In my opinion, going in there was an inescapable and mandated retaliative statement for any world power to have made after attacks like those on September 11th, 2001. Once Bush, in his infamous idiocy, decided Saddam was more important than Osama bin Laden, he was reckless to keep troops in Afghanistan. They were window dressing in his 'war against terrorism'. That's what they will continue to be if Obama appeases Republicants and keeps our guys and girls in there now. Playing politics with our soldiers' lives. That's what it is. Nothing less.Anyone who wants to convince me to the contrary, needs to first convince me of the strategic importance of Afghanistan. And don't give me the "Pipelinistan" argument: that it's going to eventually provide a massive liquid natural gas line from somewhere to somewhere else. And don't give me the "Betweenistan" argument: every piece of real estate, except moonscapes, is between somewhere and somewhere else.
This isn't Vietnam, not in a million years. This is worse.
In my absolute agreement with getting out of Afghanistan I don't mean to infer that I am not for bringing the terrorists responsible for 911 to justice. I do agree with you Vig. Out! Draining life and funds for historically non-resolvable military cluster fucks. (Ah, I do believe that is a military term?) Don't ban me Vig! :-) Actually, I think your 'arguments' conclusion, at this time, is... how do they say? SPOT ON.
ReplyDeleteVIG; never feel that letting the word out over af/pak is pointless. i am obsessed with it. and i talk about it as much as possible to anyone that will listen. the truth must be brought out. the whole region is now at risk. yes, [tptb] the powers that be, are on control of the chaos. but the american people have to be reminded of the forgotten wars. NAM was not brought into the lime light until hundreds of our soldiers died each day. we can not, and must not wait for that. we have to get out, and get out now. as far as the energy wars go, what ever happened to [lets make a deal]? the treasure that we have spent on illegal attacks, occupation, and colonialism, could have bought a lot of oil, and natural gas. and saved many,any lives.
ReplyDeleteVig, my concern was not the pipeline, but rather, the threat of Al Qaeda returning there. I think that is less likely than I thought.
ReplyDeleteIt is NOT worse than Vietnam. More than 58,000 American lives were lost in that 14 year war and you call Afghanistan worse? How could you possibly draw any comparison between the two conflicts?
ReplyDeleteAs to the "pipeline" that is a load of crap. Afghanistan is a third world country that is strategically located next to another third world country (Pakistan) that also has nuclear weapons. That is why it is considered a strategic target. Please do not dishonor the soldiers who are dying there with rumors, innuendo, and scatological nonsense. I agree that we need to get out of there but not at the risk of national and international security. Let's figure out a better way.
There is no Al-Qaeda.it's a term referring to the Arab Aghans who were recruited and trained by US/ISI/Saudis to fight the Russians as part of a (lesser)jihad against the infidels.there are some scattered remnants there who were being used as bodyguards at one point.they are not an organized global jihad group, they are irregulars who are not a threat.neither are the Taliban-they are fundamentalists who want the foreigners out of their country.We never had a reason for being there and we don't have one now.
ReplyDeleteOso my friend you are mistaken. al Qaeda is a highly organized and well funded Jihadist army with thousands of followers all over the world. While there are only a few hundred hiding in Afghanistan there are thousands hiding in plain sight in Pakistan. Our original reason for being there was because Afghanistan was home base to al Qaeda when 9/11 was planned and executed. If we give them another safe haven we run the risk of being attacked again. If we continue our efforts to eradicate them we will keep them on the run. I am not convinced we need boots on the ground in Afghanistan but I am convinced we need to eradicate the leadership of al Qaeda by any means necessary.
ReplyDeletei agree 100% with OSO. this is much deeper than al quaida.
ReplyDeleteMIKE; i see you thought on this. let me ask you one question. why is OBL NOT on the FBI most wanted list for 9/11? he is for other acts of terrorism, but not 9/11. WHY?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea RZ. I never thought about it given that OBL is an international terrorist. The FBI has arrest jurisdiction in the United States only. Interesting question nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteMIKE; http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=3246
ReplyDeleteone of many.
Here's my thought on OBL,thought only I'm no expert so could be totally wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe attacks on the Cole,the embassies in Africa,that Saudi hotel consisted of somebody ramming a truck (or boat)into the target.logistically easy with contacts-get a sucker and a truck and an explosive device.
9/11 was a quantum leap in the sucker/vehicle/explosive plan,it's not the same thing at all.
OBL was probably involved,maybe from the $ end cause he assuredly still had family $.But I don't think he was the brains behind it.
I'm not trying to defend OBL, a fanatic and a terrorist as much as anyone has ever been.I'm just saying,there's no evidence cause he probably was one among many.
RZ,sorry just saw your link which said it far more lucidly than my rambling commment !
ReplyDeletesome people call me a [truther] i like to refer to myself as a [questioner].lol. i do not like to look at things that did happen. instead i look at things that DID NOT happen. when speaking of OBL, and or AL QUAIDA. then one has to include the pak/isi, saudi/intel, our own cia, and other entities around the world. 9/11 was not planned in a cave.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Glen Becks show,which should be held in a cave.
ReplyDeleteWHO IS GLENN BECK ???? LOL.
ReplyDeleteOso & Reality Zone, how can you doubt the culpability of Osama bin Laden for 9/11?
ReplyDeleteA video recovered from a home in Jalalabad, in November, and made public on December 13, 2001, shows Bin Laden talking to a group of supporters. Al Qaeda likely did not intend for this tape to be disseminated.
In the tape, he explains:
"We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for." ”
The videotape indicates that five days before the attacks, which occurred on a Tuesday, bin Laden knew the date and time they would occur:
"We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on. It was 5:30 p.m. our time [8:00 am in New York and Washington]. ... Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. We turned the radio station to the news from Washington. The news continued and no mention of the attack until the end. At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center. ... After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it. ..." ”
Bin Laden knew there would be multiple attacks:
"They were overjoyed when the first plane hit the building, so I said to them: be patient. The difference between the first and the second plane hitting the towers was twenty minutes. And the difference between the first plane and the plane that hit the Pentagon was one hour."
The video indicates that bin Laden was very familiar with the operational planning for the attacks:
"Mohammad Atta from the Egyptian family (meaning the Al Qaeda Egyptian group), was in charge of the group. ... The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes. ... Those who were trained to fly didn't know the others. One group of people did not know the other group."
Case closed.
If it weren't Osama bin Laden, it had to have been Glenn Beck!
ReplyDeleteSP
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUiNiB2yVCQ
watch this video. "case closed". lol
i never said obl was not complicit, of course he knew. imo; he was not the main guy. those tapes you quoted have been shown many times. just as al quaida and many muslims were pleased about the towers going down. so were the [dancing israeli's ] and even bibi netenyahoo commented that it would help the israeli cause. there is no proof that obl was in on the organizational part. if there was, then the fbi and the JUSTICE DEPT. would have said so by now. OBL is dead and has been dead for some time. he is only brought out ocassionally to keep the myth alive, and to placate the frightened peeps. the [MIC] always needs an enemy.
Take a hike Petro!
ReplyDeleteMike, when I say Afghanistan is worse than Vietnam, I was imprecise. I should have said it is potentially less sustainable that Vietnam. In Vietnam, we were able to park our shipping right off the beach or in the harbors and just off load troops, tanks, and supplies. In the case of Afghanistan, when we have to truck supplies over ground, its through hostile environments (anti-tank rifle grenades, I.E.D.'s etc. It's a logistic nightmare. Plus, there's the culture and language problem (if only the Afghanis spoke French we could have a leg up!). As far as the strategic significance is concerned, you're using the 'Betweenistan' argument which I outlawed: Afghanistan is strategic because it's next to Pakistan? But what if (and it's a big if) we went big & deep on Pakistan (Marshall Plan - no boots on the ground) and mediated Kashmir, What then? If you think triage, you will see that the Pakis have a lot more going for them than the Afghans. Plus many very, very smart people are saying the more we succeed in Afghanistan the worse things get in Pakistan. I think we ought to bend our minds on what they mean by that.
Do you have anything to add, R.Z.?
VIG: thanks for asking.
ReplyDeleteimo; if someone wold like to take the time. please read pepe escobar, juan cole, achmed rashid, steve coll, peter bergen, robert baer, and many others. this is the "grand chess game" in real time. the grand chess game was coined by ZBIG. pepe escobar coined the term "pipelineistan" this is and always has been about pipelineistan. calling these countries [third world ] countries is an insult to humanity. the NAM, and central asia have a lot in common, only a hundred fold. this is all about the [CONTROL OF THE FLOW OF ENERGY]. we were making deals with the taliban. albright even had them in the white house for tea, discussing the unocal pipeline. the pak/isi is neck deep in th etaliban and al quaida, as well as saudi arabia. the answer to 9/11 lies in pakistan, and saudi arabia. not afghanistan or iraq. if we do not leave very, very soon the whole region will be balkanized. the main players are at the table. if you did not like the effen NEOCONS. then you will hate the NEOLIBS.
You know what, kids, I kind of hope that Al Qaeda DOES come back to Afghanistan. That way we can blow them to smithereens without having to send anymore drones into Pakistan. But, like Tomcat implied, the Taliban may not even want to go down that road anymore. To which one could argue against our argument for staying there.
ReplyDeleteSoros Proxy,
ReplyDeleteI likely didn't explain myself well.I'm certain OBL had involvement in 9/11,just not the main actor.Probably on the $ end.
Vigil makes a good point with Kashmir which is the Palestine of South Asia and the key to Pakistani support of jihadis.
A good start would be to approach the Shanghai Cooperative Org and ask for their cooperation as well as getting Iran involved.All have strategic interests in peace in the region and all have groups they influence,like Iran and the Tajiks.We don't give a damn about the Afghanis,why pretend we do.Let the other players in the area sort things out.Which will then take US pressure off Pakistan which causes much conflict between secular/islamist/military elements.
We need to accept Russia's influence in "pipelinistan" too.We can't afford the cost to be a player there.Also the pipeline from Iran/India/Pakistan would be a move towards peace,any cooperation between India and Pakistan should be encouraged not discouraged.
OSO; absolutely 100% on target. the SCO will also have to get involved. Kashmir, as you say is a fuse in reserve for them. people keep looking at the micro, when they should be looking at the macro geopolitical view of central asia. it is so complex, and that is why "control through chaos" has been working well for them.
ReplyDeleteIMO, Pipelinistan is pretty much of a pipe dream. During my limited lifetime, anyways. In the near term, getting enough peace in Chaosistan to lay and maintain a pipe line through there will be more difficult than getting water to spring out of the lunar surface.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, I want to point out that Ex-Congressman Charlie Wilson, hero and subject of the George Crile's book, Charlie Wilson's War and the movie by the same name, and a veteran lobbyist in Pakistan, has come out in favor of withdrawal. He says this as someone who knows as well as anyone just how fierce and tenacious the Afghan fighters are:
I'd rather take on a chainsaw. They're the world's best foot soldiers, best warriors. And they're fearless.
They're fearless, and they've got nothing to lose. And they have a pretty serious hatred for those who try to occupy their country.
It's probably best to make a calculated withdrawal. If I were the president, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd probably shut it down, rather than lose a lot of soldiers and treasure.
Wilson had 1st-hand knowledge of Afghan cruelty before the Taleban arrived on the scene. There's ample coverage in the book; you won't find it in the movie.
V; i agree it is a pipe dream, in our time. but it is what they are positioning them selves for none the less. [charlie wilson's war] the book. i agree excellent. much better and in more detail than the movie. he was pivotal in forming, and funding the mujahadeen. as was ZBIG, the pak/isi, the saudi's, the cia. they look at this as if it were a game of monopoly. but instead of houses, and hotels. they see fossil fuel energy flowing all over the region. it is the control of the flow of that energy that they are after. not the actual energy resources them selves.
ReplyDeleteNot at all I got from Charlie Wilson's War (the book), R.Z.:
ReplyDeleteZbig and Charlie were after the destruction of the Soviet Union, and pay-back for Soviet behavior during our Vietnam War - not oil & gas. Zbig and Wilson got what they wanted, and I, for one, say "well done"! Taliban came later? I say too bad! Al Qaeda came even later? I say, too bad Bushencheny were too much into Star Wars to listen to the warnings of Clinton's outgoing spymasters about OBL & AQ. But that was Bush & Cheney, not Wilson and Brszinski!
Vigil you make a point in that Afghanistan might be less sustainable than Vietnam. Secondly I am not advocating staying in Afghanistan because of its proximity to an increasingly unstable Pakistan. As a matter of fact I agree (gasp) with your premise, and I also think we can figure out a better way.
ReplyDeleteMike, as hard as it may be to find yourself in agreement with me, you have to admit that BHO will now have to de-escalate in Afghanistan. He has that Nobel Peace Prize to live up to!
ReplyDeleteI like your pithy blog entries best, Vig. :) And this one is among the best of the best.
ReplyDeleteIMO, the best response to 9-11 would have been swift harsh retaliation against the locations of al-Qaida camps, no occupation, then the US moving on with day-to-day life.
Of course, I say this all in retrospect. Right after the attacks, I too was angry and bent on revenge. But it seems clear this occupation of Afghanistan has helped Qaida recruitment. Not as much as the completely despicable and utterly warrantless action against Iraq, mind you ...
Obama's Nobel award, as with Gore's before, reveals his true constituency. It's European. Not American.
ReplyDeleteGreat article, Vig and great comments too.
ReplyDelete"But it seems clear this occupation of Afghanistan has helped Qaida recruitment." -- Stimpson
I have no doubt that the occupation of Afghanistan has stepped up terrorist recruitment.
Like Vig, I don't believe this is all about gas.
Afghanistan is beginning to be a very difficult issue. The limited NATO and US forces in place have bogged down. On a purely troop deployment doctrine alone, 65,000 professional troops covering an area the size of Afghanistan is useless. In the 70s, Britain sent 26,000 troops to cover and "fight" a couple of hundred of Irish terrorists in Northern Ireland which is the roughly the size of metropolitan Paris. 65,000 troops in Afgahnistan fighting a well-armed terrorist and insurgent force is ridiculous.
I once wrote the following and I believe, if the US wants to get out of there, and by extension, NATO (which cannot do much without US troops) the only solution is to give them the bloody money and let them construct their own army. (A bit of a problem there -- Question who exactly should the money be given to?)
The idea that the US will spend 150M$ per year providing some 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, whereas the same money could provide ONE MILLION Afghan soldiers has the kernel of solution to the problem.
Creating a one million man Afghan army could be the beginning of the defeat of terrorisst recrutiment in Afghanistan, i.e., on the very basic economic front alone, it certaily would help allevieate the economic problem facing the Afghan man and his family. As we all know, it is not with military force that we will win, but by creating prosperity so that people do not want to become fanatics or to risk their lives by being either terrorists or insurgents.
Peace is expensive.
VIG; as i said, zbig and wilson were forming the mujahadeen. the funds went to the saudi's the saudi's added to the kitty. then the money went to the pak/isi. they took their cut then distributed it out to the war lords of their choice. their goal was to get the russki's out of afghan. and yes, as you say it was pay back for their involvement in nam.note[ china stayed out of it]. the mujahadeen morphed into the taliban. all along al quaida had their [base] on the border in pakistan. as every one knows al quaida is mostly arab and sunni. afghans do not consider themselves arab. paks do not consider themselves arab. if we leave the afghans and the true paks will kill off what is left of al quaida. our presence in the region, just as in iraq. only makes things worst. we have to leave, and we have to leave as soon as possible. obama is now sasying he is mainly after al quaida. this is b.s. he wants to go into pakistan under the guise of chasing al quaida.
ReplyDeleteBit of precision please:
ReplyDeletethe mujahadeen morphed into the taliban.
Not quite. The Talibans were Talibans already. That many of them became mujahideen in the real sense of the word, i.e., fighting warriors, jihadists, was a consequence of fighting the Russians.
Some of the mujahideen, eg., Northern Alliance, were fighting the Talibans. The more moderate Northern Alliance, aka mujahideen, accepted Western support in the battle against the Talibans.
HB; I agree with your [precision].lol the whole country was in chaos. the northern alliance was more western as you say. the russians still had their sympathizers in afghanistan even after they left. the taliban went to their grass roots and brought about fundamental islam. their aim was to set up an islamic republic. totally based on sharia law. which took the country back into a time warp. the west abandoned the mujahadeen after the russians left. thus giving the taliban the edge.
ReplyDeleteAnd to think in the 90's many were throwing their hands up in despair over the Balkans and the breakup of Yugoslavia with history maybe repeating itself.
ReplyDeleteThis time in a different location Afghanistan is unsustainable stuck in the stone age for the most part; Pakistan a highly probable failed state with nukes; Iranian leaders have gone from nutty and bloodthirsty wanting nukes to insanely corrupt wanting nukes; and nuclear armed India having to live next all that worried who might "run" Pakistan. Of course the big boys (US, Russia,China)hover around worried over their own interests. Different time and place but more of the same tangled strategic interests of world powers and crazy second rate nutters running around with guns and, this time, nukes.
My one question who get to play the possible part of Archduke Ferdinand?
VIGILANTE; re; " I haven't been posting, politically, because it just seems to be pointless. What's the use?" ROFLMFAO ! ! ! check the comment count on this thread. Not so useless after all. LOL.
ReplyDelete@Vig,
ReplyDeleteyeah "pointless" sure man. That's like Andrew Lloyd Webber suddenly turning around and saying he thought musicals had too much singing in them.
Despair is the reason we're all on here, and Reason is the weapon against despair.
The public conversation is what this is all about, so keep it going. I think of your blog as "Constructive Instigation."
-SJ
Readers, Stimpson's honest recollection of his post-9/11 blood-lusting for revenge accurately reflect my own:
ReplyDelete... the best response to 9-11 would have been swift harsh retaliation against the locations of al-Qaida camps, no occupation, then the US moving on with day-to-day life.
Of course, I say this all in retrospect. Right after the attacks, I too was angry and bent on revenge. But it seems clear this occupation of Afghanistan has helped Qaida recruitment. Not as much as the completely despicable and utterly warrantless action against Iraq, mind you ...
I've been wanting to confess my past excesses pertinent to Afghanistan but haven't found the words, and I thank Stimpson for supplying them.
@Vig, Stimpson,
ReplyDeleteyou're citing a realization that for me relates to why Glenn Beck's "912 project" is such an assinine and corrupt idea:
I still live in Manhattan, and there's much that happened here in the days that followed the world trade center attacks that has never been reported anywhere. I'm talking about the panic and desire for blind revenge that gripped the city and the nation. These were not good times and in the heat of that fear and anger, many of us could have been made to do anything (Some in Congress and Senate essentially abdocated their powers of oversight) Thankfully, Rudy Giuliani, a mayor I did not support, surprised me and did something that was very compassionate and responsible: He got on local radio and repeatedly told New Yorkers not to go out in the streets looking for culprits or retribution against Arab Americans or Americans of Middle Eastern descent and he put even more auxilary cops on the street. I saw one arrest on St. Marks Place in the East Village of a man marching with a sign containing hateful words I won't repeat here about Muslims, and I thought to myself: "now's not the moment to point out the first amendment, we'll hash it out as soon as these violent lunatics are off the street."
The damage to some extent had already been done, two of my neighborhood grocers, both of them Lebanese, sold their businesses, afraid that their little children might be in danger from the neighbrohood teenagers who'd been harrassing them during store hours.
My grocer Ali said to me "I'm an American" before leaving for good. In a city historically divided by race and class, everybody suddenly came together united against people of Middle Eastern descent and even East Indians who just looked close enough to the "target."
There was alot of accepted racism and blind enthusiasm for war in those first days after the attacks.
It's important that we all be honest and rational about it.
-SJ
one reason my rep Barbara Lee is the best person in Washington is her speech on the house floor against giving Bush the power to invade nations at will. I believe the vote was 443 to 1 to take the easy way out and bomb the fuck out of the Afghanis.Give in to the bloodlust.Our president was an asshole instead of a statesman.He could have brought the terrorists to justice,like we did to McVeigh after the Ok City bombings.But he gave in to the hate,took the easy way out.Only Barbara Lee stood up to him, she was the 1 in the 443 to 1 vote.
ReplyDelete@Oso,
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget it: 9/14/2001.
-anyone can watch it again here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh_sxilhyV0
-SJ
Thanks SJ,
ReplyDeleteit was even better than I'd remembered.She's an army brat,people may not know that.her father was career military.she had so many death threats no calls could get thru.I think she had Secret Service protecting her,I know she needed protection.
She still gets 85 or 86% of the vote.We all love her.
@Oso,
ReplyDeleteit was a very memorable address, and it should be required viewing everytime this country loses its fucking mind. It's in my favorites on Youtube. How Bush and Cheney capitalized on those attacks as an achievement and how they were not seen by Americans as a deadly lapse on the part of the Bush administration is something I still don't understand all these years later. I mean, those fuckers were able to hit the Pentagon for Christ's sake. How does the GOP get a pass for being strong on defense in the American imagination? By spending freely and talking a big game?
It boggles the mind.
-SJ
SJ & Oso:
ReplyDeleteI've had a look at Rep. Barbara Lee's 09-14-01 speech and I definitely have to amend my earlier statement: had I been voting that day on the floor of the house, I would been among the 443. I was in favor of paving Afghanistan, shaking it upside down, doing whatever could be done to get Osama bin Laden's head on the end of a stake. I do not apologize for that. There is a time for peace and a time for war. That was a time for war. What I do regret is not turning my mind back on when Bush declared "I truly am not that concerned about Osama". That was 13-Mar-02, a mere six months after 9/11. That was the time I should have asked out loud in church, what the fuck then, are we doing in Afghanistan any longer? I was like a frog in the stew pot, not aware that Bush was bringing it to a boil and over Iraq, of all things.
I was initially shocked and angered,but the across the board anger at Muslims got me over the anger quickly.I couldn't help but contrast the reaction to the OK City terrorist attack-no rage at all.Just a desire for justice.
ReplyDeleteAs more info about the 9/11 attacks came out,the question came up-why didn't we bomb Hamburg or Miami or San Diego? All three had much clearer links with the attack,from the planning and training stages.much clearer than the tenuous Afghanistan links,especially since the Talibs had been trying to hand OBL over for years.And he was a role player in this attack-there'd be no reason for covering up evidence unless it implicated someone in the Administration.hmmm.
Getting back to Hamburg/Miami/San Diego.I guarantee if those cities were in Afghanistan they'd have been bombed.But there'd be collateral damage,just like if you'd bombed Northern Idaho or Michigan militia training camps or anyplace in Mississippi following the Ok City terrorist attack.But no one cared about collateral damage in Afghanistan or Iraq.They didn't have people.they were as bereft of people as Americans keep saying Palestine was before the European Jews moved in.
Oh my....
ReplyDeleteThe longer a superpower stays in a 3rd world country, the more that that superpower is hated, even if their intentions are good. Deep down Obama knows this. He has to.
ReplyDeleteW HART; knowing it, and acting upon it are two different things. we shall have to see how many troops he will deploy at the request of mc chrystal. does he make a political decision. or does he make a soulful decision. [note] i left out military decision, because imo. there is no military answer to this.
ReplyDeleteGood point R.Z. But about the 'political decision': I would have to believe that making a political decision to go along to get along, to optimize his chances for a 2nd term, by copping out to a 40,000 build in Afghanistan, will seal the fate for BHO as a single-term president, a al LBJ. I'll have more to say on this front.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/11-5
ReplyDeleteplease read this article. frank rich, put up some interesting numbers. according to the patreus field manual on counter insurgency we would need around 650k boots on the ground.
Off topic here, Vigil, but I wanted to congratulate you on the Dodgers advancing convincingly as they did to the NLCS. They seemed to slice up the Cardinals pretty well. My Twins just got clobbered by the Yanks. Philly will give you a battle, but this could very well be shaping up toward yet another Yankees-Dodgers October showdown (or maybe an all LA series?)!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Vigilante
ReplyDeleteI think people should stay focused on the fact that Pakistan is the most important country in the region, not Afghanistan. There aren't many Al Queda people in Afghanistan. And many of those viewed as Taliban are more or less members of loose-knit tribes fighting over control of the opium trade.
We should shift to Pakistan because they have nuclear weapons we don't want to get into Al Queda hands. We should focus on Pakistan because, though shaky, they seem to want to fight Al Queda and get them out of their country. Focusing on Pakistan offers the best chance of containing Al Queda as opposed to winning a war in Afghanistan, or nation-building in Afghanistan led by Khazi's cronies and one of the most corrupt government known to man.
We should leave troops to train Afghanistan to fight its own war. But we should shift to Pakistan and help them fight Al Queda and to protect the nuclear weapons there.
MAC; Where does it end? The continuation of the war drums got your attention. we are herding the Taliban, and Al Quaida from one country to the next. Is Tajikistan next. Or perhaps Kazakhstan. Maybe the Nato foces can herd them into Russia, or China. This has to stop. This is a balkanization process for the whole region of central asia. In order to balkanize, ethnic cleansing is part of that process. We are chasing a boogey man in order to justify further attacks, occupation, and colonization of lands where we have no business. the only business that we are doing over there is building pipelineistan for the proxy energy wars.
ReplyDelete"... two of my neighborhood grocers, both of them Lebanese, sold their businesses, afraid that their little children might be in danger from the neighbrohood teenagers who'd been harrassing them during store hours."
ReplyDeleteThat is so sad. And ya just know the same thing happened many, many times across the USA. I hope those families found safety, comfort and happiness soon after.
@Stimpson,
ReplyDeleteYep, that was 9/12. I should say, many people were surprising in their humanity and kindness towards each other in New York and New Jersey but the predictable ugliness reared it's ugly street-mob head.
-SJ
I have to admit that I'd rather read Petro's comments than BBC's. Everyone said everything I have to say already. That'll teach me for coming in at the last minute.
ReplyDeleteAs usual—brilliant post, brilliant comment thread.