Take a picture of the crew sending our children to Afghanistan. We have
the President, the Vice-President, the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense,
and the Generals in charge of Iraq and Afghanistan. What do they all have in common?...with the exception of the Marine Corps general not one of them has
spent five minutes assigned to a front line infantry company. Again, with the
exception of the Marine Corps general, my dog knows more about ground combat,
then the rest of them. Unlike Iraq, where we are fighting thugs, the troops we
will be fighting, in Aghanistan, are combat hardened. In the nineteenth century,
they kicked the crap out of the British. In the twentieth century, they kicked the crap out of the Russians. Guess whose going to get their asses kicked in
the twenty-first century. When the snow melts in the mountains, we're in deep
doodoo.
The fighting will be done out on in the bush. Like Vietnam 10% of the troops
will do all the fighting and suffer 90% of the casualties. The other 90% of the
troops will be there mostly to disguise the casualties the 10% will take. The
military need accountability. In Vietnam, infantry companies would have as few
as 15% killed or as many as 40% depending on the year and the Company. In a
book by Larry James, it describes an infantry company that, in a place called Hoc Mon, in a matter of minutes had 59 killed and 29 seriously wounded. Seven men walked away. We can look foward to the same kind of results in Afghanistan......

Hidden Agenda?

Not very hidden: Documented Vietnam tons of CIA/Military Heroin Laos-Bangkok-USA Military Bases (in coffins)

Documented Contra Funding tons CIA Cocaine Columbia-Costa Rica( Texan named Hull's airstrip)- Los Angeles ( Crack Epidemic)

Undocumented CIA/Military Heroin Kabul- London? Amsterdam? Hamburg? USA Military Base?

Whole things a sham, but NOW we got zombie banks, and a zombie Military Industrial the represents the ONLY profitable enterprise left in the usa (that is not outsourced) and what is our glorious export?

Exporting death abroad. If you step back, a bit, the poetry of it is staggering..

Were the zombies that we have been making movies about!!! for years!!

I'm afraid that the USA is addicted to war... as long as it's "over there". It's the ultimate NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard). Unfortunately, each and every time, the majority of US citizens buy into the lies, flag waving and drum beating and unless the war drags on, costs too much, or kills too many Americans, they simply wave the flag some more and beat the drum even louder.

A few years ago, a Hartford Advocate reporter wrote a story along with a map
showing the oil pipe lines going through that country. The paper was owned by
the Hartford Courant, it is now owned by Zell of the Chicago tribune.
The reporter was Canned...What is it you don't understand about the Bush Family
and the Mid-East? and now Obama has bought into the deal..

I am not an expert. How come I know that either (a) there is a secret motive for our military presence, or (b) this is sheer madness?
.
Before us, the Russians failed in Afghanistan. Before them, the Brits failed. Before them, everyone going back to Alexander the Great failed in Afghanistan.
.
Our choices are two: (a) Send a lot more troops in, be prepared for a lot more casualties, stay there forever and never expect to "win" anything except more casualties, spend more resources, gain even more disrespect from the decent peoples of the world, and further disgrace our history -- or (b)leave it now, pulling out EVERY U.S. soldier, and leave the Afshanis to struggle or to fight over the government they earn and deserve.
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It doesn't take a genius. All it takes is an American electorate to awaken to its own best interests and demand that their government pursues those interests.

I believe to agree with both posts already made in this page, though the one by dubs_dingleberries is a bit odd (to me) for statement. I think to know what dubs_dingleberries's point is though and if right about this, then I agree with the post.

Glen Ford's right about the bs demonisation, say, of Afghanistan and that we need to know more about the Afghanistan that was before; before the U.S. went and started screwing it up badly starting in the late 1970's. I haven't read much on this prior and quite great Afghanistan, but have read enough to realise or see that the U.S. really turned a country with a good government into another place of injustices, oppressive government, ....

Better the Taliban government than one run by the drug and war lords of the "Northern Alliance", but the Taliban also needed a lot of improvement before becoming capable of providing a good government like there was before ... before the U.S. stuck its nose in there.

i love the term 'exit strategy' --

what does it mean in practical terms?

when we've killed enough people, and everyone hates us, and
people in the u.s. are sick to death of the whole thing, and
there's maybe a lull in the resistance, while the cities have been abandoned
by anyone with half a brain who could escape, and the nation is segregated
into warring factions that seem to temporarily at least, stay in their
little neck of the woods to see if we'll go...we finally leave

that's the exit strategy

why, what did you think it was?

oh, yeah...there's usually (yet another) boogieman on the horizon doing terrible things in some neighboring country that has yet more people with skin that is other than white

Some of you were fooled by the WMD, etc. propaganda ,many of you were not. Now we have the same methods empolyed to make you think Afghanistan has never been a viable,prosperous nation or that the Taliban are more evil than say Neocon foundamentalists, or that we need a 100,000 or more troops to bring a couple of Al Qaeda suspects to justice. I admit the intensity of propaganda has lessened since we ousted our homeboy terrorists but nevertheless I am appalled at how many people demonize Afghanistan and it's people; giving license to the ethnic cleansing we are perpetrating.