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Eight Years Later, We Still Don’t Get It in Afghanistan
Eight years. We’ve been in Afghanistan longer than any other war in American history. The party of the president who invaded Afghanistan has been repudiated at the polls. Yet we still haven’t altered the flawed strategy that allowed uneducated tribesmen with outdated weapons to defeat us year after year.
We haven’t learned a thing.
You can see the myopia in our leaders’ talking points. “Our goal (in Afghanistan) is to disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News’ “Nightline.” “But not every Taliban is al-Qaida. There are people who are Taliban, who are fighting because they get paid to fight. They have no other way of making a living.”
So few words. So much stupidity. Where to start? Here: Al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan in 2001 was negligible. Al-Qaida was a Pakistani phenomenon. Still is.
You’re welcome, have another: Not only is every Taliban not al-Qaida, there’s no such thing as a Taliban, as in: “That guy is a Taliban.” Members of the Taliban are called Talibs. You invade a country, send in 100,000 troops, presume to decide what form of government it should have and who should rule it — yet you still don’t know something as basic as what the members of the nation’s majority political movement are called? Still wondering why “they” hate us?
Last and not least, actually, while it’s true that the neo-Taliban (as South Asian experts call them) sometimes pay stipends to their fighters, it’s one hell of a stretch — not to mention reflective of an utter misunderstanding of the situation — to depict them as a bunch of greedy and/or desperate entrepreneurs trying to scrape together a few afghanis to make ends meet. (Afghanis are the national currency. Afghans are the people of Afghanistan. Neither the president nor news reporters know this.)
The neo-Taliban are merely the most recent reflection of a historical truth: Afghans set their political differences aside when it’s time to kill invaders. Nothing the United States can or will do can or will change what we are: a hostile occupation force. Nothing the U.S. can say will change why the Afghans think we’re there: to kill them and steal their land.
Eight years. Look, we were never going to win. No one does empire like the British, but the Afghans beat them like a drum. Next-door neighbor Russia knew all about the Afghans and their culture; they lost, too. There was no way we were going to outperform the English and the Russians. Still, even if America’s political class doesn’t read history, you’d think they might catch a clue about crushing the hopes and aspirations of ornery brown people over the course of eight years of occupation. At least by osmosis.
Of said clues, No. 1 If-You-Forget-Everything-Else-I-Tell-You-Remember-This-One Clue goes as follows: Hamid Karzai, appointed as a U.S. puppet in 2001, has never been considered the legitimate president of Afghanistan by the people who count — Afghans. We’ve done a lot to irritate the Afghans — slaughtering wedding parties, dropping depleted-uranium bombs on civilians, encouraging opium poppy cultivation — but the biggest single reason every single American soldier who died in Afghanistan has died for nothing is that they died fighting for Hamid Karzai.
Karzai’s Afghanistan is a disaster. The average Afghan has received zero assistance from the U.S.-led coalition, has seen zero improvement in his or her life, and has seen no reconstruction whatsoever. Most Afghans never even see American aid workers, who never leave their compounds in Kabul. Thirteen billion dollars have been allocated for aid to Afghanistan — but there is no evidence that a single cent has ever been spent. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the overall effort in Afghanistan “has been a nightmare; vast amounts have been wasted.”
“The (Afghan) judiciary is so weak,” reports the Times, “that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, ‘a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.’” Which is how the Taliban came to power in 1995-96. There was chaos. They brought order.
Di. Sas. Ter.
But President Barack Obama doesn’t understand a thing.
“Administration officials describe Mr. Obama as impatient with the civilian progress so far,” reports The New York Times. “The president is not satisfied on any of this,” a senior administration official tells the paper.
Mr. President: The Afghan war was lost the day the U.S. invaded. It was doomed to disaster the day it installed an illegitimate stooge. Not only is he a puppet, he is a puppet on a shoestring budget — so he can’t try to buy the kind of public support that other Afghan politicians have earned with bravery on the battlefield.
Now the U.S. is trying to retroactively legitimatize the Afghan pseudo-president. But it’s a sucker’s bet. Leaving even one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan means only one thing: more death.
- Posted in
46 Comments so far
Show AllEight Years Later, We Still Don’t Get It in Afghanistan
And eight years from now we'll still be there and we still won't get it. Most of the USA people will absolutely have had it with Afghanistan but whatever well polished and thoroughly corrupt and incompetent joker is president still won't get out. The Afghans will have to find a strategy to run us out and it will have to taste like the Tet Offensive.
If this article is correct--and I have little doubt that it is, we must appear to the Afghans as the most stupid of all invaders they have ever met. No wonder they have no fear of fighting, what would appear to us ignorant citizens, of the offending powers to be a lop-sided conflict with all those high-tech weapons and shields--but they know that when it comes right down to it--they will eventually defeat such dummies who don't even know what or who they are fighting against or even what they are fighting for.
ie-1-there’s no such thing as a Taliban, as in: “That guy is a Taliban.” Members of the Taliban are called Talibs. / (Afghanis are the national currency. Afghans are the people of Afghanistan. Neither the president nor news reporters know this.)
2-Al-Qaida’s presence in Afghanistan in 2001 was negligible. Al-Qaida was a Pakistani phenomenon.
3-“Our goal (in Afghanistan) is to disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News’ “Nightline--there are even fewer al-qaida in that country today. total ignorance!
The Pentagon gets it, and they rule. Afghanistan is a perfect place to try out all kinds of toys. They are loving this opportunity to practice with live ammo. It's the subtext underlying all the bullshit. It's so boring sitting around with all those weapons, just polishing them and shooting blanks.
Is this about an oil pipeline?
It's called the TAP (trans afghanistan pipeline) Pepe Escobar and Tariq Ali, for examples, have written about this. Wikipedia gives a brief description
Is an Oil Pipeline Behind the War in Afghanistan?
by Bill Sardi
Testimony before the US Congress is circulating on the internet. It pertains to a proposed oil pipeline through Central Asia that is applicable to the current war in Afghanistan.
On February 12, 1998, John J. Maresca, vice president, international relations for UNOCAL oil company, testified before the US House of Representatives, Committee on International Relations. Maresca provided information to Congress on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and how they might shape US foreign policy. UNOCAL's problem? As Maresca said: "How to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets." The oil reserves are in areas north of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Routes for a pipeline were proposed that would transport oil on a 42-inch pipe southward thru Afghanistan for 1040 miles to the Pakistan coast. Such a pipeline would cost about $2.5 billion and carry about 1 million barrels of oil per day.
Maresca told Congress then that: "It's not going to be built until there is a single Afghan government. That's the simple answer."...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/sardi7.html
I once took some college courses in Buddhism and Sanskrit from a former Sri Lankan ambassador to France and the United States. When I asked him why his government had refused American military assistance in dealing with the island country's Tamil insurgency, he said simply:
"If the Americans come, they will just draw an arbitrary line through a temporary problem and make both permanent."
How wise and true those words seemed to me, especially given my own desultory experiences in the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72). After some reflection on the ambassador's elegant, one-sentence summary of notorious American institutionalized futility, I composed the following verse episode of "Fernando Po, U.S.A.," the saga of sub-educated, post linguistic America:
"Boobie Counter Insurgency"
If offered help you'd best refuse
For if you should relent
They'll draw an arbitrary line
Through problems transient
And complicate them all so as
To make them permanent
They’d like to spend a “night,” they say
To get inside the door
But after years you’ll find them fast
Asleep upon your floor
In no apparent haste to end
Their stay that you abhor
Like suitors of Penelope
They make themselves at home
In yours – till you will marry them
Or read to them a tome
That ends when brave Ulysses comes
From back across the foam
They start with talking of a “race”
But just as a pretense
Once underway, the “journey” talk
Begins to change the sense:
“Accomplished” missions leading to
No perfect in their tense
A hanging concentrates the mind;
No hangings, the reverse
When no one hangs for screwing up
Results become perverse
Rewards buy more incompetence
And gild the golden purse
Incompetents attract their ilk
They know no other kind
And so they concentrate like sludge
A residue refined
To gum up all the moving parts
And leave them in a bind
The Law of Parkinson explains
Bureaucracy’s demands
Just make more room to make more work
For still more willing hands
There’s room enough for everyone
When all the yeast expands
The Peter Principle sets in
And all float to the top
The good get out; the bad stay on:
Promotion will not stop
It doesn’t matter what they do,
Or how they fail and flop
“You fuck up then you move up” goes
The slogan of the day
Republican philosophy
For how to make some hay
Insurgencies have payrolls that
Would tempt a Kenneth Lay
To “counter” the insurgency
You first put on your crown
And then “elect” your puppets till
You start to spiral down
To end up with the worst of all:
George Bush and Michael Brown
Great nations, so the saying goes,
Cannot fight little wars
It just makes them look little
Like the whores that staff the bars:
Those widowed native women folk
Whose men died for our cars
We had to have the oil, it seems,
To make our gas and fuel
No matter that the price has soared
While Halliburton gruel
Fed to the troops to keep them fit
Has made them mean and cruel
But when a bloated, idle firm
Has little real to do
It either lays employees off
Or makes a pooch to screw
Then buys up some screwdriver stock
With options for a few
And then consultants come to call
To market mantras cool:
Some jaundiced, jaded, jargon jive
To mesmerize the fool
Which Dick and Don have taught to George
To make of him a tool
The trophy chief executive
Requires the use of sound
A propaganda catapult,
Some noise he needs to pound
He doesn’t have to know “above”
From “under” or “around”
Deciding to decide he picks
Decision as his guide
He chooses choices chosen for
The options that they hide
He puts them “on the table” then
Onto the floor they slide
He turns both tides and corners and
He chews gum as he walks
Then chokes and stumbles, yanked by strings,
As his bad puppet balks
Refusing to “eliminate”
The “enemy” he stalks
Technology will save the day
Or so we have been told
Our vastly overpriced machine
Will keep away the cold
Although “insurgents” wreck it with
“Improvisation” bold
The war to have more war again
Has made war without end:
Careers for all the supple ones
Whose rubber ethics bend
Until their “honor” turns to rust:
A blood-stain’s reddish blend
But why not send some campaign staff?
Those smarmy puerile jerks
Who masturbate to thoughts of “war”
With all its rank and perks
Who find “good bidness” where it “is”
And who cares if it works?
They’ll camp inside the castle walls
Some hamburgers to munch
And never go outside the wire
To brave the deadly crunch
While talking tough about Tehran
Where they’d be someone’s lunch
The days and weeks and months go by
With more excuses still
For why the costs keep rising while
The “enemy” we kill
But, What the hell? It’s free-lunch war!
The kids will pay the bill
Republicans can talk a fight
Until the buildings fall
They then attack the innocent
And squawk a shrieking squall
Producing only years of talk
To cover for it all
So “Hell is on the way,” alright,
Dick Cheney’s vow fulfilled
They fell asleep on watch and got
Three thousand of us killed
Then ran off half a world away
To have some oil wells drilled
In only six more months of this
The numbers will accrue
To show we’ve lost three thousand more
With no apparent clue
Explaining why we’ve spent more time
Than fighting World War Two
We used to have great enemies
But now we’ve only small
We shot a cannon at a wasp
Collapsing hive and hall
And now upon our bee-stung ass
The insects swarm and crawl
We’ve bought another cannon, though,
Because it makes more bang
And generates huge profits for
The ones who hire the gang
Who, when the sand gets in the gears,
Ignore the clunk and clang
The blowback, though, comes round in time;
No one has yet escaped.
Vietnamized; Iraqified;
Corrupted by the raped,
The “victors” thus are vanquished by
The monkeys that they aped.
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2006
MM poetic justice-seeking--I liked it, Thanks!
Even more surprising is that some who claim to be progressive and anti-war believe that it is necessary for the US to remain in Afghanistan to fix all of the depredations its presence has visited upon the country.
There's a very determined interventionist at another site who recently posted a summary of his position; it included an obviously well thought-out laundry list of areas the US "should" be committed to accomplishing there to restore basic "law and order", while also providing economic and humanitarian aid and relief to the abused populace.
This to-do list amounted to a vast civil reclamation project, and it presumes that the military can dedicate itself to a mission more suitable for the Peace Corps-- and 4-H Clubs, for that matter.
When challenged, this writer is quick to denounce the view that OUT NOW is the most moral position, and simply refuses to accept that ANY military-backed Amerikan authority is bound to be "part of the problem".
He was very happy when Code Pink recently stumbled back from a fact-finding visit and seemed to validate the need for a continuing US presence despite their anti-war stance.
I don't doubt this writer's good intentions and sincerity, and I believe he is truly anguished over the evil that the US hegemony has done in "Af-Pak". Still, people like this worry me as much as the warmongers, because the worse foreign intervention makes things, the more determined they are that the "cure" is more of the same.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Excellent analysis. Many people on the left are continuing to argue that we must get out of Afghanistan, but also say, first we must set up political and economic stability, secure the rights of women and curb the drug trade. That argument plays right into the hands of the War Party who proclaim the same goals.
What about securing the rights of women in Wahabist Saudi Arabia, you know, the country that actually attacked the U.S. if we are to belive the official conspiracy theory?
Sioux Rose
O.S. Your concluding paragraph is extremely well and wisely taken. Thank you for adding to this forum.
We're just lucky no one is supplying our opposition with the same kind of weapons we gave to thwart the Soviets or we'd see US helicopters dropping from the sky.
The USA is out of trillions.
One Euro now costs $1.50, once it was $.80, soon it will be $10.00. The American Express is maxed out. Sorry. Maybe you can go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and then it won't be maxed out. Sorry again.
All the good intentions in the world (if the U.S. actually had any) are not going to put the U.S. currency back together again. The U.S. government will pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq because we don't have the Piasters to afford the war and our daily bread simultaneously. Choose one! Or just as likely, go without both.
If you see the manipulated stooges who originally voted for this travesty, say hi for me.
What's the ratio of the dollar to the Afghani?
Is it true that the Afghani has a picture of Karzai on all denominations and a poppy plant on the reverse side?
According to http://coinmill.com/AFN_USD.html, an afghani is worth about two cents in U.S. currency.
According to the Obama administration, an Afghan is worth about the same.
Which is much less than the worth of an afghan (you can find some nice crocheted ones for $15 and up at http://www.etsy.com/category/crochet/afghan).
Eight years? We never learned from Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq eiher. We could say 60 years later we have learned nothing.
On the other hand there is nothing to "learn". War is about the projection of violent power and making profits. If we analyze who has benefitted from the imperial agression, invasions and occupations it becomes clear that the only lesson learned is to attack more countries so obscene private profits can be had. Who pays?
As usual, war is a vampire, a parasite; a Kleptocratic system that sucks the material, human and financial resources from the public, gives them to private corporations and they profit from the deaths of millions of people. Meanwhile the management of these corporations laugh all the way to the bank with their 25 million dollar pay packages, stock options, and 300 million dollar retirement packages.
Since the end of WWII, our wars have never been about anything but geopolitics: what we can get from our victims, how advantageous it is to us, etc. Anyone who believes any of the idealistic reasons given out by our government, the corporations and their lackeys, is a fool. The Untied States is an empire, and we are empire builders. The empire exists to further the wealth and power of those who rule. 95 percent of the wealth in the United States is owned by the elite oligarchy, and 95 percent of the worlds resources are controlled by this oligarchy and their friends in other countries (like Zionist Jews and Arab Kings). These people grow fat on war--they produce the weapons and they con poor people into doing the fighting for next to nothing.
"Eight Years Later, We Still Don’t Get It in Afghanistan"
What do you mean "We"?
Why are gas and oil never mentioned in the discussions over what to do in Afghanistan?
Outside of us being in Afghanistan as an energy pipeline protection force, I do not see the purpose of our being there. 8 years ago it was to find Osama bin laden, still no luck, and he is probably in Pakistan and the guys who rammed the planes into the WTC trained in Dresden ,Germany as well as the USA. Then there is the argument that we got to get them there or else they'll come here and create havoc. But people can prepare to attack the US from anywhere in the world-- Af/Pak, Dresden, New York or ???.
What was needed in Afghanistan was police/spy work; not invasion. Our military overthrew the Taliban-- the mainly Pushtun group, and Afghanistan's largest minority (43%), and put the smaller minority Tajiks in power. Guess what? The uproar continues.
Solution-get out now as our being there only causes more friction and let the Pushtuns and the Tajiks work it out.
Unless, of course, we're there as a energy pipeline protection force. Even so, this is a bad neighborhood for us to be in. China and Russia want their energy routes in this part of the world and we want ours. India and Pakistan are killer enemies and we are foolish to step in the middle of it. So, if oil and gas is your game, then fight it out in this tough arena and the hell with the toll in deaths and revenue--if not, get the hell out.
For further info:
Short, to the point, Chomsky Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqX4Jg3DrzY
Escobar article: Pipelineistan's Ultimate Opera
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175121/pepe_escobar_pipelineistan
Glad to see at one denizen of this site besides me that actually begins to understand the ethnic component of Afghanistan: though the Uzbeks, Hazaras, & Kirgiz should be mentioned as well. In fact, the West would be well advised to make sure when they leave is to make sure their weapons and equipment not fall into Pashtun / Taliban (whom for all intents and purposes, are one and the same) hands, but those whom did not do well under the previous regime.
We are paying $400 a gallon for gas for our war in Afghanistan. $400 a gallon to truck gasoline across the Pakistan mountains and helicopter it in to the more remote areas (paying a reception line of contractors along the way). You don't have to be a West Point graduate to know that an unsustainable supply line is a fatal flaw.
After this surge we still won't be able to leave. As Ted Rall pointed out, we are fighting an unwinnable war. Great combination: unwinnable and can't leave unless we win it. The formerly antiwar left will support this presiden'ts war until Kabal has Montessori Schools, full employment and libraries. Detroit, however, will look like Baghdad where people sell their kidneys for a living. We, of course, still won't be able to come home as there is an entire planet that COULD have al-Qaeda tendencies, calling out for bombing and rebuilding. Seven bases being built in Columbia. Africa, a whole continent ready to be contested for corporate colonization rights. Central Asia, the Great Game. The Looong War will end with the bankruptcy of the United States, the only part of the strategy that won't take much longer.
If you wanted to develop a strategy to destroy the wealth and freedom of the United States, you could not have done any better than let Wall Street and the Pentagon run amok. Mission accomplished.
"Seven bases being built in Columbia."
For the obviously coming invasion of Venezuela. At least the supply lines will be shorter.
One thing I am unclear on. Based on a recent RUSI poll, aren't the Taliban extremely unpopular in Afghanistan and Pakistan, see: http://www.rusi.org/research/studies/asia/commentary/ref:C4990051938E13/.
In addition, the US, even after our civilian bombings, is still seen favorably by 50% of Afghans.
Are these numbers incorrect? How strong is support for the Taliban in Afghanistan?
Is it correct to call the Taliban, "members of the nation’s majority political movement."
What the heck do you count on truth from RUSI for? What do you know about this British institution? It evidently doesn't have reputable, respectable members, "world leaders", that is. Did you check the About page at rusi.org? If you did, then what makes you think it's a credible British [institution]? If you hadn't checked, then why such negligence? It's the first thing to check before pretending that a party you, I, anyone references is respectable, and when we make a preliminary check like through reading the About page of a party's website and don't find enough information there, then do Web searches to see if any respactable independent analysts have posted anything on the party we're thinking of using for reference.
The "World leaders at RUSI" presently listed in the RUSI About page are:
-) U.S. General David Petraeus,
-) British PM Gordon Brown,
-) former British PM Tony Blair,
-) former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf,
-) former US President George Bush, and
-) Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Those people are all ROGUE(S), to say the least of what they are.
Also listed are:
-) NATO SG Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and
-) Iraqi Deputy PM Barham Salih.
I don't know that Iraqi Deputy PM at all, not recalling having read or heard anything about him; however, the NATO SG is surely no good, surely not a person of respectable views and conduct.
Petraeus, Brown, Blair, Musharraf and Bush are all well known enough, and Kagame also is, quite a bit anyway; but the following articles provide important information about him, for readers who don't know of the DARK (not skin colour) nature of this character.
The following three articles are three that I just found using Advanced Search at Google for articles at www.globalresearch.ca, and I definitely recommend reading at least the first one, by Prof. Peter Erlinder, since it's the most recent of the three. The older of the three and by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky is probably worth reading, as well; while the other article, by Tiphaine Dickson, might not say as much as the other two, but given who she is and the relevance of her related role, maybe her article can also be worth reading, in addition to the other two.
"The Rwanda War Crimes Coverup
UN Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has confirmed the coverup",
by Prof. Peter Erlinder, Sep. 3, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15037
""Rwanda's Deadliest Secret: Who Shot Down President Habyarimana's Plane?"
The most under-investigated of political assassinations",
by Tiphaine Dickson, Nov. 24, 2008
About the author: "Tiphaine Dickson was lead counsel for Georges Rutaganda before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 1997 to 2001. She was the first defense lawyer to present a motion requesting disclosure of the Prosecution’s investigations into the shooting down of President Habyarimana’s plane".
http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=11133
"The Geopolitics behind the Rwandan Genocide: Paul Kagame accused of War Crimes",
by Michel Chossudovsky, Nov. 23, 2006
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3958
EXCERPT:
Paul Kagame accused by French Court
A French judge has issued arrest warrants for nine close aides of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, in relation to the shooting down of the plane carrying Rwanda's former president Jouvenal Habyarimana in 1994. .
French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has accused Kagame of ordering the shooting down of the plane, which contributed to triggering the 1994 ethnic massacres and genocide.
...
Below are selected excerpts of my May 2000 article entitled Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa, which documents Paul Kagame's role in the shooting down of the plane and the events which led up to the Genocide.
...
For the complete article written in May 2000, see below.
...
Rwanda: Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa
The US was behind the Rwandan Genocide
by Michel Chossudovsky
Originally written in May 2000, the following text is Part II of Chapter 7 entitled "Economic Genocide in Rwanda", of the Second Edition of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, 2003. This text is in part based on the results of an earlier study conducted by the author together with Belgian economist and Senator Pierre Galand on the use of Rwanda's 1990-94 external debt to finance the military and paramilitary.
The civil war in Rwanda and the ethnic massacres were an integral part of US foreign policy, carefully staged in accordance with precise strategic and economic objectives.
END OF EXCERPT
The last quoted line is the opening subheading of his May 2000 article.
RUSI surely is NOT a respectable source of information regarding what Afghans think, or anything else about either of the GWoT wars, and many others.
Doing a similar Google search, this time for articles referring to RUSI, at GlobalResearch.ca, turns up some articles with important or critically important information about this British institution that's clearly one of, by and for our ROGUE "leaders".
"Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China
US sponsored military partnership in the Far East and the Pacific Rim",
by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, May 10, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5605
Thanks as always for your research and citations Mike Corbeil.
l could not believe it even an editorial in the NY Post said our forces are spread to thin for a build up of troops in Afghanistan and "When generals ask for more men it is because they are out of ideas"
“Our goal (in Afghanistan) is to disrupt, dismantle, defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC News’ “Nightline.”
-------------
According to whistleblower Sibel Edmonds the U.S. was working with Bin-Laden and the Taliban all the way up to 9/11.
So Hillary will be trying to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" our own government, correct?
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/31/whistleblower-
bin-laden-was-us-proxy-until-911/
Ted Rall says, "Al-Qaida was a Pakistani phenomenon", which is a half truth or half-truth, for Al-Qaida was more a U.S. phen. than it was a Pak. phen., but while they both worked together to create Al Qaida, which people who are informed know actually means "database"; the CIA's database of "terrorists" to work for the "causes" of the ruling "elites" of the USA. If it hadn't been for the USA's role, through its covert CIA operations, then Al Qaida wouldn't exist. The people in the database would of course exist, but Al Qaida wouldn't.
Does Ted Rall also ignore the fact that the Taliban are from the mujahideen that the US is primarily responsible for having formed and that it's the USA that [provoked], literally, blatantly, ... provoked the USSR into invading Afghanistan. We can also add the fact that the Afghan government in power before U.S. "meddling" there was, according to one or two credible accounts I've read, doing good for Afghans, including women, and that it had good relations with the USSR, which "of course" always was a "no-no" as far as the ruling "elites" of the USA view the world.
Former national security advisor for the Jimmy Carter administration, Zibgniew Brzezinski, acknowledged in an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (I think, or another news media with a French name, but which reports in English, or also in English) that it indeed was the U.S. that provoked the USSR's invasion, while adding that this was a [great] move on the part of the U.S., regardless of the U.S. having needed, to draw the USSR into its "Vietnam" War, formed mujahideen among which would be some individuals who'd become "terrorists"; etcetera. No regrets whatsoever, did he express; only great fondness for having drawn the USSR into its "Vietnam" War of defeat.
Is that another matter that Ted Rall ignores, or disregards, wants to deny? It's proven, factual history.
This article seems to have a considerable number of redundancies, in the sense that many people have already said the same or very much the same things already; plenty of times.
The following three videos with Dahr Jamail and all since the start of September, however, now these present us with a greatly refreshing view on the whole GWoT wars crimes; for both Afghanistan and Iraq, where, btw, the U.S. occupation [is] continuing, instead of the opposite. The very latter is pointed out with a specific article by Dahr Jamail and the link is included in this post. And in saying "refreshing view", I don't mean that the information he provides is at all good, because it definitely isn't anything other than very bad; although the part about continuously increasing U.S. troop dissent is good. It's refreshing in the sense that it's not more bla bla like what we get from too many american "leftists", so-called "prorgressives", etcetera. It's real and critical information, and much of it we're not getting elsewhere. Plus he's one of the very best investigative reporter on the GWoT wars, both of them, worldwide.
One very DARK aspect of the two wars, having happened first in Iraq, and now happening in Afghanistan, is the USA's use of "Salvador Option"-style tactics in these countries. The U.S. literally trains and uses some military troops, and apparently contractors, for committing acts of terrorism, very serious terrorism, too. The U.S. military has official "doctrine" for this, also.
There's a lot more that's important to learn from the videos with and the article by him though.
"U.S. Occupation of Iraq Continues Unabated",
by Dahr Jamail, Truthout.org, Jul 6 2009
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/us-occupation-of-iraq-continues-unabated
I provided this above link at his own website, instead of the link for the copy at TO, due to the latter lacking the picture of of US VP Joseph Biden at Camp Victory speaking to soldiers.
Now for the [excellent] videos; all excellent. There's definitely repitition, after we've listened to any one of these videos, but we also get different information from each of them, and the interviews make for the interesting exchange format; continuous exchange.
"Dahr Jamail Speaking at WPSR 2009 Annual Dinner" (33:34),
talkingsticktv, Oct 11 2009
This was Dahr Jamail's talk or presentation at the "Physicians for Social Responsibility 2009 Annual Dinner in Washington" Sept. 26th.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg9ySwOwYNY
"Interview: Dahr Jamail: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan" (27:24),
talkingsticktv, Oct 10 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX3hogynWIo
Next is the interview on Alex Jones' radio show and neither the video nor the text for it say when this interview was held, but based on AJ saying it was a few weeks after Dahr Jamail's above article, of July 6th, and had to be on or prior to August 2nd, I checked the PrisonPlanet.com website and the only match that found was for an interview on July 24th. So it's a recent interview, which "makes my day". I didn't want one too old, preferably not prior to the Obama administration taking over the on-stage reins of the White House (on-stage, since back-stage, other things happen that we don't see, but know it happens, regularly, a lot, ...).
"What Really Happened In Iraq! Dahr Jamail on Alex Jones Tv", part 1 of 3 (10:59), Aug 2 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgk2BPC5x-w
Part 2 of 3 (10:52)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCA_yDExe1M
Part 3 of 3 (9:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJJuKlt7E-s
The following video is one I came across today and haven't listened to yet, but given the length of it, I expect to gain yet more information than obtained from the above videos.
"Dahr Jamail: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan" (1:41:54)
talkingsticktv, Oct 11 2009
For this, Dahr Jamail was speaking, Sep. "27, 2009 at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle as a benefit for the GI Coffee House - Coffee Strong."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srHpERHNwKM
That video evidently is entirely based on U.S. military dissent, for all or most of the video, and it's a topic that's covered in the first three videos linked before this video, but the other three touch on this topic well, but also plenty more; very much also being about the Obama administration being even worse than the Bush one was, certainly more deceitful, less "straight" with us, say, and the wars being for U.S. global empire, dominance, with economics as the main basis. And there's more said in the first three videos, above.
So I expect this latter video on soldiers dissenting should be very rich on this subject, and the little said in the first three videos about this topic makes it clear that it's a very important matter, that dissent is greater than reported, and more related information. F.e., not only female military members of the U.S. get raped in the war zones, for there's evidently proof that even USMC males have been "raped"; if it's called rape when it's done to males.
U.S. troop and officer dissent is evidently very strong and strengthening all as time goes forward, and this is encouraging. Dahr Jamail speaks of encouraging numbers, or I believe they are anyway.
Above, I wrote, "One very DARK aspect of the two wars, having happened first in Iraq, and now happening in Afghanistan, is the USA's use of "Salvador Option"-style tactics in these countries".
Dahr Jamail refers to at least two specific examples that occurred in the Iraq War, one involving two British soldiers disguised as Arabs, and the other operation conducted by one or more contractors. If you do a page search of the www.brusselstribunal.org home page for "Salvador Option", then this'll jump you immediately to the link for the serious index on this topic; and death squads. I just checked that page and it has pictures of the two captured British soldiers who were disguised as Arabs, for carrying out terrorist operations in southern Iraq and possibly in other parts of the country. However, I didn't find, through a search of the page, an article on the contractors. It might possibly be linked in the page while the text just does not appear in the page, but I recall having read about a contractor, or two, having been caught driving a "suicide bomb" car somewhere in northern Iraq and I think this was after the incident with the two British soldiers.
Another example is the bombing at the important mosque in Samarra, but there was much of this sort of covert terrorism activity committed by the U.S. and clearly also Britain in Iraq. And they're doing it in Afghanistan. For the mosque in Samarra, enough people wrote about this incident, but I believe a very good and important article that I had read about this was Mike Whitney, in an article he had posted at www.globalresearch.ca.
This is one of the topics Dahr Jamail speaks about and if not in the other videos I provided links for, then certainly in the one for the interview with Alex Jones.
The official excuses for whatever the u.s. is doing in Afghanistan, always bs from the beginning, have now become unintelligible blather.
so we are left with only the pipeline as the real reason. Ted knows all about this- i think that's where i first heard it. But even that no longer (if it ever did) makes any sense. they can't make a water pipe 3 blocks long in Kabul. Or string an electric wire. so stupid as they are even they must realize by now it's never gonna happen.All they really need is some kind of exit excuse. that should be easy enough. it's just like making up a reason to be there, only say it backwards.
get out now
Just to show folk how well thinsg go In Afghanistan with that "Greatest fighting force in the History of the world".
The US Military is paying 400 DOLLARS per gallon for fuel. The reason it so high is they have to resort to carrying fuel in by helicopter because so many of the Fuel convoys trucking the stuff in are ambushed.
After an attack on a US outpost several weeks back, the US has been pulling its forces out of such posts and destroying the bases they left behind. They claim it to consolidate and build security in Cities and towns.
These posts were built in part to help ensure fuel convoys were not ambushed and militants did not have freedom of movement in the countryside.
An article in todays Globe and Mail on the Canadian Forces there was telling. The Canadians have focused on building Security in several Villages and ensuring the people had work to do wherein they were paid wages for certain projects.
The Afghanis are very happy with this indicating that the work helps to keep their people out of trouble and earns them enough money to feed their families. They were quite happy with the Canadian forces indicating that they were much friendlier then The US troops or the British..
They are all concerned as to what will happen when the Canadians leave. As they pointed out the Taliban will ALWAYS be there. The Canadians WILL one day Go home...what then?
They also wonder where future work will come form if/when the Projects the Canadians are paying for dry up...
The Cultural differences were also shown when one Afghani Indicated the Canadian forces had entered his home without his permission. He pointed out it very important that Foreign forces recognize how insulting this is to the Afghan people and how such actions WILL drive Common people into the hands of the Taliban.
Are you sure the G&M article is truthful and not more propaganda of deceit? After all, the Canadian government and corporate "elites" are clearly wanting to be allied with the U.S. "elites" and may not really plan on withdrawing CAF from Afghanistan in 2011 if the U.S. and other NATO countries remain there, which highly is likely. By telling Canadian readers that the CAF is doing good things in Afghanistan and that Afghans are happy with this, it's just the kind of story-telling that could possibly get Canadian opposition to remaining in Afghanistan to decrease. Maybe the article is truthful, but it could also be half-truth, or worse.
What were the sources of information for the article? Were the sources checked and double-checked; the sources as well as the information they provided, that is?
I am not sure at all.
The article has the ring of truth however in that Afghanis are not a whole lot different then anyone else in that they just want to live in peace and have jobs to work at.
The truth the Afghanis quoted in the article are quite universal when it comes to discussing insurgent campaigns and civil wars . Just step out of that world and jump to Rwanda or the Congo...
Do / would the peoples of the Congo and or rwanda prefer(or preferred) to be left alone ...?
Now that said.
I do not support the Canadian prescence in Afghanistan. What happens here is that people are often FORCED to take a side....I am not stating it beter the canadians there then were the taliban still in charge.
I am saying that the PEOPLE just want work and they want to live without having to worry about being blown up by car bombs, fired upon by foreign troops, having aircraft drop bombs on them, having people raid their homes in the middle of the night.
I suggest that were the Taliban still in charge and there work for these people and there not bombs going off and people being killed by The Taliban and or Foreign tropps these people would be fine with it...They just want to get on with their lives.
Of course they want as much peaceful condition to live in as they can get, along with work, income, housing, clean water, etcetera. The main problem Afghan women had with the Taliban in power is not concern for personal safety from rape, which is a real concern with the war and drug "lords" the US and NATO have empowered; the concern was oppression against women's rights with regards to schooling or education, not being forced to wear the burqa if they didn't want to wear it, not being forced into marriages, and maybe another thing or two. They'd otherwise support the Taliban government.
I agree with what your reply says, iow.
Anything published in Canadian media or broadcast on CBC or CTV is highly suspect regarding Afghanistan. Even seen any unflattering story about our military missionaries and their MISSION. The last true reporting from the place by any Canadian so-called reporter was during the Russian occupation and likely had a Kathy Gannon byline. Incidentally she, unlike are now glories Canadian "war correspondents", was not embedded.
How apropos that Ted Rall follows a quote from our petulant, ignorant Secretary of State with the words "So few words. So much stupidity."
It is best not to know the people you are trying to bomb to bits with remote control drones.
We, eurocentric, think people ought to "belong" to nations. Afghans, and some few others, do not. A central government in that nation is a chimera. One brighter than I once said, "Nationalism is the philosophy of the stupid.
More Merkin rubes in uniform in Afghanistan=more targets for Afghan freedom fighters and "patriots" to use to improve their sharpshooting skills.
No wrong Ted, we get it, and they sure do get it. It has nothing to do with stupidity; it is the same ol same ol; it is the GREED, SELFISHNESS AND POWER of the extraordinary, most evil, elite,Fascists that really run this Government. Yes Ted, they definately get it!
The will of the American people is divided and weak, and only when we come together, as a people, and push back against the warmongers, will there be any change. Obama is one man, and he is facing the consequences of eight years of the catastrophic criminality of the Bush regime. As far as I know, he is not Jesus Christ, and so we must give him time and our full support, so that he can do his best to turn this sad country in a new direction. I am sick of people who sit back and belly-ache, without doing anything to make the situation better. Where were they when Bush was destroying this country? We get the kind of gov't we deserve, and so let us try to raise our consciousness, so that we deserve better.
That's a bunch of baloney about Obama, sorry to say. Anyone who believes your apologetics for Obama is sadly naive. And the GWoT wars aren't only because of the Bush administration; these were planned before that administration was even elected.
It's not Bush's fault that Obama's just as bad, if not even worse. Obama lies more than Bush did, which evidently means that Obama and his administration believe that they must try to be more cunning in their efforts to try to deceive the public. But this administration is escalating the two wars more than the Bush administration did. See the videos with and article by Dahr Jamail that I provided links for further above.
"Where were they when Bush was destroying this country?"
Protesting; calling, writing, and visiting their congressional representatives to demand that they oppose the administration's crimes; helping to organize during the election to kick out the Bush crowd.
The terminology you choose to use is very revealing. Many readers of this site have decried Obama's protection of torturers and his escalation of the wars we're engaged in, but to you that's apparently nothing more than belly-aching.
Who is this "we" he keeps talking about? The American government is not "we." The US government is the American (and Afghan) working people's enemy!