"...Otherwise we will cut off the heads of your children and will set fire to your daughter."

There are women in the current, NATO-backed parliament. The notion that "the government is just as bad" is bad fiction.

...Does anyone believe a "power-sharing" arrangement with the Taliban is wise? It would likely hasten our exit. :shrug:

The quicker we can get out of there, and bring our military members home, the better, imo. It's a cultural problem that cannot be solved by any military operation. I think poverty is part of the problem.

of Sudan, Pakistan, Congo, Mali and other countries with terrible records regarding women's rights? The poster has a point we don't have the manpower to go into countries, defeat their army, install a regime change with a constitution that includes rights for women. Besides that is not the reason that what was given as to why we went over there in the first place. But the stated goal keeps changing to whatever so they are going to go with this to drum up support.

And we can't use the military to solve a cultural problem. What would we do to possibly solve this issue? Misogyny is systemic in these parts of the world. You can't have a soldier sit in every home in every village and watch everybody.

Every life is important, which is why I can't support sending our soldiers to die when other means could be used (like ending poverty and corruption in the area).

The fact is, the Taliban can't be "crushed". Guerrilla armies never can be.

Personally I'm not sure it's worth my life nor my siblings or friends.

stupidity for being there in the first place.

Women were and are abused under the Taliban. Somehow guys that have mothers and daughters consider them worthless. Prior to 9/11 protecting women in Afghanistan was a damn good reason to kill these fucks. Apparently nothing has changed.

:mad:

raping and torturing them too. As RAWA says, the Afghan Women's Org., now they have to deal with three, rather than two brutal organizations, abusing and killing them.

Ah yes, America and its excellent human rights record.

"guys that have mothers and daughters consider them worthless"

The same could be said of our people in the military. Our bombs and soldiers have been killing brown people's mothers and daughters all over the world with impunity.

And who are we to tell any other country what to do given that record. Here in america we let tens of thousands die yearly from, poverty, starvation, lack of healthcare. How is that different?

And when did killing to bring justice ever work?

all of humanity should care enough not to let people die and suffer at the Taliban's hands

Just said that it wasn't the US interest on why we are over there.

humanitarian issues as being not in "the US interests". That comment serves to stifle and improperly limit a complex debate.

The poster pretty much said the reason the US is in Afghanistan is not because of women's rights. You said that human rights is something that should concern you(meaning the poster you replied to). (Paraphrasing because I only see the post I'm responding to now) I then responded that the poster didn't say that.

Do I believe the US is in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons? No.

if you start to cheat on the list with word games, you can't have a proper and effective debate which is the best way to reach the optimal conclusion.

The reason why I jumped in is because you said those issues should be of interest to the poster when the poster never said there wasn't. I pointed out that he/she said it wasn't the US interest.

these issues with the poster

As far as what the poster said, I already said that I agree to that person.

Not our problem... Sucks to be them...


The US needs to retire from trying to fix the rest of the world...

and we disrupted things with an invasion and put people in a position to have to take sides. Don't we have any moral responsibility for what would happen?

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country, the last thing they wish for them is a U.S. invasion. Just ask the people of Iraq, over one million dead human beings, torture and rape, not only of Iraqi women and children but of women in our own military.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan the rape of women by our allies, the War Lords, has become rampant.

The best thing for their safety and well being would be for the this war to end. That is what the people themselves want.

putting down a revolt by just such proto-Taliban types. It was Carter who actually sent in covert assistance for the mujaheddin and Reagan who made political hay out of it.

We couldn't have Afghanistan going Communist could we? Oh, no, that would be a fate worse than death. If we look at what happened in the neighboring Central Asian Soviet republics, which were also all-Muslim, we can assume that if Afghanistan had gone Communist, all Afghan children would have received a secular education for the past thirty years, women would going around unveiled and in jobs, and the infrastructure of the country wouldn't be entirely trashed from constant warfare.

But no, we couldn't have that. We had to save the Afghan people from the evil Marxists and help those glorious "freedom fighters."

There's a lot of blame to go around, folks.

...than about messing with the Soviets in general. I think our measure of post-1989 aid to Afghanistan puts our utter lack of concern with the welfare of that nation in sharp focus.



Not really. I blame us completely. :hi:

with the ultimate irony that in Angola, where "we" were ostensibly on the side of Jonas Savimbi's Angolan rebels, while U.S. oil companies were paying Cuban troops to guard their oil installations from Savimbi's men--and the presence of Cuban troops was the reason that "we" were supporting Savimbi in the first place.

Afghanistan and a desire to pound the Taliban into the Afghani dirt.

But, although we've been there for so long and now probably have some responsibility for them, we have never been able to wipe the Taliban out and never will be able to.

Our fight against the Taliban hasn't been because they are the scum of the earth and must be destroyed like other similar foul organizations, but we have been trying to link them with the now mythical al Qaeda and terrorism.

The British Empire found things like Thuggee and brutally wiped them out in the name of civilization and the white man's burden. We don't do that sort of thing any more.

:shrug:

From the actual people this is all happening to.

What a different account of reality than that posed by the invaders:


Peace with Criminals, War with People!

"...Without receiving a green light from their US masters, the puppet government of Afghanistan could never raise a hue and cry about this “Consultative Peace Jirga.” It could also not consider making peace with the Taliban and Islamic Party assassins while they are apparently still on the “Black List” of the US government. This in itself proves that the US doesn’t just want a puppet government, but also a stable and efficient government to easily change Afghanistan into a strong military base in Asia, extend its grip on the oil and gas of the Central Asian Republics and maintain its supremacy in competition with rivals such as China and other regional powers. For the US and allies, the deeply criminal, treacherous, anti-democracy and anti-independence essence of this puppet regime has no significance at all. Apart from a handful of sold-off intellectuals of Afghanistan, this reality is crystal clear to even our children that the claim of the US about bringing “democracy” and “women’s liberation” to Afghanistan was the biggest lie of the century. In fact, it was even more striking than the claims of the US about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and more comic than its pretence of having an opposition to fundamentalist bands and governments.

At the height of a piercing outcry over a “Peace Jirga,” the Taliban intensified their inhuman brutalities by killing school children, teachers, men, and women of Kabul and other cities, but Karzai and his spokesmen expressed with detestable indifference that, “Inshallah, with national unity soon we will emerge from these problems”! If their own sister, mother or daughter were raped, killed publicly or torn to pieces by suicide bombings, would they still call these killings “problems” they have with Taliban, their “disaffected brothers”? But considering the power-lust and impunity of the ruling mafia, they may still not call the Taliban criminals, and their acts as crimes, because despite having some differences, in the final stage they regard themselves from the same ranks and deem it necessary to become united in order to run the state machinery in front of people’s wrath. Both the Taliban and the ruling mafia know well that the day US/NATO occupation forces leave Afghanistan; all the tribes of Afghanistan will consider unity amongst themselves to topple their bloody rule.

While the US is trying to unite its lackeys through the “Peace Jirga” and other means, it is afraid of unity and integration among Afghan people. Therefore, through its puppet government and Northern Alliance agents, the US is trying hard to sow disruption and animosity among the different tribes of Afghanistan. For example, in Behsood and Daimirdad they inflamed fighting between Hazaras and Nomads and similarly in Northern Afghanistan among Tajiks, Pushtoons and Uzbeks so they can continue the occupation of a divided and disarrayed nation.

The so-called intellectuals of Afghanistan who directly or indirectly hope that the Taliban will end the US occupation, are carving a dark mark of history on their forehead. They are like those who rely on the US and the bloodthirsty Iranian regime to emancipate them from the yoke of the Taliban. If such people are not foolish, then they are spineless because they neither remember the marks of the Taliban flogging our mothers, sisters and fathers nor the beheading of our children and poor women (in the name of rooting out “spies”), or the spraying of acid on innocent school-girls. If they believe that by relying on tribal issues, corruption, and looting of the puppet regime they can find an argument for their support of the brutal Taliban, then by what trick can they ignore the ISI-born nature and medieval mentality of the Taliban? Can they point out any example anywhere in the world of such an anti-democratic and anti-women group dominated by drug lords and dependent on the intelligence agency of a foreign country that dares to struggle for independence and liberation? The intellectual supporters of the Taliban are possibly agents of the US CIA and other agencies who by upholding the Taliban and calling them a “resistance movement” want to pave the way for their joint domination with President Karzai and the “National Front” mafia..."

http://www.rawa.org/rawa/2010/06/01/peace-with-criminals-war-with-people.html


Message brought to you by the women of Afhanistan




rdb

My 15 minutes of DU-time are up for today but had to click on this thread if only to bump it up for more exposure. Thanks for bringing in RAWA, they have truly been the ones on the ground with the clearest view of what's going on imho.

so you are wrong to suggest otherwise

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...But RAWA's bitterness over lack of inclusion in the interim government -- brought upon themselves for a refusal to accept less than 50% women in Parliament before they would acquiesce to even participate -- has left their contemporary missives ringing hollow.

They took their ball and went home. And now NATO is the devil. Not productive -- although I can see how rejecting incrementalism would appear noble to Americans of a particularly unhelpful mindset.

lol

...Do you disagree with my assessment, or just me? :hi:

Are you seriously trying to claim that RAWA, those brave women, constantly under threat of death for speaking out, are lying about our presence there?

Where did the detainees in Guantanamo come from? Have you read Robert Fisk's who actully spent time there and saw the bodies, the BURNED bodies of women and children, left by our very brave Drones.

Have you NOT read of the torture and abuse of women, one girl raped, shot and then burned, along with her family by U.S. troops there?

How brave you are to attack those women. How dare you in fact. I bet you would OUTRAGED if an American teenager was burned, raped and killed by a Muslim though. Here we have untold numbers abused and killed by this country, and YOU dare to attack those women, whose country it is and who have risked their lives, some of them already killed for their courage.

As I said, HOW DARE YOU!

They are not happy with your Party, and because of that you would ignore their suffering and deaths. No wonder the world looks at this country increasingly the way we once viewed other despicable Empires.

I'm not attacking anybody.

I said, and stand by, that I think RAWA's foot-stomping on an unreasonable percentage of womens' representation in parliament didn't do the women of Afghanistan, or the men for that matter, any favors --they shot themselves in the foot by withdrawing from the political process. They fractured themselves by doing so. Former members who have taken positions in government take pains to distance themselves from RAWA.

Which is a shame, because at one time they were an excellent voice for women in a part of the world where they didn't have one.

were fired, they did not distance themselves, she was driven out of parliament for telling the truth.

...and who was "fired" from parliament? :crazy:

...I'd like you to back up your assertion that U.S. troops have raped women in Afghanistan.

from their perspective, others are bringing up good points that are also valid.

Why do you feel the need to slam RAWA? Do you think RAWA would have bought themselves MORE credibility (internationally and in Afghanistan) being aligned with Karzai's government?? Or staying independent?

I can see how diminishing RAWA would appear noble to Americans of a particularly unhelpful mindset but taking a stand and drawing that line in the sand of 50% because you know, Afghan women make up 50% of the population seems logical. And if you are going to draw up a (deeply flawed and fundamentally unenforceable new constitution), you might just want to get it right cuz there's nothing that indicates that changes are going to ever happen in the future of that country. Since RAWA is in Afghanistan and has dealt with the situation there for decades, they might understand that taking such positions and being hardline about them, is just what's needed.

...but if this country's most powerful women decided to boycott government involvement, would any purpose be served? I don't know.

You are trying to compare apples to oranges.

You are trying to compare US women, and their history in US politics, and our constitution with Afghanistan's?

Afghanistan's women have a unique opportunity to be equally represented, codified into their laws. A boycott of the nation's most powerful women's group serves notice to the international community about the seriousness of their intentions to enforce equality. The international community is far, far more involved in Afghanistan's internal affairs than virtually any other country's founding political structure (maybe Israel would be it's closest rival?) RAWA's actions are not without power, and a boycott is a powerful message to the world.

These women are fighting for an equal place at the table. You may not like or agree with their tactics but I firmly disagree with your evaluation that they are somehow acting like spoiled kids here.

A few went on to actually be part of the National Assembly. I'm not the only one who disagrees with the tactic.

The notion, however, there is some special circumstance that will permit greater governmental representation for women in Afghanistan than, is new to me, and I won't dismiss it out of hand.

I've always thought your arguments left out one important fact.

There are problems/horrors in this world that even the US... with all our military might - cannot right.

The Taliban are closer to the average Afghani than we are in culture, language, and religion.

What sort of arrogance is it that makes the US feel we can change the culture, religion and history of a country - not really a country - in a few months or years?

The US Military is not the world's policemen.

so don't you think there is some moral obligation to protect them?

and 1,000+ deaths (US only numbers) I'm not sure how much more of an obligation they have to fulfill. Point is I don't think more US troops will help the situation.

That makes perfect sense.

And that, of course, is heresy in the Land of the High Church of Redemptive Violence. "But changing their culture will take too long, and be too expensive! Women will suffer in the meantime! How can you be so heartless and cruel to just leave them to their fate?" As if the only options are blowing the living fuck out of a country just to watch the rubble bounce or to do nothing. As if the military solution we've been pursuing for eight years and poured a trillion dollars into hasn't taken any time at all or cost anything.

But when violent solutions are taken out of the equation, Americans kind of run out of ideas nowadays. And, considering the credibility we've squandered in the last decade, it's not to be wondered at that nobody wants to listen to us when we try to tell them how they should order their affairs.

Try to think of there are any solutions that can be employed that won't use violence.

For Americans, that makes the problem insoluble, I know. And as I said, we've squandered our reputation and credibility what with the invasions and the occupations and the torture and the war crimes and the crimes against humanity and the extraordinary renditions. One thing, though, that we believe in that might help the situation is money, and lots of it. Unfortunately, we can't spend it directly or decide what it's to be spent on. And that's about as likely to happen as the Republicans governing for the good of the nation instead of their fatcat friends.

what does your imagination say is the solution?

and medicine and blue jeans and DVDs and rock and roll and all the things that have co-opted every other fucking culture on earth.

The Taliban cannot compete with that shit if it's piled on... and on.

The Taliban offers the past and violence and repression..... and crashing boredom. We can offer soft-porn, Coke, fashion magazines, Twinkies... and excitement. All the stuff could be packaged with big ol' American flags printed on it, with pictograms of an American shaking hands or embracing the Afghanis.

I'm being hyperbolic, of course, but we have ways of defeating the Taliban that will be a lot cheaper than $1 Trillion down the bowl.

The same old military bullshit just won't work.

You were looking for another solution... how about that?

We all didn't agree on what Bush did or how he conducted things, but he still did it in our name and with our resources. I feel we have a moral obligation to make a good faith effort to protect these people, as a result. That's what I think separates this situation from the rest of the world's problems, we helped create it.

Your argument is like saying blacks in the south had more in common with the Klan than with civil rights activists from the north. :shrug:

Your argument is ridiculous. I said "The Taliban are closer to the average Afghani than we are in culture, language, and religion." Many civil rights workers were driven by religion... the same religion as the southern blacks, for example.

If you characterize US invasions as "good people trying to do good", you are looking at a different history than I am. Since the end of WWII, our unilateral interventions have done no good that I can see, and even WWII wasn't fought to do good (saving the Jews for instance), but to keep evil from winning.

I am not attempting to characterize all US invasions, or even the invasion that began this round in Afghanistan.

I am characterizing what we are doing there now, today, and tomorrow. I'm on record here as having opposed going in, and I've made it clear I never believed for a moment there were any altruistic motives in doing so.

I am, however, left with no plausible reason for our continuing presence, indeed our increased presence, in the region, save an attempt -- however hamfisted you may think it is -- to fix what we broke. None of the "resources" are worth it, and they are politically radioactive anyhow; and unless you subscribe to the theory that there are a handful of bullet and bomb manufacturers standing behind Obama with a gun to his head, none of the "usual" ulterior motives fit.

There have been several points since 2008 when a withdrawal from Afghanistan would've been remarkably easy, and politically inexpensive. None were taken, and I was as surprised as anyone. :shrug:

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"Support for the war in Afghanistan has hit a new low and President Obama's approval rating for handling it has declined sharply since spring – results that portend trouble for the administration as the violence there grows.

With Obama's surge under way – and casualties rising – the number of Americans who say the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting has declined from 52 percent in December to 43 percent now. And his approval rating for handling it, 56 percent in April, is down to 45 percent..."
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-loses-ground-afghanistan-wars-intensity-mounts/story?id=11170795

"Who'll be the last to die for a mistake
The last to die for a mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die, for a mistake.."

Bruce Springsteen


rdb

Sad but true.

I understand Americans have a proprietary feeling in war, that some enemy somewhere is doing the killing rather than us. We kill a thousand civilians, well, these things happen. The Taliban do, and suddenly it's "Look at these barbarians!" Technology does not civilization make.

I don't understand the point. Yes, things are rough in many place in the world. Can we be in all those places? No. Is the argument we can save more lives than we destroy with war? What if, instead, we used all that money for universal health care. Wouldn't that, in the cold hard calculus, result in more lives ultimately saved? Are we going to kill them into compliance? How many net Afghan women do we have to kill in order to save them?

Yeah, the Taliban are theocrats. They don't like women. That's what theocrats are like. Should we occupy every country with a backwards religion? We'd be awful busy.

This reminds of the Republican argument. They wanted a war, they got one, and then they retrofitted it with feminism, as if George W. Bush was suddenly some kind of heir to Gloria Steinem. It was silly then on its face.

Your appeals are similarly silly now.

I don't understand why the Democratic Party thinks co-opting the neocon war-dream of democratizing the world was such a bright idea.

Oh, right. I forgot. Now President Obama likes this. Well, that changes everything.

Do people realize how, in the effort to defend war, they are now in the position of adopting the exact same Republican rhetoric from 2001-2009? That if you posted this exact same rationalization during a Bush presidency, people would call it what it is: right-wing justification for eternal war?

Now, we must pretend it is different.

Be my guest. Pretend away. Pretense is all we have left anyway.

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The U.S. is and has been killing civilians in Afghanistan for ten years and continues to do so, more efficeintly than ever.

There have been massive demonstrations in the country against the killing of civilians, ongoing. The Karzai government wants to bring the Taliban into the political process, and the U.S. uses Taliban fighters for protection when they need them, paying them for their assistance.

Our allies, the War Lords, are no less brutal than the Taliban, in fact they are worse.

And now, the U.S. will be killing even more civilians since they've decided on what they call a 'surge' and what the people there call a brutal sustained assault on the civilian population.

But, as Prism says, if we kill thousands of civilians, we're still the good guys, 'cause we couldn't help it!! But if the Taliban kills one tenth of that number, we scream about how evil they are.

Sorry, to the dead and their loved ones, we, the War Lords and the Taliban are all evil. Those who are the victims of U.S. drones, which has to be the most cowardly and cynical (read Robert Fisk's reporting on the results of just one of our drones) method of killing.

Sooner of later we will have to leave. And no matter when that is, unless it's 50 years or more from now, the results will be the same, except we will be responsible for more deaths in the meantime.

The numbers bear this out. More troops, higher operational tempo, yet we're causing fewer civilian casualties. And the Taliban is causing more, this is not a matter of opinion.

"Anyone who approves of the current actions in AfPak are doing so because they love Obama."

If we want to pretend to be reminded of "Republican arguments," perhaps dismissing reasonable people's opinions as cultism would be a place to start.

Mainly, because I very rarely give one on a message board. I'm not much for posting on Afghanistan. You're assuming facts not in evidence.

Your defense of war, death, and empire expanded on the backs of the American poor is very cavalier. Obviously, the mass death in Afghanistan as a result of this conflict isn't enough to cause you to flinch from the great imperial cause - and it is an imperial cause at this point.

We cannot care for the American poor, and untold numbers are being murdered in a conflict with ever-shifting objectives.

You're very blithe in promoting more war in name of, what, feminism? You think breaking the American economy and leaving tens of millions of Americans destitute is worth grinding Afghanistan into dust?

Why do you feel it is worth it? And what are you, Robb, sacrificing in the name of this death and destitution? You must be giving up something, to idly and cavalierly encourage more death and destruction. It isn't apparent to me, though. I'd think someone who promotes mass death around the world wouldn't calmly post all day on a message board. I'd assume they'd be making serious sacrifices in their own life to aid this glorious cause.

Help me out, would you? You're defending this war to the hilt, so what outside of keyboard warrioring are you doing, exactly?

You don't want to make this about me, do you? Isn't your argument strong enough to stand on its own?

I'll help you and answer my own question: you shouldn't want to make this about me. :hi:

It's about all of us. War isn't a political game or a rhetorical sport, to be considered academically from afar. The policies you support are resulting in death at the cost of trillions of dollars.

Why do you cavalierly support the American participation in mass death?

And my argument is just fine. You do not save people by inflicting mass destruction and death on a populace.

I thought we learned that one in Vietnam.

Why spend your time, which surely you value, framing me as "cavalierly supporting mass death" or saying I somehow didn't learn from Vietnam?

No one's dumb enough to fall for attacking the messenger, on either side of the debate. Why not just tell me what you think of a post-NATO/ISAF Afghanistan? Do you want to see Taliban in governing roles? Is it worth it if it gets us out sooner and saves lives? Would it save lives?

Yes or no.

No.

Now your turn, yes or no: should the Taliban be involved in governing Afghanistan after we're gone?

It is not up to us. My opinion on that doesn't matter. That is the entire point.

And if you feel we should have withdrawn from Vietnam, why do you take the opposite position now?

The arguments are the same. In fact, I would argue that the consequences of our withdrawal from Vietnam were far, far worse for the civilian population than would result from our withdrawal in Afghanistan.

Why adopt arguments and rhetoric for this war that you opposed with Vietnam when the stakes were arguably higher? What changed?

:D

My opinion is totally immaterial. I don't believe America should be there no matter how the issue shakes out.

...Probably because you're fearful of how a direct answer would sound. But you're welcome to do it, it's good politics. :hi:

I don't believe the Taliban should be in power, nor do I think American lives and treasure are worth seeing that through.

You have yet to delineate why you support the same arguments you claim to have opposed for Vietnam.

We now have common ground.



Where did I make an "argument," or express support for one, for why I feel we were justified in leaving Vietnam? I don't believe I have. Feel free to quote me if I'm mistaken, but I believe you're making that part up.

Edited to add: crickets?

$4 large pizzas at Little Caesar's wait for no message board.

You feel the welfare of Afghan civilians is a justification for remaining there. This was a widespread argument during the Vietnam war. If we leave, bad things will happen to people. You . . . don't want bad things to happen to people, do you?

Of course, bad things did happen to people after we left Vietnam. Millions of people suffered after our exit. Yet, you felt (and seem to continue to feel) that withdrawal was justified.

So if our withdrawal in Vietnam was, in your mind, justified despite what happened after we left, why do you take a different tack here? What is substantially different?

What about Afghan civilians causes you to ostensibly value their welfare more than Vietnamese civilians?

...Why did you stop beating your wife, Senator? :rofl:

Which is ok, because I suspect there isn't much objective logic or measurement in why the two situations are being treated differently (but I can think of a huge, honkin' political reason). Afghanistan is different in this regard . . . just because.

It's an answer, I suppose. Not a good one, but an answer nonetheless.

You have no idea why I, personally, think withdrawing from Vietnam was a good idea when we did.

You're not even close.

My reasons revolve around China and the USSR, and that the repercussions for staying were far more dire than for leaving. It was the right thing to do, strictly by the most grim mathematics imaginable, proven out just a few years later, I'd add.

Afghanistan today is different, relevant to this conversation, if for no other reason than the involvement of China is peripheral and economic, and the USSR no longer exists.

...Do you know why Russian historians talk about Afghanistan as "their Vietnam?" It's not because of troop casualty numbers, or "quagmires," or any of that crap. They talk about it in those terms because they spent $3 million a day in Vietnam, propping up the other side with guns and money.

And we did the same thing to them in the 1980s in Afghanistan.

You may have your reasons for Vietnam withdrawal, but the functional effect of American withdrawal was the suffering of millions of Vietnamese civilians. You, seeing that potential outcome, chose withdrawal anyway, knowing those civilians would be left to that fate.

Now, you are putting forth a justification for continuing the longest war in American history, one that is sapping us economically, diplomatically, eroding our power, and further destabilizing an already unstable nuclear region, and resting all of that on the welfare of the civilian population.

There is a disconnect in this, and you have not put forth any substantive argument for that disconnect. Your arguments are very nearly 180 degrees from each other. Holding opposite views requires very substantial justification, which you have failed to provide in the slightest.

This, sadly, leaves me glancing afield to wonder and assume what unspoken justifications are lurking in that chasm.

...As you clearly do. But that reflects only your limited rhetoric, not reality.

The right action to extinguish a grease fire is not the same you should take for a forest fire. That they are both fires does not mean that a completely different response is inappropriate.

You want to accuse me of some ulterior motive (again, probably because your argument is untenable) and justify it because I do not want to throw water on a grease fire, because you "know" all fires should be fought with water.

All this, and you have not for a moment stopped to back up your argument that the two fires are the same, behaving instead as if it is a truism. Perhaps if you were better acquainted with firefighting. :hi:

You consistently plant your justifications on civilian welfare - something that had roughly zero to do with why we entered the war or why we remain. Things do not need to be the same to be similar or comparative. At this point, after nine years, the idea that things will now suddenly change substantively is very flimsy without many facts in evidence. What we have is a belief-based policy, one, dare I say, founded more on hope than reality. There comes a point when you recognize you've done about all you can do, and remaining further is counterproductive. We reached that point long ago in Afghanistan, but like Vietnam, some people just don't want to "lose" a war or admit their political class's decision making has been entirely routed.

But that is the case, whether that reality will be acknowledged or not. As in Vietnam, some people will not give up the ghost when it is their ideology on the line. Of course, it's precisely that sort of unfortunate thinking that has caused so many unnecessary deaths in war. People don't know when to say when.

I must say, I'm still a little floored by your remark down thread that you simply want us to try helping Afghanistan, as if the Obama administration is a reset of the war and all that has passed before must be disregarded in this new era. I'm sorry, but wars do not work in this fashion, and we have tried about as hard as possible given that it is, indeed, the longest war in American history.

At this point, I believe yours is a policy in search of a retrofitted justification.

Well, happy hunting. I'll leave you to it in this remarkable new era of Democratic empire.

...This explains why so many men and materiel were sent to another country. :crazy:

would the world be a better place if the million or so Taliban were killed tomorrow YUP


Is it our job? no.

...Must we put the onus on the oppressed to cast off their own chains, so to speak? :shrug:

If they should decide to join civilized man in the future we should accept them until then treat them as international pariahs.

We messed up badly there in the 1980s. We armed and abandoned a nascent government, pretty much setting the stage for the emergence of the Taliban.

Leaving aside the question as to whether we can fix things -- which is a great question -- can we walk away from the damage we did without trying?

That's a very odd statement, "without trying." What have we been doing all this time if not that?

Right up there with terror attack fear mongering.

...Do you not want to talk about a post-NATO/ISAF Afghanistan? :shrug:

Just as I'm sure your motives are above board.

I find the more I read from you, the less I actually want to talk to you about anything, so no, no thank you.

Should the Taliban be involved after we're gone? And would the compromise of working with them mean fewer American lives lost, in the short or long term?

And I tried to explain it before, it's a question I would rather discuss with someone without so obvious of a political agenda.

That's all.

So we're clear, you'd rather play around with personal stuff than address the issue. If I'm paraphrasing you incorrectly, tell me.

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They cannot face up to the logical consequences of their opinions should those opinions be translated into policy.

in hindsight is was a good thing. We should have intervened in Rwanda and Darfur. What good is a world class military if you are going to sit around and watch genocide take place.

What did/do you think about the Dayton pacts? ... Kind of similar in theory. How do you think the power-sharing agreement worked out there, short and long term?

I had never heard of the place before having to stop college and go. I was 20 and not all that interested in the whole thing. By the time we got there there was no shooting and everything had returned to "normal", the fear of Russians had subsided. My concern was running over some anti tank mine or driving off the road into some giant drop off. The european culture, even in the muslim population, i think made it easier for them to transition back to a normal political system. The serbs were not happy we were there but also not openly hostile. The culture is different and although not everyone was educated they were more functional than the afghan culture. However they had a long history of hatred based on not just religion but geographic location.

The system was far from perfect but people participate in it and change it. They have high voter turnouts and have kept it running for 15 years now.

The series of wars there are complex and the history dates back centuries. Hopefully the outcome in Afghanistan mirrors the "success" in what's left of yugoslavia.

...from another life. I'll let you know if they have any insight after all these years. :hi:

I think that the military budget should be slashed by at least 50% to free up funds for social programs and the government, not getting involved in more useless wars.

I'd love to have the opportunity to have you say that to victims of genocide directly.

military resources and lives in the same vein of Iraq and Afghanistan. I never said stopping genocide is useless, so I'm not sure where you got that from.

Seems like they keep reverting back to fundamentalism and centuries-old custom, no matter what anyone does or who invades. It's not really in our national interest (or capabilities) to end that.

I wish Obama would be completely candid and tell us how he got sold the bill of goods about the war in Afghanistan. Why is pursuing this so important to the USA? Does Obama's second term depend on not leaving Afghanistan? Is this really about Iran? An oil and gas pipeline going through Afghanistan?

Using the plight of Afghan women is part of the CIA strategy to influence public opinion.


http://wikileaks.org/file/cia-afghanistan.pdf

Thanks for the link.

is one I can't agree with.

See my above responses.

Big Brass Bull: Pentagon Deceit on Media Manipulation Confirmed

A few days ago, we noted the revelations by Stars and Stripes that the Pentagon was using a shadowy PR firm to identify the political leanings of journalists trying to cover the "Good War" in Afghanistan (as well as the "Forgotten War" in Iraq). The idea, clearly, was to encourage and reward "pro-war" reporters while planting a big red flag on the backs of any writers considered less than gung-ho about the imperial bloodshed in Muslim lands.

Naturally, the Pentagon denied that the vetting program operated by the Rendon Group – which was hired by the Bush gang to help instigate the mass murder in Iraq – was in any way a sinister, slimy attempt to manipulate the news in order to make the endless slaughter of the Terror War more palatable for the folks back home. Perish the thought! declared the brass. Why, goodness mercy me, the only aim of the program is to help reporters tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. As Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman put it after S&S first broke the story: "It’s a good article if it’s accurate. It’s a bad article if it’s inaccurate. That’s the only measurement that we use here at the Defense Department." Makes you want to puddle up, don't it?

Well, Stars and Stripes has done something almost unheard-of in modern journalism – followed up on a story with a skeptical stance toward the bland assurances of authority – and guess what they found? Go ahead, try – you'll never guess. They found that the Pentagon was lying! From S&S:

Contrary to the insistence of Pentagon officials this week that they are not rating the work of reporters covering U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Stars and Stripes has obtained documents that prove that reporters’ coverage is being graded as “positive,” “neutral” or “negative.” Moreover, the documents — recent confidential profiles of the work of individual reporters prepared by a Pentagon contractor — indicate that the ratings are intended to help Pentagon image-makers manipulate the types of stories that reporters produce while they are embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan..."

http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-late...




DOD Spends More on Domestic PsyOps Than On Foreign PsyOps
By: emptywheel Friday February 6, 2009 1:16 pm


"The AP just did a great investigation on how much money DOD is spending on PR and outreach (via Noah Shachtman). There are lots of nausea-inducing details in the story: that PR funds have grown 63% in the last five years, that DOD has almost as many people working in PR as the State Department employs altogether.

But what gets me is that DOD is spending more for Domestic PsyOps (otherwise known as Public Affairs) than it spends on Foreign PsyOps.

The biggest chunk of funds — about $1.6 billion — goes into recruitment and advertising. Another $547 million goes into public affairs, which reaches American audiences. And about $489 million more goes into what is known as psychological operations, which targets foreign audiences...

...But on Dec. 12, the Pentagon's inspector general released an audit finding that the public affairs office may have crossed the line into propaganda. The audit found the Department of Defense "may appear to merge inappropriately" its public affairs with operations that try to influence audiences abroad. It also found that while only 89 positions were authorized for public affairs, 126 government employees and 31 contractors worked there."





Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

I had trouble opening the pdf file on the WikiLeaks site....

http://www1.doshisha.ac.jp/~knakata/cia-afghanistan.pdf

Quite the opposite. I found the Wikileaks release of this doc reassuring, actually, because if Red Cell is talking about it, we're not doing it. :D

Are you saying that HRW are actually a CIA front?

http://www.hrw.org/node/91466

http://www.womensenews.org/story/the-world/091111/afghans-bravest-woman-calls-us-leave




Drones killing civilians, U.S. troops torturing her people, women being raped, like the young girl whose family was killed, and she was shot and then burned, by U.S. troops.

Joya believes that the U.S. could have done some good, but they sided with the War Lords, so now, they are stronger. She is the woman who stood up in Parliament and critized the U.S. backed government for their anti-women laws etc. She was fired, and an apology demanded of her. She has to hide as her life is now in constant danger.



Let's NOT use the women of Afghanistan, who have been further brutalized by our presence there, to justify this massive crime, now going on for a decade.

End it. The War Crimes we are committed there, have committed, make it impossible now for us to do any good. And since our allies are as bad as the Taliban, there is simply nothing good to come from this. Someone else, who has more interest in the people of Afghanistan, rather than oil, might be able to do something, but U.S. has no moral authority to criticize brutality there, not any more.

Check out these numbers



NATO not winning Afghan hearts and minds: poll

LONDON (Reuters) - NATO is failing to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, according to a poll released on Friday showing most people in Taliban heartlands view foreign troops negatively and believe the Taliban should join the government.

However, 55 percent of Afghans surveyed by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) think-tank believed NATO and the Afghan government were winning the war against Taliban insurgents. The survey was based on interviews last month with 552 Afghan men in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in southern Afghanistan, the scene of some of the most intense fighting.

"We are ... failing to explain ourselves or our objectives to the Afghan people. This provides clear opportunities for Taliban and al Qaeda propaganda against the West," ICOS President Norine MacDonald said in a statement.


Seventy percent said recent military actions in their area were bad for the Afghan people and 59 percent opposed a new military offensive being built up by NATO forces in Kandahar.

http://inform.com/world/nato-winning-afghan-hearts-minds-poll-994245a





Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

This one strikes me in particular as relevant here:



Mullah Omar, who threatened women in parliament with death as recently as March. He's got a goddamn fatwa on Hashimi, for example, for the criminal act of introducing legislation in the National Assembly.

I am slightly heartened that the men in this study were polled in Kandahar and Helmand provinces, but only slightly.

"The State Department is seeking more money to help fund a "civilian stabilization strategy" to deliver more economic assistance to Afghanistan, especially its agricultural sector. Part of the idea is to create jobs that will draw insurgents off the battlefield in Afghanistan."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66F21Q20100716


Does anyone recall the VN era "rural pacification program?"

Sounds eerily similar, w/a misguided US policy floundering on the rocks of growing public opposition. Ww only lack the phoney-baloney body counts delivered each night by Cronkite.


Oh, yeah, more from the above-article about the cost of this boondoggle on behalf of Big Oil, the MIC and the elephant in the middle east living room:


Factbox: A look at the costs of Afghan war to U.S. taxpayers

By Susan Cornwell

Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:50am EDT

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's request for more money to pay for the war in Afghanistan is working its way through Congress slowly as lawmakers concentrate on other priorities and deal with scarce budget resources.

Obama has asked for $33 billion more to help fund 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers being sent to Afghanistan this year. He wants $4.5 billion more for beefed-up foreign aid and civilian operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year; about $2 billion of that amount is dedicated to Afghanistan.

The House of Representatives approved the funding last month and added billions of dollars in non-military spending, meaning the measure must return to the Senate for final approval.

Lawmakers are expected to pass the funds, but are also demanding assurances that the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai tackles corruption to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are not wasted.



More facts for ya, Bertie





rdb

Like real recently, when approaching Kandahar?


"..However, a top U.S. commander in the south said Wednesday that the new operation should start reducing violence in coming months..."


Read the rest of this story and weep:


Afghan attacks kill 8 US troops in 24 hours

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- American forces suffered a deadly 24 hours in Afghanistan, with eight troops killed in attacks including an audacious Taliban raid on a police compound in the key southern city of Kandahar, officials said Wednesday.


http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/world/article_fedfa75a-8fa4-11df-b53e-001cc4c002e0.html




More teeth being pulled in that middle east dental chair




rdb

Central Asia/Russia

the now infamous quote: "At one moment during the negotiations, the US representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs,'"


US policy on Taliban influenced by oil - authors
By Julio Godoy
November 20, 2001

PARIS - Under the influence of United States oil companies, the government of President George W Bush initially blocked intelligence agencies' investigations on terrorism while it bargained with the Taliban on the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.

In the book Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth), that was released recently, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction.

The authors claim that O'Neill told them that "the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it". The two claim that the US government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.

They affirm that until August, the US government saw the Taliban regime "as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia" from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean. Until now, says the book, "the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that..."

http://www.atimes.com/c-asia/CK20Ag01.html


Seems like two peas in a pod, like hand meet glove, like Lord of the Flies to Flypaper.


Threats, ultimatums, innuendo, betrayal, atrocities, waste on a galactic scale.



What goes around comes around.




Just my dos centavos


robdogbucky

If we can't have them, no one can!

My thoughts exactly.

yup

BBC's report in summer 2001 put the Taliban on a lot of peoples' radar with respect to women's rights. It could be argued the original UNOCAL project became too radioactive just because of that single documentary.

Same summer the Taliban took two dozen foreign aid workers hostage. They blew up the Buddhas that year, too, which got a lot of press.

After 9/11, they were known for harboring al Qaeda. Or, as the old joke goes, "...but I have sex with ONE sheep...."

But pretty damn close.

Are you referring to "Beneath The Veil"? In fact, it was a Channel 4 documentary for their "Dispatches" series. It was later http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/index.veil.html">broadcast on CNN, too.

I've never forgotten the plight of the civilians under the barbaric rule of the Taliban since I saw this "must watch" documentary in 2000: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4201322772364661561#

Reviews (IMDB says 2001 but it was made in 200)....

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294350/usercomments

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2001/11/16/veil_two

It was very frustrating that everyone seemed to forget Afghanistan until a new president came into office and set about trying to finally fix the unmitigated disaster that had been created there by previous administrations. And it's very disappointing that this amnesia has led everyone to look upon what's going on in Afghanistan as if for the first time and want to just quit and run, same as we did in 89.

Thanks for the links.

And, to clarify, we didn't exactly just "quit and run," we defunded reconstruction efforts. We "beat the Russians," and left Afghanistan to fend for itself -- like taking a child out of a burning building where his family just died, giving him a rifle, and sending him on his way. Actually a LOT like that. :(

You're welcome.

such as the assumption that "amnesia" leads people to prefer leaving Afghanistan, but especially the assumption that our continued military presence in Afghanistan will help women in any way. That doesn't necessarily follow.

Fuck those misogynistic assholes.

<snip>

"NATO says Taliban leader Mullah Omar has ordered fighters to kill Afghan civilians, contradicting orders he issued last year.

In a statement Sunday, NATO says it intercepted orders that Mullah Omar gave to subordinate commanders at the beginning of June. It says he instructed fighters to kill Afghans who work with NATO or the Afghan government, and to kill women who provide information to coalition forces.

There was no immediate reaction to the claim from Taliban leaders. Last November, Mullah Omar called on militants to avoid causing civilian deaths when attacking government and foreign troops.

NATO blamed the Taliban for a suicide bombing that killed at least three people Sunday in the capital, Kabul. Authorities say at least 35 people were wounded."

http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/Suicide-Bomber-Kills-3-in-Kabul-98699074.html