BS: Afghan War mistake or wise

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:05 AM

Rhetoric and policy are two different beasts, Sawz... Now when a polician says stuff like "If I am elected I will send a bill to Congres that requires that ____% of all Wall St. lending will have to go to businesses that employ less than ____ people"... That is a "promise"...

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:23 AM

Point 1: "As for the Taliban, they comprise part of the forces fighting the A(f)ghan occupation all right"

Well the last time I heard from somebody who has actually been out there the Taleban are the ONLY people fighting. Were they to cease and desist there would be no fighting at all in Afghanistan

Point 2: "but what that war really is is a war between the Pashtuns and the foreign occupying forces."

No, not really. If however you have hard evidence that substantiates this claim of yours I would be interested in looking at it. About 90% of the Pashtun population of Afghanistan are currently fighting nobody, they do however provide the bulk of civilian casualties of the fighting two out of every three being killed not by the "big bad evil western forces of occupation" but by their fellow Pashtuns - the Taleban.

Point 3: "Most Pashtuns are not Taliban."

Very true, roughly only 1 in 10 support the Taleban, the others do the best they can to eke out a peaceful existence. Of the Pashtun population of Afghanistan twice as many support and voted for Hamid Karzai and no small risk of death or dismemberment than support the Taleban.

Point 4: "They are not fighting to restore the Taliban"

They (the majority of the Pashtun population of Afghanistan) are not fighting PERIOD.

Point 5: "they (The Pashtun population of Afghanistan) are fighting to get foreign occupiers out of Afghanistan and restore their own control of the country."

No about 25,000 people, many of them having no claim to Afghan citizenship, out of a population of 32 million are attempting to regain by violent action, what they originally took by violent action about 12 years ago. "Their control of the country" was an unmitigated disaster for the country and its population, hundreds of thousands were brutally murdered and millions fled as refugees into Pakistan and Iran (The UNHCR at the time stated that of all the worlds refugees two out of every three were Afghans).

Point 6: "They (The Pashtun population of Afghanistan) comprise the great majority of the Afghan population."

No they do not, they comprise the largest minority group 42% of the population are Pashtun and all the other minority groups make up 58% of the population. Again if you have any hard evidence that refutes that statement I would like to see it.

Folkiedave - "Who decided to whom they should be allowed to lend before? Because for sure they got caught? I don't remember seeing any government saying "You should lend to people who can't afford to pay you back"."

The sub-prime mortgage crisis originated in the USA and was caused by the Clinton adminstration forcing Mortgage Brokers Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae to dole out mortgages to borrowers who were what would normally be considered as "bad risk". They did this on the erroneous assumption that the Federal bank would guarantee the loans. The Clinton administration did nothing to dispell this understanding. As property increased in value people borrowed against it, when repayments were not met and debts were called in the whole house of cards collapsed.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:33 AM

Bullsh*t, T-Bird...

The sub-prime crisis can be laid squarely at the feet of the Raygun administration and the deregulation of the banking industry... Clinton was just a merry follower...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 11:37 AM

As property increased in value people borrowed against it, when repayments were not met and debts were called in the whole house of cards collapsed.

How come these British banks also collapsed then? I thought maybe these USA banks had gone around the world asking people (who are paid a fortune for expertise apparently, an expertise which they clearly do not have) to buy this heap of junk.

Still Teribus it must be nice for the bankers to know you are on their side. You on big bonuses too?

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:03 PM

The sub-prime mortgage crisis originated in the USA and was caused by the Clinton adminstration forcing Mortgage Brokers Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae to dole out mortgages to borrowers who were what would normally be considered as "bad risk". They did this on the erroneous assumption that the Federal bank would guarantee the loans. The Clinton administration did nothing to dispell this understanding. As property increased in value people borrowed against it, when repayments were not met and debts were called in the whole house of cards collapsed.

That is horseshit. You are blaming Clinton for what became a feeding frenzy by greedy banks. How much incentive did the banks need to have in order to take risks with other people's money? Zero is the answer. The derivatives and mortgage insurance industries created packages that were no-lose for them. They made money selling these packages and insuring them themselves. They created risky products, insured them for risk, and double-dipped the mortgage fees and costs knowing that if everything hit the fan, they could defer to the Federal Government. Yes, this was driven by a housing market which seemed to be convinced that property values would do nothing but go up.
How many poor people defaulted on homes compared to wealthy people who were simply investing in houses and flipping them at profit? To portray the poor and Clinton as the villains in this piece is typical simplistic conservative crap that makes government the bad guy. The derivatives scam was probably an American invention, but banks across the world were quick to pick up on it, and that's how this became a global issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:07 PM

I am beginning to wonder, Teribus, if you are a closet Republican living in the wrong country? ;-) The reason I mention it is that you never seem to have criticism for any American president unless he is a Democrat. That's odd, considering that you are a resident of the UK. You also made some statements about the delights of living in and fighting for a "Christian nation", etc. on another thread which sounded like they came straight out of the Young Republican's official Guidebook. Extraordinary. How did a citizen of the British Isles end up in such a state of mind?

Eric Margolis disagrees with you about the situation in Afghanistan as it relates to the Pashtuns, etc. As he is far better informed on that country than I am, and has actually been there and seen it firsthand, I suggest you post to his website and argue with him about it until you achieve "satisfaction" (or not).

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:09 PM

I'd like to add that we are getting into heavy thread creep on the bank bailout subject, and that topic is probably best addressed in another thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: pdq
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 01:46 PM

"The American Dialect Society has announced that the Word of the Year for 2007, as voted by members at its annual meeting, is subprime. It's a sturdy choice, given how much media attention has circulated this past year about the financial crisis in the housing sector blamed on mortgage loans made to high-risk borrowers with credit ratings that are less than prime. Subprime (sometimes hyphenated as sub-prime) might not be as flashy as some previous selections by the ADS, such as truthiness in 2005 (comedian Stephen Colbert's term for "truth from the gut" unencumbered by facts) or plutoed in 2006 ('demoted or devalued in the manner of Pluto losing planet status'). Nonetheless, the word has an intriguing history, even for people like me who aren't terribly fascinated by the lending practices of banks.

In its earliest attested usage, subprime simply meant "substandard" or "below top quality" in a very general sense. A 1960 article in Operational Research Quarterly referred to "sub-prime material" that can cause delays in automatic data-recording equipment. And in 1970, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Armco steel company was introducing a "subprime" line of cold-rolled sheet metal, "intended for users that don't need surface qualities 100% free of defects, principally for use in unexposed parts, including the back of a refrigerator." Over time, this sense of subprime was extended in all sorts of directions, such as this Toronto Star critique of a cinematic performance by Madonna in 1993: "her 'work' in Body Of Evidence is sub-prime."

In the mid-1970s, subprime began to be used in the banking sector, but in a context that is just about the opposite of current usage. Rather than relating to the risky credit status of a borrower, subprime originally described a "below prime" lending rate — in other words, below the prime rate that banks and other lending institutions offer to qualified customers. So in this sense, a loan with a subprime rate is a good thing for the borrower, who is allowed to pay an interest rate lower than what is typically offered. That explains this quote from an August 1975 Associated Press article: "Isn't the prime supposed to go only to the most credit-worthy customers? Why, therefore, they might ask, was subprime offered to a municipality whose credit standing is suspect?" Similarly, a March 1978 article in Institutional Investor told of banks "offering sub-prime rates to lure back customers."

It wasn't until the mid-'90s that the currently popular sense of subprime became widespread. Now it was the borrowers themselves who were being classified as "less than prime" based on their credit histories. Customers in this high-risk category were increasingly able to borrow money from established lenders, particularly to pay for mortgages, automobile loans, and the like. Whereas the older sense of subprime implied a loan with a low interest rate, the subprime loans of the '90s and '00s have rates much higher than standard. An April 1995 article in Retail Banker International described auto-lending companies offering "loans of new and late-model cars to consumers with imperfect ('sub-prime') credit histories." And a February 1997 New York Times article heralded the coming crisis: "A Risky Business Gets Even Riskier: Big Losses and Bad Accounting Leave 'Subprime' Lenders Reeling."

The two competing senses of subprime, referring either to favorable low-interest loans or to unfavorable high-interest ones, would seem to be in direct opposition. You might even call it a "Janus-faced word" or "contronym," i.e., a word that serves as its own antonym, like cleave or sanction. But the surrounding context should be enough to establish whether it's the lending rate or the borrower that is considered subprime. Consider another sub- word, subpar. For a golfer, a subpar score is a good thing, but in its more general sense subpar typically characterizes an inferior performance. Only context can resolve the conflict.

As the word subprime becomes more widely known, we can expect many new extensions of meaning. A recent MSNBC report on business buzzwords claims that the word is already in use as a verb "loosely defined as the ability to completely dig one's self into a hole and then expect a bailout," as in "I completely subprimed my Algebra test yesterday." As far as I can tell, that kind of usage is a figment of the reporter's fertile imagination, since even Urbandictionary, that student favorite, is thus far unaware of subprime as a generic verb. (When the word does show up as a verb, it tends to be in punning formations like "subpriming the pump" or as an ad-hoc reflexive: a columnist for the Aspen Times wrote that "homeowners have subprimed themselves into an economic disaster.") But let's hope that the subprime crisis subsides before it spawns too many new additions to our vocabulary. Even if it's enriching to the lexicon, it's hardly enriching to the economy."   ~ Ben Zimmer is an editor at Oxford University Press

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 02:23 PM

This article will tell you what's really going on.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/our_murderers_in_the_sky_20091210/

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 02:39 PM

The so-called "War on Terror" is in fact exactly what it claims to be fighting against. It is a war OF terror, directed at populations in the countries and regions it targets. It kills a tremendously greater number of people than any of the officially labelled "terrorists" have killed and it provokes an enlargement of the very conflict which it is the author of.

It serves as the primary motivator and recruitment incentive for the Muslim fighters who take up arms to resist it.

It is a Big Lie....Orwellian doubletalk. It is what it pretends to by fighting against. And that's typical. The greatest terrorist outfit in the world at the present time is the USA's own military forces who imagine that they are fighting terrorism.

This is not the fault of American soldiers. I have a great deal of empathy for the American soldiers who are simply young men following orders and doing what they think is the right thing to do. They've been told they are defending their country and fighting terrorism and they believe it, as would most young men in their position being told what they are told. I have no grudge against them whatsoever.

It's their leaders who sent them to war who are responsible for the situation, not the soldiers.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 03:48 PM

Little Hawk states that the US effort in Afghanistan is terrorizing the population of that country. I would entertain arguments that the impact of some US attacks is to induce terror. We see this when an Afghani wedding party is bombed because weapons are being fired, when intelligence informs that a Taliban or Al Qaeda leader is in a house, the house is bombed, and the result is dead women and children.
However, I do not see that the intent is terrorizing the population. There is no percentage of gain inherent in alienating the population of a country in which your army is engaged. To this end, emphasis has been put on schools, hospitals, public service and works project being funded by the US. Narrowly targeted bombs are meant to "surgically" remove their intended victims without widespread collateral damage.
That is the aim. Whether that is being accomplished, or whether our inaccurate intelligence and the gigantic difficulties inherent in fighting a guerilla war with a conventional fighting force result in the terrorization of the populace, is arguable.
I for one would argue that whatever the effect, the intent is definitely an essential factor. Some may see no difference in a group of armed men stalking through a hotel slaughtering hostages under instruction from a mastermind in a remote location via a cell phone, and a bomb that misses a target and strikes a hotel. The effect is nearly identical. The intent, however, must be important to anyone who believes in such things as objective moral truth. By one standard, the deaths are a tragedy to be avoided in future. By the other, the only tragedy is that there weren't more deaths.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Folkiedave
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 06:29 PM

That's odd, considering that you are a resident of the UK.

Not sure that Teribus is indeed a resident of the UK. I seem to remember that he mentioned he lived in a high tax country. That is not the Uk of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 07:38 PM

I understand what you're saying, LEJ, and I am partially in agreement with it...

However, it is quite clear that an operation such as the "Shock and Awe" bombing of Iraq in 2003 had multiple objectives....and one of them was to terrorize the population of Iraq to the extent that their will to fight would collapse. That was also the intent of the German bombings of Rotterdam and London and Guernica, the Japanese bombings of Chinese cities in WWII, and the Allied bombings of German and Japanese cities in WWII, and the dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The intent was to terrorize another group of people into surrender.

And that is what I call terrorism on a really large scale.

I believe that governments and national armed forces have always practiced terrorism on a far larger scale than scattered groups of people like the terrorists who attacked the hotel in Mumbai. That is simply because governments have a lot more firepower at their disposal and much more efficient means of bringing it to bear.

Penny-ante terrorists like the guys who attacked in Mumbai are bit players compared to governments. They get no respect...and they don't deserve any...but the main reason they get no respect is because they don't have public sanction by way of a uniform...and because they employ stealth and attack helpless targets. Why do they do that? Because they think they can succeed at doing it, that's why. Their primary objective is not simply to kill "as many people as possible", their primary objective is to make a powerful political statement that would change the status quo in some way deemed useful by the attacker.

The primary objective of the US Air Force when it dropped A-bombs on 2 Japanese cities was not necessarily to kill "as many people as possible" either (at least I don't think so...)...it was to make a powerful political statement that would change the status quo in some way deemed useful by the attacker. (at least...that is what we are told). It was furthermore an attack done with virtually NO risk to the attackers.

Where is the difference? (other than that the Mumbai attackers were facing much greater personal risk) They are both, in my opinion, acts of terrorism...but look at the casualty rate that resulted, and tell me who is the greater terrorist.

I know you can offer justifications. Well, so can the attackers at Mumbai or at any other place that has ever been attacked. Just ask them. They will offer their own justifications, and it will always have to do with "defending" their own people against some "evil" threat from someone else...or taking revenge for some previous attack by some "evil" enemy against their people.

They are all heroes and "good guys" in their own eyes. That's why they do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:12 PM

"Shock and awe" was surely an unusually honest and explicit way of saying that the aim was to induce people into changing allegiance by means of death and destruction - which is the essential definition of "terrorism".

"There is no percentage of gain inherent in alienating the population of a country in which your army is engaged." That is not how it is always seen. In fact seeing it that way is, if anything untypical.

Killing and brutalising potential supporters of the enemy as a way of discouraging them from providing support has been, and continues to be, a regular part of the way occupying forces and governments faced with insurgency have behaved in all kinds of places.

It may be that the massacres of wedding parties carried out from the air and so forth are not intended in that way. Maybe they actually are mistakes rather than intentional crimes. If so they are different from other proven massacres of civilians, such as those carried out by soldiers and paramilitaries in wars in Latin America and Africa etc, or by German soldiers in occupied Europe - but there is nothing obvious about that. Perhaps it's actually true - but how can we know that claims to that effect are just a camouflage of lies to cover yet another case of the tried and trusted tactic of terrorism. After all, it wouldn't be the first time.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:12 PM

I am not going to defend the nuclear bombimg of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In my mind, those acts are indefensible, and were probably my country's greatest transgression of the 20th century. I understand that the power of the bomb needed to be illustrated in order to force the Japanese into surrender and prevent an invasion of Japan that could have resulted in even more loss of life, but the bomb could have been dropped once, on a remote area of Japan. It was clearly used as a weapon that would have massive, indiscriminate, and devastating results against a heavy concentration of population.

I disagree that the bombing of Iraq and Kuwait had the same intent. The shock and awe bombing in 1991 had as its focus communication facilities, airports and transportation hubs, military installations and other targets bearing directly on Iraq's ability to coordinate resistance, and was not directed at inflicting casualties in the general population. The concept of shock and awe as a military tactic is focussed on decapitating the military forces, cutting them off from one another, and by dent of demonstration of massive firepower superiority, to encourage loss of morale and eventual surrender. Estimates of 6600 civilian casualties in the massive and lengthy bombardment are generally disputed as grossly overstated.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Dec 09 - 08:30 PM

I agree that the bombing done in Shock and Awe had many tactical reasons that made sense too...that's why I said "it had multiple objectives". That is often the case with bombing of metropolitan targets. Nevertheless, I consider such bombing to be, among other things, terrorism.

I think that almost all governments commit terrorist acts when they go to war. It's virtually inevitable that they will. That's one of the worst things about war. They only call it "terrorism", however, when someone else does it to them. That's propaganda for you. The propaganda is crafted to justify the war and to motivate the soldiers and civilians at home to support it. If you look at newsreels of the Third Reich, they gave huge attention to various terrorist acts committed against Germans by the Allies in order to stiffen the will of their fighting men and their civilians. And it worked. And a fair amount of what they said was even true! (although usually exaggerated) Had they won the war, they could have used a lot of what happened to try the "Allied war criminals" at Nuremberg, and the criminals on trial would have been Russians, Americans, and British.

The only thing they neglected entirely to tell Germans about was the immense crimes being committed by German personnel on behalf of the Nazi high command!

That was terrorism too...and terrorism to a shocking extent...but it was not mentioned in their media.

We have a mass media just like that. They only see terrorists where they are told to see terrorists...in the ranks of the Islamic "enemy". They do not label government-sponsored homegrown terrorism for what it is.

Am I drawing moral equivalence between the Nazis and the present USA? No. I am simply pointing out how government propaganda works. It sees evil only where it wants to see evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:31 AM

"Shock And Awe" as a term has been used for centuries it is not new. It was introduced into US military parlance in 1996 and is used to describe the rapid dominance

"to affect the will, perception, and understanding of the adversary to fit or respond to our strategic policy ends through imposing a regime of Shock and Awe" (according to Authors Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade).

They went on to state that rapid dominance would:

"impose this overwhelming level of Shock and Awe against an adversary on an immediate or sufficiently timely basis to paralyze its will to carry on . . . [to] seize control of the environment and paralyze or so overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be incapable of resistance at the tactical and strategic levels."

A demonstration of "Shock and Awe" was clearly seen five years earlier in the bombing campaign that preceded the ground attack known as Desert Storm in 1991.

What occured in March 2003 was nowhere near as intense for a very good reason. In 1991 infrastructure targets in Iraq had to be hit to prevent reinforcement of enemy troops in the south of the country and in Kuwait. In 2003 the aim was to remove Saddam Hussein from power and infrastructure that would have been targets in 1991 had to be left intact as the invading forces needed them to get to Baghdad as quickly as possible (Attacking forces tend not to blow up bridges that they are relying on to continue their advance).

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 06:38 AM

True enough. In the same respect, Allied forces tried not to destroy intact bridges over the Rhine in '44, while the retreating Germans, on the other hand, tried hard to destroy them once the bulk of their own people had gotten across. They (the Germans) failed to do so at Remagen.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 07:21 AM

Another facet of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, infrastructure targets such as power stations, water treatment facilities were deliberately left alone, why destroy something that you know full well that you are going to need immediately on cessation of military operations.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 07:24 AM

Why indeed?

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Stringsinger
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 11:58 AM

Water treatments plants were contaminated by weapon's fallout. Power stations were unworkable. Infrastructure targets were indiscriminately hit by so-called "smart bombs".
Any country that caused a cultural museum to be ransacked can't be relied upon to
discriminate in the destruction of another country.

"Shock and Awe" was a term designed to intimidate Iraqis. After the fall of Saddam,
the country is in worse shape than it was before.

Women are easily targeted now whereas under the dictator, they were given rights.

The invasion of Iraq was pointless and useless.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 04:14 PM

Why do it? The fact that there is no good reason to do something, and all kinds of good reasons not to do it unfortunately does not seems sufficient to stop people doing just that thing, all too often.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 05:25 PM

Perhaps they salivate at the thought of the big reconstruction contracts that will follow? Or maybe they're just in love with the massive use of their firepower.

"Gotcha!!!" - George Bush

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 11:35 PM

Stringsinger:

"1. Water treatments plants were contaminated by weapon's fallout."

Examples please, now remember when you respond to this that within the borders of Iraq post-Safwan Iraqi Army helicopter gunships were allowed to operate. Desert Storm was primarily concerned with ejecting the Iraqi forces from Kuwait and no battles were fought in the Basra area. So if you were referring to depleted uranium rounds they were Russian in origin and came from Hind Helicopter gunships

"2. Power stations were unworkable."

In all probability true, the only place in Iraq pre-2003 invasion that had a 24 hour power supply was wherever Saddam Hussein happened to be at that time. Now in the interim between 1991 and 2003 instead of building infrastructure to benefit the people of Iraq Saddam Hussein build Presidential Palaces to thwart the inspections of UNSCOM, he smuggled in 384 Rocket Motors from North Korea, he initiated and ran a programme intent on acquiring VX nerve gas. Of course Power stations were unworkable, Saddam and the Government he controlled wer too busy doing other things that they felt were more important

"3. Infrastructure targets were indiscriminately hit by so-called "smart bombs"."

Examples please, for very solid logical reasons I have given, such targets would not be hit. Please counter that argument, preferably with fact not left-wing, anti-Bush, anti-war rhetoric.


Little Hawk:

"Perhaps they salivate at the thought of the big reconstruction contracts that will follow?"

And those contracts have been awarded to whom exactly??

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 12 Dec 09 - 11:37 PM

PS - All of which has got absolutely fuck all to do with Afghanistan which is, and remains, and always has been a United Nations Operation.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 12:13 AM

The United Nations label is a figleaf that gets stuck on various American operations to "legitimize" them and conceal their naked ambitions. That's a standard political technique used by major powers to persuade people that they are not acting alone. And they're not. But they are acting in their own interests and getting other minor players onside to make it look good. That's a PR job.

The invasion of the Soviet Union in 1945 wasn't just a German operation either. It was an Axis operation, assisted by Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Finland. This didn't fool anyone into thinking that it was a legitimate thing to do except the Axis powers themselves. It was essentially a German operation with some minor allies joining in for various pragmatic reasons. The Afghanistan operation was essentially an American operation with some minor allies joining in for various pragmatic reasons, and the U.N. is the rubber stamp they used to supposedly legitimize it. How do they achieve that? Through the Security Council, and the Security Council only represents the direct interests of a few large nations and a temporary token small nation, nations who usually find ways to act in concert, just as the Axis members acted in concert in WWII.

It's legitimate if you're with them. It's not if you aren't.

As for the American contractors (and mercenaries) who have benefited from various construction and security-related projects in Iraq, I think there are quite a number of them, one being Haliburton, another being Blackwater. Why don't you look them up yourself? Do you really think I wish to spend my time doing research on your behalf just because you want me to? It's common knowledge that a number of large American contractors have benefited from work that came to them as a result of the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's big business, and it's lucrative. Politicians reward their best friends in business when such situations occur and such opportunities arise. That isn't just true in the USA, it's true everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 06:07 AM

Ah, OK Little Hawk the penny has suddenly dropped. The rules here appear to be that you can make any outrageous, populist, "right-on-statement" or reference and it must be accepted as truth without question, while anyone making any sort of counter case has to explain the alpha to omega of it - Bullshit. You come out with crap such as you have done then be fully prepared to defend it.

Private security companies working in Iraq Little Hawk, go and you look it up I think you will find that the US companies were not by any stretch of the imagination the largest operating there. Halliburton, your other example, only worked for the US Government under the terms of a five year frame agreement contract with the Pentagon that they won by process of competitive tender in October 1998, doubt that?? Then ask Waxman and Drexler.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: gnu
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 02:50 PM

Hmmm?

I wonder if the good general will billet "on the economy"?

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 08:01 PM

...the only place in Iraq pre-2003 invasion that had a 24 hour power supply was wherever Saddam Hussein happened to be at that time.

I don't think have ever seen any mention of this alleged fact in any coverage of the Iraq invasion. That does not necessarily mean it is untrue. So what is the evidence for this allegation, which on the face of it does not seem too plausible?

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: akenaton
Date: 13 Dec 09 - 08:07 PM

"Another facet of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, infrastructure targets such as power stations, water treatment facilities were deliberately left alone, why destroy something that you know full well that you are going to need immediately on cessation of military operations."

Oh yes......like an Army and police force!

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 14 Dec 09 - 03:38 PM

The best way to stop your neighbour from wanting to come round and punch you on the nose is to keep said nose out of his business, and look after your own property.


Ditto for nations. There would be no reason for terrorist attacks if we minded our own potato patch, and left theirs alone.

This would free our armies to do what they are meant to do.....look after our borders, and we could indulge in peaceful trade with the rest of the world.

Then there wouldn't be anything to fear.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 02:24 AM

"The best way to stop your neighbour from wanting to come round and punch you on the nose is to keep said nose out of his business, and look after your own property."

Tell that to:

Al-Qaeda
Hezbollah
Hamas
etc
etc
etc

All famous for keeping their noses out of other peoples business

As for: "Ditto for nations. There would be no reason for terrorist attacks if we minded our own potato patch, and left theirs alone."

The Al-Qaeda attack of 1993 was prompted by what instance where the US was trampling about in Al-Qaeda's potato patch (as if they ever had one to begin with)?

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 12:18 PM

Here we go Kevin (MGOH)

Teribus: "...the only place in Iraq pre-2003 invasion that had a 24 hour power supply was wherever Saddam Hussein happened to be at that time.

MGOH: "I don't think have ever seen any mention of this alleged fact in any coverage of the Iraq invasion. That does not necessarily mean it is untrue. So what is the evidence for this allegation, which on the face of it does not seem too plausible?

Source: Middle East Economic Survey, VOL. XLVIII, No 1, 3-January-2005

Author: Isam Al Khalisi

"Electricity As Political Tool"

Centrally-generated and centrally-managed electricity in Iraq was used and abused, like other apparatus in a regime accountable only to itself.

In the 1980s contracts for new power plants were awarded, some times unnecessarily, but for vested interests. By 1991, Iraq's installed electricity generating capacity was more than twice the load demand at the time.

Between 1991 and 2003, when the country was under electricity rationing, electricity was used as a political tool to reward or punish sectors of the population.

It was quite common for large sectors of the country to suffer longer blackout periods than scheduled when the bulk of the electricity supply was directed to a single town or a favored region.

Areas where party officials lived were assured of uninterrupted electricity supply, while other areas were plunged into darkness."

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Dec 09 - 01:41 PM

That sounds to me like 24 hour power supply normally, but with some power cuts. Takes me back to my childhood in London after the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 01:48 PM

""As for: "Ditto for nations. There would be no reason for terrorist attacks if we minded our own potato patch, and left theirs alone."

The Al-Qaeda attack of 1993 was prompted by what instance where the US was trampling about in Al-Qaeda's potato patch (as if they ever had one to begin with)?""

Bad choice Teribus!

That question was answered for me by the planner of the attack.

Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to 'Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion'. These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries' interior affairs." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. In his letters Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but that this was justified because "the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one."

No mention of Al-Qaeda there, either.

Seems that you need a little more diligence in researching your responses, mate.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 03:24 PM

"Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to 'Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion'. These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries' interior affairs." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met."

So let me get this straight Don T. You would like to see international relations set by:

(Fill any name you wish, any Joe Soap off the street)mailed letters to various (Fill in the name of any target city) newspapers just before the attack, in which (XXXXX) claimed (XXXXX) belonged to (Fill in WTF Army, Fifth Battalion Any UNHEARD OF OUTFIT IN THE WORLD). These letters made (HOWEVER MANY RIDICULOUS DEMANDS THAT YOU WANT TO MAKE)

And you advocate caving in to that crap???? Are you bloody serious???

The Koran stipulates that you cannot attack or kill innocents, women and children, non-combatants right?? Now go and look up the rules under which such attacks and such victims are fair game - one of them involves - Guess What - WARNINGS.

What was that you were saying about research??

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 03:43 PM

And Jesus says "Turn the other cheek". Somehow, whatever our religion, we seem able to get round that kind of stuff when it suits us.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 04:27 PM

I think its high time that people stopped taking what are rights of the person, or the rights of the individual and applying them to states or nations through their Governments.

Once people organise themselves into states and nations the principle of the the greatest good for the greatest number comes into play, as does tolerance and understanding, but not to the detriment of the majority. One of the first responsibilities of any Government is to protect its citizens, when threatened "turning the other cheek" is not going to save your citizens from dying, so at that point Christian or not that is when that concept goes out the window.

You do whatever it is that you want to do if somebody threatens to physically hurt you or yours. You can turn as many cheeks as you want MGOH, as an individual you have that right. As far as I am concerned I'll see the bastard in a box before I let him hurt me or mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 09 - 06:14 PM

You do whatever it is that you want to do if somebody threatens to physically hurt you or yours. And that is precisely how suicide bombers are liable to see it as well. No point talking as if there was some enormous moral gulf between the people doing the killing and the dying on both sides.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 02:24 AM

Now at what point in time MGOH did UNAMA threaten to harm anyone in Afghanistan?

As for: "No point talking as if there was some enormous moral gulf between the people doing the killing and the dying on both sides."

What colour is the sky on your planet Kevin?

Tell me when PGF in Afghanistan have used the civilian population as human shields?

Tell me when PGF in Afghanistan have mined areas period, let alone mine areas where they know the local civilian populations will work or walk?

Tell me when PGF in Afghanistan deliberately and knowingly target civilians?

Tell me if the Taleban have rules of engagement?

Two-thirds of all civilians killed in Afghanistan are killed by the Taliban. If the Taliban stopped fighting tomorrow there would be no deaths in Afghanistan because the conflict would end.

They are not "freedom fighters" fighting to free their country from a foreign invader. They are a bunch of thugs looking for a pay day that they previously took at the point of a gun and then lost.

Disagree with you Kevin in Afghanistan there is a whale of a "moral gulf between the people doing the killing and the dying on both sides".

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 08:37 AM

The Russians would have argued in very similar terms during their Afghan adventure.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 11:07 AM

On the contrary MGOH the first thing the Soviets did on arrival was murder Hafizullah Amin the "communist" leader of the Marxist PDPA, they thought was being too friendly with Pakistan and the Peoples Republic of Chinese, he was replaced by the Soviets preferred man Babrak Karmal. This attack and execution was undertaken by 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB and GRU special force officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, on the evening of the 27th December, 1979.

Now back to my question MGOH - At what point in time did UNAMA threaten to harm anyone in Afghanistan?

The answer MGOH is NEVER, now why not just admit it.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 02:06 PM

I'm sure the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan has never threatened to harm anyone in Afghanistan. However inevitably they will be seen as part of a regime established on the back of a foreign occupying army. Nothing fair about that, but fairness doesn't come into these kinds of things.

The consensus of opinion among the official advocates of the war appears to be that the best realistic option for Afghanistan is that significant elements of the "Taliban" forces can be turned and incorporated into a viable regime.

(As for Hafizullah Amin, it's relevant to note that he is believed to have murdered his predecessor, President Tariki, in the course of an extremely bloody coup a few weeks previously. It seems that nobody in power has clean hands in Afghanistan, then or now.)

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 02:19 PM

You'll enjoy this...

SURGING INTO DISASTER
NEW YORK December 07, 2009

President Barack Obama has missed two sterling opportunities to wind down the ugly Afghan morass he inherited from George W. Bush.

First, Obama could have hit the pause button on the war when he first took office.   A thorough evaluation should have been done at that time.

Second, during all the heavy duty strategy meetings over Afghanistan this November. The new president could have announced a cease-fire in the war or sharp reduction of military operations, then called for genuine peace talks under Saudi aegis with Taliban and its nationalist allies.

Instead of a sensible pause, Obama's made the tragic decision last week to enlarge and prolong the eight-year war in Afghanistan.      

The ugly, messy conflict Obama inherited from George W. Bush now fully belongs to the "peace president" and his unhappy party.

President Obama faced a choice between guns – $1 trillion for the next decade of warfare in Afghanistan – or butter – his $1 trillion national health plan.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate chose guns.

What Obama should really have been concerned with was Osama bin Laden's vow to first bleed the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, then break America's domination of the Muslim world by luring it into a final battle in Pakistan, a nation of 175 million, 90% of whom see the United States as their country's primary enemy.

The president also heard alarms from his field commanders and CIA that Taliban and its allies were taking control of much of Afghanistan and threatening the big cities. As US Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned, the mighty US even faced defeat at the hands of lightly armed mountain tribesmen – the same humiliating fate that befell the Soviet Union and led to the collapse of its empire.

So, as expected, Obama will rush 30,000 new troops into the Afghan quagmire, and arm-twist reluctant NATO allies to contribute 10,000 more mostly token forces.      

Obama, with his eye on the Afghan War's growing unpopularity among Americans, confusingly promised some of the 105,000 US garrison there will begin withdrawing in 2011. But Obama's aides almost immediately began backtracking on this pledge, which made no military sense at all.

Senator John McCain and fellow Republican hawks had a field day shredding Obama's foolish proposal.

Many Afghans, however, listened and concluded that the US, like the Soviets, would one day decamp. Those Afghans working for the US will quickly begin hedging their bets by making discreet side deals with Taliban, as I saw them do with the mujahidin during the Soviet era.         

The president insisted his objective remains destroying al-Qaida. But al-Qaida hardly exists in Afghanistan. Only a handful remain in Pakistan, likely no more than a dozen men.
President Obama's insincerity on this issue is very disturbing, undermining his reputation for veracity and clear thinking.

There is also concern that when Obama targets al-Qaida, his real target may be Pakistan. Pakistanis sourly joke that the US long ago killed Osama bin Laden and is keeping his spectral image alive to justify occupying Afghanistan.

Obama's new military plan mirrors the Bush administration's Iraq `surge' that candidate Obama sharply criticized. US Marines may even go and crush rebellious Kandahar the way Iraq's Fallujah was laid waste.   

The Soviets also tried the same surge tactic in the mid 1980's during their Afghan occupation. When that failed, Moscow decided to pull back its over-extended 160,000 troops to defend Afghanistan's major cities and main roads from Afghan "terrorists."

That strategy also failed miserably, as did a similar effort by the French in the Red River Delta during the first Indochina War. Now the US is trying the same thing.   

Anyone who understands Afghanistan's deep complexities knows that Obama's surge won't win the eight year war. Afghanistan's 15-million strong Pashtun tribal majority will continue to resist western occupation. Waging colonial wars of pacification against resident populations has proven futile time after time.

At best, it will be an exercise in managing a failed policy.   

Americans are turning against the war. Congress is fretting over its mounting costs: US $300 billion for 2009 in a $1.4 trillion deficit year. This war is being waged on money borrowed from China.

Some Democrats are rightly calling for a special war tax on all Americans rather than continuing to conceal the war's huge expenses on the national credit card.

It costs US $1 million to keep each American soldier in Afghanistan. Renting Pakistan's assistance will cost $3 billion per year (overt and black payments combined). Thousands of US troops will remain stuck in Iraq where the underground Ba'ath Party is showing signs of life.

President Obama vowed at West Point to fight al-Qaida (read: anti-American groups) in Africa and Asia.   No wonder many angry, betrayed Democrats are calling him "George Bush's third term."

The most positive interpretation of President Obama's
"surge" is that it is a face-saving exercise to cover America's retreat from the Afghan morass.

The key to US strategy is cobbling together a large Afghan army and police led by the US military – the modern version of the British Raj's native troops under white officers. The Soviets also tried to build a 260,000-man Afghan Communist army, but failed. The US will be no more successful because its Afghan forces are mostly minority Tajik and Uzbek who are hated by the majority Pashtun. This was also the case during the Soviet occupation.

Efforts will be made to sanitize the corrupt Karzai government and its mafia-like warlords. This, too, will fail, But Obama's hope is that he can declare victory by 2011. This would allow substantial US troop reductions before the next mid-term and presidential elections – if all goes well.

But things are not going well in Pakistan, without whose cooperation, bases, and supply routes the US cannot wage war in Afghanistan. The US-backed Pakistani government of Asif Ali Zardari is awash with corruption charges, condemned by the public as a puppet regime, and may soon be ousted by Pakistan's military.

Most Pakistanis support Taliban, see US occupation of Afghanistan as driven by lust for oil and gas, and increasingly fear the US intends to tear their unstable nation apart in order to seize its nuclear arsenal.   

CIA-funded assassination teams have joined Predator drones in killing Pakistanis judged hostile to US interests. Increasing numbers of Pakistanis believe their nation is actually under US occupation.

Obama's advisors have convinced him an early US withdrawal from Afghanistan will provoke chaos in Pakistan. They don't understand that it is the US-led war in Afghanistan that is destabilizing Pakistan and creating ever more anti-western extremism. Forcing Pakistan to adopt policies inimical to its national interests that are detested by its public risk producing an Iranian-style revolution or coup by nationalist officers.

The longer US forces wage war in Afghanistan, the more the conflict will spread into Pakistan, where 15% of its people, and 20% or more of its military and intelligence service are Pashtuns who sympathize with their beleaguered fellow Taliban Pashtuns in Afghanistan.

A grimmer view is that Obama has fallen under the influence of conservative military-financial interests, and Washington's rabid neocons who seek permanent war against the Muslim world.

This week, Gen. James Jones, the president's national security advisor, asserted, "We have strategic interests in South Asia that should not be measured in terms of finite times." In short, the American Raj will continue to dominate Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama's "surge" may only expand, intensify, and prolong the Afghan conflict. It may also ruin the presidency of a man so many Americans looked to as a savior and inspiration.



copyright Eric S. Margolis 2009

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 03:10 PM

"The new president (I take it that he is referring to Barack Hussein Obama, not Hamid Karzai) could have announced a cease-fire in the war or sharp reduction of military operations, then called for genuine peace talks under Saudi aegis with Taliban and its nationalist allies."

Couple of points that surely an "expert" like Margolis must appreciate:

1. First and foremost it is not for the President of The United States of America to call the shots in Afghanistan, it is up to the President and Government of Afghanistan to do that.

2. Having announced his unilateral cease-fire I note that Eric Margolis does not explain or give any reason exactly why the Taleban would go along with it.

3. Once again peace talks and the calling of them have got nothing whatsoever to do with the office of the President of the United States of America.

4. The "Taliban and its nationalist allies" What nationalist allies?

"The president also heard alarms from his field commanders and CIA that Taliban and its allies were taking control of much of Afghanistan and threatening the big cities."

No Eric, you've got that wrong, the CIA and his field commanders were telling him that that is what would surely happen if he listened to that f***in' idiot Joe Biden's advice. Wisely he heeded what McChrystal had to say.

Interesting to know that this clown thinks that US Foreign policy should be dictated by Osama bin Laden's "Vows".

Obama's handling of the whole thing was woeful all he succeeded in doing in taking the time he did was to give aid and comfort to the enemy throughout the tail end of their fighting season. If Obama hadn't been shredded for that by the opposition in US politics then he should have been.

"Afghanistan's 15-million strong Pashtun tribal majority will continue to resist western occupation."

Demographics of Afghanistan:
- Pashtun 42%;
- Tajik 27%;
- Hazara 9%;
- Uzbek 9%;
- Aimak 4%;
- Turkmen 3%
- Baloch 2%;
- other 4%.

Latest population figures for Afghanistan put the population at 28.5 million. Some points for Mr. Margolis to chew over:

1. While 42% might be the largest of a number of minority groups 42% in no way constitutes any sort of majority.

2. 42% of 28.5 million does not equate to a Pashtun population of 15 million it works out at just under 12 million of whom only 1 in 10 actually support the Taleban. Twice as many Pashtun Afghans support Karzai as suport the Taliban.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 03:23 PM

""So let me get this straight Don T. You would like to see international relations set by:

(Fill any name you wish, any Joe Soap off the street)mailed letters to various (Fill in the name of any target city) newspapers just before the attack, in which (XXXXX) claimed (XXXXX) belonged to (Fill in WTF Army, Fifth Battalion Any UNHEARD OF OUTFIT IN THE WORLD). These letters made (HOWEVER MANY RIDICULOUS DEMANDS THAT YOU WANT TO MAKE)""

Don't be more of a stupid a**ehole than usual T. You know damn fine that's not what I'm saying.

You asked what interference in Middle East affairs had led to the specific attack in the USA, and I supplied you with your answer, straight from the horse's mouth....."That's why we done it guv"

Now find something sensible to say about why the USA feels qualified to police the rest of the world, or better yet, just shut up.

I apologise for the strong language, to everyone except the latest exponent of the "twist it and rubbish it Brigade".

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 07:09 PM

And the latest from Eric Margolis:

THE BIG CHILL IN OSLO
December 14, 2009

I guess President Barack Obama has never read Benjamin Franklin's maxim, "there never was a good war, or a bad peace."
Obama's speech in Oslo proclaiming Afghanistan a "good" war and trying to justify US global military operations echoes to America's detriment around Europe and, more important, the Muslim world.

The president's address dismayed many who foolishly hoped the "anti-war" president might curb or even end his wars because of a highly politicized and leftish Swedish award. Not so. America's military-industrial-financial juggernaut continues to roll on.   

But what could Obama do? Unwilling to turn down the award he did not solicit, the president had to turn up in Oslo and accept a peace prize as he was widening and deepening the Afghanistan war. In retrospect, he probably should have turned the prize down, saying, as he did at Oslo, that he has not yet done enough to merit such an award.

Instead, President Obama delivered an oration that at times sounded as if it had been lifted from George Orwell's prescient novel, "1984."

War is peace, explained the president. Conflict, he asserted, had to be relentlessly waged by the west ("Oceana" to Orwell, the union of the United States and Britain) in the Muslim world (Orwell called it "Eurasia") until the dire threat of al-Qaida is eliminated. Of course, the threat never ends and low-grade war becomes permanent, justifying dictatorship and endless arms contracts for industry.

Al-Qaida barely exists as an organization, though its philosophy of driving the US from the Muslim world continues to motivate a scattering of tiny, anti-American groups in Asia and Africa who are a minor, if occasionally spectacular, nuisance rather than a major threat.

So here was a major untruth from the president who had vowed to tell Americans the true after eight years of lies and prevarications from the previous administration.

The "New York Times," an ardent liberal backer of wars in the Muslim world, arrogantly editorialized on 14 December that Europe was delinquent in supporting the Afghan War. The "Times" hectored Europe's leaders to "educate" their citizens in the need for war in Afghanistan. But the problem is that Europeans are too well educated. A majority see Afghanistan as a traditional colonial war being waged for energy resources and imperial strategy in which their continent has no business at all.   

The political big chill that came from Oslo left many Americans and Europeans wondering just who was really in charge of US foreign policy. Readers of George Orwell might suspect that real power in Washington is wielded by the same kind of hidden oligarchy he described in "1984" that conjured fear of foreigners and drove permanent war policy.

Could the former civil rights worker from Chicago's roughest section really be speaking with the same voice as Wall Street's money barons, pro-war neocons, and the military-industrial complex about which the foresighted President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation?   What happened to the man only lately denounced by Republicans as a "socialist" and "appeaser?"

Are Americans victims of a presidential bait and switch? Obama is maintaining or advancing so many of Bush's hard right domestic and foreign policies that one indeed wonders of we are seeing Bush's third term.   

If President Obama ended the futile, eight-year war in Afghanistan against Pashtun tribesmen, he would of course face Republican charges of defeatism, appeasement and "losing Afghanistan." Republicans are already battering him with spurious claims of "their" victory in Iraq thanks to the "surge" advocated by Senator John McCain.   American soldiers and Afghan civilians will pay the price for this lack of political courage in Washington – to say nothing of US relations with the Muslim world which sees Afghanistan as a martyr nation ravaged by western forces.

Adding to this miasma of untruth, the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, just proclaimed that the US had "won" the war in Iraq, and was now about to work the same military magic in Afghanistan. The notion of a US victory in Iraq has become common currency in Washington and the media, justifying another "surge' in Afghanistan.

To quote the great Roman historian Tactius, "they make a desert, and call it peace."   Such is the US supposed US victory in Iraq that now looms over Afghanistan. Let's look at this Carthaginian Peace:

*Iraq effectively sundered into three de facto independent parts: a Shia region; Sunni region; and Kurdistan. The US vowed never to do this – but did, turning it into a weak, obedient Petrolistan.   

*The world's biggest refugee problem. Four million Iraq refugees created during the US occupation. Two million in neighboring Arab nations; two million internal refugees, victims of ethnic cleansing.   Massive flight of intellectuals and trained personnel. Over 2,300 Iraqi doctors murdered.   

*After rightly bombing Serbia to stop its attempted genocide against Balkan Muslims, the US closed its eyes to massive atrocities and ethnic cleansing of Sunni civilians committed by Shia death squads, run by the US-installed Shia regime.   

*Iraq is now in worse shape then it was before the US invasion, terrorized by criminal gangs, death squads and local warlords. What was in 2000 the Arab world's most advanced nation in terms of education, technology, public health and industry, today lies in ruins.   Its rich oil field are about to be exploited by foreign firms, many from the US and Britain.   

No one knows how many Iraqis have been killed or maimed. Estimates run from 100,000 to one million. What is a known, to use Rummy's delightful phrase, is that the Iraq War has cost the US $1 trillion to date. Important numbers of US troops and tens of thousands of US-paid mercenaries look likely to remain in Iraq for many years on "training" and oilfield protection missions.

Such is Gen. Chrystal and Sen. John McCain's "victory." This is what awaits Afghanistan in President Obama's version of a "good" war.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2009

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 07:39 PM

200

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 17 Dec 09 - 09:18 PM

Well done Leadfingers onthe 200

Little Hawk I could not be less disinterested in what Eric S Margolis Has to say than if he was expounding on horticulture. In short the man is a fuckin' idiot.

This one I found amazing:

"Now find something sensible to say about why the USA feels qualified to police the rest of the world, or better yet, just shut up."

Now as a UK resident and being of a certain age Don(Wyziwyg)T, I find that one very easy to answer:

BECAUSE THEY FUCKING WELL PAID FOR IT. OUR LAST 64 YEARS OF PEACE HAVE BEEN HAVE BEEN ENJOYED BECAUSE GOOD OLD UNCLE SAM HAVE UNDERWRITTEN IT - DONT'T YOU FUCKING WELL FORGET IT

If you doubt any of that please feel free please to enlighten me you fucking ungrateful bastard.

I apologise for the strong language, to everyone except the the twat that over the last 64 years has not realised which end is up.

Don T go fuck yourself.

Subject: RE: BS: Afghan War mistake or wise
From: Teribus
Date: 18 Dec 09 - 04:14 AM

Oh by the bye Don T. The real reason Osama bin Laden is pissed off at both the Governments of his native Saudi Arabia and the United States of America has got bugger all to do with Israel or the Palestinians - That is merely the excuse he feeds the dupes he gets to do his bidding, Osama bin Laden like most Arabs couldn't give a toss about the Palestinians. But there again it seems that you need to apply a little more diligence in your research, mate.