Afghanistan follies #5

[TheDefiantOne]

Okay, so everyone is having kittens over the major troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.....freaking out that the Taliban is going to take over and make that country a haven for anti-American terrorism that will eventually topple us and the world.

Yeah, right.

Let's get real folks, the ONLY reason our military/industrial complex gives a damn about Afghanistan is due to a potential oil pipeline (much like Iraq, only less complicated) .. the same reason the Russian's shot their load (and lost) from 1979-1989. We helped out the freedom fighters back then....even taught Bin Laden how to launder money and arms for them. Well, the Russians got the boot and the US just lost interest in the people there. As the late Congressman Charlie Wilson said, "we won the war, but fucked up the peace." So the religious zealots flexed their muscles, and here we are now near 20 years later since 9/11.

Now remember, Afghanistan has no navy, no air force, no SAM's or ABM's....all the 9/11 terrorist came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE and Bin Ladin was found hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

So now it's a repeat of the SOS, with comparisons to Viet Nam flying about, a lot of finger pointing and faux concern over the Afghan citizens.

And the band played on.

 

[Ben Thomson]

Okay, so everyone is having kittens over the major troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.....freaking out that the Taliban is going to take over and make that country a haven for anti-American terrorism that will eventually topple us and the world.

Yeah, right.

Let's get real folks, the ONLY reason our military/industrial complex gives a damn about Afghanistan is due to a potential oil pipeline (much like Iraq, only less complicated) .. the same reason the Russian's shot their load (and lost) from 1979-1989. We helped out the freedom fighters back then....even taught Bin Laden how to launder money and arms for them. Well, the Russians got the boot and the US just lost interest in the people there. As the late Congressman Charlie Wilson said, "we won the war, but fucked up the peace." So the religious zealots flexed their muscles, and here we are now near 20 years later since 9/11.

Now remember, Afghanistan has no navy, no air force, no SAM's or ABM's....all the 9/11 terrorist came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE and Bin Ladin was found hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

So now it's a repeat of the SOS, with comparisons to Viet Nam flying about, a lot of finger pointing and faux concern over the Afghan citizens.

And the band played on.

A week after we first went into Afghanistan some military brass said...this is a mistake.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Elect intelligent, logical people instead of Ivey League grads who punch their ticket into the presidents seat, probably advised by other Iver Leaguers who haven't had a difficult struggle in life. If you want objectivity, patriotism and competence, you don't hire people whose motivation is not virtuous, but rather self-serving.

If Bush had been surrounded by intelligent people who loved America and had any vision, they would have said, "hey, it's great (sort of) that we are trading with China, but what about their interests in the South China Sea, or, the fact that we are arming a Party that controls over 1 billion people?"

Imagine if instead of believing that conquest in the M.E made sense, they decided to focus on rapidly getting Bid Laden, defending the South China Sea and ensuring that China didn't build artificial islands or gained in soft power?

The fact that China actually welcomed America going after terrorists in the desert while they aggressively expanded and influenced others tells us all we need to know. They loved the distraction.

It all started with Clinton.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Relevant reading...

Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals

Geologists actually mapping the country's mineral bounty suspect its prime cache of coveted rare earth elements is considerably larger than the latest estimate lets on

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[TheDefiantOne]

A week after we first went into Afghanistan some military brass said...this is a mistake.

True that! Throughout history, Afghanistan has been known as the place where armies go to die. The old Soviet Union learned that lesson the hard way....we took 20 years.

 

[TheDefiantOne]

Elect intelligent, logical people instead of Ivey League grads who punch their ticket into the presidents seat, probably advised by other Iver Leaguers who haven't had a difficult struggle in life. If you want objectivity, patriotism and competence, you don't hire people whose motivation is not virtuous, but rather self-serving.

If Bush had been surrounded by intelligent people who loved America and had any vision, they would have said, "hey, it's great (sort of) that we are trading with China, but what about their interests in the South China Sea, or, the fact that we are arming a Party that controls over 1 billion people?"

Imagine if instead of believing that conquest in the M.E made sense, they decided to focus on rapidly getting Bid Laden, defending the South China Sea and ensuring that China didn't build artificial islands or gained in soft power?

The fact that China actually welcomed America going after terrorists in the desert while they aggressively expanded and influenced others tells us all we need to know. They loved the distraction.

It all started with Clinton.

Actually, it all started with Reagan & Daddy Bush. Slick Willy just continued the trend.

 

[Votto]

Elect intelligent, logical people instead of Ivey League grads who punch their ticket into the presidents seat, probably advised by other Iver Leaguers who haven't had a difficult struggle in life. If you want objectivity, patriotism and competence, you don't hire people whose motivation is not virtuous, but rather self-serving.

If Bush had been surrounded by intelligent people who loved America and had any vision, they would have said, "hey, it's great (sort of) that we are trading with China, but what about their interests in the South China Sea, or, the fact that we are arming a Party that controls over 1 billion people?"

Imagine if instead of believing that conquest in the M.E made sense, they decided to focus on rapidly getting Bid Laden, defending the South China Sea and ensuring that China didn't build artificial islands or gained in soft power?

The fact that China actually welcomed America going after terrorists in the desert while they aggressively expanded and influenced others tells us all we need to know. They loved the distraction.

It all started with Clinton.

Americans will elect whoever they are directed to elect

The media and social media are now almost completely owned by the elites who will put in stooges like Dementia Joe they can control

From here on out it is a circus.

 

[Penelope]

Relevant reading...

Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals

Geologists actually mapping the country's mineral bounty suspect its prime cache of coveted rare earth elements is considerably larger than the latest estimate lets on

www.scientificamerican.com

and they discover oil in 2011.

 

[surada]

Okay, so everyone is having kittens over the major troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.....freaking out that the Taliban is going to take over and make that country a haven for anti-American terrorism that will eventually topple us and the world.

Yeah, right.

Let's get real folks, the ONLY reason our military/industrial complex gives a damn about Afghanistan is due to a potential oil pipeline (much like Iraq, only less complicated) .. the same reason the Russian's shot their load (and lost) from 1979-1989. We helped out the freedom fighters back then....even taught Bin Laden how to launder money and arms for them. Well, the Russians got the boot and the US just lost interest in the people there. As the late Congressman Charlie Wilson said, "we won the war, but fucked up the peace." So the religious zealots flexed their muscles, and here we are now near 20 years later since 9/11.

Now remember, Afghanistan has no navy, no air force, no SAM's or ABM's....all the 9/11 terrorist came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE and Bin Ladin was found hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

So now it's a repeat of the SOS, with comparisons to Viet Nam flying about, a lot of finger pointing and faux concern over the Afghan citizens.

And the band played on.

Gas pipeline, not oil.. To feed ENRON's Dabhol, white elephant in India.

 

[TheDefiantOne]

Gas pipeline, not oil.. To feed ENRON's Dabhol, white elephant in India.

And let's not forget all that mineral wealth necessary for our high tech toys and such....just waiting to be mined.

 

[Mindful]

After the airborne attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, America and her NATO allies went in to Afghanistan with the following aims: to defeat and remove the Taliban from power, to rid a Foreign Sovereign State of the terrorist training ground it had become; to find and exterminate the pestilence upon the earth of Al Qaeda, along with its leader, Usama bin Laden.

Yes, the Taliban were removed from power, but never militarily defeated, as they simply hid their weaponry, and henceforth became a mobile guerilla army, armed, paid and protected by the well-known but never officially acknowledged ties with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. True, the Allies got rid of Al Qaeda; they eventually hunted down and killed Usama bin Laden, hiding in plain sight less than two miles away from Pakistan’s premier military academy.

And then the mistakes began. The Administrators, such as the blithering British idiot Rory Stewart, forgot about, or rather never really understood; Afghan Society. They forgot that Soviet Russia had invaded, bled and then withdrawn; aided by American missiles, launched by the Mujahideen. They forgot that England, over a century earlier, had also invaded, had her armies cut to pieces, and had withdrawn, defeated. For centuries, it has been built upon one keystone, and that keystone is Islam. The religious, tribal, family and relative structures, refined and honed over some eleven centuries, have made Muslim Afghan society almost impenetrable when it comes to change, despite the so-called Liberal values which some claim enhances Western Democracies.

The do-gooders pushed for female Afghans to be educated, to be allowed the same sorts of freedoms commonplace in the West. They pushed for women to be included in regional and national Government; always in the wrong-headed belief that a male-dominated Afghan society would view these moves as ’progressive’.

But worse was to follow, because the leaders, the alleged ‘thinkers’ in American, British and Allied Governments began thinking about nation building. I kid you not, those fools thought they could change the very mindset of a Society which has built itself around an insular Stone Age belief structure, and get them to embrace Western values. How daft can you get?

So, when things started going badly, when the Taliban commenced their return; instead of washing our collective hands of the whole caboodle, the Americans, having drawn down their forces, went back in in force, and the stupid bloody Brits went back in to Helmand alongside them. The idea then was that they would ‘train’ the Afghan Armed Forces, and once they had been trained, then America and those trailing along on the coattails could commence leaving. After all, the Afghan generals could be trusted, the Afghan Government, headed by America’s ‘chosen one’, was firmly in power, the untold millions of dollars spent on military hardware gave the Afghans the edge over any foe, corruption was defeated: all was well: nothing could go wrong!

If Olympus existed, you could just imagine all those Greek Gods, those Deities rolling around the floor, helpless with laughter.

Then the whole thing began to totter. Donald Trump was the President, and he wanted all the American forces back home, and an end to the ‘forever’ war. His plan was simple, get all the weaponry out, then the American civilians, then the chosen compromised Afghans; compromised because they had either worked for the Americans, or had worked in the liberal ways which the Allies had imported. And then, when everyone else has been airlifted, the military themselves would leave; and the Afghans would then be running their own Country.

But Joe Biden became the President, and he decided to speed things up.

The rest you know.........

DavidVance.net

I will not submit, I will not comply

www.atangledweb.org

 

[TheDefiantOne]

After the airborne attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, America and her NATO allies went in to Afghanistan with the following aims: to defeat and remove the Taliban from power, to rid a Foreign Sovereign State of the terrorist training ground it had become; to find and exterminate the pestilence upon the earth of Al Qaeda, along with its leader, Usama bin Laden.

Yes, the Taliban were removed from power, but never militarily defeated, as they simply hid their weaponry, and henceforth became a mobile guerilla army, armed, paid and protected by the well-known but never officially acknowledged ties with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence. True, the Allies got rid of Al Qaeda; they eventually hunted down and killed Usama bin Laden, hiding in plain sight less than two miles away from Pakistan’s premier military academy.

And then the mistakes began. The Administrators, such as the blithering British idiot Rory Stewart, forgot about, or rather never really understood; Afghan Society. They forgot that Soviet Russia had invaded, bled and then withdrawn; aided by American missiles, launched by the Mujahideen. They forgot that England, over a century earlier, had also invaded, had her armies cut to pieces, and had withdrawn, defeated. For centuries, it has been built upon one keystone, and that keystone is Islam. The religious, tribal, family and relative structures, refined and honed over some eleven centuries, have made Muslim Afghan society almost impenetrable when it comes to change, despite the so-called Liberal values which some claim enhances Western Democracies.

The do-gooders pushed for female Afghans to be educated, to be allowed the same sorts of freedoms commonplace in the West. They pushed for women to be included in regional and national Government; always in the wrong-headed belief that a male-dominated Afghan society would view these moves as ’progressive’.

But worse was to follow, because the leaders, the alleged ‘thinkers’ in American, British and Allied Governments began thinking about nation building. I kid you not, those fools thought they could change the very mindset of a Society which has built itself around an insular Stone Age belief structure, and get them to embrace Western values. How daft can you get?

So, when things started going badly, when the Taliban commenced their return; instead of washing our collective hands of the whole caboodle, the Americans, having drawn down their forces, went back in in force, and the stupid bloody Brits went back in to Helmand alongside them. The idea then was that they would ‘train’ the Afghan Armed Forces, and once they had been trained, then America and those trailing along on the coattails could commence leaving. After all, the Afghan generals could be trusted, the Afghan Government, headed by America’s ‘chosen one’, was firmly in power, the untold millions of dollars spent on military hardware gave the Afghans the edge over any foe, corruption was defeated: all was well: nothing could go wrong!

If Olympus existed, you could just imagine all those Greek Gods, those Deities rolling around the floor, helpless with laughter.

Then the whole thing began to totter. Donald Trump was the President, and he wanted all the American forces back home, and an end to the ‘forever’ war. His plan was simple, get all the weaponry out, then the American civilians, then the chosen compromised Afghans; compromised because they had either worked for the Americans, or had worked in the liberal ways which the Allies had imported. And then, when everyone else has been airlifted, the military themselves would leave; and the Afghans would then be running their own Country.

But Joe Biden became the President, and he decided to speed things up.

The rest you know.........

DavidVance.net

I will not submit, I will not comply

www.atangledweb.org

Just two points:

1. Afghanistan was NEVER a part of or involved with 9-11. Bin Ladin was a Saudi ideologue from the one of the richest families there. He went to Afghanistan to help fight the Russians....the American CIA trained him as to how to move money, weapons and such. After the Russians left, the USA essentially abandoned Afghanistan to the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. After 9-11 happened, the local gov't told Bush & company they would hand over Bin Ladin so long as he stood trial at the Hague. Bush and company refused, the rest is history.

2. Cheeto Jeezus (aka Trump) plan was as not as detailed as lead to believe:

Cheeto Jeezus figured to get re-elected and tweak the deal on the fly. Typical ego of the man. So Biden inherited the plan as it was.....his call was no where near perfect, but one can speculate that things under Trump would not have gone any smoother.

 

[Colin norris]

Okay, so everyone is having kittens over the major troop withdrawal in Afghanistan.....freaking out that the Taliban is going to take over and make that country a haven for anti-American terrorism that will eventually topple us and the world.

Yeah, right.

Let's get real folks, the ONLY reason our military/industrial complex gives a damn about Afghanistan is due to a potential oil pipeline (much like Iraq, only less complicated) .. the same reason the Russian's shot their load (and lost) from 1979-1989. We helped out the freedom fighters back then....even taught Bin Laden how to launder money and arms for them. Well, the Russians got the boot and the US just lost interest in the people there. As the late Congressman Charlie Wilson said, "we won the war, but fucked up the peace." So the religious zealots flexed their muscles, and here we are now near 20 years later since 9/11.

Now remember, Afghanistan has no navy, no air force, no SAM's or ABM's....all the 9/11 terrorist came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE and Bin Ladin was found hiding in plain sight in Pakistan.

So now it's a repeat of the SOS, with comparisons to Viet Nam flying about, a lot of finger pointing and faux concern over the Afghan citizens.

And the band played on.

Eventually hope us and the rest of the world??
Is this really the home of the brave, the strongest military on earth and millions upon millions of people with a private armoury willing to defend the place?

You don't think about it much.

 

[Batcat]

We suck at nation rebuilding. However that is where all the corruption occurs and the big bucks are made.

U.S. Wastes Nearly $1 Trillion on Afghanistan Reconstruction, Biden to Send $3.3 Billion More - Judicial Watch

In two decades of failed Afghanistan reconstruction efforts the U.S. government has spent almost a trillion dollars and President Joe Biden wants to dedicate billions more in the aftermath of his disastrous withdrawal from the terrorist nation. Judicial Watch has reported extensively on the...

www.judicialwatch.org