Insurgents linked to the former Taliban regime have set off a wave of violence in Afghanistan, launching a string of almost daily bombings and assassinations that have killed dozens of U.S. and Afghan military personnel and civilians in recent weeks while spreading fear throughout the international aid worker community.
Analysts say the rash of attacks appears calculated to undermine stability in the lead-up to parliamentary elections scheduled for September and has undercut predictions by U.S. and Afghan officials during the winter that the radical Islamic militia was on the verge of collapse.
No doubt these are ‘dead enders’ in their last throes, desperate because they fear freedom. Fuck, even though they are in Afghanistan, they probably are just Sunni Arab Ba’athists pissed off about their loss of privileges. Or, perhaps they work for Musab al-Zarqawi-Gump.
to photoshop Forrest Gump and al-Zarqawi, the catch-all Where’s Waldo Zelig terrorist?
in my diary that he is having a rough week, I sent some good thoughts & vibes his direction. I wonder where Ductape is? <off to look around>
for not finishing the job in Afghanistan. talk about chickens coming to roost–that was the war we all supported, but the Motherfucker-in-Chief decided to use it for his neocon dreams/upping daddy in Iraq.
Hopes to wait out the situation and let the people who take over after him pay the price? I don’t think they can wait that long..but i wonder if that’s what they’re thinking.
Motherfucker?
‘Scuse me?
in the respect that the moves our govt. makes ends up reflecting on the citizens.
Use a different epithet.
btw–am a huge, tho not entirely uncritical Mencken fan.
luv the essay on death, among others.
Asshole.
Lying sack of shit.
Human garbage.
Walking compost.
The reason I made this point is that I think it not so great that someone who has made a big point, and a correct point, about language, sensitivity, gender, and the blindness of many in the Democratic Party, in the progressive movement and so on….should then go and throw out a massively gendered and demeaning epithet.
Think it over.
And Mencken rocks.
uh-just to get the “facts” straight, you are saying I am human garbage?
No no no…
I was suggesting alternative epithets… sorry I did not make that more clear.
BUSH is human garbage, an asshole, and etc.
YOU are awesome, but I wanted to point out that you might want to reconsider the use of “motherfucker” given the extremely negative connotations and gendered use of the feminine and sexual to denigrate.
Is Bush a “pussy” “whining bitch” and etc? No – he’s not, and calling him those things is regressive and promotes reactionary language and uses the denigration of women as a rhetorical tool.
I get careless abt. the m-f stuff.
the 70’s. You offered peace, and that is what matters. you took the highroad and I respect you for that. Tempers are still boiling…my respect for you is overflowing. Keep up the good work and always take the highroad..it is a magical highway. “I was a free man in paris”…”Kerry get out your Cane”…It was not what I expected. However…Booman and Dkos MUST get along…If a war continues…I will be forced to be sad and leave both blogs. We must unite.
Motherfucker is in no way demeaning to women. It’s demeaning to the motherfucker.
How about this one:
Calling someone a whiny bitch is not using a feminine image as a powerful and demeaning slander”
Calling someone a motherfucker is using the imagery associated with incest, the imputed sexual relationship between mothers and sons, and the subsequent reversal of the mother-son power relationship in brutal terms.
If folks are going to get upset about pie ads, about the response to criticisms of pie ads, and the general tenor of some comments over “there” then they should damn well make sure that their shit don’t stink over “here” – pots and kettles, beams and motes and all that jazz.
I think MDevore responded quite well to my critique, and I appreciate it.
1. I have no idea what this means as I did not say it, approve it or see it anywhere:
Who the hell are you to tell anybody on this site what epithet they may or may not use?
I do not agree with the migration, but I respect it, and can certainly understand why it took place.
However, the POINT is that if folks are going to abandon long-time allies over such an issue, and are going to do so explicitly because of choice of words, and are going to point out the use of “bitch” or “pussy” and other gendered language based in patriarchal power relationships (all of which I think is perfectly rational and reasonable criticism)…then they had better be aware of their own failings and slips on that front too.
I can request and suggest and demand anything I want.
If that request/suggestion/demand is rejected, I can complain, stalk the “offender” or leave.
Who the hell are you to tell me what to think, what to be offended by, and what to respond to?
to you both. There is no need to provoke a fight. I’m not interested in being a police officer around here so please cool it down abit. Peace.
He starteed it!
(heh!)
Neener neener neener
to put your thumb on the tip of your nose and wave your fingers at me! 😛
No I didn’t.
You just didn’t see me.
Your declaration of your freedom to “stalk” made everything clear.
Over and out.
We’re thinking alike. I just wrote this diary on Daily Kos. No need for me to cross post it here.
Carnacki wrote:
19 Saudis and Egyptians slipped through US immigration and airport security to man the planes that crashed into the buildings on 9/11. They were trained in Afghanistan but Afghanistan was not the enemy that attacked the US on their soil. Many Afghani civilians were killed during the bombing of Afghanistan, farm houses were bombed, wedding parties were bombed, Canadian Forces in training were bombed. This was not strategic selected target bombings, it was a free for all using daisy cutters and anti-personnel cluster bombs. There will be retaliation for all those killings.
Now you know why I call them the Invincible Taliban on my blog…
Pax
The ass – isn’t that where you kick yourself, when you screw up?
I’m certain that many folk here are aware that the situation in Afghanistan has become so dire that British troops have been shifted out of Iraq–that’s right, out of Iraq, where you would imagine the US-UK occupying forces would need all the troops they can muster–to the rugged country of southern Afghanistan where they will be battling the resurgent Taliban forces (see excerpt from The Guardian, below).
I don’t agree, by the way, that it was necessary to invade and occupy Afghanistan. True, the Taliban’s regime was cruelly oppressive, and true, the Taliban certainly harboured Osama bin Laden and others, but one could send US, Canadian, and British special forces in country to hunt Osama without taking over the entire country. The hiding places of Osama and other al-Qaeda in Afghanistan were/are in regions where it is a virtual Wild West, with no law and order even under the Taliban. In my opinion, one of the reasons Afghanistan was taken over is because it is part of the land route for gas and oil pipelines out of the petroleum-rich Caspian Sea region (see map, below)–if invading and occupying Afghanistan was truly front-and-centre in the “war on terror”, troops wouldn’t have been taken out of there to invade and occupy Iraq.
At least 1,000 soldiers will be deployed to help restore order across five of Afghanistan’s most lawless provinces as part of an expansion of Nato operations. At the same time, Britain’s commanding officer in Afghanistan admitted that it will be ‘years’, possibly ‘a generation’, before Britain will be able to leave the country.
The provinces include Uruzgan, home of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold. The area is where resistance to the West and the government in Kabul remains a threat and where only last weekend a US soldier was killed and three injured in a Taliban attack.
The deployment, which will take place next spring, will mark a significant extension of Britain’s role in Afghanistan and prompt concerns over the level of UK military commitments overseas, especially while the conflict in Iraq continues.
So far British troops have been deployed principally in the capital, Kabul, and in the largely peaceful northern cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Meymaneh. The south, by contrast, has remained largely beyond the control of Karzai’s government and has been patrolled only sporadically by US troops seeking Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants. There have been a number of clashes, leading to American fatalities, as well as attacks on aid workers, who now regard much of the region as a ‘no-go’ area.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1494957,00.html
Source: http://www.aztlan.net/Pipelinemap.gif
The Afghanis were successful in crushing the Soviet military and kicking them out of their country with their tails between their legs. True, the mujahadeen (holy warriors) in Afghanistan had substantial outside support from the US and the UK (providing weapons) in their struggle against Soviet occupation in the 1980s, but the Russians also put 175,000 troops into Afghanistan at the peak of the conflict, suffered 15,000 killed and 53,000 wounded in the ten years of their occupation (1979-1989), and in the end…lost the country anyway.
The United States and the United Kingdom, along with their other European allies, have not made the commitment in troops necessary to occupy Afghanistan. In fact, I submit to you that even if the United States and United Kingdom equalled the troop strength of the Soviet Union at the peak of its occupation (175,000), it could not hold Afghanistan indefinitely. The only mission the US/UK coalition ever had in Afghanistan was a special forces mission to hunt down and kill al-Qaeda leaders; it had no business overthrowing the Taliban and establishing the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai.
I agree with this. I object to the Republican term “war on terror.” Initially this was an invasion to crush the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and his training camps. “War on Terror” allows the Bush administration to detain ‘terror suspects’ all over the world and to invade any country. There is no ‘war on terror’ -there are invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The term “war on terror” allows the Pentagon to invade Syria, Iran or North Korea, it is dangerous to accept that propaganda term.
The precious oil, that is. Look at the maps below. What do Iraq and Afghanistan have in common? They either provide access to, or contain, great quantities of the Precious.
Note that I put the “war on terror” in quotation marks–it is impossible to make “war” on a concept. What governments should do (and European governments have done, even the UK) is:
(1) Take internal security measures to prevent terrorist attacks (which the United States has not taken since 9/11);
(2) Undertake special missions abroad to kill/capture terrorist leaders in unorganised regions of the world (such as the lawless provinces of Afghanistan);
(3) Thoroughly re-examine their foreign policies to see exactly WHY it is men like Osama bin Laden have support abroad. WHY are people in the Arab countries angry at the United States? While there is absolutely no justification for the murder of people on 9/11, the Arab world does have many legitimate grievances against the United States and Europe.
Actually, I’d be perfectly happy skipping #2 if we focused on #1 and #3–especially #3.
No. 1 is essential but it should not include taking the rights away from US citizens, secret arrests without charges, rendering suspects to torture countries, and other abuses included in the Patriot Acts.
No. 2 looks like CIA death squads, killing people who are only ‘suspects.’ Ideally the suspects should be brought before an international court and tried. But I don’t believe that the US recognizes the international court. Instead it created Gitmo.
I think that the US needs more Arabic speaking intelligence officers, while increasing intelligence. 9/11 was a security failure not necessarily a failure of on the ground intelligence. Weren’t many reports ignored before 9/11? Even when reports reached the highest levels of government, like the August 6 PDB, they were ignored. As Condaleeza Rice proclaimed ‘it was historical.’
So instead of admitting failure and resolving to correct their mistakes in the future, the administration took revenge on Afghanistan and Iraq. Two countries that they already had in their military sights long before 9/11 because of their demand for oil.
No. 3
The Osama made his demands very clear, remove the US military bases from Arabia and resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. So far the US has moved the military bases to Iraq and completely failed the Arab-Israeli conflict. No. 3 is very important not in any sense of justification but for prevention.
This administration claims they are on the right track because there has not been another 9/11. That’s a fact that they exploited for the 2004 election. Many American people believe that Bush is keeping them safe from terrorists and accept the human, environmental, military, and reconstruction costs in Afghanistan and Iraq as as the price of US security. I believe attacks within the United States have been prevented mostly by increased US security, immigration, airports etc.
That is not say that the destruction of the training camps in Afghanistan was not effective. I believe it could have been done without daisy cutter bombs, by working with the Northern Alliance, through intelligence and stealth. Maybe Afghanistan was used also as a testing ground for new weapons. Beating that impoverished and devastated country even further into the ground was not a triumph for the USA, as the Republicans claim.
Unfortunately, you can’t issue an arrest warrant and serve it on al-Qaeda leaders in countries like Afghanistan. The Taliban-led government harboured al-Qaeda,and even if they wanted to turn Osama over to the US or to an international tribunal, they couldn’t–most of Afghanistan is ruled by tribal warlords and always has been. Osama has bought the loyalty of those warlords.
That is why I emphasised using this tactic in nations only where there is no central government in control of the entire country.
Internal security means, for example, requiring 24 hour a day security at chemical processing facilities in the United States–something which hasn’t been done nearly four years after 9/11. It doesn’t mean depriving people of their civil liberties wholesale.
Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/images/afghan-provinces-map.gif
Please note that the “hot spots” in Afghanistan are the provinces of Oruzgan and Kandahar; however, the map above does not show how treacherous this mountainous country is, and the impossibility of locating people in this region who don’t wish to be found.
The second map shows the geography of Afghanistan, and gives you an idea of the terrain involved.
Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/images/afghan-map-mod-uk.jpg
This third image shows the typical terrain in the province of Kandahar. As you can see, it is both arid and mountainous, and riddled with thousands upon thousands of caves.
Source: http://www.therealmartha.com/Navymisc/Afghan_Mountains65.JPG
I love Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexica. Arid doesn’t scare me. What a beautiful country!
Imagine: You are a soldier who has not been acclimated to high altitudes.
You are carrying 50+ lbs of kit on your back.
You are hiking through rocky, mountainous terrain up a steep incline.
Every breath you draw hurts because of the thinner air, and besides, it is cold–despite your thermal gloves and boots, your feet and hands are numb.
Oh, and the Taliban fighters who have lived all their lives in the same climate and terrain are dug in about 100 metres somewhere above you, and are even now training their rifle sights on you.
From that perspective, the “pretty” country is better seen from a helicopter or jet, wouldn’t you say?
Is it really a renaissance of the Taliban or is that Pentagon speak?
The Christian Science Monitor–a paper considered so reliable that the CIA and British intelligence use it as a source of information–reports that the Taliban fighters left the cities when US-led coalition attacked Afghanistan. The Taliban evacuated to the countryside, particularly the mountainous central and southern provinces of Afghanistan, where they have caches of food and munitions.
Actually–and this is a little-known fact–the conflict in Afghanistan is more deadly and more intense than the one in Iraq.
Read the stories at the links below and you’ll see what I mean:
http://www.cursor.org/stories/secondcoming.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0508/p01s02-wosc.html
Thanks. Christian Science Monitor is on my list of reliable sources too!
I’ll follow those links now.
interviewed on NPR yesterday. He’s growing wheat now instead of poppies, at 1/30th the price. They asked him what he’ll do next year and the clear implication he gave was that the poppies will rise again.
Wasn’t elimination of this crop trumpeted as a major bi-product of the invasion?
Yes, it was a combo
War on Terror/War on Drugs effort.
I’d laugh if it was not so tragic.
perspective. God what an enormous betrayal. After 9/11 people flooded into the recruiters……anybody remember that? We all thought they were headed to Afganistan and end the insanity that addressed the nation on 9/11. The wait in the military was endless. When are we going? Finally about two months later the first troops hit Afganistan and we are told “Mission Accomplished”. Everybody was happy except for the experienced all war horses making eye contact around the room with each other and all instinctively knowing that Afganistan couldn’t be that simple, it just didn’t make sense. Our military ranks were swollen though in the 9/11 wake, people were ready to do something…….many had newly signed on to do something about this “terror”. Next thing that comes up, Iraq, WMD’s, links to Osama, yellow cake, tubes. The swollen ranks ready to tend to something were handed Iraq and off we went to do what? I’m so fatigued by it all at this point my brain becomes mush. I’m all lied to and bullshitted out!
Need to proof read more. Meant “Old War Horses” making eye contact around the room, all those old guys who stay in the military for 30 or 40 years instead of the regular old 20.
That’s why we have spellcheck Tracy