'..... and God told Moses to kill them all, every man, women and child, or they will forever be a thorn in your side.'

The arrogance and stupidity of failing empires is inevitable and the Americans cannot escape this reality. To actually believe they can change a country like Afghanistan by force only conforms the fact that they as dumb as they are strong militarily.

Paul has the right idea, end the empire. But he'd probably cut off the veterans as well, and tell them and the rest of America, to fend for yourselves, after all that's what was fought for, your individual freedom, not a government program. He'll bring everything home to roost, no doubt, and certainly the prospects of a more intense and painful madness.

Of course the other reasons are to maintain a "strong" Middle East presence to keep all the pipelines open...as a stopgap to Russia, China, Pakistna and India, and other pipe dreams... Think of Africa....

I'm afraid that the only way for the US to achieve its objectives (i.e., the elimination of all people who don't want us in their country) is through genocide. Perhaps the Afghans can be convinced to accept the US presence, but this can only be achieved through the most horrific means imaginable. Either that or the US just keeps fighting this war of attrition until it bankrupts itself.

Excellent article. One of the key sentences to take note of in this essay is when Greenwald has the Washington Post quoting an Afghan teenager stating that:

"We'll fight against America for a thousands years if we have to".

Since America's political leaders are based in Washington, D.C., then it could probably be safely assumed that most of them would read the Washington Post. And if they do, and if they read this piece, then surely most of the Democrats and the Republicans must realize that that statement by that Afghan youth could have been taken directly from a Vietnamese youth when the United States stupidly attempted to conquer his country those many years ago. This is the reason why the Americans will never win, to recall that expression from the Vietnam conflict, the hearts and minds of these oppressed people just like it never succeeded in winning many, if any, Vietnamese hearts and minds during the Vietnam conflict

It should be recalled that during the 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama defiantly told CNN correspondent Candy Crowley that the United States had no reason to apologize for any of its actions and decisions that it had committed in the past. That being the case, it would then appear that the United States will once again stay the course in the Middle East the same way that it did in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and early 1970s. And this is because, just like the hawkish Obama has noted and Noam Chomsky has pointed out in the title from one of his books:

What We Say Goes

Every single person who has ever spoken out in these spaces to oppose the Afghan war should make a movie or write a book to carry their sentiment into the outside world—to make that sentiment go viral in other words.

He or she could start by googling this question: What books and movies simply and unequivocally oppose the Afghan war?

This course of action is preferable to being part of the 63 per cent opposed...but remaining quiet as a mouse.

My book, THE LAST WORDS OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE, by the way, doesn’t appear on the list, so something is wrong at Google.

If you don’t have the money to make a movie or the time to write your own book, then you could review mine—wouldn’t take a minute.

Why would you do this? So the book would get read. A book at Kindle without reviews to accompany it doesn’t get read.

So, if you have a Kindle, you could download THE LAST WORDS OF RICHARD HOLBROOKE. You wouldn’t even have to read the text then. You could simply scroll through to see if this book is a simple and unequivocal refutation of the Afghan war.

Note One: In studying the 73 reviews accompanying the book BOUNCE; MOZART, FEDERER, PICASSO, BECKHAM, AND THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESS By Matthew Syed, I saw that many of them are quite brief, only a few lines.

Note Two: My suggesting that you write your own book, patient reader, isn’t frivolous. You no longer need go through stupid agents and demented publishers who wouldn’t know a good book if it came up and bit them in the ass. Anyone can publish a book at Kindle or Nook—in 45 minutes, Time Magazine estimated.
But Time doesn't know time, either. And Nook is harder and more expensive to format well.

Newt Gingrich, the demagogue, stated recently that the Middle East is more threatening to the United States than anyone dreams. Actually, of course, it’s much less threatening than he dreams, or rather hopes, so that he and the others, or President Obama, can perpetuate endless war.

Ron Paul is a favorite of the John Birch Society.
The John Birch Society was founded by the Koch father.
Ron Paul is a billionaire's puppet.

I continue to suggest that anyone wishing to politically change things, consider supporting Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only person to vote against Public Law 107-40 which is the bane of our existence. Send her some love and ask her to run for the Democratic nomination. As the Peace Candidate. All the others are War Candidates.

Public Law 107-40 allowed Bush to invade Afghanistan in the first place, and to start this insane 'War on Terror' (more precisely, the war to Defend Against Future Terrorism).
The US military will fight to prevent future terrorism because the sorta-declaration of war gave them the mission, insane and unachievable as it is.

If you want to end this DAFT and insane war, end the law that started it. Support the one politician who voted against it. She just might be the one politician who isn't bought.

Glenn has done absolutely marvelous job of capturing the 'logic' of empire. This is not even parody. Our occupations create enemies so that means we cannot depart until we exterminate or reform all enemies. It's a self-sustaining lunacy.

Most likely it will end when the empire is financially and environmentally bankrupt. (As so many earlier empires have collapsed.)

Good business for the war industry. Bad for just about everything and everyone else.

Reminds me of the europeans coming to north america and placing the indigenous populations' youth in those missionary schools to 'civilize' them thar 'savages'.

This perfectly encapsulates the howling, shrieking absurdity and terminal insanity of US foreign policy. The only way we'll ever leave any country alone is when we've killed all its people who don't want us there, directing and commanding precisely how they will live, and for what they will expend their energies and resources (us, always and only us). Then we can leave, because then we'll have subdued them and made them compliant with our demands. Except, all this does is guarantee more enemies of our toxic, barbaric, obnoxious presence, who are determined to fight us to the end, no matter how long it takes.

Hence, the Perpetual War doctrine, set in motion long before his inauguration but fully internalized and implemented by Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. Is there some way we could present a more raving lunatic image to the world? I await the time when a coalition of nations joins forces to bring this hideously insane country to its knees. If only.

Summary: "Once there are no more Afghans left who want us gone, then we can leave."

That cracked me the fuck up!

All colonial wars are wars of attrition and oppression. Ours are no different.
I would like to meet the nitwit that thought up this racist, elitist waste of taxpayers money. Sounds like something Neil Bush dreamt up.
We have a nation of intelligent, caring people. How a minorty of damaged, appalling people, the very dregs of our society manage to manuever themselves into positions of power is beyond my comprehension.

You summed up the futility of the policy, GG. Why don't we just leave and send The Boys and Girls Clubs to do the work?

Thanks again Glenn for your sane writings.
----------------
The original justifications for both invasions was 9/11. Most Americans still believe
that bin Laden did it. Racism and religious bigotry have combined with uninformed if sincere patriotic feelings in a way that has made it relatively easy for our government to continue the wars for a period now approaching nine years for Iraq and eleven for Afghanistan.This gives a whole new meaning, and a very discouraging one, to those numbers.

As long as Americans do not realize, or realize but refuse to accept, that bin Laden was not responsible for 9/11, the wars will continue to meet little significant opposition.
Americans who have pointed out the impossibilities of the official story of 9/11 have been pushed to the margins, and even many so-called liberals and progressives ridicule them and scornfully call them truthers- as if the quest for truth was something to be ashamed about, which it is not.
The fact is that the buildings were brought down with explosives, and the official explanation is false.
Unless bin Laden was able to access the two WTC towers and WTC 7 in order to plant demolitions and/or bombs, then someone else did it.

The buildings were exploded, and available visual evidence is all that is needed to see that.
Whether the demolitions and the airplane strikes were done by the same terrorists, I don't know. But I have no doubt the buildings were brought down with explosives, and not only that, with far more explosives than were needed to bring them down.

The twin towers were largely granulated, aerosolized, and vaporized- and what was left fell to the ground; but of that, as we know, a large part of the buildings and their contents, including shredded people, went all over lower Manhattan.

It remains the crime of the century- domestically, anyway- and if done from within, was and is treason.
But instead of trying to bring the real criminals to justice, the U.S. embarked upon the longest and probably the most expensive wars in American history.

Every dollar spent, every soldier who went, every single thing the U.S. has done since 9/11 has been wrong, because all of it is based on a false first premise.
We may have a choice. The United States can continue with this path of sheer madness and destruction, or not.
But as long as Americans do not accept that the Trade Center was pusposely destroyed by some people who had to have had extensive access to the buildings, I do not see any possibility that this suicidal national course will change its direction.

Therefore it is my opinion that our very democracy- what's left of it- and possibly even the survival of the United States of America, is at stake over this one delusion. The USA will, if we do not truly wake up to reality about the 9/11 fraud, become just a footnote in history; and all of the good things that were done in the past will become something which was in vain; and all the great Americans of the past who loved and served their country, since 1776 will be thrashing in their graves with grief over the loss of everything for which they gave their hours, days, years, and sometimes their lives.
Generations from now on will not even know the things they have lost. "Life was always this small for us", they will think, and "We have always been at war."
Already this state of affairs has become the new normal.

Endless war, whittling away at civil liberties, and contempt in high places for law are now established so firmly as to be not only accepted but almost politically correct as well.

Even torture, rendition, and assassination are a current reality, and as insane as this is, even they are well on their way to becoming politically correct, and will, if Americans don't wake from their 9/11 dream.

And all because of pride, and greed, and hardest of all to stomach, prejudice and sheer stupidity.
As a nation we live within a mass delusion, and a mass denial of something that is, in all honesty, undeniable in the realm of reason: that is, the official story o 9/11 is a lie, and always has been a lie.

We must stop living our national life by this lie and all the other lies that it spawned, or we are bound to continue to arrogantly march towards national doom, chanting God Bless America all the way like little clockwork men without hearts or brains.

I keep hoping we are better than that. But maybe that's only my own hallucination. Maybe we do deserve to lose everything.
I can't think of any single thing more important to the future of the U.S. than to come to terms with the reality of 9/11. Let's find out what really happened and who is responsible.
When the foxes have been given the key to the hen house, it is very hard to dislodege them. And it was our responsibility to recognize them, but we were fooled, and are still being fooled. Our failure is not being unaware that foxes kill chickens, but mistaking predators for benefactors.
It's not that hard to understand that gravity does not pulverize and vaporize concrete and steel, nor does it throw things sideways by the tens of thousands of tons.
Only denial and stubbornness and a fear of losing "face" keeps us from understanding something as simple and as obvious as that.

Somehow the buildings were blown up. I do not know who did it. I just know they were blown up, and we should begin with the fact that the buildings were blown up, and take it from there.
Will we? I don't know. I am astounded we do not. We should be embarrassed, even ashamed. The whole world understands more than we do about 9/11.

Afghanistan is where the criminals impersonating our government grow their heroin...our mercenary soldiers guard the poppy fields...

the whole terrorist frame is a lie, and the word terrorist should be your clue that whatever you are reading is a lie...

the reason 911 truth is so critical, is it would reveal the utter fraudulence of the entire terrorist frame...on every front...

Glenn, what the hell? stop playing the clever criticizer of convoluted, complicated lies, and get down to the simple, straightforward truth...

follow the trucks, follow the planes...where is all of the heroin going, and who's pocketing the cash?

"I've found it very difficult (as I said all along) to oppose a bill that results in greater health care coverage for millions of currently uninsured people."
-Has Rahm's Assumption about Progressives been Vindicated? by Glenn Greenwald

You notice how Greenwald's quote above sets the false premise that Obama's healthcare "reform" would result "in greater health care coverage for millions of currently uninsured people"?

"The current drive to expand the attack on Medicare and Medicaid in the name of fiscal “responsibility” exposes the utterly cynical nature of last year’s “reform.” The desperate plight of the uninsured was exploited to push through the bill, which was packaged as a major step toward universal health care coverage."

"One year later, the question of the uninsured is not even an issue. The recent census report showing staggering levels of poverty also documented an increase in the number of people without health insurance to 50 million. This statistical expression of a social disaster has passed without comment by Obama."
-Obama’s assault on health care
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/pers-s16.shtml

Greenwald isn't commenting either.

It's not even an issue.

This is part of the pivotal role the fake-left plays to disorient, demoralize and disarm.

I just read where the 2012 election is going to have over a billion dollars spent on electing a president. I was also reminded that there was a time when 0 $$'s were campaigned for as it was publically funded by that little box checked on income tax returns. When was that practice stopped and why and by whom?
For a billion dollars a lot of big spenders will have bought the entire Congress as well as the Supreme Court in addition to the President. Oh, that has already happened. Hasn't it? We don't really have a whole lot to say in this scenario no matter how many times we vote. Before long the states will have reached a point where only registered Republican voters will have the 'right' to vote.

"We"?? Not me!

Well, it's not precisely a Catch 22....but a Catch $22.95...maybe.
The crazies are in boardrooms.

It would be good for all the "leaders" in our government, especially our military leaders, as well as us citizens, to become VERY FAMILIAR with President Eisenhower's Farewell address. We are now living out the horrors of his prediction. His address can be found here:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm

I made the first post to this thread and it was removed by CD editors without stating any particular reason since I didn't violate any of CD's policies. This will be the last post I make to a website that cannot handle the truth.

1) Pipeline

2) Heroin Profits

3) Deep Black Budget

Glen:

You may want to incorporate some or all of this perspective into your ongoing inquiry into what we are facing...and how to change things for the better.

In my experience it is often very useful to make a distinction between change that is transformative, and change that is not.

Imagine a person stuck in a dark, damp prison cell. Modification or "variation" could be equated with rearranging the furniture within the room, while "transformation" would indicate walking out of the cell (and the prison) altogether - and into the light of day.

In the same way, we can describe two levels or kinds of change. "1st-order change" refers to change within a given system. Here, the system itself remains unchanged, while its elements or parts undergo some kind of change.

"2nd order change" refers to a change in the system itself, where the system is transformed in terms of its structure or communication patterns.

In practical terms second-order change techniques lift the situation out of the plane of solutions that have not worked because they are of the same nature as the original difficulty.

In the run up to the occupation of Vietnam, knowlegeable people pointed out that the conflict there began in about 1860 as a revolt against its colonization by the French. The Vietnamese fought them for nearly 100 years until they prevailed in the battle of Diem Binh Pfu in 1954. After the defeat of the French, it then continued as a civil war to determine who would fill the power vacuum created by the departure of the French. It was not in our power to determine that, opined the experts, because the Boxer revolt in China at the turn of the 20th Century signalled the rise of Asian nationalization--the notion that Asia is for Asians and not for occidentals. Secondly, we did not know who the good guys were. They further opined that if we thought we could step into the French shoes, we would suffer the same fate. It took us ten more years, $115 billion, 58,000 Americans dead and 2-3 million Vietnames casualties for us to learn that lesson. We are slow lerners, because we seem destined to receive another lesson.

As I said back when W was Prez, "you can't have a global war on terrorism without an ample supply of terrorists"! Looks like I was right! Let's just be happy that there aren't a shit load of Hindu-fascists who hate us for our freedoms! No telling what those crazy fucks would have done after 20,000 dead in Bophal, India!

Huh...I thought someone was going to admit the US was there to steal the emeralds out of the mountains of Afghanistan, besides the oil...huh.