Conservatives and Progressives Agree: Rethink Afghanistan

[Ardent15]

The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington gets it. Conservative columnist George Will gets it. Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) gets it. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) gets it. U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) gets it. Judge Napolitano of FOX News' "Freedom Watch" gets it.

All of these people understand that it's time to rethink the Afghanistan war.

It's long past time for President Barack Obama to get it.


The deep costs of the Afghanistan war are not a matter of partisan bickering, which is remarkable given the climate in America's politics today. When the health care reform debate degenerates into cries of "death panels" and "baby killer!" it's incredible that a war that's gone on for 9 years and cost us almost a thousand U.S. troops and hundreds of billions of dollars hasn't seen similar bipartisan bickering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/conservatives-and-progres_b_533534.html

[DCBob]

1. I am usually on the polar opposite side of anything George Will says..

including Afghanistan.

[Robb]

2. Breathless reactionary nonsense.

...this war doesn't make us safer, especially given the fact that we don't have a reliable local partner in Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai, you recall, recently pondered aloud whether the time was coming when he would join the Taliban.

He acts like somehow Obama has been thinking all along Karzai would be great, and last week's latest was some kind of calamity that caught the administration by surprise, confirming all his greatest fears about Obama's ineptitude in Afghanistan. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x266228">There is nothing new about the Obama/Karzai relationship.

Greenwald is either ignorant, or willfully misconstruing reality.

Edited to add: Or he's got another book on sale.

[pinto]

3. LOL. A new book may be the point. But that aside, good points. I don't think Obama has any

mis perceptions about the Karzai "government" of Afghanistan.

[Luminous Animal]

4. You've confused your Greenwalds. This one is the filmaker.

[sabrina 1]

5. Greenwald probably knows more about Afghanistan than

just about anyone in this country. As far as selling books, he is the film-maker who has been in Afghanistan, talking to the people that no one else talks to, the ordinary citizens who are the most affected by this war. He made his films available free on the internet to try to get the real story of that war, the actual people of Afghanistan, the groups this government never talks to, the women, the democratic groups, and yes they do exist, although you'd never know it from the news we get, out to the public.

You would do well to watch some of his work. This war is not affecting YOU. You do not have to sell your children in order to save their lives, or leave your home to get away from the bombs, or dig through the rubble after one of our drones decimates your village, looking for the remains of your loved ones.

So your opinion on this war is of no consequence in the scheme of things. Greenwald has been there, have you? Have you listened to the people's pleas to the U.S. to please leave their country so that they can live without the fear of our WMDs destroying their people and their homes?

Here is a link to some of his work. I suggest you watch it, especially Part 1V. It is heart-breaking what has been done to these people.

Rethink Afghanistan

I am glad that Karzai has drawn a line in the sand and hope he sticks to it. These people are not pawns in a chess game, they are real human beings.

We are the bad guys there in the eyes of the people who matter. The U.S. will not speak to the real people, those who want their country to be free again. The U.S. deals with the most brutal elements in the country, empowering them, the War Lords AND The Taliban fighters when it suits them. This has made those elements stronger and weakened the people who only want what everyone else wants in this world.

This documentary was released by Greenwald hoping that with a new administration, the policies of bombing and killing would stop. But, sadly, it only got worse.

Easy for you and others to talk dispassionately about 'surges' and 'successes' and 'increased numbers of troops', to the people there that kind of talk means more death and destruction.

Did you know that there is hardly a single person in that country that has not suffered a loss, or who has not been injured or lost their homes. The war is a crime and there is no excusing it.

And no, Greenwald is not interested in selling any books. He is a true humanitarian who actually knows what he is talking about and I doubt he has made much, if any money for his work on this story although I do hope he is because he is the kind of reporter the world needs more of.