We do know that President Obama had to backpedal a bit when he announced his timeline. How better to influence public opinion than to discredit the effort?
U.S. Military Intelligence Puts Focus on Afghan Graft
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: June 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — The military’s intelligence network in Afghanistan, designed for identifying and tracking terrorists and insurgents, is increasingly focused on uncovering corruption that is rampant across Afghanistan’s government, security forces and contractors, according to senior American officials.
Military intelligence officers in Afghanistan are scouring seized documents and interrogating captured fighters and facilitators — but not just to learn about insurgent networks that plan attacks, plant roadside explosives and send out suicide bombers.
They are also looking for insights on how to combat a widespread perversion of authority by Afghan power brokers, which senior officials describe as “a plague” on the American-backed effort to build an effective and competent government and win the support of the Afghan people. Read More
We have about a year before the troop drawdown begins...does that give us enough time to affect change or does this information come to light for another reason?
And from the BBC today comes a story which is not news to closer observers of South Asia.
Pakistani agents 'funding and training Afghan Taliban'
Pakistani intelligence gives funding, training and sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban on a scale much larger than previously thought, a report says.
Taliban field commanders interviewed for the report suggested that ISI intelligence agents even attend Taliban supreme council meetings.
Support for the Afghan Taliban was "official ISI policy", the London School of Economics (LSE) authors suggest.
Pakistan's military denied the claims.
A spokesman said the allegations were "rubbish" and part of a malicious campaign against the country's military and security agencies.
The LSE report comes at the end of one of the deadliest weeks for Nato troops in Afghanistan, with more than 30 soldiers killed.
'Double game'
Links between the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence service have long been suspected, but the report's author - Harvard analyst Matt Waldman - says there is real evidence of extensive co-operation between the two.
"This goes far beyond just limited, or occasional support," he said. "This is very significant levels of support being provided by the ISI.
"We're also saying this is official policy of that agency, and we're saying that it is very extensive. It is both at an operational level, and at a strategic level, right at the senior leadership of the Taliban movement." Read more
Deleting this from previous thread:
ReplyDeleteOne Myth, Many Pakistans
By ALI SETHI
FOR many Pakistanis, the deaths of more than 80 members of the Ahmadi religious sect in mosque attacks two weeks ago raised questions of the nation’s future. For me, it recalled a command from my schoolboy past:
“Write a Note on the Two-Nation Theory.”
It was a way of scoring easy points on the history exam, and of using new emotions and impressive-sounding words.
I began my answer like this:
---
After the exam I would go home. Here the Two-Nation Theory fell apart. I was part-Shiite (my mother’s family), part-Sunni (my father’s family) and part-nothing (neither of my parents was sectarian). There were other things: the dark-skinned man who swabbed the floors of the house was a Christian; the jovial, foul-mouthed, red-haired old woman who visited my grandmother every few months was rumored to be an Ahmadi. (It was a small group, I had been told, that considered itself Muslim but had been outlawed by the government.)
But even more than these visible religious variations, I was more aware of things like caste and money: my mother’s family was upper caste, claiming a magical blood bond with the Prophet Muhammad, and owned large tracts of land in the countryside. My father’s relatives, however, were undisguised converts from Hinduism who had fled their villages long ago and now lived in the city, where they were always running out of money, working in government offices and selling homemade furniture and gambling (and losing) on the stock market.
The Two-Nation Theory allowed only for the simple categories of Hindu and Muslim, one for India and the other for Pakistan; it had no room for inner complications like Shiite and Sunni and Christian and Ahmadi. (I had yet to learn that more than a million Hindus still lived in Pakistan.) It also required the abolition of magical blood claims and landholdings and stock markets, so that our personalities and situations could be determined purely by our religious beliefs.
But I knew that things weren’t really like that. And this was something I knew from the beginning, and lived with quite comfortably: the history in my textbook was Distinct and Separate from the histories of real people.
Some years later, in a secluded college library in Massachusetts, I read a very different account of the Two-Nation Theory. Here I learned that it was devised in the 1930s by a group of desperate Muslim politicians who wanted to extract some constitutional concessions from the British before they left India.
Radical Islam is on the march:
ReplyDelete94 Ahmadies massacred
We can retreat from SW Asia but we can hide from the consequences. We can watch as Turkey takes up the Palestinian banner and Irans goes nuclear but we cannot say that we thought that our leaving would bring about peace.
These psychopaths will only be emboldened.
YouTube - May 2 Attack in Lahore
ReplyDeleteWe can retreat from SW Asia but we can not hide from the consequences.
ReplyDeleteNY Times is more co-ordinated than the Admin:
ReplyDeleteThe Courage to Leave
There is no good news coming out of the depressing and endless war in Afghanistan. There once was merit to our incursion there, but that was long ago. Now we’re just going through the tragic motions, flailing at this and that, with no real strategy or decent end in sight.
The U.S. doesn’t win wars anymore. We just funnel the stressed and underpaid troops in and out of the combat zones, while all the while showering taxpayer billions on the contractors and giant corporations that view the horrors of war as a heaven-sent bonanza. BP, as we’ve been told repeatedly recently, is one of the largest suppliers of fuel to the wartime U.S. military.
Seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Monday but hardly anyone noticed. Far more concern is being expressed for the wildlife threatened by the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico than for the G.I.’s being blown up in the wilds of Afghanistan.
Early this year, we were told that at long last the tide had turned in Afghanistan, that the biggest offensive of the war by American, British and Afghan troops was under way in Marja, a town in Helmand Province in the southern part of the country. The goal, as outlined by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, our senior military commander in Afghanistan, was to rout the Taliban and install a splendid new government that would be responsive to the people and beloved by them.
That triumph would soon be followed by another military initiative in the much larger expanse of neighboring Kandahar Province. The Times’s Rod Nordland explained what was supposed to happen in a front-page article this week:
“The goal that American planners originally outlined — often in briefings in which reporters agreed not to quote officials by name — emphasized the importance of a military offensive devised to bring all of the populous and Taliban-dominated south under effective control by the end of this summer. That would leave another year to consolidate gains before President Obama’s July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing combat troops.”
Forget about it. Commanders can’t even point to a clear-cut success in Marja. As for Kandahar, no one will even use the word “offensive” to describe the military operations there. The talk now is of moving ahead with civilian reconstruction projects, a “civilian surge,” as Mr. Nordland noted.
What’s happening in Afghanistan is not only tragic, it’s embarrassing.
From my first link, which is from Lahore:
ReplyDeleteWas he taught about the Ahmadis in the mountains of Waziristan, where the police say he trained for his mission? Did he witness an American drone attack there? Did he think it was carried out by Ahmadis? Was it confirmed for him by a popular talk show host that the Ahmadis were America’s agents in Pakistan? And, in Waziristan, was he trained by the good Taliban, the ones the Pakistani military is trying to protect, or the bad Taliban, the ones it is trying to kill?
Or was he told about the Ahmadis after he had come all the way to the vast, grassy compound on the outskirts of Lahore where doctors and professors and businessmen — and even, it is said, some bureaucrats and landowners and military men — converge now and then to hang out with the masses and talk about the ways and woes of Islam?
This smacks of a bit of pro administration PR and propaganda:
ReplyDeleteObama stand on oil spill is tough and temperate
It's also on the front page of my local left-leaning rag.
The death cult is killing people by the hundreds of thousands. Starting in its heartland, the middle east and emanating throughout the Islamic world, it has sought to cleanse itself of Kafirs and infidels. In my lifetime, most of the cultural and economic gains made in places like Lebanon, North Africa, the west bank and even Pakistan and Afghanistan have been rolled back. Ethnic and religious minorities have been driven out as the more virulent brand of Islam has once again raised it's ugly head.
ReplyDeleteFor much of the last 50 years, Saudi Arabia was the benefactor and source of Sunni side of the cancer. Iran after the Shaw oversees the Shia horrors. Now, the Sauds, fearing the Shia, have moved off stage to let Turkey take up the mantle.
This is not over yet.
I'm not advocating that we stay in Afghanistan or Iraq, I'm just saying the consequences of leaving will be very ugly.
ReplyDeleteTurkey has been rebuffed by the EU and the fundamentalists there seek to move the country closer to it's Islamic identification. They are moving the country back to the Ottoman era and away from Attaturk. This could have a positive impact but at this point, I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteTurkey is joining the rest of the Muzzies creating Hell on Earth.
ReplyDelete25. Charles
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Times online the Paki ISI not only supports the Taliban, they have seven agents on the 15 man Quetta Shura council.
Obama wants us to leave w/our tail between our legs.
ReplyDeleteHe wants to humliate us
it's really simple
But the outcome will not be ugly for US, whit, but for them, the residents of "over there". They are not part of US, nor any part our responsibility to protect.
ReplyDeleteThe leaders and many of the operatives of the 11SEP01 raid on DC and NYCity were known and under observation by US Law Enforcement agencies.
We knew they were amongst US and did not care. It is a story that we do not need to rehash, but underscores the point that border, immigration and enforcement of those laws and regulations would have stopped the 11SEP01 raids.
Even before there was 'heightened' sense of security.
As to the ISI running the Taliban, that is old, old news.
Nothing there, you could have read that, here at the Elephant Bar, any number of times since it opened, move along now. For your own good, not much to see there, but US paying tribute of over $10 BILLION USD to those that supplied the infrastructure for those 11SEP01 raids.
They must have seen "The Mouse that Roared", that Peter Sellers, a real genius.
I'm not advocating that we stay in Afghanistan or Iraq, I'm just saying the consequences of leaving will be very ugly.
ReplyDeleteI think I can agree that the Middle East is ugly. Our staying or leaving will on the margin affect the ugliness to a limited degree for a limited amount of time.
Mankind when less enlightened, but more in tune with our biological heritage used several methods when it came to irreconcilable cultures or religions.
-Killing all the males of a certain age was effective when women were chattel.
-Killing everybody, destroying their cities and cultures.
-Killing all the religious leaders of the opposition, forced conversion and killing the faithful.
All of these methods were effective for a certain amount of time, but required second, third and more rounds of repression and killing.
The problem for the world is that the religions in the Middle East, all of them, make claims for exclusiveness and base the claims on a special relationship with some god or a deity that goes back to some historic myth or event.
Without the killing, the religions could adopt a live and let live, laissez faire attitude to religious belief.
The problem with the Middle East is that the religions are not satisfied with religious integrity. They make conflicting uncompromising territorial claims. The claims are based on convenient self serving dates of occupation and settlement.
All of them conveniently overlook the history of humanity which has been a continuous migration to new lands which were either uninhabited or loosely occupied.
Interjecting the argument that some god intervened to send a message that all was good, was convenient to the designated occupants and heresy to those excluded.
The United States has no business picking winners and losers in such an environment, because the United States rejects the only real time proven solution which for better or worse was the Roman system, of killing, domination, colonization and governance.
Get out of Dodge and a A plague o' both your houses!
The Islamoids, they are getting a fabulous return on their "War" investments. Our capitalist society, managed by Federal Socialists, not doing so well, in that regard.
ReplyDeleteSpending over a $Triilion USD in combat operations in the Islamic Arc, in just the past decade, and according to the feelings here, we're falling behind.
Not at all competitive in the "Battle of Ideas".
Perhaps founding Islamic Republics was not a good Strategic idea.
That was a "Plan" destined to enhance the Islamoid culture. It seems to have worked.
It is definitely bi-partisan US policy, though. Brought to US by GW Bush, enhanced and expanded upon by Mr Obama.
It was genius, eliminating secular but repressive regimes to the affect of creating Islamic repressive regimes. Very impressive.
ReplyDeleteMr Obama may want to humiliate the United States, truth of the matter is that George Walker Bush did.
ReplyDeletePublicly committed US to take out Doc Z and Osama:
Dead or Alive"
then sent our "Best and Brightest" after them both.
Failed miserably.
Mr Bush took our eyes off the prize and went to Iraq, instead.
ReplyDeleteWhen you lead a nation of 300 million people, your priorities are to the health welfare and security of the 300 million.
ReplyDeleteWhen attacked, you counter attack and destroy your enemy in such a ruthless manner that they will not forget and if they do, you do it again.
Outside that, you let everyone else alone.
Trade, travel and mind your own business.
Tend to your own family and gardens.
Let people fight their own battles and subsidize none of them.
Mr Bush had no resolve, not when it came to Justice.
ReplyDeleteNot when it came to Law Enforcement
Not when it came to Border Security.
Mr Bush, then, and Mr Obama, now, both well representing the Federal Socialist elites that populate our government.
If our Six Stars cannot turn the tide, in Afghanistan, in two years that they'll have been tasked with that mission, well, the US comes up a military loser, again.
ReplyDeleteWith more guns and planes than anyone else in the whirled, combined. It still is not enough.
Not in a "Battle of Ideas".
Not when we refuse to export oour ideas of Individual Liberty and Responsibility, in favor of "Group Think".
The empowerment of the individual is what has made the United States exceptional.
But that is not the "Idea" that we export or promote.
Nope, we merely go and try to reinforce the "Status Que", using locals of our choosing.
Losing the strategic battle as we do.
Better to come home and cultivate fields of switch grass.
Let people fight their own battles...
ReplyDeleteI agree in principle but we have the examples of the Nazis and the Communists.
I don't know how this latest flareup on radical Islam will play out but given the demographics of Europe (please restrain your guffaws) the worst case scenario will affect the US regardless of whether we are proactive or not.
It's interesting to see how China is operating throughout the world. They concern themselves with business...Who would have thought the Chinese Communists would be less concerned with the working people than the old fashioned business of making money?
ReplyDeleteIsn't it bizarre, the twists and turns of fate and time?
Who's behind this?
ReplyDeleteAP - Kyrgyz mobs burned Uzbek villages, slaughtered their residents and looted police stations Sunday in the worst ethnic rioting this Central Asian nation has seen in 20 years, sending more than 75,000 Uzbek refugees fleeing across the border into Uzbekistan.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, whit, you are employing the same type of static projections used by the CBO.
ReplyDeleteThe Turks will not come to dominate Germany, through immigration or force of arms.
The Algerians will not conquer France, though there'd be a real sense that there was cosmic justice in the whirled, if they did.
As to Turkey and it returning to the Islamic fold...
When the opportunity came, to further integrate Turkey with the "West", the "West" said 'Thanks, but no thanks', to the Turks.
To think that Turkey and its' people, would sit alone in the corner for an extended period of time, unreasonable.
Lead, follow or get out of the way. The "West" would not allow Turkey to join up with them, we did not follow their lead on Iraq. The "West" would not allow Turkey to become a real, full fledged partner in regional and whirled affairs.
So, the Turks are moving to a new strategic position, to where they can become Leaders in their Region and players on the Whirled stage.
As an independent democratic Islamic Republic.
Which is the "Idea" we have been promoting, through Force of Arms all around them.
As an independent democratic Republic.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how that works out.
The Russian Eurotrash, whit, more than likely.
ReplyDeleteIt was, still is, part of their empire. It is their modus operadi.
Create turmoil that eventually calls for military intervention.
MOSCOW – The Kremlin says it won't immediately send Russian troops to Kyrgyzstan, which has asked Moscow for military assistance to help quell ethnic violence.
But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, said Saturday that Russia would offer humanitarian assistance and help evacuate those wounded in rampages that swept Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city of Osh.
Another interesting point:
The Health Ministry said Saturday the death toll has climbed to at least 49, with more than 650 people wounded.
Which does not even compare to the death toll in Nuevo Lorado, Mexico, let alone the rest that country.
Wonder who is behind that turmoil?
The trainers of Los Zetas, perhaps?
That'd have been US.
Or the suppliers of the Mexican Governments' arms and munitions?
That'd have been US, too.
I did modify that, whit.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read it, twice.
As an independent democratic Islamic Republic.
To meet the current US Standard.
...but look how we fought them partner:
ReplyDeleteThe Germans were dragged into the war with US by the Japanese who caught us naked. We fought the Japanese, island by island, destroying them with mass killing and no concern for anything except their complete surrender and when that did not come they died.
We gained the technological edge and had a president with the good judgement and courage to use them and we did so on civilian targets. We punished them. They capitulated and remember the lesson till today.
German cities were bombed indiscriminately and allied civilian casualties were high. The Germans were fortunate to capitulate before we had nukes.
The Communists were tyrants and most of their population were vassals. They were looking to escape from the Reds. They were rational, top down repressive regimes, held together with terror.
The Communist regimes collapsed because we kept pressure on them with military superiority and outperformed them economically.
The oppressed people of eastern Europe threw them out. We did not have to fire a shot.
The Islamists are true believers. They use Israel as a symbol, but their great fear is modernity and change. There are many Israelis who are true believers and many who are secular opportunists.
Israel reminds me of a US Mid West city on a flood plain. It would be far better off being somewhere else, but like that city, Israel has made the decision to stay where they are.
That is their decision, their opportunity and their problem.
If we have a city that gets flooded out every few years, and we have spent billions on insurance, billions on dikes and levies and we still get floods and still keep paying that is our problem. One day we may tell that city to move, or we will keep paying. That is our choice because they are our people.
Israel is a foreign power in a sea of hostility, religious storms, and a rising Islamic flood.
They ultimately will lose, because they neither have the power nor the will to pay the price to win.
That is their choice and their very bad luck. It is not ours. That is reality and how it works everyday in paradise.
Manas, Kyrgyzstan
ReplyDeleteBack to the history of the Russell Company and Skull and Bones, whit.
ReplyDeleteIdaho Observer: The Order of the Skull and Bones
The Skull and Bones story begins at Yale, where three threads of American social history -- espionage, drug smuggling and secret societies -- intertwine into one.
... In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company for the purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China. ...
But then, what does US history have to do with anything, today.
The movers and shakers, of 1823, many of their families still in the Game, 190 years later. Their ideas hold sway, no doubt of that. They created many of the elite universities of the United States to serve that very purpose.
ReplyDeleteOne of Russell and Company's Chief of Operations in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr., grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt. Other Russell partners included John Cleve Green (who financed Princeton), Abiel Low (who financed construction of Columbia), Joseph Coolidge and the Perkins, Sturgis and Forbes families. (Coolidge's son organized the United Fruit company, and his grandson, Archibald C. Coolidge, was a co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations.)
Theirs is a continuity of purpose.
ReplyDeletePower and profit.
Today's Forecast: Sunday, 13 Jun 2010
ReplyDelete100°F
76°F
Sky Conditions: Isolated Thunderstorms
Sunrise: 6:35 AM Sunset: 8:40 PM
Wind: NW (317°) @ 7Mph (11Km, 6Kts)
Precipitation Probability: 30%
View your complete Local Weather »
The family names on the Skull and Bones roster roll off the tongue like an elite party list -- Lord, Whitney, Taft, Jay, Bundy, Harriman, Weyerhaeuser, Pinchot, Rockefeller, Goodyear, Sloane, Stimson, Phelps, Perkins, Pillsbury, Kellogg, Vanderbilt, Bush, Lovett and so on.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Russell went on to become a general and a state legislator in Connecticut. Alphonso Taft was appointed U.S. Attorney General, Secretary of War (a post many "Bonesmen" have held), Ambassador to Austria, and Ambassador to Russia (another post held by many "Bonesmen"). His son, William Howard Taft ('87), is the only man to be both President of the United States and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
IF WE CANNOT AFFORD GOVERNMENT WORKERS- LAY THEM OFF!
ReplyDeleteHow would you like to have a union job, beaucoup benefits and an unlimited supply of federal money, printed, taxed and borrowed to maintain your job? Or would you like to have a no-guarantee job, where you are taxed to pay for the former group?
__________________
President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party
Federal spending has gotten to the point where it's impossible to tell whether it will be paid for with real tax dollars, funny money, inflation or defaulted on.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, to promote a 'certain agenda', you could destroy your economy and make everyone dependent on the Federal dole.
The streets of Chu Lai were full of U.S. Soldiers, and Marines during the day. Buying flip-flops made from tire tread, and mirrors made from hammering budweiser cans together. They spent a lot of money.
ReplyDeleteAt night, the Cong came, and took it away. We financed Both sides of that war.
We're doing the same thing today. Time to quit.
Time to get off oil.
Everyone has known for two decades that the ISI is the parent of the Taliban. In fact, we've all long understood that the Taliban IS, simply, an extension of the Pakistani Intelligence Service.
ReplyDeleteWhat we Don't want to face up to is, "Who finances the ISI?"
We do.
And, the Saudis do.
As Pogo aptly observed, "We have met the enemy, and He is Us."
"How better to influence public opinion than to discredit the effort?"
ReplyDeleteUm, it also discredits the admin, which promised big.
As IO go, it makes no sense.
The fact is, we're not meeting our strategic goals.
The fact is, we're not going to meet them.
Depressing? You betcha.
Wanna know what's more depressing? We may have to get used to it.
Trish, most of us "Got Used To It" years, ago.
ReplyDeleteThe "Common Man" looked at that mess, and knew it could come to no good. Especially those of us that went through "Vietnam." We recognized it for what it was, Immediately.
And said so. Several of us, right here, on this blog.
Um, it also discredits the admin, which promised big.
ReplyDeleteNot with the core constituencies.
This is NOT South Asia specific, mister.
ReplyDeleteSure it is.
ReplyDeleteJust like Vietnam was SE Asia, specific.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it's Afghanistan specific, just like Vietnam was "Vietnam specific."
I don't give a fuck about the core constituency, which would gladly pack it up and have everyone home yesterday.
ReplyDeleteSo would Blue, for that matter.
The exceedingly sad reality that we can't meet our own expectations?
That I care about.
It's a Political con job, Sister.
ReplyDeleteIt benefits Exxon, Shell, and a few politicians. Thas'all.
Only a Fool's "expectations," Trish. Even Bush was smart enough to look at Afghanistan, and know not to get "overcommitted" to that tar baby.
ReplyDelete"Sure it is."
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not. The big picture, rufus, is looking increasingly bad for us.
You think this is all about that "box of rocks."
ReplyDeleteThe "Big Picture" is, actually, looking up for us Trish. We're going to start running out of oil soon; and, as a result, we're going to have to move on - cutting the "Crazies" loose from our pursestrings.
ReplyDeleteWhen our money is gone, they'll have to busy themselves "making a buck," and, not, causing trouble.
We're looking at strategic realignments over the next decade. None of which are beneficial to us.
ReplyDeleteTrish, this is about a silly campaign promise, nothing more.
ReplyDeleteI wrote, right here, that Obama would give McChrystal thirty, or forty thousand troops, and, immediately, announce an impending withdrawal. It was blindingly obvious.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about "Oil," Trish, nothing more. It has been from "Day One."
ReplyDeleteThe Afghani thing was a "Political" necessity. Dubya had to try and kill Osama. When the Military screwed it up at Tora Bora he should have come home; but it was politically expedient to stay awhile, and go through the motions. Big Lashup.
"Trish, this is about a silly campaign promise, nothing more."
ReplyDeleteWhatever.
Good day, rufus.
Somebody's wearing "oil blinders."
ReplyDeleteWell, if you can give me another reason for giving a crap about the middle east have at it.
ReplyDeleteAnd, South Asia? Gimmee a break. We went there to kill Osama. We missed. NOW, why are we there?
ReplyDeleteTo introduce "Democracy" to Afghanistan?
Or, to fulfill a campaign "talking point?"
Oh, I know. We're their to "make them love us." How's THAT working out?
ReplyDeletethere to make them love us.
ReplyDeleteWinning them "heart and minds."
ReplyDeleteWinning them "heart and minds."
ReplyDeleteThey told us we wuz gonna "win them hearts, and minds" in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteThe fate of the "Free World" was at stake.
Well, we didn't.
And, the "Free World" hardly noticed.
A lot of people make a LOT of money off of "Wars," Whit.
ReplyDeleteBut, I'm not making a nickle off of Afghanistan.
And, this servitude to oil is keeping my country beat down.
Time to hit that "Reset" Button.
I'm right there with you on getting off oil but that is not the only thing this is about. We can get off oil and out of the Muslim whirled but the "problem" is not going away.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem I see right now, Whit, it the Crazies have too much money, and too much free time on their hands.
ReplyDeleteI propose we "fix" that.
You think the Pakis are going to shoot a nuke at us? First, they know we'll probably knock it down (at least, we would if I had my way,) and, second they wouldn't, anyway, because they know they'd be dead within the hour. And, I don't care how much they talk that crazy talk, I still haven't seen any of the "leaders" of any country pull That trigger.
You think the Pakis are going to shoot a nuke at us?
ReplyDeleteNo, they use proxies, time, immigration and demographics with terror and coercion thrown in.
They've got oil, heroin, and cocaine to finance their agendas.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point, Whit. They make a fortune sellin oil To Us. Oil is so valuable because WE are so dependent on it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Heroin, we could destroy those poppy fields any time we wanted. Absolutely, the simplest thing in the world. The fact that we don't tells magnitudes.
My Lord, fly in a couple of dozen American Crop Dusters, and them fields is Gone. Fini. Kaput. "Dead Parrot" Dead.
ReplyDeleteOR, we could just buy the damned poppies, and make biodiesel.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the fact that we'd rather pay Halliburton, and . . . wait for it . . . BP $400.00 Gal for Diesel Fuel speaks even more volumes.
Those aren't coca bushes hid under a Jungle Canopy. Those poppy fields are, basically, the only green things in the middle of a desert.
ReplyDeleteA third-grader could come up with a fool-proof plan for their eradication on her lunch break.
We're more likely to eradicate poppy fields if we're not on the ground practicing COIN.
ReplyDeleteDestroy those fields?
ReplyDeleteAre you fellas nuts?
We dug the irrigation ditches, for those fields, contractors working with the US Army Corps of Engineers, in the 1950s.
US interests own those fields, always did, until the Taliban took over and cut production to the bone.
So the Taliban, they had to go.
February 12, 2010
CAMP LEATHERNECK, AFGHANISTAN
Marja is a 155-square-mile farming community crisscrossed with irrigation canals that were built by U.S. contractors in the 1950s in an effort to transform the desert into cropland so Afghanistan could provide enough food to feed its people. The Taliban moved into the area three years ago after striking deals with opium-producing poppy growers and drug traffickers to protect their operations in exchange for the freedom to set up bomb factories among the canals, which are too deep for combat vehicles to drive across.
“The United States built Marja,” Nicholson said.
...
“We’re going to take Marja away from the Taliban,” said Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
Production is booming, now.
Problem solved.
Remember the "Golden Triangle", the heroin from there, back when the Green Beanies held the choke points to that ground?
The Commies took over and the heroin flowed elsewhere, through other funnels, to different markets.
Follow the money, it's easy enough.
The ground in Marja, it never was worth a shit, for growing wheat. It always was going to be turned into poppy fields, from the get go.
"War Is a Racket":
ReplyDeleteis the title of two works, a speech and a booklet, by retired U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, in which Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests have commercially benefited from warfare.
Smedley, he really knew the Deal.
Things do not change, just the people doing the deeds do.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
While trish has just recently awaken to the problem of Imperial over reach.
ReplyDeleteJust as her family is leaving active Federal service, she begins to see the follies of our previous actions. The results of which have been plain to see, and easier to predict, by the others who became survivors of Federal Socialism, earlier on in the time line of life.
The poor results of US military efforts, to which she'd been benignly blind of, for the previous forty years.
Easily seen, then as now, by the observant.
Eradicate the poppies, the idea of that, it's just so much poop.
ReplyDeleteWhat planet are you fellas visiting from, anyway?
You need to re-read my posts, Rat. I noted that it would be easy, but that we hadn't. By implication, that we had no interest in it.
ReplyDeleteExactly, rufus, the question is, of course, why not?
ReplyDeleteObviously the US Marine Corps is in Marja to protect the production of the poppies from the Taliban, not curtail the harvest.
By further implication, that the security mission in Marja will enhance the position of the US and our proxy Government, there, that of Mr Karzai and his extended family.
We are there to enhance security and production of those poppy fields, truth be known.
Heroin production and transportation, a big part of the puzzle of as to why SP4 Tillman took three rounds to the head, likely as not.
He was incorruptible, from a monetary standpoint.
Most Rangers are not.
Maybe it would be better if we had a world without humans. If you stay up all night, about an hour before dawn , the birds begin their song, a real chorus, in their world of delight, not some mid-day chirping, happens every morning, they sense the coming of the light, like the baboons that bark at the light, one thinks how as the earth turns there is this rolling birdsong across the landscape, like a leading ripple or wave an hour ahead of the tsunami of light. Who said the world wasn't alive. Kinda cheers one up.
ReplyDeletePastor S. got a good thank you for his thirty five years of service today. A working pastor, always available, never on tv sucking funds, never making more than about 45k tops, everyone's friend. Kinda cheers one up, too. There are plenty like him around, across the country, unsung.
Deuce said...
ReplyDelete"It was genius, eliminating secular but repressive regimes to the affect of creating Islamic repressive regimes. Very impressive."
---
Very compassionate, I might add:
We changed the tone.
With Poppy Harvest Done, Taliban Return to the Attack
ReplyDeleteWe ALL took a little "time-out" for the Poppy Harvest.
That, plus Wilson's War, has upped their game to the levels described by Our Rodent.
ReplyDeleteBut, they'll tax the bejeesus outta me to pursue the "War on Drugs." Putting American kids in jail for "possession" of a roach.
ReplyDeleteBob's presence is like having a GD preachy preacher looking over your shoulder at the Bar.
ReplyDeleteOr worse, a GD Proselytizing English Major/Poetry Nut.
The tears among the "elites" would be bitter, and many, if the drug dealers gave up the business.
ReplyDeleteEven more bitter, and plentiful, if a disgusted public made them give up the war, and opt for legalization.
The question, which allen, wi"o" and some others have answered, already.
ReplyDeleteSince Smedley Butler was rightfully considered a criminal combatant by the legitimate governments of Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Honduras and anywhere else United Fruit Company operated, was he a criminal or a hero?
Was he legal or illegal?
'Legal', it is not much, of a real standard, not at all.
As the Law changes with the geography, rewrites and as always, reality.
If a society allows for misdemeanor immigration offenses to occur and reoccur, over 15 million times a day. Well, amigos, it is not really illegal.
There may be Law written in a book, but reality tells US a different tale as to what is what.
As acceptable, cost effective law enforcement creates what is really the Law.
If a Law is not enforced, is it a Law at all?
If no one is there to hear the birds, do they still sing?
desert rat said...
ReplyDeleteNot to worry, whit, you are employing the same type of static projections used by the CBO.
The Turks will not come to dominate Germany, through immigration or force of arms.
The Algerians will not conquer France, though there'd be a real sense that there was cosmic justice in the whirled, if they did.
---
Please give your dynamic explanation on why and and how Whit's nightmare will not occur.
jeez Doug this preachy preacher dang near advocated getting rid of the damned human race.
ReplyDeleteAnd, if someone puts in thirty five years of selfless service, really, he ought to get a nod.
Rat posted on
ReplyDeleteSun Jun 13, 04:42:00 PM EDT
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Being in the military these days is like staying in College for 3 decades worth of PC brainwashing.
I had not even read the preacher part...
ReplyDeleteI was reacting to this:
"Maybe it would be better if we had a world without humans."
Did you see the Singer Thread at BC?
Don't miss this amazing one about Atlas Shrugged and PAYPAL.
ReplyDelete26. starling
ReplyDeleteJust sent a slightly edited version of this email to aup@paypal.com
***
subject Cutting off The Atlas Shrugs blog?
mailed-by gmail.com
hide details 10:10 AM (0 minutes ago)
To whom it may concern,
I read today that you have declared the Altas Shrugs blog in violation of your Acceptable Use Policy.
Apparently someone in your department has made the determination that this news and politics blog promotes hate, violence, racial intolerance and/or seeks to financially exploit a crime.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’ve read this blog periodically over the past several years and have found the posts to be well-reasoned, thoroughly-researched, and open to debate. Can the tone be strident sometimes? Sure. Do the politics of the hostess rub some people the wrong way? Without a doubt. But is Atlas a hate site? Absolutely not. But for argument’s sake, let’s assume it is...
He goes on...
I did. It's not my call anyway, but I think the good outweighs the bad, just by a little.
ReplyDeleteI don't do the BC, doug.
ReplyDeleteBecause static projections are always wrong, doug. The whirled is not a static place.
An indication of the change in course, coming now in Holland. Where the more 'Nationalist' made electoral gains.
The young man I know, from Sweden, another example of a change in attitude, amongst the educated of Europe.
The financial straits that the EU find themselves in, now. Will bring about a political change that will not benefit the immigrant worker, there.
Eurotrash thinking being more in line with allen's and wi"o', 'Group Identity', rather than individual merit or lack there of being the driving force of Europeon culture.
Since before Caesar took Gaul.
Being able to escape that 'Group Identity' trap, becoming a cultural melting pot instead, the reason behind the truth of American exceptionalism.
The Europeons will reach a tipping point, doug, and change course.
ReplyDeleteAs they have done, many times, in the past 3,000 years.
The Europeons have the advantage in force of arms, they are already nuclear capable.
More so than the Iranians, the Pakistani and by extension the Sauds just not packing as potent a punch as England and France, along with the US nukes arming the Belgians and Italians.
We'll have to wait and see how those 90 warheads in Turkey flip.
Military technology, advantage EU.
Watch the French, they'll be sending folks "Back to Africa", that have never ever been to Africa, 'fore you know it.
Just like many advocate for foreigners, here, unsuccessfully.
But those French, they'll bite the bullet and deport. They have before in the past 75 years, and those folks the French government deported, they were French citizens, too.
If static projections held sway, doug, the US would be part of the Roman Empire, along with England, France, Spain and all along the Mediterranean coast.
ReplyDeleteGrowth and expansion eternal, by Jupiter!
Cortez as a Legionnaire, instead of a Conquistador.
ReplyDeleteNot that hard to envision, really.
See: Robespierre, and The French Revolution
ReplyDeleteThe Europeans can be downright bloodthirsty at times. Hitler, Stalin, etc.
Sun Jun 13, 06:34:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteFinally got to the answer.
You taking lessons from Trish?
He came dancing across the water
ReplyDeleteWith his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun
On the shore lay Montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wandered
With the secrets of the worlds.
And his subjects gathered 'round him
Like the leaves around a tree
In their clothes of many colours
For the angry gods to see.
And the women all were beautiful
And the men stood straight and strong
They offered life in sacrifice
So that others could go on.
Hate was just a legend
And war was never known
The people worked together
And they lifted many stones
They carried them to the flatlands
And they died along the way
But they built up with their bare hands
What we still can't do today.
And I know she's living there
And she loves me to this day
I still can't remember when
Or how I lost my way.
He came dancing across the water
Cortez, Cortez
What a killer.