28
   

Can we just !/$$!?$?! leave now?

 
 
hawkeye10
 
  -2  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 02:48 am
@msolga,
msolga wrote:
You think they had any sort of real say about what happened in their country? That the war lords & the government paid any attention to their wishes?

Post: # 4,930,842

Quote:
It is going to be up to the Afghans to decide their own direction for their own future. Nothing we (just like previous invaders) can do will influence the pace & the direction of change there.

Post: # 4,930,883

Things That Make You Go Hmmm.......
JTT
 
  2  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 10:49 am
@hawkeye10,
Funny how, in a thread about the brutal invasion of a sovereign nation, the war crimes of the US,, the total disregard of the Afghan's suffering by the very people who precipitated it, you can focus on the most inane things imaginable, Hawkeye.

Talk about hmmmmm.
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 11:02 am
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:
I seek nothing negative for anyone who doesn't actively want to either harm me or support someone who does.


That's patently false, Cy, because you constantly make lame excuses for successive US governments who have been terrorizing the poor of the planet for over a hundred years.

Every president since Truman has committed war crimes - war crimes as defined by the same laws that the US invented to punish the crimes of WWII. War crimes that would have brought, would bring death by hanging for the top officials of your country.

And yet, you make apologies for these events, events that have been responsible for the deaths of some 7 to 9 million. You have absolutely no sense of proportion, very few Americans do.

Some 2800 Americans die, after having been involved in the deaths of millions, and what happens? Y'all go American/postal/nuts on completely innocent people, on your own creations, on dictators that you have recently used to butcher other innocents.

And the discussion - how the US has suffered, how the US continues to suffer.

And when the sickening hypocrisy is pointed out to you, when the lies that support this carnage are revealed, you trot out more apologies, more misdirection, more lies.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 11:18 am
@ossobuco,
Invasion Newspeak: U.S. & USSR
Noam Chomsky
FAIR, December, 1989

In May 1983, a remarkable event took place in Moscow. A courageous newscaster, Vladimir Danchev, denounced the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in five successive radio broadcasts extending over five days, calling upon the rebels to resist. This aroused great admiration in the West. The New York Times (8/6/83) commented accurately that this was a departure from the official Soviet propaganda line, that Danchev had "revolted against the standards of doublethink and newspeak." Danchev was taken off the air and sent to a psychiatric hospital. When he was returned to his position several months later, a Russian official was quoted as saying that "he was not punished, because a sick man cannot be punished."

What was particularly remarkable about Danchev's radio broadcasts was not simply that he expressed opposition to the Soviet invasion and called for resistance to it, but that he called it an "invasion." In Soviet theology, there is no such event as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; rather, there is a Russian defense of Afghanistan against bandits operating from Pakistani sanctuaries and supported by the CIA and other warmongers. The Russians claim they were invited in, and in a certain technical sense this is correct. But as the London Economist grandly proclaimed (10/25/80), "An invader is an invader unless invited in by a government with some claim to legitimacy," and the government installed by the USSR> to invite them in can hardly make such a claim, outside the world of Orwellian newspeak.

Implicit in the coverage of the Danchev affair in the West was a note of self-congratulation: It couldn't happen here -- no U.S. newscaster has been sent to a psychiatric hospital for calling a U.S. invasion "an invasion" or for calling on the victims to resist. We might, however, inquire further into just why this has never happened. One possibility is that the question has never arisen because no mainstream U.S. journalist has ever mimicked Danchev's courage, or could even perceive that a U.S. invasion of the Afghan type is in fact an invasion.

Consider the following facts. In 1962, the United States attacked South Vietnam. In that year, President John F. Kennedy sent the U.S. Air Force to attack rural South Vietnam, where more than 80 percent of the population lived. This was part of a program intended to drive several million people into concentration camps (called "strategic hamlets") where they would be surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. This would "protect" these people from the guerrillas whom, we conceded, they were largely supporting.

The direct U.S. attack against South Vietnam followed our support for the French attempt to reconquer their former colony, our disruption of the 1954 "peace process," and a terrorist war against the South Vietnamese population. This terror had already left some 75,000 dead while evoking domestic resistance, supported from the northern half of the country after 1959, that threatened to bring down the regime that the U.S. had established. In the following years, the U.S. continued to resist every attempt at peaceful settlement, and in 1964 began to plan the ground invasion of South Vietnam. The land assault took place in early 1965, accompanied by the bombing of North Vietnam and an intensification of the bombing of the south, at triple the level of the more publicized bombing of the north. The U.S. also extended the war to Laos and Cambodia.

The U.S. protested that it was invited in, but as the Economist recognized in the case of Afghanistan (never in the case of Vietnam), "an invader is an invader unless invited in by a government with some claim to legitimacy," and outside the world of newspeak, the client regime established by the U.S. had no more legitimacy than the Afghan regime established by the USSR.

Nor did the U.S. regard this government as having any legitimacy; in fact, it was regularly overthrown and replaced when its leaders appeared to be insufficiently enthusiastic about U.S. plans to escalate the terror. Throughout the war, the U.S. openly recognized that a political settlement was impossible, for the simple reason that the "enemy" would win handily in a political competition -- which the U.S. therefore deemed unacceptable.

For the past 25 years I have been searching to find some reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to a U.S. invasion of South Vietnam, or U.S. aggression in Indochina -- without success. Instead I find a U.S. defense of South Vietnam against terrorists supported from outside (namely, from Vietnam), a defense that was unwise, the doves maintain.

In short, there are no Danchevs here. Within the mainstream, there is no one who can call an invasion "an invasion," or even perceive the fact; it is unimaginable that any U.S. journalist would have publicly called upon the South Vietnamese to resist the U.S. invasion. Such a person would not have been sent to a psychiatric hospital, but it's doubtful that he would have retained his professional position and standing.

Note that here it takes no courage to tell the truth, merely honesty. We cannot plead fear of state violence, as followers of the party line can in a totalitarian state.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/198912--.htm


0 Replies
 
JPB
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 11:53 am
@JTT,
Actually, the thread is about how best for NATO forces to leave Afghanistan. I'm for leaving sooner rather than later. That we should leave seems undeniable. The villagers who once welcomed our presence now what us gone. The Afghan government who were put back in power because of our presence now want us gone. The American people, a majority of whom supported the war effort there in the beginning, now want us out. A mass exodus is apparently not desirable, but neither is staying until the end of 2014. President Karzai has indicated moving the timeline up a year. I'd like to see it happen even sooner than that.
JTT
 
  3  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 12:03 pm
@JPB,
Quote:
Actually, the thread is about how best for NATO forces to leave Afghanistan.


Y'all are fond of these policies of containment, aren't you, JPB? Contain the communists, contain the information stream to that which allows us to maintain our overly simplistic views.

You haven't addressed any of the facts. You keep suggesting that the "reasons" are all that matters, reasons that you never want to discuss or explain.

How you should leave the Afghan people is hardly complete without a discussion of how you got involved. And Afghanistan is no different than any of the myriad other invasions that the US has been involved in over the years.

It happens, time and again, because of the barrage of propaganda. It happened in Vietnam - you haven't read the article, have you? - and it happened again for Iraq and Afghanistan.

You don't want to face up to the lies of Vietnam anymore than you want to face up to the lies of Afghanistan or Iraq OR the ongoing 50 year campaign of terrorism against Cuba, OR for that matter any campaign of terrorism that the US has been involved in.

All these events are interlinked. They reoccur with alarming regularity and still nothing twigs in your brains. You simply cling to the latest piece of reassuring newsspeak even as you know, in your heart, that they are all lies.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  2  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 12:05 pm
@msolga,
What you say is true; tribal lords have always run the show in their towns and villages. That's been the situation in many of the Middle East countries, and that will not change with the interruption of our wars. Iraq is a good example; they're almost back to how they were before we intruded into their country, and unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

We lost many of our military men and women, and our billions for what?

Many claimed it was for oil. Where's that oil?
roger
 
  2  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 12:07 pm
@JPB,
So would I. What is missing in a cost/benefit analysis is the benefits. The costs in lives, money, and animosity are clearly visible. Any possible benefits seem to lie in the area of postponing the inevitable.
Ragman
 
  1  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 09:38 pm
@roger,
I just can't see any tangible benfits to US citizenry at this point for remaining in
Afghanistan.

In fact, much to the contrary, I see only negatives - epsecially after that senseless massacre. How many times can Afghanistan be invaded by foreign powers, such as Russia then USA? I had heard that when we first arrived there in Afghanistan, the reception was fairlygood. Now they wish us dead.

What earthly benefits is/are there to any of their interests for any her involvement? I certainly don't wish this scenario but my prediction is that within 6 months of US departure, whatever stability they had will probably be overturned.
Ragman
 
  3  
Reply Sat 17 Mar, 2012 09:55 pm
@Ragman,
Ragman wrote:

... for any further involvement...
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 11:26 am
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:
This is from the OECD study of foreign aid handed out -

http://webnet.oecd.org/oda2010/

Here's the fact sheet to back it up -

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/54/41/47515917.pdf

You will note that the US gave out almost three times as much in foreign aid as any other country did.


This "contention" you are trying to make, Cy, is as lame as your "argument" explaining why the US isn't a terrorist nation.

The numbers are inherently false and the saddest part of this is that you know it or you should know it.

This must be an awfully embarrassing mistake for you given that you make great pretense here at A2K that you are some top notch researcher, that you seek the truth.

What makes your mistake even more egregious is the lecturing tone you leveled at CJ, suggesting that she wasn't up to speed on the issues/the facts and yet here, it was/is you that is hardly up to speed on any of the "facts" you've presented.

Let's assume for the moment, though that's giving you way too much leeway, that this is just honest ignorance on your part. If that contention has any veracity, it'll mean you apologizing to CJ and you retracting all the propaganda that you've so far advanced.

Now, American "foreign aid".

The US gives a mere one tenth of one percent of GPD. It gives the least of the 22 most developed nations.

Most of the "foreign aid" the US gives is military in nature and most goes to those countries that support its imperialist ventures around the world.

Quote:
The most generous countries are also the ones that do not tend to tie aid to their own products and services. The stingiest countries also, almost spitefully and nastily, force countries to buy their own services and products with the aid they give; which reduces free trade and commerce and harms the country's economy, as well as being simply selfish and conceited. Thankfully, many countries do not tie their aid. Countries that tie less than 10% of aid include Ireland, Norway and the UK, then Belgium, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden. The USA is the worst, and ties nearly 90% of its aid to developing countries. Italy is the second worst with 70%. The two worst countries for this obnoxious practice in aid-giving are also the two countries out of the most developed countries, who give least generously!

http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/charity.html#USA


The following, a simple editorial review, [read it, it's excellent, it's concise] really nails the earlier description I mentioned; the fact that even in the face of horrendous losses inflicted upon other countries and innocent people by the US, Americans just cannot stop talking about themselves, they just cannot stop dwelling on how they have suffered, when it is all along Americans who have caused the problems.

Quote:
In their important new book, [Why Do People Hate America?] Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies dissect this question and get to the root of the all too complicated answer. An answer that is not a straightforward counterblast to the hatred expressed for America but rather a look at the consequences of interaction in a world in which gross disparities of power, wealth, freedom, and opportunity must be factored into each and every situation.

Already an international bestseller, "Why Do People Hate America?" doesn’t stop there but rather examines, discusses and debates many topics, including:

• The indiscriminate use of the term ‘America’ to cover many different aspects of U.S. influence and operation around the world and how it is a reflection of the ‘hamburger syndrome’.

• The way in which the brand called ‘America’ has been sold to the rest of the world and the consequences of the globalization of American culture on developing countries are examined via analysis of: American foreign and economic policies; U.S. treatment of the rest of the world at the United Nations; American control of global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization; and U.S. relationship with developing countries over the last five decades.

• Why are presumptions of innocence and self-righteousness so central to American self-image? The authors examine America’s image of itself in its historic narratives and founding myths. They argue that definitions are relational terms, in that everyone’s image of self includes, and in part depends on, their view of other people.

• How the power of the American media works to keep Americans closed to experiences and ideas from the rest of the world and thereby increases the insularity, self-absorption and ignorance that are the overriding problems the rest of the world has with America.

• How the foreign policy of the U.S. government, backed by its military strength, has unprecedented global influence now that the United States is the world’s only superpower – its first ‘hyperpower’.

• The problem of ‘knowledgeable ignorance’: defined as knowing people, ideas, civilizations, religions, histories as something they are not - and could not possibly be - and maintaining these ideas even when the means exist to know differently.

• The American construction of the ‘axis of evil’ is a form of grand absolutism reflecting America as a hostile, inimical perversion, endemic and operating within other nations all around the globe.

The authors of "Why Do People Hate America?" know that the one of the hardest things for people to do is examine oneself and admit one’s own problems. The same holds true for the U.S., as a nation, creating much frustration within the country and infuriation, antipathy, hostility and even hatred beyond the bounds of America.

If America refuses to reflect upon its history, its uses and abuses of power and wealth at home and abroad, the consequences of its lifestyle and abundance, the relations between quality of life and values, the relation between ideals and practical application of those ideals to all of its people, then what chance has the rest of the world of engaging America in reasoned discussion?

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Do-People-Hate-America/dp/0971394253/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332089479&sr=1-1


0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 11:33 am
@Ragman,
Quote:
I just can't see any tangible benfits to US citizenry at this point for remaining in Afghanistan.


See what I mean. The conceit is absolutely amazing. People who wouldn't dream of expressing this level/kind of personal conceit, constantly engage in this American conceit.

See Post: # 4,932,206, [the one before this one] Ragman, for good insight into your national psychological problem.
hawkeye10
 
  1  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 12:08 pm
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:
Many claimed it was for oil. Where's that oil?


You are confused, that was Iraq. Some claim that we are in Afghanistan for the natural resource extraction rights, and if so we lost, because China walked away with most of the contracts.
Ragman
 
  2  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 12:13 pm
@JTT,
As is typical of your trademark distortion, you took what I wrote out of context. That sentence and the one before certainly shows the concern for Afghanistani people as well.
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 12:25 pm
@Ragman,
Quote:
As is typical of your trademark distortion, you took what I wrote out of context. That sentence and the one before certainly shows the concern for Afghanistani people as well.


There is no "one before", Ragman. And if the first one, quoted below, is your idea of showing concern for the Afghan people, your pathology is much worse than I imagined.

Quote:
I just can't see any tangible benfits to US citizenry at this point for remaining in
Afghanistan.


Maybe you are a man of subtle ways and I've missed it. Please elucidate.

Also, as a brave and honest, American citizen, wouldn't it behoove you to actually point out any "trademark distortions" instead of just alluding to them in an offhand manner?
Ragman
 
  3  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 12:33 pm
@JTT,
JTT wrote:

... wouldn't it behoove you to actually point out any "trademark distortions"


I see no sense in doing so as you're doing a bang-up job on your own.
JTT
 
  -2  
Reply Sun 18 Mar, 2012 01:40 pm
@Ragman,
Quote:
I see no sense in doing so as you're doing a bang-up job on your own.


Of course you see no sense in that, Ragman. You are petrified of what you might have to discuss, of what you might discover, of what you might have to admit.

You don't even possess enough honesty to point out how you showed concern for the Afghans. Even after you disingenuously suggested it was right there, in plain view.

Land of the brave, my ass.
0 Replies
 
sumonht1990
 
  -1  
Reply Tue 20 Mar, 2012 07:45 am
@ossobuco,
I hope that's a good command .
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Tue 20 Mar, 2012 11:45 am
@hawkeye10,
I'm not confused; you are! I was talking about Iraq.

I wrote,
Quote:
Iraq is a good example; they're almost back to how they were before we intruded into their country, and unnecessarily killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

We lost many of our military men and women, and our billions for what?

Many claimed it was for oil. Where's that oil?


News report on IRAQ today.
Quote:
Bomb Attacks in Iraq

Ahead of a meeting next week of Arab leaders, at least 43 people were killed on Tuesday in attacks on police stations and civilian targets in half a dozen cities across Iraq, security officials said.
0 Replies
 
InfraBlue
 
  1  
Reply Fri 23 Mar, 2012 04:46 pm
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:
Yes, absolutely. A government of a country is a reflection of the wishes of the people of the country. The people of Afghanistan were not in revolt against their Taliban government. There was no active movement to oppose them at the time. Therefore, there is no other logical conclusion than that the people of the country supported the actions of their leaders in protecting these terrorists who attacked us.

I know people who were killed on 9/11. They aren't coming back. This doesn't mean that I'm filled with some unreasoning rage, some anger that demands deaths in kind to atone for it; but we shouldn't treat the people of these other countries as children, either... they are not and were not. They are adults, the same as you and I, and responsible for their actions and those of the leaders who they willingly allowed to commit atrocities by proxy.

They could have risen up against the very government who actively protected those who committed atrocities - but they chose not to do so. In large part because the traditional teachings of their religion - not the one that all share, but the teachings that many of them shared - said that there was no moral compunction against killing people like me.


Wow, that's a lot of responsibility and blame that you are putting on the individual Afghanis. That's not much different from the responsibility and blame with which Robert Bales charged, and extracted his toll from, the individual Afghanis that he murdered.
 

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