NPR TRANSCRIPT
HARI SREENIVASAN: For more on the hospital bombing, I am joined by phone from Kabul by New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin.
So, Alissa, in the last 24 hours, you have been able to catch up with some of the victims. What was the scene that they described?
ALISSA RUBIN, The New York Times: It was the middle of the night, so people were completely confused by what was happening. They heard enormous explosions around them.
Then there would be pauses, then renewed explosions. They were — some people, those who survived, were helped to get into bunkers by the hospital staff.
And you have to realize some of these people were — were limping. They were quite stick, or they wouldn’t have been in the hospital.
And there were family members with them as well. And what their experience was, was a sense that they were imminently going to die.
Several — two — at least two or three people said they thought it was their last moments on earth.
HARI SREENIVASAN: You even — you even talked to some people who had come in from the fighting, who already had suffered losses.
ALISSA RUBIN: Yes. I mean, several of the people there had either lost family members or had them — had them badly wounded and had come to the hospital for refuge.
So, they already had gone through either bombings or gunshots and been in the wrong place at the wrong time. These were all civilians.
And then, of course, there was a — I think, a terrible shock when they emerged when the bombing stopped and saw the destruction, not just at the hospital, but of patients who died in — during the attack.
HARI SREENIVASAN: What is the status of the investigation?
I mean, previous president, Hamid Karzai, had to deal with the political blowback from these friendly fire or accidental bombings and air raids.
ALISSA RUBIN: Well, I think it has been very interesting.
I mean, today, there has not been substantial commentary on it.
There has been some on social media, but there have been more pictures on the television of the army handing out food in areas that they control in Kunduz, but not the kind of widespread criticism I would have expected, frankly.
And I am not sure if people are absorbing what happened, or if there is enormous ambivalence, because, on the one hand, many people would like the Taliban to be removed from the city, and the city to go back into government hands.
And they’re not sure the Afghan military can do it on its own, so they are hesitant to — to be too critical.
It is a very difficult situation to figure out.
And Hamid Karzai, as you recall, led a lot of the criticism of the United States in those — when there were civilian casualties.
And Ashraf Ghani has said much less that is critical publicly.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin joining us by phone from Kabul, Afghanistan, thanks so much.
ALISSA RUBIN: Thank you.
Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power marched to Twitter to proclaim: “We call on Russia to immediately cease attacks on Syrian oppo[sition and] civilians.” Along with that decree, she posted a statement from the U.S. and several of its closest authoritarian allies — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.K. — warning Russia that civilian casualties “will only fuel more extremism and radicalization.”
ReplyDeleteEarly this morning, in the Afghan city of Kunduz, the U.S. dropped bombs on a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)). The airstrike killed at least nine of the hospital’s medical staff, and seriously injured dozens of patients. “Among the dead was the Afghan head of the hospital, Abdul Sattar,” reported the New York Times.
Jason Cone, MSF’s executive director, said the medical charity “condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz full of staff and patients.” He added that “all parties [to the] conflict, including in Kabul & Washington, were clearly informed of precise GPS Coordinates of MSF facilities in Kunduz,” and that the “precise location of MSF Kunduz hospital [was] communicated to all parties on multiple occasions over past months, including on 9/29.” Worst of all, from MSF itself:
MSF International @MSF
Bombing continued for >30 minutes after American & Afghan military officials in Kabul & Washington first informed of proximity to hospital.
5:13 AM - 3 Oct 2015
For its part, the U.S. military in Afghanistan issued a statement acknowledging that it carried out airstrikes, claimed they were conducted “against individuals threatening the force,” and conceded that “the strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” But the NYT reported: “From early on, the Taliban had respected the hospital’s request not to bring weapons inside, according to staff members, and the hospital had been a refuge in the shattered city of Kunduz. It was a place where the wounded from all sides were treated.”
The medical organization noted that “our hospital in Kunduz was the only one of its kind in NorthEastern Afghanistan.” It referenced a now-poignant tweet it posted earlier in the week:
MSF Canada ✔@MSF_canada
Our hospital was overwhelmed with wounded after heavy fighting in Kunduz, #Afghanistan http://www.msf.ca/en/article/afghanistan-msf-hospital-overwhelmed-with-wounded-after-heavy-fighting-in-kunduz … pic.twitter.com/JfsJ8pq5Hd
MSF Canada ✔@MSF_canada
Since early Monday morning, our medical teams in Kunduz, #Afghanistan have treated 252 wounded, including 53 children pic.twitter.com/hjmhYMSdpS
2:01 PM - 30 Sep 2015
This strike on a hospital in Afghanistan comes days after the Saudi-led coalition bombed a wedding in Yemen that killed more than 130 people. After days of silence from the U.S. government — which has actively participated from the start in the heinous bombing of Yemen — Ambassador Power finally acknowledged the wedding massacre, but treated it like some natural disaster that has nothing to do with the U.S.: “Terrible news from Yemen of killing of innocent civilians & aid workers. Urgently need pol solution to crisis,” she tweeted.
DeleteHer accompanying statement claimed that “the United States has no role in the targeting decisions made by the Coalition in Yemen,” but yesterday, the Saudi Foreign Minister told CBS News that “We work with our allies including the United States on these targets.” There’s no dispute that the U.S. has lavished Saudi Arabia with all sorts of weapons and intelligence as it carries out its civilian-massacring attacks on Yemen.
This last week has been a particularly gruesome illustration of continuous U.S. conduct under the War on Terror banner, including under the Nobel Peace Prize-winning president who celebrates himself for “ending two wars” (in the same two countries where the U.S. continues to drop bombs). The formula by now is clear: bombing whatever countries it wants, justifying it all by reflexively labeling their targets as “terrorists,” and then dishonestly denying or casually dismissing the civilians they slaughter as “collateral damage.” If one were to construct a list of all the countries in the world based on their credibility to condemn Russia for using this exact rhetorical template in Syria, the U.S. would literally be last on that list.
UPDATE: U.S. officials went to Time magazine yesterday to announce that Russia will be creating more terrorists than they kill as a result of misguided airstrikes in Syria. “We believe if you inadvertently kill innocent men, women and children, then there’s a backlash from that,” said Lt. Gen. Bob Otto, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. “We might kill three and create 10 terrorists. It really goes back to the question of are we killing more than were making?”
DeleteIt’s impossible to fathom what the U.S. media would be saying and doing if Russia did something like this in Syria. By contrast, the reaction to this airstrike by their own government will be muted and filled with apologia, ironically quite similar to the widely vilified caricature of Jeb Bush’s comments about the Oregon shooting spree: “stuff happens.”
UPDATE II: Al Jazeera reports that the hospital bombed by the U.S. “is the only medical facility in the region that can deal with major injuries.” Nonetheless, “officials of MSF … told Reuters that they ‘frantically phoned’ NATO and Washington DC, as bombs rained on the hospital for ‘nearly an hour.'”
https://theintercept.com/2015/10/03/one-day-after-warning-russia-of-civilian-casualties-the-u-s-bombs-a-hospital-in-the-war-obama-ended/?comments=1#comments
DeleteWASHINGTON — With alarming frequency in recent years, thousands of American-trained security forces in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have collapsed, stalled or defected, calling into question the effectiveness of the tens of billions of dollars spent by the United States on foreign military training programs, as well as a central tenet of the Obama administration’s approach to combating insurgencies.
ReplyDeleteThe setbacks have been most pronounced in three countries that present the administration with some of its biggest challenges. The Pentagon-trained army and police in Iraq’s Anbar Province, the heartland of the Islamic State militant group, have barely engaged its forces, while several thousand American-backed government forces and militiamen in Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province were forced to retreat last week when attacked by several hundred Taliban fighters. And in Syria, a $500 million Defense Department program to train local rebels to fight the Islamic State has produced only a handful of soldiers.
American-trained forces face different problems in each place, some of which are out of the United States’ control. But what many of them have in common, American military and counterterrorism officials say, is poor leadership, a lack of will and the need to function in the face of intractable political problems with little support. Without their American advisers, many local forces have repeatedly shown an inability to fight.
Delete“Our track record at building security forces over the past 15 years is miserable,” said Karl W. Eikenberry, a former military commander and United States ambassador in Afghanistan.
The American military has trained soldiers in scores of countries for decades. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that mission jumped in ambition and scale, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the ultimate goal was to replace the large American armies deployed there.
The push to rebuild the Iraqi Army that the United States disbanded after the 2003 invasion had largely succeeded by the time American troops withdrew eight years later. But that $25 billion effort quickly crumbled after the Americans left, when the politicization of the army leadership under Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki eroded the military’s effectiveness at all levels, American officials said.
In a commencement speech at West Point in May 2014, President Obama put the training of foreign troops at the center of his strategy for combating militant groups that threaten American interests. The United States, he said, will no longer send large armies to fight those wars and, in the case of Afghanistan, would continue to withdraw the forces that are there. Instead, it will send small numbers of military trainers and advisers to help local forces, providing them with logistical, intelligence and other support.
ReplyDelete“We have to develop a strategy,” Mr. Obama said, “that expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military too thin or stir up local resentments. We need partners to fight terrorists alongside us.”
There is no end to this debacle so let’s get down to basics:
DeleteThe US is incapable of protecting American students from terror attacks, murder and slaughter in US schools in the USA.
Any questions?
Bullshit we haven't even tried.
DeleteIt was a gun free zone.
The one security guy was disarmed.
Well, isn't that shocking. You put your makeshift clinic on the front line of a War Zone, and shooting "breaks out" all around you.
ReplyDeletePuhleeze.
Correct.
DeleteUS folks were taking fire from the hospital area.
A common tactic by the jihadis.
It should have been avoided somehow but it is understandable.
Well fuck it shit happens.
In a poor country with poor transportation, you put it where the evictims are
DeleteWell, isn't that shocking. You put your makeshift clinic on the front line of a War Zone, and shooting "breaks out" all around you.
ReplyDeletePuhleeze.
ummm, MSF has hospitals in many war zones, they notify the various warring parties of their specific locations. It appears this particular hospital was hit a number of times over a number of hours by US forces killing doctors and patients.
Delete"The U.S. military said it conducted an air strike “in the vicinity” of the MSF hospital as it targeted Taliban insurgents who were directly firing on U.S. military personnel. It has not acknowledged hitting the hospital.
DeleteU.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a U.S. military AC-130 gunship had been operating in the area, firing at Taliban targets after receiving a request for support from U.S. special operations forces advising Afghan troops.
President Barack Obama offered condolences on Saturday to the victims of what he called “the tragic incident.” The U.N. human rights chief called the hospital assault “inexcusable” and also said it could amount to a war crime.
The U.S.-led coalition force in Afghanistan said it expected to complete its preliminary multinational investigation within days.
STAFF PULLED OUT
In Kabul, the Ministry of Defence said Taliban fighters had attacked the hospital and were using the building “as a human shield.”
But MSF denied that, saying it was “disgusted by the recent statements coming from some Afghanistan government authorities justifying the attack” on its hospital in Kunduz.
“These statements imply that Afghan and U.S. forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital – with more than 180 staff and patients inside – because they claim that members of the Taliban were present. This amounts to an admission of a war crime,” Stokes said in a later statement.
In the air strike, witnesses said patients were burned alive in the crowded hospital. Among the dead were three children being treated.
MSF said on Sunday it had pulled most of its staff out of the area because the hospital that was a lifeline for thousands in the city was no longer functioning. Some staff had gone to help treat the wounded at other hospitals outside of Kunduz."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/no-taliban-in-hospital-hit-by-us-air-strike-aid-group/article26643165/
Sure, the U.S. Military decided to "raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital."
ReplyDeleteOf course they did.
Fucking Asinine
According to the Afghan government spokesperson that is what happened.
DeleteBTW, who called in from the ground the AC-130 co-ordinates? Don't they carry on board the AC-130 'no-hit' co-ordinates?
DeleteThe suckers shoot from pretty high up do they not?
Rufus is saying you are an idiot Ashole and he is correct.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteMcNamara called it the fog of war.
I call it incompetence on the part of a country that accomplished its two stated goals for the Afghan invasion within 2 months of attacking the country. And then stayed for 14+ more years.
.
In defense of the staying 14 more years:
DeleteI would suggest it is impractical to believe that one can invade a foreign county like Afghanistan, depose the current government, install a new one, and expect that government to remain in power, on its own, after a mere two years from start date.
Highlights
ReplyDeleteUnderstandable slowing in new orders and business activity, which have been extraordinarily strong in the two prior reports, pulled down ISM's non-manufacturing index to a still very solid 56.9 in September.
One component, however, that did not slow and which, had it been released last week, would have sent the wrong signal for the employment report is a 2.3 point jump in the employment index to 58.3. This, together with July's 59.6, are some of the strongest readings in the 18-year history of this series and a puzzle given softness in the government's payroll data.
Readings throughout this report are very strong including backlogs which have been building for four straight months and new export orders which have been rising for five months (note that foreign demand for U.S. services has proven very resilient at the same time that foreign demand for U.S. goods has been declining sharply.) The price indication in this report shows slight contraction in contrast to other surveys where price contraction is very sharp.
This report, together with the services PMI released earlier this morning, underscore the fundamental domestic-based strength of the U.S. economy.
ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
Jihad Watch
ReplyDeleteExposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts
Carson calls for revocation of Hamas-linked terror organization CAIR’s tax-exempt status
October 4, 2015 6:50 pm By Robert Spencer 81 Comments
They demanded he drop out of the race. They’re a 501c3 organization, and such organizations are not supposed to intervene in campaigns either on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate. Clearly the gang of thugs at Hamas-linked CAIR, designated a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates, is in violation of the law here, but it is almost certain that Obama’s politicized Justice Department will take no action.
Ben Carson
“Carson: Pro-Islam nonprofit broke the law with political attack,” by Bradford Richardson, The Hill, October 3, 2015:
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says a nonprofit Islamic advocacy group broke the law by calling for him to drop out of the presidential race.
“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a public press conference demanding that I withdraw from the presidential race,” Carson said in an email to supporters Saturday.
“Here’s the catch – CAIR is a tax-exempt nonprofit, and the IRS rules explicitly prohibit such groups from intervening in political campaigns on behalf of – or in opposition to – a candidate,” the email continues.
Carson said he is demanding the IRS take action against the group and started an online petition to remove CAIR’s tax-exempt status.
A spokesman for CAIR called for Carson to drop out of the presidential race after the GOP candidate said a Muslim should not be elected president.
CAIR is a 501(c)(3) group with tax-exempt status, according to the group’s website.
The group previously lost its tax-exempt status in 2011 for not filing tax returns for three years in a row, but regained it the next year.
Go Ben !
DeleteI gotta go too.
Cheers !
P.S. -You are an idiot, Ash.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Afghan forces who reported being under Taliban fire requested the U.S. airstrike that killed 22 people at a medical clinic in northern Afghanistan over the weekend, the top commander of American and coalition forces in Afghanistan said Monday, correcting an initial U.S. statement that the strike had been launched because U.S. forces were threatened.
ReplyDeleteThe strike wasn't sought by U.S. forces, Gen. John F. Campbell said at a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference.
"We have now learned that on Oct. 3, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces," Campbell said. "An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from the initial reports which indicated that U.S. forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf."
The clinic was operated by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders. The attack killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens more, setting the hospital on fire.
In response to Campbell's remarks, the organization's general director, Christopher Stokes, said the U.S. had admitted that it attacked the facility.
It is common practice and knowledge that Islamic groups will place rockets, command control and even firing positions from schools, hospitals and other "western" off limits places.
It is common practice, for example for Hezbollah or the Palestinians to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport fighters in a war zone to avoid being hit.
That is pretty shitty there WiO - you copy and paste (from an AP article, unreferenced of course) and then you add in two paragraphs that you wrote as if it appeared in the article.
DeleteThat is out and out lying and plagiarism to boot. Propaganda at a level Gobbles would be impressed with.
It is common practice for Israeli assassins to travel on cloned US passports of actual US citizens
DeleteIt is idiotic that after 14 years in Afghanistan that targeting called in by Afghans be confirmed by a third party so that the US does not get duped into revenge killing or setup for a US catastrophe. I repeat the NSA knows where your iPhone is.
Ash, he does it all the time.
DeleteDeuce ☂Mon Oct 05, 02:57:00 PM EDT
DeleteIt is common practice for Israeli assassins to travel on cloned US passports of actual US citizens
Really, can you site more than ONE example of this "common" practice?
AshMon Oct 05, 02:25:00 PM EDT
DeleteThat is pretty shitty there WiO - you copy and paste (from an AP article, unreferenced of course) and then you add in two paragraphs that you wrote as if it appeared in the article.
That is out and out lying and plagiarism to boot. Propaganda at a level Gobbles would be impressed with.
Wow ash you are deep...
In future I shall be clearer I did not realize you had a learning disability also.
But I notice that neither of you had any balls to actually comment on the Islamic practice of deception using schools, ambulances and hospitals...
Deleteand yet?
Ash calls me worthy of "Gobbles"..
Wow ash you are amazing... (not)
this still stands as truth...
DeleteIt is common practice and knowledge that Islamic groups will place rockets, command control and even firing positions from schools, hospitals and other "western" off limits places.
It is common practice, for example for Hezbollah or the Palestinians to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport fighters in a war zone to avoid being hit.
Easy to cite, just use google...
It is not common practice to fake what an AP article has published and that is exactly what you did. You deliberately lied and you committed plagiarism.
DeleteSad, but true. It shows the lack of confidence you have in your own arguments
.
ReplyDeleteAshMon Oct 05, 11:34:00 AM EDT
In defense of the staying 14 more years:
I would suggest it is impractical to believe that one can invade a foreign county like Afghanistan, depose the current government, install a new one, and expect that government to remain in power, on its own, after a mere two years from start date.
You make my point for me, Ash.
Who said we had to install a new government? That wasn’t the reason we were given when we invaded. We were told that we were attacking the Taliban (a political faction who happened to be in charge of the government) because they refused to turn over OBL to us. There was no talk about sticking around to set up elections, vet candidates, and support a new government. We didn’t invade Afghanistan to provide them with life support for decades.
Prior to the ascendency in the second half of the 90’s by the neocons and their Democratic interventionist allies, we had G.H.W. Bush, a realist in foreign policy with a cabinet dominated by realists (this was before Cheney moved to the dark side).
His largest foreign policy intervention was Iraq War I. His strategy bears inspection.
1. The Casus Belli was obvious and our intervention legitimate.
a. The war was precipitated by Iraq when they invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia.
b. The UN authorized the intervention by the US and the allied coalition it led.
c. Congress authorized the war (though by a very narrow margin).
2. The US had national interests involved that justified going to war.
a. At the time, protecting ME oil supplies was a key US interest.
b. The US was coming to the rescue of long-time allies.
c. There was value in bloodying Hussein’s nose and countering the risk of WMDs.
3. The Iraq War and Desert Storm:
a. The strategy for the war was understood by everyone. Go in, kick ass, leave.
b. Planning for the war was extensive (6 months).
c. The Powell Doctrine was used, go in with overwhelming force, kick ass, take names.
d. A coalition was formed of 34 countries although the US as usual led the way.
e. The war took 7 months, 6 of those used for planning and getting the allied forces in place.
f. Combat operations lasted about 6 weeks.
4. Results: Iraq withdrew from Kuwait. Iraq was forced to get rid of their WMDs and nuclear program.
5. Costs (In a war involving a couple of million troops)
a. Around 300 allied dead, 800 wounded, about ½ the casualties were US
b. Iraq dead of 20,000 – 35,000, 75,000 wounded
c. Civilian dead of less than 5,000 in all theatres, Iraq, Kuwait, and Other
d. Financial cost of war: $60 billion (Saudi Arabia paid around $35 billion of the total).
6. Verdict on the war: We Won. Convincingly.
7. Cost Benefit of the War: ALL things considered, likely POSITIVE.
8. Did the strategy work? YES.
9. Were the goals achieved? YES.
10. Did the goals morph? NO. Did we stay after we won? NO
11. Did we set up any new government? NO.
Compare this with any of the wars under the neocons.
.
.
DeleteSorry, for some reason my tabs didn't hold.
.
In GWI we did not topple Iraq's government. In Afghanistan we did not get OBL and we toppled the government. I think it would be immoral to topple the government and not stick around to rebuild. In my opinion the USA should not have toppled the Taliban government because, among other reasons, it entails the USA to manage the aftermath.
DeleteAsh, cat got your tongue?
ReplyDeletethis still stands as truth...
It is common practice and knowledge that Islamic groups will place rockets, command control and even firing positions from schools, hospitals and other "western" off limits places.
It is common practice, for example for Hezbollah or the Palestinians to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport fighters in a war zone to avoid being hit.
It is not common practice to fake what an AP article has published and that is exactly what you did. You deliberately lied and you committed plagiarism.
DeleteSad, but true. It shows the lack of confidence you have in your own arguments.
Ash, I notice you still can't address the point..
DeleteMy mistake was not to put in an additional space to add my commentary,.
Go fuck yourself, you are nothing but a shill for terrorists.
Wow, I am so guilty of posting an AP story without credit...
DeleteWhy not admit that your butt buddies the Islamists use hospitals, schools and ambulances as cover for ammo dumps, command and control and places to shoot from..
go ahead ash, stop the stalling you coward.
The problem with going into Afghanistan on a revenge raid and not toppling the government and staying around in enough force for long enough to make it stick is that it leaves the place wide open to continuing the behavior that brought us there in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThis is not complex. Even Ash ought to be able to see it.
Think I'll make Ash's head explode on another topic though:
October 5, 2015
How to make a progressive's head explode
By Thomas Lifson
Progressives love to emote when discussing politics. Right now, in the wake of the Roseburg shootings, they are emoting about the need for “commonsense” gun control, which gives them an opportunity to compassionately wring their hands while blaming conservatives for the suffering they deplore. If this offends you as deeply as it does me, try a little experiment.
Tell the progs that if they are really serious about getting guns off the street, they are going to be aggravating those racial disparities that were the fashionable cause of emoting so recently. As Jason Willick explains at the American Interest:
… all the evidence suggests that stricter gun laws would fall disproportionately on the same people who have always bear the brunt of tough criminal justice policies. The Washington Post‘s Radley Balko noted last year that “47.3 percent of those convicted for federal gun crimes were black — a racial disparity larger than any other class of federal crimes, including drug crimes.” According to the Bureau of Labor of Justice statistics, state, local, and federal governments arrested black people for gun crimes at a five times higher rate than they arrested whites. More than three out of four gun arrests were in urban areas. So people who empathize with the message of the Black Lives Matter movement—that young, black men in America’s cities are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system and that mass incarceration has devastated too many communities—should think further about what the draconian gun policies they pine for would actually entail.
Stand back a few paces and make sure you are wearing protective clothing that does not stain if hit with blood and brain matter when you close by saying, “So you want to throw blacks in jail at a rate four times their share of the population...”
Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/how_to_make_a_progressives_head_explode.html#ixzz3njXTHINH
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Have you 'grown' and 'progressed' to the gun grabber stage yet, Deuce ?
ReplyDeleteThat's one lefty cause I haven't noticed your opinion on yet.
...................
I 'hired' a professional hunter this morning. Kid from 12 miles south of the farm, working a bulldozer on the place at the direction of my farmer, leveling some stuff out and dozing a huge rock into the creek. This last pleases me immensely. I've always wanted that damned rock gone, but never had a dozer to do it myself.....I can die happy.....
In exchange for trying to get a wolf, he has permission to take an elk. I get to mount the wolf if he gets one. First wolf shall be named 'Deuce'. If there is a second it's 'Quirk'. If we hit heaven and there's a third, it's 'Ash'.
I figure if he gets a wolf it will save many elk in the long run.
He's the kind of kid I like, capable, probably born with a gun in his crib, and I know he and his beginning family can use the elk meat.
By the way, I recall Obozo campaigning on the idea that Afghanistan was 'the important war', the one we 'had to win'.
ReplyDeleteHe was of course just pissing on our shoes, as usual.
Jihadist Jew-Hunting in Jerusalem and Shomron
ReplyDeleteThe difference between a mentally ill lone mass murderer in the West and a mentally ill Jihadist in Israel.
October 5, 2015
Phyllis Chesler
2
49
The recent murders of Jews in Jerusalem and in Shomron are as horrifying as they are predictable. They are Third Intifada lone-Jihadist stabbing sprees, post-Abbas-at-the-United Nations vigilante group shootings. These very specific anti-Semitic murders are being minimized, poorly covered, subsumed under the front page headlines of the Oregon college shootings.
For example, the Oregon atrocity made page A1 in the New York Times and took up two whole additional pages in Section A. The Jerusalem murders appeared on page 8, at page bottom, and took up only 1/4th of the page. In addition, the Palestinian stabber-shooter was described as a “law student”; his victims were described as “ultra-Orthodox Jewish men.” Late last week, Palestinians shot and killed two parents in front of their four children; they are described as “settlers” in the “occupied West Bank.”
In short, as many have been led to believe, these Jewish victims are somehow deserving of their fates, since they have “provoked” Palestinians by “humiliating them.”
The NYT “spin” on the Oregon shooting is, as usual, one which focuses on the need for gun control and the crisis of mental illness. The killers featured there are mainly white, mentally ill men, who had access to guns. This is the company in which the Oregon shooter is placed. The Times and other mass media do not write that Mercer-Harper is bi-racial nor do they focus on his internet love affair with Jihad.
President Obama is called our first “black” President although his mother was Caucasian and very white and his father was a black African. Conversely, but similarly, Mercer-Harper, the Oregon shooter’s father is white but his mother is an African-American nurse. Does this make Mercer-Harper one of the white boys? Just asking.
I have no doubt that these men were “mentally ill.” However, there is a difference between someone who is “mentally ill,” let’s say a paranoid schizophrenic or depressed, someone who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, or has a Social Personality Disorder but who grew up in a Judeo-Christian culture—and someone who suffers from any of these same psychiatric illnesses, but who has grown up in a tribal, shame-and-honor Muslim culture, (which routinely means serious but normalized child neglect and abuse, paternal absence, and the most profound devaluation of women and infidels). Take someone from such a culture and who is “mentally ill,” and who is living during a period of glorified global Jihad and who has been propagandized into becoming a human bomb, stabber, or stoner of other Muslims and of all infidels and we have a very different kind of problem..............
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/260353/jihadist-jew-hunting-jerusalem-and-shomron-phyllis-chesler
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Delete:o)
frontpagemag, free medical diagnosis 24/7 (physical, mental, or auto repair).
.
ReplyDeleteAnyone courageous enough to place a little money bet with me on whether or not Hillary the gun grabber has armed security folks with her every where she sets her little sacred feet ?
Rufus is not invited, as he doesn't pay his legally due internet betting debts.
And don't give me the line about how she already has Secret Service protection......she claims to be a Leader......let her Lead then, and turn it down.....the old hag hypocrite.......
Delete.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be immoral to topple the government and not stick around to rebuild.
After 9/11, I supported the invasion of Afghanistan without really thinking. After watching 14 years of actions in Afghanistan, after looking at the an objective cost/benefit analysis, I have to question whether I was mistaken. We attacked Afghanistan in revenge for the deaths of 3,000 Americans on 9/11. We have currently just about duplicated that number in coalition dead with US deaths amounting to about 80% of the total. The Afghan Security forces also lost about 10 times that many.
Though supported by our NATO allies, the UN never signed on to the invasion. While Congress approved the war, it was by one of the narrowest margins authorizing war in our history. It was not a slam dunk.
On the plus side for going to war, the reasons we gave were legitimate. The question was were they sufficient. Except for their supporters (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE) no one would shed any tears for the Taliban. They were brutal thugs and fanatical Islamists. Likewise, how could anyone, in 2001, have suspected the complete ineptitude with which the Bush administration (and later Obama) would ultimately conduct the war. And we did eventually get OBL. That said, looking at the big picture, the minimal benefits gained, other than an amount of national catharsis, appear transitory and ephemeral especially since we didn't address the key reasons for the rise fOBL and the Taliban, Pakastani military and Saudi Arabian financial support for them.
As for moral or immoral, there is very little associated with war that can be described as moral. IMO, the only question that applies is whether the war is offensive or defensive in nature. You have to question the idea of 'premptive' war since the same principle can be used to justify anything especially in the hands of a nitwit like GWB.
On the question of installing a new government it's not a clear yes/no answer. Which does less harm to everyone involved, spending two years trying to vet and conduct national elections while allowing insurgences to take root, or allowing the existing powers in the country to come together and decide on their own? Is it worth the lives lost and refugees created to install in Kabul what has be described as one the most corrupt regimes in the world?
It is not like there weren't other political factions already in the country fighting the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and others.
In my opinion, if you are justified in going to war, that is what you do. You state your objectives and move on. You don't nation build. Once we achieved our objectives, defeating the Taliban and driving OBL out of Afghanistan (after failing to capture or kill him there), our job was done in Afghanistan. To finish the job, we should have dealt with our 'allies' Pakistan.and Saudi Arabia.
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