Mr. President: Why are Americans dying in Afghanistan?

[Cyrano]

Why are we there? Because of Al Qaeda? They're not in any one place and you know it. They're in Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and many other places throughout the mideast, central Asia, and who knows where else?

So here's my guess. We are in Afghanistan (and we're still in Iraq) for totally political reasons.

IMO, you and Rahm Emanuel have made the political calculation that pulling out of Afghanistan (and Iraq) would cost too many "moderate" votes in this year's midterm elections.

Not to mention the "moderate" votes you need in your own reelection in 2012.

So, having voiced my opinion, let me get back to my original question.

Why are Americans dying in Afghanistan?

[NJmaverick]

1. If America was to flee Afghanistan 10s of thousands of Afghanis that supported America

would be killed by the Taliban.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. As opposed to being killed by us

Good solution!

[NJmaverick]

5. EXCEPT that we are not killing 10s of thousands of Afghan civilians

hell we are not even killing tens of thousands of any type of Afghan.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. And we didn't kill 10s of thousands of Iraqis either

What color is the sky in your world?

[NJmaverick]

14. My world has a blue sky and is ruled by the facts

FACT- You can't change the past so to count past causalities when determining what path will save the most lives if flawed at best.


Still it's even worse when you start to factor in people killed in another war.

[sabrina 1]

13. Mmmm aren't you the person

who opposes the abuse of any child? Who accuses anyone remaining a part of and supporting any organization involved in such abuse, of being complicit?

Afghanistan's Mai Lai Massacre

Today’s war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties or homes “suspected” of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable “collateral damage” of war.

There was, however, a massacre recently that was not a mistake – a massacre, which, while it only involved fewer than a dozen innocent people, bears the same stench as My Lai. It was the execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students, aged 11-18, and a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the others in Kunar Province on December 26.

Fortunately, while there are few who care to bother reporting the truth about such murders, one British reporter refused to allow at least this one story to be covered up with lies.

There is a Hersh for the Kunar massacre, but he’s a Brit. While American reporters, like the anonymous journalistic drones who wrote “CNN’s” December 29 report on the incident took the Pentagon’s initial cover story – that the dead were part of a secret bomb squad – at face value, Jerome Starkey, a dogged reporter in Afghanistan working for the Times of London and the Scotsman, talked to other sources – the dead boys’ headmaster, other townspeople and Afghan government officials – and found out the real truth about a gruesome war crime – the execution of handcuffed children. And while a few news outlets in the US like The New York Times did mention that there were some claims that the dead were children, not bomb makers, none, including CNN, which had bought and run the Pentagon’s lies unquestioningly, bothered to print the news update when, on February 24, the US military admitted that in fact the dead were innocent students. Nor has any US corporate news organization mentioned that the dead had been handcuffed when they were shot. Starkey reported the US government’s damning admission. Yet still the US media remain silent as the grave.

Just one of thousands of stories of atrocities from Afghanistan ~ they want us out, particularly the women whose lives have been made even more untenable since the invasion of their country.

Whenever I see you expounding on the CC's crimes and demanding that Catholics leave the church, while continuing to defend this brutality against an entire nations, I will wonder what, in your mind, makes the children of Afghanistan less deserving of your righteous outrage.

The people of Afghanistan, the ones we are not allowed to hear from, ask that the U.S. leave because as they say, they are empowering and supporting both the Taliban and the War Lords and sending in their own drones to kill their citizens every day. 'They are not here to help us'. That is what the people, now starving many of them, have to say about our occupation.

I'll be looking for your demands that something be done for the tens of thousands of victims of this war. Such as the this brutal occupation end, and the war criminals be brought to justice. Children are NOT collateral damage. Nor can those claiming to care about them, be allowed to be selective about which victims are the more intitled to justice. Either be consistent in your outrage, or as I suspected, expect to be called on your hypocrisy.

'It's okay if a Democrat does it'!

[NJmaverick]

15. The polls and surveys dispute your claims that "they want us out"

the FACTs dispute your claims of "thousands of atrocities" committed by American forces. Still I don't think pointing out the facts will help.

[sabrina 1]

38. Polls?

Polls taken by invaders? Are you so hypocritical that you would actually believe a poll taken by a corrupt government to support its own corruption?

I can supply dozens of links to actual real reporting and the words of real Afghan citizens, but your goal is to defend this administration so they wouldn't fit your narrative.

However here is one from U.S. troops who tried to stop Obama's excalation of that war. I think they know a little bit more about it than the plastic, propagandists and brutal warmongering generals are willing to tell he American people.

Veterans Group Tells President Obama: Don’t Escalate in Afghanistan

They wasted their time of course, but the increase in troop and civilian deaths have proven them to be correct:

Less than 100 members of Al Qaeda remain in Afghanistan. The Karzai government we once supported is controlled by warlords and is riddled with corruption. Pakistan’s stability will be gravely imperiled by an expansion of the war. Hundreds if not thousands of troops will be killed, along with countless civilians. Anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world will be inflamed by civilian bloodshed, facilitating recruitment by terrorist organizations.

Keep defending this brutal war as I know you will, because it is now a democratic war.

I will post the words of the women and the men, the ordinary people that the U.S. media does not want us to hear from, and let THEM, rather than YOU repeating U.S. propaganda, speak for themselves when I get some time. Someone has to get their stories out, and their pleas to the U.S. to 'leave our country'.

[flyarm]

40. whoaaa...aren't you one of those that say..Polls don't matter?? and are flawed?????

please your duplicity is elevated and pouring out of your every pore!!!!!!

Polls..you have the nerve to bring up polls?????????

I guess polls only matter to you if they tell you exactly what you want to hear or regurgitate!

Or is that talking points???????

let me get it straight..

good god!

[robdogbucky]

43. Hey Bertie, try these facts on for size, eh?

Eikenberry sees it differently than you:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...


Afghan expert Matthew Hoh, sees it differently than you: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

The Afghan women see it differently than you: http://www.rawa.org/index.php

Those little facts you like to cite are a bitch aren't they? Especially when they contradict your propaganda effort. How is that little puppet behaving for you? You really need to report back to your handlers for re-programming. You are running on empty.



Ah, I finally see someone that sees it like you: Afghanistan has turned into a war zone tourist attraction for politicians; http://blog.taragana.com/politics/2010/03/05/report-vip... /




How can I miss you when you won't go away?





rdb

[flyarm]

45. this from a person who (to her) the only credible Progressives are the following.,Fucking comedians!

You do understand NJ ..these people are COMEDIANS DON'T YOU???????????or do you..lol..

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8083314&mesg_id=8083443
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, much of Daily Kos, the Washington Monthly Center for American Progress, After a period where he went off the deep end Krugman has been very solid. More often than not Bill Mayer nails it. President Obama and Joe Biden and the Clintons, pretty much everyone on BOG

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
There is a reason they are on Comedy Central dear..........

well how did you feel about KOS when he was totally against the health care bill then did a total flip flop..was Kos good when against or for the health care bill?????..because ..Markos was 100% against the health care bill... then he did the hypocritical flip..and we all know $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ had nothing to do with that..right?????????? Or his CIA connections............

lmao!

[flyarm]

66. read post #63 & 64 Karzai threatening to join Taliban!

remember Karzai is "our guy".........yeah remember that!!

[Cyrano]

4. Oh, okay. Let's stay there forever.

Aside from which, when have you ever heard Obama, or the last occupant of the White House, say that we are there to protect the population from the Taliban?

[NJmaverick]

7. Sorry if the facts dispute your assertions, but the facts matter

From last President Obama's speech last March

“For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people - especially women and girls. The return in force of al Qaeda terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence,” he said, before reassuring his audience, “as president, my greatest responsibility is to protect the American people.”

[amborin]

9. standard talking points, but not facts

[NJmaverick]

10. No it's fact, the poster claimed Obama had not mentioned the welfare of the Afghan people

when in FACT he had done just that. That is the very definition of a FACT.

[amborin]

16. "welfare of the Afghan people" as in air strikes that kill civilians? winning hearts & minds!

[NJmaverick]

18. now that would be a perfect example of a talking point

[Orsino]

51. Air strikes kill civilians.

This is a "talking point" worth talking about.

[Cyrano]

17. Ummm, I'm the OP. And I don't see where I mentioned that "fact."

[NJmaverick]

19. ummm right in post number 4

[Cyrano]

21. Sorry, You're right. I mentioned it. All I left out was that the

statement was total political bullshit.

And if you really give a damn about the women and children in Afghanistan, how about the abuse of the women and children in the country of our "good friends" Saudi Arabia. Not to mention the rest of the world.

I go back to my original question. Over a thousand Americans have died in Afghanistan for what? The surreal arguments you're making?

[sabrina 1]

39. What was stated in that post IS a fact.

You don't read links, do you? I have posted a few proving that fact. There are litereally thousands I can post from REAL reporters, to show the lie that this government is telling its people.

But you ignore the truth, keep repeating government propaganda, and confirm what I thought last night. Your are selective in what constitutes 'abuse of children'. Clearly for you if Democrats are doing it in Afghanistan, it si not abuse, it is, laughably if the subject was not so tragic, it is defending them.

We kill them to defend them! Air strikes have been killing more civilians than since this administration stepped up its attacks. And the poor voiceless people of Afghanistan continue to demonstrate and demand that the U.S. stop killing its women and children. But in the U.S. their voices are deliberately silenced.

I just want to thank you though for confirming what I suspected about your righteous outrage last night. I know you and others didn't like the point made that while you pretend to care about children, you would rush to defend the abusers if they were an organization you supported. And here is the proof. You couldn't wait and you post government propaganda, the kind we as progressives, refused to accept when Bush was president, in an attempt to hide your complicity.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

22. Talking point with a fail "especially women and girls". I have already in a prior

post a while ago pointed out to you that Karzai signed in Shia law. So we are supporting a government that doesn't take in the best interest of women. Do we go to war against Karzai too?

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/08/13/afghanistan-law-curbing-women-s-rights-takes-effect

And undermining women who want to run for Parliment?

http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/allDocs/9687C7F3770C558B872576D5007D1F40?OpenDocument

And this is a goody that takes into men and women in Afghanistan and how the Karzai government operates

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-report-offers-damning-picture-of-human-rights-abuses-in-afghanistan/article1498256/

U.S. report offers damning picture of human rights abuses in Afghanistan

Conditions are horrific, torture is common and police frequently rape female detainees, the U.S. State Department finds



Oh yeah, we're certainly helping to win the hearts and minds of the Afghanis....bullshit.

[NJmaverick]

24. The short comings your bring up pale in comparison to the HORRIFIC abuses faced

from the Taliban

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

26. You've got to be frigging kidding me. Obviously you didn't read what I posted but others can go to

links and see.

Rah rah rah.........

[NJmaverick]

29. What's clear is you are unaware of what people faced under the rule of the Taliban

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

31. Rape is rape and murder is murder and torture is torture no matter at whose hands it

comes from.

[flyarm]

46. oh yeah we are protecting them alright..please go back and get new talking points,,this is pathetic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=8079681

Posted by Hissyspit

If anything happens to us, you know why," WikiLeaks warned on its Twitter feed. "Our Apr 5 film."
http://www.alternet.org/news/146275/intelligence_agenci...

Intelligence Agencies Allegedly Going to Extremes to Suppress Video Confirming Pentagon Massacre Cover-up

Disturbing allegations have surfaced around WikiLeaks' promise to release a video April 5 at the National Press Club confirming a war-time massacre.

April 3, 2010

On April 5, online truth and transparency advocate WikiLeaks.org plans to release at the National Press Club what it alleges is a video confirming a Pentagon cover-up of a wartime massacre of civilians and journalists committed under the leadership of General David Petraeus.

In a recent editorial that was later scrubbed, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed WikiLeaks is under fire from American and international intelligence agencies angered by his site's oversharing of the global village's dark political and financial secrets, and that they are responding with harassment, surveillance, unnecessary detention and worse.

"We've become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest," Assange wrote in the editorial. "But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive."

As constitutional lawyer and Salon columnist Green Greenwald wrote in a recent column, "A volunteer, a minor, who works with WikiLeaks was detained in Iceland last week and questioned extensively about an incriminating video WikiLeaks possesses relating to the actions of the U.S. military. During the course of the interrogation, the WikiLeaks volunteer was not only asked questions about the video based on non-public knowledge about its contents (i.e., information which only the U.S. military would have), but was also shown surveillance photos of Assange exiting a recent WikiLeaks meeting regarding the imminent posting of documents concerning the Pentagon."

WikiLeaks, administered by the Sunshine Press, an Amnesty International award-winning non-profit comprised of self-described "human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public," has been whacking the powers-that-be's beehive since going live in 2007, and racking up as many legal challenges and enemies as journalism scoops and truth-seeking loyalists. But with its April 5 video, it evidently has raised the stakes.

"If anything happens to us, you know why," WikiLeaks warned on its Twitter feed. "It is our Apr 5 film. And you know who is responsible."

MORE



hey NJ just stop your bullshit..you are not talking to dumb fucks here..most of us have followed this from the get go! We know what crap you are posting is just that..crap.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

47. And then there's Glenn Greenwald's column in Salon about this too

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks


Glenn Greenwald
Saturday, Mar 27, 2010 08:29 EDT
The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters
By Glenn Greenwald


A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.

But the Report also cites the "fall of the Dutch Government over its troop commitment to Afghanistan" and worries that -- particularly if the "bloody summer in Afghanistan" that many predict takes place -- what happened to the Dutch will spread as a result of the "fragility of European support" for the war. As the truly creepy Report title puts it, the CIA's concern is: "Why Counting on Apathy May Not Be Enough":

Snip

The Report seeks to provide a back-up plan for "counting on apathy," and provides ways that the U.S. Government can manipulate public opinion in these foreign countries. It explains that French sympathy for Afghan refugees means that exploiting Afghan women as pro-war messengers would be effective, while Germans would be more vulnerable to a fear-mongering campaign (failure in Afghanistan means the Terrorists will get you). The Report highlights the unique ability of Barack Obama to sell war to European populations

[flyarm]

49. ah yes and the little propagandists here are workimg very hard to shut up debate by using women and

children as their propaganda ploy...they exploit the women and children for their paid agenda!

People here need to recognize who these propagandists are and shut them down!

Shut them down and show them off for who they are and what their agenda is!

But we all faced this same M.O. of assholes in the Bushbots..it is not hard to reconize them and to neuter their propaganda.

They work on shifts ..you can see it clearly here on DU if you pay attention!!

[flyarm]

53. Glen hits it out of the park..once again!! Thanks for that link!! and

:hi: :hi: :hi:

:0)

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

56. Your welcome

fly!!!! :hi: :hug:

That article should have had its own thread.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

70. .....

[flyarm]

48. And you don't understand, the same criminals that committed horrendous crimes against Afgan& Iraqi

people are getting contracts worth billions upon billions of our tax dollars to keep committing their fucking crimes against humanity..under Obama! What the hell is wrong with you?????? The same people we screamed against under Bush you now cheer????????

My head is exploding with this bullshit!


ahhh and both of these wars Afgan and Iraq have been longer than WWII with two war theaters on two different continents!..enough!

Get our soldiers home and give the people of Iraq and Afganistan their countries back!

We are there for oil and oil pipelines and Poppies..nothing more!

[sabrina 1]

34. The U.S. bombing in Marjah killed women and children

deliberately, wiped out a whole town, because they were believed to support what they view as their freedom fighters.

Stop lying about this war. It is a brutal, deadly invasion which is killing women and children each and every day and there is absolutely zero defense of it.

Now, the U.S. is planning to expand its 'Abu Ghraibs' in that country, where the torture of human beings continues.

No defense, no excuses. We are not welcome in other people's countries except by the worst elements there.

We are supporting the brutal war lords and a corrupt government for our own interests, and this administration is now entirely responsible for the death of every civilian and soldier over there.

But it is interesting to watch someone who claims to care so much about the abuse of children defend what is the ultimate abuse for political purposes.

There is no defense, there never was for what the U.S. has done and continues to do to those poor people.

[sabrina 1]

37. Unfortunately for U.S. propaganda,

the actual people of Afghanistan do not agree with you. They have said repeatedly that their country was safer for THEM, before the U.S. invaded it.

Who are you to decide what is good or bad for another country? Again defending abuse, after demonstrating so much faux outrage over it last night. And first in line to do so also.

So, rape and torture and the killing of children is okay depending on who is doing it. Got it.

[truedelphi]

44. Those are all good points. Another good point is that we cannot

"Liberate" women at the same time that our policies end up in their dying.

And who are we to go around and tell the rest of the world to treat their women better? Our women in the Armed Services are supposed to shut the F___ up if they are raped by their comrades in arms.

Our women here earn 73 cents for every dollar that men make. (Older women probably make a lot less than that.)

When I came of age, most women could not aspire to be construction workers, police "men", fire fighters, engineers, or doctors or lawyers. Women were not even hired to do sales! When/if they did manage to get one of these jobs, they were paid less. Often the executive secretaries were running the company, but could not be promoted because they lacked the MBA that was required. (And since their pay was abysmal, they couldn't make enough to ever consider spending the time in school to get that degree.)

When I went to engineering school I was one of two women in a class of twenty eight people.

We need to fix our country before we run around pretending to fix other nations.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

57. You're 100% right.

[sabrina 1]

28. Again defending the brutality of the

U.S. under the current government ~

From the president's speech, the same propaganda that we in the U.S. always get about our brutal occupations abroad. Which is why it is the duty of citizens not to take the word of any politician. They always use the 'women and children' also. But the reality of the plight of women and children under occupation is entirely different. The Women of Afghanistan have repeatedly asked for the removal of U.S. troops. You ignore their pleas as does this president. He refuses to meet with ordinary women unless they are useful, collaborators.

About the women and children of Afghanistan. They do have organizations, at much risk to themselves where you can listen to what THEY, who are living the nightmare of our accupation, have to say. But that might interfere with your desperate need to defend this adminstration's presence in their country.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/18-7

So let's just face the facts squarely. The US is not the good guy in Afghanistan. It is an agent of death and destruction. Just check out the town of Marjah, largely destroyed over the last few months in order to "save" it from a handful of Taliban fighters. Over 30 civilians died in that American show of force, and the message of those deaths was clear: allow the Taliban to operate in your town, and we'll kill you--not just your men, but your wives and your children, too.

I believe two pregnant women were killed in that bombing ~ and while the U.S. media did not confirm the story of the slaughter of the school-children, it was confirmed after it could no longer be denied, by the military. But, it was called a 'mistake'.

We are NOT protecting women and children in Afghanistan, we are killing them and their loved ones. And the U.S. needs to get out of other people's countries. They do not want us there.

[flyarm]

68. surge update: U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women

so how is it working out for the women????????

surge update: U.S. Admits Role in February Killing of Afghan Women

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8088620

[NNN0LHI]

20. If we were invaded how would you feel about our citizens who collaborated with the invaders?

Is that the kind of person you would be concerned with protecting if we were ever invaded? Is that the kind of person you could trust knowing they once turned on their fellow countrymen when the chips were down?

In your mind were the Native Americans who collaborated with the Europeans to commit genocide against other Native American people here in America good guys or a bad guys?

Do you see my point?

Don

[NJmaverick]

23. You could make your same argument to about the German and Japanese

insurgents after WW 2

[NNN0LHI]

27. I didn't make an argument. I asked a couple of questions that you avoided answering

I wanted to know where you stand on this type of thing.

Don

[flyarm]

60. NNN0LHI..you asked to hard a question!..your answer is *Crickets"

when you ask tough questions ..they run for the talking points guru...lol...they obviously never read a history book they like!

[flyarm]

50. the German insurgents were put out of operation in less than 2 years..

how long have we been in Afgan????????


look up Operation Werewolf..you will find your answers there.

[jgraz]

58. So... when are you enlisting?

:shrug:

[Name removed]

59. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flyarm]

64. read post number 63.......eom

[amborin]

3. K&R

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Your evaluation of the reason is correct. It's "Democrats are tough" PR.

IMO, Obama is pursuing Nixon's strategy in Vietnam, offering "Peace with Honor" by escalation followed by getting out of an already lost war.

Followed, inevitably, by a pretty monument to the cannon fodder wasted fighting so a politician can look "tough" and get a second term.

[MadBadger]

8. I'm sure the 2010 midterm elections werent on the President's mind when he was running for President

[Union Yes]

12. Question everything. knr nt

[butterfly77]

25. Because there is a war going on...

[Cyrano]

30. You're trying to make a joke. ... Aren't you???

[butterfly77]

67. You asked...

:shrug: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Allegedly to root out Al-Queda...which isn't there. But, it sounds good.

[Cyrano]

33. Thank you for getting back to the original point of this post.

I almost forgot what this post was supposed to be about.

[amborin]

35. Frankfurt, Germany, too....and many other places....

[Arctic Dave]

36. Completely political. Also, we want impose our capitalist society on them.

Dems are their for politics, the corporations are there for money. Period.

[valerief]

41. Poppies. nt

[flyarm]

54. + 10,000!!! and oil pipelines..eom

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

55. +20,000!!!!!

[CrispyQ]

42. So the MIC & Corporate Elite can continue to loot the Treasury.

This guarantees there will be no money for the People.

[Orsino]

52. Because we'd look pretty stupid...

...if we let ourselves be talked out of continuing to kill and die.

I mean, we can afford it, right? Right?

[Robeson]

61. A good read is "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11...

...and Weakened America" by Robert Scheer. It will pretty much answer your question.

[rug]

62. Why, 9/11 of course.

"To address these issues, it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/12/obama-speech-text-afghanistan.html

At least he threw in an adjective and adverb or two to adorn the noun and verb.

[flyarm]

63. President Hamid Karzai's : Afghan Leader Suggests He Could Be Compelled To Join The Taliban...

Wall Street Journal: Afghan Leader Suggests He Could Be Compelled To Join The Taliban... Lashes Out Hours After Make-Up Call With Secretary Clinton

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/04/karzai-slams-the-west-aga_n_524669.html

Karzai Slams The West AGAIN
AP/Huffington Post

snip:

KABUL - President Hamid Karzai's scathing attack on the West for its role in Afghanistan drew criticism from Afghan politicians after the White House described his remarks as genuinely troubling.

Despite Karzai's attempt at damage control, including a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, his allegations laid bare the growing mistrust between the Afghan government and its international partners as the United States and NATO ramp up troop levels to try to turn back the Taliban.

Moreover, on the same day of Karzai's call to Clinton, he also held a private meeting with dozens of Afghan lawmakers where he "lashed out at his Western backers for the second time in three days, accusing the U.S. of interfering in Afghan affairs and saying the Taliban insurgency would become a legitimate resistance movement if the meddling doesn't stop," the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mr. Karzai, whose government is propped up by billions of dollars in Western aid and nearly 100,000 American troops fighting a deadly war against the Taliban, made the comments during a private meeting with about 60 or 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday.

At one point, Mr. Karzai suggested that he himself would be compelled to join the other side -- that is, the Taliban -- if the parliament did not back his controversial attempt to take control of the country's electoral watchdog from the United Nations, according to three of those who attended the meeting, including a close ally of the president.

[flyarm]

65. The Inhumanity of War ; Just what are we doing in Afghanistan?

Doug Bandow
Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute

Posted: April 3, 2010 07:44 AM
The Inhumanity of War
Just what are we doing in Afghanistan?

Yes, the Taliban are bad news, as was Saddam Hussein. Taliban guerrillas, like Iraqi insurgents, also kill innocents; terrorists have killed indiscriminately in both nations. But it was the U.S. invasions which triggered or spread the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively; it is the continuing American presence which results in shooting "an amazing number of people" in Afghanistan. And that doesn't count the "collateral damage" from bombing missions, drone strikes, and other military actions.

War is sometimes necessary despite its costs. Ousting the Taliban was imperative after the Kabul government provided hospitality to Osama bin-Laden and al-Qaeda as the group trained to attack Americans.

But that is where America's vital interests end. Attempting to build a strong central state allied with the West is a quixotic venture and would offer little value even if achieved. There is no more benefit for the U.S. to wage war, killing partisans and innocents alike, in order to deliver control of Afghanistan to Hamid Karzai and his warlord allies rather than to the Taliban and other warlords.

A resurgent Taliban is unlikely to again host a terrorist organization whose activities could bring down the wrath of the American military. Moreover, anti-American terrorists can operate from anywhere -- not just failed states like Somalia or weak nations like Pakistan and Yemen, but also countries throughout Western Europe.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/doug-bandow/the-inhumanity-of-war_b_524130.html

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69. Arms, Opium, Oil, Corruption, Israel, CIA, Xe, individual & corp greed

Follow the money, and the power and the control. What powerful interests are benefiting from the policy? Who are the winners and losers? Which powerful groups are using Afghanistan as a proxy for larger conflicts among the groups?

War is good for business, at least for those arming and supplying the combatants on all sides and for those allied with the "winners" and thus gain the highly profitable contracts to rebuild and redevelop, including industries like oil, construction, mining, etc.

In many ways, Afghanistan is another chapter in the Opium Wars that started centuries ago. Opium and cocaine production around the world is highly correlated with where our (US and often UK) armies and the CIA are most active. Enormous profits for those involved: corrupt officials, smugglers, war lords "taxing" transit routes along the way (mostly via Turkey), the distribution cartels, the military and police agencies tasked with stopping the drugs, the banks laundering the money, and finally those who depend on selling goods and services to various groups along the entire path.

Karzai is typical of the kind of leader that US commercial interests generally help bring to "power" using the US Army and Marines as the "muscle" and the CIA and worse to destablize the incumbent government, economy, institutions, media, and elections of the target country using all available means.

While Karzai presented well on TV to US voters, he lack the kinds of instituions used by your typical military strongman - an elite military unit loyal to the leader and usually members of his tribal or ethnic group; a secret police spying on and feared by everyone; a patronage system that controls access to education, jobs, government contracts, housing, etc.; and large amounts of public monies (from oil, illegal drugs, diamonds...) under his complete control.

Karzai is somewhat like having Chalabi trying to run all of Iraq, not just the oil ministry in Iraq. Karzai controls some of the aid monies from the US and others and a minimal patronage system. barely more than cronyism. US attempts at creating a national army for him began almost as soon as we invaded Afghanistan, but these efforts have repeatedly failed. I think increased number of US troops deployed there was in response to the US concluding that it would take decades to build an adequate Afghan army, so one was ordered up and delivered from the US. This further weakens Karzai and makes him look even more a puppet of the US, a collaborator with the occupying army. Karzai will be lucky if his fate is no worse than that of Noriega.

Israeli entities, public and private, are in the middle of all this as a major supplier of military and intelligence/spy technologies to the US and others in the region, and as a partner with arms dealers, smugglers, bankers, network providers and government officials in Turkey, Lebanon, Dubai, and in the past in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Elements within the CIA and in related blackops groups are operating outside normal oversight and restrictions. Many of these elements have ties to Operation Gladio and similar groups around the world, including many in the MSM. Nothing new about this, remember the close ties between the CIA and Ben Bradlee of the Washington Post and the strange connections between them and JFK and his assassination.

Xe/Blackwater is a particularly interesting case when one looks past the obvious. Lots of evidence and disclosures document Blackwater receiving large no-bid contracts from State and Defense Departments with highly inflated bids producing large piles of money for Blackwater, with most details hidden under claims of "national security".

What most people fail to see is what then happens to all that money, all those Blackwater/Xe profits. They all belong to one man, Erik Prince, the sole owner of Xe. Taxpayer "largesse" has magically transformed into personal wealth which Prince uses to to fund many RW candidates, causes, and groups including the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

Lots of other players in this mess: IN and PK supporting competing factions, the Afghan refugees forced into camps just inside PK; the remanents of BCCI, Enron, Iran-Contra, Operation Gladio, and many more return to haunt us.