American Interventionism/Afghanistan Is Even More Fucked Up Than You Already Knew...

[Hissyspit]

From Balloon Juice, we have to destroy the villages in order to save them:

It’s Always Sunny at Kaplan Daily

by John Cole

Via email, Fred Hiatt’s fishwrap provides probably the most disgusting piece of agitprop you’ll read for a while:

But many residents near Kandahar do not share the view. They have lodged repeated complaints about the scope of the destruction with U.S. and Afghan officials. In one October operation near the city, U.S. aircraft dropped about two dozen 2,000-pound bombs.
In another recent operation in the Zhari district, U.S. soldiers fired more than a dozen mine-clearing line charges in a day. Each one creates a clear path that is 100 yards long and wide enough for a truck. Anything that is in the way – trees, crops, huts – is demolished.
“Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?” a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.
Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor’s office to submit a claim for damaged property, “in effect, you’re connecting the government to the people,” the senior officer said.

While you dirty hippies and evil leftists are focusing on the lives destroyed, what you are overlooking is that if you put on your neocon warface, you’ll realize that when we bomb civilians, kill their family members and friends, destroy their homes, their crops, and their livestock, sure there may be some hard feelings. But let’s not overlook the value of the government meet and greet!

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