some soldiers. The Bush Admin. said that the war was not going well....
Obama certainly has to take some time to consider plans for Afghanistan and Iraq.
It would be a foolish thing to chase the same wind mills of G.W. Bush....
Look at Bush now. All the Kool-Aid in the world couldn't raise his popularity.
Posted by koroviev at 02/18/2009 @ 06:07am
Posted by pyeatte at 02/18/2009 @ 12:18am
I am speaking to the awesome importance of symbolism. There's a real way to dramatically impact hearts and minds. You probably have to be more enlightened to catch this... and you probably would need to spend lots of time in third world countries. Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, most are wonderful people. We have the upper hand in everyway, and suffer from grandiosity and completely play into the hands of Islamofascists thugs. The actual military tools would be the same. But the language and symbolism would be one of an international police action, backed by due process and a system of justice.
Posted by winyahn at 02/18/2009 @ 06:25am
Unless there's a huge public outcry -- unlikely given that there's no draft & the middle class isn't threatened, forget the rich -- Obama will remain a captive of The Generals & their military suppliers in the imperial project.
So how many Afghanis is Obama prepared to have slaughtered before they're brought to their knees for the 1st time in history? A million? Two million? Three million?
We killed over 2 million Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are still there & we are long gone.
Posted by sloper at 02/18/2009 @ 07:04am
Obama is out of his fuc*ing mind on that one. there is nothing to win in afghanistan.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/17/2009 @ 7:31pm
You couldn't be more right Emile. It seems like Obama is trying to appease Patreaus, Keanne and the neocon thugs at the American Enterprise Institute.
After all, we've got to keep that defense money flowing to the key defense contractors to grease the wheels of the overly corrupt system known as our National Defense budget.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 07:17am
Wolfgang I agree with the heart of what you're saying -- And we have to help the region in some clever manner. Their neocons are perhaps worse than ours, total snuffing out of the lives of especially the girls and women. And their fear venom sells, and our approach HELPS it to sell, and they take over more villages and territory. The girls/women are hurting terribly in every new stronghold.
In a few short years the insanity could be even worse, much worse. The whole risk of these developments cross contaminating Pakistan politics is massive. We'd look back and wish it were only this bad if some asswipe reactionary muhlahs got closer and closer to political control of Pakistan and their nukes.
Posted by winyahn at 02/18/2009 @ 07:33am
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/18/2009 @ 12:56am
I believe that would be Mr Lindsey Graham? REPUBLICAN....from SOUTH CAROLINA???
Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 08:51am
I'm prepared to accept that both are men of principle who know the difference between what is good and what is evil.
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/18/2009 @ 02:06am
Ahhh............wonderful. But show us a plan please. Blind faith is coveted by both good and evil.
'Australia wants a major reconsideration of Western strategy in Afghanistan and will not increase troop levels in the country until "underperforming" NATO countries shoulder their fair share of the burden, the Australian defense minister said Tuesday.
"I have to say the West isn't pursuing a coherent strategy in Afghanistan," the newly appointed defense minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, said by telephone Tuesday.
"We want to see more done to raise the number of both the Afghan National Army troops and Afghan National Police; we want to see a better strategy on narcotics; and we want to see much more done on the civil side: more in aid, more in governance, more in building capacity, in building a new economic base," he said.
Australia, with 970 troops in Afghanistan, is the largest non-NATO contributor to the effort. Four Australian soldiers have been killed on deployment and another 30 wounded.
Fitzgibbon's comments come as NATO is struggling to find more troops to share the burden in Afghanistan. The organization is looking for at least 7,000 more troops to add to the 43,000 already in the country.'
Excerpt: Australia criticizes NATO over Afghanistan strategy By Tim Johnston Published: February 12, 2008 - International Herald Tribune
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 10:18am
stpwarsnow: Sorry, but you are the one spewing BS. War definitely has a place in history. As for the Taliban, they definitely aided and abetted AQL for the planning and execution on 9-11. If you do the same for bank robbers you will be caught-up in the same net. After all, The Taliban and AQL had the same goals. You can only fight that with hot steel and lead laced with a healthy dose of viciousness and brutality. I remember when the Taliban were routed in 2001, the locals would go out in their yards and dig up the VCRs they had buried to hide them. Young couples could have weddings again. Kids could actually fly kites again - the horror! Tells you something about the degenerate thugs the Taliban were and still are. Oh yes, don't forget the 2500 yr old giant Budda statues they blew up, while the whole civilized world begged them not to, the summer before 9-11.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/17/2009 @ 11:51pm
You know, I missed the vcr digging, kite flying, young people getting married utopian explosion that followed our routing of the taliban. Sorry.
I won't even comment on the rest of your tripe.
Posted by stpwarsnow at 02/18/2009 @ 10:22am
Posted by b_kool_66 at 02/17/2009 @ 7:41pm
"The hapless mortgage-burdened family stuck in their negative-equity home turns out to be merely a passive vehicle for the Treasury to pass debt relief on to the commercial banks."
Yes, I saw Hudson's article at Counterpunch yesterday and it really hits the nail on the head. Geithner, predictably, is merely trying to find ways of having taxpayers eat the bad loans these bozos made so that investors will be protected. The headline will be "Obama helps homeowners" but the reality will be Obama helps oligarchs. I've had enough of the Paulson/Geithner slight of hand and the craziness of taxpayers taking on the risk of these banks and their investors. I say nationalize them in such a way that the banks are forced to eat the real value of these loans or let them go under.
Posted by john lowell at 02/18/2009 @ 10:31am
"As for the Taliban, they definitely aided and abetted AQL for the planning and execution on 9-11."
complete nonsense.
"a healthy dose of viciousness and brutality."
this is the part you like best. another member of the grrr, kill, kill club.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 10:37am
Tells you something about the degenerate thug I am Posted by pyeatte at 02/17/2009 @ 11:51pm
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 10:42am
Sending more troops is a pure waste of time; nothing will ever be achieved there. Obama is going to get into the same trouble that Bush had with Iraq...both a waste of time. Let the intelligence folks do what they are paid to do and try and locate Bib Laden and then we can get him, hasn't that been the objective from the beginning? Pure waste of lives, time and valuable resources...bring them all home from both places ASAP and go after the real target once located.
Posted by Caj at 02/18/2009 @ 10:43am
What kind of "Resources" are needed from the tax-paying public, to make guarantees such as this? (My only post this morning.....unlike most of you who gets paid wasting your employer's money, I don't allow my employee, that's ME, to do so!)
From:
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2009
/02/uft_seeks_to_renew_a_juicy_825.html
UFT seeks to renew 8.25 pct. guarantee on 403(b)s
At a time of dramatically shrunken investment funds, many active and retired participants in New York City's teacher pension system are drawing a relatively remarkable, taxpayer-guaranteed return of 8.25 percent annually on their savings plans.
Amid a national economic crisis, massive federal aid, and huge budget deficits, pension deals subsidized by the city and other public entities are drawing closer scrutiny from fiscal watchdogs. But a Capitol observer asked rhetorically: "What state Senate or Assembly leader is going to say to (UFT president) Randi Weingarten ‘You got a hell of a nerve'?"
This unusual provision is due to expire June 30. But while neither house at the state Capitol has drafted a renewal, sources expect an extension to be introduced later in the Albany session.
This guaranteed return comes with the city Teacher Retirement System's optional 403(b) program, which lets educators shield part of their salaries from taxes in a savings/investment plan.
The 8.25 percent return rate, exceptional in today's climate, has been in effect for more than 20 years, last renewed in 2006.
The United Federation of Teachers is widely expected to push renewal in the same legislation that sets actuarial rates in pension plans....
Posted by Happy at 02/18/2009 @ 10:52am
"The U.S. government, for example, made no comment when the Taliban captured Herat in 1995 and expelled thousands of girls from schools."
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/17/2009 @ 10:42pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Well.....Iran always was and is currently (and secretly) part of the end game in Afghanistan.
Note that it was our CIA who pioneered the concept of "terrorist" training camps in the 1980's - actively recruiting radical Muslims to train in Pakistan camps - nearly 80,000 by some estimates, including bin Laden.
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 11:05am
"As for the Taliban, they definitely aided and abetted AQL for the planning and execution on 9-11."
complete nonsense.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 10:37am
Emile, you really do need to at least take on some objectivity in your research
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ambassador Oakley what is the relationship between the Taliban and bin Laden?
ROBERT OAKLEY: It's very close. The Taliban and bin Laden, particularly Mullah Omar go way, way back. Bin Laden helped Mullah Omar with his mosque in Karachi before he moved into Afghanistan. And he has helped the Taliban with material support since they began their movement in Afghanistan. He's also helped of course, during the war against the Soviets, he helped organize the Arabs basically who didn't do much fighting, but they organized themselves from all over the Muslim world, and that was really Mullah Omar is making use of that assistance, which he has provided really through the auspices of Osama bin Laden. So there are a lot of links, and it's very, very tight. They clearly know what he's doing, they clearly are supporting him, they clearly are facilitating not only Osama bin Laden, but other terrorists who reside in Afghanistan, who are creating problems all the way from China to Algeria.
SPOZHMAI MAIWANDI: Yes, do I. And it's not only the Taliban officials, but generally in the country, all people they support Osama bin Laden. They think he's a Mujahid.
http://tinyurl.com/cggjyc
another to follow
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 11:16am
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BOND; How bin Laden and Taliban Forged Jihad Ties
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ AND DAVID ROHDE Published: November 22, 2001
One of the primary reasons Mr. bin Laden exerted so much influence over Afghanistan was clearly his relationship with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the one-time clerk who rose to become spiritual leader of the Taliban, which sealed control over most of Afghanistan after taking over Kabul in 1996.
Insiders say Mullah Omar and Mr. bin Laden spent many hours in deep discussion of the intricacies of Islam, often by the light of kerosene lamps in the hideouts both men resorted to as the world's pressures against them mounted. Mr. bin Laden played to the mullah's vanity by declaring him caliph, a title reserved through the 1,400-year history of Islam for the leader of the faithful.
In turn, the Taliban leader turned his back on most of the rest of the world to support his patron.
Interviews with intelligence officials in Pakistan and Kabul, and conversations with knowledgeable residents in the Afghan capital present a picture of a growing closeness between the two men.
Sometime in the last year, Mr. bin Laden swore ''bayat,'' an Islamic oath of fealty, to Mullah Omar. By January of this year, at the wedding of one of his sons, the terrorist leader began to call Mullah Omar the caliph.
Under the tutelage of his guest, Mullah Omar began to see his goal as more than the liberation of Afghanistan and he progressively signed on to the idea of a worldwide jihad against the United States.
http://tinyurl.com/c8oqqc
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 11:19am
Robert Oakley speaks as if he is personally acquainted with Bin Laden. Were they tennis buddies or something?
Posted by canaro71 at 02/18/2009 @ 11:23am
liv, you have not shown any connection between the Taleban and 9/11.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 11:24am
<i>Posted by winyahn at 02/18/2009 @ 06:25am </i>
It's not an issue of enlightenment, it's a question of realism. I mean, yes, if symbolism and magic would solve all problems ever, of course we would do that. The problem is...that isn't the world we live in.
If, for instance, you're saying we should try the Taliban, then you run into some real problems, just as pyeatte said. You clearly can't get them without troops; they're not coming willingly. This is why I can't remember a single case where we ever succeeded in trying someone before defeating or at least neutralizing them as a hostile force. Plus, are you going to try all of them? Just some of them, so that a bunch are still left on the ground to do all the nasty stuff they've been doing?
Though I would agree with you that we should seek alternatives to war when possible, this is not one of those situations. There are times when war will be a necessary evil, and it sems like this is one of them. Now, whether continuing to fight in Afghanistan will accomplish something is an entirely different question, but it is at least clear that "try them in an international tribunal" is not really a viable solution.
Posted by Thrawn at 02/18/2009 @ 11:32am
liv, you have not shown any connection between the Taleban and 9/11.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 11:24am
Emile, You are being too kind to Liver. He's glosses over the fact that Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia as were most of those who took part in the 9/11 attacks.
Perhaps Liver can explain why the U.S. government whisked the Bin Laden family the hell out of the U.S. before the FBI could interrogate them after 9/11 and George W Bush's helm.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 11:49am
The war mongers on this site are stuck in their self-imposed delusions, supported by self-serving lies. They repeat that Islamists must be opposed/killed because they oppress women. Well, women leaders in Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world have said repeatedly the West's attacks are not helping them; they're making things worse.
The Warriors keep saying the Taleban was responsible for 9/11. The FBI has never charged anyone for 9/11, and there's a good reason. There is no evidence linking the Arab "suspects" (fall guys) to the crime.
Whoever scoffed at me for advocating negotiations instead of war, I'm not in high school. I'm older, more knowledgeable, and smarter than you. Your "hot steel" approach has worked so well, hasn't it? We're nearly ruined economically, diplomatically, and even militarily, and our "enemies" are stronger than ever. You can't win anything with occupation and hot steel.
Peace is more realistic and more truly American than aggressive war.
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 11:51am
and George W Bush's helm.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 11:49am
Sorry, meant to say...under George W Bush's helm.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 11:53am
Katrina, Perhaps The Nation could run a story depicting how much money the U.S. spends on it's military budget including running overseas bases, the pentagon, etc. Perhaps have someone look into trimming some of the fat off that budget.
Why not, the rethugs keep trying to cut social security (they've been robbing it's coffers for some time now to pay for their pet projects) and then turn around and say that it's running out of money. Well, it wouldn't if they'd keep their effing hands off it in bids to get re-elected via tax breaks and handouts to their imperial masters.
It's about time that someone look into other areas where we really do spend a ton of money with no yield and start cutting the fat away.
The GOP is all fired up about cutting money that helps Amerian citizens out, just not their beloved employer, the DOD, NSA and defense contractors. We'd start a hell of a lot less wars, wouldn't have to pay for bases in other countries and could scale way back on how much we spend on defense (our defense in fact has been an offense for some time now).
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 12:02pm
As usual, the leftists here have their collective heads in the sand and deny both facts and history. but the evidence is overwhelming, including newly released intelligence reports from 1998.
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BOND; How bin Laden and Taliban Forged Jihad Ties By DOUGLAS FRANTZ AND DAVID ROHDE Published: November 22, 2001
One of the primary reasons Mr. bin Laden exerted so much influence over Afghanistan was clearly his relationship with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the one-time clerk who rose to become spiritual leader of the Taliban, which sealed control over most of Afghanistan after taking over Kabul in 1996.
Insiders say Mullah Omar and Mr. bin Laden spent many hours in deep discussion of the intricacies of Islam, often by the light of kerosene lamps in the hideouts both men resorted to as the world's pressures against them mounted. Mr. bin Laden played to the mullah's vanity by declaring him caliph, a title reserved through the 1,400-year history of Islam for the leader of the faithful.
Interviews with intelligence officials in Pakistan and Kabul, and conversations with knowledgeable residents in the Afghan capital present a picture of a growing closeness between the two men. Sometime in the last year, Mr. bin Laden swore ''bayat,'' an Islamic oath of fealty, to Mullah Omar. By January of this year, at the wedding of one of his sons, the terrorist leader began to call Mullah Omar the caliph. Under the tutelage of his guest, Mullah Omar began to see his goal as more than the liberation of Afghanistan and he progressively signed on to the idea of a worldwide jihad against the United States.
http://tinyurl.com/c8oqqc
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 12:46pm
Sure Emile and Wolfgang,
Mullah Omar is just an innocent bystander
Zarqawi death won't weaken war, says Mullah Omar
Posted on: Friday, 9 June 2006, 04:54 CDT
KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar vowed that the killing in Iraq of al Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not weaken Muslim efforts against "crusader forces," a Pakistan-based news agency said on Friday.
"I give good news to Muslims around the world, the resistance against the crusader forces in Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world will not be weakened," the Afghan Islamic Press cited Omar as saying in a statement.
http://tinyurl.com/csp8bo
next, the smoking gun
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 12:47pm
This 1998 intelligence report that has now been declassified and released shows that the Taliban had global threat designs due to the relationship between Bin Laden and Omar
In the interim, however, bin Laden had traveled south in Afghanistan to Kandahar. There, he would be close to Omar, who wanted to "keep a watch on him," said a secret cable sent from Islamabad, the capital of neighboring Pakistan, to U.S. diplomatic and military posts on Sept. 9, 1998.
By the end of that October, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad was concerned the tables had turned and Omar was falling under bin Laden's political and philosophical sway. The U.S. once had believed the Taliban's ambitions were confined to turning Afghanistan into a Sunni Muslim theocracy. Now, however, there were signs that Omar's association with bin Laden was driving him toward a greater goal -- pan-Islamism, the unification of all Muslims under a single Islamic state.
"I believe that bin Laden has been able to get into the good graces of Omar -- who is very poorly educated and unsure of foreign affairs -- and to influence him in his way of thinking," according to a cable from Oct. 22. "The potential ramifications of a Mullah Omar who is drifting toward pan-Islamism are grim. First and foremost, it could mean that the Taliban would under no condition expel bin Laden because they see his cause as theirs."
"Time for a diplomatic solution may be running out. Taliban brush-off of our indictment and other evidence may indicate movement from tolerance" of bin Laden's presence "to more active support," said a Nov. 28 memo for then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
http://tinyurl.com/c8bp4g
What does it say? It says that the Taliban see Bin Laden's cause as THEIR CAUSE.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 12:49pm
btw,
this next file includes dialogue (pg 9)between the Clinton State Dept and a Taliban representative who states that they were blocking Iran and Iraq from meeting with Bin Laden.
But the left is always telling us that neither Iraq nor Iran wanted anything to do with Bin Laden; that they were enemies.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/tal24.pdf
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 1:08pm
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 1:08pm
I know in your world, "All them Moos'lims are the same", but...
why would a SECULAR SUNNI state like Iraq....and a THEOCRATIC SHIITE state like Iran...
want to be pals with a THEOCRATIC SUNNI like bin Laden, who wanted to overthrow both their regimes??!?!???
Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 1:43pm
Mask: Just because Sunni and Shiite go at each others throats doesn't mean they will not join forces against the non-muslim world when it suits them. Radicals are radicals.
Posted by pyeatte at 02/18/2009 @ 2:26pm
they were not enemies, but they were rivals.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 3:06pm
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 1:08pm February 23, 2006 How Neocons Sabotaged Iran's Help on al-Qaeda
by Gareth Porter The United States and Iran were on a course to work closely together on the war against al-Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002 – until Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped in to scuttle that cooperation, according to officials who were involved at the time.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials responsible for preparing for war in Afghanistan needed Iran's help to unseat the Taliban and establish a stable government in Kabul. Iran had organized resistance by the Northern Alliance and had provided arms and funding at a time when the United States had been unwilling to do so.
"The Iranians had real contacts with important players in Afghanistan and were prepared to use their influence in constructive ways in coordination with the United States," recalls Flynt Leverett, then senior director for Middle East affairs in the National Security Council (NSC), in an interview with IPS.
In October 2001, as the United States was just beginning its military operations in Afghanistan, State Department and NSC officials began meeting secretly with Iranian diplomats in Paris and Geneva, under the sponsorship of Lakhdar Brahimi, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Leverett says these discussions focused on "how to effectively unseat the Taliban and once the Taliban was gone, how to stand up an Afghan government."
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 3:23pm
It was thanks to the Northern Alliance Afghan troops, which were supported primarily by the Iranians, that the Taliban was driven out of Kabul in mid-November. Two weeks later, the Afghan opposition groups were convened in Bonn under United Nations auspices to agree on a successor regime.
At that meeting, the Northern Alliance was demanding 60 percent of the portfolios in an interim government, which was blocking agreement by other opposition groups. According to U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins, Iran played a "decisive role" in persuading the Northern Alliance delegate to compromise. Dobbins also recalls how the Iranians insisted on including language in the Bonn agreement on the war on terrorism.
The bureaucracy recognized that there was an opportunity to work with Iran not only on stabilizing Afghanistan but on al-Qaeda as well. As reported by the Washington Post on Oct. 22, 2004, the State Department's policy planning staff had written a paper in late November 2001 suggesting that the United States should propose more formal arrangements for cooperation with Iran on fighting al-Qaeda.
That would have involved exchanging intelligence information with Tehran as well as coordinating border sweeps to capture al-Qaeda fighters and leaders who were already beginning to move across the border into Pakistan and Iran. The CIA agreed with the proposal, according to the Post's sources, as did the head of the White House Office for Combating Terrorism, retired Gen. Wayne A. Downing.
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 3:24pm
But the cooperation against al-Qaeda was not the priority for the anti-Iranian interests in the White House and the Pentagon. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack recounts that Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, who chaired an interagency committee on Iran policy dealing with issues surrounding Afghanistan, learned that the White House intended to include Iran as a member of the "axis of evil" in Bush's State of the Union message in January.
Excerpt: Anti-War.Com
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 3:25pm
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 3:23pm | ignore this person | warn this person
very interesting.
the US, blinded by ideology, blundered in the region. instead of using the time honored technique of divide et impera, we alienated all the players.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 3:28pm
the US, blinded by ideology, blundered in the region. instead of using the time honored technique of divide et impera, we alienated all the players.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 3:28pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Yes - badly so. And while still needing Iran's help, we continue to forment trouble. Such unbelievable idiocy.
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 3:41pm
Posted by Thrawn at 02/18/2009 @ 11:32am
Enlightenment and realism are one in the same.
You wrote, "can't get them without troops; they're not coming willingly"
Totally agree.
The info war is as important as the ground game.
Here's two versions of the same event.
1- Media hypes US administration / US military action, where 20 insurgents are killed in a missle strike in remote Taliban stronghold... You know - the constrant drone on the alphabet networks, which the Al Jazerra spins into even more toxic tales.
2- International human rights commission (with large Arab membership) presents evidence based on Afghan villagers complaints to World Court / or special UN Human Rights High Priestess (you get the picture, not U.S., starts with actual victim's complain and evidence even if assisted by international nonprofits like Red Cross, but the less Western, less US / England especially!, the better). OK, then a subpeona is issues, then an arrest warrant for not responding to subpeona, then order given to UN International SWAT team (ideally with Arab membership, where our membership is downplayed), and negotiations begin, Taliban asswipe says )(*# off. UNSWAT team goes on mission to arrest the ball of hate and he and his guards go down in ball of flame. OK, next... Meanwhile, all this is super hyped in pamphlets and on internet and in free laptops and cellphones. Constant daily barrage of the complaints of how these jerks won't let girls (with specific villages identified) go to school, court ordering specific Mullah X cease and desist, name not just the super top tier but the medium level scum. Divide and conquer. They can have their little cheifdoms back if they are not trampling on human rights, which this court increasingly, creepingly starts to define.
Posted by winyahn at 02/18/2009 @ 3:49pm
know in your world, "All them Moos'lims are the same", but...
why would a SECULAR SUNNI state like Iraq....and a THEOCRATIC SHIITE state like Iran...
want to be pals with a THEOCRATIC SUNNI like bin Laden, who wanted to overthrow both their regimes??!?!???
Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 1:43pm
Besides being a juvenile response Mask; why don't you ask them why they would do that. I can't speak for them.
However their motives would be obvious--all three shared a hatred of the US.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 3:49pm
Case law develops, for ex., that any family can opt out of the head scarf rules, can decide for themselves to listen to music, villages can't restrict / censor media coverage of this process...
This starts to break the backs of the hard fascist forms of Islam, but it's never addressed directly by this arrangement. Certainly much less so.
These guys win by pitting Imperialist US bully against religious freedom. Yeah, and there's a clever way to outmaneuver them on this. Pit their victims against their corrupt sadistic wanna be leaders, naming names. Oh, too bad, yet another appeared to prefer to hide behind his 14 year old guard and claim martyrdom... Shock n' Aweshucks.
The info wars are key.
Posted by winyahn at 02/18/2009 @ 3:56pm
want to be pals with a THEOCRATIC SUNNI like bin Laden, who wanted to overthrow both their regimes??!?!???
Bin Laden wants to overthrow the Saudi regime. he is saudi.
he had no chance to overthrow Iran and Iraq, and I do not recall any statements on his part, expressing the desire to do so.
Mask is of course, an idiot.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 4:01pm
Mask is of course, an idiot.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 4:01pm | ignore this person | warn this person
harsh...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/18/2009 @ 4:41pm
What does it say? It says that the Taliban see Bin Laden's cause as THEIR CAUSE.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 12:49pm
So liver, Based on your logic, we should have blown California off the map during Charles Manson's day of terror?
Did not Manson manage to get a bunch of young boys and girls to follow him blindly and kill on his behalf? Since all of this took place in the state of California, the whole state had to be in on it too, right. That's about the same logic as your Afghanistan thinking. These guys were training out in middle of no where. There's a corrupt government that is more interested in selling drugs than stopping some fools playing soldier in middle of nowhere. The nation that has pushed this fruit cake extremism was and still is Saudi Arabia. The schools still exist and their tolerance for anything Non-Mulsim is zero. These schools are in Saudi Arabia.
Most people in Afghanistan are too busy trying to feed themselves than to worrry about what you are doing with your sorry ass over here in America.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 5:24pm
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 02/18/2009 @ 5:24pm
I realize that logic isn't one of your best attributes, but try and stay with the facts.
That wasn't my assumption. That was the conclusion of US intelligence during the Clinton Administration.
Omar and Bin Laden had a very close relationship and Omar became convinced after Bin Laden began calling him the Caliph that he was destined to be a leader in the global jihad...try and read beyond your sense of denial.
Thus rendering your Manson comparison rather juvenile.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 5:58pm
harsh... Posted by ibbleblibble at 02/18/2009 @ 4:41pm | ignore this person | warn this person
how's your memory? remember what he called me?
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 6:04pm
There's a corrupt government that is more interested in selling drugs than stopping some fools playing soldier in middle of nowhere.
if you are referring to the Taliban, you are mistaken. the Taliban put a stop to opium cultivation during their time in power.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 6:08pm
All Anti-socialist and warmonger friends keep demonstrating is that the Taliban was friendly with bin Laden. So what? You've shown no connection to 9/11 because there isn't any - at least, none has ever been shown.
And even if there was such evidence, which there isn't, would it justify invading, occupying, bombing, torturing, millions of Afghans? You never see the crimes you commit as crimes, no matter how atrocious. It's only the other side's crimes that matter.
Illegally occupying other people's countries doesn't work. There is no right way to do it. You have to stop.
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 6:43pm
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 6:43pm
You obviously live in another world. The evidence is overwhelming. It is acknowledged by all of the major govt's in the world. I presented the evidence from the declassified intel to the Clinton Administration showing not just a relationship, but Omar's enthusiasm for global jihad.
I provided more recent quotes from Omar encouraging the global jihad against the US.
You are so blinded by your hate of our country and the military that you are unwilling to even acknowledge the evidence.
I won't waste any more time on you.
Posted by antisocialist at 02/18/2009 @ 8:33pm
Posted by OneVote at 02/18/2009 @ 10:18am
Yes OV a plan would help, I had naively thought the plan was to beat the Taliban into submission by some sort of surge.
I'm perhaps a bit of a perfectionist but I'd like to see Iraq helped along the path to becoming a stable, economically successful democracy. Sort of finishing off one job before engaging in a risky one. Such success in Iraq, more than anything attempted in Afghanistan, would for all practical purposes, completely defang al Qaeda. In that context Afghanistan is the distraction in the fight against international terrorism. Sort of borrowing the insincere mantra of those who until recently led us to believe they thought that Iraq was the distraction.
Europe, which is only there because it wanted to show its solidarity with the US after 9/11 and never seems to have much stomach for fighting or the long term campaign this will inevitably become, is unlikely to be much further use in fighting the Taliban. So that essentially leaves the US on its own. This is a lot bigger war, than Iraq and it is quite possible that Obama is biting off more than he and the US military can chew.
So my, slightly tongue in cheek, comment about Obama and GW sharing the same motivation may be all that keeps the US chasing terrorists around South Asia.
It would in my opinion be much better to get the ME venture right before scaling up a war that may lead to humiliating defeat and impact negatively in Iraq and throughout the ME for America.
(We all , including the Arabs, like a winner and my reading of Arab commentary is, that despite the claims of some of the Iraq war critics, many influential Arabs have a begrudging respect for what the US has achieved and is achieving in co-operation with Iraq.)
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/18/2009 @ 10:23pm
I won't waste any more time on you.
that's pretty much how I feel about you.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/18/2009 @ 10:24pm
A Marine buddy of mine, who said he loves it over there after several rotations, deployments said it was a cluster"F@#K". We don't understand their language, culture, religion, or morality. He said that they reminded him of his grand parents.
Posted by julien38 at 02/18/2009 @ 10:35pm
AS, The "global jihad" against the United States is a response to US attempts to dominate the Middle East. Osama consistently said so. So continuing the same (illegal, unjust, imperialist) policy will not help stop the jihad.
So "Omar is enthusiastic about global jihad." We can talk to our enemies. Not talking to them is a sign of weakness. And the Taleban is not a one-man show. There are others to negotiate with.
And one last thing, AS. You're obviously not stupid. But if you believe that the occupation of Afghanistan had anything to do with "global jihad," "war on terror," or 9/11, you are living in an alternative universe, produced and directed by the military/industrial complex. Like Iraq, Afghanistan is about oil. And eveyone in "the major govt's in the world" knows it.
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 11:11pm
I believe that would be Mr Lindsey Graham? REPUBLICAN....from SOUTH CAROLINA???
Posted by Mask at 02/18/2009 @ 08:51am
wrong-o!
it's mr. greenspan....
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/19/2009 @ 12:20am
Don't do it Obama. You've given no case for it and we need the money here, as well as from Iraq. You should read the books of John Le Carre who draws a pararell picture of these absurd and evil undercover actions. Who the devil is in charge and where is the transparency? We voted to bring our troops home...Don't forget that, or you'll also fail to fix the economy!
Posted by habrow2 at 02/19/2009 @ 02:12am
AS, The "global jihad" against the United States is a response to US attempts to dominate the Middle East. Osama consistently said so. So continuing the same (illegal, unjust, imperialist) policy will not help stop the jihad.
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 11:11pm
These quotes and analysis show AQ is also against representative democracy, free speech and all that the West holds dear. The US is a proxy for those Western values.
"...In both of his December 2004 statements, for example, Bin Laden clearly stated his view that democracies, constitutional governments, and insufficiently Islamic monarchies are equally unacceptable forms of governance for Islamic societies because they empower human rulers and man-made legal systems rather than "the law of God."26
Al Zarqawi expanded on these sentiments in a January 2005 statement that characterized democracy as a rival "religion" to Islam and criticized adherence to democratic principles such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion as un-Islamic and tantamount to apostasy punishable by death.27
A statement released by Al Zarqawi's group following Iraq's January 2005 election stated that,
"we shall not accept the rule of anyone but that of God and His Prophet [Mohammed]."28
"..Bin Laden's December 2004 statements urged Muslims to oppose the creation of democratic governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Palestinian territories; to resist non-Islamic reform movements in other Islamic societies; and to overturn existing regimes deemed insufficiently-Islamic by Al Qaeda such as the Saudi monarchy.29.."
"..Bin Laden specifically argued that, "all Muslims should embark on reforms" but similarly cautioned that "reforms should be achieved in accordance with the religious laws..."
http://tinyurl.com/5t58ee
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/19/2009 @ 05:18am
Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 11:11pm
So though bin Laden was not happy with the US presence in Islamic countries it was not only because of his opposition to a new economic colonialism but just as, if not more importantly, the Western values that America as the defacto leader of the West represents. (elsewhere he speaks of defeating the "Anglo- Saxon- Protestant coalition" (because Protestants hold to the freedom of the individual's own conscience?)
"In his December 2004 statements, Bin Laden referred to the confrontation between the U.S., its allies, and jihadist movements as "a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.."
What you David Spero have done, in making a propaganda point, is to ignore what essentially is a vital part of bin Laden's opposition to the US having a presence and influence in the ME and provides in itself the rationale for his position.
Those who like to ridicule Bush's attempt to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq and the rest of the ME fail to realise that he was far better informed, about bin Laden's position, than you and the Left in general is, when he spoke of the al Qaeda genre of terrorists as hating "us" for what we are. viz individual-freedom loving heirs of the Enlightenment tradition. That is where the statements of al Qaeda's leaders inevitably leads us.
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/19/2009 @ 06:44am
Like Iraq, Afghanistan is about oil. And eveyone in "the major govt's in the world" knows it. Posted by DavidSpero at 02/18/2009 @ 11:11pm | ignore this person | warn this person
about oil? when they don't have oil in afghanistan? how so?
Posted by emile duBois at 02/19/2009 @ 08:35am
I know, I know. an oil pipeline. can you imagine a pipeline through a hostile country the size of Texas.
how many troops you think it will take to guard that?
Posted by emile duBois at 02/19/2009 @ 11:11am
It would in my opinion be much better to get the ME venture right before scaling up a war that may lead to humiliating defeat and impact negatively in Iraq and throughout the ME for America.
Posted by lrjones4 at 02/18/2009 @ 10:23pm
Sound logic from both a military and political standpoint.
The competing interests in Afghanistan from within and without are far too complex for the US to resolve on its own. 80% of Afghanistan wants us out. Our military leaders have acknowledged that there is no long term military solution, only a political one. Without support of the people, a long term political solution will not be achievable.
Our civilian and military leaders have no clue about effectuating a political solution (after 7 years!), and the previous articulation of "long term goals" is just more cheap "high minded" rhetoric used to justify an on going occupation. The current administration appears to be backing off such grandiose plans, and attempting to simplify our goals, but in all likelihood even simple goals and measures of success will remain as elusive as the former grand plan.
Posted by OneVote at 02/19/2009 @ 11:33am
President Obama--don't make this your war!
I think he just did. There is no reason to send 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan. The Taliban is a regional movement and no threat to us. And no amount of troops will make any difference with them in the long term. There are hundreds of potential Bin Ladens and probably always will be. No way to stop that, and by sending in more troops we will guarantee that there will be hundreds more. The Afghans do not want us there now. When we went in originally, after 9/11, we only had 300 troops there and managed to slow down and almost stop the Taliban. Because at that time we had the support of the Afghani people. The opportunity for capturing the original "Bin Laden" have long passed.
Obama is making a collassal mistake and risks losing the support of his base. Let alone getting us into another quagmire before we have even withdrawn from the one in Iraq. With our problems and expenditures on the domestic front we can ill afford another Trillion dollar money pit in Afghanistan. We should shore up our domestic borders, ports and intelligence agencies. The War on Terrorism should be debunked, not encouraged. We need to withdraw all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama is making a very stupid mistake with this and coupled with his outrageous belief in "Clean Coal". I doubt he is ready to lead unless we push him hard.
Personally I only voted for him because there was no alternative. I looked at it this way. "Would you rather roll the dice with Obama or play Russian Roulette with McCain." What a choice, EH? Smoke em if ya got em!
Posted by chaoszen at 02/19/2009 @ 11:41am
When we went in originally, after 9/11, we only had 300 troops there and managed to slow down and almost stop the Taliban.
this is nonsense. no basis in fact whatsoever. the Northern alliance kicked the Talaban out of Kabul, no more. the US originally sent 15,000 troops, an absurd number given the size of the country.
why don't you go over there and hit them in the mouth, noble keyboard warrior.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/19/2009 @ 11:53am
Personally I only voted for him because there was no alternative. I looked at it this way. "Would you rather roll the dice with Obama or play Russian Roulette with McCain." What a choice, EH? Smoke em if ya got em!
Posted by chaoszen at 02/19/2009 @ 11:41am | ignore this person | warn this person
Same here. Name your poison. Need a light?
Classic on Rachel Maddow show last night. She was interviewing Zig Brezinski on Afghanistan and Maddow questioned the corruption and limited support of the Karzai government and the bankrupt Zardari government in Pakistan. Brezinski chuckled and spoke to Maddow about the irony of the US media and political elite questioning the ethics of the Karzai government and the fiscal stablility of Zardari when we have a bankrupt government with legalized corruption here at home. Maddow looked dumbfounded.
Right on Zig..........a moment of true insight!
Posted by OneVote at 02/19/2009 @ 11:57am
zbig
Posted by emile duBois at 02/19/2009 @ 12:06pm
Personally I only voted for him because there was no alternative.....
Posted by chaoszen at 02/19/2009 @ 11:41am | ignore this person | warn this person
Same here.....
Posted by OneVote at 02/19/2009 @ 11:57am
Gentlemen, I know there are a shitload of you....you voted based on HOPE AND CHANGE....and we warned you that the CHANGE won't be what you HOPED for....(btw, the "HOPE" part of the slogan was always garbage!)
I'd say, those like you, are the equivalent of Sub-Prime borrowers....made a one way bet on the upside....and damn the torpedoes if there is a downside....welcome to the longest 4-yrs of your political awakening!
Posted by Happy at 02/19/2009 @ 5:17pm
When we went in originally, after 9/11, we only had 300 troops there and managed to slow down and almost stop the Taliban.
this is nonsense. no basis in fact whatsoever. the Northern alliance kicked the Talaban out of Kabul, no more. the US originally sent 15,000 troops, an absurd number given the size of the country.
why don't you go over there and hit them in the mouth, noble keyboard warrior.
Posted by emile duBois at 02/19/2009 @ 11:53am
The 300 troop level number was in reference to the paramilitary CIA SAD forces that were the first to deploy into Afghanistan in September of 2001. That number is subject to debate however as they don't exactly post troop numbers. But it is considered a reasonable estimate. They initiated and were key players in ousting the Taliban from Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Posted by chaoszen at 02/19/2009 @ 10:55pm
not really, happy.
the alternative......
imagine president palin right now.
imagine.
Posted by frosty zoom at 02/19/2009 @ 11:51pm