Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiTestimony Rebuffs Common Rhetoric About Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
On Friday President Obama said he was "surprised" to win the Nobel Peace Prize and doesn't "view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments."
![[Marc Sageman, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Al-Qaeda threat in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/testimony_afghan.jpg "testimony_afghan.jpg")
Wednesday marked the beginning of Year Nine of the war. In the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator John Kerry, chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and a Vietnam vet who knows a thing or two about the costs and consequences of a quagmire, convened a hearing titled "Confronting Al Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond."
It was timely, considering the United States went to war with the express purpose of "disrupting, dismantling and defeating the terrorist organization that attacked us on September 11," Kerry said. Timely too because the president now faces increasing pressure to double down on US military presence there, rather than seek alternatives to escalation, including a drawdown of US forces. Two of the witnesses, Robert Grenier and Dr. Marc Sageman--both of whom served in the CIA, as station chief in Pakistan and on the Afghan Task Force, respectively--concurred that escalation would only further spread anti-American sentiment among Afghans and other Muslims, and that nonmilitary initiatives to contain Al Qaeda and foster civic development in Afghanistan would prove far more effective.
Kerry began the Q&A of the three witnesses by soliciting an update on how Al Qaeda is faring in Afghanistan eight years after the invasion. "The president's strategy is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan," he said. "Is it a fair judgment to say that that has happened?... They're not in Afghanistan?"
Sageman and Grenier agreed with that assessment. (The third witness, Peter Bergen, a journalist and senior fellow with the New America Foundation, said the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan wasn't as important as "their influence ideologically and tactically." As the lone witness who is a proponent of an increased military presence, it is striking that Bergen had the least amount of on-the-ground experience on the panel.)
Kerry also raised the issue of denying Al Qaeda a safe haven so that it can't "plot at will against the United States." He asked whether there is legitimate concern about "a new union [between Al Qaeda and] the Taliban."
Sageman didn't perceive such a threat.
"A Taliban return to power does not automatically mean an invitation to Al Qaeda to return to Afghanistan," Sageman said. "The relationship between Al Qaeda and...[the] Taliban has always been strained." In the event that the Taliban did extend such an invitation, Sageman noted in written testimony, "there are many ways to prevent the return of Al Qaeda...besides a national counterinsurgency strategy. Vigilance through electronic monitoring, spatial surveillance, a network of informants in contested territory, combined with the nearby stationing of a small force dedicated to physically eradicate any visible Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan will prevent the return of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan."
Republican ranking member Richard Lugar then turned to Gen. Stanley McCrystal's call for up to 60,000 additional US troops. "Who would we be surging against [in Afghanistan]?" he asked. "How would this have any effect whatever on the incidences of terrorism in the United States, Western Europe or what have you?"
"Let me answer that with an old Middle Eastern proverb," Sageman replied. "'It's me and my brother against my cousin. But it's me and my cousin against a foreigner.' So if we send 40,000 Americans...that will coalesce every local rivalry; they will put their local rivalry aside to actually shoot the foreigners and then they'll resume their own internecine fight.... Sending troops with weapons just will unify everybody against those troops, unfortunately."
Grenier emphasized that a surge would turn not only Afghans against the United States but also Pakistanis. "A large increase in the US presence in Afghanistan would not be welcomed by the majority of Pakistanis," he said. "It would make the struggle seem all the more starkly as one of the US versus Muslims, as opposed to the US supporting Afghans in their own struggle."
Senator Russ Feingold--who supported the decision to go to war but now calls for a flexible timetable for withdrawal, who recently introduced an amendment requiring the president to provide Congress with information regarding the cost, estimated duration and possible destabilizing impact of any increase in troop levels before authorization--honed in on what it is exactly that we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and how it fits into our larger objectives.
"Do you believe that completely denying Al Qaeda access to Afghanistan is an achievable objective?" Feingold asked. "Is [this] goal...distracting us from a broader goal [of] relentlessly pursuing Al Qaeda and its affiliates globally and ensuring that they can't conduct training and plotting in Afghanistan and elsewhere?"
"Right now, as I said, they are in Pakistan; and even if they return to Afghanistan, I think they will return in the same way they now are in Pakistan--in hiding," Sageman said. "Things have changed; it's not going to be the types of huge training camps that we saw in the 1990s. Right now what we see...are really small rented houses, half a dozen people, who get a few days' training, and they're not as well trained as the previous [guys] in the 1990s. You're talking about a very different threat. So even if they do come back...their threat...is still not going to be what it was."
Feingold pointed out that devoting so many resources to preventing Al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan detracts from the broader fight against present and future safe havens elsewhere.
"All we get is this simplistic notion that if we don't stay in Afghanistan for a very long term, Al Qaeda will be right back," Feingold said. "[But] what happens if they go to Yemen? What happens if they go to Somalia? What happens if they stay in Pakistan? How can it be that an international strategy against a global network can be that heavily concentrated on one place on the assumption that they will reconstitute themselves in a way that is exactly the same and allowed them to conduct the 9/11 attacks? It's far too simplistic."
Feingold said that polls now show the majority of Afghans want all foreign troops to leave within two years, and only 18 percent support an increase in foreign troops. He wanted to know "what impact these public attitudes [are] likely to have on the viability of any plan that involves a massive, open-ended foreign military presence."
"There is a high degree of xenophobia that is endemic among the Afghans," Grenier said, "and they do tend to coalesce against what is perceived as an outsider. The best that we can hope for is not a permanent elimination of safe haven, or the opportunity for safe haven for Al Qaeda, but rather the elimination of uncontested safe haven.... That needs to be a sustainable effort. What we are currently doing, I believe, is not sustainable either by us or by the Afghans."
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen then asked the million-dollar question: "What would a fully resourced, non-military-focused campaign against Al Qaeda look like?"
"We have to start relying on the Afghans themselves and not so much on American troops," Sageman replied. "We have to almost remove ourselves.... You have to gradually shift it to an Afghanized strategy."
"Are you suggesting then that we don't need to continue a campaign in Afghanistan in order to address Al Qaeda?" Shaheen pressed.
"That's correct," Sageman said. "A nonmilitary campaign would be to try to flip some of the locals who are hiding [and] protecting Al Qaeda to betray them, and allow us to either arrest them or eliminate them through other means."
Sageman and Grenier also said there are nonmilitary options to deal with the Taliban.
"I think many of them are young men who could be won over," said Grenier, "and who would just as soon take a paycheck from the local governor and serve in his militia as they would serve with the Taliban. Or if you had more constructive engagements that benefited them, they would pursue those instead."
"We make a mistake labeling everyone that is not for us with the same name," said Sageman. "On the ground what you have is a collection of a lot of young people who resist central government. Those [people] really are not ideologically motivated. I don't think we can cut a deal with Mullah Omar, but we certainly can take most of his followers away from him."
I spoke to Sageman after the hearing to get a better sense of what he envisions as an effective US presence in the region. He spoke of utilizing a small "cadre of folks" that understands Afghanistan and can "cut deals with local power brokers to make the peace." He believes we need "a small military presence" in the region for "focused action" when needed against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He said we need to "Afghanize" economic development and work with NGOs and local entrepreneurs to "do things in their own communities" rather than using "outside contractors, [where] all the money for development ends up in their pocket or in Switzerland."
For those who agree with Sageman and Grenier that any escalation or continuation of the current counterinsurgency strategy is exactly the wrong way to go, there are some Congressional efforts promoting these alternative ideas. Congresswoman Barbara Lee has introduced HR 3699 to prohibit funding for any increase in US troop levels in Afghanistan. Congressman Jim McGovern and ninety-nine co-sponsors have reintroduced HR 2404 requiring Defense Secretary Gates to submit an exit strategy to Congress--something even President Obama said is needed but has failed to deliver. The Feingold amendment never received a vote, and it should be reintroduced so that it can.
There are clear alternatives to staying the course or escalating--ideas that could not only save Obama's presidency but justify the peace prize he seemed to suggest is premature.
37 Comments so far
Show All"How can it be that an international strategy against a global network can be that heavily concentrated on one place on the assumption that they will reconstitute themselves in a way that is exactly the same "
Sen. Feingold, this is called fighting the last war, not the next war. It is the same error that got the French slaughtered in WWII, the Americans slaughtered in Viet Nam, and will continue to get us killed wherever people get into an intolerable situation. And given the coming climatic disaster, those intolerable situations will become more and more common.
If they were planning on sending a surge of Americans like Rosemary Stasek, who recently died of heart failure, to Afghanistan then we might have a chance of winning hearts and minds of the Afghan people. She called her project to help the women of Afghanistan "A Little Help".If all the money that was spent on the military and weapons was spent on projects like A Little Help, Afghanistan might be developing into a nation that would not tolerate al-qaeda in their country, if they ever did. We must get the courage to leave Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as possible. No military surge, please. There were millions of Iraqis displaced internally and outside the country due to the U.S., Iraq surge. It was a phony success.
This article is yet another useless effluvium posted on CD.
Fuck John Kerry, Russ Feingold, and any other politician who continues to float the propaganda about "Al Qaeda". It is as specious a claim as Reagan's "USSR = evil empire".
Very much so, however Pres. Reagan was not the originator of "USSR = evil empire". Remember, the Cold War started shortly after WW II and he was not U.S. President until decades later; and the Cold War was always about a supposedly threatening USSR when the only threat it represented was to the imperialist, corporatist, ... "elites" of the U.S. and possibly other western countries. Pres. Reagan "only" carried on this theme, of bs, which, from what I've previously learned, Pres. JFK wanted to end. There's a video clip with Gore Vidal at Youtube, I believe, and he therein provides a historical clip of film footage when he spoke with Pres. JFK and questioned him about the bs war with the USSR, and Gore Vidal reports that Pres. JFK said it was indeed bs, entirely about only "apparences", nothing real; except for the U.S.-manufacturing of the apparences. The same and/or another video, for a lecture by Jim Douglass, author of "JFK and the Unspeakable: ...", which seems to certainly be partly doubtful, given he considerably refers to an Ed Hoffman testimony on the assassination of Pres. JFK and Ed Hoffman has, from further Web searching I did over the past week, to have changed his story a number of times, and arguably did not witness one or two things he is said to have first claimed to have witnessed; well, Jim Douglass says that Pres. JFK wanted to end the Cold War against the USSR, and to also clean up the USA's "act" vis-a-vis Cuba, which many people believe to be the cause of "certain" people seeing to getting rid of Pres. JFK.
In any case, Gore Vidal says that he, perhaps as a journalist, or simply an author or met with various U.S. political leaders, learned from Pres. JFK himself that the U.S. vs USSR history was only about apparences, that is, a stage act.
That of course is about the ruling "elites" of the USA having always worked on trying to make the USA the assured, guaranteed, definite world superpower, following WW II.
The ruling "elites" got their way and used the Pres. Reagan administration to complete the collapse, say, of the USSR. Pres. Putin, however, revived Russia and its military power, as well as economic, even if it has problems. Heck, the USA can't claim to not have economic and military problems; although the latter mostly consist of ..., well, being worse off than a heroin addict, anyway.
It's all done through [deception]. That's what the "apparences" that Pres. JFK was talking about were and are; stage acts for deceiving the public.
Pres. Reagan should've stayed in Hollywood or where he had his acting career, if it was ever considerable as a career, and never entered politics, which he clearly was highly unfit to serve in. But he didn't start the wrongs of the U.S., any of them, really. And let's remember who was his VP; GHW Bush. Now he was more powerfully influential than Pres. Reagan was, but like a real con, he knew to keep out of front view. He's probably the most dangerous member of the Pres. Reagan administration, and the most dangerous people usually are cunning, stay out of sight as much as possible, while nevertheless being positioned to be able to make or control, through strong influence, key decisions and actions.
Beware; the fool's game is to be deceived, which is what the ruling "elites" want us to do. Always expect what you're not expecting when dealing with dangerous people. Expect what you normally would, but don't be fooled into believing that this is all you should wisely expect.
"Watch your back jack"!
What does that saying mean? Beware of enemies from within. Well, since we clearly need to do that, we also need to be alert about other "tricks and (nasty) treats".
Mike, I'm well aware of the history that you've recounted here. I was merely using Reagan's "evil empire" schtick as one example that's similar to the "Al Qaeda" fiction.
THeir boogieman is not our boogieman
Contentious issues are proven to be best settled by referendum, not by compromised politicians. Big Money corrupts California referendums, but not Swiss:
"Direct democracy is the greatest single cause of these economic policies that have helped Switzerland grow so rapidly over the last century." Pg 104
http://www.vote.org/fossedal
If you're dreaming on the U.S. holding a [real] referendum, then keep on dreaming, for it's all you'll be able to really do with this idea. Heck, the country does NOT have honest elections to begin with; they're rendered fraudulent in many enough ways, perhaps all ways possible. The ruling "elites" couldn't accept that Dennis Kucinich participate in Dem. Party candidate debates, unconstitutionally and unconscionably excluding him, in wholly deliberate terms, intentionally, directly, six times in 2008. GW Bush was not elected in 2000 and it's doubtful that he was in 2004, which would've been an invalid election, for he should have been excluded due to having accepted the literal hijacking appointment in 2000 anyway. It's not The People deciding, and they're mostly complicit through, minimally, complacency, anyway.
What good would a referendum possibly achieve in such a politically PHONY country?!
Revolution is what is needed; not another paper- and electronic-process referendum that will be as easily corrupted as any U.S. election is.
Honduras, f.e., is different, but are the people there getting their referendum? No. It would be fitting for them to have it, but the hijacking "elites" decide that real democracy is not for this population, either; and the U.S., etcetera, actually support this, regardless of "nice" words we sometimes read about our anti-democratic and -constitutional political "leaders" saying. While the Obama administration pretended to not recognize the coup government there, the Admin. worked on increasing military relationship, and probably more. Maybe that's changed since the last time I read about it, but it's nevertheless what I had last gathered about the situation.
Politicians can easily say one thing and really do the opposite. Words and actions are often contradictory.
Perhaps that's good for the population of the country, however, is it also, in part anyway, why it's a tax haven country for rich-pig foreigners, by any chance?
Only rich people use these havens. Several months ago, there were news reports regarding Obama demanding that Switzerland's banks disclose the identities of the account holders and only one bank was agreed to; however, and afaik, we haven't received any news about this ever since, total silence since then.
Of course those accounts are highly profitable to the holders and surely enough of them are of the U.S., however could the population of Switzerland also be profiting from this scam and/or scheme to cover up acts against national and international laws? Tax evasion, from what I've read anyway, is not only against national laws, but international law; something I read regarding the tax evasion by, now, former Canadian PM Paul Martin, who was, at the time, running to become the new PM, his tax evasion through the offshoring of his oceanic shipping business or company. It was a crime according to national law in Ca, but an article, or two, that I read said it's also against international law.
Switzerland goes around, say, both sets of laws and since banks only make money using other people's money, the money of bank account holders, especially, the tax haven means a lot of money-to-be-made by Swiss banks and therefore bankers, etcetera. If enough of this profit results in profiting the general population and that population supports this banking scheme or scam, or both, then we have a very questionable morality in this population to begin with. So if all of this is what's going on, then what's democracy really worth in that country for the rest of the world, humanity?
The principle of a population holding referendums with their governments is good, however the same can be said about the concept of democracy, and what do we have for real democracy anyway? It's on paper, that we're supposedly democracies; however, paper is also used for wiping oneself after bowel movements, say, lighting fires, shelving, stuffing boxes, etcetera. We don't have better than any of those things happening with our democracies, with the "leaderships" in place; and when replaced, then with more of the same and sometimes worse.
How much does the general population of Switzerland profit or benefit from all of the tax evasion swindling going on with the banks [and], minimally, complicit government there? If it was an honest, law-respecting, ethical, ... government, then it would not permit all of this banking swindle/ing to continue; but the government there protects this RACKET, which is, btw, used by the worst of wealth criminals of the west and perhaps globally. What's the referendum worth there in thorough terms?
It's easy to be deceived by apparences. What meets the eye usually does not tell the whole story. And I've not once heard or read of the population of Switzerland suffering from any real hardship. Why?
Good points. The Swiss may have collectively benefited from non-fraudulent yet onerous referendums that hurt others. But since direct democracy is real democracy, the final answer is to include these others in global (online?) referendums such as have given the Swiss one of the highest per capita incomes, no wars in over 150 years, no boom and bust economy, no WOD and no drug problem, the best healthcare and education, few immigration problems, a healthy environment, etc.
Might those positive things you say about Switzerland be due to the fact that it's an important tax haven used by the richest people in the world? After all, they surely wouldn't want to use tax havens where the countries have a lot of social problems, war, etc. They'd want their wealth to be stocked away where they feel it'll be very safe, and just like it being rich and powerful people who create wars for various industries through which the rich get ever richer, and are highly the cause of major famine, losses of democracies, etc., in countries where the rich know there's much to profit from for them and their "friends", and they're responsible for the international drug trafficking, they could also see to it that countries they wish to use for holding their or much of their wealth in secret and thereby sheltered from taxation are safe; with little or no cause for civilian "unrest", etc.
This is not to say that referendums are not of value, for they are. It's only that people like to describe Switzerland as if a heaven on Earth, without ever addressing the above part of the whole picture.
Canada has had at least one referendum over the past decades. Venezuela, I believe anyway, had a referendum. Honduras would've had a referendum, if not for the military coup d'etat in June denying Hondurans direct democracy. I'd use such examples, instead of Switzerland, for as heavenly as it may seem to many or most people, there's a darkness to it and this is part of its complete picture that basically everyone ignores when describing the country.
What would become of the country if it ceased to be a tax haven or shelter for the rich? Would it still be as great for society as you describe that it presently is on the surface?
While it remains a tax haven, however, we should also compare the country's quality of living standards to other countries that are tax havens. Are they democracies, do they allow referendums, when is the last time they had wars, do they have socialised health care, etcetera? I don't know the answers to those questions, can't even name more than one or two other tax haven countries, but would guess they have little or no "drug problems", seldom war, tranquil(ised) populations, etcetera. Maybe the opposite is very or somewhat true, but it's the rich that make Switzerland the way it is, and the rich of the USA are among these guilty people; guilty at least due to being makers of wars and genocide for profit, denying citizens of the U.S. universal, socialised health care for profit, fueling, or worse, the international drug trade for profit, etcetera.
Otherwise, they could require that all tax havens cease to exist as tax shelters, and this, I believe, would surely come to cause some serious changes in the social and political contexts of these countries. Switzerland and other tax shelter countries can be made to stop providing this luxury and if the political leadership of these countries refused to comply, then they could be immediately indicted and put on trial for the international crimes this tax sheltering and the profiting from it really are. The Swiss could then cease to live with apparent heavenly standards at great expense to the rest of humanity.
Democracy without principled ethics or morality isn't anything to brag about.
The principle of democracy, along with democratic referendums, is good, in principle; however, it's additionally crucial to be an ethical democracy and one that's at the expense of rights and lives, safety, quality living standards, ... for other people is [not] a democracy to hold up as a good example.
The Swiss case deserves to be thoroughly described for the sake of principled truth, which is more important than democracy, for democracies highly consist of lies; one being the supposed existence of real democracy when it exists alright, but only on paper.
It'd be great to live in and benefit from Switzerland, but I wouldn't want to live so well when knowing it's at very high cost to peoples of many other countries.
file this article under the "total bullshit" column
it is a tribute to the pointless and insipid "reportage" we have to endure in reading and watching the corporate media and their decidedly inelegant dance of death with the american hate machine also known as the entirely corrupt congress. this is no astaire and rogers act i can tell you
john kerry fresh from his 17th face lift thanks to his wife's heinz ketchup fortune overseeing the fraud of investigation is quite a spectacle
this kind of stuff renders machiavellian nightmares into normalcy
it is clear we have totally slid into corporate nazi hate speak - love is hate, war is peace yada yada yada
if kerry has one more face lift his skin will be so tight he'll have to climb a ladder to take a shit
just ask kenny rogers...
I take it some readers at CD are a "little" angry, here.
Well! You are SO wrong on at least ONE crucial point!
I've watched John Kerry for years, and I'm quite familiar with his personal appearance!
So-- not that it's likely to dissuade you from scurrilously spreading slanderous disinformation-- but I'm firmly convinced that Senator Kerry doesn't TAKE shits!
· Yr Obd't Servant
I am curious about the statement that a lot of young people who are associated with the Taliban are really most motivated by a resistance to central government. Most right-wing types in this country have that motivation. It seems likely in Afghanistan also. Gallup, care to send in a few fearless pollsters?
"Kerry began the Q&A of the three witnesses by soliciting an update on how Al Qaeda is faring in Afghanistan eight years after the invasion. "The president's strategy is to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan," he said. "Is it a fair judgment to say that that has happened?... They're not in Afghanistan?"
Sageman and Grenier agreed with that assessment."
This little excerpt from the article is just totally incomprehensible and meaningless.
What does it mean to say that one agrees with a question about a policy? It's a question! Has the policy succeeded or not, for God's sake? Answer it.
Jim Shea
Well I hope you don't mind, but to answer your rhetorical question, it is a rhetorical question.
Rhetorical questions are a tried and true safe way of making a point... and politicians play it safe.
Now if you ask me what the point was... who knows?
President Osama, oops! That's right the other terrorist spells his name with a "b."
Just kidding.
Let's get real -- this has nothing to do with AlQaeda or the the Taliban: it's driven by oil and gas pipelines and the war industries' profits -- and maintaining or expanding the US empire.
When is a US war about anything else?
Right to the point, one of the questions should have been "Are our pipelines gonna be safe under Afghan sovereignty" and another one " How much is it gonna cost us to run our pipelines safely across Afghan land" ?
Obama is smart enough to know that if he pulls out of Afghanistan, he will soon be entering his own Dealey Plaza.
He also knows he would be pilloried by the corporate media as a "cut and run" coward.
This is why we will not see a withdrawal until AFTER his hoped-for re-election.
The Beast is named at davedubya.com
Did death threats stop Lincoln ? Is Obama's life worth more than an Afghan child's?
Is he worth more than the thousands which will killed in the next three years?
Will he be re elected ? Will being a corporate slug lose the election for Obama?
today's attack in Pakistan is going to be used to fuel the war mongers.
how convenient for the Pakistani army, who received 6 billion dollars from the USA and can only account for 500 million, are so inept in not being able to stop 8 "Supposed Taliban" dressed in Pakistani army gear from attacking and gaining access to the Pakistani Army headquarters.
are you kidding me, is anyone buying this for anything other than a staged event to force President Obama to send in more troops.
You can trust anyone in the media, the military industrial complex , or our government any more.
GET OUT OF IRAQ, AND AFGHANISTAN NOW. LET THE TALIBAN HAVE THEIR COUNTRY BACK, AND KEEP ON BOMBING USING DRONES, REAL AL QAEDA TARGETS.
BUSH EMPOWERED WAR LORDS AND DRUG LORDS, NOT A REAL GOVERNMENT, THIS WILL GO ON FOR 100 YEARS, AND WE WONT WIN UNLESS WE KILL ALL THE WAR LORDS, DRUG LORDS AND TALIBAN, AND YOU WONT BE ABLE TO DO THAT. MANY HAVE TRIED AND FAILED.
>>There is a high degree of xenophobia that is endemic among the Afghans," Grenier said, "and they do tend to coalesce against what is perceived as an outsider.
Goodness, this makes it seem as if Afghani resistance to being OCCUPIED by a foreign power is some sort of disease.
They are reacting the same way virtually every people would towards a foreign Occupation. When Russians resisted the Nazi Invasion, it was not due to endimec Xenophobia.
Afghans do not fear or hate foreigners. They can be a very hospitable people. They just do not like Foreign armies of occupation dictating how they should lead their lives.
lets not try and pretend that the OCCUPATION of Afghanistan is anything but what it is.
well --there is irony in that "endemic xenophobia among afghans" statement.
after all -- since the USA has such HUBRIS, arrogance, IGNORANCE about countries it invades for all kinds of made-up reasons , or blown out of proportion excuses ,
since the USA has such INTOLERANCE about "foreigners" not swallowing the "american way of life"
since the USA practices WARS
which country REALLY has people who have ENDEMIC XENOPHOBIA?
isn't the USA the one that has about the LONGEST string and history of demonizing people everywhere?
if it's not NATIVE INDIANS, it's blacks, then its mexicans, then it's south americans, then venezuelans, then cubans, then commies, then chinese, then iraqis, then iranians, then pakistanis, then afghanis, then taliban, then its OWN "former" allies of convenience, then the French, then the "old europeans" , then the russians, then the serbians, then socialists, then the vietnamese, then the canadians, then ........we can go on and on and on
about AMERICAN XENOPHOBIA -- UNMATCHED and UNAPPROACHABLE its breadth, scope, depth, intensity, ignorance and unbelievable hypocrisy.
XENOPHOBIA?
they Name is UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. the SUPPOSED "melting pot"
elevated to the most unbelievably XENOPHOBIC and PARANOID nationality in the entire planet. it is in fact its TWIN character with its HUBRIS.
if anything the TWIN TOWERS of the world Trade Center not only represented american "bubble economy" and american model of "disaster capitalism" -- they represented
the USA's TWIN characters of XENOPHOBIA and HUBRIS.
they are the EXACT REASONS that america goes abroad to INVADE and OCCUPY because of its HUBRIS and XENOPHOBIA.
the HUBRIS gives america the impetus and national character of justifying its Hegemony - and
the XENOPHOBIA gives america the PARANOIA of "losing" its Hegemony
leading to MORE of the SAME TWO THINGS in a never-ending
BRUTALITY and VICIOUSNESS towards the rest of the world.
XENOPHOBIA and HUBRIS together -- spells AMERICA.
This article is about "Al Qaeda in Afghanistan." Though it differs from most MSM coverage in at least considering non-military approaches, it still pretends that the basic problem is "Confronting the threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan."
There are 2 fundamental problems with that formulation of the issue:
1) The war in Afghanistan is not really about "terrorism" at all. It's about establishing US dominance of a region that has vital strategic importance, both for oil & gas pipelines; & for building permanent military bases that can threaten Iran & China.
2) Even if it were really a matter of "fighting terrorism," the fact is that neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban are really in the wrong, in terms of justifying a war. Whatever else you might want to say about those groups, the US government is a vastly worse terrorist & murderer than either of them. And the US provoked them, by the outrages of its foreign policy. Even if 9-11 happened just as the official version claims (which it almost surely did not), the US would still not be justified in invading & occupying anyone because of it.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Sad truth is Team Obama do not have the collective smarts to declare Victory, end the Wars, bring home our war weary troops--then bathe in the sunlight of Heroism !!
****No, Team Obama still has not received it's copy of the well known documentary: "Military-Industrial Complex for
Dummies".
****All Obama knows is that a fairytale boogieman bin Laden
is still hiding in the caves of Tora Bora==as per his war council advice--ergo, bring on the Drones to slay the dragon !!!! Intel just forgot to tell Barak that al Qaeda was always a Neocon Fantasy of the Zionist war lords.
Of course escalaton in Afghan is Wrong==just listen to the hard won advice of our ally--Russia==when it comes to War the Russkies are no dummies, as are we !! Our leadership never listened to our French allies NOT to enter Vietnam !
Certainly it is the WRONG decision: Get out of Afghan,
Get out of Iraq, and STAY out of Iran !!!! How is it they can continue to commit us to an illegal, immoral, criminal war, Unwanted by the American populace ????
Just pretend you are Heros, Team Obama, then claim that the Nobel Prize Committee made you do it !!! Give Peace a Chance !
What I don't hear is the idea that the US has no damn business in that country. I cannot see the Taliban as a threat to this country. On that basis alone we should get the hell out. If Afghanis want economic aid and counterterrorism training, let them ask for it (though they better figure out how money can be verifiably sent to those who need it). We've got to reject this knight-on-the-white horse hero of the world myth and get back to making our own country a decent place to live.
True, and whenever we try to "follow the money" that we borrow to throw around even at our own too big to fail crooks, the reply is
"We can't find it."
Kerry used the term "safe haven." What a silly concept! Has anyone ever shown an operational link between Afghanistan and ANY terror attacks.? As I and others have pointed out, according to the official conspiracy theory, the 9/11 evildoers trained primarily in Florida.
Even "enlightened" articles such as this one miss the point: there is no legitimate reason for ANY American presence in Afghanistan. We can't solve our own domestic problems. Why do "we" have more expertise than the Afghans regarding their problems?
Let's leave tomorrow, and set up a billion dollar trust fund to be administered by some appropriate third party. This would save the American tax payer billions, and more important, spare lives.
Good Idea.
And a fund for rebuilding.... We need that here too.
Experts? Apparently they didn't ask the 5 gods from the almighty Norwegian parliament, also known as the Nobel Prize Committee. Maybe next year they can give it to such champions of peace as Robert Gates or McChrystal.
Maybe they do read Common Dreams... very slowly.
Al Qaeda: this is a job for - Interpol!
Why do we keep dropping 'buzz' bombs on Pakistan?
Who is going to protect the people that make these assassination weapons from International Justice?
Well at least BO told the truth when he said he does not deserve the peace prize. If you or I murdered one person we would be incarcerated, but if you murder many innocent men,women and children---they give you the ignoble peace prize! What is wrong with this picture?
"The death of one person is a tragedy", said Stalin. "The deaths of millions is a statistic." I'm afraid Obama subscribes to this same notion.
Please email this no brainer article to the Great Peacemaker