The Masters Of War Have Been Embarrassed. Aw Shucks.

[poliphilo]

The US Secretary of Defence has said Wikileaks has blood on its hands. As if he doesn't. Bah!

Everybody who pays attention to the news behind The News knows the Afghan war is going badly: Trying to keep the Taliban at bay is like trying to stop the tide with a mop, civilians have been carelessly murdered, the Masters of War have been lying to us. Nothing unusual in any of this. War is hell.  All that Wikileaks has done is document the bleeding obvious.

The US Secretary of Defence is not our friend.

The BBC were interviewing a group of Afghan men in a market temporarily protected by the Brits. Asked who they wanted to see win they all said, "the Taliban". This wasn't an expression of ideological conviction. They're not stupid, they can see how things are going and they don't want their names showing up on some death list. Also they just want the war to end.

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, this.

I saw this magazine's cover in the dentist's office and momentarily wanted to bite off some Taliban noses.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Taliban are unutterably foul, but....

Everything points to this being an unwinnable war. And we shouldn't forget that the West armed and supported the Taliban and the Afghan warlords when they were fighting the Russians.

Besides Obama and his allies have already committed themselves to leave. The alternative is for the West to occupy Afghanistan into the far distant future- which means the fighting would just go on and on.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Announcing they would leave was unutterably stupid. If they had said Petraeus is in charge and all bets are off the war would have had a better chance of being winnable.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was very stupid. Unbelievably stupid.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

[Not too] deep inside me there's a conspiracy theories clamoring to get out. I can hear her now, saying "and just what did young Barack Obama do those weeks he was in Afghanistan in the ?late 80s? ?early 90s?"

But the rest of me doesn't think that at all. The rest of me just thinks our young president has a pernicious combination of inexperience and faith in the powers of his own oratory that will get this country in a world of hurt.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I cannot help but wonder if our fear of the Taliban does not echo our fear around the "domino theory" at the time of the Vietnam War. Also, a question: would we even be involved in Afghanistan if GWB had not invaded Iraq on his false premise? Did we even give a care about human rights in these countries? Or is it just about oil? As it was in Vietnam (US oil leases in the Tonkin Gulf since around 1930 or so).

[algabal.livejournal.com]

Irony is completely beyond that sort of person.

On neocon blogs, commenters are hinting the US should simply assassinate Assange, so I suppose he must be doing something very right.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I know very little about Obama's early life, but I don't suppose anything he got up to as a machine politician qualifed him to serve as commander in chief.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think we have any reason to fear the Taliban.
They're an unsavoury bunch but only of significance on their own turf.

We went into Afghanistan before we attacked Iraq- with the intention of giving Al Quaeda a smack. In the process we unseated the Taliban government and found ourselves suckered into running the country. I don't know if there's oil in Afghanistan. if there is we're paying a ridiculously high price for it.

Mainly I think this is another example of a war that was entered into without a long term strategy or an exit plan.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Assange is the front man for Wikileaks, but there are others who could take over were he to fall.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Apparently he spent some weeks in Afghanistan while his mother was engaged in some species of do-goodery there.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

"Do-goodery"? How easily the conservative mask slips.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

The only thing conceivably stupid about saying we would leave is saying it and not doing it. Our loss in Afghanistan is inevitable. It was always inevitable and this was obvious to anyone that wasn't under the spell of militant American authoritarianism.

For what little comfort it brings me, I loudly and publicly opposed going into Afghanistan from day one. I predicted that we would arrive at precisely where we are for the very reasons that have brought us to this sorry estate.

And when I see some old devious loon gassing off about how awful the war is, knowing full well that both the war and the Cheney-Bush junta enjoyed their unquestioning support, back when the gutless cowards thought all those little brown people didn't stand a chance against our glorious legions, well, I just want to punch the nearest brick wall until the bones in my fists shatter.

I don't do it, but I want to, with every fiber of my being.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Not at all. We went into Afghanistan because of a proposed pipline that the Taliban refused to permit. They were warned and still refused.

And of course, in the even bigger picture, we went into Afghan in order to tighten our squeeze on Russia, but the reason there is still ultimately oil and gas.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that.

If Bush had thought to read his Kipling he wouldn't have done it.

Or indeed if he'd paid any attention to what happened to the Russians.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're trying to say, although I gather it isn't entirely complimentary.

In the case of Mr. Obama's mother, I can't recall whether she was engaged in some kind of social service project in Afghanistan or whether it was anthropological field work. Either one qualifies as "some species of do-goodery" in my book.

I have never attempted to mask my conservative/libertarian leanings. I am what I am and they are what they are. And yes, I have more than a little contempt for feel-good do-goodery.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

The sad truth is that Bush -- or more properly, Cheney and his business associates -- couldn't care less about whether the US wins or loses, how many are killed, or any of that. If the US rules victorious over the Pashtun for a thousand years, the military-industrial complex makes money. If the US is forced into humiliating retreat, the military-industrial complex makes money. The same is true of the war in Iraq, obviously.

And if the US is bled dry and left bankrupt by its military contractors, that is a feature, not a bug. The one thing that the Republicans - or Teapartiers -- agree upon, from the most powerful banksters of Wall Street down to the lowliest footsoldier of the KKK, is that any and all social programs must be eliminated with extreme prejudice. For the rich, it's money taken out of their pockets. For the peasants, it's money wasted on programs they believe disproportionately favor blacks and other minorities. As far as I know, the war on "do-gooders" is the one shared goal of all so-called conservatives, both high and low.