Do we need to occupy an entire country for 100 bad guys? -Robert Greenwald...

[avaistheone1]

Run time: 02:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fnS0Ol_vJU   Posted on YouTube: November 25, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 27, 2009 By DU Member: avaistheone1 Views on DU: 4015

 
Let's rethink Afghanistan.

[dkf]

1. I say no we don't.

Find more Al Qaeda there who are trying to kill us or get out.

[avaistheone1]

3. At the cost of $1 million dollars per soldier and $400 per gallon of gas,

it is hardly worth pursuing only 100 Al Qaeda. It's totally ridiculous.

What is the point when Al Qaeda is in about 80 countries anyways. Even if we were completely successful eradicating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan they would still be alive and well in close to almost 100 other countries. This is a frivolous way to waste our precious soldiers lives, and our national treasury and kill thousands of completely innocent people. I think it is fair to call this war strategy pretty damn stupid, if not totally insane.

[burning rain]

4. Plus, of course, lots of jihadi pricks simply declare themselves al-Qaeda....

despite having no contact with what remains of the group, out of solidarity and desire for the extra credibility as bona fide bad-asses that they think comes from claiming association with them.

[avaistheone1]

36. Yup, ensuring perpetual war.

The Pentagon must be licking their lips.

[FarLeftFist]

2. If we found Bin Laden on Obama's watch....

Would the RW give him credit?

[dkf]

5. I'd like to hear more about KSM.

Maybe he is the bad guy we ought to have been condemning the most after all.

[avaistheone1]

6. I assume you are talking about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

[sasquuatch55]

15. Bin Laden is a scapegoat nothing more! That is why their is little to no effort to locate him.

nt

[avaistheone1]

32. I agree. More than likely Bin Laden is dead.

[Turborama]

7. If we were to "pull out now!" the bloodbath would be like when Britain pulled out of India

...the ensuing genocidal retributions and Pakistan having a failed state on its border would lead to the world witnessing a horrifying humanitarian disaster owned by President Obama and those who pressured him to withdraw the troops irregardless of the consequences.

I credit President Obama with enough intelligence to know when the right time to pull out is or isn't and am confident that he would pull out now if he could.

I'm a huge fan of Greenwald's work but think that's he's got it wrong on this one.

[avaistheone1]

10. If we pull down next month, in 7 years, or 30 years the same chain of events is going to

happen. I just posted on a different thread it will be bloody for sure no matter when we leave. Afghanistan will revert immediately back to where it wants to be and where it has been for centuries. We can not control that, and we are better off not pretending that we can.

The supposedly elected government is corrupt. Yet the people want us there even less than they want that Karzai government. The Afghans have killed American and British soldiers who were training them to defend themselves. You think we would get the message: give Afghanistan back to Afghanistan

[Turborama]

12. "the people want us there even less than they want that Karzai government"

Have you got got anything to back that statement up with? Listen to this Amanpour interview to find out why the Afghan government being a "looting machine" isn't the same as Afghans wanting us out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDI4Y2GLIig

" Afghanistan will revert immediately back to where it wants to be and where it has been for centuries." Afghanistan wasn't in the stone age when the Russians invaded, even though a lot of people seem to think that's the way it's always been.

Watch these videos which show what it was like back in the 1970s to see what I mean:

1976 visit to Afghanistan
Video shot by Dick Marshall on a visit to Afghanistan in 1976. From the Williams Afghan Media Project. (No audio)
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/10/29/aman.afghan.visit.1976.williams

Once Upon a Time - Afghanistan
Nov 2001

As the future of Afghanistan hangs in the balance, we look back on the country's past and ask where its future lies?

The rugged terrain of Afghanistan has often found itself at the centre of some of the world's major conflicts. The pictures on our television screens show a country virtually destroyed by war. Yet it wasn't always so: film footage from the 1970s paints a very different picture, of an open and modern society. The capital Kabul buzzes with life, its streets filled with cars, bicycles and pedestrians. At this time, Kabul was famed as an exotic stop-off point on the hippy trail between Europe and India. "That was a golden period for the Afghans," reminisces Dr Ahmed Abdul Javid, former Chancellor of Kabul University. Until the Taliban enforced an Islamic year zero in 1996, Afghanistan was a relatively liberal Place. Farah Hawad, a female journalist who left Kabul for Britain in 1994, describes the country's progressive attitude towards women back then: "Afghanistan was the first Asian country that had women in parliament." But even during this so-called golden era, tensions existed between the country's different ethnic factions, which finally ignited after the Soviet defeat. The task of establishing a lasting peace between these various ethnic groups is likely to be a long and complex one. If Afghanistan is finally freed from the foreign intervention that has dogged it for so long, perhaps new kind of society will finally be able to flourish in this ruined land.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObKRVQDKMwU

Before The Dawn: Afghanistan in Peace
Before the Taliban. Before the Soviet Invasion. What was there in Afghanistan? Many people from the West who traveled there described it as a Shangri-La or the land of 1001 nights. Afghanistan in many regions remained the way Alexander The Great witness it. Yet there was a change happening in its main cities. Civilization was in full progress and many people looked up to the West. Modernization was in full progress. While poverty and social problems was inherent, the people lived peacefully in region that has been in turmoil over the last 4000 years. The Soviet Invasion brought Afghanistan in a dawn ward spiral that would last 25 years. Today Afghanistan is so devastated and destroyed that it is hard to believe it was once peaceful and civilized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWaxHhRF0Ts

Afghanistan - Travel Stories From The 1970's.
Travellers tales from Afghanistan as related in excerpts from the Australian Broadcasting Commision radio history program - "Hindsight" dealing with the 1960's and 1970's Asia overland trail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC_greF3tTU


"it will be bloody for sure no matter when we leave" Not necessarily and I don't know how you can say it with such certainty. It will definitely happen now if the http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Turborama/94">Taliban were allowed to take control again, though.

[Andronex]

8. were not there because of Al Queda

Were there to secure the worlds greatest untapped oil and gas reserve in central Asia, and bring it to market through pipelines crossing Pakistan and Afghanistan, at stake is trillions of dollars in revenue and the status of the USA as the worlds most dominant power.

Al Queda just conveniently pops up wherever the USA needs to intervene, it's a pretext as were the WMD's in Iraq.

[Turborama]

9. If that were true, how come it hasn't happened yet after 8 years?

[Andronex]

11. I suppose you are talking about the pipelines...

They are very vulnerable to sabotage, and they won't be built until the area is fully secured, which means a large and permanent foreign military presence. US military bases are already planned to be built close to the proposed pipeline routes in Pakistan...

[Turborama]

13. Why would we spend so much blood and treasure so that other countries can have gas?

It doesn't make sense.

[spiritual_gunfighter]

16. Hahahahaha n/t

[Turborama]

17. Insightful

[Andronex]

19. "It doesn't make sense."

It does make a lot of $en$e for people like Dick Cheney, Oil like war is a very profitable racket for a few, and control of the flow of oil is a powerfull political and military tool. I suggest you read Zbigniew Brezinski book the grand chessboard, or the neocon PNAC document which lays out in detail everything that has happened so far.

The PNAC (project for a new American century) document advocates world conquest but recognizes that quote:"the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." get it? they needed a Pearl Harbor type event to motivate the American public for endless war, this was written in 1999

[Turborama]

21. If you think Obama is fighting a war in Afghanistan so Cheney can make money out of a Gas pipeline

...maybe you should share that theory on prisonplanet's forum?

[Andronex]

22. Hey whatever...

Were there to spread democracy and justice because trillion dollars of oil revenue really doesn't have any influence on American foreign policy.

[tinrobot]

28. It's not about Cheney

It's about the oil that holds this country hostage like heroin holds it's addict.

If we don't get our oil, we go into some serious and painful withdrawals.

[Turborama]

29. Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (TAP or TAPI) is a proposed natural gas pipeline being developed by the Asian Development Bank. The pipeline will transport Caspian Sea natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan into Pakistan and then to India. Proponents of the project see it as a modern continuation of the Silk Road. The Afghan government is expected to receive 8% of the project's revenue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline

Please tell me how we're going to benefit from a proposed natural gas pipeline that goes through Afghanistan and ends up in India? Please don't use troofer sites like "what really happened" or anything older than 5 years as those conditions make them instantly lacking of any credibility.

[Andronex]

30. I was using Cheney to make a point...

that HE understood what this thing was about and that he was profiteering like many others from the situation, I never said Cheney was behind all of this. As far as needing the oil, we can do what all other nation does, buy the oil on the open market, the military intervention is to ensure US big oil corp gets a big slice of the profit and also that the flow of oil is kept under western control for Geo Political reasons the alternative pipelines routes being Russia and or Iran.

[RufusTFirefly]

14. Right. It's basically all about pipelines.

Of course, if the American people were told the truth instead of this bogey man myth, all but the most fervent RWer would demand instant withdrawal.

Assuming you buy the main storyline about Al Qaida, they are international mobsters and should be treated as such. After all, you wouldn't declare war on all of New York just to get rid of the Corleone family, would you?

[Buzz Clik]

18. 100 bad guys? No. But that's not why we're there.

But, we already knew that.

And, no, it isn't the pipeline.

[Andronex]

20. right not about the pipelines...

The Taliban always refused to have those pipelines built, a year later after taking office Hamid Karzai former UNOCAL consultant, Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov, and Pakistani President Musharraf meet in Islamabad and sign a memorandum of understanding on the trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline project.

[Buzz Clik]

26. So, you think we went there to win a pipeline deal for Pakistan and Turkmenistan?

We are so magnanimous.

How's that pipeline coming, by the way? How many inches of pipe have been laid in those years? Can we count them on no hands?

And what's the origin of the gas/oil due to flow through that pipeline? Can it compete with the existing pipelines?

[avaistheone1]

23. Then please do tell why you think we are there.

[winyanstaz]

24. A damned good question....K & R

[JDPriestly]

25. I am recommending this because I want to hear both sides of this

argument, and I think others should to.

I'm on the fence. One day on one side. The next on the other.

But, although I am critical of Obama on many issues, international relations really is his area of expertise. So, I want to wait and see what he says Tuesday. Maybe he will convince me that the stakes are high enough to warrant our presence.

The problem is that, while Afghanistan has little economic significance at this time, it is situated between two countries, one, Pakistan, that has nuclear weapons but an unstable government and the other, Iran, that may have nuclear weapons, but if it doesn't certainly has aspirations about having them. Neither Pakistan nor Iran is really that stable.

And, to make matters worse, Pakistan is bordered on one side by India -- which also has nuclear weapons. And, of course, Pakistan and India have been involved in a feud for a long, long time.

On top of that the terrain in Afghanistan and Pakistan is treacherous for armies that are unfamiliar with the area. An army cannot just rush a commando into Afghanistan on short notice and expect the commando to find its way and target a situation.

My family includes three sets of refugees from various wars in the world. So I know personally the suffering that war means. But, I do not want to jump to a conclusion on Afghanistan.

[Turborama]

27. I rec'd for a similar reason

It would be much more constructive if we can have a reasoned debated about what's going on instead of having our own vitriolic virtual war where ad-homs are thrown around as if they were finger grenades.

Sometimes it's difficult and I find myself regretting using veiled insults, as everyone on DU is entitled to their own opinion (as long as they're not wingnut trolls, of course). I understand why people feel so strongly about pulling out now and respect that point of view, I just don't agree with it currently and am prepared to debate why - unless finger grenades start being thrown.

I have have had moments where I've considered the argument for immediate withdrawal (particularly during the recent election debacle) but I always go back to worrying about all the consequences if we did that prematurely. I'm still waiting to see what President Obama's strategy is before weighing up all the pros and cons.

[avaistheone1]

31. Kick

[democracy1st]

33. Kick

[wuvuj]

34. I think we are there in order to stabilize...

...the politics in the region (i.e....depower Islamic extremists)...protect energy sources...and maybe reduce the opium trade.

Do I think the cost is worth it when we are doing it on borrowed $ and we can't take care of our own in this country...DOUBTFUL.

But the people making the decisions are BIG THINKERS...whose BIG THINKING might well be the undoing of the US.

They THINK BIG...while the average citizen does the grunt work...as in...we'll send your jobs to those poor people on Mexico and China...you can just retrain for those more advanced jobs...now...doesn't that make you feel all warm and cozy...helping out those poor people?

After all...there is such a thing a getting too far ahead of one's abilities and potential...and not recognizing the risks ahead? Pride and over extension come before the fall?

It's not my war...and I'm not fighting it. This is my country...but not by choice...I was born here. Are those fighting the war defending me...or the country...can't really say for sure...but I'm doubting it. They are more likely defending Imperial Washington.

[Echo In Light]

35. Gee, it just doesn't quite add up when walked through

... as is the case w/every bullshit cover story-justification the U.S. govt offers