What are we doing in Afghanistan? Anybody worried? or Not worried?
Zbig must have been reading this forum:
A Somber Warning on Afghanistan
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By ALISON SMALE
Published: September 13, 2009
GENEVA — Western powers now in Afghanistan run the risk of suffering the fate of the Soviet Union there if they cannot halt the growing insurgency and an Afghan perception that they are foreign invaders, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former U.S. national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
In a speech opening a weekend gathering of military and foreign policy experts, Mr. Brzezinski, who was national security adviser when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979, endorsed a British and German call, backed by France, for a new international conference on the country. He also set the tone for a weekend of somber assessments of the situation.
He noted that it took about 300 U.S. Special Forces — fighting with Northern Alliance troops — to overthrow Taliban rule after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.
Now, however, with about 100,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan, those forces are increasingly perceived as foreign invaders, much as the Soviet troops were from the start, Mr. Brzezinski said.
For President Barack Obama, Afghanistan is the foreign policy issue that has “perhaps the greatest need for strategic review,” said Mr. Brzezinski, who met with Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign last year, and endorsed his candidacy but was not a formal adviser.
“We are running the risk of replicating — obviously unintentionally — the fate of the Soviets,” Mr. Brzezinski said in his speech Friday night.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/world … 4nato.html- sneakorocksolidposted 14 years ago
0We have to stop playing nice and it will end the way we want. We should ignore those who have the"surender-monkey" mentality. We should also cut ties to any allie who does not support our efforts. We should tell the civilian population either help or duck, period. I would bet the farm it would end the way we want it to.
In your opinion, what is the way we want it to end?
I don't mean slap their hands, I mean cut off their hands.
you were much more effective as dean. remember, ripping peoples' heads off and watching them suffocate?
That sounds worse than the Taliban sneak.
I'll take dibs on the farm too.That's a good question. The more troops we send the more Americans and Afghans will be killed. To what end?
I say remove our troops! We can send our weapons that way we'll save half the lives! Ralph I can go with your position as long as we close our borders and protect America. Now thats a compromise, what-d-ya say?
I'm in favor of protecting America and taking every practical precaution at our borders. "Closing" our borders is not practical in today's interconnected world.
Ralph it would be a great way to create more jobs. You have to give something to get something thats what a compromise is. I don't see anything wrong with militarized borders other than appearances. Why sould we care what anyone thinks they can handle their mess their way and we can handle our mess our way.
- sneakorocksolidposted 14 years ago0
End opium production to pinch off funds to the bad guys. Install a healthy sense of fear in the populace, that if they fail to police them selves we will be back and let them start over again.
In your opinion, what is the best possible outcome of the war? This is a serious question.
Imagine we destroy Afghanistan, their economy (not just "terrorist funds"), is in the toilet because the poppy industry is dead, the population has a "healthy fear" of us -- as you advocate -- then what? An America-loving democracy will just appear? A structured army and police force will just materialize and govern themselves because we said so?No, I don't believe in majic but if they fear us more than the bad guys then may be that radical side will be 'run out of Dodge' when they start there crap.
I think being nice and charitable has run it's course. I think helping them help themselves has run it's course. I also think the US as the worlds police has run it's course. I don't really care what happens there, as long as it happens there. I think we should tell the rest of the world the parties over.
Our best product is our military technology. If they want our protection they have to pay for it and there are conditions. If they don't want our help and/or aren't willing to pay for it, good luck.
In the future, if a muslim country or organization attacks us we show them what terror really is. Personally I feel we should make it clear to all sects, tribes or Islamic groups if we are attacked again we will level Mecca, next Medina, next Tehran and so on. That way the outcome is in their hands they decide what they suffer, not us.
Then if our charities want to offer aid let them but, the US government has no money. So they need to get out of the forgien aid buisness.Imagine this: your state is invaded and occupied by a modern, technologically advanced, Middle-Eastern army (bear with me here). Your neighbors are dying in attacks every day. The Middle-Easterners claim they are protecting you, but they don't speak english and are pretty rough. Every time you have to go somewhere, you have to go through one of their checkpoints and show all your documents.
Who do you have more loyalty to, these invading foreigners, or other Americans, including your buddies, who are in hiding with .22s and any bombs they can put together to get these people out of our country? Would you ever submit?I understand and if it was the other way around I probably would feel differently but its not. We have to deal reality and the reality is there are alot of people who don't like us. I don't think that will change any time soon. No matter how much we help it never is enough. Do we make mistakes? Absolutely! Do we have our own bad guys? Absolutely! Thats why we should just take care of our selves.
If we stay off the world stage and someone attacks us then you have to agree they get what they deserve. As I've said before, "if you pull the tigers tail and you get mauled, whose fault is it? The tiger or the moron who pulled his tail?"
Buy the opium from the farmers. Nothing for the bad guys to sell for gun money.
you guys might want to do a bit of research on the cia's connection to drug trafficking in afghanistan. it might open your eyes to the reality of the situation.
then again, it probably won't.
Any way you look at it this war is a waste of human lives. It's called population control sweetie. Every time the population gets too big there is a huge war and in the end the population is diminished and the world goes on. It's just a matter of which side loses the most soldiers as to which side wins. Roughly every 20-40 years there has to be a large war but with new technology we aren't losing as many as we used to so the war will last much longer.
Evidently you are not a big woman's rights advocate. Women and children are slightly oppressed in Taliban-controlled regions.
Sorry bud we're not in Afghanistan to protect women's rights. I know you think we are the world police out to capture evil-doers and save kittens, but it turns out we only get involved when we have interests at stake.
Who is "we"? And to what "gain" are you referring?
Ive been to Afghanistan not a great vacation spot!
"We" are America. I always include myself as an American, whether or not I agree with the policy. I don't say "those ignorant conservatives screwed it all up for us," whether or not I believe it. You're either an American or not.
If you really haven't figured this out yet, we are in Afghanistan to protect our own backs against stronger Taliban-backed terrorist networks. We are certainly NOT there because of women's rights. I thought that was common knowledge by now.So, what's wrong with that? I think we should protect ourselves. Not only that, we're genuinely helping the rest of the world by rooting these murderers out.
Most of "these murderers," if you mean Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, they are now in Pakistan, not Afghanistan if what I've been reading is correct. And al Qaida has metastasized to many countries throughout the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia and Europe. I'm not sure what murderers we are killing in Afghanistan. I'm sure there's some overlap between al Qaida and the Taliban but they aren't synonymous. And I get the impression that the Taliban isn't a monolithic, centralized organization. There are all kinds of regional tribal loyalties going back many years if not centuries. It's a quite confusing and complicated situation from what I've read.
So, you don't think the Taliban and Al Qaida are murderers?
His didn't question whether or not Taliban and al-Qaeda were murders, he simply pointed out that the rationale for us being there, to protect ourselves from terrorism by dismantling al-Qaeda, is no longer valid, if it ever was to begin with. (At least that is how his post read to me)
I didn't say that. Al Qaida is a terrorist organization that has spread to many countries and is responsible to many murders including 9-11 and attacks in several western countries. The Taliban provided a safe haven for bin Laden and Al Qaida but had no direct role in 9-11. Many of them were allied with and armed and supported by the U.S. in their defeat of Russia in Afghanistan. I don't believe the Taliban had a big beef against the United States before we sent troops to Afghanistan. However, there are still links between Al Qaida and the Taliban, but they have somewhat different goals. I wonder how many al Qaida members or adherents remain in Afghanistan.
Moreover, as I'm sure you have read, we have killed a fairly large number of innocent women and children in the process of bombing the Taliban. This isn't winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans. If they were your relatives you might be calling the United States "murderers."
No I'm not a huge women's rights activist. As far as I'm concerned that got this country into enough trouble when we did it and all the women joined the work force instead of staying home to care for their own children. But that's another debate all together and one I personally am very opinionated about. The women there have to do something for themselves not us taking a war to thier doorstep to make it all right for them.
The women of the USA took matters into thier own hands and fought for our rights. So yes....brooms against guns. The women there have always lived this way and in many cases will choose to continue this way because it is all they know. They will allow men to continue to oppress them at every turn. In this war the women and the children are fighting against us. That should be the first sign that the oppression will continue. These women don't understand anything different.
I wish I could say I sympathize with them, but I can't. You are talking about the same women that will go against our mititary forces as civilians. These same women will strap bombs to themselves and blow up inoccent lives. Can't sympathize with that. Sorry. If they want things to get better, they need to do something about it.
ryancatt wrote "Personally I never consider a war 'won', I only see the 'loss'."
If you do not think the Allies won WW II neither we Americans or those of you in the UK would be having a dispute about the language of English. We all would be speaking German.
I also consider the loss of liberty that would have resulted if we had not WON that war.Levin's judgment on Afghanistan is better than Mcchrystal's in my opinion. He had the foresight and good judgment to vote against our foolish and costly invasion of Iraq.
Job No. 1: Gain the trust of the Afghans
BY RON DZWONKOWSKI
Free Press columnist
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top military man in Afghanistan, agree on one important thing about crushing the Taliban there: The Afghan people hold the key.
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But Levin and McChrystal part ways from there.
Levin, a Michigan Democrat, wants more U.S. military equipment shipped to Afghanistan and a much faster development of the Afghan army and police into forces that can take a lead role on offense.
McChrystal, in an assessment of the eight-year war, said the immediate need is for more combat forces to show the Afghan people we are serious about helping them to help themselves.
As commander in chief, President Barack Obama will decide America's course -- mindful, no doubt, that Afghanistan has been a quagmire for mighty military nations in the past. Public support for the war is fading, too, and much like Vietnam two generations ago, it appears we must either get in it to win it or get out.
Right now, we're doing neither, and it's costing us popular support among Afghans, said Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and one member of a team of analysts brought in by McChrystal to help prepare the assessment.
The key to a COIN -- or counterinsurgency -- strategy, Biddle said, is gathering intelligence from the civilian population. That means living with the people, gaining their confidence and, most important, being around to protect them from retaliation for identifying the Taliban fighters among them, he said.
"You can't do that very well from an F15. ... It takes boots on the ground; it is labor-intensive," Biddle said. He described a COIN operation as contrary to conventional military thinking: "You do the operation to gather the intelligence, as opposed to gathering intelligence to launch an operation."
Biddle also said following Levin's path to bolster Afghanistan's forces will still require additional combat troops to secure training sites and demonstrate to potential recruits that they will be supported.
All of which argues for one more push that will probably take two more years of expanded, expensive combat operations -- not seek-and-destroy but instead working intensely with the Afghan people to root out the Taliban for good.
If this is Obama's choice, it won't be a popular one, but McChrystal makes a persuasive case that he can, with patience and persistence, be a president who won a war, not just ended it.
Contact RON DZWONKOWSKI: 313-222-6635 or rdzwonkowski@freepress.comFriedman is right about the gas tax and perhaps about nuclear power. However increasing the gas tax is a political non-starter. Congress would not pass it and Obama has ruled it out. Aside from all the arguments over what the best strategy is its doubtful that American voters will support our action in Afghanistan anywhere nearly long enough to accomplish our objectives, whatever they are.
God help us all, now it's Afghanistan.
Do we HAVE to be involved in a war someplace? Can't we just leave the rest of the planet alone for a while, give it a rest?
PEACE!US military buys the poppy crop from the Afghani farmers. Taliban loses major source of income. Problem solved.
Here's the NYTimes conservative op-ed columnist's take on the U.S. politics on Afghanistan this morning--
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opini … ef=opinion
Excerpt--"The answer is very likely no. However serious his doubts about escalation, Obama seems boxed in — by the thoroughness of McChrystal’s assessment and the military’s united front, by his own arguments across the last two years and by his party’s long-running insistence on painting Afghanistan as the neglected “good war.”
"But if Obama takes us deeper into war out of political necessity rather than conviction, the results could be disastrous.
"That’s because the counterinsurgency strategy he’s contemplating is the worst possible option — except for all the others. It looks attractive only because the alternatives involve abandoning southern Afghanistan to the Taliban’s tender mercies, playing Whac-a-Mole with Al Qaeda from afar with hopelessly inadequate intelligence and pushing the nuclear-armed Pakistani military back into a marriage of necessity with a resurgent Taliban next door."I find it funny that we have not learned a lesson from Iraq in that from around the middle of the war there, the growing opinion from our advisers was that the conflict in Iraq could only be solved through political means. So we prooved it by paying off the little warlords and backing the Sons of Iraq militia that swung over to our side once they saw the profit in it for them.
Is that not a possibility now. I know that the Karzai government has show that corruption is an important element in his administration but perhaps switching the poppy farmers to being paid rather than being forced to grow by the Taliban is a direction we might take for starters.If you enjojed those clips take a look at this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtYThanks. I've heard it before, but I enjoyed, if that's the word, watching it again. Prophetic. Eisenhower bears little or no resemblance to the Reagan and post-Reagan era Republicans.
I agree but it prefaces what I think is pertinent to the topic.
I guess you have to ask yourself is there a predisposition with presidents in recent history to continue policies that have worked in furthering their agendas based on the success rate of their forebearers. The propoganda blitz to garner fear among us and divide us up into groups they can direct customised manipulation. Then a response from "The Enemy" that is totally ignored and twisted to counter their claims. Then the ultimate which is the devastating war we wage with the ends justifying the means when the spin is added at the end.
The funny thing about all of this is we have proven with each war that we fight the next war with the tactics we fought the last war with regardless if the technology makes it obsolete.
When are we going to have the technology to convince people that war is the failure of politics to do its' job and that it is still fought for objectives that are not in our best interest. Our government is not our own and big business is pulling the strings.We need to stop trying to solve diplomatic problems by military means. The purpose of the military should be to defend our country and our staunch allies. We shouldn't be using it for commercial purposes such as to get access to oil or to force other countries to do what we want them to do with very few exceptions. Iraq was not one of them. Afghanistan may have been a legitimate military target, but Bush didn't follow through, and now we're between a rock and a hard place.
Iraq was an example of that and I totally support the view that the military option shouldn't have been used there. However, as you point out, Afghanistan was a whole different issue. You really didn't have anybody there who could talk diplomacy or who would listen to you. Bush didn't follow through and made things a lot harder. However, now, its up to Obama to finish the job rather than pack his bags and go home, leaving a mess that could necessitate having to go back to correct it at some time in the future.
- ralwusposted 14 years ago0
I for one do worry about this and if stupidity got us into this dam mess why can't it get us out of it too? All they need do is say "Nice doggy." and then hang onto that big club just in case. I know, I'm stupid too.
- bluetiger1520posted 14 years ago0
We shouldn't be there; we need to come home enough is enough.
I agree with what you say but what would happen if we did? Would that end the problem for us?
Sure, if we brought all of our boys and girls home, closed all of our bases abroad, etc. If the world is so interested in running things for themselves, we should let them. You don't see anybody flying planes into Swiss skyscrapers do you?
Okay, but is everyone interested in running things for themselves?
Bear in mind, we were not at war in Iraq or Afghanistan at the time that the USS Kohl was bombed, the US Embassy in Nairobi was bombed, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time, and the planning for 9-11 began.
This is not the Star Trek Universe, and there are a lot of people in the world who haven't heard of or don't give a rat's rear about the Prime Directive. If we interfere in other countries affairs, we have a war on our hands. If we decrease our interference, we're rewarded with bombings on our soil and a war on our hands.NO ONE would be dumb enough to bomb the Swiss bankers, i.e. the purse strings!
The first part is true, the second not true. Again who flew an airplane into Swiss skyscrapers? And it's not Star Trek dear, it's called noninterventionism.
But we continue to back Israel and that is their real beef with us
Actually their real problem is they let criminal thugs like Arafat, and Hamas run things for them. Absent those two things, the Palestinians could get on with building new lives for themselves instead of rotting in refugee camps. The rest of the Arab states use this condition as a way to deflect public opinion away from their mistakes and stupidity and shove it on us and the Israelis.
Ah the Arab mind and what westerners think of it. The thing is this has gone on for over 60 years and a sub class of very angry children have been reared in it. Your solution would make sense to abandon the senselessness of a guerilla war but we were not raised in these conditions. They fight because they can point to a wrong and know of no other way of righting it.
This thing has gone on for thousands of years. And I don't buy that crap about the "Arab mind" Arabs are human beings and as such are able to be understood in terms we describe other humans in. They fight because their ancestors acted stupidly. Rather than wait and see what life with the Israeli's would be like, they fled, believing the promises of their "Arab brothers" that Israel would be pushed into the sea. They abandoned their homes and took up arms against a people. In my opinion, they forfeited their right to live then when they decided to fight rather than talk.
And no, I didn't grow up in a situation like that, thank God. I grew up here, in a society which values peace, prosperity and literacy, to name a few. Which means I can read history and understand how and why things got to this pass and am immune to the crude propaganda coming out of the radical Arab camp.From your answer I take it you have not studied the Arab culture and can relate to your back ground and society to make your argument. I don't slight you for it but it is a weak point to expect them to handle the situation by how you relate to it rather than what they feel.
Here is a piece I think might enlighten you as to how the struggle began and what was involved more than the land.
On November 29, 1947, the night partition was announced in Palestine, Zionist settlers danced through the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. When some dancers burst onto David Ben-Gurion's study, he hurried them away and returned to poring over military maps. The maps showed that over one-half of all Jewish settlers lived in three major cities, while the Palestinian Arabs lived in every city and in Arab villages throughout Palestine. Ben-Gurion studied each Arab village, focusing on the details of its strategic importance, its inhabitants, and its surrounding terrain.
Ben-Gurion had already ordered a secret mobilization of all soldiers in the Zionist army, the Haganah, and in the Palmach, the assault troops of the Haganah. Earlier in November, four special agents had departed for Europe with three million dollars of credits raised in the United States. Their mission was to buy rifles, machine guns, airplanes and artillery. In the outlying kibbutzim, secret arms factories, built from smuggled materials supplied by American Zionists, turned out small arms. Zionists were negotiating with Czechoslovakia for a large arms purchase.1 Ben-Gurion was preparing a military offensive designed to seize much more of Palestine for the Zionist state than the United Nations had assigned to it. He called this offensive "Plan Dalet." It would begin as soon as enough British troops withdrew from Palestine.2
For Palestinian Arabs, the threat of war hung heavy in the air the night of partition. They listened to the wild celebration in the streets. They talked of how to defend their nation in the upcoming fight. No arms were arriving from Europe for the Palestinians. The weapons they possessed dated from the 1936 rebellion. In all of Jaffa, there were only eight machine guns. The British Emergency Laws, enacted during the 1936 Palestinian rebellion, still condemned to death any Palestinian found with a gun. Two small Palestinian guerrilla groups had continued to train in the hills throughout the Second World War. The only central leadership, the Arab Higher Committee, had been banished ten years ago. Recently re-formed, it no longer had the power to rally Palestinians behind it. The Palestinians faced a Zionist military that was perhaps the best led and best organized of all European settler armies.
The hopes of many Palestinians turned to the other Arab countries. The Arab League, formed at the end of the war to coordinate the activities of Arab countries, was quick to issue scores of statements expressing solidarity with the Palestinians. But it failed to train Palestinians or to provide them with arms. Arab leaders depended on Britain and the United States to maintain their power. Several, like Prime Minister Nuri es-Said of Iraq, were more employees of Western oil companies than independent leaders. They did not want to challenge imperialism by giving full support to the Palestinians.
There were those among the Arab peoples, however, who had an understanding of Western imperialism born from decades of resistance. Through demonstrations and in organizations, they pressured their governments to do more than pay lip service to the Palestinian cause. Some Arab organizers suggested a powerful weapon: an oil boycott against the United States and Britain. In 1947, Syria had refused to sign an agreement with the United States to complete an oil pipeline. Workers in Lebanon and Transjordan stopped work on the line in enthusiastic support. But King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia sabotaged the work stoppage to protect the royalties that flowed directly into his palace from the profits of United States oil corporations. Palestinians understood from betrayals like this that they could expect only token help from the Arab governments.
In December 1947, the British announced that they would withdraw from Palestine by May 15, 1948. Palestinians in Jerusalem and Jaffa called a general strike against the partition. Fighting broke out in Jerusalem's streets almost immediately. The Zionists were prepared to seize every opportunity to escalate the fighting. A lightning war was their only hope to defeat the Palestinians, who outnumbered the Zionists and lived in all parts of the partitioned country. A lengthy battle could only favor the Palestinians. Violent incidents mushroomed into all-out war.
Zionist soldiers invade a town.
Palestinians fought in small guerrilla bands, in village militias, or in the ranks of the Arab Liberation Army, a poorly armed force of a thousand Palestinians and three thousand volunteers from other Arab countries. The people of Palestine supported the fighters as best they could. Women organized groups called "daisy chains" to smuggle arms into the hills, to dig trenches and to organize medical supplies. Casualties were high. By February the Palestinians were outmatched with twenty-five thousand Arabs fighting fifty thousand Zionist troops.3
Plan Dalet
Throughout the winter of 1948 Haganah and Irgun soldiers carried out night raids on Arab villages. The Haganah defined the purpose of these raids as "not to punish but to warn." Soldiers attacked quiet villages that had not been involved in the fighting to demonstrate "the Haganah's long arm."4 Haganah troops entered a village and silently placed dynamite around the stone houses, drenching the wooden doors and window frames with gasoline. Then, stepping back, they opened fire with their guns. The sleeping inhabitants died in the explosion and fire that destroyed their homes.5
Such "warnings" caused some villagers to flee their homes, but often only to another part of Palestine, no far enough away for the Zionists. The Zionist goal was to "clear the land" of its Arab inhabitants, but Palestinian leaders urged the people to stay and fight. In March Ben-Gurion put Plan Dalet - an all-out attack throughout the whole of Palestine - into effect.6 At the heart of his strategy was the systematic expulsion of the Palestinian Arab population. As long as most Palestinians stayed in Palestine, the Zionists could not win a decisive victory.
The attack began with the use of psychological terror. On March 28, the Zionist Free Radio broadcast this warning in Arabic:
Do you know it is a sacred duty to inoculate yourselves against cholera, typhus and similar diseases, as it is expected that such diseases will break out heavily in April and May among Arabs in the cities?7
Such broadcasts were not directed at Palestinian soldiers. Their purpose was to create fear in villagers, farmers and families in the cities and encourage them to flee. At Deir Yassin, a small Arab village near Jerusalem, psychological terror turned into a full-fledged massacre.
Deir Yassin was a quiet village. Its inhabitants had cooperated with the Jewish Agency and kept Arab troops out of their town.8 On April 9, Irgun soldiers entered the village and told the residents they had fifteen minutes to abandon their homes. Then the bands of soldiers attacked. In a few hours, the Irgun had murdered two hundred fifty-four people - men, women and children - in cold blood.9 Over the protests of the Jewish Agency, Jacques de Reynier of the International Red Cross visited Deir Yassin a few days later. He met the soldiers of the Irgun in the process of "cleaning up." This is what he reported:
I found some bodies cold. Here the "cleaning up" had been done with machine guns, then hand-grenades. It had been finished off with knives, anyone could see that... As the [Irgun] gang had not dared to attack me directly, I could continue. I gave orders for the bodies in this house to be loaded on the truck, and went into the next house, and so on. Everywhere, it was the same horrible sight. I found only two more people alive...10
The Irgun took the few survivors to Jerusalem and paraded them through the streets as crowds spit upon them. Although the Jewish Agency piously condemned the massacre at Deir Yassin, the Irgun was admitted to the Joint Command of the military with the Haganah the same day.11 The actions of the Irgun served the Zionist plan well. The destruction of Deir Yassin, which was skillfully publicized by the Zionists, sparked an exodus of Palestinian families who feared a similar fate. During the joint Irgun-Haganah attack on the Palestinian quarter of Haifa, the news of the massacre which had occurred twelve days before convinced many to flee.
On April 21, 1948, the British commander of Haifa advised the Zionists that he was withdrawing his troops. He did not tell Palestinian leaders. At sundown the Zionists began their attack on Haifa Arabs with Davidka mortars, which hurled sixty pounds of explosives about three hundred yards into the crowded Arab quarter. Barrel bombs, which were casks filled with gasoline and dynamite, rolled down the narrow alleys and crashed, creating an inferno of flames and explosions. Haganah loudspeakers broadcast "horror recordings" that filled the air with the shrieks and anguished moans of Arab women, interrupted by a booming sorrowful voice that called out in Arabic, "Flee for your lives! The Jews are using poison gas and atomic weapons!" As Palestinians fled their city, the Irgun commander reported that they cried, "Deir Yassin! Deir Yassin!"12
Palestinians flee Jaffa.
Within a week the same psychological blitz," as the Zionists called it, emptied the port city of Jaffa, a city designated as part of the Arab state. Only three thousand of he eighty thousand Arabs of Jaffa remained. Jon Kimche, a Zionist historian, reported that the soldiers "commenced to loot in wholesale fashion... Everything that was movable was carried from Jaffa [and] what could not be taken away was smashed."13 From the fertile fields of Galilee to the fortress city of Acre, the Zionist campaign drove the Palestinians from their homes, their villages, their lands. The several hundred thousand who remained lived under Zionist occupation.
During that fateful April of 1948, eight out of the thirteen major Zionist military attacks on Palestinians occurred in the territory granted to the Arab state by the United Nations.14 By May 15, as the British ended their long rule over Palestine, three hundred thousand Palestinians were exiles, living hand-to-mouth in the Jordan valley, Lebanon and Syria. The Jewish Agency cynically announced that the exodus of Arabs from Palestine was due to "flight psychosis."15
Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel.
"Proclaim the State, No Matter What"
On Passover, April 24, Ben-Gurion had announced at a victory feast in Jerusalem: "We stand on the eve of a Jewish State." He had already set the date in his mind. As the British ended their rule on May 15, 1948, the Zionists would begin theirs. Ben-Gurion planned to cut off the lingering debate in the UN about the partition plan by confronting the world with the actual existence of the new state. Chaim Weizmann, the elder statesman of Zionism, telegraphed his advice: "Proclaim the state, no matter what else ensues."16
Zionist leaders approached President Truman and worked out the details of U.S. recognition. At 6:00 p.m. on May 15, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the existence of Israel. Eleven minutes later, President Truman cabled American recognition of the Jewish state.
A messenger rushed into the United Nations to inform the members of the turn of events; even the U.S. ambassador had not been informed. Arab delegates charged that the United Nations had again served as a backdrop for the maneuvers of the United States. The Soviet Union, still hoping that the creation of the new state might mean an end to imperialist control of Palestine, added its recognition a few days later.
People in the Arab countries knew better. The news of Deir Yassin and other violent incidents had created an intense concern and anger over the fate of the Palestinians. As Committees for Palestine called meetings and demonstrations throughout the Arab countries, Arab leaders knew they had to respond. The Arab League hastily called for its member countries to send regular army troops into Palestine. They were ordered to secure only the sections of Palestine given to the Arabs under the partition plan. But these regular armies were ill-equipped and lacked any central command to coordinate their efforts. King Abdullah of Transjordan, the official commander-in-chief, was busy negotiating with British and Zionist leaders for a slice of Palestine.17 Abdullah wanted to attach to his own kingdom any Palestinian territory not occupied by the Israelis. He promised that his troops, the Arab Legion, the only real fighting force among the Arab armies, would avoid fighting with Jewish settlements.18 Under Abdullah's self-serving leadership the armies of the Arab League had little effect. A few individual units - most notably those of young Egyptians - fought fiercely, but often with no support from their generals. Yet Western historians record this as the moment when the young state of Israel fought off the "overwhelming hordes" of five Arab countries!
In reality, the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians intensified. British Major Edgar O'Ballance described the new phase:
[T]he Arab inhabitants were ejected and forced to flee into Arab territory, as at Ramleh, Lydda and other places. Wherever the Israeli troops advanced into Arab country, the Arab population was bulldozed out in front of them.19
On July 11, 1948, Moshe Dayan led a jeep commando column into the town of Lydda. Rifles, Sten guns and submachine guns blasted at everything that moved. Within minutes, the streets were silent, strewn with corpses of men, women and children.20 The next day, the Israelis seized the adjoining town of Ramleh. Loudspeakers announced that all Arabs had forty-eight hours to leave. Israeli soldiers stripped each person of all belongings - even food - at the bridges leaving the town. As Israeli troops sacked the town, a hundred thousand Palestinians began a painful march into exile.21 For three days, without food and water, the refugees walked in the sweltering sun towards the Transjordan hills. Many old people and children died of thirst.
"An Insuperable Problem"
When the fighting persisted and it became clear that the partition plan had broken down, the United Nations sent a mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, to try to arrange a cease-fire and to secure the rights of the Palestinians. Numerous cease-fires which he arranged broke down as the Israelis continued their drives into Arab territory.22 Bernadotte urged Israel to allow the Palestinians to return to their homes. Israeli Foreign Minster Moshe Shertok replied: "On the economic side, the reintegration of the returning Arabs into normal life... would present an insuperable problem."23
In reality, the "problem" was that the new state depended on the homes, land and shops left behind by the exiled Palestinians. New Jewish settlers were already arriving, moving into Arab houses and reopening Arab businesses. The wealth of the exiled Palestinians - 80 percent of the land, 50 percent of the citrus groves, 90 percent of the olive groves, and ten thousand shops - was needed to build the new state of Israel.24
Bernadotte continued to press for Palestinians' right to return. His reports documented the forced flight of the Palestinians and their desire to return once peace was established. Finally on September 17, members of the Stern Gang assassinated Bernadotte. Waves of shock rippled through the United Nations and Western capitals at the news of his murder. New pressure mounted on Israel to accept a cease-fire. On January 7, 1949, a prolonged cease-fire went into effect. The new state of Israel encompassed 80 percent of Palestine! The key to victory had been the forcible eviction of the Palestinian Arab population. Chaim Weizmann observed that exodus of the Palestinians was a "miraculous simplification of our tasks."25
The Western world celebrated the birth of the new state. In America, Senators, members of Congress and the President applauded the "miracle of Israel." A rush of books and articles, like the best-seller Exodus, told the story of Israel as the victory of a valiant and intelligent people, the Israelis, over hordes of dark-skinned, dishonest and backward Arabs. The story had the drama of the popular Hollywood Westerns that dominated the American screen. It also had the same point: the attack on native people and the conquest of their land, whether Palestinian or Indian, was not only legitimate, but courageous and inspiring. It was a useful lesson to teach as American leaders launched the Cold War. It helped mobilize the American people behind the U.S. drive to seize the resources of other countries. An atmosphere of fear and hatred of "backward and uncivilized" people, from the Koreans to the Arabs, gripped the country. Israel represented a victory that both recaptured America's pioneer days and gave Israel's American supporters an emotional stake in U.S. domination of the Middle East.
The truth about the Palestinian Arabs lay buried in this avalanche of propaganda. In 1959 an American Jew, Nathan Chofshi, who had settled Palestine in 1908, wrote to the American Jewish Newsletter, protesting an article by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. Kaplan had argued that Arab leaders told the Palestinians to leave. Chofshi wrote:
If Rabbi Kaplan really wanted to know what happened, we old Jewish settlers in Palestine who witnessed the flight could tell him how and in what manner we, Jews, forced the Arabs to leave cities and villages which they did not want to leave of their own free will. Some of them were driven out by force of arms; others were made to leave by deceit, lying and false promises.26
Over seven hundred fifty thousand Palestinians had been driven out of Palestine to create the state of Israel.27 King Abdullah annexed the Palestinian West Bank to Transjordan, renaming his enlarged kingdom simply Jordan. King Farouk of Egypt took over the administration of the Gaza Strip. Palestine disappeared from Western maps.
The people of Palestine did not forget. The memories of the terror of the spring of 1948 mingled with the memory of other springs in Palestine, when the land was theirs and grew under their care. Ghassan Kanafani, an exiled Palestinian writer, described the flight of his family from Jaffa in a story called The Land of Sad Oranges. He recalled
... the long queue of lorries, leaving the land of oranges far behind and spreading out over the winding roads of Lebanon. Then I began to weep, howling with tears. As for [my] mother, she eyed the oranges silently and all the orange trees [my] father had left behind to the Jews were reflected in his eyes; all the wholesome orange trees he had acquired one by one were visible in his face and glistened through the tears he could not check, even in front of the officer. When we arrived in Sidon that afternoon, we had become homeless.28
McChrystal's "ink spot" strategy for Afghanistan in this week's New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/s … spots.html
Excerpts:
I sketch this historical period in part because the current public debate over General McChrystal’s assessment of the war and his presumed forthcoming requests for as many as forty thousand troops to reinforce his counterinsurgency strategy seems misleading in what its spokesmen often imply about the potential of U.S. and Afghan forces to control Afghanistan’s vast territory and remote rural provinces.
Currently, the Taliban control considerable swaths of Afghan rural territory—how much, exactly, depends on your definition of control, but a lot. President Obama’s National Security Adviser, retired Marine General James Jones, told Bob Woodward over the weekend that about two-thirds of Afghans now live in territory substantially under government and local control. That seems a somewhat optimistic estimate, but even if it is approximately accurate, it is important to understand, first of all, that McChyrstal’s proposed counterinsurgency plan is not focused on taking control of all of Afghanistan....
To try to take and control the entire land mass of Afghanistan in the present climate might require as many as five hundred thousand troops, police, and militia, some military specialists believe; in any event, it would take more troops than are currently available, even if Obama goes all in. To adapt to these truths, the Pentagon is apparently migrating toward a modified version of the approach that the Soviets came to as they prepared to withdraw after a similar duration of their own war.
The revival of an urban-dominated “ink spot” strategy for the defense of a weak Afghan state may be the best of a series of bad military choices. Certainly the past U.S. military approaches since 2001—a concentration on counterterrorism raids initially, followed by a poorly resourced counterinsurgency approach that also made a dubious priority of rural Helmand Province—have not stanched the Taliban’s revival...
Even if an ink-spot campaign is successful, the Taliban will still own sizable chunks of the Afghan countryside for years. Their forces will be able to move fairly freely at night and in the mountains, as they do now; they will be able to carry out ambushes on the roads; they will attempt to penetrate city defenses to undertake spectacular car bombings and raids; and they will continue to move back and forth across the border with Pakistan, resourced by leadership and financing networks located there. Perhaps, in time, if the proposed McChyrstal strategy succeeded, and a archipelago of relative peace and normalcy were established, and the factionalism within the current Kabul government subsided, and Afghan forces grew and improved, and at least some local Taliban opponents were converted into quiescent local powers, the Afghan state would then be able to push out gradually into the countryside, widening its ink spots.There are a lot of ifs' to this sort of venture working. We know that McCrystal's strategy includes winning the hearts and minds of the people with a kinder gentler military presence.
Could we possibly pay them off? It had a great overall effect in Iran and perhaps a similar kind of thing could work in this case.
The Sons of Iraq were a fierce bunch of enemy cambatants who were swayed by the prospect of making a few bucks.
We could pay the farmers to not grow the poppies and therefore kill two birds with one stone.This Frank Rich column in Sunday's NY Times is the best I've seen on Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opini … amp;st=cseHere's a link to a NY Times Magazine preview article by the Times' ace reporter on Afghanistan, Dexter Filkins, entitled "Stanley McChrystal's Long War." I haven't finished reading it, but I'm sure it's worthwhile for anybody who's interested in the facts on the current situation in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/magaz … -t.html?hpGeneral Powell warns about the "terror industrial complex":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dsw4Y3e … r_embeddedmore troops more targets .the Russians learned that the hard way.as for what were doing there my thoughts are this and i think it was why we went to Iraq also .to establish a front line to show up for the fight. when people want war with you you gota show up for it .both country's are centrally located .surrounded by country's with people that hate us .our enemy mostly are insurgents they come to fight us. where should we make ourselves available for these people? here in the usa? i say we go there small forces .when we go to big like in iraq we come off as invaders bent on conquer.
And you obviously don't know anything about pre-partition Palestine. Ever hear of the Grand Mufti?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni
It's funny how many people stop searching at the establishment of Israel and don't look any further back for the seeds of this conflict. The British screwed up. Rather than get people to the table to talk, they supported one group over another at different times to secure their hold over Palestine in a fit of realpolitik.
So both sides became concerned that they were going to lose out and before the partition even took place, they were sniping and fighting with one another. The UK just washed their hands of the situation at the end of WW II because one, they really didn't care anymore, and two, even if they did care, there wasn't much they could do about it.
The funny thing is that there is not a Palestinian people. Prior to the partition, "Palestinians" wanted to live under the rule of some Arab monarch, whether it be Syrian or Jordanian. "Palestinian" has only come into vogue lately, because the West has a fetish for the "rights of indigenous peoples", whatever the hell that is really supposed to mean. If you go back far enough, nobody is from where they live. Well maybe people living in the Olduvai gorge, but that's the only place people sprung from, everyone else is an immigrant.
The main indictment against the Arabs is their unwillingness to do anything about the refugee camps. You're right, I don't care about culture or any of that crap, what I care about is getting people set up so they have the opportunity to build a life for themselves. That is the only yardstick by which to measure the success of leadership. The PLO and Hamas and sundry other Arab nations fail in that regard.I agree that there are a lot of nefariuos characters and out and out criminals involved in this but you can't negate our participation and where it leaves us now.
We support Israel to the tune of over 3 billion dollars a year currently and the Palestinians know it as well as the rest of the goverments there. We have no authority as a nuetral voice or a peacekeeper when we support one side. Do I think Israel has no right to exist, certainly not but if we are to make headway we need to establish a neutrality to make it happen.I do admit to having a bit of an Israeli bias. Heck my mother's maiden name is Valero and there are apparently Jewish Valeros in Israel. Most of them are apparently doctors, which seems to be something of a family tradition, no matter the language, religion or country of origin. But, consider this. While the "Palestinians" were waiting on their "Arab brothers" to help them, the Israeli's were busy building a life for themselves. Prior to the Israeli's return, Palestine was a backwater, a bare patch of desert. The Israeli's are a big part of the reason Israel is once more the "land of milk and honey". If they can do that, so can the "Palestinians". Instead their "leaders" focus their hatred and energy towards the extirpation of Israel, rather than bettering themselves. Just because they haven't been a people before now, doesn't mean they can't become one. Heck, look at the US. There's a bit of everyone in America and we've become a people.
The only way there will be true peace is for the Israeli's and the Palestinians to come to it themselves, no outside influence, no money exchanging hands, etc. Only they, themselves, can find a way to live together in peace. All anyone else can do is enforce the peace of the sword, a peace of the most brittle type.I also hope that they can work out a solution amongst themselves. It seems a long way off, but hope can often appear in the strangest of places, usually when everything seems lost.
There are quite a few things that need to be corrected in this post of yours ledefensetech.
Source
So in reality when you say "While the "Palestinians" were waiting on their "Arab brothers" to help them, the Israeli's were busy building a life for themselves" is not correct, they were stealing it from the Arabs. Seeing the zionists were busy stealing Arab homes, land, citrus groves, olive groves, and ten thousand shops you saying "Prior to the Israeli's return, Palestine was a backwater, a bare patch of desert" is basically a fabrication. You trying to say that the Palestinians were not a people before now is also a fabrication.
So many times we here the lie that there never was a country called Palestine, but before the Ottoman Empire controlled that part of the world it was called Palestine. My father bought a world map just after he came back from the war (WWII), it showed Palestine but it didn't show Israel. Even just before the U.N. Partition Plan it was called Palestine.
Coincidentally the above two maps come from an Israeli source.
Enough of the lies already.
I'm not a big fan of Tom Friedman but I'm inclined to agree with his op-ed in this morning's NYTimes. Here's the lead paragraph
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Don’t Build Up
The U.S. does not have the Afghan partners, the allies, the domestic support or the financial resources to justify a nation-building effort in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/opini … vLpLEgqIcAAfghanistan peoples are mad and no army can stop him, so we should back.
There is nothing to be gained in Afghanistan that could not be gained else where. The idea of going there in the first place was to destroy terrorist training camps and base operations. That has been accomplished.
The pastun people do not tolerate foriegners very well. There are area's of Afghanistan that do not even recognize the national government. They have a long history of being invaded and resisting with vigor. Much of whats being called insurgency today is only local peoples who either want a foriegn force gone or are accepting money to kill foriegners. That doesn't make them terrorist. In other words they don't harbor islamic extremist ideas. To them its simply about defending their homes from a percieved foriegn invader.Here's a revealing piece on Afghanistan--"Transcripts of Defeat" by Victor Sebestyen about the Soviet Union's defeat after 9 years in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/opini … ef=opinion
“There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize.
“Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills.” He went on to request extra troops and equipment. “Without them, without a lot more men, this war will continue for a very, very long time,” he said.
Much of the fighting during the Soviet war in Afghanistan was in places that have grown familiar to us now, like Kandahar and Helmand Provinces. The Soviets’ main base of operations was Bagram, which is now the United States Army headquarters. Over the years, the Soviets changed their tactics frequently, but much of the time they were trying and failing to pacify the country’s problematic south and east, often conducting armed sweeps along the border with Pakistan, through which many of the guerrillas moved, as the Taliban do now.
That war was characterized by disputes between soldiers and politicians. As Russian documents show, the politicians ordered the invasion against the advice of the armed forces. The chief of the Soviet Defense Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, raised doubts shortly before Soviet forces were dispatched on Christmas Day 1979. He told Dmitri Ustinov — the long-serving defense minister who had been a favorite of Stalin — that experience from the British and czarist armies in the 19th century should encourage caution. Ustinov replied: “Are the generals now making policy in the Soviet Union? Your job is to plan specific operations and carry them out ... . Shut up and obey orders.”
Ogarkov went further up the chain of command to the Communist Party boss, Leonid Brezhnev. He warned that an invasion “could mire us in unfamiliar, difficult conditions and would align the entire Islamic East against us.” He was cut off mid-sentence: “Focus on military matters,” Brezhnev ordered. “Leave the policymaking to us.”
The Soviets saw withdrawal as potentially fatal to their prestige in the cold war, so they became mired deeper and deeper in their failed occupation. For years, the Soviets heavily bombarded towns and villages, killing thousands of civilians and making themselves even more loathed by Afghans. Whatever tactics the Soviets adopted the result was the same: renewed aggression from their opponents. The mujahideen, for example, laid down thousands of anti-tank mines to attack Russian troop convoys, much as the Taliban are now using homemade bombs to strike at American soldiers on patrol, as well as Afghan civilians.
“About 99 percent of the battles and skirmishes that we fought in Afghanistan were won by our side,” Marshal Akhromeyev told his superiors in November 1986. “The problem is that the next morning there is the same situation as if there had been no battle. The terrorists are again in the village where they were — or we thought they were — destroyed a day or so before.” Listen to a coalition spokesman now explaining the difficulties its forces are facing in tough terrain, and it would be hard to hear a difference.
Everyone should read the entire op ed piece.You forgot to mention that the US was supplying the mujaheddin on the side. Without that, they would have failed. Why do you think we gave them Stinger missiles? It was to blunt the very real threat posed by Soviet Hind helicopters.
Very true. And now we're getting "blowback" from the CIA's war games there.
U.S. envoy resigns over Afghanistan conflict
'Lost Confidence'
Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News Service Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
"The high-profile resignation of a U.S. diplomat has put the White House on the defensive over the war in Afghanistan just as Barack Obama is poised to decide whether to send 40,000 new troops to fight the eight-year conflict.
Matthew Hoh, a 36-year-old former Marine and Iraq war veteran, said he was stepping down as the senior U.S. civilian official in Zabul province, northeast of Kandahar, because he had "lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States' presence."You know that's two envoys in a matter of two weeks.
That could very well be because we have a Commander-in-Chief who is pissing and moaning instead of, you know, commanding.
I just heard that the United States Of America is paying US Contractors set up in Afghan mansions to pay talliban drug dealers to not plant roadside bombs and kill our troops. We need to get out now and save our troops, and our sense of decency. This is an outrage!
Where'd you hear it Friendly? Not that I'd be surprised if it were true. Air America, the front for the CIA bought heroin from out allies among the Hmong people and shipped it to the US. Gotta love Realpolitik.
You implying it's a lie...like say...the history of Israel.
The only strategy left is to save as many US Solders' lives as possible.
This how we cut back the attacks in Iraq. A proven model for those that believe we won there.
Mike Thompson cartoon:
http://www.freep.com/article/20091029/B … tories_4pmObama's indecision on this issue is getting American soldiers killed. One way or the other, DO SOMETHING!!!
Fools rush in where angels dare to tread should be something you should listen too.
The corrupt Karzai government is a hard pill to swallow as an ally in this situation. The rigged election has been a real problem for the US ambassador there and Obama has to reckon with a better solution than storming the country with troops. Americans are famous for rushing into quagmires before thinking things through. If we just pull out without figuring out a solution we could wind up in the same situation as before.
War is the failure of politics and maybe a rush to judgement could prove it again.
U.S. envoy objects to troop increase
"Ambassador in Afghanistan reportedly questions country's stability
Nov . 12, 2009
WASHINGTON - The U.S. envoy in Afghanistan, a former Army general who once commanded troops in the country, has objected strongly to emerging plans to send tens of thousands of additional forces to the country, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry resigned his Army commission to take the job as U.S. ambassador in Kabul earlier this year, and his is an influential voice among those advising President Barack Obama on Afghanistan. Eikenberry sent multiple classified cables to Washington over the past week that question the wisdom of adding forces when the Afghan political situation is unstable and uncertain, said an official familiar with the cables. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations and the classified documents."Interesting. Good to know he's listening to somebody besides McChrystal who was culpable in the lies about the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman. Not a completely trustworthy guy in my opinion.
I didn't know what Pat Tillman stood for or how he died. Thanks Ralph. Pat's brother says it like it is in this short video.
How they lied when Pat Tillman Died
This is the top comment for this video at this time.
"Pat Tillman was shot because he spoke out about the policy toward opium in Afghanistan. We are not there to fight terrorists. We are there to build pipelines and to launder opium out of the country to fund the American economy."
Obama is stuck between a rock and a hard spot. No matter what he does in Afghanistan, it will break his campaign promise. He cannot bring the troops home because we need our footing there, and if he sends troops then he goes against what he said about ending the war there. He is in a tight spot from both ends. The thing is that he wasn't aware of the situation until he got into office, so the campaign was run on ideologies.
- Scott.Lifeposted 14 years ago0
I really think he was hoping Karzai would lose the election and a new government would come into power. The US does not trust Karzai and knows he's corrupt, but now they're stuck with him. Obama was waiting until after the run-off to make a choice one way or the other, and now either way he's going to come off bad.
the military is protecting and harvesting heroin fields and shipping out tons of heroin throughout the world so the rich familys and their children never have to work and have unlimited ammount of money for having sex with prostitutes
if anyone where to discover their wife was having sex for money
you have every right to kill her because it will put you in a rage i am in a rage just thinking it ,,, and you have the right to kill any man who has slept with your wife because there is no law to protect a family from men and women cheating ....so it is left to the one who is hurt to decide ones fate if they forgive you just great but can end your life without being punished.........I just returned from a meeting of our local Democrat club. The speaker was The Rev. Rich Peacock. He retired recently from the ministry and is working for peace in Afghanistan and other worthy causes including reducing CO2 below 350 ppm, developing a green economy in Michigan, dismantling nuclear weapons (the START treaty runs out next year), getting the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. He pointed out that THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE HAS NOT STOPPED.
His main preoccupation at the momemt is organizing opposition to prolonging the war in Afghanistan. Here are a few facts he pointed out
-911 Americans killed
-4,198 severely wounded
-2,950 days at war in Afghanistan compared to 584 days in WWI and 1,365 days in WWII.
-cost $300 billion or $101 million per day.
-$3 trillion cost estimated including everything
-military expenditures are 54% of our total government spending--a reasonable goal would be to reduce it by 25% by dropping unnecessary weapons programs
-the use of drones to kill suspected enemies is arguably illegal under international law.
-polls show 56% of Americans oppose sending more troops compared to 35% who support sending more troops
-our objectives in Afghanistan cannot be achieved by military means
Rev. Peacock urged everyone to call or write their Senators and Congressmen and urge them to support an exit plan from Afghanistan.Well how about all you that want a peaceful solution fly on over and talk to the Taliban and Alcyda smooth everything out and force us conservatives to admit you were right all along!.
There is no solution. There is no winning. As it stands, we are protecting a government full of drug dealers who are financing the taliban, who are blowing our troops legs off and killing them. We could be there a hundred years and thousands of dead solders later and we would never WIN. Get that out of your head get on the phone and call your congress person and tell them to bring our troops home. There is no other way.
God's speed to Rev. Peacock and to anyone that takes his suggestions.
911 Americans killed in the 8 years we've fought in Afghanistan? Do you know how many Americans the Taliban-backed Al Qaeda killed in the 8 years since the first World Trade Center attack and we did nothing?
I am concerned about our troops in Afghanistan, but I'd be worried about what will likely happen if we leave the Taliban alone to continue their agenda of war against us.Suprise: I hope you like this tk, I think you might side with me a little on this one.
The UK needs to break ties with the EU or at least gain some independence. Fortify the border to France and lead its country for once in the modern while. End the War in Gaza, stop supporting Israel. Arm Egypt and form stronger ties with India to work against Pakistan. Support China as leader of the East and let the rest work it out for themselves. Just a thought. The USA is not in the wrong, I do believe that to be somewhat true. Past leaders have made mistakes but all leaders do. It is time to accept the world for how it is right now and forget the liberals. Take a little on the chin now so we can all live a little better. The US cannot back out, it is at the top of the food chain, so be it. We do need change but not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.I don't give a rat's ass what the UK and EU do in relation to each other.
You have no idea do you. No idea whatsoever that America exists as part of a little place commonly known as Earth.
Abandon a Democratic ally in an important part of the world in favor of Iran? Brilliant plan.
In your world of absolutes a countries actions are validated by its' label?
You are still confused aren't you? Study some history before you throw around some guilt. You must go back farther than the current Iranian situation before you can support Israel so stringently. Oh I forgot America can do no wrong in your absolute world.
You could spend the rest of your life on it and not study as much history as I have. Try sticking with 'difference of opinion.'
Your take of the situation is different than mine but through your answers your claim at having a knowledge of the history of the area and the issues that surround it are very contrary to the short sighted and inciting statements you espouse. Making statements about your inane authority are empty unless you offer more than opinion. I thought you knew this.
How can you believe in protecting Israel on this basis but not give a rats about the UK and EU?
Egypt has arms, and if you are in favor of seeing a nuclear war as soon as possible that is your idea.
Egypt has arms because it was part of the pay off for peace with Israel. The US brokered the deal.
Forfeit our presence and interests in an absolutely vital area of the world and abandon Democratic allies to a totalitarian state? More brilliant thinking.
LOL! Getting toward late Autumn but the nuts are still falling from the trees...
...Now I am stupid?
Here is a comment to the forum, a joke in turn as it is hijacked by one particular member time and time again.
What are we doing in Afghanistantan? Anybody worried? or Not worried?
Worried, no. Concerned, yes.
What are we doing in Afghanistan? Continuing the endless struggle for power, a process that has continued forever and will continue always. There is no end to the struggle for power. On the history of the human race, it is difficult to hold prejudice against any particular state. (difficult if one cares to think about it logically and base opinion on fact)
What are we doing in Afghanistan? We are not in Afghanistan. Not me anyhow, I doubt anyone here is actually in Afghanistan. Are my interests in Afghanistan? That is how the question reads to me. Yes and no, my interests are in Afghanistan. I strongly believe there are forces on all sides of the dispute that have a morally sound reason to be there. I sympathise with the armed forces of America and also the Afghan civilians. Soldiers from Australia and Britain also and whoever else is there.
War is fought by soldiers, not governments and not nations. We, in that sense, are not in Afghanistan. We are not the men fighting to protect our country from the consequences of dictators, whether christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist, white, black, brown or yellow, rich, poor or any other factor WE can be made different.
WE are in Afghanistan because the world is corrupt. WE are in Afghanistan because good will and good action if taken to the full degree would be giving up our liberty and risking our beliefs being the cause of death in our own nation. In our goal of self preservation, it is easier to TALK about war as if WE are not THEM.
The corruption WE fight is alive and well on every land. Soldiers are not missionaries. If you want to liberate the disenfranchised, do it on your home soil.
WE are in Afghanistan, killing people, SACRIFICING OURSELVES TO KILL THE ENEMY AND THE ENEMY IS DOING THE SAME. WE FIGHT EVIL in the name of GOD AND FREEDOM.The only problem is that God or religion has completely nothing to do with it.
Make Money: that is my point. That was a parody.
Yes, the attacks were unprovoked. 9-11 was especially unprovoked, as the only thing we'd done to Al Qaeda up until then was to respond to all their previous attacks with... absolutely nothing.
Short of giving you a full reference to the long history of provocation, read rhamson's post. Israel has everything to do with the attacks.
For some, like yourself the problem might be this
American army = defending America
Al Qaeda = radical terrorist group
For people living in the many Middle East countries affected by the American army it might read like this,
Al Qaeda = defending [insert country]
America = radical terrorist groupThats a good analogy but I might add:
America = An occupying radical terrorist groupExcept that you're ignoring the fact that Al Qaeda has been fatally weakened in Iraq due to the way they turned on the Sunni sheiks. A very much doubt the Sunnis in Anbar province think Al Qaeda is there to defend their nation against the "radical terror group" the United States Army.
six of one half dozen the other.
Sunni is to Al Qaeda is like British is to American.Have you never heard "enemy of my enemy is my friend"? It is alive and well in that region.
Sure, but Al Qaeda never seems to have heard about it. No sooner did they start "winning" in Iraq than they started enforcing their twisted brand of Islam on the populace and eliminating sheiks who opposed that enforcement of Islam on their people.
So then the US Army became the benefactors of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" and now the sheiks are working with the military to root out Al Qaeda. So much so that our troop levels are declining in that country.Let me rephrase that, I respect that you do have a point here. I just laughed because you suggest America to be te friend of the Sunni faith. This is probably not so far from the truth.
I agree with some of the motivations for Middle East occupancy but not others and definetly not the manner which this war has been orchestrated. There must be a better way. I don't have the answers though and I won't pretend to be an expert, I just tire of the same old arguments.
You really think our warring with them has turned around the sheiks and won them to our side? The pay off my friend, the pay off.
Look let me set you straight about my take on things. I don't like these terrorists anymore than anybody else. I just won't make the mistake of demonizing them and thereby marginalizing them. That is too easy. To get to the bottom of anything you must remain open to hearing everything and not get mixed up in the patriotic bravado. This is how the politicians manipulate us.
Do I think there are a lot of crooked creeps and opportunists with little Islamic knowledge of the Quaran running this show for Al Quaeda? Sure, but don't dismiss their tactics and reasonings so succinctly. We have gotten mixed up in someone elses civil war.Normally I'd agree with you, except for the fact that we now have political parties in Iraq that are cutting across religious lines. Religion aside, the northern inhabitants of Iraq have been on and off again at war with the southern inhabitants of Iraq since the time of Sumer. The fact that these people are building coalitions of power that include both groups is unheard of. Look at how Saddam kept power, he marginalized the Shi'a and persecuted the Kurds.
For the first time in the modern history of Iraq, we have groups that are not split along ethnic or religious grounds, but political grounds. That's significant. The Iraqi people have come to realize, I think, that to build a society based on religious or ethnic grounds only leads to perpetual civil war. They're understandably tired of it and by moving away from the idea of a theocracy, are giving themselves a better and better chance to make a stable society.Your first mistake is to try and put religion aside. This will never happen. To suggest otherwise denies the root of the problem. It is hard to make clear to you that this conflict is not isolated to one country. Iraq has been influenced and supplied by insugients almost from the beginning of hostilities. This has spilled over from Afganistan and is now spilled over into Pakistan. We simply do not have enough troops to cover the whole region and even if we do gain some peace in the region, once we leave it will start up again.
They learned a very valuable lesson when the Russians were expelled from the region. The infidels will grow weak and tired and will eventually leave. They are waiting for our demise economically and spiritually. We are playing right into their hands and yet we do not see.
Your western mind and understanding just cannot grasp the depth of the problem.Your first mistake is to be a racist. My Western mind can understand how people think and act, it's called using reason to understand people. Christianity, too, has a history filled with religious wars, pogroms, crusades against other religions and so-called heresies. So yes, it's perfectly understandable how some "Westerner" can come to understand how religion can be used and abused in the cause of evil men. We are, after all, all of us human beings.
The only reason the mujaheddin were able to fight effectively against the Russians was because the United States supplied them with material, notably Stinger missiles which took out the Hind helicopters that, by their own admission, the mujaheddin feared more than any other weapon in the Soviet arsenal.How exactly is Rhamson being a racist in this comment? he's explaining a very observable and well known ideology and mindset. Why do you always resort to insulting people when they make a point that contradicts your own, then cry foul when its done to you?
Perhaps not quite racist, but certainly offensive.
Offensive to some depending on the context. My western mind still can not grasp the reasoning behind a man that blows himself up to go to paradise. I can speak from experience that it is very hard for those of us living in Western nations of plenty to grasp what motivates and drives many of the people in Iraq, and Afghanistan. Does this mean we are racist or simply from a different sociological, and ideological background?
The comments we read can only insult us to the degree we allow them to. If we are angry and combative we see every thing as an attack and insulting on a different day we merely shake them off and chuckle to ourselves. last night I let a certain poster get me very riled up with his comments after sleeping on it I realize he was and still is speaking from a position of no practical experience and knowledge of the subject he was discussing. He wasn't insulting me but himself, so I'll let it go, and remind myself that there are many types running around on here and not all of them are very likable or responsible with their words.Good one Scott.Life. I let slip sometimes, we all do. Humility is a virtue than some never grasp.
To be honest, man, I don't know what it is about you that gets to me either. Most people, like Ralph, I can let go, or like Lita, I can agree to disagree, but for some reason I can't do that with you. It sounds like you have similar problems with me. I wonder why that is?
Just lucky I guess what would superheroes be without an adversary to struggle against
We just see the world from two very different perspectives. Doesn't make one right and the other wrong, it just means we have lived different lives and had different experiences. Alot of what I know and have seen you will never understand completely and I hope you never have to. Doesn't mean I wish you harm or dislike you, just means I disagree with alot of your opinions and generalizations.We have strongly held beliefs, that's for sure.
You're right perhaps racist is a bit strong. I'm looking for a word that describes somebodies prejudicial attitude that divides people up into easily classifiable groups, against evidence to the contrary. Racist encapsulates that idea but it's directed more towards differences like skin color, as opposed to differences between different cultural groups around the world.
The factor means, however, that people are pretty much people no matter where you live or what culture you were brought up in. The idea that somebody cannot understand another culture because they were not born to it, is asinine and stereotypical. Perhaps that's the best word to encapsulate the idea I was looking for, stereotypical.
Have you ever lived overseas? The difference in studying and living in a place and different culture is miles apart. Your very answer by humanizing the situation tells me that you really haven't a clue.
By labeling me a racist is another indication that while someone may have views of the reality of differences in culture and religion you don't have to distinguish based on race.
I went to high school in a foreign country and was the only caucasian student they had. I was in the peace corps and served in the south pacific. I think I would have been weeded out if I had these tendensies.
You are very intelligent person and your lack of practical knowledge is very pronounced. There is also an indication of immaturity in your growth with regards to life experiences. Do not dismay, Get out and visit some of these cultures you write about and find out for yourself what the reality of the situations are.
You have fallen into the trap much of the news media has in that you try to relate to cultures based on your own. Two different animals.
As far as the remark about the mujahaddin is concerned, they were at war with Russia for quite some time before the US became involved and the Russians were already becoming weary of the fight. Our support sent it over the top for them to continue.Yeah, my mother is Mexican. I learned from a pretty early age that while people's culture may be different, there are some things we all of us share in common as human beings. Immature? Typical Progressive condensation if I've ever heard it. You might profit from Matthew 7:5: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Have you ever seen the ring of slum towns that surround the city in the midst of the Valley of Mexico? Your argument is a straw one anyway. Just because someone didn't experience something doesn't mean they can't empathize or understand it using reason. Quit trying to make yourself out to be more equal than the other animals.
You're out of your mind. We had been supporting the mujaheddin since 1979. CIA loved it, it was a chance to get back at the Russians for what they did to us in Vietnam.Instead of internalizing information you show your inability to answer the questions by attacking the persons integrity rather than his authority. A genuine but nevertheless invalid way of showing your maturity. So you really know how it is through your mothers heredity what it is like to live and realize another culture? Give me a break. Once again you claim experience through trying to relate to others through osmosis rather than experience. Very disingenuous and phony. You don't understand so you attack. Typical misinformed response by an educated booksmart elitist.
Perhaps you should turn the page of your bible to Hebrews 13:2 "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some people have entertained angels without knowing it". Maybe someone knows a little more about something than you do.
I could trade barbs with you such as you would like to degrade this conversation too but you are far from a worthy opponent in this regard so I will not waste the time. Sufficed to say you are beginning to bore me.
It wasn't until 1985 that a concerted front was organized by the CIA in Afganistan that united the tribes to oust the Soviets. If you want to hedge facts by date rather than substance then that is as weak as your other arguments.
Hey its okay to not know something rather than going out and proving it.
Was the relationship between the US and Israel even a foreign terrorist organization's business?
Do you not know the history that created this mess in the first place? The taking of Palestine by Israel with the help and blessing of the US created this mess. We continue to fund, arm and support a made up country in spite of the criminal acts that were put on the people in the area. Do I condone the 911 attacks? No. But I don't deny why they happened.
Sorry, but it was with the help and blessing of the British War Cabinet, The Balfour Declaration.
The "history" starts here, well actually a little before that, but something official anyway.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace%20Proce … eclarationDon't tell Mr. America about the British and Israel, he wouldn't give a rats anyway. Lets just call it the Imperial machine shall we. Valued comment, thanks.
This is part of what I alluded to before with the British and Pakistan. Its coming soon enough...I agree with you and that is very pertinent to the argument. But I was referring to where we (US) became a very active player in the region and pissed off the Arabian nations in the area. The Balfour Declaration was a travesty as well.
The Balfour Declaration has little to no weight in the matter. It was barely recognized by the English just six years after it was written. Three of the four or five men concerned with it were zionists.
Source
What is completely overlooked in this matter is the agreement that the British made with the Arabs of Palestine in WWI, through Lawrence of Arabia, for their help to over throw the Ottoman Empire. This was accomplish thanks to the Arab tribes of the region. The agreement was that there would not be a zionists state in Palestine.You site Wikipedia to dispute the actual document I provided from Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs?
I do agree with your point on the WWI agreement.
I don't agree. The Balfour declaration has tons of weight in the matter. It helped secure reinforcement from the US and was highly recognized by the British, albeit they forgot about it.
Here are some "little is known" tidbits about the Balfour Declaration.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p389_John.htmlThat's quite the web site. I like Arthur Koestler's quote. Have you read Koestler's online book The Thirteenth tribe?
"Arthur Koestler wrote that in the letter "one nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third." More than that, the country was still part of the Empire of a fourth, namely Turkey." But in reality that first country didn't promise them anything.
This quote below is still what a pile of Jews still believe.
Anyway "The statement was issued through the efforts of Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, the principal Zionist leaders based in London but, as they had asked for the reconstitution of Palestine as “the” Jewish national home, the Declaration fell short of Zionist expectations."
The line in the Declaration that the zionist completely overlook is this, "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".I haven't read the 13th Tribe, but it looks really interesting. My point wasn't focused toward the outcome, but as the pre-cursor to gain involment in the war.
Yeah to gain involvement of the US in the first world war.
Hey ediggity this quote above and things through out the site that you posted reminded me of a British War Department white paper that I read a couple of years ago that said a lot of the "Young Turks" that overthrew the Ottoman Sultan were made up of zionist freemasons. I've never been able to find that white paper again but this site verifies it. A couple of years later in 1915 in Turkey they built the hysteria that started the Armenian genocide that killed a million and a half Armenian Christians. This site has a lot about it.
http://www.armeenseforum.nl/ip/archive/ … t-642.htmlThese quotes above basically prove the zionists played a big part in the Communist Russian Revolution. And that the United States supported the Communist Russian Revolution with loans to the zionists totaling $190,000,000. And the zionist Weizmann threatened to "smash the British Empire as we smashed the Russian Empire".
Hmm ... how about that. The Czar of Russia, Nicholas II and the King of England at the time of the Communist Russian Revolution, George V were cousins. I've read George V was concerned that the same thing would happened to him as what happened to his cousin.
A freedom fighter to one is a foreign terrorist organization to another. The Palestinian/Israeli conflict is akin to the 800 year long fight between the Irish and the English. Thank God that is over with. Stealing land is not New Covenant in nature.
Fighting has never resolved anything. Even if we leave Afghanistan one day people will not stop to hate what America once stood for. The goal was to get Osama Bin Laden, we've clearly deviated from the original goal. Lets get back on track and get the troops back home.
Actually fighting has resolved lots of things. It certainly did for Hitler didn't it?
"all it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing"That was a bomb of a quote. I've heard it before. Who was that?
Lovely.Yes, but that does not necessarily relate directly to war.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Edmund Burke,
Same guy... he's full of them.Don't recognise the name. I might go and google him now.
That one went over my head. Batman what?
Quote: In today's wars, there are no morals. We believe the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets. (Osama Bin Laden)
delete, Americans and insert Al Qaeda. Sounds like a speech that Bush might try pronounce.
The Taliban emergence, 1994. A denomination of Sunni Islam and suspected origin in Pakistan
I will never relent in defending America - whatever it takes. (George W. Bush)
US Foreign Debt statistics at the US treasury website
Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction. (George W. Bush)
For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible - and no one can now doubt the word of America. (George W. Bush)
We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. (George W. Bush)NATO US Middle East Policy post 9-11
Quote from NATO, "...Far from being intrinsic to 'Muslim political culture', scepticism of the US agenda is directly linked to the regional policies pursued by Washington."
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