The Accelerating Degeneration of Life in America's Afghanistan

[Panaconda]

"Dizzy With Success": The Accelerating Degeneration of Life in America's Afghanistan
Written by Chris Floyd
Tuesday, 14 September 2010 13:51


"Dizzy With Success." That was the phrase used by Stalin to describe the "few excesses" that had taken place in the "historic drive to collectivization," i.e., the Bolshevik war on the rural poor that had led to massive famine and the deaths and uprooting of millions of people. The campaign had left such a swathe of ruin that some of those who saw its effects went mad, or turned dissident, or subsided into horrified, soul-drained silence.

"Dizzy With Success" would be also be an apt description for the epochal ruin that has been visited on the people of Afghanistan in nine years of military occupation by the United States and its European allies. Or as Nick Turse puts it in a searing new article at TomDispatch, "How Much 'Success' Can Afghanistan Stand?"

With the arrival of General David Petraeus as Afghan War commander, there has been ever more talk about the meaning of “success” in Afghanistan. At the end of July, USA Today ran an article titled, “In Afghanistan, Success Measured a Step at a Time.” ... A mid-August editorial in the Washington Post was titled: “Making the Case for Success in Afghanistan.” And earlier this month, an Associated Press article appeared under the headline, “Petraeus Talks Up Success in Afghan War.”


As Turse astutely notes, all this talk of "success" centers on what the term might or might not mean for the bipartisan Potomac poobahs who take turns running America's militarist empire. But the "meaning" of the American occupation for ordinary Afghans is a topic of little note among the talking heads who steer the national "discourse" ... except of course for the occasional propaganda excursion pointing out the inestimable benefits the empire has bestowed upon the poor benighted denizens of Bactria -- and how infinitely worse it will be for them should Washington shirk its paternal obligations.

But the reality, of course, is that the lives of ordinary Afghans has, by almost every measure, been sent hurtling backwards and spiraling downwards at the hands of the Americans and the client state they have installed.

...

http://www.chris-floyd.com/articles/1-latest-news/2023-qdizzy-with-successq-the-accelerating-degeneration-of-life-in-americas-afghanistan.html

[SoCalDem]

1. Perhaps a better plan would be to declare victory, leave, and give every Afghan $2K

and then follow up with tools & building supplies.. and guarantee them continuing income IF they do not spend all their time fighting & killing..

[Panaconda]

3. Wait a minute

Where did you get the impression Afghanis "spend all their time fighting and killing." That's pure propaganda.

Look around and see who actually is doing all this fighting and killing around the world. One clue: It is not the Afghanis or Iraqis or Iranians or...

[SoCalDem]

4. If they had money & building supplies they would be too busy to have a civil war

and probably would not want one:)

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SoCalDem]

6. well then., let's just leave hundreds of thousands of our soldiers there

and keep a perpetual war for "hearts & minds" then..shall we :puke:

when the US learns to stay out of stupid wars, we'll all be better off..but if your way suits you, then by all means...go & have yourself a fancy little war

[Panaconda]

7. What are you talking about?

US had no right to be there or anywhere else in the first place.

Are you even reading my posts are arriving at some predestined conclusion?

You are the one hinting that this violence is somehow inherent in the Afghanis nature. You might also redefine who you think of as "ours."

[zbdent]

2. Maybe if the focus wasn't taken off of Afghanistan (with pretty much the world's endorsement

of going in and "taking out the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks") and turned toward the invasion and occupation of choice of Iraq ...

we wouldn't be having this much trouble ... and Osama bin Laden would have been dead, if not in custody ...