Why We're In Afghanistan

Finally Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made it clear why the U.S. is in Afghanistan. He was giving testimony to Congress as a follow up to Obama's order to send an additional 30,000 troops into the meat grinder . He said, " The U. S. must win in Afghanistan because the Taliban defeated the Soviet Union. They were the only other super power at the time some 20 years ago and if they [Taliban] defeat the United States now then they will win a great symbolic victory and become unstopable."

Consider that the old USSR was defeated because it was in a country that it shouldn't have been. Also the U.S. helped the Taliban defeat the Russians. Now we have traded postions with the Russians and the British before them and Ghengis Khan before them and Alexander The Great before them. The take away lesson is that empires don't work for long. In the end they have to go home. But people like Gates and Obama and all the criminals before who indulge in empire building get paid too much for mischief and more importantly never appear at the front lines to catch bullets.

And if the Taliban want to be foolish also then will be made to look like fools also if they show up in the U.S. For now the American effort in Afghanistan has only created more blowback to the foreign invaders.

Peace Negotiations Between Taliban, U.S. & Afghanistan

Last week representatives of the Taliban, U.S. and Afghani tribes had a round table discussion about the merits of a Taliban rule or a U.S. democracy as a government model for Afghanistan. Both the Taliban and the U.S. were trying to sell the Afghani rep on their own paradigm.

U.S. Rep. : Mr Afghani we want a democracy in Afghanistan.

Afghani Rep. : What will democracy bring and what will it cost me?

U.S. Rep. : First, we will stop bombing you. Second , democracy will bring law and order because we will send our lawyers to train your new lawyers. Thirdly we will show you how to share your wealth with people who don't work as hard as you do. The cost will be about 30% of your present daily income in cash to achieve both goals.

Afghani Rep. : I don't have cash. Can fruits and vegetables and my personal service be used in place of cash?

U.S. Rep. : No a democracy needs cash. We need the illusion of wealth and something that can be put in a sack in case the lawyers and pols have to leave town quickly and start a new democracy somewhere else.

Afghani Rep. : So I give real produce and get worthless paper in return.

Afghani Rep. : Mr. Taliban Rep. What do you want?

Taliban Rep. : All we ask is for you to let your hair grow, don't educate your women and for this we will cut you in on our drug business profits that lives off of the disenchantment of voters in democracies around the world.

Afghani Rep. : Where do I sign?

Afghanistan War : Consider The Inconvenient Truth

Bush, Cheney, the American Enterprise Institute, NATO and assorted empty-headed but full of hot air politicians around the globe all give lip service to the importance of winning the Afghanistan War. But the glaring fact is there are only 40,000 NATO troops battling a resurgent Taliban and many Afghanis who have taken up arms against NATO because of the many deaths of innocent civilians. To put that 40,000 number in perspective, there are app. 36,000 police in New York City.

We should leave Afghanistan. The app. 31,000,000 that live there had nothing to do with the 9/11 event save a relative tiny few. The country has become a feeding frenzy of military-industrial projects that are only a pretense to enrich a very few. We should be spending the money on our own infrastructure.

Anyone For Afghanistan?

Poor Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, on Sunday he remarked in Munich, Germany about the NATO alliance, " We must not -we cannot-become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not." He was speaking about the blowback of NATO allies to commit more troops and expand the mission to what may be an eternal war in Afghanistan.

Well, fight for what? Fight for how long? Who are we fighting? Afghanies or Taliban or al-qaeda don't wear uniforms and even so we can't tell when NATO drops bombs from fast moving jets . So the enevitable civilian casualties bear the bulk of the deaths and displacement. It's the more sane contingent of the NATO alliance that balks from further devestation of a country that didn't have much to begin with but now suffers with even less while they are getting blown up at the same time.

There was a rhetorical question asked by the antiwar activists in the 1960s. They asked," Suppose someone gave a war and nobody came?"