Have any of you seen the wonderful documentary "Beyond The 11th"? It's about two american women who lose their husbands on September 11th, and decide to do something for Afghani women suffering from the effects of constant warfare and occupations. The scenes of the Afghani women brought to light the humanity of these oppressed women - who you grow to love and wish for them so much more from their oppresive culture. (This is why I love documentaries and get so mad at progressives who will go to the latest Hollywood blockbuster garbage but won't go to progressive documentaries and other indie films). When we see their lives & their humanity, I would hope it would be harder to kill them with our bombs and our aggression (U.S. military/government, not us). So when Barack Obama says the real "war" belongs in Afghanistan, I think of the Afghani people (esp. the women & children) who's lives get destroyed more than they allready have been - when instead I'd rather see us caring for them since we have caused so much of their grief.

Its not just Afghan women who have been oppressed Afghan men and boys and children have also. 30 years of war destroyed that country and everyone in it suffered. I am married to an Afghan man and his personal story would bring you to tears. He had to escape as a refugee out of Afghanistan hidden in the back of a fruit truck of organges and suffered discrimination in Pakistan waiting to come to the US. I might also add the Taliban are Pakistans proxies and Pakistan is behind the chaos in Afghanistan. We get Afghan satellite TV and the reporting is far better of what is really happening then the American media. Every Afghan knows this and if you meet an Afghan American they'll most likely say the same. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB227/index.htm

Afghan woman weren't always in Burkas. Women were once doctors and engineers and dressed in Jackie O style western fashions in Kabul in the 1960's and 1970's. We have the photos of the way my in-laws used to dress. You can also read about this in a 1,000 splendid suns. Many were educated too. People cannot even begin to imagine what the Afghan people have lost. Hippies used to visit Afghanistan back in the day...now can you imagine that still happening? So sad. Afghanistan used to be a beautiful mountainous shangri-la. One day I hope it will return to that.

Where and when did this whole thing start? It didn't start on 9/11 or after the World Trade Center Bombing. We never answered "Why do they hate us"? If we go back to the beginnings of the conflict for the answer I think we'll find the solution.

William Pfaff noted recently here that if the warlord based Karzai regime enjoyed widespread legitimacy in the opinion of most Afghans, 'they should not need 60 thousand NATO and U.S. troops to defend them'.

As this survey (PDF) from late last year shows, most Afghans--despite bitter ethnic and tribal feuds which are the basis of the insurgency in which everyone opposed to the government is indiscriminately labeled Taliban, similar to the demonized Mau Mau in Kenya--favor rapprochement and power sharing as the policy most likely to put an end to three decades of continuous conflict:

...60 percent of Afghans say the Karzai government should negotiate a settlement in which Taliban leaders would be allowed to hold political office in exchange for laying down their arms.

In fact, 'Karzai offered negotiations with the Taliban in September; the Taliban demanded foreign troops first leave the country, a condition Karzai refused.' Goes to show how well Karzai trusts his chances with fellow Afghans, just as he prefers DynCorp contractors over his countrymen to protect his own assets.

Nine U.S. soldiers were just killed in Afghanistan, fifteen wounded. That's in one attack. As the British and Russians learned, he who tries to subjugate the Afghanis is doomed to failure.

If the U.S. allegedly attacked Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11/01 terrorism, we long ago killed many more Afghanis than the number of people killed here on 9/11. Killing Afghanis indiscriminately in retaliation constitutes "collective punishment," one of the war crime for which Nazis were hanged as a result of the Nuremberg Trials.

What is the current status of the U.S.-supported UNOCAL natural gas pipeline snaking through Afghanistan? Will U.S. & NATO troops be stationed in Afghanistan, killing and being killed, as long as is needed to complete and protect that corporate pipeline? See Bush, Enron, UNOCAL and the Taliban http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.html

It has never been about creating Democracy at the point of a gun....It's about the loot. Google 'CIA and Opium', there's one of the ways folks are making money out of this war.

"It's as if the country has given up."

Hey, Canada - our country gave up long before yours did. Look across the border - see any protests, outrage, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, uprisings or sit-ins?

Welcome to the party, pals...

The Conservatives or
Tories got just over a third of the vote in the last Canadian federal election and only a bit over a third of the seats in the Canadian House of Commons, rally Canadian progressives for forcing a vote of confidence to force the slme ball Toreis into an election and vote in a Liberal minority government completely dependent on NDP support, and then tell W and the neo cons to go to hell for the sake of Canada and all humanity!

"Hey, Canada - our country gave up long before yours did. Look across the border - see any protests, outrage, strikes, boycotts, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, uprisings or sit-ins?"

I see them locally, and I live in a right wing part of eastern California, so I suspect all those things are occurring. One thing the ruling class learned from the Viet Nam experience was to not allow the media to present images of dissent and they are not.

So those things probably are happening all over. As Gil Scott Heron told us 40 years ago, the revolution will not be televised.

Look, the Taliban wouldn't go for the pipeline deal and they shut down the narco-trade by stamping out poppy harvests in 2000 that plunged the US into a recession, since 500 billion in laundered income was removed from the system. Negotiations with the Taliban in 2001 continued until August to get them to see the light, but failed. Something had to be done.

The bonus of 9/11 was we also got to do Iraq, and maybe even Iran.

Life is good. Iraqs oil is pumping and the rights getting sold off to Big Oil. The narco trade is booming with plenty of poppy for opium and heroin. Record crops each year. The pipeline deal is agreed to but the Taliban has stalled the go ahead. Thats why Obama wants to focus more on Afghanistan, and when we pull some of the troops out of Iraq, not all, most will just end up going to Afghanistan.

Outside the consensus reality, the pathocracy is having a grand old party. Life has never been so good.

The British control the drug trade BTW in case you are wondering about Canadas involvement, you do serve the Queen. And Canada-Harper and France-Sarkozy, have both joined the fascist party of the global pathocracy. Globalization, ain't she great.

MiMiCcS July 13th, 2008 8:16 pm -- "The British control the drug trade BTW in case you are wondering about Canadas involvement, you do serve the Queen."

Oh, puhlease, MiMiCcS! Surely you are more knowledgeable and sophisticated about today's realities than that!

It is the U.S., not Canada, that combines the roles of head-of-state, head-of-governement and commander-in-chief in a single office. And Canada's current regime is subservient to that imperium, not the old one of bygone days.

ezeflyer asked, "Where and when did this whole thing start?"

You'd have to go back at least to the late 70s when Jimmy Carter started giving weapons to the opponents of the Soviet-backed socialist government in an effort to "give the Soviets their own Vietnam." It worked and the Soviets invaded in 1979 to try to keep their allies in power. It's been downhill ever since.

So Canada has caught "Mars rules" disorder, the worst possible way to TREAT the greater ailments that have befallen the earth (climate change, species collapse, hunger, fiscal inequalities, the emphasis on destructive rather than creative/constructive capabilities), too. It must be contagious having managed to cross the US border.

ECIACCIO: You got that right!

DC BELTWAY: I love love stories! Yours is a beauty, and I hope it lasts... and heals any wounds your mate may carry as a result of what he endured.

Yawn, zzzz. Wake me up when the next war begins. Can't we have something else besides suicide bombers, blown up wedding parties, torture? War is a bore. How about a nuke exchange between Pakistan and India?

Iran, bring it on.

You'd have to go back at least to the late 70s when Jimmy Carter started giving weapons to the opponents of the Soviet-backed socialist government in an effort to "give the Soviets their own Vietnam."

Here's the interview Brzezinski gave to Le Nouvel Observateur in which he downplayed the importance of "some stirred-up Moslems" he had inadvertently brought to the world stage.

Arvy. It's a bit complicated. Actually, the British Empire and the US have essentially merged. We serve the Queen as a crypto-Commonwealth nation, and I realize she is a figurehead, but she is an important bloodline of the Illuminati and their NWO. London has simply outsourced the military arm of the Empire to us, and we have accepted on a pro-bono basis. It is much more economical for them, and will of course kill our economy, and may already have done so.

But our motto is whats good for the Empire is good for the world. We are the poodle with a big Dick Cheney. When we go broke after they roll out the new world currency, we will probably end up giving our military to the UN to pay our debt and to get IMF credit. Social security and medicare will also be scrapped due to IMF demands.

The drug trade remains in the hands of the Anglo-Dutch elite though. Why do you think our War on Drugs always fails, and the money is allowed to be laundered in the British controlled tax free havens. We might get a piece of the action, and likely facilitate the trade within our borders, but we are minor players globally, although our military provides the protection services, just as we do for Big Oil. This drug money gets invested in the ponzi scheme of global finance. Remove the source and it hurts.

The Anglo-Dutch-American elite are all globalists of course, nationalism is a thing of the past. Nobody at the top is loyal to their nation, it's all about One World Government, but you look at all the Americans that have been knighted by the Queen, and it is clear. It is very likely a civil war or revolution was fought in the 60's. As a sovereign nation, were were finished sometime between 1963 and 1968.

Cecil Rhodes had a plan to recover America, and his plan worked.

France and Canada were among the last resistors to Fascism. Once Canada elected Harper and France elected Sarkozy, then both were completely aligned with the Empire, and so Afghanistan became quite easy for Canada to support with France on board. Not actually an expert on Canada, but I am pretty sure the Anglo-American-Franco alliance means Canada is on board this train to hell with us. And they can kiss their HC system goodbye, and look forward to what we have in the US.

@Arvy July 13th, 2008 8:47 pm

MiMiCcS is using humour. Part humor part fact. He is writing this with a
mischievous grin from ear to ear. I am reading it with a grin too.

I wonder if anyone else watched the premier episode of "Generation Kill" last evening. After being rather conflicted about it I decided to give it a shot, noting to myself that I could always turn it off if it were as offensive as I suspected it would be.

I am not a critic and wont review it here other than to note that it follows a battalion of US Marines and one imbedded journalist ( for Rolling Stone) as they become the spearhead of the invasion of Iraq. The focus is on one particular company, the tip of the spear, so to speak.

It has several noteworthy comments , from the mouths of these marines, pertaining to the lack of equipment, the unpreparedness of the military for this invasion etc. But the single memorable moment for me comes when they come across a group of refugees fleeing Saddaam's death squads shooting those who are running from the conflict. After searching and questioning them ( one interpreter for an entire battalion) the order comes down from their commander ( the "Godfather") to turn them back, condemning them to death at the hands of the Republican Guards. One marine turns to another and notes,as these weary and doomed men trudge back through the desert, "our first contact with Iraqi's and we screw them over"........

MiMiCcS and braithwa842: Heh. Sorry. I usually have a better sense of humor, but I guess that detector sometimes gets stuck in the OFF position recently. A symptom of the times we live in I suppose.

Quote from the article:

"Whatever we're doing in that desperately sad country, it's not working."

Yes! But just what are we doing in Afghanistan?

They tell us that we are fighting the Taliban - but for what reason?

"Fighting the Taliban" started because some time in the ancient past (before 9/11), The Taliban supposedly refused to hand over OBL who had launched attacks on American assets.

At the time, informed people knew very well that the Taliban had almost no control over OBL, and certainly was in no position to "hand him over".

And then came 9/11.

Again, informed people knew that the Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, they were enraged at OBL for bringing the wrath of the United States onto them.

In fact, prior to the American invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban never once committed a hostile act against the United States.

So the United States invaded Afghanistan for the (legitimate) purpose of ferreting out and destroying OBL and al Qaeda.

But now, OBL is long gone. The Taliban has no connection with OBL. And al Qaeda is hardly identifiable as a separate entity in Afghanistan. They operate out of Pakistan, merging their fighters with those of the Taliban to resist the American invasion, (and now "occupation"). In terms of Americans, they are a "resisting" force - not an "aggressive" force. Only in terms of the Afghan warlords is the Taliban an aggressive force.

At this point in time, one needs to ask "what is this war with the Taliban all about anyway?". It certainly no longer has anything to do with capturing OBL and al Qaeda leaders. They are mostly in Pakistan and around the world.

Are we fighting the Taliban because we don't like their harsh religion? Are we helping the warlords for that reason? If so, how come the United States government and UNOCAL were wheeling and dealing with the Taliban in the 1990s over an oil pipeline project that would bring Caspian oil to a port terminal in Pakistan. The Taliban religion is no worse now than then. In fact, UNOCAL even made Hamid Karzai a UNOCAL "consultant" - and Karzai was in fact a Taliban at the time.

And then consider the mess that we have created in Afghanistan by the methods we are employing.

We invaded Afghanistan with a few hundred CIA and Special Forces, loaded down with bundles of cold American cash, which bought off the major warlords of the Northern Alliance. Backed by massive American air power, they defeated the Taliban in six weeks.

We then engineered the installation of a puppet government in Kabul and made Hamid Karzai president.

Why Hamid Karzai? Because he was the recognized tribal leader of the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.
Karzai had been the tribe leader in Kandahar, the political base of the Taliban.

In his years as president Karzai has been unable to extend Afghan sovereignty beyond Kabul, because the United States is still running the country by buying off the tribal warlords to deal with the Taliban.

Well that's the story - but the question remains - Why?

My guess is that it has all to do with American imperialism. We want to control every area of the world where oil is involved. And we want to suppress all potential threats to the State of Israel - and radical Islam (Taliban) is such a threat.

The only thing that will work against Harper fascism is that the electorate in Canada need to borrow a John McKay euphemism and "create an uptick in Canadian politics by running the Harper administration out of office on a rail.

The only thing that will work against Harper fascism is that the electorate in Canada need to borrow a John McKay euphemism and "create an uptick in Canadian politics by running the Harper administration out of office on a rail.

Thank you Siouxrose :)!

Regarding the other posters and discussion. Here's the thing:
Taliban are bad...they don't have legitimacy because they are backed by Pakistan. Particularily with Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, women and also many Pushtuns the Taliban has been a nightmare.
The War Lords are bad...they don't have legitimacy and we're reinstalled. They killed 50,000 people in Kabul during the civil war. Mu husband was there...he's lucky to be alive. They are evil and corrupt, they raped, pillaged, and destroyed the country.
Karzai government...full of corruption, lacks legitimacy. Karzai is the mayor or Kabul prettymuch and he cannot seem to reign in the Taliban, the corrupt Mullahs, and the War Lords.

So don't you all think the Afghan people deserve better then all of the above? I certainly do and the Afghans I know do also.

I hope you can read this Janice, 'cause i really want you to know how much I enjoyed reading your column. I live in California and we are listening! I am sorry my country dragged you into this war and thank you and all of your cityzens for their sacrifices. I will follow the news and hope that someday sanity will prevail. You write beautifully, thank you.

Listen to AFGANADA at wmnf.org on Monday nights at 10:30 It's Canadian radio theater and is being broadcast because we can't let people ignore or "forget" about what is going on.

dcbeltway July 14th, 2008 1:14 pm

I know everything you say to be the truth. What do you suggest? What can we do? Most importasntly what do your Afgan friends want us to do?

Well they tell me they dream of a Nuremberg style trial to hold the War Lords accountable as war criminals same for the Taliban. They also want Pakistan to be sanctioned but I think foriegn aid should be redirected there and in Afghanistan more towards job creation and schools. Majority of Pakistanis are just as poor as thier Afghan counterparts so a regional development strategy is what is needed. I think the guy who wrote three cups of tea hit the nail on the head there. Afghans also want accountability and an end to corruption in the current government..not sure how we get there but bringing the bad guys to justice might be a start. Finally they are sick of seeing all the aid money go to the NGO's and none of it trickling down to the people. This is a huge complaint of Afghans.

Will all the people who hated Clinton for voting for the Iraq war, and now love Obama, admit that by voting for him they are voting to expand the Afghan war?

dcbeltway July 14th, 2008 8:16 pm

Thanks. I don't see how we can help them without a real change in our leadership.

But surely we could do something about the aid money? Surely there are many liberals and even progressives working in this area? Couldn't we get information about who is doing what? Where the money is really going?

The GAO has been good about auditing these costs and pointing out problems...but its going to take the next administration to resolve the matter.

If you want to give to groups making a different I suggest "Help the Afghan Children" which is run by an Afghan American and has been around nearly 30 years. She's made a real difference in the education sector there.