Anybody happen to remember why we're in Afghanistan? Petraeus ought to know...

From a political humor poll:



The poll is snarky, but brings up a really good question: Why are we still there? To recreate our success in Vietnam?

Original post here:

http://www.pledge-drive.com/lesterandcharliesurvey.html

since you asked why we even got involved in Afghanistan

what have we accomplished? How much American treasure, American and Afghan blood are we going to waste. No country has every subdued the Afghans and like Vietnam we are supporting a corrupt government. When are we ever going to learn? The real target was Osama bin Laden and where is he at this time, not Afghanistan but Pakistan. Who are our real enemies? I would say Saudi Arabia and the Pushtu region of Pakistan but that is not politically correct to say!

partly responsible for us not being attacked in almost 10 years. I know they bide their time and all but 10 years is alot. I think the end game for us in Afghanistan is that we have permanent, roving SF and drones keeping AQ down and the Taliban out of Pakistan.

There have been more than one failed attempt to "attack" us on US soil and there have been many successful attacks outside the US. I have heard this argument consistently from the political right and I am always disappointed to here it from anyone from the middle or left. I think it shows a lack of understanding of the issue.

... But I think you're correct. Look, any disorganized area like Afghanistan poses a threat. But so do organized ones. When Obama campaigned on pulling out of Iraq but staying in Afghanistan, I hoped that it was just his way of appeasing the largest possible voter base. Now, I just tell myself that he has information that we don't have. But ...

Standing armies are NOT the way to win against terrorism. The enemy has no uniforms. Enemies can be distinguished from the citizenry. In Vietnam the US couldn't ever win that war because they couldn't even tell who the hell they were fighting. Viet Cong were everywhere. It's bewildering to me how anyone could be duped into believing a conventional war could succeed when fighting a non-identified enemy. It's like swatting at mosquitos in a jungle. It's a futile effort. We could stay in Afghanistan for another 5,000 years and nothing will have changed. Afghans are living by 4th century standards. And as soon as we leave they will go back to 4th century standards.

We need to get the hell out of Afghanistan so not one more American soldier gets killed for nothing. All 58,000 American soldiers who died in Vietnam died for nothing. War hawk presidents and chickenhawk leaders keep that war going just to feed the military industrial complex. It's happening all over again. War profiteers are making fortunes while we are jobless, homeless and our infrastructure is deteriorating. The only rational thing to do is pull out of Afghanistan and do it immediately. To hell what the right wing says. They are always wrong anyway. Let them whine and moan. They will do that regardless of what action is taken by the president. It's time for President Obama to do the right thing and end this idiotic, futile war.

What disturbed me the other day was President Obama saying we need to stay in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda. According to intelligence only a handful of Al Qaeda members are even in Afghanistan. I'm willing to bet there are more members of Al Qaeda in the United States than in Afghanistan. So does that mean we should start sending drone missiles all over the United States striking 'suspected' Al Qaeda targets as they are blindly doing now in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Let's end this lunacy and end it now.

Bush did the wrong thing by starting to full scale wars and President Obama can do the right thing and end them.

Considering Bush/Cheney got us there, maybe that's a dumb question. But I'd like your opinion.

Pacifist that I (usually) am, I remember 9/11 and my inner animal was more than happy when the decision was made to invade that country and root out the Taliban.

But, like everything else that came from the Bush Administration, it was a failure. And now we've disrupted the region's political balance to such an extent that leaving could be more dangerous than invading.

Then again, the Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan after a nasty war. Then they went kaput.

and money to fund the attacks came from Saudi Arabia it seems that a lot of folks inner animal either aims poorly or the animal wasn't so enraged that geo-politics weren't accounted for.

The only context this makes sense in is a resource war and the point is to make sure people "play ball" more than actual direct theft. The deal is to open those resources to be exploited by multi-nationals.

We plunder our treasury, hock our future, murder innocents, and pour out our own blood to make a few wealthy fucks richer anything else and we'd hit our actual enemies that are threats.

First off, it was a criminal act, not an act of war, the Taliban is a horrible regime, but weren't directly responsible for 9/11, even harboring Osama Bin Laden isn't enough to justify war.

If we were to go by what's "justified" according to you, now the Afganis should be free to kill tens of thousands of American civilians. Where would the violence end?

for trial if the Bush administration could provide any evidence that Osama was actually benind 9/11. Bush's response to that: "we don't need no steenking evidence".

CNN.com - U.S. rejects Taliban offer to try bin Laden
The White House on Sunday rejected an offer from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to try suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan under Islamic law.
archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/ - Proxy - Highlight

Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over | World
Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over ... stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn over, turn ... UN commissioner warns of Afghan starvation ...
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5 - Proxy - Highlight - 2 more top results from this site

Bush rejects Taliban's offer on handing over bin Laden | Asian
Bush rejects Taliban's offer on handing over bin Laden from Asian Political News provided by Find ... ''Turn him over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostage they hold over, destroy ...
www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0WDQ/is_2001_Oct_22/ai_80338926/ - Proxy - Highlight


Bush rejects Taliban offer to surrender bin Laden - Asia, World -
After a week of debilitating strikes at targets across Afghanistan, the Taliban repeated an offer to hand over Osama bin Laden, ... 10 Allies to turn blind eye to corruption as Afghan exit strategy agreed
www.independent.co.uk/ news/ world/ asia/ bush-rejects-taliban-offer-to-surrender-bin-laden-631436.html - Proxy - Highlight

That about sums it up.

--snip ---
UNOCAL executive John Maresca addressed the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and urged support for establishment of an investor-friendly climate in Afghanistan, "... we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders and our company." Meaning that UNOCAL's ability to construct the Afghan pipeline was a cause worthy of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Maresca's prayers have been answered with the Taliban's replacement. As reported in Le Monde, the new Afghan government's head, Hamid Karzai, formerly served as a UNOCAL consultant. Only nine days after Karzai's ascension, President Bush nominated another UNOCAL consultant and former Taliban defender, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan.

http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html

if a lowly schmuck like me with a little curiosity and a computer could find out about this, its hard to imagine that Petraeus and McChrystal et al, with all of their intelligence sources, didn't stumble across it at some point in time and refuse to follow orders purely on principle. Well, at least if they were honorable men.

But what really nags at me is the fact that congress must also have known the real "why" we were going to decimate an entire country that didn't have a prayer of defense against our weapons, but still they voted to fund the disaster. Even worse, if they didn't bother to know what was really going on behind the scenes, they don't have any business claiming to represent us.

The one man (Bin Laden) one war (a country) myth is so lame that I can't believe anyone bought into it.

Just my two cents worth.

I think they bombed Jesus or something.

It's claiming the latest empire.

It is a mystery....