Don't worry they will turn defeat into some kind of victory or peace and eventually thousands will come home with mental and physical illnesses that will destroy their lives as the contractors count their dough.

Many commentators here at Common Dreams have been saying for years that the occupation and savaging of Afghanistan and Iraq were phony wars.

So the real question is: who is making enough money on this war to so totally own/control/influence the decision making of our government? At this point they have control of our president [such as he is], our legislative branch, and the cooperation of the corporate owned media? Surely pissant contractors like Blackwater and KBR do not have that much control, do they? I know they are huge, but not like big oil or the pharmaceutical industries. Who are they, and what are they constructing in the Middle East?

While the comments in the article are certainly true, they are, as Oikos notes, hardly new.

Also, why do we have a video which simply displays several printed statements?

q

Blackwater holds all the cards. They do have the power, and they are worldwide in our name, yours and mine, if you live in the US of A.

Some of the questions raised by previous commentators are right on the mark! I don't have that much to add, but I would suggest that if anyone would like to explore these questions in more detail, and heavily documented, you might find a good many answers in a book by Webster Griffen Tarpley, "9/11 Synthetic Terror". It is a carefully crafted work that will make a whole lot of sense out of the various questions and seeming anomalies raised by some o the folks above.

We are in Afghanistan to protect the heroin profits of the CIA and the Big Banks. I have talked to Viet Nam Vets who while in Nam put heroin packages onto Air America (“private” airline then owned by CIA) planes bound for the USA. The fact is that the spy agencies of many countries are into illegal drug trade and the Big Banks launder the money. Noriega stopped giving his 15% money cut to the CIA and started using cocaine himself and got mentally unbalanced. Cocaine traffic through Panama increased not decreased after we invaded Panama. Most people including most liberals refuse to face the dark side of big business and how rigged our so called Democracies are. The super rich families that own the big banks are dark in more than just a political and economic way. There is a reason why the French Rothschilds had a dark angel as a symbol on their website for several years. Wake up from your materialistic or fundamentalist slumber folks. Congressman Dennis Kucinich meditates (I was in his Presidential campaign in Austin & an insider with him told me this). Its important that progressives cultivate intuition along with their analysis. Do not leave conspiracy theory to the confused Libertarians.

Terrorism is fear.The U.S.cannot win a war by using bombs Drones,guns,incarceration , torture, displacement of civilians, to fight a battle against fear. It only creates more fear and perpetuates terror. It is an intangible illusive unidentifiable enemy impossible to beat with violence. The troops have been sent to the Middle East to do the impossible. End the damn war against the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and any other place America is killing people under the guise of trying to end terror-fear with worse terror-fear. most of us know that policy makers know that you can't have a war against fear, that is why Obama tried to change the name of this military nonsense, I can't remember what he calls the war on terror now. But the American people have been brainwashed into believing it is a war to keep them safe from being terrorized. The same way America has been terrorizing other nations for decades.

We kill.

We die.

We don't profit.

We've been set up.

We lost both wars the day our three branches of government in all marched lock step in agreement to fight for big oil, the banks and military industrial complex.

Our free press media report on stazi activity as if it were Patriotic behavior and the right wing fake evangelical Christians leaders all supported the war, as if Jesus told them killing in a holy war was ok.

The single most destructive legalization, the Patriot Acts, still allowed to supersede the Constitution , allowing government funding of warrant less surveillance, fusion centers, removal of habeas corpus, rendition and torture .

All this unconstitutional illegal activity with impunity.

We lost Americas soul the day they enacted the Patriot Acts and we invaded two country illegally to secure control of oil.

And this is a surprise? To whom?

My theory on Afghanistan is that the US has known what the Pentagon recently released regarding mineral riches in that country for decades. The reason we helped the Mujahadeen boot the Soviets out was so we could invade and occupy. Perhaps the Afghans figured that out pretty quickly and weren't all that enthusiastic? War for plunder is the oldest game on the planet. 911 was the pretext cooked up by the Bush- Cheney Cabal to get us in there. What a bunch of depraved lunatics we're ruled by.