Obama: Longest war in US history is ending
Source: AP-Excite
By JOSH LEDERMAN
HONOLULU (AP) — President Barack Obama says the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.
Obama is welcoming the end of U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan. The war came to a formal end Sunday with a ceremony in Kabul.
Obama says in a statement that the effort has devastated al-Qaida's core leadership, brought justice to Osama bin Laden and disrupted terrorist plots. He says U.S. troops and diplomats have helped Afghans reclaim their communities and move toward democracy.
FULL short story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141228/us-obama-afghanistan-67ee0f28f6.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
wow. 
*************
This is it, raw, no spelling corrections.
-- kb
THE REAL WAR
Ken Kesey
I could have written this better on 9-11-'01, the day it was happening-- if I could have written. Everything was so clear that day, so unencumbered by theories and opinions, by thought, even. It just was. All just newborn images, ripped fresh from that monsterous pair of thighs thrust smoking into the morning sunshine. All just amatuer cameras allowing us to witness the developing drama in sweeping handheld seizures. All just muffled mikes recording murmered gasps....
Now, more than a week has passed. The cameras are in the grips of professionals, and the microphones are in the hands of the media. Bush has just finished his big talk to Congress and the men in suits are telling us what the men in uniforms are going to do to the men in turbins if they don't turn over the men in hiding. The talk was planned to prepare us for war. It's going to get messy, everyone agrees. It's going to last for years and probably decades, everybody ruefully conceeds. Nothing will ever be the same, everybody eventually declares.
Then why does it all sound so familiar? So cozy and comfortable? Was it the row after row of dark blue suits, broken only by grim clusters of highranking uniforms all drizzling ribbons and medals? If everything has changed (as we all knew that it had on that first day) why does it all wear the same old outfits and say the same old words?
Because we are talking not just about war, this time, but about the war above the war: the Real War.
This war has already been been waged, and it's not between the US and the Taliban, or between the Moslems and the Isralies or any of the familiar forces, but between the ancient gutwrenching bonebreaking fleshslashing way things have always been and the timerous and fragile way things might begin to be. Could begin to be. Must begin to be, if our lives and our children's lives are ever, someday, in the upheaving future, to know honest peace.
True, the warriors on our side of this Real War seem few and flimsey, but we have a secret advantage: we don't fight our battle out of Hate. Anger, yes, if we have to, but anger is enough. Hate is the flag the other side battles beneath. It is the ancient flag of fire and blood and agony, and it waves over the graves of millions and millions.
Read the rest of it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=657497
Afghanistan would have remained peaceful and democratic after the soviets left and ruled by Oxford educated Ahmad Shah Masood. The Pakistanis feared him because he was friends with India and the Pakistanis created the Taliban to topple the legitimate government. Pakistani ISI founded, funded, armed and trained the so called Taliban which was mostly comprised of active duty Pakistanis.
9/11 was orchestrated by Pakistan. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, an ISI asset, wired the money for 9/11. Look at this picture and tell me if they look Saudi or Pakistani to you?
A few look like Egyptian and Palestinian but about 10 have distinct South Asian features. They were carrying Saudi passports which doesn't mean they were Saudi.
If we militarily and economically weaken Pakistan, we will bring peace to the whole region including Afghanistan.
