Image via WikipediaI'm sick of these stories
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/8/31/185042/306#9
by Steven D
After nine years -- yes nine long mostly futile years -- we are still reading about these stories, military and civilian families are still mourning the loss of their loved ones and I am still wondering what in hell has all the death and destruction and havoc our military machine has wreaked on Afghanistan has accomplished:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — U.S. forces lost 22 soldiers in Afghanistan, mostly to roadside bombs, since Friday, marking a bloody step-up in the insurgency as a major U.S.-led offensive seeks to capture the spiritual homeland of the Taliban movement in Kandahar. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said it's gaining ground against the insurgents, but violence is rising across the country, including in areas that were considered relatively safe.Every year it's the same thing. Another offensive, another promise by the generals that we're making gains, another bunch of innocent civilians bombed and slaughtered, another group of soldiers who died fighting with little if any progress to show for it. And it's not as if things in Iraq are really a whole lot better now that we have reduced our presence in that country to 50,000 or so "non-combat" troops.
Iraq is as much a mess as ever despite the spin the politicians, left and right have put on the situation. It would be comical watching Democrats and Republicans fighting over who won Iraq, when the truth is that Iraq still suffers from an alarming lack of stability, a government that can deliver adequate water and electrical services to its people, sectarian conflict and regular outbreaks of violence and death:.......................................If any lesson should have been learned from the past decade it is that war is rarely the answer to any crisis, and with respect to the 9/11 attacks it was definitely the wrong answer. And all the crocodile tears being shed over Iraq by those like Tony Blair that no one foresaw how badly things would go after the "shock and awe" was over is no excuse:........................................
We cannot have a do-over in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's far too late to ever repair the damage we've done and continue to do. However, we can start to recognize that continuing a Western military presence "over there" will never be part of an effective strategy to resolve the problems of international terrorism, regional instability, the opium and heroin trade, the increased influence of Iran's radical government in the region as a result of destroying Saddam's regime, or the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It won't even get the oil wealth to flow into the coffers of Big Oil which Bush as much as admitted in 2005 was the primary reason we attacked Iraq, and which Alan Greenspan confirmed in 2007.
The sooner the Obama administration and the American people accept that we need to bring all the troops home, the better it will be for all concerned.
Re: I'm sick of these stories
I'm sick of these stories too.
I'm sick of people 'forgetting' that 16 American intelligence agencies gave George W. Bush an unanimous NIE appraisal in 2003 that invading Iraq would increase the threat to the U.S.
I'm sick of people saying that when the PNAC think tank said that it would elect its members to office to secure Iraqi oil and did so that suddenly it was a 'Conspiracy Theory' to report that...rather than a simple observation of recorded fact.You would think that the war game outlining the oil industry's desired wish to kill off governments in the area of oil deposits so that they could better control conditions there and deny supplies to Russia and China were not geopolitical strategies.
That's at opitslinkfest.blogspot.com Topical Index > Documents along with State Department's later assessments - Post-Saddam Iraq : Desert Crossing.
I'm sick of people still not realizing that Valerie Plame /Wilson was 'outed' as coordinator of the Middle east Nuclear Threat Desk of the Brewster-Jennings C.I.A.intelligence network in the Middle East because she would not 'play ball' and report Iraq and Iran real threats. 'Yellowcake' is used to make fertilizer...and was deposited all over Iraq, so Nigerian supplies wouldn't have been on the hot list for Saddam to service his reactor. Plus Obama is following a long line demonizing those without WMD as 'menaces' and fining them on that account while supplying Israel and now India with nuclear technology without worrying unduly about weapons proliferation. In other words, even the 'Peace Prize' winner is killing the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty by undermining its Third Pillar.
Most act as if http://www.leadingtowar.com/ had not documented the trail of lies that ignored Richard Cheney's own 1994 explanation of why Iraq was not invaded during the Gulf War...available on YouTube.
Most act as if Bremer's 100 Orders had not kept the experienced bureaucracy in Iraq from functioning by dissolving local military,police and government. Nor have they heard how sanctions destroyed infrastructure in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands before the Occupation.
Have you noticed Sanctions against North Korea again...after it tried to retaliate for the U.S. breaking its treaties and agreements ? Do you remember that Cuba has been under Sanctions since the 50's ! That act is routinely condemned in the UN every year. And of course we know Iran is in the same fix that Iraq was before the axe fell.
Don't take my word for it. CASMII has an absolute shitload of intel.It makes a wonderful counterpoint to http://www.f-16.net/news_article1833.html
But perhaps the stupidest is the usual 'Cowboys and Indians' framing everybody and their dog as 'Al Qaeda'...or Taliban...or Muslim...or 'Leftist'...while ignoring the real atrocities of civilian people killed via video controls from the air and bombed in their homes...pretty well without any control or accountability.
http://warvictims.wordpress.com/
http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/
Nor have I forgotten an old subject that 'disappeared' from here, Steve. WMD American style, replicating and improving upon problems happening here too.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/08/uranium-mining-and-depleted.html
It's damn mysterious how diabetes is rampant and servicemen are sick at crazy rates. Mysterious. Uh-huh.
by opit on Wed Sep 1st, 2010 at 12:07:38 PM ESTI'm sick of people 'forgetting' that 16 American intelligence agencies gave George W. Bush an unanimous NIE appraisal in 2003 that invading Iraq would increase the threat to the U.S.
I'm sick of people saying that when the PNAC think tank said that it would elect its members to office to secure Iraqi oil and did so that suddenly it was a 'Conspiracy Theory' to report that...rather than a simple observation of recorded fact.You would think that the war game outlining the oil industry's desired wish to kill off governments in the area of oil deposits so that they could better control conditions there and deny supplies to Russia and China were not geopolitical strategies.
That's at opitslinkfest.blogspot.com Topical Index > Documents along with State Department's later assessments - Post-Saddam Iraq : Desert Crossing.
I'm sick of people still not realizing that Valerie Plame /Wilson was 'outed' as coordinator of the Middle east Nuclear Threat Desk of the Brewster-Jennings C.I.A.intelligence network in the Middle East because she would not 'play ball' and report Iraq and Iran real threats. 'Yellowcake' is used to make fertilizer...and was deposited all over Iraq, so Nigerian supplies wouldn't have been on the hot list for Saddam to service his reactor. Plus Obama is following a long line demonizing those without WMD as 'menaces' and fining them on that account while supplying Israel and now India with nuclear technology without worrying unduly about weapons proliferation. In other words, even the 'Peace Prize' winner is killing the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty by undermining its Third Pillar.
Most act as if http://www.leadingtowar.com/ had not documented the trail of lies that ignored Richard Cheney's own 1994 explanation of why Iraq was not invaded during the Gulf War...available on YouTube.
Most act as if Bremer's 100 Orders had not kept the experienced bureaucracy in Iraq from functioning by dissolving local military,police and government. Nor have they heard how sanctions destroyed infrastructure in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands before the Occupation.
Have you noticed Sanctions against North Korea again...after it tried to retaliate for the U.S. breaking its treaties and agreements ? Do you remember that Cuba has been under Sanctions since the 50's ! That act is routinely condemned in the UN every year. And of course we know Iran is in the same fix that Iraq was before the axe fell.
Don't take my word for it. CASMII has an absolute shitload of intel.It makes a wonderful counterpoint to http://www.f-16.net/news_article1833.html
But perhaps the stupidest is the usual 'Cowboys and Indians' framing everybody and their dog as 'Al Qaeda'...or Taliban...or Muslim...or 'Leftist'...while ignoring the real atrocities of civilian people killed via video controls from the air and bombed in their homes...pretty well without any control or accountability.
http://warvictims.wordpress.com/
http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/
Nor have I forgotten an old subject that 'disappeared' from here, Steve. WMD American style, replicating and improving upon problems happening here too.
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/08/uranium-mining-and-depleted.html
It's damn mysterious how diabetes is rampant and servicemen are sick at crazy rates. Mysterious. Uh-huh.
The Reality of Life in Afghanistan
U.S. occupation increases violence against Afghan women
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2010/08/26/u-s-occupation-increases-violence-against-afghan-women.html
Time story exposed as lie
The Aug. 9 Time magazine featured a shocking cover photo: a portrait of an Afghan woman named Aisha whose nose had been cut off, allegedly by the Taliban, for resisting abusive in-laws. Time used this picture to build support for U.S. troops as a “last line of defense” that will not “abandon” Afghan women against an advancing Taliban.
None of this was true.
The Taliban did not mutilate this woman. She was maimed by other reactionary forces while the U.S. looked the other way. Far from protecting Afghan women, the U.S. occupation has resulted in increased violence against them, while the Pentagon protects a government filled with misogynists.
August 15, 2010 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Green Left: The cover of the August 9 edition edition of Time magazine featured a shocking picture of Bibi Aisha, a young woman whose nose and ears had been cut off. The photo was accompanied by the headline: “What happens if we leave Afghanistan”. However, what happened to Aisha took place in Afghanistan under Western occupation. Full news...
August 9, 2010
Dissident Voice: Time magazine must be experiencing a severe case of amnesia, judging by the cover of this week’s issue which asks, “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan .” At best, this effort by Time is irresponsible slick journalism; at worst, it is one of the most blatant pieces of pro-war propaganda seen in years. Full news...
August 19, 2010
UKPA: According to a latest research, Afghanistan tops the list of 163 countries which face the risk of food shortages. The ongoing violence and the country’s vulnerability to climate extremes like drought and flood have made food security hit rock-bottom. Afghanistan is at greater risk of suffering disruption to its food supplies than any other country, new research has found. Full news...
August 23, 2010 ::
Veterans Today: Nearly two weeks ago, some eight Aid Workers were put to death; this has further made the life insecure in Afghanistan where peace and development are most desired. Such wanton killings only further destabilise the country and the region. Today Afghanistan is home to the US and NATO forces who landed here for some hidden agendas but the declared objectives were to bring peace and development to Afghanistan, that’s not only a distant dream but its totally ignored. Full news...
August 23, 2010 ::
The Dallas Morning News: Three USD100 million air base expansions in southern and northern Afghanistan illustrate Pentagon plans to continue building multimillion-dollar facilities in that country to support increased U.S. military operations well into the future. Despite growing public unhappiness with the Afghan war – and President Barack Obama’s pledge that he will begin withdrawing troops in July – many of the installations being built in Afghanistan have extended time horizons. Full news...“The Americans gave the leaders of the sedition $1 billion through the Saudis, who are now the agent of the U.S. in the region. The Saudis who spoke on behalf of the Americans told them that if they managed to overthrow the regime, they would give them up to another $50 billion,” Jannati said.
August 5, 2010 ::
The Nation: Consider the following statement offered by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a news conference last week. He was discussing Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks as well as the person who has taken responsibility for the vast, still ongoing Afghan War document dump at that site. "Mr. Assange," Mullen commented, "can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." Full news...
August 5, 2010
The News: Dozens of civilians have been killed and several others injured in Afghanistan after US warplanes bombarded the country's east, according to witnesses. The American forces launched two airstrikes in Nangarhar province on Thursday morning, witnesses said. One of the attacks left at least 30 people dead and injured. The other strike, which hit a funeral procession in a separate area, killed 28 civilians including two children. Full news...
Democratisation, NGOs and "colour revolutions"Sreeram Chaulia, 19 January 2006New forms of youthful, tech-savvy mass mobilisation are impelling regime change from below. But is the phenomenon as benign as it appears? Are the movements who inspire the "colour revolutions" catalysts or saboteurs?
Most studies of democratisation recognise the international context in which regime change occurs, but such studies never go to the extent of giving external causes prime place. The consensus is that exogenous factors "are difficult to apply in a sustained manner over the long term." In the case of the former communist bloc, some scholars regard international organisations, western economic aid and the Catholic church as "catalysts of democratisation"; others claim that international human-rights norms triggered fundamental political changes leading to the demise of communism.
Transnational actors, comprising Ingos at the hub of advocacy networks, are viewed as capitalising on opportunity structures offered by "internationalism", acting as "ideational vectors of influence", and maintaining constant criticism of vulnerable "target states" that are repressive in nature. Portrayals of advocacy networks as autonomous entities that skilfully manoeuvre states and international organisations for achieving their own principled ends suggest that democratisation was "both a contributing cause and an effect of the expanding role of transnational civil society." ....As we delve into the case studies of colour revolutions, the same "good despot-bad despot" patchiness of superpower attitudes to democratisation in the post-communist world will resurface in the new context of the "war on terrorism".
Geoffrey Pridham divides geo-strategic impact over regime changes into the two dimensions of space and time. The Mediterranean had turned into an area of intense superpower rivalry in the mid-1970s due to the enhanced Soviet naval presence and instability in the middle east. Regime transitions in that hotspot, therefore, sharpened US and western interests in the outcomes.
As a corollary, at sensitive world historical moments, American inclinations to intervene in regime politics of countries tend to be greater. Early cold-war economic instability in Italy and Greece in the 1970s was one juncture where the outcome stakes were felt to be so high in Washington that it took an active interventionist role. Thirty years on, the spatial and temporal importance of Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the geo-strategic sweepstakes was ripe for colour revolutions orchestrated from outside.
....Humanitarian Ingos like the International Rescue Committee (founded in 1933 to assist anti-Nazi opponents of Hitler) and democratisation Ingos like Freedom House (founded in 1941; an important component of the Marshall Plan to prevent communist takeover of western Europe) are two high-profile cases that represented US governmental interests while maintaining INGO legal status. ...humanitarian (not human-rights) Ingos heavily dependent on US finances have been found to be consciously or subconsciously extending US governmental interests. As Julie Mertus writes: "It's not the NGOs driving the government’s agenda; it's the US government driving the NGO agenda."....The contemporary blueprint for co-opting transnational actors as active wings of foreign policy was laid by Joseph Nye’s liberal "soft power" idea that called for harnessing the US's tremendous reserve of intangible resources such as culture, ideology and institutions for preserving world dominance.
"Soft power" at the end of the cold war would be less costly and more effective to Nye because of its subtlety and seductive quality. The prohibitive costs of direct military action in modern times ensure that "other instruments such as communications, organisational and institutional skills, and manipulation of interdependence have become important instruments of power.
.....Ukraine epitomises habitual American "instrumentalisation of value-based policies", thus "wrapping security goals in the language of democracy promotion and then confusing democracy promotion with the search for particular political outcomes that enhance those security goals.""
RFE/RL: Are Iran’s Opposition Leaders Billionaires?
http://inteltrends.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/are-irans-opposition-leaders-billionaires/
Inteltrends Updates
01 Sep - USA. Pak military delegation cancels meeting, flies back home after being hassled at Washington airport. [Geo]
01 Sep - Pak Navy acquiring ships from U.S. [INP]
01 Sep - PKK: Turkish army prepares for a cross-border military operation. [Firat]
01 Sep - Uganda awaits U.S. funds to send troops to Somalia: army. [Mareeg]
01 Sep - Caucasus Emirate. Emir Hasan appointed commander of Mujahideen in Dagestan. [Kavkaz]
31 Aug - Caucasus Emirate. Jihad spreads to Russia's Volga region. [Kavkaz]
31 Aug - The CIA, Afghanistan and groundless propaganda. Analysis byDmitry Kosyrev. [RIAN]
31 Aug - Somaliland. Police commander gunned down in Las Anod. [Somaliland]
31 Aug - Iranian intelligence minister disclosed foreign countries' continued financial support for unrest, and said opposition leaders receive funds through NGOs. [Fars]
31 Aug - U.S. to hand Pakistan Navy F-260 Frigate. [Geo]
31 Aug - Canada. Operation 'samosa' and the Pakistani connection. [Daily Times]
31 Aug - Jaswant warns govt against China encircling India. [NNI]
30 Aug - Caucasus Emirate. Fatalities among puppets in Russian stooge's [Chechen president Kadyrov's] hometown. Mujahideen supposedly used Afghan tactics. [Kavkaz]
30 Aug - Burma. Chinese warships dock in Rangoon. [AFP]
30 Aug - Sri Lanka. Fonseka to be indicted for harboring army deserters. [TamilNet]
30 Aug - Russia Won't Halt Arms Sale to Syria. [Al Manar]
30 Aug - Stranger threatens to commit suicide in front of U.S. embassy in Ankara. [Trend.az]
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment